The Crazy Classroom Caper Read online

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  EGMONT

  We bring stories to life

  First published by Egmont USA, 2014

  443 Park Avenue South, Suite 806

  New York, NY 10016

  Text copyright © Tony Abbott, 2014

  Illustrations copyright © Colleen Madden, 2014

  All rights reserved

  www.egmontusa.com

  www.tonyabbottbooks.com

  www.greenfrographics.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Abbott, Tony, 1952-

  The crazy classroom caper / by Tony Abbott; illustrated by Colleen Madden.

  1 online resource. — (Goofballs; #6)

  Summary: When objects go missing in a kindergarten classroom, the Goofballs go undercover as teachers to crack the case.

  Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.

  ISBN 978-1-60684-451-9 (EBook) — ISBN 978-1-60684-449-6

  (hardback) [1. Mystery and detective stories. 2. Schools — Fiction.

  3. Teachers — Fiction. 4. Lost and found possessions — Fiction.

  5. Humorous stories.] I. Madden, Colleen, illustrator. II. Title.

  PZ7.A1587

  [Fic] — dc23

  2013021137

  Book design by Kathleen Westray

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher and copyright owner.

  v3.1

  To Goofballs everywhere

  (You know who you are!)

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  1 The Mysterious Mitten-Sock

  2 The Disappearing Classroom

  3 How to Get Smart

  4 Where in the World?

  5 The Mystery of History

  6 W-O-N-S = SNOW = AHA!

  7 The Big School Secret

  8 The Goofy Future

  1

  I’m Jeff Bunter, and I’m a Goofball.

  That’s spelled G-O-O-F-B-A-L-L.

  I’ve been spelling lots of words lately. Like D-O-G and C-A-T and S-T-O-P — I-T!

  That’s because yesterday I was not only a Goofball, I was also a T-E-A-C-H-E-R.

  There was a really hard mystery in Miss Becker’s kindergarten classroom, and the Goofballs went undercover as teachers to solve it.

  But we almost didn’t solve it.

  In fact, we almost F-A-I-L-E-D!

  Luckily, four Goofballs plus one Goofdog equal one pretty okay teacher.

  Brian Rooney is a world-class almost celebrity inventor of goofy inventions that don’t really work, but he knows all about science and math like it’s his job.

  Mara Lubin is a genius of disguises. Plus she’s as skinny as a pencil and knows how to use one to draw pictures that look like real art.

  Kelly Smitts knows history, is super smart, super serious, and super smart. I said “smart” twice because she’s that smart. But she’s also super goofy. She has to be, or she wouldn’t hang out with the rest of us.

  I’m a detective from my toes to my nose. I see clues everywhere, and I write them all down in my handy cluebook.

  Finally, there’s Sparky, my corgi. He graduated obedience school with the highest marks in the class, even though his short legs made him the lowest dog in the class.

  Plus he barks like this: “Goof! Goof!”

  But even when you add up all that incredible detective talent, this case was nearly our L-A-S-T!

  It started two days ago during final period.

  Mara and I were sitting at our usual table in the cafeteria, waiting for Brian and Kelly.

  We had a free period, which is exactly like having no case, which is exactly what we were talking about.

  “We haven’t solved a mystery in days,” Mara said with a sigh. “I think I’m forgetting what a clue looks like.”

  “Me, too,” I grumbled. “Is that a clue?”

  I pointed at a man in overalls and a pink cap carrying a ladder and a can of paint.

  Mara frowned. “No. He’s just a guy.”

  “He’s not just a guy. He’s Daddy!”

  We turned to see Violet Boggs standing behind us with her tiny sister, Scarlet.

  Violet means purple, but she always wears pink. Scarlet means red, but she always wears green.

  “We have a free period, too,” said Violet.

  “It better be free,” said Scarlet. “We just spent our last quarter on trail mix.”

  “Why is your dad here?” I asked, getting ready to write the answer in my cluebook.

  “Badger Point Elementary is an old school,” Violet said. “And Daddy’s helping build new kindergarten classrooms upstairs. Last week he found a weird old elevator.”

  “And he took it!” said Scarlet. “Took. Spelled K-O-O-T!”

  “Um … T-O-O-K,” Violet said to her sister.

  “Your father took the elevator?” said Mara. “Where did he take it?”

  “Out!” said Scarlet. “Spelled O-W-W-T.”

  “That’s really spelled O-U-T,” Violet said. “Which is where we need to go now. Bye!”

  As they both ran to catch up to their father, I wrote it all in my cluebook.

  Mara sighed again. “You can write it down, but that doesn’t make it a mystery.”

  “I guess that’s true,” I said.

  “You even know what I did this morning?” she said. “I tried hiding my own shoes and forgetting where they were so I could search for them.”

  “Did it work?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “No. My mind told me right where they were.”

  “My mind tells me stuff all the time,” said Brian, who was zigzagging his way between the tables to us. “But I surprise it by not listening.”

  I was going to write that down, too. But there was no mystery about it.

