“No great loss,” said Friday. “She isn’t a terribly good teacher. No instinctive grasp of light at all.”

  “And that two of my most troublesome students are missing in the swamp, presumed kidnapped by a swamp yeti,” the Headmaster continued. “So, I repeat, what on earth is going on?!”

  “A smuggler is using the school swamp to sneak contraband onto a boat headed overseas,” said Friday.

  “What?!” exploded the Headmaster. “I know full well that some or, rather, many members of our overprivileged student body get friends and employees to sneak electronic equipment into the school via the swamp. What has that got to do with beasts?”

  “This smuggler is smuggling something far more serious,” said Friday, “and using the beast to try to scare students away from the activities.”

  “He’s trying to steal our hearts!” squealed Mirabella.

  All the other girls squealed like a hysterical Greek chorus.

  The Headmaster sighed. “Girls, if you cannot calm yourselves down, I shall send you outside to stand in the rain so that the cold water will quell your hysteria. I will not have squealing in my office.”

  “The strategic error the smuggler made,” said Friday, “was not allowing for the fact that a large percentage of teenage girls would dearly like to fall in love with a wild beast-man who wanders the swamp. So using this disguise actually made him a magnet for the more silly girls among the student body.”

  Mirabella sobbed as she realized she had been so accurately insulted.

  “So are you the smuggler?” asked the Headmaster, turning to Ian. “You are the only person here dressed as a beast, and although it is not common knowledge, it is a fact that your family has financial problems.”

  “That’s nobody’s business,” yelled Ian angrily as he leaped to his feet, then collapsed on the carpet because his ankle and knee hurt.

  “Of course it isn’t Ian,” said Friday. “He has too much of a sense of honor.”

  “Does he?” said Melanie. “But he always does such dreadful things to you.”

  “Yes, but that’s for an entirely different reason,” said Friday.

  “Ah yes,” said Melanie, “because he’s in love with you.”

  “No, I’m not!” exclaimed Ian.

  “What was it Shakespeare said?” asked Melanie.

  “He said a great deal of things,” said Friday. “You’ll have to be more specific.”

  “The lady doth protest too much,” quoted Melanie.

  Mirabella gasped. “Are you saying … that Ian is a lady?”

  “No,” said Friday. “She’s saying he is in love with me because he says he isn’t in love with me. Do try to keep up.”

  “I’m not in love with you!” exclaimed Ian.

  “You see?” said Melanie, nodding and smiling knowingly.

  “Miss Barnes,” said the Headmaster as he rubbed his temples, trying to keep the inevitable migraine at bay, “could we please set aside discussions of your love life and concentrate on the matter at hand. Why is there a beast in my swamp?”

  “Because Miss Harrow is a smuggler,” said Friday.

  Everyone turned and looked at Miss Harrow. She looked shocked. “This is preposterous.”

  “It was Melanie who put me on to it,” said Friday.

  “I did?” said Melanie. “I didn’t realize I was so clever.”

  “Melanie notices things that other people don’t,” explained Friday. “She rarely notices anything she should. But occasionally she observes something apparently trivial that is in fact deeply intriguing. For example, one week ago she mentioned that she did not want to skip biology class because Miss Harrow always got new birds on Tuesdays.”

  “What is so intriguing about that?” asked the Headmaster.

  “Have you ever paid close attention to Miss Harrow’s bird collection?” asked Friday. “She has some remarkable specimens: a wide variety of parrots, native owls, and rare waterbirds.”

  “So? She’s a biology teacher,” said the Headmaster. “The aviary predates her. Miss Harrow has only been on staff for two years. The aviary has been here since the school was built eighty years ago.”

  “But parrots, owls, and even waterbirds are very long-lived. Parrots can live up to fifty years. Why would new ones be appearing on Tuesdays unless old ones were going and, if so, going where? These birds are very expensive to buy. Even for a school like this. If half a dozen native birds were dropping dead every week and the school was paying thousands of dollars to replace them, then surely someone would notice.”

