Red Crisis: Chapter Three

“Oh, girls!”

Cecilia and Lisa turned to see Timothy the janitor jogging towards them. It was Friday afternoon, and they were on their way to the cafeteria for lunch break.

“Hi Tim, what’s up?” Cecilia greeted.

Tim’s face was red as a beat. He held a pile of envelopes in his right hand. Running his fingers through his hair, he leaned back to stretch. “Oww, I’m too old for this,” he groaned. He straightened and pointed at the mail in his hand. “Sorry to interrupt your break, but I need someone to bring these letters to Mr. Dover. I’d bring them to him myself, but the water pipe in the heater room is leaking and I’m going to have a flood on my hands if I don’t get back right now.”

Lisa grimaced and glanced at Cecelia. Mr. Dover’s barrage on the de-schooled girl hadn’t stopped since Monday, and Cecelia knew Lisa was getting upset by it. Still, she nodded and gave Cecilia the signal for an okay.

“Sure, we’ll do it.” Cecelia took the letters from Tim with a smile. “Sorry about the water, hope you can fix the pipe.”

“Thanks, Cecilia.” Timothy sighed and wiped his forehead. “Helps me more than you know. Catch you two later.”

“Sure thing Tim, see you later!” she reassured him.

Timothy waved to them and took off down the hall.

“He’s real nice,” Lisa commented.

“Oh he is,” Cecilia replied. She handed Lisa the letters and gestured for her to take the lead. “Well, let’s go find Mr. Dover.”

Lisa sighed and shook her head. “He really had it in for me today, didn’t he?”

“Yeah, I’m not sure what his problem is. It’s obvious you’re a good student, you‘ve kept up with the rest of us.”

They meandered their way down the hallway, neither one eager to find him. Who knew what kind of mood he’d be in right now- the entire week hadn’t been very good.

“Maybe he just wants to prove de-schooled kids aren’t as good as public school kids are,” Lisa mused. “And it’s driving him crazy that I’m keeping up with you.”

“Whatever the reason, I don’t like it. It’s not fair to treat you the way he’s treating you.”

Lisa smiled at Cecilia. “Thanks Cecilia. I’m sure we’ll get to the bottom of it soon.”

At that second one of the letters fell out of her hand. Cecilia stopped to scoop it up. She happened to glance at the label-- and froze. Cecilia read it over again, then shook her head.

“Lisa,” she began. “Look at who this is addressed to.”

Lisa peered over her shoulder and studied the envelope. “D. Diatchenko,” she read aloud. “Huh, guess Mr. Dover got his mail mixed up with someone else’s in the school.”
“Lisa. There is no Mr. Diatchenko.”

She stared at Cecilia. “What?”

“There is no Mr. Diatchenko at this school,” Cecilia repeated. “We don’t have a Diatchenko. I would know, I’ve been in junior high for two years.”

“But, but this letter it addressed to a D. Diatchenko,” Lisa stammered. “Maybe they got the wrong school.”

Cecilia snatched the letter out of her hands and stared at the address. “I don’t think so. You know how Mr. Dover teaches the government and economic studies?”

“Yeah.”

“Look, it’s clearly written to a D. Diatchenko, Westview School, Government and Economics Department. That’s Mr. Dover’s department!”

“It must be a mistake.” Lisa shrugged.

“I don’t think so Lisa.” Cecilia was getting excited. “What if, what if Mr. Dover has a secret past and he’s actually a bad guy?”

“Maybe they got the name wrong?”

“Lisa!” Cecilia protested, putting her hands on her hips. “Don’t be so pessimistic. I think we got a real mystery on our hands!”

“I think we have a mistake,” Lisa replied firmly. “It happens all the time. And besides, what bad guy would be dumb enough to let a slip up like that happen? It would give away his whole operation!”

“Lisa, listen. There’s only one person here who has those initials, D.D.”

“Oh, and who is that?”

“Dan Dover.”

“Cecilia I think it’s a coincidence,” Lisa insisted, though Cecilia thought she detected a bit of hesitation. “Like I said, it would be really weird if a bad guy would make such a huge mistake. I think it’s just, well...” She paused, then pointed out, “Besides, that’s a serious accusation to make, saying someone is a bad guy and a fraud. I don’t like the guy and all, but I’m not really inclined to go spouting things off that we don’t know.”

