But before Sophie could even flip open her notebook to crack her latest case, the substitute spoke up. “Um … good morning, class. If you’re wondering where Ms. Moffly is, I’m afraid she’s sick today. So I’ll be your substitute. If you all could … um … sit down, please.”
Oh, great.
Sophie put down her notebook. She plopped her chin into her hands. Why did the sub have to tell them that Ms. Moffly was home sick? Sophie so could have figured that out, she bet!
The substitute, meanwhile, turned to the board. She wrote her name in big letters that sloped to one side.
“Um … my name is Ms. Steele,” she said. She took a deep breath and turned back around.
Sophie studied her. She looked younger than Ms. Moffly. And she was taller, too. She was not wearing much makeup. Her face was plain and thin. And she sure knew how to spoil mysteries! Sophie would just have to wait for the next one to roll around. Oh, well.
Luckily, she had a new mystery to solve pretty soon.
It was the Mystery of What’s Up with Ms. Steele!
Why did she seem so nervous?
And why was she so mean?
And why did so many things she said sound like questions? What was up with that, anyway?
Sophie had had lots of substitutes before. But none like this.
Of course, Sophie had no problem with the sub telling Toby and Archie to sit down.
And “no gum in school” was a rule Ms. Moffly also had. (Too bad.)
Then there was what Ms. Steele said to Mindy VonBoffmann. Mindy hardly ever got in trouble. She was usually too busy tattling on other kids.
“Um … you there … in the pink shirt. Is that a phone in your hand? It looks very nice, but could you please put it away? Um … right now?” Ms. Steele said.
Sophie watched as Mindy looked up, wide-eyed. She did have a phone in her hand. It was very pink and very shiny.
“What? This? Oh! Don’t worry, it’s not real!” Mindy told the teacher. Then Mindy smiled and flipped it open. “See? It has lip gloss inside.” She pulled out the antenna brush and dabbed some gloss all around her mouth.
Ooh! Sophie stared. A lip-gloss phone! Cool! She had never seen one of them. She hated wanting things that Mindy had. But sometimes she just had to.
“Um … I’m sorry …,” Ms. Steele said.
Mindy smiled. “Oh, that’s okay.”
“… but you still have to put it away,” Ms. Steele continued.
Mindy’s shiny lips fell open. Her eyebrows made a bitter V as she put the phone in her cubby.
Sophie smiled a tiny smile. Yes, that was fine. Definitely. But other things the sub did were not okay.
Like when Ms. Steele saw Ben’s stuffed Tweety Bird and made him put it away. That was so unfair. Ms. Moffly always let him keep it at his desk. It was Ben’s very favorite thing.
And talk about unfair — next the sub told Sophie to take off her detective hat!
“But Ms. Moffly let me wear it yesterday. All day. Except for the Pledge of Allegiance.” Sophie took a breath. “She also lets Ben keep Tweety Bird at his desk,” she added.
“Well …” The sub bit her lip. “Um … I guess I’m not Ms. Moffly?” she said.
Sophie sighed and pulled her hat off. “You don’t have to be a detective to figure that out,” she muttered to Kate.
She did not mean for Ms. Steele to hear her. But — oops! — she did. And so did the rest of the class. Everyone started laughing. That was when the sub got very red.
“Okay. Okay. That’s enough!” she said. She pointed to Sophie. “Um … you. Sophie? Switch seats with him?”
Sophie watched where she pointed next — at Dean. Her stomach did a backflip. Dean sat next to Toby. That meant now she had to sit next to him!
Sophie had not sat next to Toby for more than a second since last year. How would she do it for five hours?
She walked slowly to his table. Then she sat down and scooted her chair as far away from him as she could.
“Solve any mysteries yet today, Snoop?” Toby asked. Then he snickered. And burped.
Sophie scooted even farther away. She was so glad when it was time for gym and she could get away from him! They played Sharks and Minnows outside.
Or most of them did.
Sophie and Kate mostly stood at the edge of the field and talked about how they could not wait for the day to end.
“You know what we should do?” Sophie said.
“What? Pretend to be sick? And get our moms to take us home?” Kate asked.
Sophie shook her head. “No. When we get back to room ten, we should write each other notes!”
Kate grinned. But then she raised her eyebrow a little bit. “I bet ‘no notes in school’ is a big rule for Ms. Steele,” she said.
“Aha!” Sophie held up one finger. “But I have a lemon!”
Kate looked at her blankly. “I don’t get it,” she said.
Sophie leaned over and whispered, “We can use invisible ink! Lemon juice ink stays invisible until you leave it out in the sun. If Ms. Steele sees the paper, she won’t even know it’s a note.”
“Cool!” Kate nodded. But then she rubbed her chin. “But if we’re inside all day, how are we going to read the notes?”
Oh.
Kate had a good point. She always did.
Suddenly, Mr. Hurley, the gym teacher, hollered at them: “Hey! You minnows! Start swimming, or you’re automatically it!”
Quickly, Kate and Sophie dashed across the field. No sharks caught them. Phew! They stopped to catch their breath.
“Hey, I have an idea! Let’s write code notes,” Kate said.
Code notes? Yes! Sophie clapped her hands.
What a snoopy idea! It was just like invisible ink — except you didn’t need the sun.
“Let’s use the code where numbers stand for the letters,” Sophie suggested.
“You mean one for ‘A’ and two for ‘B,’ like that?” Kate asked.
Sophie nodded. “And we can leave them in a certain spot — like the corner of our desk. Then we give a secret signal so the other person knows to pick it up!”
“Sounds good!” Kate said. “But what kind of secret signal?” she asked.
Sophie shrugged. “How about this? Whooo.” She made an owl sound.
“Hmm …” Kate watched the other kids running around, tagging each other. She shook her head. “I don’t know. That might sound kind of weird in the classroom. How about a sneeze?”
Sophie tried it out: “A-choo!”
“Bless you!” Mr. Hurley hollered over to her. “Now get back in there and swim, swim, swim, you two minnows!”
When gym was over, the class went back to room 10. As they walked in, Sophie noticed that Ms. Steele looked nervous, still.
“Um … please get out your spelling books, class?” she said to them.
Sophie went to her cubby to get her book, along with everybody else. Then she started to head back to Toby’s table. She almost didn’t even mind it. She was much too busy thinking about what kind of code note to write to Kate. Maybe something about how gross Toby was …
And he’d never know what it said! That was the best part.
Suddenly, a screechy voice rang out. It made Sophie’s ears hurt. It also made her heart leap — all the way up to her throat.