The Case of the Missing Moola Read online

  They stared through their magnifying glasses in silence for a few minutes. Every once in a while one of them would walk over and trade one Identified Print for another. Then Corey cried out, “Aha!”

  “Got a match?” Ben asked, excited.

  “I think so,” Corey said. “Pretty sure.”

  “Cool!” Hannah said.

  Corey wrote the name of the matching student on the Mystery Print’s card. The other two kept staring through their magnifying glasses. And

  staring. And staring . . .

  “I wish we had a computer that could do this,” Corey said, rubbing his eyes.

  “Your homeroom classmates may be tough,” Ben said, “but I doubt they’re on file with the FBI.”

  Every once in a while, though, there’d be another “Ah!” or squeal of excitement from one of the investigators. And as they kept working, the cries started coming more often. “Match!” they’d say triumphantly.

  They were getting much better at looking at finger­prints.

  The more they stared at fingerprints, the more they got used to the different kinds of patterns the ridge lines could make. It was like staring at a lot of maps until you could easily spot a park or a highway interchange right away.

  Slowly but surely, the three stacks of Mystery Prints were shrinking. The club members kept writing names on the cards and moving them into an “Identified” pile until there was just one Mystery Print left.

  They’d found the same print on the desk drawer, on the metal box, on the padlock, and on Jacob’s envelope.

  And no matter how many times each of them tried comparing it to the Identified Prints, it never matched. It didn’t seem to belong to any of the students or Mrs. Ramirez.

  “You know what I think?” Hannah said, staring at the last Mystery Print.

  “What?” Corey said.

  “I think we’re looking at the fingerprints of a thief,” she said.

  “So do I,” Ben agreed.

  “But these don’t match anyone in the homeroom,” Corey said. “What good is having the thief’s fingerprints if we don’t know whose they are?”

  That was a good question. It’d take forever to get fingerprints from everyone in the school. They weren’t even sure they could get permission to do that. And then it’d take even longer than it took that day to compare the Mystery Print to hundreds of other fingerprints.

  “It’s so frustrating,” Hannah said. “We’ve got the thief’s fingerprints, but we still don’t have the thief.”

  “Still, we’ve made progress,” Ben said.

  “What do you mean?” Hannah asked.

  “Now we’re definitely sure the thief wasn’t Mrs. Ramirez or any of her homeroom students,” Ben said. “Someone who wasn’t in that class opened the box. And why would someone else open the box unless they were meaning to steal the hundred dollars?”

  “I’m innocent!” Corey added. “What a relief!”

  “Were you really worried that you were guilty?”

  Hannah asked.

  “Well,” Corey said, “there’s always sleepwalking. I might have stolen the money in my sleep.”

  “Do you sleepwalk?” Hannah asked.

  “No, never,” Corey said. “But there’s always a first time.”

  The three of them stared at the Mystery Print for a while.

  “Can we at least tell if these fingerprints belong to a kid or to an adult?” Corey asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Ben said doubtfully. “I think that by the time you’re our age, your fingers are pretty much full-size.”

  “Yeah, you’re right,” Corey agreed. “I can wear my dad’s gloves, no problem.”

  “I hate to say it,” Hannah said, “but we need more evidence.”

  “You’re right,” Ben said glumly.

  They sat there, thinking. Then Corey piped up. “Hey,” he said, “what about that feather?”

  “What feather?” Ben asked.

  “The one Hannah found in the desk drawer!” Corey said.

  “You’re right!” Hannah cried. “I’d forgotten all about it.”

  She rushed over to her backpack and then unzipped one of the smaller pockets. She reached in, pulling out a small plastic bag.

  Inside was a single, small feather. It was mostly orange, with a little bit of brown. She took out the feather and held it up. The three friends studied it.

  “Is it a bird’s feather?” Corey asked.

  Ben turned to look at his friend. “What other kind is there?”

  “Well,” Corey said, thinking, “there are the feathers that come from feather dusters.”

  “Those are bird’s feathers,” Ben said.

  “Or the feathers they put in pillows,” Corey said.

