Chapter 5.

"Mischief Knights?"

"What are the Mischief Knights?"

"Who are the Mischief Knights, and what are they going to do next?"

Those were the questions everybody was asking on Monday. That day will definitely go down in SMS history: the day the Mischief Knights first struck. I know I'll never forget it, and I have a feeling that SMS students will be talking about mat day, and about the Mischief Knights, for years to come.

For me, it started when I was at my locker before homeroom on Monday. It was taking me a long time to wake up that morning. You know how that is? On some days you jump out of bed and plunge right into your routine, but on others you just feel as if you're in a fog for half the day. Well, that morning the fog was as thick and heavy as pea soup. I wasn't thrilled about being at school. All I wanted to do was run back home, jump into bed, and snuggle under the covers.

Instead, I was rummaging around in my locker, trying to find the books I would need for that morning's cla.s.ses. And then, through the fog, I began to realize that something wasn't right. The books I needed weren't there.

"What's going on?" I heard someone ask. Which was exactly what I had been about to say.

I closed my locker door partway and looked around to see who had spoken. It was Sabrina Bouvier, whose locker is about five lockers over from mine. Sabrina is nice enough, but she looks as if she's thirteen going on thirty. (She trowels on the makeup and dresses like an actress on a soap opera.) At that moment, she peered at me. Her perfectly tweezed brows were mushed together as she frowned. "This isn't my stuff," she said, holding up two textbooks, and a green spiral notebook.

I recognized the notebook immediately. It was my social studies notebook, the one I had been doodling on in homeroom the week before. "That's mine!" I cried, blushing a little when I saw all the hearts I'd drawn. "What's it doing in your locker?"

Sabrina looked bewildered. "I have no idea," she said.

I reached into my locker and pulled out a pile of books. "Are these by any chance yours?" I asked her. Somehow, I just knew they were.

She took two steps toward me. "This is so weird," she said. "How did my stuff find its way into your locker?"

Just then, a folded sc.r.a.p of white paper fell out of one of her books and drifted to the floor. "What's that?" I asked. I picked it up and unfolded it. This is what I saw: I showed it to Sabrina. "What's this all about?" I asked.

She shrugged. "How should I know?" Just then, the first bell rang. "Quick, give me my sniff," she said. I handed it over, and she gave me my books. Then she took off, heading toward the girls' bathroom, probably so she could check her "face" before homeroom.

That was my introduction to the Mischief Knights. But I wasn't the only one meeting them that day. Their handiwork showed up all over SMS, and by lunchtime there wasn't anybody in the school who hadn't heard of them.

"Rick Chow told me they left a message on the blackboard in the music room," Claudia said as she bit into a Ring-Ding she'd pulled out of her backpack.

"What did it say?" asked Mary Anne. She was picking at the grayish slice of Salisbury steak that sat in the middle of her plate.

"It said 'Don't buy the Salisbury steak/ " Kristy joked, poking at the meat on her own plate. "Man, this stuff is disgusting. It reminds me of something Boo-Boo dragged in from the garden." (Boo-Boo is 10181/8 stepfather's geriatric cat.) "Kristy!" Mary Anne said.

"Sorry," Kristy apologized with a grin. She dug into her mashed potatoes. "So what did the message really say?" she asked Claudia.

"Something about how the Mischief Knights couldn't be stopped."

"That's what they wrote on the board in my math cla.s.s!" said Abby. "Only Mr. Zizmore erased it as soon as he came in, so I didn't really have a good look at it." Abby's eyes were glowing. "Isn't it cool? I love it when something like this gets a school stirred up. In my old school, people used to start rumors, but this is much more fun."

"Fun?" asked Kristy. "Not if you have Mrs. Simon for English. Or at least, not if you had good grades in her cla.s.s. Which I did."

"Sure you did," I teased her. "If you say so, Kristy." By then, everybody knew that Mrs. Simon's grade book had disappeared that morning, and that a blank one had been put in its place. A tiny sc.r.a.p of paper with the initials "MK" had been left near the book.

"Mrs. Simon was pretty steamed," Kristy said. "She spent the period lecturing us on why pranks are 'counterproductive.' Meanwhile, the guys in the back row were trying to figure out how to join the Mischief Knights."

"So who do you think they are?" asked Mary Anne.

"I would bet Watson's salary that Alan Gray is involved," Kristy said.

"Don't be so sure," replied Claudia. "I saw him in the hall before, talking to Pete Black. From what I overheard, neither of them knew a thing about the Mischief Knights before today."

"Who, then?" I asked. "Who else would come up with all those pranks?"

"It could be anyone," said Kristy.

"It could be me!" said Abby, waggling her eyebrows.