  Brian often doesn’t listen to his mind.

  “That’s fairly goofy,” I said.

  “You know what’s goofy?” Kelly said as she powerwalked over to us, her arms swinging and her mouth laughing.

  “I just saw Scarlet Boggs for the second time today. This morning, she ran out of Miss Becker’s kindergarten class to give Principal Higgins a scribbled note.”

  Miss Becker was our old kindergarten teacher, but she wasn’t old. She was young and fun and the greatest teacher ever.

  When we were small, Brian and I had her for a.m. kindergarten, and Kelly and Mara had her for p.m. Now kindergarten is all day long.

  “Principal Higgins turned Scarlet’s note one way,” Kelly said. “Then the other way. Then upside down. Finally, he said, ‘Wonderful! I love it!’ Guys, you should have seen his face!”

  “I’ve seen it before,” said Brian. “I’m sure I would recognize it.”

  I wrote it all down.

  “I miss Miss Becker,” Mara said. “It was so easy to find a mystery in kindergarten.”

  I swung around and looked at Brian. He swung around and looked at me.

  “The Mystery of the Missing Mitten and the Missing Sock!” we both said together.

  Mara jumped. “Tell us!”

  “Well,” I said
, “it was our first case in Miss Becker’s class. Brian and I shared a cubby. One day, I pulled on my dark blue mittens, and Brian pulled on his dark blue socks.”

  “Stop right there,” said Kelly. “Brian, why weren’t you wearing socks in class?”

  “I like to feel the carpet under my toes,” he said. “Miss Becker has the best carpet.”

  “She really does,” I added.

  “Then what happened?” Mara asked.

  “One mitten was fine,” I said. “But as soon as I pulled on my other mitten, I realized that someone had stolen the thumb from it!”

  Brian gasped. “Not only that. The thief had attached the thumb to one of my socks!”

  Kelly frowned. “Wait. Weren’t they just mixed —”

  “Shh!” said Brian. “We’re telling it.”

  I nodded. “As Goofballs, we knew that a criminal always returns to the scene of the crime.”

  “So we put the wrong mitten and the wrong sock back in the cubby and waited in the closet for the thief to return,” said Brian.

  “A stakeout!” said Mara. “Then what happened?”

  Brian sighed. “I fell asleep on the job. Which I’d never do now.”

  “And because I had no one to talk to, I fell asleep, too,” I said.

  “When we woke up,” said Brian, “both the mitten and the sock had vanished.”

  “So when I left school, I kept one hand in my pocket,” I said.

  “And I hopped all the way home,” Brian said. “But whoever did it is still out there.”

  “I think you two are out there,” said Kelly.

  “I have an idea,” said Mara. “Let’s see if Miss Becker remembers us!”

  Before you could spell Y-E-S, we were racing through the halls to K wing.

  “She’ll be so happy to see us!” I said. But when we got to her classroom, Miss Becker wasn’t happy.

  She wasn’t happy at all.

  When she came to the door, she frowned and sighed and wiped a tear from her cheek and said, “Goofballs, something is very wrong!”

  2

  “What’s the matter?” asked Kelly.

  Miss Becker closed the classroom door behind her, stood in the hall with us, and leaned close.

  “Something’s happening in my classroom. Something very … oh, what’s the word —”

  Brian raised his hand. “Elephant.”

  “No, no —”

  “Spaceship?”

  “No, Brian —”

  “Nutcracker!”

  “Please —”

  “Garbonzo beans! My final answer.”

  Miss Becker shook her head. “What I was going to say is that something very mysterious is happening in my classroom.”

  “I’m practically choking on my own breath!” said Mara, fanning her face.

  “What she means,” said Brian, “is that we solve mysteries. We’re the Goofballs.”

  “I know that, of course,” Miss Becker said. “The mitten and the sock.”

  “I hopped all the way home,” said Brian.

  “I know,” Miss B. said. “I watched you.”

  “Ahem,” said Kelly. “Getting back to the mystery …”

  Miss Becker pointed through the window on the door. “Tomorrow is our last day in this room.”

  “We heard about that,” said Mara. “You’re moving up to a new classroom, aren’t you?”

  Miss Becker nodded. “But I’ll miss this one and everything in it. I call it my Wonderland, because so many wonderful things happen here.”

  “They do,” said Brian. “I’m living proof.”

  “The reading tree,” she said, “the tiny fish tank, the squeaky rocking chair, the lopsided bookshelf, the old cardboard puppet theater. I’ll miss them all.”

  “Life is about change,” said Kelly. “You taught us that. So turn that frown upside down. Make it a smiley face. Just like you taught us on the art easel.”

  “I drew my first circle on that easel,” Mara said. “It was the beginning of my career as an artist and a fashion person.”

  “That’s just it,” Miss Becker said.

  “That same easel — my old high school art easel — has just vanished!”

  I gasped. “That’s terrible!”

  “Or magical!” said Mara.

  Miss Becker frowned even more. “This morning some pencils went missing. Then a tub of building blocks. Just before lunch — poof! — all the crayons disappeared!”

