After a long anticipation, the hour of choir practice came at last. Students shuffled into their places on the stage. But Rhonda Lloyd had left her place in the back row to stand where Lila had been.
"Alright. Rhonda? Are you ready for your solo?" Mr. Simmons asked the girl with grave seriousness. Rhonda puffed up her chest.
"Of course, Mr. Simmons!" the girl declared with pride. "I was born ready for this part!"
"What happened to Lila?" Arnold puzzled out loud. Rhonda swiveled her head in his direction.
"Someone put Nadine's entire cockroach collection in her lunchbox! A despicable prank, really! The poor girl fainted dead away! She's still in the nurse's office recovering from her, 'trauma'," Rhonda explained while making air quotes.
"And you're going to do Lila's part?" Arnold inquired politely, trying not to sound too much like he was cross-examining her.
"Of course!" Rhonda declared without shame. "I can sing the lead role much better myself! I really have an exemplary voice! Even Park agrees with me!" Rhonda declared, smugly. "I said so at lunch!"
"Hm," Arnold said. He scrunched his neck down on his already short neck. The wheels in his head were turning. He turned to the girl standing on the chorus platform next to him. "Nadine? Can I have a word with you?"
"I guess!" the girl with dreadlocks agreed. She and Arnold hopped down off the performance platform. They rapidly returned.
"Sid? Stinky? Harold? I think we've found our man!" Arnold declared with calm fury. He knotted his fists at either side of his hips.
"Where?" Stinky Peterson said shading his eyes and squinting off into the distance. "Cause I ain't seen him!"
"Me neither!" Sid agreed, hopping up and down. Arnold was about to embark on a long explanation. But he was interrupted when the lights to the stage flickered out again. Moments after they turned on again, someone wearing a long black cape and a mask swung down on a rope. He landed beside Rhonda and offered her a long-stemmed red rose. Mr. Simmons fainted.
"Sing my pretty nightingale, sing!" the very familiar voice cried. Rhonda coiled back from the rose.
"Curly?!" she gaped. "I thought you were out sick!"
"Everyone else did, too!" Arnold said as Curly pulled off his white theatre mask. "I don't know how he did it, but he managed to make the whole school think he couldn't be here. But the one who actually wasn't here… the one he fooled everyone into thinking was coming to school this week… was Park!"
"Park?!" Rhonda gasped. "That doesn't make sense! He was standing right next to me last chorus practice! We all saw him!"
"Or did we?" asked Arnold. "Or was the person we really saw Curly with Park's shirt and not wearing his glasses? That's why Lila found his glasses and why they had to disappear! Curly must have dropped them on the stage along with a piece of his favorite flavored candy- licorice!"
"But if Park was really Curly all long," Stinky reasoned. "Why the heck would he pour paint on himself?"
"It was an accident," Arnold speculated. "To get to and from the light switch without being seen, he must have had to walk behind the scenery mural that was being painted. He must have tripped on a bucket of open paint by accident."
"Gosh. You sure are a keen detective, Arnold," Stinky Peterson observed.
"You are something impressive, my brother!" Gerald said. The two did the thumb shake thing again.
"Okay, okay, I did it!" Curly explained. "But you aren't going to squeal on me to Wolfgang are you?"
"Nah!" Gerald spoke up for Arnold as the two best friends smiled. "We won't tell Wolfgang! He'd beat the stuffing out of you! Besides, the guy sort of had it coming."
"Thanks, governor," Curly said. He shook both Arnold's and Gerald's hands. But Arnold held his hand fast.
"You really should apologize to Lila, though," the boy commented with sad thought.
"Alright, alright! Since you insist!" Curly caved in. Rhonda glared at the boy angrily.
"UGH! I can't believe you've been standing next to me, breathing over my neck this whole time!" Rhonda declared. "Well, no matter! I'm moving over there!" Rhonda said stomping off to the furthest section possible from where she and Curly had been standing earlier.
"But Rhonda, my dear!" Curly protested with manic fervor. Helga watched the boy dash off in pursuit of his crush.
"Heh. Well, all's well that ends well!" Helga said putting her pencil and notebook away. "Case is closed, huh Arnoldo?"
"Yeah! For now it is!" Arnold declared. They filed back into their appointed spots for chorus. Mr. Simmons woke up while Gerald was conducting. Then concerned students got him back up onto his feet and in his role teaching.
All of the students filed out of the room. That was, all except one. A single student still lurked about in the shadows of the stage. The lights of the theatre flickered on and off.
"Mwahaahaha!" a maniac voice cackled with glee. Curly Thaddeus Gammelthorpe wasn't tired of mischief yet. The end.
(OK, so calling this tale Park the Kid was kind of a misnomer. But I hope it had you fooled for an instant.)