  “Again, bird,” Ben said.

  “Aren’t some old-fashioned pens made from feathers?” Corey asked.

  “Yes,” Ben said. “Bird’s feathers.”

  Hannah was still examining the feather. “Staring at this little feather tells me basically . . . nothing,” she said. “But I know someone who might have some suggestions.”

  Miss Hodges held up the little feather to the light in her office and turned it this way and that, examining it. “Well,” she said after a moment, “I’m not a feather expert. But I do know a few things about them.”

  “Such as?” Hannah asked eagerly.

  “To start with, birds have several different kinds of feathers,” she explained. “Two of the main types are tail feathers and wing feathers.”

  “Makes sense,” Ben said.

  “Within wing feathers, there are primary feathers and secondary feathers,” Miss Hodges went on. “The primary feathers are closer to the tip of the wing, and the secondary feathers are closer to the bird’s body.”

  “Okay, you’re kind of starting to sound like a feather expert,” Corey said, looking suspicious.

  Miss Hodges laughed. “Not at all! The world of feathers is big and complicated. There are, for example, all the different parts of the feather.”

  “A feather looks like just one part to me,” Corey said. “If you put it together with the other parts—beak, claws, more feathers—you get a bird.”

  “Look closely,” Miss Hodges said. She used her finger to separate the individual strands of the feather. “These strands are called barbs.”

  She ran her finger along the center of the feather, toward the tip. “The barbs are attached to the shaft. The upper part of the shaft, toward the tip, is called the rachis.”

  She pointed to the bottom of the feather. “And the other end of the shaft is called the calamus, or the quill.”

  “Like a quill pen,” Ben said.

  “Exactly!” Miss Hodges said. “Each side of the feather is called a vane.”

  “Like a weather vane?” Hannah asked.

  Miss Hodges nodded.

  “Only this is a feather vane,” Corey said, smiling.

  “Right,” Miss Hodges said. “All these features, and, of course, the colors, help a real feather expert identify what kind of a bird the feather came from.”

  She handed the feather back to Hannah, who looked at it with new understanding. Miss Hodges turned to her computer.

  “Let me show you a really neat website,” she said. “It’s from the US Fish and Wildlife Service. They have their own forensics lab to help solve crimes involving wildlife.”

  “Like when a gang of raccoons knocks over a garbage can?” Corey asked.

  “No, Corey,” Miss Hodges said patiently. “In these cases, the animals are the victims. The criminals are usually poachers and people trying to sell protected species.”

  She clicked her mouse a couple of times. “Here we are,” she said. “This is the feather atlas. You can use it to identify feathers.”

  “Perfect!” Hannah said.

  Miss Hodges got up from her chair and motioned for Hannah to take her place. “It’s easy to use. Just click on ‘Identify Feather’ and go from there. I’ll be in the lab
if you need me.”

  Club CSI got down to work. They started by picking one of eight patterns that best matched their feather. Then they clicked on “orange,” since that was the feather’s main color. This gave them ten results, including woodpeckers, flickers, and thrushes.

  But none of them really matched.

  They tried some other combinations of pattern and color, but they just couldn’t find any feathers that looked exactly like their mystery feather.

  “Frustrating,” Corey grumbled.

  “The website says it doesn’t cover every kind of bird there is,” Ben pointed out. “They’re still adding more birds all the time.”

  “Let’s tell Miss Hodges,” Hannah said. “Maybe she’ll have an idea.”

  They went into the lab and found Miss Hodges grading papers. “No luck,” Ben said. “None of the birds matched our feather.”

  “Hmm,” Miss Hodges said. “Well, since the website comes from the US Fish and Wildlife Service, it covers only wild birds. Maybe the feather isn’t from a wild bird.”

  “You mean it’s from a pet bird?” Corey asked. “Like a parakeet?”

  “Maybe,” Miss Hodges said. “Or some other kind of domesticated bird.”

  “Like what?” Hannah asked.

  “Well, think,” Miss Hodges said, always the teacher. “What kind of birds have we humans domesticated?”

