10 Ch10-The Evidence

Chapter 10 The Evidence There were five minutes left in recess. Ryan, Michael, Andrea, Emily, and I sneaked in from the playground through the door to the library. "Shhhhh!" I said as we tiptoed into the library. "Follow me." Lucky for us, the library was empty. Mrs. Roopy was probably eating lunch in

the teachers' room. On our hands and knees, we made our way past the nonfiction books to Mrs. Roopy's office. The door was unlocked. I opened it. "We're going to get caught," Emily said.

"We're going to be kicked out of school and thrown in jail for the rest of our lives." "In here," I said, ignoring Emily. "This is where we'll find the evidence." We were inside Mrs. Roopy's office. I wanted to turn the light on, but Michael told me that when his father is doing a secret investigation, he never turns the lights on. We tried to see the best we could with the light that came in through the window. "Do you see any evidence?" Michael said. "Not yet." It was just a bunch of boring stuff.

Pictures of Mrs. Roopy's daughter. Papers. Videos. Junk No evidence at all. "Let's get out of here," Emily said. "I'm scared." "Not yet," I said. There was a closet by the corner. I pulled the handle. It wasn't locked. And there, inside the closet, was all the evidence we would ever need. George Washington's uniform. Little Bo Peep's dress. Johnny Appleseed's overalls. Neil Armstrong's spacesuit. Every single cos- tume Mrs. Roopy had been wearing was hanging right there in the closet. "This is the proof!" Michael said. "All those people were just Mrs. Roopy dressed

up in costumes." "I told you so," said Andrea. "You did not!" I said. "Did too!" she said. "Oh, you think you know everything!" I said. "Well, you're not so smart!" That's when the light flicked on. It was Mrs. Roopy, standing in the doorway look- ing at us. "What's the mean- ing of this?" she asked.

She had her hands on her hips, so we knew she was mad. For some reason, grown-ups always put their hands on their hips when they are mad. "I had nothing to do with it!" Andrea said. "It was all A.J.'s idea!" Everybody was looking at me. I had to think fast. I didn't want to spend the rest of my life in jail. I grabbed George Washington's uni- form out of the closet. "What's the meaning of... this?" I said, holding up the costume. "You told us you were home sick in bed and George Washington was here instead of you. How do you explain the fact that George