The Big Mistake Club, Part 8: The Class Photo Without the Class

The Big Mistake Club, Part 8: The Class Photo Without the Class

The Story Begins

That morning, Class 3.B smelled of hair spray, clean T-shirts, and a little nervousness.

“Please, nobody spill juice on a sleeve right now,” said Miss Benková, adjusting her dark green sweater. “In ten minutes, we have our class photo.”

Adam straightened his red hoodie and stood in front of his desk like a ship’s captain.

“Great! When the photographer comes, we’ll line up by height, then by—actually, first by who has the cleanest shoes. No, alphabetically. Or we could make a lightning-bolt shape!”

Ela looked at his sneakers through her round purple glasses.

“A lightning-bolt shape is useful if a weather reporter is taking the picture.”

Samo carefully smoothed his yellow T-shirt beneath his blue shirt.

“What if the photographer catches lightning?” he asked. “Should I look surprised already?”

Before anyone could answer, a man appeared at the door with a large black case and a camera around his neck.

“Good morning. I’m here for 3.B,” said the photographer.

Miss Benková smiled, then looked around the room. Her smile became just a little smaller.

In the classroom stood Adam, Ela, Samo, Miss Benková, and a row of empty desks.

“Where is everyone else?” Adam whispered.

A few jackets hung on the hooks. A forgotten crayon lay on the floor. The curtain by the window swayed. But there were no children anywhere.

“They were here a moment ago,” said Miss Benková calmly. “Someone went for a comb, someone said they were going to the toilet, someone was looking for a lost name tag… And now we have about seven minutes.”

The photographer looked at his watch.

“Then I’m off to photograph the second graders,” he added kindly.

A look appeared on Adam’s face that Ela knew well. It was the look of someone who had just had an idea faster than his own feet.

“The Big Mistake Club is on the case!” he announced. “We’ll divide the school into four search zones. Zone A: the corridors. Zone B: the dining hall. Zone C: all secret places. Zone D: places we don’t know yet, but definitely exist!”

“Those aren’t zones,” said Ela. “That’s panic with letters.”

A crumpled note lay on the nearest desk. Ela picked it up. It showed a little circle with a line above it, and underneath were the words: EVERYONE HERE WHEN THE BELL RINGS.

“Aha,” said Samo. “We need to find the bell.”

“First we find the class,” Adam declared. “I mean the children. I mean the bell with the children. Ela, go to the library, or the dining hall if the library doesn’t have any children. Samo, you…”

“I’ll look for the ones who don’t want to be found,” Samo finished firmly.

Before Adam could correct his own sentence, the curly-haired boy dashed down the corridor.

“I didn’t say that!” Adam called after him.

“You almost did!” came a voice from around the corner.

Ela read the note once more.

“That line on top may not be an arrow,” she muttered. “And maybe it doesn’t point north, southwest, or towards the cloakroom either.”

Adam was already heading for the stairs.

“All right, the search begins! I’ll take the upper floor, you take the lower floor, and when we meet in the middle, we’ll have half the class! Or just the middle.”

The corridors produced strange answers. Adam shouted, “Nina!” and the school cook came out of the art room carrying a bowl of apples.

“Nina isn’t here,” she said. “But I found her hair tie.”

When Things Start to Change

“That’s a clue!” Adam said happily.

“That’s a hair tie,” Ela corrected him, catching up with him.

Meanwhile, Samo peeped into the office. Very seriously, he knelt beside the deputy head’s desk and looked underneath it.

“Excuse me,” he said. “Have you seen the school bell?”

“Not the one for break time?” asked the deputy head.

“If it can call our class, I’ll take it.”

Near the dining hall, he found a metal bell by the serving hatch. But that bell rang whenever the dumplings were ready.

“This one might work,” Samo admitted. “But the fifth graders would probably come too.”

By the gym, he found a large wall bell. He reached for it, but Adam and Ela came running up behind him, out of breath.

“Not that one!” Ela said. “If you ring the whole timetable, we’ll have a school parade instead of a class photo.”

The boy pulled his hand back.

“So the bell has to be smaller?”

“And ours,” said Ela.

She took out the crumpled note again. This time she held it up to the light by the window. The circle with the line was not an arrow. It was a tiny bell.

“It’s a symbol,” she said. “Not a direction.”

Adam stopped so suddenly that his sneakers squeaked.

“So the note doesn’t say where they went. It says they’re waiting until the bell rings.”

“And where are they waiting?” Samo asked.

Ela pointed to the floor.

Tiny scraps of paper lay between the tiles. One had a pink corner, another a blue stripe. They looked like cut-off pieces of class name tags.

