Shouldn't You Be in School?. Lemony Snicket

water,” I said.

      Moxie tasted again and smiled. “Watermelon.”

      Jake nodded. “Tomato-watermelon gazpacho. It’s what they serve in Spain when it gets too hot. And the stuff on the bread is a habanero pepper jam I made myself.”

      “I wish all mysteries were that easy,” I said.

      “And this delicious,” Moxie said.

      Jake told us thank you and we kept eating. The food made me feel better. Good food always does. For a few minutes I stopped worrying about Hangfire and schoolchildren and arson and the Department of Education. I wasn’t even worrying about Ellington Feint. I was just enjoying lunch, and my only worry was who was going to get the last piece of toast.

      I should have kept worrying, though, because when I stopped worrying about the case, somebody else solved it. They solved it incorrectly and dimwittedly and disastrously, which is to say they didn’t solve it at all. But solving a mystery is like naming a dog. If enough people call it one thing, that’s the name that tends to stick. I was savoring my last sip of soup when Hungry’s door swung open and the wrong solution to the mystery hurried in. It was S. Theodora Markson and she had a huge grin on her face, which was never good news. Sharon Haines was right behind her with a grin just as wide, and when Theodora waved to me, I saw that both women had matching freshly painted nails. The nails were wrong too. They were bright, bright yellow, brighter than anybody likes.

      “There you are!” Theodora sang out to me, in a voice as bright as the fingernails. I’d never heard her use that voice, and I didn’t like it.

      “Tell him the good news,” Sharon said, in a matching voice.

      “We have good news, Snicket,” Theodora said. “We’ve solved the case.”