Remarkable (19 page)

Mrs. Peabody was outraged. “You’re trying to tell me he’s not a pirate? I suppose next you’ll be telling me that the hat on his head which was blocking my view isn’t a pirate hat, or that his three friends are shoe salesmen.”

“Madam, I assure you that—”

“He’s getting away!” screeched Mrs. Belphonia-Champlain. And sure enough, Captain Rojo Herring had hopped onto his bicycle and was pedaling
away from the crowd just as fast as he could with peg legs.

“See? He’s guilty!” Mrs. Peabody said triumphantly. “Look at him run.”

“Madam,” Detective Burton Sly said. “All he is guilty of is leaving before I had the chance to unmask the real culprit.”

Detective Burton Sly strode through the crowd. Jane looked to see where he was headed, half expecting that he had the Grimlet twins in his sights. Who else would have come up with such a bold scheme?

But surprisingly, she didn’t see the Grimlet twins anywhere. And more surprisingly, Detective Burton Sly seemed to be headed directly toward her.

“The culprit,” Detective Burton Sly proclaimed, “is very average. Average height, average build, and has made the average number of mistakes in the commission of the crime. Additionally, this culprit has made one very amateur error—which is to say that the culprit has unwisely decided to return to the scene of the crime.”

He stopped in front of Jane. Maybe he knew that Jane was a friend of the Grimlet twins. Maybe he even thought Jane was an accomplice! Or maybe the
Grimlet twins had framed her for a crime she hadn’t committed. Jane was too nervous to say a word.

Then Detective Burton Sly did something unimaginable. Detective Burton Sly looked past Jane, lifted his hand, and pointed an accusing finger right at Grandpa John.

“You, sir, are the thief.”

The crowd murmured angrily as everyone turned to stare at Grandpa John.

“I’ve never seen that man in my life!” Mrs. Peabody proclaimed huffily. She still thought someone should have stopped Captain Rojo Herring before he rode away.

“He’s probably from the nearby town of Ding,” said Taftly Wocheywhoski. “They have a shabby little bell tower they’re extraordinarily proud of for some reason. I heard they were furious when they found out we were building a better one.”

“Detective Burton Sly,” Grandmama Julietta Augustina said coldly into the podium’s microphone, “I’m afraid you’ve made a terrible mistake. There is absolutely no way that this man is guilty of anything.”

“With all due respect, Madam Mayor, I wouldn’t make a mistake in such a serious circumstance. But if
you don’t want to believe me, why don’t you ask him for yourself.”

“John,” Grandmama said, “tell everyone here that you didn’t steal those ropes.”

But Grandpa John didn’t answer her.

“John! Say you didn’t steal them.”

“I can’t,” Grandpa John said. “I did steal them.”

“But why would you do such a thing?” Grandmama demanded. “You have to give them back right now.”

“I can’t,” Grandpa John said again.

“Arrest him,” Detective Burton Sly told two of his junior detectives. Jane watched in shock as her grandfather was handcuffed in front of her.

“No!” she cried. “Stop it!” She’d never felt so helpless in her life. Fortunately, right at that moment, Jane’s dad arrived. He’d pushed his way through the crowd to defend his father.

“How dare you!” her dad bellowed at Detective Burton Sly. “As a prizewinning novelist, I order you to take those cuffs off immediately!”

“I’m afraid your literary prizes don’t give you any jurisdiction in this particular instance, sir,” Detective Burton Sly replied.

“You know nothing about jurisdictions—or literature!”

As the two men got into a heated argument about what kind of legal authority was bestowed by literary prizes, Grandpa leaned down to talk to Jane.

“Jane,” he said in a voice too low for anyone but her to hear, “don’t say a word about those ropes. Remember your promise.”

“I can get them from Captain Schnabel,” Jane whispered back. “Maybe they’ll let you go if we return them.”

Grandpa shook his head. “That bell tower must stay silent. In fact, just to be safe, go chop the ropes up into a million pieces and bury the pieces in a deep hole.”

“But, Grandpa, why?”

“I don’t have time to explain. But I’m counting on you.”

Detective Burton Sly may not have been able to hear what Grandpa said, but he was a skilled enough detective to perceive the conspiratorial whispering that was occurring right behind him. He whirled around and scowled at Grandpa John. “What’s that now?” he demanded. “What are you talking about?”

“I have nothing to say to you,” Grandpa John told him.

“Don’t you turn your back on me, Sly!!” Jane’s father shouted indignantly as he jabbed the detective in the back. “We’re not done with our argument yet!”

“Now just hold on a minute. Just let me ask this young girl what she and the suspect were whispering about. Young girl, I’d like to have a word with you, please.”

But Detective Sly was too late. Jane was already gone.

“Did anyone see where that young girl went?” Detective Burton Sly called out. The people in the crowd murmured helplessly to each other. No one knew, because no one had been paying attention to Jane.

“Can anyone at least give me a description?” Detective Burton Sly asked. The crowd murmured helplessly again. No one had seen a thing.

F
or the first time ever, Jane felt fortunate to be so undistinguished. No one had paid any attention to her at all as she slipped through the crowd. And now she was free to run to the public school as fast as her legs would carry her while her mind spun as fast as it could spin. Why on earth had her grandfather stolen the bell-tower ropes? She would never have believed he could do such a thing if she hadn’t heard him confess. Still, he wanted her to trust him, and she did. If he said it was important for the ropes to be chopped into pieces and buried deep in a hole somewhere, she would do it.

Of course, there was the small matter of getting the ropes out of her classroom. This would be very
difficult indeed if Captain Schnabel were there. She’d probably demand all kinds of explanations about why Jane wanted them, and Jane didn’t have the foggiest idea what to tell her.