“What if that's his real name, though!”

“Cecilia, I think you’re getting excited over nothing.”

“But Lisa! What if it’s true, that D. Diatchenko is his real name! And what if, just maybe, he’s got a record?”

“Cecilia!” Lisa exclaimed, exasperated. “Why on earth would a criminal with a record change his name and become a junior high school teacher?”

“To observe the kids and kidnap one of them because they’re from a rich family!”

Lisa bit her lower lip. “Okay, that’s a good reason. But it’s still far-fetched.” She sighed and glanced at the clock in the hall. “We’re missing lunch.”

“This has to be solved.”

“How do you propose doin’ it?”

Cecilia scratched her head, deep in thought. How did one go about proving someone was a fraud, and a potential kidnapper at that?

“Well, uh…any ideas?”

“Okay, how about this. If you really want to find out if he’s a bad guy, we can test him.”

“What kind of test?”

“If he’s really busy, we’ll walk in and say, ‘here’s your mail Mr. Diatchenko,’ and if he ignores us than we’ll know that’s not his name. But if he takes it we’ll know that is his name.”

“Wait a second!” Cecilia said. “If he’s a really smart bad guy, then he’ll ignore us so we don’t know that’s his real name!”

“Oh well, Cecilia. We’ll just have to give it a try,” Lisa responded.

They continued down the hall towards Mr. Dover’s classroom. Cecilia and Lisa both grew quiet, wondering what on earth this strange name mix up was about.

What if it works? Cecilia thought. Then what?

The two girls stopped at Mr. Dover’s classroom and peeked in.

“He’s there,” Lisa whispered.

Now came the hard part.

Taking deep breaths, they glanced at each other and walked into the classroom, Cecilia in the front. Marching up to the desk, she announced, “Here’s your mail Mr. Diatchenko. Timothy told us to give it to you.”

Mr. Dover didn’t even look up, he put his hand out for the mail. “Thank you,” he snapped. “Now please leave, I’m in the middle of some paperwork.”

With trembling hands Lisa handed him the mail and turned to walk out of the room. Just as they reached the door though, Mr. Dover suddenly called out, “Wait a second, girls.”

They whirled to face him. Cecilia tried to wipe the look of guilt off her face.

Mr. Dover stared at them, his brown eyes searching theirs. His lips pursed and his eyebrows furrowed. “What did you say?”

“What?” Lisa asked, confused.

“You came into the room and said something. What did you say?”
“I said, ‘here’s your mail Mr. Dover,” Cecilia replied with a fake smile.

He raised an eyebrow and studied her closely. Cecilia held her breath, and Lisa paled.

“Very well,” he said at long last. “You make go now.”

They nodded and left the classroom, walking as fast as they could down the hall. Once around the corner they broke into a run, not stopping until they reached the lunch room.

Scooting into some chairs in the corner of the room where they couldn’t be heard, the friends turned to face each other. Lisa’s eyes were wide, and Cecilia knew she was as nervous as herself.

“He fell for it!” Cecilia cried. “He fell for it! His name has got to be Mr. Diatchenko.”

“That could have been a coincidence,” Lisa offered sheepishly.

Cecilia rolled her eyes and shot back, “That didn’t look like a coincidence to me! Did you see the way he looked at us? He realized he’d fallen for our trick!”

“He was pretty busy, he might have not been listening.”

“Lisa, we’re on the brink of an adventure and you’re hanging back like a chicken!” Cecilia exclaimed. “I thought you were a great adventurer!”

“I’m always ready to solve a mystery Cecilia. But this is different. What if you’re wrong? What would that do to Mr. Dover’s reputation?”

Cecilia opened her mouth to reply, then stopped short. Lisa did have a point there. “What now, then?”

Lisa looked her straight in the eye, her face firm and determined. “I’ll tell you what. We need more proof. I’m not about to go blaring off to the police about some spy if we don’t have proof.”

Now it was Cecilia’s turn to be frustrated. “Oh yeah, great idea. How do you think we’re going to do that? Search his desk when he’s not there for some super secret spy papers? He could walk in at any minute and we’d be caught!”

Her friend brushed a strand of hair from her face and grinned. “That’s exactly what we’re going to do.”