"Or me," said Mary Anne.

"Oh, right," Kristy said, as we cracked up.

Whoever they were, the Mischief Knights continued their stunts over the next few days. More messages appeared on blackboards. Weird things, such as a rubber chicken or a toilet plunger, appeared in people's lockers. Hundreds of marbles spilled out of a cabinet in the art room when somebody opened it to look for the watercolor paints. Mr. Kingbridge was going nuts. But most of the kids thought the pranks were cool.

The Mischief Knights would have been the most popular kids at SMS, except for one thing; n.o.body knew who they were. But everybody was talking about them. They even came up at the first meeting of the decorations committee that Wednesday afternoon.

"Maybe we should use the Mischief Knights for a theme," Rick Chow said, practically before we'd found seats.

"I'm not sure that would go over too well with the administration," said a tall, thin man with curly black hair, who was leaning against the blackboard. He smiled at Rick. "I'm sure the students would love it, though."

At that point, he must have noticed that we were looking at him questioningly. "I'm Michael Rothman," he said. "Mr. Rothman, to you. I just started teaching sixth-grade science here at SMS. I've seen a few of you in the halls, but why don't we all introduce ourselves?"

c.o.kie, naturally, had to be first. "I'm c.o.kie Mason," she said. "What happened to Mrs. Hall? She was supposed to be our advisor."

I thought c.o.kie sounded rude, but Mr. Rothman didn't seem to mind. "I ousted her," he said simply. Then he grinned. "Not really. I just asked her if I could be your advisor because I wanted the chance to be involved in helping you plan the dance. Since I'm new here, I figured it would be a good way to become familiar with the school."

Mr. Rothman seemed nice. And he made a good advisor: after we'd introduced ourselves, he sat back and let us talk about what we wanted to do. We came up with a great theme for the dance: The Addams Family Reunion. It was Todd Long's idea, and everybody loved it. Well, everybody except c.o.kie. She wanted some dumb theme involving jack-o'-lanterns, but we ignored her.

In fact, c.o.kie was ignored a lot during that meeting. And outvoted. Even Grace disagreed with every single idea c.o.kie brought up, and Grace is supposed to be c.o.kie's best friend. I could tell that it especially drove c.o.kie crazy to see Grace agreeing with me, a BSC member.

(c.o.kie still hasn't gotten over the fact that Grace teamed up with the BSC to solve a mystery recently, while c.o.kie was sick with bronchitis.) I brought up my idea about a red and purple color scheme. "Because orange and black is so tired," I explained.

"Orange and black is traditional," c.o.kie said.

"So what?" Rick asked. "Stacey's right. Why do things the same way all the time?"

"I love the idea of red and purple," said Grace. "If 11 look kind of spooky and gothic and b.l.o.o.d.y."

"Whoever heard of purple for Halloween?" c.o.kie muttered.

"Are we reaching a consensus here about colors?" asked Mr. Rothman. He sounded just a tiny bit nervous. Maybe he thought we were about to start squabbling. But there was no need for argument. Since everybody but c.o.kie loved my color scheme, the majority ruled.

The majority also ruled when we started to talk about decorations. We decided to poke around in antique stores and flea markets, looking for Addams Family-type items. (c.o.kie suggested cutouts of witches, but guess how many of us agreed? Right. Zero.) And we all (except c.o.kie) agreed that Claudia would be the perfect person to design our advertising posters.

By the end of the meeting, I was pretty excited about the dance, and so were the other committee members. Obviously I wasn't the only one who had decided not to let c.o.kie ruin what could be a great time.

Chapter 6.

On Thursday morning, we arrived for cla.s.ses to find that the Mischief Knights had TP'ed (toilet papered) the entire school. On Thursday afternoon, they soaped the windows of every car left in the teachers' parking lot. Friday morning they sneaked into the main office and made a fake announcement over the loudspeaker about a surprise a.s.sembly with "special guest star Michael Jordan." (We spent half of Friday's BSC meeting trying to figure out how they'd pulled that one off.) And on the following Monday morning they set all the cla.s.sroom docks ahead by fifteen minutes.

On Monday afternoon, I arrived early for a decorations committee meeting and found Mr. Rothman kneeling by the door, busy with a roll of paper towels and a bottle of Fantastik. There was a familiar smell in the air. I sniffed, trying to place it. "Peanut b.u.t.ter?" I guessed.

He grinned and nodded. "On the doork.n.o.b.

And on my shirt and my pants after I touched the doork.n.o.b."

"The Mischief Knights?" I asked. I was glad that he seemed to be taking the prank well. Some of the teachers were becoming pretty cranky about the Mischief Knights, especially after Thursday's window-soaping episode.

