First Day, Worst Day by Franklin W. Dixon

Author:Franklin W. Dixon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aladdin

5

Jumping to Conclusions

The dodgeball game broke up a few minutes later when the bell rang. Joe was happy. He couldn’t wait to tell Frank and Chet what he’d discovered.

“You guys!” Joe motioned them away from the other kids. He quickly told them about the W on the bottom of Brad’s shoe.

Chet was nodding quickly. “That makes sense!” he said excitedly. “Last year Ms. Vaughn had a contest to see who could design the best fire safety poster. Brad was only in first grade, but he won. He got these fire prevention stickers as a prize and put them all over his bike.”

“Maybe Brad pulled the alarm so that he could see real firefighters in action,” Joe said eagerly.

“Maybe,” Frank said. “Let’s talk to him after school.”

“This might be the easiest mystery we’ve solved yet!” Joe said happily.

But Joe’s good mood didn’t last long. When he got in line with his class, Malcolm and Kevin took two big steps away from him.

“I don’t want to stand next to the tattletale,” Kevin said.

“Me neither,” Malcolm said.

Joe shoved his hands in his pockets and walked to class by himself.

Tony was sitting at his desk when the other kids came into Mrs. Adair’s room. He had his arms crossed, and he was frowning.

Joe stopped next to his desk. “What’s the matter, Tony?”

“The Time Out room,” Tony said. “You can’t talk in there. You can’t even breathe loudly. And you definitely don’t get to play dodgeball.”

“Don’t worry,” Joe told him. “I think the Clues Brothers are about to crack the case.”

Tony’s eyes opened wide. “Already?”

Joe nodded confidently. “Ms. Vaughn should know you didn’t pull the fire alarm today after school.”

Tony smiled a little. “That’s great!”

• • •

“Brad, wait up!” Joe yelled across the playground after school.

Brad turned around. He looked surprised when he saw Joe, Frank, Chet, and Tony hurrying toward him.

“What’s up?” Brad asked.

“You pulled the fire alarm this morning,” Tony blurted out. “And I got in trouble for it.”

“I didn’t pull the alarm,” Brad said.

“But we found a footprint under the alarm,” Chet said. “Your footprint.”

Brad looked down at his feet and shrugged. “I was looking at the fire alarm,” he admitted. “But it was after the alarm had already gone off—during lunch.”

Tony frowned. “Can you prove that?”

“Sure,” Brad said. “First of all, you can ask my teacher if I left my classroom at all this morning. She’ll tell you I didn’t. Then you can ask Malcolm whether I looked at the fire alarm during lunch. He was with me.”

Tony’s shoulders slumped.

“Okay,” Frank agreed. “We’ll do that.”

Brad looked at the other boys. “Any other questions?”

“No,” Joe said. “I’m sorry we blamed you. I guessed we jumped to conclusions.”

“That’s okay,” Brad said. “I hope you find out who pulled the alarm. Whoever it is deserves to get in trouble. False alarms are really dangerous.”

“They are?” Chet asked. “How can fighting a fire be dangerous when there’s no fire?”

“It would have been dangerous if there had been a fire somewhere else,” Brad said. “There might not have been enough firefighters to go to the real fire.

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