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Mr. Bishop!” she cried, pointing to the bare thumbtack. “Someone stole the spelling bee prize!”

Chapter 8
    Mr. Bishop stopped in the doorway, his eyes scanning the room, his brow furrowed. B thought she saw his lips move, as if he was muttering to himself. The tip of his beard waggled.
    “Does anybody have anything they’d like to tell me?” he said, looking from student to student.
    B had never heard a class this quiet.
    “It wasn’t easy getting those tickets,” Mr. Bishop said, pacing up and down the aisles. “I thought it would be worth the effort, though, to have something exciting to motivate you to do your very best on this spelling bee. But this …” He pointed to the ticketless bulletin board. “I’m very disappointed.”
    B felt her insides squirm as though she were guilty. And she hadn’t done anything wrong! Teachers’ lectures always made her feel jittery.
    The bell to end the period rang.
    “I have to dismiss you now,” Mr. Bishop said, “but I’m going to investigate the disappearance of those tickets fully, mark my words. It would be far better for the person who took them to return them to me and apologize. Do you all understand?”
    Twenty heads nodded. Twenty pairs of eyes stared at their shoes.
    Mr. Bishop opened the door. “See you tomorrow.”
    B hung back toward the end of the line of kids filing out the door, her mind a whirl. Black Cats tickets, stolen. Who’d have the nerve to do such a thing?
    George fell into step beside her, his eyes wide with astonishment. The rest of her classmates had scattered off to lockers and lunch, leaving the hallway nearly empty.
    “I’ve got to stop at my locker and pick up some more chocolate,” George said. “I’ll meet you in the caf.”
    “How can you possibly think of chocolate at a time like this?” B said. “We’ve got to find out who took those tickets.”
    “Well, I can’t think on an empty stomach,” George said. “See you in a minute.”
    George headed off toward his locker, and B wandered toward the cafeteria. As she rounded a corner she stopped short. Jason Jameson! Standing alone, in the middle of the hall, looking both ways. B ducked out of sight and peeked back around the corner.
    He opened his backpack, looked inside it, and giggled to himself.
    Holy cats! Now
there
was suspicious behavior.
    Who would be more likely to steal tickets than Jason Jameson? Jason often took cookies off other kids’ lunch trays in the cafeteria.
    But how could he have managed to steal the tickets?
    The fire drill! Of course! When everyone else left the room, he stayed back, supposedly to rescue Mozart. The hamster that he always picked on.
    He’s the only one who’s been alone with the tickets.
    And now, there he stood, staring in his backpack and chuckling to himself like he’d gotten away with something.
    B had to act, before he really did.
    “Hey, Jason,” B called, stepping into view. Jason jumped, then quickly zipped his backpack shut.
    “Whatcha hiding in that bag?” B called, catching up to where he stood.
    “Oh, nothing, Bumble B,” he said, sneering. “Just something …
scratchy.
”
    B took a deep breath. “I
can
spell scratchy, and I
would
have if you hadn’t messed me up. S-C-R-A-T-C-H-Y. See?”
    “Ooh, you’re sooo smart,” Jason said. He scratched his chest hard. Then he dropped his backpack and scratched all over his body like an orangutan.
    B groaned. “I am so sick of your teasing,” shesaid. “Scratch yourself silly. I’m not sticking around to watch.” And she stomped off down the hall and hurried to the cafeteria.
    George caught up with her, sprinting like it was track and field day.
    “You know what I think?” B told him as he skidded to a stop beside her.
    “What?”
    B dropped her voice to a whisper. “I think Jason Jameson took the Black Cats tickets.” And B told George all she’d seen, and how Jason had reacted.
    George whistled. “That skunk! It’s just like something he’d do.