Jane glanced up at the sun—which counts as a lucky star in a pinch—and made a wish. “Please don’t let Captain Schnabel be in there. Please let her have gone home as soon as she realized she wouldn’t have any students in her classroom today.”

Of course, Jane’s wish would have been a lot more effective if it had also been a lot more specific. Instead of just wishing that Captain Schnabel were not at school, she should have wished that nobody was.

Jane flung open the door to the classroom—and then stopped dead in her tracks.

“Scuttle me eyes!” Jane exclaimed. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Her classroom had been ransacked. The captain’s wheel had been yanked out of the floor, the plank had been tossed out the window, and the Code of the Pirates had been ripped from the wall. Someone, possibly the Grimlet twins themselves, had been working hard to destroy every piece of pirate paraphernalia in the room. “Scuttle me eyes!” she repeated

“Watch your language, young lady!” came a voice. It belonged to the esteemed Dr. Presnelda—who was, for reasons that were unclear to Jane, angrily scrubbing the skull and crossbones off the blackboard.

“Where…where’s Captain Schnabel?” Jane asked.

“
Ms.
Schnabel is at home,” Dr. Presnelda snapped. “Thinking about what she’s done. I’ve never seen a classroom in such a disgraceful state.”

“I don’t think it’s a disgrace.”

“I’m not the least bit interested in your opinion on this matter. You are not a highly regarded educator,” Dr. Presnelda said, fixing Jane with an unfriendly stare. “And what are you doing here anyway? I thought you were excused from school today.”

“Um…” Jane said, thinking furiously. “Um…I just stopped by to pick up a project I was working on so I could finish it over the weekend. I was keeping it over there.” Jane pointed to the spot where Captain Schnabel had hung hooks to store the ropes. But now the hooks had been ripped out of the wall, and the ropes themselves were nowhere to be seen.

“Is this project related to piracy?” Dr. Presnelda asked.

“Uh-huh.”

“Then most likely it’s in the Dumpster out back.”

“You threw my project in the Dumpster?” Jane said indignantly. It would be impossible for her to find the ropes in there. Every day, the school cafeteria workers made hundreds of hot meals just as if the public school were fully enrolled. Since Jane always brought a packed lunch from home and the Grimlet twins always stole each other’s lunch money, every single meal was thrown away. By the end of the week, the Dumpster was a festering mess of rotting food and swarming flies.

“Of course I threw your project away. Piracy is not a proper subject for public school—and my sister, of all people, has no business teaching it. She made a promise to our family never to have anything to do with pirates.”

“What’s wrong with pirates?”

“Piracy reflects poorly on our family. Did you know we had to change our last name because of it?”

“No,” Jane said, thinking that Dr. Presnelda wasn’t making much sense.

“Presnelda isn’t the last name I was born with—and my sister’s real last name isn’t Schnabel either. Before our family was disgraced, I was known as the esteemed Dr. Penzing.”

“Penzing! You mean like Mad Captain Penzing the Horrific? Are you and
Ms.
Schnabel related to her?”

“Don’t say that name!” Dr. Presnelda snapped. “And for the record, only I am related to Mad Captain Penzing the Horrific.”

“But if you and Ms. Schnabel are sisters, then don’t you both have to be related to Mad Captain Penzing?”

Dr. Presnelda sighed. “No wonder you never qualified for gifted education. Your reasoning skills are terrible. I’m related to Mad Captain Penzing
because
Ms. Schnabel is my sister.”

Jane stared at her. “But…I don’t understand. The only way that can be true is if Ms. Schnabel and Mad Captain Penzing the Horrific are the same person, and that doesn’t make any sense at all.”

“Doesn’t it?” Dr. Presnelda smiled at Jane, but the smile was too full of contempt and impatience to be nice.

“I don’t believe you!” Jane said stubbornly.

“No,” Dr. Presnelda said. “You’re not quite gifted enough to believe me, are you? Now shoo. I need to finish cleaning up this mess before anyone else finds out what my sister has done.”

A
s soon as Jane left the public school, she put the whole idea that Ms. Schnabel was actually Mad Captain Penzing the Horrific out of her mind. She had more important things to worry about, such as the fact that Grandpa John had been hauled off to jail. And it was simply impossible for Jane to imagine that anyone like Mad Captain Penzing the Horrific would ever end up teaching in a fifth-grade classroom—especially in
her
fifth-grade classroom. Exciting things like that only happened to other people.

But Jane’s failure of imagination did not change the fact that Dr. Presnelda happened to be telling the truth. And this truth would have been much easier to
understand if Jane had only known more about Ms. Schnabel’s early life.

Once upon a time, Ms. Schnabel was a young girl. No one called her Ms. Schnabel back then, of course. She was called by her given name, which was Mirabel Maisie, and she was well known in some circles for being a rather serious disappointment to her illustrious parents, Flip and Bitsy Penzing.

Flip and Bitsy loved good manners. Now, most people would agree that having good manners is important—but for some people, good manners are simply the most important thing in the world. These people, known as etiquette experts, believe that good manners are much more essential than fun, kindness, or love. As you might imagine, etiquette experts tend not to be particularly fun, kind, or loving—which is why they should never be parents. But the etiquette experts never understand this, and so they often have children anyway.

Flip and Bitsy Penzing were two of the most well-known etiquette experts in the world. They were so proper and dignified that they had not only written the book about how to live a gracious and decorous life, but had also hosted a television show and published
a magazine on the topic as well. They knew the best way to host sumptuous dinner parties, grow exquisite herb gardens, and make even the dirtiest laundry smell like a field of daffodils. They had recipes for unforgettably delicious frosted cupcakes, and they knew how to construct dazzling homemade wreaths out of everyday objects.