Dial M for Mongoose by Bruce Hale

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    HARCOURT
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN HARCOURT
    Boston
•
New York
•
2009

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    Copyright © 2009 by Bruce Hale
    All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce
selections from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin
Harcourt Publishing Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York,
New York 10003.
    Harcourt is an imprint of
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
    www.hmhbooks.com
    Text set in Bembo
Display type set in Elroy
    Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hale, Bruce.
Dial M for mongoose / by Bruce Hale.
p. cm.—(A Chet Gecko mystery)
Summary: Fourth-grade detective Chet Gecko and his
associate Natalie Attired investigate a series of mishaps that
all seem to point to the school janitor.
[1. Geckos—Fiction. 2. Animals—Fiction. 3. Schools—Fiction. 4.
Janitors—Fiction. 5. Humorous stories. 6. Mystery and detective stories.] I. Title.
PZ7.H1295Di 2009
[Fic]—dc22
ISBN 978-0-15-205494-6
2009008398
    Manufactured in the United States of America
MP 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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    To MJ Wong, a true-blue Gecko supporter.

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A private message from the private eye...
    I wonder about things. Like, if corn oil comes from corn, where does baby oil come from? If people from Poland are called
Poles,
why aren't people from Holland called
Holes?
And why is it that writers write, but fingers don't
fing?
    That's what detectives do. We wonder. (Others wonder how I manage to stay in school, but that's a subject for another time.) I'm Chet Gecko, finest lizard detective at Emerson Hicky Elementary and two-time former yo-yo champion.
    Mr. Ratnose wishes I was even half as curious about schoolwork as I am about my cases. But you can't have everything. (And if you could, where would you put it?)
    Lately, I've been wondering more than usual. Especially about this: How well do you really know the folks you know?
    My investigations often show me the seamy underbelly of school life, but this case threw me for a loop. Folks I thought were the salt of the earth turned out to be the scum of the pond. And low-down punks turned out to be nice guys.
    It's enough to make a gecko give up detecting and start knitting doilies. (Just kidding. I can't knit.)
    But it took everything I had to tough out this case. Through fear and fire and thefts, I kept digging for the truth like a mole tunneling to Mumbai.
    And why? Loyalty, pure and simple.
    Someone was trying to put my mongoose janitor pal Maureen DeBree on ice. And a true-blue PI doesn't take that kind of monkey business lying down. (Standing up, maybe.)
    Against all odds, I followed the tangled trail of clues to a conclusion that was nuttier than a squirrel's sundae and riskier than a playdate in a piranha's swimming pool.
    But in the course of my investigation, one thing rang true: When you want your floors waxed, dial
M
for mongoose. But when you want danger, deception, and mysteries unraveled, dial
G
for Gecko.

1. The Big Stink
    You can't avoid it. No matter what, at some point in every school day, during that long, long stretch between lunch and freedom, time stands still. The great wheel grinds to a halt, the universe holds its breath, and the birds forget to sing.
    Everything stops.
    Except Mr. Ratnose's mouth.
    That drones on and on and on, explaining the layers of the earth's crust, the eight parts of a plant, the ten types of clouds, the workings of friction, the wonders of the water cycle, the principle of gravity, and the true, exact meaning of the phrase, "bored out of your ever-lovin' skull."
    This stretch of frozen time is also known as "science lesson."
    Nothing against science, but I'd rather investigate the mysteries of a case than the mysteries of molecules any day.
    Halfway through this one particular science lesson, I glanced at the clock. Sure enough, the minute hand hadn't budged for at least an Ice Age.
    Would this day never end?
    Then, from the nonstop
blah-blah-blah
at the front of the room, two