  “I haven’t signed a check for new birds,” said the Headmaster, turning to Miss Harrow.

  “There are no new birds,” said Miss Harrow. “Melanie is mistaken. You’re not going to take her word for it, are you?”

  “I wouldn’t,” admitted Melanie. “I’m not terribly reliable.”

  “You see?” said Miss Harrow.

  “So if we went into your classroom and pulled up the loose sheet of linoleum that everyone always trips over as they enter,” said Friday, “there wouldn’t be a secret hidey-hole containing an old leather suitcase?”

  “That suitcase is full of specimens from the swamp that I use in my lessons,” asserted Miss Harrow.

  “But what I’d like to know,” said Friday, “is this: Does that suitcase have a secret bottom compartment that is currently full of cash?”

  “This is absurd,” said Miss Harrow. “How can you be saying these things? I’ve always gone out of my way to be kind to you.”

  “Which is, in itself, suspicious,” said Friday, “because I am not a terribly nice or easy-to-get-along-with person.”

  “Here, here,” said Ian.

  “I like Friday,” said Melanie. “She always tells me the answers to the math homework because she says it is a waste of my brain space for me to learn algebra.”

  “Really?” said the Headmaster.

  “This is all ridiculous, unprovable speculation,” said Miss Harrow. “I’ll be talking to my lawyer.”

  “Not you, too,” said the Headmaster. “It’s bad enough with all the students consulting their lawyers every time a staff member holds a pop quiz.”

  “Actually, I can prove it all,” said Friday. She got up and walked over to the window, pulled aside the curtain, and knocked on the windowpane.

  “She has gone insane,” said Ian. “Probably delirious from having a fertilizer bag over her head and inhaling all that nitrogen.”

  Out in the cold dark night a hand reached up and knocked on the far side of the pane.

  The girls shrieked.

  The Headmaster winced.

  Friday threw open the window. And the hand, now joined by another hand, pushed Miss Harrow’s old leather suitcase up and into the room. Friday leaned out the window. “Thanks, Binky, good work.”

  “Happy to help,” Binky said merrily from outside in the rain.

  Friday closed the window again.

  “When I planned my excursion into the swamp tonight,” said Friday, “I took the precaution of asking Binky to keep watch on whoever emerged from the swamp first, to follow them, and if they hid any large piece of luggage or storage container, to wait until they were gone, then steal it and bring it here. Or, rather, wait outside the window of the Headmaster’s office.”

  “He carried it out perfectly,” said Melanie proudly.

  “Yes,” said Friday. “The one thing Binky excels at is following instructions without thinking.”

  “He gets that from our father,” said Melanie. “All the Pelly men are good at not thinking.”

  “Shall we see what’s inside the suitcase?” asked Friday.

  “No,” said Miss Harrow. “This is an illegal search. You’ve got no business searching my property.”

  “But this is school property,” said Friday. “See here.” Friday pointed to a label by the handle that clearly read Property of Highcrest Academy. “And Binky found this in a school classroom, so there can be absolutely no problem with us taking a little look.”

  Friday clicked open the metal latches and lifted the lid of the case. The case was full of empty toilet paper rolls. Dozens of them.

  “Toilet paper rolls!” exclaimed the Headmaster. “If Miss Harrow has been smuggling toilet paper out of the school, I should be slightly disappointed, but I would say that is more of a surprising misdemeanor than a serious transgression.”

  Friday picked up a toilet paper roll and looked at it closely. Then she sniffed it.

  “Must you sniff everything?” asked the Headmaster. “You are supposed to be learning ladylike manners at this school.”

  “Toilet paper rolls are used by bird smugglers,” said Friday. “They anesthetize the birds, then slide them into a toilet paper roll as packaging. So if the birds wake up, they can’t open their wings and harm themselves.”

  “Toilet paper rolls are also used to hold toilet paper,” observed Miss Harrow.