“Someone dropped them along the way,” she said.

“A treasure map!” Adam burst out.

“Treasure usually has fewer streaks of glue,” Ela replied.

The paper trail led past the notice board, through a quiet corridor, and finally to the library. Adam opened the door as carefully as if a bear were sleeping inside.

Instead of a bear, six classmates sat there. They were lined up at a long table, with hands on their knees and backs as straight as rulers.

“What are you doing here?” Adam whispered.

Nina raised a finger.

“We’re waiting for the photo.”

“In the library?”

“Tomáš said you need to sit straight and not move for a photo,” Nina explained. “So we found a quiet place to practise.”

Tomáš nodded.

“Then someone said we should wait until the bell rings.”

Samo smiled happily.

“So I was right about the bell!”

“You were right about the shape,” Ela said. “Just not the building.”

The other children laughed, but the librarian put a finger to her lips. Their laughter turned into quiet snorts and shaking shoulders.

Just then Miss Benková appeared in the doorway. She did not look angry. She looked more like someone who had been watching a detective story and was waiting to see whether the heroes found the right key.

“We have four minutes,” she said.

Adam went pale.

“Only four? That’s less than five!”

“Excellent observation,” said Miss Benková, nodding. Then she looked at the note in Ela’s hands. “Do you remember how your class calls everyone together when, after a trip, you all run off to different benches at once?”

The children looked at one another.

“We have a signal,” said Nina.

“Actually, three,” added Tomáš. “The bell, waving, and a sentence.”

Adam’s eyes lit up.

“Yes! The little class bell is in the cupboard by the map!”

“By the map, not under it?” Samo checked.

“By it,” said Ela. “Thank you for being precise. Now run.”

Soon they were standing in the corridor outside the library. Samo held the little brass bell he had found exactly where Ela said it would be. Adam waved both arms above his head as if he were trying to land an aeroplane.

An Important Moment

“Ready?” he asked.

“Not too loudly near the library,” Ela warned.

“Then I’ll be just loud enough.”

Samo rang the bell. Ding-ding-ding!

Adam made big circles with his arms.

Ela took a breath and called calmly, “Attention, 3.B! Whoever comes last must explain why they are last!”

That was their class saying. It had begun long ago, after everyone got lost behind the bushes on their way back from the playground, even though there had only been two bushes.

At first, nothing happened.

Then a voice called from behind the stairs, “That sounds like a snack alarm!”

Laughter followed. Jurko ran out of the gym with his indoor shoes in his hands. Lea came from the cloakroom, still buttoning her sweater. Two classmates appeared from the corridor by the dining hall with perfectly clean hands and very wet sleeves.

“We thought the photo was after washing!” they called.

“It is before washing too!” Adam replied. “I mean, it is now!”

Ding-ding-ding!

Laughter echoed through the school as children came from all directions. Some carried books, others a comb, and one girl still held her paper name tag so it would not fly away. Samo showed the bell to everyone as if he had found a rare treasure.

The photographer was waiting by the notice board. When he saw the cheerful swarm of third graders, he took a step back.

“So this is 3.B?” he asked.

“Mostly,” said Miss Benková.

Adam tried to give orders again. “Small ones in front, tall ones at the back, blue ones to the side—no, not blue ones, but—”

Ela put a hand on his sleeve.

“Look.”

Everyone was a little mixed up. Nina stood beside Tomáš, although they usually argued over the seat by the window. Jurko held a book, Lea a comb, and Samo the bell. But no one was missing anymore.

“They’re not in the right order,” Ela said softly. Then she smiled. “But they’re in the right place: together.”

The photographer raised his camera.

“Smile!”

Just then Samo’s bell rang again because it slipped from his hand.

The whole class burst out laughing.

Click!

The photo was taken.

Later, Adam, Ela, and Samo sat at their desk. The club notebook lay open between them. Adam held the pencil, Ela dictated, and Samo checked that the bell was safely placed away from the notebook.

“Write this,” said Ela. “When the class gets lost…”

“…let laughter help you look,” Samo added.

Adam wrote the sentence in large letters. Then he drew a little bell beneath it, which looked rather like a potato with a handle.

Miss Benková stopped by them for a moment.

“That photo won’t be perfectly neat,” she said.

“That’s all right,” Adam replied. “At least it will be true.”

Just then, a soft clink sounded in the corridor. Samo quickly lifted his head.

“Was that my bell?”

“No,” said Ela. “That was someone’s cutlery in the dining hall.”

The boy listened for a moment.

“All right. But if the class gets lost again, I’m ready.”