Mr. Rothman nodded. "They left their mark," he said, pointing to a smeared "MK" written in peanut b.u.t.ter above the doork.n.o.b. He smiled and shook his head. "I can't believe I was taken in by this trick. I did it to one of my teachers when I was in - let's see - seventh grade, I think."

I tried to imagine Mr. Rothman in seventh grade and decided he probably would have looked pretty geeky, with that tall, lanky frame. I smiled to myself. Just then, somebody grabbed my arm and pulled me into the room.

"I have to talk to you," hissed c.o.kie.

"Huh?"

"Quick, before Grace gets here," she said, glancing toward the door nervously.

"What's up?" I asked. I couldn't even begin to imagine what c.o.kie wanted to talk to me about.

"It's about Grace," c.o.kie whispered, shaking her hair back from her face. "You know how she's been bragging about that boy she's going to bring to the dance?"

"I might have heard her mention him," I said, confused. "So?"

"So I'm not convinced he exists," said c.o.kie, raising her eyebrows.

"c.o.kie, what are you talking about?" I asked.

"Okay, he's supposed to be from Lawrenceville, right? And she met him through her cousin? Fine. But why doesn't she have any pictures of him?"

"Well, if they just met - " I began, but c.o.kie cut me off.

"Not to mention that every time she describes him he sounds different. Like, the other day she said he had green eyes, but the week before she told me hazel."

"Big deal!" I said. "Green and hazel are pretty dose."

"Okay," she said. "How about this, then? Ten minutes ago, when we were at her locker, Grace showed me a letter she supposedly received from this guy. Ted, his name is."

"And?" What was c.o.kie driving at?

"Well, 'Ted's' handwriting looks an awful lot like Grace's. Think about it." She leaned back and crossed her arms.

"c.o.kie, I just want to know one thing," I said, exasperated. "Why are you telling me all of this?"

"Because, for some bizarre reason, Grace likes you," she answered. "And I thought you kind of liked her, too. I'm worried about her. What's she going to do when the night of the dance arrives and she can't produce this Ted? She'll never live it down."

Right, because you won't let her, I thought. But I didn't say anything out loud, since just then Grace herself walked in. I looked her over carefully, as if I could discover by her appearance whether c.o.kie was right or not. But Grace looked like her normal self. She was wearing thermal leggings and a blue plaid flannel shirt, and when she plopped herself down on a chair near c.o.kie and me she let out a big sigh.

"I hope we're not doing all of this work for nothing," she said.

Immediately, I forgot about the mystery of Ted. "What?" I asked.

"My mom says that the school board might call off the dance if community pressure keeps building."

"Oh, you mean because of those letters to the editor?" c.o.kie asked. "But that's just one old crank."

"Mr. - Mr. Wetzler," I said, recalling the name. "I've seen those letters." We all had. This nutty guy had been writing letters to the editor of the Stoneybrook News, protesting our dance and a whole bunch of other stuff in the school budget.

" 'Why should honest citizens pay so that teenagers can cavort in a gym, risking another tragedy?' " c.o.kie said mockingly. She was quoting one of the letters.

" 'Social studies and science? Yes! Shindigs? No!' " I said, quoting one of the protest signs I'd seen in what I figured was Mr. Wetzler's yard, which I pa.s.s on my way to school every day. We laughed. "Don't worry, Grace," I a.s.sured her. "n.o.body's going to take that nut seriously. I mean, tragedy? What's he talking about?"

"I don't know," she said, sighing. "He's just one more thing to worry about."

"What else are you worried about?" I asked, leaning forward. Maybe c.o.kie was right, after all.

"I don't know," she said. "I think the pressure of finding a date for the dance can be pretty tough on some kids." She bent down to pull something out of her backpack.

c.o.kie and I exchanged glances over Grace's head. c.o.kie gave me an "I told you so" look.

"I overheard some seventh-grade boys talking about how they could never work up the nerve to ask somebody to the dance," Grace said, straightening up.

"Hmmm," I murmured. Whether or not Grace was actually talking about herself, this was an issue we should deal with. "Maybe we should make sure our posters say it's fine to come alone."

"Oh, right!" said c.o.kie, laughing, "Who wants to come to a dance alone?"

"I would," said Rick Chow, who had just joined us.

"So would I," said Grace. "That is, if Ted weren't coming with me."

"Not everybody has to have a date," said Todd Long, who had come in right after Rick.

c.o.kie's face was flaming. Once again, everybody had sided against her. "Okay, fine," she mumbled. "We'll put it on the posters."

"I think that's a capital idea," said Mr. Roth-man, who had finally finished cleaning up the peanut b.u.t.ter. "Now, how are the plans for decorations coming?"