Goofballs 4: The Mysterious Talent Show Mystery Read online

  Mara couldn’t get her actual trunk into her tree trunk. “My roots can’t breathe! Help!”

  None of our costumes fit.

  “Let me see the measurement sheet,” I said, taking it from Tiffany’s costume box. It was a sheet of blue paper. “Wait a second. Weren’t the measurements on a sheet of yellow paper? I wonder …” Then something occurred to me. “I have an idea. Kelly, would you try on Tiffany’s zebra suit?”

  “I don’t look good in stripes, but okay.” But when Kelly tried on Tiffany’s costume, it fit her perfectly. “I do look good in stripes!”

  Mrs. Rinkle’s jaw dropped. “What can this possibly mean?”

  “It means,” I said, “that someone deliberately switched each person’s measurements to the next person on the list,” I said.

  “It also means that Tiffany is going to explode when she finds out,” said Brian.

  “Finds out what?” said Tiffany, clacking into the room with a box of animal hats and gloves. But the moment she saw the crazy zoo in front of her, she wailed loudly.

  “Ohhhhh!”

  She dropped the box of hats and gloves and tried on her outfit after Kelly had taken it off.

  “Someone switched the measurements!” she cried. “I slaved day and night to make these costumes! All for nothing! Oh, my poor fingers worked to the bone! My fingers are my best feature. Next to my perfect cheeks, long eyelashes, and the way I tap-dance. I’ll never recover by next Friday! Maybe by Saturday …”

  “You’d better sit down,” said Mrs. Rinkle.

  “I can’t! This costume is too tight!”

  Ripppp!

  Her shoulders came through the elbows.

  “Tiffany’s right. We should delay the show until Saturday,” said Joey, trying to find where his costume ended and his legs began.

  Mrs. Rinkle paced back and forth, shaking her head. “No. No. The high school needs the building on Saturday. Besides, the show must go on.”

  “On what?” asked Billy. “A plastic plate?”

  “On a bicycle?” asked Tiffany.

  “On a vacation?” asked Violet.

  “On next Saturday?” asked Joey.

  Mrs. Rinkle shook her head. “On next Friday! Children, please. Let’s take the weekend to rest up. Then we’ll start again bright and early Monday afternoon.”

  Mrs. Rinkle checked her watch. “At the end of the week, Principal Higgins will come with tickets for you for your families,” she said. “Because … the show must go on!”

  “Goof! Goof!” said Sparky, whose tiger costume was the only one that fit.

  * * *

  On the following Monday, the auditorium lights wouldn’t turn on. Until Kelly found tape covering the main light switch.

  On Tuesday, the bathrooms were locked, so we all had to run home early.

  It rained on Wednesday, so our coach cancelled the game and we had rehearsal.

  Or we would have had rehearsal if Mrs. Rinkle hadn’t vanished before our eyes.

  No sooner had Brian, Mara, Kelly, Tiffany, Billy, Violet, Joey, and I entered the high school than a sudden scream rang out.

  “Help! Help! Oh, help!”

  We raced into the auditorium.

  And there was Mrs. Rinkle, slowly disappearing into the stage. Her big red dress billowed out around her while her whole self sank into the floor.

  “Mrs. Rinkle is melting!” cried Brian. “I saw this in a movie once. She must be a witch!”

  “I am not a witch!” shouted Mrs. Rinkle.

  But by the time we ran up to the stage, Mrs. Rinkle and her big red hair were gone in a cloud of blue smoke!

  We were completely speechless.

  Except Brian.

  “She said she wasn’t a witch,” he said. “But what do we really know about her?”

  Just then, Principal Higgins came into the auditorium with a stack of tickets and a seating chart. “Hello, students. Foggy in here, isn’t it?”

  “Mrs. Rinkle melted away!” said Billy. “It was pretty sad. She was such a nice lady.”

  Principal Higgins blinked. “Whatever do you mean?”

  “That she was kind and liked people,” said Billy.

  “Not that!” said the principal. “What do you mean she melted away?”

  “She disappeared into the stage,” said Joey. “It was awesome. Plus a little scary.”

