Toby Martin: School Sleuth

by Barbara Grengs

Hate mail, mean-spirited pranks, bomb scares, and some very bad poety all threaten to ruin the holiday season for Toby Martin and her foil, Freddy Galvin.

Little kid pranks escalate into serious threats when Toby, her pals, and Mrs. Trattles are specifically identified on a “hit list.” After Toby’s beloved Grandma is also targeted, Toby knows she must become Toby Martin: School Sleuth.

Can she stop the terrorist or will it be “bombs away” instead of “Deck the Halls” for Toby and her pals?

ISBN 978-1-59431-813-9 Young Adult / mystery6

Also Available in RTF or HTML

Young Adult / Mystery / Suspense / Young Detective

Prologue

Su Vang is the pits

Bobby Olson is scum

Ken Garcia eats crap

Mrs. Trattles is dumb.



Toby Martin, you're gay

Your bud Freddy's a tub

Patty Washington sucks

Now here's the rub.



My plan is to scare

Scum likes of you

Don't try to find me

Because if you do,



I'll haunt your daydreams

The nights will be worse

Wherever you go,

I'll be your curse.



My hatred will spread

To your families and friends

I despise one and all

Here is the message I send.



Watch for this date

12-7's the day

Mark your calendars in red

Prepare. Bombs away!



Chapter 1

" … A Poem as Lovely as a Tree."

"Classss," Mrs. Trattles hissed as teacher spit misted the front row.

Never sit in the front row if you have a choice. I mean never. First, teachers establish eye contact with their front row victims, which means they want you to answer their dorky questions or pass out their dorky assignments, the latest being "Write an essay about someone or something you're really thankful for." You can tell it's getting close to Thanksgiving because I've had variations of this assignment since I was a kid. Now I'm a seventh grader, and I expect something a little more creative. Guess I'll just have to change the assignment to fit my needs. Trattles usually lets me get by with that because I want to be a mystery writer someday.

A lot of teachers just make their seating charts based directly on their students' last names. So that means the first few seats are for the Andersons, and in St. Paul, Minnesota there are plenty of those. I went to a graduation once at our neighborhood high school, and it took about five minutes just to hand out diplomas to the Andersons. Now the end of the alphabet is getting kind of crowded with all the Hmong kids coming to school. My name, Toby Martin, is in the middle, so I usually don't get sprayed with teacher spit.

"But if I had my druthers," as Grandma always says, I'd be in the back with Patty Washington, Mary Zimmerman and all the Vangs.

I had to give old Trattles some credit for creativity because she combined the old alphabet-seating trick with the boy/girl-seating trick. At first, I had her convinced I was a boy because I am "undeveloped" at least in the boob and hair department, if you know what I mean. And I have a boy's name, and I dressed like a boy on the first day of school to confuse her, but hey, old Trattles is hard to rattle. When I told Trattles I was really a girl, she quickly sat me next to Kenny Garcia who's an okay kid, but his English isn't the best. I'm trying to get him to teach me some Spanish because Kenny is a hottie. "Hola, por favor, senor Garcia."

You could tell it was nearing Thanksgiving not only because of the dumb writing assignment, but also because Trattles was changing into her holiday wardrobe. Wearing a forest green sweatshirt decorated with colorful autumn leaves spread all over her ample chest, she completed the outfit with dark brown corduroy pants. All in all she looked like a maple tree with a big butt.

"Classss, since we have finished our grammar unit," Trattles paused a bit as the class whooped, "we will be moving on to poetry." The class groaned like we had collective cramps. She waited until the groans stopped. Then Trattles, the walking, talking tree, started telling us about this poet, Joyce Kilmer, who wrote about trees. I get it! I'll bet Trattles wore her tree outfit because of this poem. Outfits to match the lesson, what a novel idea. Sure hope we don't read THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES or JURASSIC PARK although Trattles would make an awesome t-rex.

Joyce Kilmer. Isn't Joyce a girl's name? Well, this Joyce guy wrote a poem about a tree nursing from Mother Earth. How gross is that? He got killed in World War I, probably for writing this poem that literally sucks. Maybe his name should have been "KiIl-me." I could identify with old Joyce because I have the same gender problems with my first name.

Anyway, here's the poem which old Trattles had committed to memory. Dreamy voiced, Trattles closed her eyes and said,

Trees

by Joyce Kilmer

I think that I shall never see

A poem as lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest

Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,

And lifts her leafy arms to pray,

A tree that may in Summer wear

A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;

Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,

But only God can make a tree."

"Fools like me," old Joyce wasn't kidding. It was a good thing Trattles's eyes were closed because the spitballs were flying. A couple of them nested in her hair, like the robins in the poem, but it was sprayed so much she didn't notice. No fear that she'd lose her 'do' in a bad wind. In fact, her hair could be considered a weapon.

Bobby Olson, the class suck up, raised his hand and said, "That was fabulous, Mrs. Trattles. I think it's important to honor war veterans." We all groaned. Bobby was always kissing up like that.

"Thank you, dear." Trattles reached for a Kleenex and wiped her eyes and blew her nose. "Did you all notice how the poem rhymed?"

Duh. That was like trying to ignore one of Watson's farts. Watson, my basset hound, lets these stinkies that can clear a room , just like Kilmer's poem could if we weren't chained to our desks.

"Those are called couplets. Two short lines that rhyme." Trattles waddled to the board and wrote these funny squiggles, a u over an unaccented syllable and a 'over an accented syllable. "These are called iambs. Imagine a sound like a ta dum," she said accenting the dum. Dumb.

"Are there any percussionists in here?" Patty Washington and Bobby Olson raised their hands. I wanted to take up drums, but Mom said it would be way too noisy for practice and besides we couldn't afford lessons.

"Bobby and Patty, I'd like you to pound out the rhythm of these couplets." Why should Bobby and Patty have all the fun? I went in my backpack to pull out a few pencils to use as drumsticks, but someone had broken every one of my pencils, even the colored ones. Weird. Suddenly the class erupted into rhythmic drumming, ta dum, ta dum while Trattles read the poem again. I pounded my desk along with everyone else. We really got into it.

The bell rang just as Trattles yelled out our assignment. "For tomorrow I'd like you all to try your hand at writing ten couplets about a topic you feel passionate about."

Now this was right up my alley. I loved to write. Hmm, now what are my passions?

That's a no brainer. I am, after all, a pet detective.

Couplet: two lines of poetry that rhyme.

My pet is a bulldog named Spike

He bites mailmen while riding his trike.

or

Freddy's cat is a feline named Missy

She makes puddles of bright yellow pissy.

or

A detective named Sherlock Holmes

Would hate writing couplets and poems.

lamb: the ta dum rhythm in a poem

I think that I shall solve a crime

Put Cliff in jail to do some time.