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a coincidence how I show up whenever my mom bakes chocolate-ant cookies. I steered Natalie toward the vice principal's office.

    "We'll just go in and welcome Mr. Squint to our happy family," I said. "Have a lovely day."
    Mrs. Crow narrowed her eyes suspiciously. Maybe I had laid it on kind of thick.
    "Go ahead," she said. "He gets here real early."
    I rapped on the vice principal's door. When a gruff voice barked, "What?" I turned the knob.
    An armadillo with a bad haircut, Mr. Squint was as short and squat as a bank safe. And his lips were shut just as tightly. He leaned on the edge of his desk, picking his nails with a wicked-looking letter opener.
    "Mr. Squint?" I said.
    "Who's askin'?" he said.
    "We're the Welcome Wagon," said Natalie. "We want to welcome you to our school."
    He blinked.
    "So ... welcome," I said.
    "Gee. Thanks," said Mr. Squint. He watched us closely with beady black eyes. His ears twitched. Natalie had no more bright ideas, so I put in my two cents.
    "Been here long?"
    "Not long," he said.

    "Where were you before this?"
    "Upstate."
    "Have you taught class before?"
    "Yeah," he said.
    Mr. Squint talked like it cost him a dollar for each word. It'd break my piggybank to get a whole speech out of him.
    "What did you teach?"
    "Boxing," he said. "Why?"
    "That's my business," I said.
    Mr. Squint stood and flexed. His armor plates bristled.
    "I could make your business my business," he said.
    "You wouldn't like it," I said. "The pay stinks."
    Mr. Squint took a step, and his armored tail knocked a coffee cup off the desk. He bent and reached for it. Suddenly I knew all I needed to know about Mr. Clint Squint.
    "Well, it's been swell," I said. "We're off to class."
    "Welcome again," said Natalie, "to our happy little home."
    "Scat!" he said. We scatted.
    Outside the building, Natalie glanced back.
    "Why did we leave so fast?" she said.
    "Did you see that tattoo on his arm when he

picked up that coffee mug? It had a knife stuck through a heart, and above it, it said PEN STATE ."

    "So?" she said. "What's Pen State? A writing program?"
    "The state prison. Our Mr. Squint is a professional crook."

10. A Froggy Day
    We still had ten minutes until school started. Natalie and I headed for the third-grade classroom to check out Popper, the new kid. As we turned the corner, Natalie slowed.

    "So, if Mr. Squint's a criminal, what does that have to do with Principal Zero?" she said.
    I scratched my chin. "I don't know. But he's probably up to his no-neck in this plot. I'll bet you dollars to doughnuts that Guido the janitor is a crook, too."
    "'Dollars to doughnuts'?" said Natalie. She shook her head. "Chet, you say the strangest things."
    The doors to the third-grade classroom were locked tighter than a frog's nostril. No lights showed inside.
    "Shucks," I said. "Nobody here."

    A couple of mice waited outside the door. They were playing the kind of deep and sophisticated game that young rodents love. When one made the other blink, he'd sock his classmate's arm about ten times.
    It wasn't chess, but it passed the time.
    "Hey," said Natalie. "You kids know where we can find Popper?"
    "Poppies?" said the smaller one. A regular Einstein.
    "No, dummy," said the bigger one. "They mean Popper, the new kid."
    "Oh yeah," said Mouse Einstein. "She likes to hang out at the jungle gym."
    He turned to his friend.
    "Hey,
'hang out
at the jungle gym.' I made a funny!"
    They giggled like a couple of bunnies on a sugar rush. We left them to polish their stand-up comedy act and headed for the playground.
    "Chet, that reminds me," said Natalie. "Why was the tuna so sad when he lost his wife?"
    I hunched my shoulders. "I have a feeling you're going to tell me," I said.
    "He lobster and couldn't flounder! Ha, ha!" Natalie cackled and ruffled her tail feathers.
    I groaned.
    "Come on, wise up," I said. "Here's the jungle gym, and I bet that's Popper."

    Just ahead of us, a brightly striped tree frog was climbing the bars. She wasn't very