  “The show can’t possibly go on Friday night,” said Tiffany.

  “Maybe we should delay it to Saturday night,” said Violet.

  “Saturday?” said the principal. “Everyone knows we can’t do that.”

  “Oh,” said Violet. “I guess I forgot.”

  I suddenly spotted the last wisps of fog vanishing beneath the stage where Mrs. Rinkle had been. While the other kids talked among themselves, I turned to Principal Higgins and my friends.

  “Sir?” I whispered. “The Goofballs can get to the bottom of these mysteries. And when I say get to the bottom, I mean we need to get under the stage, where Mrs. Rinkle went.”

  “Under the stage?” said Principal Higgins. “I just happen to know the way there. I was in shows here in high school, you know.”

  We didn’t know that.

  “Come along, Goofballs,” he said. “And your Goofdog, too. Follow me!”

  The principal zipped out the door into the hallway. And we zipped right behind him.

  6

  Under the Stage

  We followed Principal Higgins down a short set of steps to a black door.

  “We were going to go through this door when we searched for the missing tuba,” said Brian.

  “But Violet tried the door and said it was locked,” added Mara.

  Except that when we tried the door, it wasn’t locked.

  It swung open easily.

  “That’s very interesting,” Principal Higgins murmured. “It’s even odd.”

  “Even can’t be odd,” said Kelly. “It’s mathematically impossible.”

  “Flashlights aren’t impossible,” said Mara, clicking on a mini-flashlight and pushing her big green glasses up on her nose.

  “I’ve sharpened my swords just in case we meet any real bats,” said Brian, drawing his tiny sticks out in front of him.

  “Cluebook open and pencil ready,” I said. “Principal Higgins, please lead the way.”

  “Oh, dear me,” said the principal, peering into the dark area beneath the stage. “I had forgotten how gloomy this space is. It’s far too creepy for someone in my position. There might be things living down there.”

  “Let’s hope Mrs. Rinkle is one of them,” I said.

  “I’d better go and see about selling tickets,” the principal said. An instant later—whoosh!—he was gone.

  “Now that was even odd,” said Mara.

  “I’d have to agree,” said Kelly.

  I took a deep breath and said, “All right, team, let’s … go!”

  Together, the four of us and Sparky eased past the black door and tiptoed beneath the stage.

  We ducked under the crisscrossing beams that held up the floorboards. We passed cables dangling from the ceiling. We spotted the enormous fog machine.

  Sparky sniffed and snorted and sneezed the whole way.

  Finally, we spied what looked like a big motor attached to a bunch of pipes attached to the floorboards above our heads.

  “A trapdoor machine,” said Brian. “That must be how Mrs. Rinkle vanished like a witch—”

  Crunch!

  “Bones!” cried Kelly. “I stepped on bones!”

  Mara swung her light down. “Not quite.”

  There was a crumpled sheet of yellow paper under Kelly’s toe. She picked it up, uncrumpled it, and gasped. “The original measurement sheet! The correct one!”

  “Just like I thought,” I said, looking over Kelly’s shoulder, which is easy because she’s so short. “Someone jumbled up the names and the measurements.…”

  “Goof!” Sparky was standing still, pointing his nose at a sta
ck of papers.

  Brian followed Sparky’s nose. He picked up the papers. “The original scripts! With Billy’s lines still in them!”

  “This is too, too weird,” I grumbled.

  “Goofball mysteries are,” said Kelly.

  All at once, Mara dropped her flashlight and cried out, “I’m being attacked! Help!”

  “Ve shall come to your defense!” said Brian, jabbing into the dark with his tiny swords.

  But when I scooped up the flashlight and shined it on Mara, we saw her feet tangled in Violet’s big pink tuba. It was nestled in its pink blanket. Sparky was nestled in the blanket, too.

  “This is clue central!” I said. I wrote it all down in my cluebook.

  “Should we bring everything upstairs so the show can go on?” Mara asked.

  I wondered for a second, then shook my head. “Not yet. Let’s think about this.”

