The Secret Life of Ms. Finkleman Read Online Free Page A

strains of the Goldberg Variations. She leaned in closer and said it again. “Huh.”
    Her mind racing, Bethesda flipped open her SPDSTAMF notebook and copied down this intriguing new piece of evidence, checking and double-checking the strange jumble of letters to make sure that she gotthe whole thing. Then she gently shut the drawer, stood up, and slipped out the door, leaving Kevin McKelvey to his Bach.
    She was about to sprint down Hallway C when she paused, her hand still on the doorknob, the door not yet shut all the way. The music drifted out of the Band and Chorus room, and for the first time Bethesda really listened to what Kevin was playing.
    Wow,
she thought enviously.
He is so good. I wish I was that good at something.
    Clamfoodle,
Kevin thought meanwhile, as he sat at the piano, practicing, practicing, forever practicing.
Wow. I wish my dad was a total goof.

6

BETHESDA’S DAD
    On Saturday
morning, Bethesda wolfed down a waffle and biked furiously back to school, standing up on the pedals and pumping her legs, her purple knit scarf whipping behind her in the late February wind. She banged on the front doors and told a scowling Janitor Steve that she had left her lunch bag in her locker. Bethesda actually
had
left her lunch bag in her locker so she wouldn’t have to lie to Janitor Steve to get back into the school. Bethesda secretly admired the hardworking Janitor Steve, pushing his mop up and down the empty hallways long after everyone else had gone home, his big belly straining against the elastic waistband of his sweatpants. He wasn’t particularly friendly, but he clearly believed in a job done right.
    Now that she thought of it, Bethesda wondered where Janitor Steve came from.
Hmm. That might makea good Special Project.
    Bethesda!
she chastised herself, as she turned down Hallway D toward the school library.
Focus!
    For the next hour and a half, her face firmly set in Mystery Solver mode, Bethesda worked her way through stacks of old yearbooks and archived school newspapers, looking for anything at all about Ms. Finkleman. What she found was … nothing. Not a jot, as Ms. Pinn-Darvish would say. Not a tittle. When she turned up in the paper at all, Ida Finkleman appeared only in classroom snapshots, baton in hand, performing her official school duties. There were no candid yearbook pics of, say, Ms. Finkleman and her three adorable kids on Family Day. There were no quotes from her in the
Gazetteer
comparing life at Mary Todd Lincoln to another school she had once worked at, long ago, back in Boise or Sacramento or Alberta.
    By noon Bethesda was across town, at the Wilkersholm Memorial Public Library, where she scoured the archives of the local newspaper—week by week, day by day, month by month—in search of any mention of Ida Finkleman. Again, nothing. Eight years of town history, eight years of Laundromat openings, shopping-mall closings, Fourth of July parades, zoo escapes and recapturings, and noMs. Finkleman in sight. Hmm.
    At last, Bethesda turned to the Internet (“the first refuge of the lazy,” as Mr. Melville sneeringly called it), where supposedly a person could find any and all information in the entire universe. And what did she find? Nothing.
    Your search—“IDA FINKLEMAN”—did not match any results.
    At four o’clock on Saturday afternoon, Bethesda blinked in the bright afternoon sun of the Wilkersholm Memorial Public Library parking lot, tugged back on her purple scarf, and wondered what to do next.
    “Bethesda! Hi!”
    Oh, perfect,
Bethesda thought. “Hey, Pamela.”
    Pamela Preston, wearing an elaborate pink winter hat and high-fashion snow boots, waved merrily as she turned her bike into the parking lot and pulled up next to Bethesda. “Working on Melville, I bet,” she chirped.
    “Me, too!”
    Bethesda muttered, “Yeah,” and tried to muster a smile. She and Pamela had been close from the ages of seven to nine, when they lived near each other andwere both stars of the