“What do you guys think?” Bev asked the club members.
“Interesting,” Jason said from his seat as he twisted the brush over the top of the handle on the photo club’s money box.
“How so?” Carol asked as she, too, was twisting a brush over the top of the cooking club’s money box.
“We don’t know who could have done it,” Jason said.
“We do know who it didn’t steal the money,” Molly said. “None of the teachers on the stage, none of the principals, and none of the students.”
“So who ran off with the money?” Harold asked.
Molly heard clear and distinct footsteps coming down the hall. She turned her head to see the door open and Miss Marvel walked through the doorway. She handed the red spiral notebook back to Bev and walked around the circle handing each member a copy of the dance’s floor map. She walked to the pair that were in desks separated from the rest of them. She handed Jason and Carol a copy of the map, looked at their work and smiled.
“It looks like we have some fingerprints,” Miss Marvel said. “Use the tape kit in the fingerprint box and try to get the prints from the boxes.”
“Mis Marvel?” Harold said as she walked back to her seat.
“Yes, Harold,” she said to him shaking her head. “You don’t have to be so formal here.”
“I know but I can’t help it. My question is how are we going to get copies of the fingerprints to match those taken from the boxes.”
“Well, I was thinking about that over the weekend,” Miss Marvel sat up straighter and folded her hands on the top of her desk. “I had an idea and I called our friend, Detective Tracy.”
“Wait,” Ted cut her off. “I thought we weren’t going to the police.”
“Please, hear me out,” Miss Marvel continued. “I simply asked him, how do I contact McGruff the Crime Dog?”
“McGruff the Crime dog?” Bev asked.
“Yes, he works with D. A. R. E.” Miss Marvel answered. “Does anyone know what D.A.R.E. is?”
“Drug Abuse Resistance Education,” Jason said from behind them. “It’s an acronym.”
“Right. It is a community outreach program offered by our police department and
McGruff is their spokesman, ah, spokes dog. D.A.R.E. has a program to fingerprint children for free. You will hear an announcement in the morning that we will be fingerprinting every child in the school this Friday,” Miss Marvel said to them.
Molly raised her hand. Miss Marvel laughed and simply looked at her.
“Well, who gets these prints?” she asked.
“The police,” Miss Marvel said. “Eventually.”
“Eventually?” Molly asked.
“Yes, eventually. I will be keeping the print cards for safekeeping,” Miss Marvel said, smiling. “I can be Sherlock Holmes, too.”
Jason and Carol joined them in the circle. Molly watched as Jason handed Miss Marvel a stack of white square slide frames. Miss Marvel carefully set the pile in front of her.
“The tape kit includes slide frames to mount the prints on,” Jason said. “Once we pulled the print from the boxes, we placed a second piece behind it to seal the print inside it. The frames are bifold and we placed the print between them and sealed them.”
“Thank you, Jason and Carol,” Miss Marvel. “How many prints do we have?”
“Nine,” Carol said. “We got four from the photo booth box and the rest from the cooking club box. We marked the photo booth prints with a P.”
“Thanks,” Miss Marvel said. She took a slide on the desktop in front of her.
Molly leaned forward as she watched the club sponsor place four frames on a row and five in another. She looked around the circle of desks and smiled because everyone was leaning forward, too. Her smile turned into a frown as she heard footsteps that were turning into their hall. The footsteps were short and quick with a slight clicking sound.
“Someone’s coming!” she said out loud and sat up straight. Miss Marvel quickly snatched the slides from the desk and folded them in her hands in her lap. The room was quiet as the footsteps got nearer.
“Act natural,” Miss Marvel said. “Someone, please ask a question, quick.”
The door opened.
“Did Holmes have any other skills he used to solve crimes?” Molly asked the group and watched their eyes turn to her.
“I think he kind of did things on the fly,” Harold said.
“Really,” Miss Marvel said. “I thought we decided he was more organized than that.”
“Excuse me,” Mrs. Young interrupted. “Miss Marvel, you left this in the copier tray.
“Thank you, Mrs. Young,” Miss Marvel said as she reached for the paper.
“May I ask what this is? It looks rather detailed,” Mrs. Young asked.
Molly looked at her more closely. A white sweater was wrapped around her neck and draped over her shoulders with the sleeves hanging down beside her arms. She wore a plain blue dress that stopped at her shins. The dress was long sleeved with white lace peeking out of the cuffs. The same lace bordered the collar. A thin black belt encircled her waist. She folded her hands in front of her. Her thumbs were spinning around each other as she waited for an answer.
“We are doing an observation drill,” Miss Marvel explained. “It is one of Sherlock Holmes’ skills that we are trying to learn. We were all at the dance and this is a map of the layout of the gym that night. How did we do?”
Molly noticed that Mrs. Young’s thumbs stopped spinning as she smiled and said to them, “It looks pretty accurate to me. Good afternoon.” She turned and left the room. The room remained quiet until the sound of her footsteps faded away.
“Whew!” Bev said as she leaned back in her chair.
“Why did you tell her the truth?” Ted asked Miss Marvel.
“Sometimes,” Miss Marvel said as she began to lay out the fingerprint slides in their previous formation. “Stating the obvious is the most disarming.”
“What does that mean?” Ted asked her.
“It means this, she knows this is the Whodunnit Club and we are studying Sherlock Holmes. The observation drill makes sense, so she was satisfied.”
“How do you know that?” Ted continued to ask questions.
“Her thumbs stopped spinning,” Molly answered for Miss Marvel. “She relaxed, Ted, she relaxed.”
Miss Marvel’s eyes glanced up from what she was doing and met Molly’s eyes. She smiled at her and said, “Thank you, Ted. Keep asking questions. Now, let’s talk about what is in front of us. We have nine fingerprints. What do we do?”
“We need to figure out a way to narrow down our suspect pool,” Jason said.
“Why don’t we figure out who isn’t a suspect?” Bev asked the group.
“What do you mean?” Ted asked the obvious question.
“Who do we know that might have touched those boxes?” Bev answered with a question.
“Good idea,” Miss Marvel said. “Let’s brainstorm but let’s do it in an orderly fashion. We will go around our circle and when it is your turn, say one name, and then we will move on to the next person. If you cannot think of one, say pass. When we all say pass, we will stop and that will be our list. Bev, you begin. Remember to write down everyone’s choice. Let’s first focus on the photo booth box.”
“Ok, Mr. Rogers,” Bev said as wrote in the notebook.
They continued around the circle until everyone couldn’t come up with anymore names and then they started again for the cooking club money box. In the end, there were thirteen names, three adults and the rest were kids. Ten students to fingerprint.
“Okay,” Miss Marvel said. “We now know whose prints we need to be sure to keep Friday. Oh, and I think it would be good idea if we volunteered to work the event so we can set aside their print cards for the kids. How do we get the adult prints?”
“We ask them?” Jason said. “It’s the least they can do. In fact, I can ask them and get them, if you want?”
“Okay, Jason,” Miss Marvel agreed. “But take Ted with you. He needs the fingerprinting practice, too.”
“I just thought of something,” Molly said. “We have to remember to get our fingerprints because we might have touched the boxes, too.”
“That’s right. I have those in my office locked in my desk,” Miss Marvel said. “I have a question for the group. How do we view these prints to compare to the ones we will be getting on the fingerprint cards?
“Well,” Harold spoke up. “Maybe we can take photos of them and have real slides made from them. We can have those done overnight at one of those Fotomat booths that are in parking lots.”
“That is a great idea,” Mis Marvel said. “Who has a good camera available to do that?”
Molly raised her hand and said, “I do.”
To be continued…
My First Stories 