“We don’t really have time for donuts now,” I protested.
“Tess. There is always time for donuts.”
And it’s a good thing Jack was always hungry, because within the next thirty minutes we busted a murder suspect’s alibi wide open right there in the donut shop.
31
Tess
Two of the McKee kids were in the donut shop, and this surprised me for a couple of reasons: first, they should have been in school, and second, they ran straight to Jack and pulled on his sleeves, excited chatter spilling out as they told him an incomprehensible story about a lizard. Or maybe about a frog? I was too distracted to pay much attention at first.
“Shouldn’t you be in school?” Jack asked sternly as we got in line for donuts. Behind the counter, Mellie looked up and smiled at me, and I waved.
The kids grinned at Jack. It was Lily and … the one with the unusual name. Everybody called him Bug.
“Nope. We got the morning off because of the disaster,” Lily said. “We’re using our allowance to buy donuts.”
“What disaster?” I couldn’t handle any more disasters. I was full up on disaster for the week.
“The new chemistry teacher,” Bug chimed in.
“Anotherone?”
Lily gave me a serious look. “Yes, Miss Tess. The last one left after she caused the gargoyle disaster.”
I’d meant another disaster caused by chemistry teachers, but I let it go. The high school chemistry teacher shuffle was starting to feel like Harry Potter’s problem with the Defense Against the Dark Arts professors.
“What happened?”
We reached the counter, and Mellie grinned at us, eyes sparkling. “It was great. Turns out the new guy was losing his hair, and since he was in Dead End, he decided he’d add a little magic to his chemistry.”
“Oh, no,” I said.
“Oh, yes,” Lily piped up. “He assigned the class to make a potion to grow hair.”
Jack was already laughing. “This can’t be good.”
“It kinda backfired,” Bug said gleefully. “When we went to recess yesterday, a bunch of big kids were running out of the school, but we didn’t recognize them!”
“Because they looked like baby Sasquatches!” Lily said.
“Oh,no,” I repeated, but everybody else in the bakery was laughing.
“Took almost three hours for the potion to wear off,” the guy behind us in line confided. “The teacher was last seen fleeing the scene.”
“I heard he quit over voicemail,” Mellie said. “I can’t believe you didn’t hear about it!”
I sighed. “We were a little busy. Garage raising and stuff.”
We bought our donuts and some for Lily and Bug, too, and headed back out to the truck. When we reached the sidewalk, Bug looked at a car pulling up and made fake barfing noises.
Lily looked at where he was pointing and groaned. “Not her again.”
It was Sadie Gonzalez, parking her car a few spaces down.
Bug started making loud, obnoxious kissing noises. “Ooh, Sadie, kiss me some more.”
I shushed them. “Hush. You’ll embarrass her.”
