6 Searching for Clues

6 Searching for Clues When I got back to class, Mrs. Patty, our school secretary, made an announcement over the loudspeaker. "Attention, all teachers and students," Mrs. Patty said. "This will be a perfectly normal day at Ella Mentry School. Continue with your lessons as scheduled. Principal Spence is now in charge." "PRINCIPAL SPENCE?!" we all said. "He's taking over the school," whispered Ryan, who was sitting next to me. "He's crazy!" Our teacher, Mr. Granite, had been talking about protecting the environment, as usual. Mr. Granite is an alien. No, really, I mean it! Mr. Granite is from another planet. It's called Etinarg, which is "granite"

spelled backward. "Here's a little trick to save water," said Mr. Granite. "Put an empty bucket on the floor of your shower. While you wait for the water to warm up, the bucket will catch some of the cold water. Then you can use it to water your plants." Mr. Granite is always giving us tips to save energy. But that's when something weird happened. A head appeared in the doorway. It was Officer Spence's head. He was crawling around on the ground, and he was looking through a magnifying glass. "Uh, what are you doing, Officer Spence?" asked Mr. Granite. "Searching for clues," Officer Spence replied. "I'm trying to nab the peanut butter and jelly bandit." "But you already said the peanut butter and jelly bandit was Mr. Klutz," said

Michael. "Klutz is just one suspect," Officer Spence said. "This could be a conspiracy." I never heard that word before. "A conspiracy?" I asked. "What's that?" "A conspiracy is a secret agreement between two or more people to break the law," said Andrea, all proud of herself. "Could you possibly be more boring?" I asked Andrea. Little Miss I-Know-Everything keeps a dictionary on her desk to look up words. That way she can show everybody how smart she is. "Aha!" Officer Spence suddenly shouted. "I found a clue!" "What is it?" Emily asked. "What did you find?"

"A hair," said Officer Spence.

"So?" we all asked. "This is proof that the peanut butter and jelly bandit has hair," Officer Spence announced. "Well, Mr. Klutz doesn't have any hair at all," Mr. Granite told him. "So he must be innocent, right?" "Yes, but you've got hair, don't you?" Officer Spence said, looking at Mr. Granite. "Well, yes, but I didn't steal—" Mr. Granite didn't have the chance to finish his sentence, because at that moment Officer Spence jumped up and pointed his finger at him like it was a gun. "Freeze, dirtbag! You're under arrest!" "That's not even a gun," said Mr. Granite. "Maybe I have a gun hidden inside my finger," said Officer Spence. "Hands up!" "What did I do?" Mr. Granite said,

putting his hands up. "I don't even have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich." "No, but you're an illegal alien!" shouted Officer Spence. "Well, that's true," admitted Mr. Granite as Officer Spence put handcuffs on him. "I am from the planet Etinarg." "Are you going to send Mr. Granite to jail too?" asked Neil the nude kid. "No," said Officer Spence. "Whew, that's a relief!" said Andrea. "I don't need to send him to jail," Officer Spence told us. "I brought the jail here." WHAT?! He went out in the hallway and came back in wheeling a big cage. It was sort of like a portable jail. "WOW," we all said, which is "MOM" upside down. "Where did you get that?" I asked.