In these two wisecracking, sidesplitting mysteries from Chet Gecko's tattered casebook, the fourth-grade detective and his punning mockingbird partner, Natalie Attired, keep the peace at Emerson Hicky Elementary. In the first, the two sleuths blow the lid off a cheating ring in Mr. Ratnose's classroom, and in the second, they track down the winning ticket for the biggest, chocolatiest, most gut-busting dessert ever, the Malted Falcon. Danger has never been so delicious! "Real quote tk."-- Publication tk BRUCE HALE is the author of Snoring Beauty, illustrated by Howard Fine, as well as the fifteen Chet Gecko mysteries. A popular speaker, teacher, and storyteller for children and adults, he lives in Santa Barbara, California. www.brucehale.com Cheat, Stink, and Be Hairy It was no use, no use. I had followed a lead as thin as a dragonfly wafer until it finally petered out here, in a blind alley. Swiveling my head right and left, I could tell- I was trapped. A whisper of fear tickled my neck. Then it hit me-foom! A shapeless something, heavier than a heartache, dropped onto my head and shoulders, dragging me down...down...when- "Chet Gecko?" A voice cut through the red darkness. "Are you with us?" said my teacher, Mr. Ratnose. What was he doing in the alley? My eyes blinked open. "Wuzza?" With a supreme effort, I raised my head. "If you can't stay awake, I'll have someone pinch you," he said. Several voices tittered. Mr. Ratnose's classroom swam into focus. Kids, chairs, chalkboards, and cream cheese-Bo Newt grinning, Shirley Chameleon simpering. I was back at my desk, at school, facing down Public School Enemy Number One: boredom. It was a humdrum morning at Emerson Hicky Elementary. You ask yourself, How dull can it get? Then you go to Mr. Ratnose's class, and you find out. The school newspaper on the corkboard said it all: BOREDOM EPIDEMIC FLATTENS SCHOOL. No duh. Mr. Ratnose shot me one last glare, then scrawled some numbers on the board. He claimed to be explaining fractions, but he might just as well have been describing his vacation in Left Armpit, Arizona. I longed for something, anything, to break the monotony. He turned with a flourish. "And now, time for history." Anything but that. But the lean rat had a surprise in store. He grabbed a stack of papers with one hand and thwacked them against his open palm. "They say, 'History repeats itself,'" said Mr. Ratnose. "But I sincerely hope yesterday's won't." Bewildered faces greeted his remark. Mr. Ratnose began pacing. "I'm referring, of course, to your grades on yesterday's history test. I am deeply disappointed in you." Igor Beaver, a teacher's pet's pet, raised his hand. "Wh-what do you mean, teacher?" he whined. "Did I get a bad grade?" Mr. Ratnose's whiskers bristled. "No, Igor," he said, keeping his voice even. "You got a good grade. In fact, far too many of you got a good grade." Igor gasped. "You mean...?" "I do. We've got cheaters!" Mr. Ratnose waved the stack of papers. "B-but how do you know?" asked Igor. "Because," our teacher snarled, "I added a dummy question." I thought, Giving a dummy question to these dummies is like sending snow to Eskimos. But I didn't say it. Mr. Ratnose looked like he was ready to take a bite out of our tests. "It was a trick question-none of you could've known the answer. But too many of you did." He tossed the offending tests onto his desk. His gaze raked the classroom. "Look at the student on your right." Igor and Cassandra the Stool Pigeon looked right. The rest of us stared at our teacher, beaming confusion like a country-western station beams corniness. "Look right!" snarled Mr. Ratnose. We looked. "Now look left." We looked again. Mr. Ratnose bared his yellowy teeth. "One out of three of you is a cheater." Cassandra raised her wing tip. "You mean, one-third of the class?" Say what you will about the dame, she understood fractions. "Exactly," said Mr. Ratnose. "And do you know what this means?" Several students shook their heads. "You're all taking the test again-right now." The groan that followed could've been heard as far as Zanzibar. Given a choice between boredom and torture, I'll take boredom any day. But we had no choice. Igor and two other kids passed out the tests. I scanned mine. It was the same one we took yesterday. And I didn't remember any more answers than I had the first time. While we sweated through multiple-choice madness, Mr. Ratnose patrolled the aisles, hairless pink tail dragging behind him. Suddenly, he stopped. "Hmm?" Mr. Ratnose bent and plucked a sheet of paper from the floor, beside Shirley Chameleon's desk. His forehead furrowed like a mole's front yard. "Miss Chameleon, what is the meaning of this?" he said. "Of what?" she asked. Shirley watched our teacher with one eye, while the other one shot me a worried glance. It's gross, but you get that from chameleons. Brandishing the paper