  Ben thought. “Chickens,” he said. “Turkeys. Maybe ducks.”

  “Good!” Miss Hodges said. “Let me see that feather again, please.”

  Hannah handed her the feather. As Miss Hodges studied it, she said, “As I look at the colors of this feather again, I’m wondering if maybe this might be a rooster feather.”

  “Why would anyone have a rooster feather in Mrs. Ramirez’s classroom?” Corey wondered out loud.

  “I’ve got an idea,” Hannah said. “Let’s do a quick Internet search on rooster feathers to see what comes up.”

  “Good idea,” Miss Hodges said, nodding.

  They hurried back into Miss Hodges’s office. Almost immediately, they found that rooster feathers are used to make flies for fly-fishing.

  “Fly-fishing?” Corey said. “You know, Mike Crowley talks about fly-fishing all the time. Remember?”

  “Yeah,” Ben said. “We were talking about him at lunch in the cafeteria.”

  “All right! Let’s find Mike Crowley!” Hannah said, starting off without them. Ben and Corey hurried after her.

  They spotted Mike by his locker. “Hey, Mike!” Corey called.

  Mike turned to the three members of Club CSI running toward him. “Yeah?” he asked, having no idea what was going on.

  “We just wondered if we could talk to you for a second about fly-fishing,” Ben asked.

  Mike looked at the three of them, trying to figure out if they were kidding. He’d been talking so much about his new favorite activity that kids had started to tease him a little. “Really?” he said suspiciously.

  “Yeah, really,” Hannah said. “We just were wondering about how you make your own flies.”

  “Well,” Mike said. “It’s pretty hard. You need special equipment and tools, and you have to know how to tie these special knots. You need steady hands.”

  “What kind of materials do you use?” Corey asked innocently. If Mike was the thief, Corey didn’t want to tip him off that they were on to him.

  Mike set his backpack on the floor next to his locker. “There’s the hook. And different kinds of thread. And the hackles.”

  Hannah looked puzzled. “What are hackles?”

  “They’re feathers—little feathers that you tie onto the hook,” Mike explained. “I think they’re supposed to look like wings.”

  The members of Club CSI exchanged a look. “Wow, I’ve never seen one of those,” Hannah said. “Could you show me one?”

  “Sure,” Mike said. “I’d have to borrow one from my uncle, though. He’s the one who ties his own flies.”

  Ben frowned. “You mean you’ve never tied one yourself?”

  “No, it’s really hard,” Mike admitted. “He’s going to teach me.”

  “Did you ever bring any of those feathers to school?” Corey asked.

  “Nope, I never did,” Mike answered, surprised. “Why would I?” He looked and sounded as though he were telling the truth.

  “No reason,” Corey said, disappointed. “Well, thanks.”

  “Sure,” Mike said, confused. “I’ll ask my uncle if I can borrow one of his flies to bring in and show you. You can see what hackles are for yourselves.”

  “That’s okay,” Hannah said. “I just thought maybe if you had one with you, I could look at it, but you don’t have to go to any trouble.”

  “It’s no trouble,” Mike said with a friendly grin.

  “Well, that was pretty much a complete waste of time,” Corey said quietly as they walked away.

  “It really seemed as though he were telling the truth,” Ben said. “He never brought any rooster feathers to school.”

  “And now I’m going to have to act interested when he brings a fishing lure to school to show me,” Hannah complained. “And I hate fishing. So gross.”

  They walked on in silence, thinking. How did that feather get in Mrs. Ramirez’s desk? Had the thief dropped it?

  “I keep thinking I’ve seen feathers somewhere recently,” Hannah said. Then she stopped right in her tracks. “Wait! I know where I saw feathers!”

  “Where?” Corey asked. “On a pirate?”

  Ben turned to Corey, baffled. “Pirate?”

  “Yeah,” Corey said. “From the parrot on his shoulder.”

  “You have an amazing brain,” Ben said.

  “Thank you,” Corey said.

  “I remember where I’ve been seeing feathers lately,” Hannah said, excited.