  “Our specialty,” said Kelly. “Ready …”

  “And think!” said Mara.

  Brump-bump-bump-bump!

  Brump-bump-bump-bump!

  While Brian supplied music, we paced, ducking so we didn’t bump our heads on the beams. Sparky paced, too, but didn’t have to duck. His legs are shorter than Brian’s swords.

  Suddenly, we heard Principal Higgins above us. “Cast, let me assure you that we’re looking everywhere for Mrs. Rinkle. Meanwhile, you can buy your family tickets for the show. Goofballs, if you hear me down there, meet us at the ticket booth in the lobby!”

  We heard lots of footsteps move outside the theater, to the lobby.

  “Tickets?” whispered Mara. “With Mrs. Rinkle still missing? With so many mysteries still to solve?”

  “And so many crimes?” said Kelly.

  “And so many no suspects?” said Brian.

  “How can we have five mysteries and not one guilty party?” said Kelly.

  “Don’t look at me,” said Brian. “I may be guilty of some stuff, but I’m not a whole party. I’m only me.”

  Normally, Brian says goofy stuff.

  But this time he said smart stuff.

  In fact, he gave me an idea.

  In fact, he gave me the idea!

  My Goofball brain sparked and sizzled like a weekend barbecue.

  “Goofballs,” I said, “we need to get out to that ticket booth. We need one final clue. And we need it now!”

  7

  A Perfectly Goofy Disguise

  We scurried up the stairs and into the lobby, where we ducked behind an empty table. No one saw us because the table was covered with a floppy tablecloth that hung all the way to the floor.

  We peered over the top, and Sparky peered around the side. Principal Higgins sat in the ticket booth next to the auditorium doors.

  Billy, Violet, Joey, and Tiffany stood nearby.

  “We have to get over there without the rest of the cast seeing us,” I whispered.

  “What we need is a disguise,” whispered Mara, adjusting her big green glasses.

  Kelly nodded. “One of the first rules of the Goofball System for Effective Disguises is to disguise yourself as someone or something that no one looks at.”

  “I never look at ballet dancers,” said Brian. “Should we dress up as ballet dancers? Not that I want to. I’m just saying.”

  “No,” Mara said. “Ballerinas would attract attention. There must be another way.…”

  She suddenly began to tap her chin, then—whoosh!—she disappeared beneath the table.

  “Get under here,” she whispered.

  We did get under there. Sparky did, too. It was as cozy as a tent.

  “What’s the great disguise?” Kelly asked.

  “You’re under it,” Mara said.

  “This table?” I asked.

  “This table,” Mara said.

  Brian frowned, then felt Mara’s forehead. “No fever. And yet your idea is as nutty as a bag of trail mix.”

  “Please don’t make me hungry,” said Kelly. “I haven’t eaten in an hour.”

  “The Goofballs have never disguised ourselves as furniture before,” I said.

  Mara grinned. “There’s a first time for everything.

  “What about eternity?” asked Brian.

  Mara sighed. “There’s a first time for everything except for eternity.”

  Brian nodded. “In that case, you’re right!”

  On her instructions, everyone except Sparky arched his or her back, and the table lifted up from the floor.

  “One step,” Mara whispered.

  We all took one step.

  “And down,” Mara said.

  We crouched, and the table lowered to the floor. We peeked out. No one noticed the table moving.

  “It’s working,” I whispered.

  We did it again. And again. And again.

  Up. Step. Down. Up. Step. Down.

  It probably looked pretty goofy. But most Goofball things do. The main thing was that it worked. We made our way slowly across the open space. When we finally stopped, we were a few feet away from the ticket booth.

  “Good job,” Kelly whispered. “The old moving-table disguise is a brand-new classic.”

  I peeked out and saw Principal Higgins hold up the seating chart.

  “Who would like to buy tickets for Friday’s show?” he asked.

  That’s when my brain tingled.

  Because Joey, Billy, Violet, and Tiffany all said exactly the same thing.

  “Friday night? Not Saturday night? Then, no. No, thank you.”

  Principal Higgins was speechless.

  But I knew then what I had only suspected.

