8. What’s in Mrs. Barr’s Suitcase

8 What's in Mrs. Barr's Suitcase? When I left Dr. Brad's office, I went to the vomitorium, where everybody was eating lunch. We all had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, because that's the law. "What did Dr. Brad say to you?" asked Ryan. "Nothing," I replied. "He just wanted

to tell me that his name is Frank." "So I guess you still think Mrs. Barr is a jewel thief?" asked Alexia. "Sure I do," I said. "I can prove it to you." "How?" everybody asked. "All we need to do is look inside that suitcase she pulls around," I said. "Come on, follow me." We cleaned off our plates and left the vomitorium. I didn't know where Mrs. Barr was, but she had to be around the school somewhere. We just had to find her. "Shhhhhh!" I said as we sneaked down the hallway. We sneaked around like secret agents, peeking into classrooms. It was cool. I love sneaking around pretending to be a spy. "What are we gonna do when we find her?" asked Neil.

"One of us needs to distract her," I told him, "while the others open her suitcase and see what's inside." "I think that's an invasion of privacy," whispered Andrea. "Your face is an invasion of privacy!" I whispered back. We sneaked around for a million

hundred minutes. No sign of Mrs. Barr. "This is silly, Arlo," said Andrea. "She probably went out for lunch." "She's hiding," I said, sneaking around a corner. "She must know we're after her." That's when the weirdest thing in the history of the world happened. We came to a door. Well, that's not the weird part. We come to doors all the time. The weird part was what happened next. The door was to a broom closet where our custodian, Miss Lazar, keeps cleaning supplies and stuff. There was a noise on the other side of the door. It sounded like snoring. "Shhhhhh!" I shhhhh-ed. "What's that?" "I didn't hear anything," said Michael. I put my hand on the doorknob. I was

afraid to open it because in scary movies every time somebody opens a door a monster jumps out. But I gathered up my courage and pulled open the door. And you'll never believe in a million hundred years what we found in the closet. I'm not going to tell you. Okay, okay, I'll tell you. It was Mrs. Barr! And she was lying on a cot, sleeping!

"This is our chance!" I whispered. "Let's see what's inside her suitcase. I bet