Monsters and Mischief by Dan Poblocki

everyone, then moved off to a private corner.
    “I’m glad you two are here,” Clea continued. “I was just telling the others about my new mystery club. We’re called the Question Troop.”
    “
The Question Troop
?” Viola said, turning red. “That’s almost exactly the same as —”
    “We heard all about it,” said Rosie, squeezing Viola’s shoulder. She forced herself to smile.
    “Oh, good,” said Clea with barely concealed pleasure. “Word is spreading. I suppose if anyone in our class needs help solving a mysterious occurrence, they’ll come straight to us.”
    “How nice for you,” said Viola, through gritted teeth.
    Rosie worried that things were starting to get ugly. She didn’t want to give Mrs. Glick a reason to expel anyone from the cast. “Did you guys figure out who stole your stuff yet, Clea?” Rosie asked.
    Clea glared at Viola. “We’re working on it. Closer and closer. Paul believes that it’s someone who’s good at being tricky, maybe even someone we know.” She plucked a piece of fuzz off her lapel and flicked it away. “If there’s somethingwe’ve all learned recently, it’s that the villain might be the person you’d never suspect. He might even be one of your closest friends.”
    Out in the hallway, someone started screaming. Clea’s eyes went wide, and even though she stood closest to the door, she froze and simply stared at it. But Viola sprang into action. She dashed forward, clutched the knob, and swung the door open.
    Evan Gleeson was huddled against the far wall. He was staring down the hallway, where the fluorescent lights had given out and darkness had taken over. He looked like he’d seen the Lady in Green herself. “What’s wrong?” Viola asked.
    At the sound of her voice, Evan snapped out of it. “T-Tall Ted,” he stammered. “I think I saw him down there in the dark. He limped away from me and went through the door to the boiler room.” Soon, the other boys in the cast crept up behind Evan, looking curious and a little shocked. “I knew I shouldn’t have taken one of those stones. He came to take it back from me!”
    “Shh,” Viola said. “We don’t want to scare him away.”
    “Scare
him
away?” said Evan.
    Viola felt someone push by her. Clea was walking steadily down the hall toward the boiler room door. “Come on, you guys. The Question Troop is on the case.”
    Rosie came up beside Viola. Glancing at each other, they didn’t have to speak to know that they weren’t going to let Clea beat them to the punch. They took off after her. Some of the cast followed.
    When they arrived at the boiler room, Clea slowly reached out to open the door. A musty smell crept out of the pitch-black room. If there was a light inside, no one knew where to find the switch. “Shoot,” said Viola. “I left my flashlight upstairs.”
    “Hello?” Clea called into the darkness. “Who’s in here?”
    For a few seconds, there was only silence. Then, to everyone’s surprise, a low growl echoed out into the hallway. The group froze as the sound grew louder and higher. A scraping sound moved around inside the veil of black. Rosie imagined toenails dragging on concrete.
    Someone in the group screamed. Someone else slammed the door. Then, like a flock of nervous birds moving all at once, the entire cast of
The Villain’s Web
raced back to the stairwell and up to the stage.
    Joey, the costume co-coordinator, found them crowded together backstage. Evan told Mrs. Glick what he’d seen. Mrs. Glick and Joey went down to explore, but they found nothing unusual.
    After the hubbub died down, Joey offered to escort the cast downstairs so they could collectthe costumes from the dressing rooms. Mrs. Glick promised everyone that they had only allowed their imaginations to get the best of them. When the cast made it back up to the stage, the director asked them to sit in a circle and take out their scripts.
    Clea’s friend Paul Gomez reached into his backpack, then let out