  “Goofballs,” I whispered. “I believe the whole big mystery really goes all the way back to the first little mystery we discovered. The sign that said ‘Friturday Night.’ ”

  “Are you saying Friturday was a clue?” asked Brian.

  “Sort of,” I said. “In fact, all the clues so far have been sort-of clues.”

  Kelly smiled. “Even a sort-of clue is better than no clue at all.”

  Which I wrote down in my cluebook, because it’s so true.

  Then the most amazing thing happened.

  “Look at that!” I whispered.

  We watched Violet, Tiffany, Billy, and Joey walk away from the ticket booth and whisper to one another. Then they all put their fingers to their lips.

  “The international symbol of secrecy!” hissed Kelly. “They’re all in this together!”

  “Either that, or they’re all chewing their nails at the same time,” said Brian. “But your thing works, too.”

  All of a sudden, my brain sizzled like a superfast computer. It was as if the last invisible piece of the puzzle of the Talent Show Mystery snapped right into place.

  “Guys,” I said, “instead of looking for the person wrecking the show for Friday night, we should have been looking for the people who want the show to run on Saturday night!”

  “And it seems like everyone does,” said Mara.

  “Exactly,” I said. “The guilty party is exactly that. A party. Of several people.”

  “But why do they want the show on Saturday?” asked Brian. “And what about Mrs. Rinkle? If she’s not a witch, then what happened to her?”

  I thought about that. “Maybe we don’t know why yet. Or what happened to Mrs. Rinkle. But something tells me we’ll find out soon.”

  “Sooner than soon,” said Kelly with a big Goofball grin. “There’s only one place and time to catch the show wreckers.”

  “Where?” asked Mara.

  “And when?” asked Brian.

  “Onstage,” Kelly said. “Friday night.”

  Everyone looked at me to finish it off.

  So I did.

  “Showtime!”

  8

  The Guilty Party!

  As soon as the other kids left, we explained what we knew to Principal Higgins. We told him that we could show the show even if Mrs. Rinkle wasn’t there. We told him that he shouldn’t worry. He told us he would help u
s to unmask the guilty party.

  Every single one of them.

  “We are going to save this show,” I told the Goofballs when we snuck backstage.

  “But one thing I don’t get,” said Brian.

  “Only one?” asked Mara.

  “I’m in the dark about lots,” said Kelly.

  I gave them all a big Goofball grin. Then I told them everything I had figured out.

  “Oh!” said Kelly.

  “Oh!” said Mara.

  “Wait. What?” said Brian.

  So I told them all again. Then we crawled under the stage. We grabbed the original scripts, the yellow measurement sheet, and Violet’s tuba and brought them back upstairs.

  I snuck Violet’s tuba back into her tuba case in the music room and snapped it closed.

  Kelly and Sparky made sure that the curtain would open and close freely and that all of the scenery was in place.

  Then we took the costumes and the correct measurements home to Mara’s mom, who was great at sewing stuff.

  Then Kelly and Brian wrote Billy’s lines on the palms of his monkey gloves, so all he had to do was look at his hands and read them.

  Mrs. Rinkle still hadn’t shown up, so the rehearsal was cancelled on Thursday.

  Finally, it was Friday night and time for the big show.

  Principal Higgins was waiting for the cast backstage. “Children, Mrs. Rinkle has not reappeared,” he said.

  “So I will direct the show. I used to be in shows here, you know.”

  We did know.

  “And now,” he said, “it’s showtime!”

  When the curtain went up, we all bowed in front of a thousand seats filled with people.

  The time to expose the whole guilty party was now or never. So I ran to center stage and shouted, “Stop the show!”

  “It hasn’t started yet!” someone called out.

  “And it won’t start,” I said, “until we solve the Mysterious Talent Show Mystery!”

  Mouths dropped open. People stared.

  “First, let’s turn back the clock nearly two weeks to our first rehearsal, last Monday afternoon,” Brian said.

  “To the moment Mrs. Rinkle said that the show would be performed tonight and not tomorrow night,” I said. “That’s when things began to happen.”