Touchdown Tony Crowne and the Mystery of the Missing Cheerleader Read Free Page B

he thought, that would be too good for this guy. He’s given me nothing but misery since I met him. I think I’m gonna make fun of him like he did to me—
    “Ow! Ow, ow! Ow,ow,ow,ow, ow!” Tony yelled rapidly as he felt intense pain grip his right ear and he dropped Judd’s leg with a thud onto the hallway floor.
    “What is the meaning of all this?” Doris Dingledine, all four foot eleven inches of her, intoned in her deep and slightly operatic voice as she had Tony’s ear firmly in her grip. All the other students scattered like buckshot when she arrived on the scene because her reputation as a no-nonsense, hands-on enforcer had been passed along to each student from the preceding class. There was even the rumor that she once worked in an army tank factory tightening nuts with a wrench for eight hours a day and that’s how she got such force out of her relatively tiny arms and hands. There’s also the rumor that that’s how she got her big, booming voice. She had to be heard over the racket of the assembly line.
    Miss Dingledine, nobody called her Doris — even her boss Principal Walter Richmond never dared to call her Doris, was officially the Dersee Elementary school secretary. Unofficially, she was also the school disciplinarian, a role that Principal Richmond gladly let her assume because he didn’t like conflict, he wanted everything to move smoothly and when everything moved smoothly, Principal Richmond was pleased.
    “Well-l-l? I asked both of you boys a question and I expect an answer!” Miss Dingledine bellowed, as she stooped down, grasped Judd’s left ear and firmly lifted him onto his feet as if he weighed next to nothing.
    Judd, like Tony, also snapped off a series of protests, although he went for the more formal, “Ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch!”
    Miss Dingledine, oblivious to the fact that neither one could answer her question even if they wanted to, made a harrumphing sound, turned with each boy in tow like a giant windmill and marched them down to the school office area, her high heels clickety-clacking in between their ows and ouches.

Chapter 4- The Counselor
     
     
    Tisha Brady looked up from her desk and peered over her glasses as Miss Dingledine stuck her head around Tisha’s office door and asked whether she would have time to talk to two boys whom she had just caught fighting in the hallway.
    Tisha frowned, stroked her long brown hair out of her eyes and said, “Fighting? A fistfight?”
    “No, no, nothing like that, my dear. Let’s just say they were aggressively roughhousing until I stepped in and put an end to their tomfoolery. I’ve already leveled their punishment as you will notice by their reddened ears. But, I do think you should counsel them and discover what is at the root of their disagreement.”
    Tisha nodded a tentative okay and smiled nervously as Miss Dingledine smartly turned on her heels and went to get the boys, clickety-clacking down the hall. Tisha quickly glanced at her wristwatch and mentally calculated how much time she would have to counsel them before having to leave for the pee wee football cheerleader tryouts. Tisha Brady was also the head cheerleading coach and tonight would determine the final makeup of her squad. She sighed and muttered to herself, “Oh, I just can’t be late, not tonight, it’s too important!”
    Miss Dingledine herded the boys to Tisha’s office, rapped on the door twice, entered and introduced them to Tisha, “Miss Brady, this is Master Judd Judson and Master Tony Crowne the third,” enunciating with clarity and precision each syllable of her sentence as if she were an old-time stage actress rehearsing for a Shakespeare play. “They are all-l-l yours.” Miss Dingledine made a slight bow of her head, pivoted and clickety-clacked back to her desk in front of Principal Richmond’s office and promptly began shuffling papers.
    Tisha looked back and forth at the boys sitting across from her in the two visitor chairs, sizing