Instead of Choir, Molly’s last class of the day on Tuesdays and Thursdays, is Resources. Resources is a free period where students get time to complete homework or work on school projects. Her father called it Study Hall. The Resources class is held in the cafeteria and Mrs. Irondale is her teacher. Mrs. Irondale is a tall black woman, thin, and wore dark clothes. Her snow-white hair is cut short, almost a crew cut but not quite. She is pacing around the perimeter of the cafeteria slowly, her eyes glancing at the students spread out among the tables. Some students were in small groups of two or three, but most of them were like Molly, sitting alone.
Molly reached into her backpack and pulled out a spiral notebook, leaving her Math and History books inside it. She had been thinking about her problem overnight and throughout the day. She decided to deal with it and get it out of her mind. She smiled to herself at that thought, removing the clutter from her brain. She is just like Sherlock Holmes. She tore a page from the notebook, and she wrote across the top of it – My Detective Skillset. She paused and looked across the room.
Mrs. Irondale was standing over a group of three girls who were huddled together, listening. Her arms were folded in front of her as she made a comment and then pointed to one of the books in the midst of them. The girls were listening to her and one of them, a blond with curly hair, looked up and smiled. Mrs. Irondale re-crossed her arms and smiled back.
Molly returned to her page and wrote – 1. OBSERVANT. She decided then and there to focus on her soft skills not physical ones. She quickly wrote down – 2. LISTENING and 3. NOT AFRAID TO ASK QUESTIONS.
“What else?” Molly whispered to herself as she reached into her backpack and retrieved her copy of ‘A Study and Scarlet’. She opened the cover, removed another notebook page she had placed there and spread it out in front of her. She reviewed the notes she had made of Dr. Watson’s list of the knowledge of Sherlock Holmes: She didn’t like the sciences at all, and he knew of many of them; Astronomy, Botany, Geology, and especially Chemistry. Her eyes stayed on Anatomy for a second. She was interested in that one, although she didn’t know anything about it. She added to her list – 4. ANATOMY? She returned to the list and frowned. She didn’t have much similar with Sherlock Holmes.
“Excuse me,” a voice interrupted Molly. “Penny for your thoughts?”
Molly looked up to see Mrs. Irondale smiling down at her. Molly smiled back.
“You looked troubled. Maybe I can help you,” Mrs. Irondale offered again.
“What do you do when you just realized you don’t know much of anything?” Molly asked.
“That is a good question. I am sorry, I don’t know your name yet,” Mrs. Irondale replied.
“Oh, I’m Molly.”
“Okay, Molly, that is a big question. Let’s see if I can give you a good answer,” the older woman raised a hand to her hair and patted her head. “I believe what I have done when I realize that I don’t know much about something is to try to learn more about it. I am impressed that you asked yourself the question. That is the first step to wanting to know more than what you know now. Does that make sense?”
Molly thought about it for a moment before responding, “I think so, but my next question would be how?”
Mrs. Irondale had crossed her arms in front of herself again. “I don’t think I can help you with that.”
“Why not?” Molly asked. “You helped me with the big question.”
“People get to know things differently. You have to figure that one out for yourself.” Mrs. Irondale smiled down at her. “Good luck, Molly.”
Molly watched the teacher walk away from her and then returned to her list. She began to think about the conversation she just had with Mrs. Irondale. She added one more item to her list – 5. READING. She reviewed her list again:
- OBSERVANT
- LISTENING
- NOT AFRAID TO ASK QUESTIONS
- ANATOMY?
- READING
She drew a line through Anatomy, renumbered 5 to 4, and circled the entire list and wrote next to it – Do more!
The following Monday, Molly left her choir class and headed for her locker. As she approached it, Harold and Bev were there waiting for her. Over the weekend, and again at lunch, they had been talking about their detective skillsets. Between the three of them, their skills were weak to none at all.
“Did you guys come up with any new skills since we talked at lunch?” Molly asked as she dialed her locker combination.
“Nope,” Harold said leaning against the locker next to Molly’s. Bev just laughed.
Molly sighed, removed her English book from a shelf, added it to her backpack and closed the door. They started to walk to the club room when Mrs. Young rushed out of the class office. She headed straight for the front door and left the building. Behind her, Miss Marvel appeared in the doorway, looking in the direction of Mrs. Young. Noticing the three students standing still in the hall, she smiled.
“That was weird, wasn’t it?” Miss Marvel said to them. “Shall we go to our meeting?”
Molly followed the others as they continued to the classroom where their club met. She was wondering what upset Mrs. Young. She glanced at Miss Marvel who was shaking her head to herself. She wondered why she was doing that. They entered the room and found that it was already rearranged, with their seats waiting for them. They joined the other three members.
“Well,” Miss Marvel said as she sat. “I don’t have many detective skills, do you?”
“Not really,” Bev replied as she turned the page in the club’s journal and wrote the date at the top of it.
“I am rather good at Chemistry or so it seems. I am taking a class this semester,” Jason volunteered.
“My big skill is reading” Molly sighed.
“A lot of what Holmes did was read,” Carol said. “I read a lot, too.”
“A lot of what Holmes is that he has learned by trial and error,” Harold added quietly.
“What else does he do?” Miss Marvel asked. “In one of my stories he would go undercover, and even Dr. Watson didn’t even recognize him. He was able to blend in to obtain information about a crime.”
“Even then,” Jason started to add. “He had an idea where he could find that information.”
“Yeah,” Bev agreed. “He deduced the direction of how the crime happened and who might have done it.”
“Yes, he was good at his art,” Molly said. “How do we do that?”
“Practice,” Miss Marvel volunteered to them. “But before we can make a deduction, we must practice being observant. Let’s pick a school hour and make a list of what we observe during that hour. At our next meeting, we will talk about what we observed.”
“Okay,” Harold said for them as he sat up in his chair. “But he also had experience in what to look for?”
“What do you mean?” Carol asked him.
“He would get on the ground to look for footprints because he knew about footprints. He even knew the weight of someone by their footprint! How?” Harold explained in a hurry.
“Trial and error. He would test what a print would look like if it were made by people of different weights,” Ted said. “We could do some tests like that.”
“Great idea!” Miss Marvel agreed with him. “I almost forgot. Next Monday, I have friend who is a county police officer who will be attending our meeting. He is going to bring a lab technician to talk about fingerprinting. We can ask them about some of this. But we haven’t decided on the hour to be observant.”
“How about Wednesday third hour?” Bev volunteered.
“Okay,” Miss Marvel leaned forward. “Wednesday third hour it is. So what do we have to do for Monday? No, let’s observe for two weeks since we are having a guest speaker next week. Is that okay with all of you?”
“Observe, Wednesday third hour and trial and error tests,” Bev said as she tapped the red notebook. “I have it, right here.”
“And we have to work on our skillsets,” Jason added.
“Finally,” Miss Marvel added. “Any ideas for a fund-raiser?”
“When do we have to do it?” Ted asked.
“We have to do it before the end of the school year, but I have to tell Principal Marti what we are going to do. I am learning that she does not like duplication.”
“Good,” Ted replied. “Because I have a different idea.”
To be continued…
My First Stories 