  “There is no cash in the suitcase,” said Friday, inspecting it closely, “and there are no secret compartments.”

  “No,” said Miss Harrow. “No proof for your wild and defamatory accusations at all.”

  “So if they are not paying you in cash,” said Friday, “what are they paying you in?”

  Friday looked at the refuse she had emptied from the suitcase onto the desk. She rifled through it. There were dozens of toilet paper rolls, petri dishes, microscope slides, and a jam jar full of dirt. Friday picked up the jam jar and peered inside. Then she opened the lid and tipped the dirt all over the floor.

  “My carpet!” exclaimed the Headmaster. “That will never come out. Manuela will kill me!”

  Friday knelt down and sifted through the dirt.

  “The particles are going into the fibers!” exclaimed the Headmaster.

  And they were. The smaller pieces of dirt were falling between the carpet fibers, leaving the larger clumps of dirt and rock sitting on top. Friday tapped them with a pencil, spreading them all out. As she did this the others began to notice that some of the rocks were shiny. Very shiny.

  “What is that?” asked Ian.

  Friday held one of the clear shiny rocks up to her eye. The light from overhead hit it and refracted into sparkles. “Diamonds,” said Friday.

  Miss Harrow leaped up and tried to bolt. She ran first to the door, but it was locked. The Headmaster always locked his office door when he had meetings with hysterical girls so that their lawyers couldn’t burst in unexpectedly.

  “You’ll never catch me!” cried Miss Harrow, which was entirely true because no one in the room tried. No one in the group was in the least athletically inclined except Ian, and he was injured. Miss Harrow ran over to the window, threw up the sash, and leaped out into the rain-soaked night. Unfortunately, she had not realized that Binky was still standing there. How could she? Anyone with common sense would have assumed that he would go and find somewhere dry to wait once he had served his purpose. But that was not Binky’s way. No one had told him to go somewhere warm and dry, so he stayed cold and wet beneath the windowsill until his favorite biology teacher suddenly and unexpectedly jumped out and landed on his head.

  “Ooomph,” said Miss Harrow as her head clunked into Binky’s.

  “Are you all right, Miss?” asked Binky politely.

  But his head was hard, and Miss Harrow was no longer conscious.

  “You’d better carry her back inside, boy,” called the Headmaster, leaning out the window.

  “I’ll help,” said an authoritative voice from the bushes.

  “Am I hearing things?” asked Melanie. “Or did that bush just offer to help?”

  “It is I, Diego,” declared the voice from the bushes as he stepped forward and revealed himself to be Diego the gardener. “I have been secretly watching Miss Harrow for months.”

  “Of course,” agreed Melanie, “because you are in love with her.”

  “No,” said Diego, “because I am a police officer with the elite countersmuggling unit.”

  “As am I,” declared another voice from yet another bush. She stepped out and revealed herself to be Manuela, the cleaner.

  “Manuela,” gasped the Headmaster. “How could you deceive me? You’re the best cleaner I’ve ever had.”

  “I told you her skill set was too advanced for her pay grade,” said Friday, nodding her head wisely.

  Manuela and Diego then helped Binky carry Miss Harrow, who was unconscious and handcuffed, back into the Headmaster’s office, where they could continue their discussion in less rain-drenched conditions.

  “We were sent here to survey the school because we believed rare birds were being smuggled out through the swamp,” explained Manuela.

  “But why would anyone pay large amounts of money for a bunch of birds?” asked the Headmaster. “They all just look brown and fluffy to me.”

  “In South America there are some wealthy and competitive bird collectors who love to outdo each other with the rarity of their specimens,” explained Manuela.

  “And in Korea,” said Diego, “hearing the song of the lesser spotted woodpecker is believed to help with exam preparation.”

  “Urrrgh,” groaned Miss Harrow. She was starting to come around.

