Carl Hiaasen 4-Book Collection by Carl Hiaasen

Author:Carl Hiaasen [Hiaasen, Carl]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-553-51080-5
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2014-05-27T00:00:00+00:00

Dr. Dressler was hopeful but perplexed.

After the assembly, he’d received a call from the fire lieutenant, who reported that Bunny Starch’s blue Prius was gone at daybreak when the crews had returned to the Black Vine Swamp. The lieutenant surmised that, sometime during the night, Mrs. Starch had found her way back to her car.

That theory was bolstered by the information from Libby Marshall, who’d burst into Dr. Dressler’s office and blurted the story of her asthma inhaler so breathlessly that he feared she might need to use it.

The facts strongly suggested that Mrs. Starch was alive and had safely exited the wilderness. How else would Libby’s lost medicine have been delivered to her front porch?

What nagged at Dr. Dressler was this: Nobody had seen or spoken to the biology teacher.

She hadn’t shown up for classes that morning, which, given the circumstances, was excusable—yet she hadn’t even called to say she’d be absent. That was a violation of the Truman faculty attendance policy, and nobody was a bigger stickler for school rules than Mrs. Starch.

In eighteen years she’d missed only one day of teaching, when she accidentally rolled her car while swerving to avoid a rabbit on the way to school. She’d borrowed the ambulance driver’s radio to call in sick, and the next day she had returned to Truman with a plaster cast on one arm, a patch over one eye, and two metal pins in her collarbone.

After Libby left his office, Dr. Dressler immediately tried calling Mrs. Starch’s cell phone … and calling and calling and calling. Then he phoned her house—no answer there, either. It was baffling.

Dr. Dressler reluctantly agreed that the sheriff’s deputies should go ahead and interview the students. Technically, at least, Bunny Starch was still a missing person.

* * *

After speaking with Libby, Nick and Marta expected Mrs. Starch to be waiting with a pencil twirling in biology class. They were surprised to see Miss Moffitt sitting at Mrs. Starch’s desk, and even more surprised when a sheriff’s deputy poked his head in the doorway and asked for Duane Scrod Jr.

Miss Moffitt said, “Duane’s absent today.”

“All right.” The deputy scanned his clipboard. “How about Graham Carson?”

Graham eagerly raised his hand, and the deputy motioned for him to come along. Graham was beaming self-importantly as he marched from the room.

“I don’t get it,” Marta murmured to Nick. “What’s with the cops? Don’t they know the old bird is okay?”

Nick was mystified as well. If Mrs. Starch was safe, why were the deputies hanging around and asking questions?

Another uniformed officer entered the classroom and called Marta’s name. Her eyes widened and she looked fretfully at Nick.

He said, “No big deal. Just tell ’em what you know.”

After a few minutes Marta returned and, looking annoyed, plopped down at her desk. “I told him Mrs. Starch was all right, but he just kept on asking me more stuff.”

“Like what?” Nick said.

“No talking, please!” It was Miss Moffitt. Sternly she pointed at the blackboard, upon which she had chalked the words “Reread Chapter 8.

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