The Case of the Bug on the Run by Martha Freeman Page B

the second floor without anybody questioning him.”
    â€œHe also wanted to take pictures of James Madison yesterday afternoon,” Tessa said. “But what’s his motive?”
    â€œSomething to do with that drone project he’s working on?” I said, and I was going to go on, but Nate shushed me. Mrs. Verity and Lily were coming down the hall. The second Lily spotted Tessa, she ran for her full-speed.
    â€œWhat you doing?” Lily wanted to know.
    â€œMaking pictures,” Tessa said.
    â€œCan I hep?” Lily asked. “Pee-eeze?”
    â€œSure,” Tessa said.
    Lily took her mom’s hand. “We go get paint.”
    â€œPaint? We don’t have any paint,” Mrs. Verity said.
    â€œYeah, we do, Mommy. I show you.” Lily took her mom’s hand and tugged her back down the hall.
    Mrs. Verity looked over her shoulder at us and smiled. “Be right back.”
    â€œSo what’s the plan? What do we do next?” Nate asked.
    â€œInterview Mr. Schott,” I said.
    â€œWhat about Mr. Lozana?” said Tessa.
    I shook my head. “Not this again. I know you think he has a motive, Tessa. But Courtney’s my best friend! And anyway, he wasn’t in the White House last night.”
    â€œActually, he was.” Tessa pointed at the newspaper on the table. It was the one with the photo of Fluffy on the front page, and now I noticed something for the first time—the lunch ladies and other people behind Fluffy. One of them was Mr. Lozana.
    â€œWhat’s he doing there?” Nate asked. “He wasn’t invited to the dinner.”
    â€œI’m sure there’s a perfectly good explanation,” I said.
    â€œUnh-hunh,” said Tessa.
    â€œAnd besides,” I said, “Mr. Schott is staying here in the White House. He’s easier to interview.”
    Tessa frowned. “But I don’t like him.”
    â€œTessa,” I said, “since when did we ever solve a mystery interviewing only people we like?”
    Tessa by now was lettering her second flyer. “You’re right. So next let’s interview Courtney.”
    â€œThanks a lot!” I said, ready to defend my friend, but Lily and her mom were coming back.
    â€œIt turned out my daughter meant nail polish when she said paint.” Mrs. Verity smiled. “I told her it doesn’t work well on paper, and besides, the bottle’s almost empty.”
    Lily climbed onto Tessa’s lap. Tessa said, “Do you want to do the stickers?”
    â€œYes, peeze,” said Lily.
    â€œDo you kids mind if I leave her with you for a few minutes?” Mrs. Verity asked. “I need to track down my husband.”
    â€œSure, we’ll watch her,” Tessa said.
    â€œThanks a billion,” said Mrs. Verity. “Be good, Lily.”
    When Mrs. Verity was gone, Nate frowned. “Now we can’t talk about you know what.”
    â€œYeah, we can,” said Tessa. “Little kids don’t understand that much. Do you, Lily?”
    Lily was unsticking a skeleton from a sheet of leftover Halloween stickers. “Nope,” she said.
    â€œIn that case, what about physical evidence?” Nate asked. “You know—clues like fingerprints on the cockroach tank.”
    â€œThey’d be all mixed up and smudged,” I said. “We didn’t know to be careful till it was too late.”
    I had finished three flyers by now. I was getting more paper when a terrible and familiar noise—
“Awh-roohr!”
—made all of us jump and look at each other.
    Someone had breached cockroach security. The Hooligan alarm was sounding!

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
    I covered the distance from the West Sitting Hall to our bedroom in record time. When I got there, the door was open and the dog was howling.
    But whoever had tripped the alarm was gone.
    â€œGood puppy—you can turn it off now!” I ran past Hooligan to check the tank.