  The Headmaster went over and sat next to her. “Miss Harrow,” he said, “why would you do this? You are a beloved and cherished member of the Highcrest staff. You’re actually good at teaching, which is more than I can say for ninety percent of the teachers here. Please say you have some sort of mitigating psychological condition so that I won’t have to fire you.”

  “I did it for the money,” said Miss Harrow. “I wanted to make enough to start a new life. I don’t mind teaching. It’s being around children that I can’t stand.”

  “I knew it!” said Friday. “No one likes working with children.”

  “You’ll have to fire her, sir,” said Diego. “She’s going to get five to ten years in a federal prison. Smuggling is a serious crime.”

  “Plus think of the poor birds,” added Melanie.

  And so Miss Harrow was led away. The school lost the best biology teacher, the best cleaner, and the best gardener it had ever had.

  Chapter

  27

  In Conclusion

  “Things have turned out rather well, in my opinion,” said Friday.

  It was Tuesday afternoon and she and Melanie were sitting in the dining room eating chocolate cake, after finishing second helpings of Mrs. Marigold’s shepherd’s pie.

  Binky had been made a prefect for his outstanding effort at standing where he had been told to.

  Melanie had been diagnosed with attention surfeit disorder, which meant she did not have to take any more exams for the rest of the academic year because her psychologist decided that she would find them too confronting.

  And Friday’s fees were all paid up in advance for the next semester, which meant, mercifully, that she would not have to stay at home and go to public school.

  “Everything has ended happily ever after,” declared Friday, who was not normally a romantic, but she was feeling particularly buoyant, no doubt due to the high level of carbohydrates in the chocolate cake.

  “Except for you and Ian,” said Melanie.

  “What about me and Ian?” asked Friday.

  “You still haven’t admitted that you love each other,” said Melanie.

  “We don’t love each other,” said Friday.

  “You see?” said Melanie, as if Friday had proved her point.

  “Ian hates me with a passion,” said Friday.

  “But why on earth would he hate you?” asked Melanie. “True, your cardigans are unpleasant and your green porkpie hat is eccentric, but he could just avert his eyes.”

  “He hates me,” said Friday, “because he is the scholarship student.”

  “He is?!” exclaimed Melanie. “But that doesn’t make any sense. If he is the scholarship student, he should like you for drawing all the attention away from him.”

  “He hates me,” explained Friday, “because I made him the scholarship student. Wainscott is his mother’s maiden name. His father’s name is Friedricks. And he is the man I put in prison for insurance fraud, winning the reward that allowed me to pay my tuition.”

  “Oooh,” said Melanie as she tried to process all this information, then gave up. “But how did you know?”

  “Because he hates me so much,” said Friday. “I’ve never had that effect on anyone. And I was really annoying to my elementary school teachers. It was the chair flip that decided it. It was so athletic. No twelve-year-old could do that unless he had advanced circus training, and what twelve-year-old might have had advanced circus training? A boy whose father majored in acrobatics at the Barnum and Bailey Circus Skills University. Then you add into that the mysterious, poorly prepared presentation on Egypt and his absence from school for a week. I called my uncle and found out that one Ian Friedricks Wainscott was a witness at his own father’s trial that week.”

  “Ahhh,” said Melanie. “Then he must really be in love with you.”

  “What?” said Friday, baffled.

  “If he just hated you,” said Melanie, “he’d have pushed you down a flight of stairs. But to implode your pencil box, stick your clothes on top of a channel marker, and follow you into the swamp dressed as a beast? That takes real devotion, attention to detail, and obsessive thinking. It’s true love, just like in the movies.”

  “Barnes,” snapped a voice behind them.

  Friday and Melanie turned around.

  The Headmaster was standing next to a uniformed police officer.

  “What’s this?” asked Friday. “Am I getting some sort of citizenship citation for everything I’ve done for the school?”

  “No,” said the Headmaster soberly, “I’m afraid not.”

  “Friday Barnes,” said the police officer, “I’ll have to ask you to come with me.”