It was late at night at Lititz Heights Elementary. A staff meeting for the end of school carnival was going on. The African-American principal, Principal Ingram, decided to go to the bathroom while the staff discusses what should they serve for snacks. By the time he came out of the bathroom, he saw a group of circus clowns trashing the carnival with silly string and hankies. As the clowns were leaving, one of them left behind a business card that said "J.T.'s Circus Supplies."

XxoxX

In the morning, Kaylin was arriving in the classroom of Chelsea Blanch, who was Helen's mother. Inside, the children waved at Kaylin. Two of them were Leelanee and Kristi, Kaylin waved to them back.

"Class," said Mrs. Blanch, "this is Kaylin Hester. She'll be visiting us for the day."

"That's my big sister!" shouted Leelanee as she rose her hand.

"Good job, Leelanee," smiled Mrs. Blanch. "You raised your hand."

During the visit, she taught kids how to draw perfect roses, the importance of separating recyclables, and a few acting techniques. Then it was time for recess. As the children were rushing out to the playground, Mrs. Blanch stopped them. "I'm afraid there won't be recess today, kids," she sadly explained. "Someone just trashed the playground."

"That's okay," smiled Kaylin. "We can go to the gym and I can teach them a little ballet. Even boys can do it."

As they were all heading off to the gymnasium, they bumped into a very cute teacher. "That's Mr. Fitzrobert," Kristi explained, "our music teacher. He's been teaching us about circus music lately."

"He is kind of cute," Kaylin smiled as Mr. Fitzrobert looked at her back and smiled.

XxoxX

A few minutes later, Kaylin was wrapping up the pirouette basics when Principal Ingram came in with a shocked look on his face. Kaylin explained to them that this was a good way for them to beat the "No Recess Blues" like one of her uncle's favorite songs. Principal Ingram explained that he loved listening to blues music, and before he was the school principal, he was a local DJ. He decided to let her investigate the trashing of the playground.

He showed Kaylin the business card for JT's Circus Supplies. Kaylin took out a magnifying glass from her purse and saw that it had Russian fine prints. "Principal Ingram," she asked, "do you have any suspects?"

Principal Ingram explained, "There's our gym teacher Gechina Agüero, who was an acrobat in the circus before working at LH Elm; our visiting clowning instructor, Josie Timurovich, who had the same equipment that the clowns had when they attacked the playground; and Mr. Raymond Fitzrobert, who's currently involved in circus music."

"Not him," Kaylin replied in disbelief. "He's cute."

"If I learned anything from those 'James Bond' movies," Principal Ingram replied as he glared at Kaylin, "it's that looks can be deceiving."

Outside Lititz Heights Elementary, Kirby was noticing the silly string and the clown hankies. He decided to play a little blind man's buff with them.

XxoxX

Inside, the kindergartners were wrapping up recess when Kristi saw Kirby coming in. "Kirby," laughed Kristi, "you can't go around our school blindfolded. You'll break something."

Kaylin danced her way through to help the defenseless puffball. She grabbed him and removed his blindfold. Kirby got so dazzled by Kaylin's face, he hugged her. "Get back to class, children," Kaylin replied. "It's storytime with Mrs. Blanch. She's going to read you 'The Gingerbread Man'."

Kirby wanted to join, but Kaylin told them that they had to investigate what happened to the playground, much to Kirby's disappointment. Kaylin disguised herself as a lunch lady. She danced her way through the kitchen while looking for clues. Coach Agüero saw her routines and was impressed.

Kaylin saw the lunch lady's table to find some origami. Lucky for her, she was very good at it. She looked at the origami and realized something. "It's a map of the school," she replied.

"Nice job, Kaylin," stated a voice. It was Raymond. He came to have an early lunch before he went online shopping. Kaylin was wondering what he was shopping for. Raymond showed her a picture of a circus purse. He explained that he was going to buy his mom a circus purse for her birthday. He also told her that he was also fluent in Russian because he noticed a few Russian words on the map.

"Excuse me?" asked a woman in a Russian accent. "What are you doing here?"

Kaylin and Raymond were both wondering what Josie was doing here. She came to pick up a few silly strings. "What?" asked Kaylin.

"I mean," Josie nervously replied, "get my circus supplies, play a prank on Principal Ingram."

Kaylin and Raymond started to suspect that she was the culprit. Raymond got out some cotton candy to give Kaylin confidence. She and Kirby shared it and Kirby became UFO Kirby. He shot out lasers which made Josie dance like a circus clown. Her henchmen were watching her from a distance and thought she was doing "The Dance of the UFOs."

"You're a charmer," Kaylin smiled as Raymond blushed.

XxoxX

Later, Principal Ingram was wondering on how did Kaylin figured out the mystery. "Our first clue was the business card for JT's Circus Supplies," Kaylin explained. "First we thought that JT was a boy, but it turned out to be a woman."

"How did you know that Josie Timurovich was JT?" asked Principal Ingram.

"Because there was Russian writing in the fine print," explained Kaylin. " Also, in the cafeteria kitchen, I saw the map of the school in the origami form of a balloon octopus. The map also had Russian writing in it. That's when I knew that Josie was JT."

"I was once a student here at Lititz Heights Elm," explained Josie, "until I got expelled for pranking the school play of 'The Gingerbread Man'. I waited 20 years to get my revenge. All I needed is enough supplies and the recruitment of these clowns."

"Gee, boss," said a clown sadly. "Looks like we're going to need to do some time in jail."

XxoxX

The next day, Kaylin was coming home from the pet groomer with Little Miss Starlight when she saw her closest friends around for a special occasion. "Happy birthday, Kaylin!" they all shouted.

It was Kaylin's birthday today, and it was circus-themed in honor of the recent mystery. Fayth gave her a new pack of origami paper from her school store, Leah gave her the Teaching is Fun badge, Tania and Riley both gave her 3 fashion magazines they got on sale at the bookstore, and Paige and Estrella gave her a new dress with a harp on it. Rusty and Leelanee, on the other hand, had a special surprise for Kaylin.

Behind her was an African-American couple. "Mom! Dad!" Kaylin smiled as she hugged her parents.

"We thought we could visit you guys from Atlanta," explained Mrs. Hester. "My little bro finally had enough money to buy us airline tickets for Pennsylvania."

"Thank you, Uncle Rusty," Kaylin smiled. "This is the best birthday ever."

"And it's not over yet!" shouted Raymond, coming out of the house. He came in with a circus-themed container with a mixture of strawberries and cherries because he knew that nutrition was important. After Kaylin took a strawberry, Raymond kissed her.

The End