  “Where?” Ben asked.

  “In girls’ hair!”

  Wait,” Ben said to Hannah. “You’re saying you saw rooster feathers in some girl’s hair?”

  “Like a nest?” Corey asked, completely baffled.

  “Not in just one girl’s hair,” Hannah said. “In several girls’ hair. It’s a trend in hairstyling—feather extensions. I just read a magazine article about it last week at the doctor’s office.”

  Hannah explained to the two boys, who were completely clueless about fashion, that some girls were tying feathers to their hair. Since reading that article, she’d noticed more than one girl at Woodlands Junior High with feathers in her hair. The feathers weren’t really obvious most of the time, because girls often got ones that matched their hair color. But some girls chose to get wild colors that stood out in bright streaks against their hair.

  “I see,” Corey said. “Well, based on what Mike told us, they’d better be careful when they walk by streams and rivers. Trout might come jumping out to bite their hair.”

  As they walked through the hallways, the three friends kept their eyes peeled for girls with feathers woven into their hair. It wasn’t long before they spotted a couple.

  “Okay, I get it,” Ben said. “But just because these girls have feathers in their hair today doesn’t mean they had them back when our feather dropped into Mrs. Ramirez’s desk.”

  “True,” Hannah said.

  “How long can you leave the feathers in your hair?” Corey asked. “I mean, don’t you have to wash your hair?”

  “The article said you can wash the feathers,” Hannah said. “Which makes sense. Birds do it all the time.”

  “I guess you’re right,” Corey conceded.

  “And the feathers can last more than a month,” she added.

  Corey remembered one of the girls with feathers in her hair from his homeroom. “Her name is . . . um . . . let me think,” he said. “Starts with an A . . . Ava!”

  “That’s funny,” Ben said.

  “What’s funny about the name Ava?” Hannah asked.

  “I think it comes from ‘avis,’” he said.

  “The car rental co
mpany?” Corey said.

  “No, the Latin word for ‘bird,’” Ben said. “Maybe that’s why she likes having feathers in her hair.”

  “Or maybe she thinks it looks cool,” Hannah said, shrugging. “Come on. Let’s find out how long she’s had them.”

  The three of them strolled casually over to Ava. “Hi, Ava,” Corey said. “How’s it going?”

  Ava smiled. She knew Corey from homeroom. And she’d always thought he was cute.

  “Good!” she said. “What’s up?”

  “I love the feathers in your hair,” Hannah said.

  “Oh, thanks!” Ava chirped. “I wasn’t sure which color to get at first, but then I really liked these.”

  Hannah took one of the feathers in her hand. “This color’s great. It’s kind of like orange and brown.”

  She gave Ben and Corey a quick look. Ava’s feathers were the same colors as the feather they’d found in Mrs. Ramirez’s desk.

  “Can you wash your hair with those in it?” Corey asked.

  Ava blushed. “Of course. Birds wash their feathers, you know.”

  Ben smiled at Ava. “Could you excuse us for just a second, Ava?”

  She looked puzzled. “Um, sure.”

  Ben took Hannah and Corey by their arms and stepped a few steps away from Ava. “She’s not the thief,” he said in a low voice.

  “But her feathers match the one in the desk,” Hannah argued.

  “I know,” Ben said. “But I just remembered that we have her fingerprints. I checked them myself. They don’t match the Mystery Print. And those are the fingerprints we’re pretty sure belong to the thief, remember?”

  Hannah nodded. “Yeah, you’re right. But we should still try to figure out whether the feather came from Ava.”

  “Agreed,” Corey said, wanting to contribute something to this discussion.

  They walked back to Ava.

  “Sorry about that,” Ben said.

  “That’s okay,” Ava said, still a little confused.

  “Look,” Hannah said. “We’ll be honest with you. We’re investigating the missing hundred dollars.”

  Ava looked nervous. “Well, I didn’t take it!” she insisted.

  “We know,” Corey said. “But we found a feather in Mrs. Ramirez’s desk. Could it have come from your hair?”