Randi rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on! It’s not such a big deal. I was just goofing on you yesterday. Can you blame me, after that art show story you gave me? Of course I know who you are. I’m a journalist, right? I read the River Heights papers every day. I’ve seen your name and picture.”
“Have you told this to anyone else?” asked Nancy.
“No,” replied Randi. “A good journalist doesn’t go around blabbing about her biggest story before she’s even written it. So tell me, what are you really doing here?”
“I can’t tell you. But I will when it’s over,” Nancy promised. “As long as you keep quiet about it now.”
“Deal,” Randi agreed.
Nancy groaned inwardly as she walked away. A reporter on the trail of a hot scoop was the last thing she needed. She just hoped Randi kept her word.
For the next couple of hours Nancy was too busy helping bewildered sophomores understand the mysteries of past participles to give any thought to her case. When she ushered her last student out the door, she returned to her desk to do some quiet thinking.
Could she eliminate Randi as a suspect? She was inclined to say yes. Yet one thing still bothered her. Randi had been the only one near the newspaper office when the threatening message was sent.
“Hey, I can practically see the wheels going around!” Victor said, interrupting her thoughts. He was standing in the doorway, grinning at her. “Do you know you have steam coming out of your ears?”
Nancy gave a laugh. “Hi, Victor,” she said, in a tone of resignation.
“Wow, what enthusiasm!” he replied, falling into the chair across from her. “You looked a lot more lively when I saw you down in the faculty lounge. Maybe you need to drink more coffee.”
“Maybe I need to do less tutoring,” retorted Nancy. “By the way, what were you doing in the faculty lounge?”
“Uh-oh, she’s starting to pull rank on me,” he teased. “I had a right to be there. I was picking up something for one of my teachers.”
Nancy sat up straighter. “Oh? What? For whom?”
He opened his eyes wide. “ ‘For whom,’ ” he repeated. “Golly, if I keep hanging around with you, can I learn to talk like that? Or am I a hopeless case?”
“You’re the one who said it, not me,” Nancy replied, with mock sternness. “But seriously, how about answering my question?”
“About the package? Sure. Mr. Parley, my physics teacher, ordered some reprints of an article, and he asked me to get them from his mailbox and bring them to the lab for him. Why?”
Victor’s story could easily be checked, so easily that Nancy doubted he would have told it if it weren’t true. Still, that didn’t mean that the reprints were the only thing he had picked up in the mailroom.
“You didn’t notice a brown envelope, about this big, did you?” she asked, indicating the size with her hands. “Someone was supposed to leave it for me, but it hasn’t turned up.”
“Nope,” he replied, shaking his head. “But I wasn’t really paying attention. I was too busy plotting my next exploit.”
Nancy raised an eyebrow. “And what’s that?”
“Just imagine,” he said, leaning closer. “Tomorrow morning, at the beginning of first period, a cartoon of the headmaster’s face appears on the screen of every terminal in the school.”
“Victor—” Nancy began.
He held up his hand. “Wait, I’m not done. The eyes look one way, then the other. Then, just when everybody is getting spooked, he puts his thumbs in his ears, wiggles his fingers, sticks out his tongue, and makes a really rude noise!”
Nancy laughed in spite of herself. “You won’t really do it, will you?” she asked. “You’d get yourself expelled!”
“I know,” he said with a sigh. “I have to face it—I’m chicken.”
Nancy sat back and studied him a moment. She couldn’t think of anyone who made her laugh as often as Victor did. She was growing to like him and had to admit that she found him very attractive. But if he was guilty, Nancy couldn’t afford to be blinded by his charm.