  “So the kids really are magicians?” said Mara.

  “Or aliens beaming stuff up to the mother ship?” Brian asked.

  “Or just plain bad?” I asked.

  “No, no, and no,” said Miss Becker.

  “The kids are wonderful. They’ve known for a while that we’ll be leaving this room, but it really hit me yesterday how much I’ll miss it. It was my first classroom.…”

  “Aha!” said Mara.

  “Did you solve the mystery?” I asked.

  “No. Just practicing for when I do.”

  “Well,” Miss Becker said, “ever since this morning, things have been vanishing. I can’t explain it. The kids say they have no idea.”

  Miss Becker opened the door. The kids were sitting together on the floor. Their eyes were focused on Miss Becker. Their beaming faces told me that they loved her just like we did.

  So why were things vanishing from Miss Becker’s Wonderland?

  And, maybe more important, how?

  “Miss Becker,” I said, “I have an idea that’s so good I could say it a hundred times. But I won’t. But I could. The Goofballs will solve the mystery of your disappearing stuff. Because the Goofballs will go undercover to teach your class!”

  “Yes!” said Mara. “We’ll disguise ourselves as teachers and find out the truth!”

  “Teachers love the truth,” said Kelly.

  “T-R-U-T-H,” said Brian. “Look, I’m starting already.”

  Miss Becker tapped her chin as if she was thinking it over. “I don’t know. I could use a day off. But this class is a real handful.”

  “That’s okay,” I said. “All together, the Goofballs have eight hands and four paws!”

  She smiled. “If Principal Higgins and your teacher, Mrs. Lang, say you can, then yes. Now, excuse me, I must go back in.”

  As soon as she closed the door, Principal Higgins trotted down the hall, shuffling his papers and plans, followed by Mr. Boggs, the builder.

  Principal Higgins shook his head. “I can’t believe there’s a room in my school that I never heard of! Why is there an extra room?”

  “It’s where the elevator was,” Mr. Boggs said.

  Kelly turned to us, grinning like the winner of a grinning contest. “Let me handle this.”

  She planted herself in the hallway right in front of the principal.

  “Principal Higgins!” she said.

  He screeched to a stop. “Yes, Kelly?”

  “Miss Becker is great, isn’t she?” she asked.

  He blinked. “Why, yes, of course she is!”

  “Do you think we could be teachers like Miss Becker one day?” Kelly asked.

  “Absolutely!” he said. “That would be excellent. You’d be great teachers. Now excuse me. There’s still so much work to do!”

  Principal Higgins shot to the end of the hall and screeched around the corner.

  “How will that help us?” Mara asked.

  Kelly kept her grin going. “Principal Higgins said we could be teachers one day. What he doesn’t know is that that day … is tomorrow!”

  “Very S-M-A-R-T,” said Brian.

  “Thank you,” said Kelly.

  That’s when Miss Becker leaned out her classroom door and said, “Better hurry and solve our mystery. While I was talking to you, our little puppet theater vanished!”

  3

  “Goofballs,” I said, “we’ve got ourselves an awesome new mystery.”

  We ran right away to our teacher, Mrs. Lang, and told her our plan. She agreed,
then added, “I used to teach kindergarten, you know.”

  “Do you have any advice?” asked Mara.

  “Get a good night’s sleep tonight,” Mrs. Lang said with a sigh. “You’ll need it.”

  When we left the classroom, Kelly said, “There’s only one real way to pretend to be as smart as undercover teachers —”

  Brian held up his hand. “Don’t say it. I knew you’d ask me to teach you everything I know. Sorry, I can’t.”

  “Why not?” I asked. “Because what you know is so scary?”

  “Because what you know would make us nuts?” asked Kelly.

  “Because our brains would throw up?” asked Mara.

  “No, no, and maybe,” said Brian, “it’s because my brain is so huge, the government has classified it. It’s a secret. Even from me.”

  “That explains so much,” I said.

  “Exactly,” said Brian. “My brain is so big, it’s hard for me not to explain so much.”

  Kelly grumbled. “The real best place to learn is the school library. Follow me.”

  “M-E,” Brian said. “I am so good at this.”

  We marched upstairs to the second floor. There were workmen crawling everywhere, pounding, sawing, painting, trying to finish the new classrooms in only one more day.

  I wrote that down in my cluebook because you never know if something means something until it means it. Which sounded good, so I wrote that down, too.

  When we got to the library, the door was shut tight.

  “The library is never closed,” said Kelly.

  We knocked.

  We knocked again.

  We knocked again again.

  The door opened a crack. Mr. Silver, the librarian, popped out his head. “Hello?”

  “Our free period’s half over and we need to learn stuff,” said Brian.

  “Slide in,” he said. After we slid in one by one, he closed the door tightly behind us.

  “I’m keeping the door closed because of all the dust from the construction,” he said. “Look.” Then he shook his head, and a shower of white dust fell onto his shoes.

  “Now, how can I help you?” he asked.