I was the last person in the orchestra room.
Everyone else had already packed up and left for the weekend. I stayed behind because I had to tune my violin. It had been acting weird all week. Squeaky, out of tune, just off.
Mr. Thompson, our Orchestra teacher, popped his head in. “Lock up when you’re done, Mila,” he said, tossing me the key.
“Got it!” I replied, proud that he had trusted me.
The moment the door shut, I walked over to my case, opened it, and froze.
It was empty.
My violin–gone.
I blinked. Looked around. Checked under the chair. The shelves. Behind the music stands. Nothing. I even crawled under the risers. Just dust and a rogue granola bar wrapper. And a weird picture of the cello section? Man, these guys were weird.
This couldn’t be real. Violins don’t just vanish. Sure, they dance the night away, but they surely don’t disappear like that.
Unless someone took it.
I locked the door as Mr. Thompson asked, then pulled out my notebook. Yeah, I keep a mystery notebook. Don’t judge. It’s just something I do. I look around. My mom forces me actually …
Case #12: The Vanishing Violin
I wrote down my suspects:
- Trinity – First chair. Super competitive. Always side-eyes me when I play.
- James – Plays cello, but borrows stuff from everyone. Also, he once stole my rosin and said it was an “accident.” I wonder when I’m gonna get it back?
- Mr. Thompson – I mean … Teachers can be weird? I think?
I went straight to the camera above the whiteboard. But guess what? A sticky note covered it with a green smiley face. Someone planned this.
Monday morning, I got to school early and waited outside the Orchestra room. Mr Thompson arrived 5 minutes late, holding a blueberry muffin and humming.
“Hey, Mr. T,” I said casually. “You see my violin anywhere?”
He blinked. “You lost it?”
“I didn’t lose it. It disappeared. There was a sticky note over the camera.”
His eyebrows shot up. “You sure?”
We both walked inside. Still no violin.
But then I saw it.
A string. Sticking out of Trinity’s case.
I went over, pretending to drop my pencil, then peeked inside. There it was. My violin with a pink glitter sticker on the side, she added.
I stood up. “Trinity, where’d you get that violin?”
She looked confused. “What do you mean?”
“That’s mine. You added a sticker to it.”
Her face turned red. “No, I didn’t! I just … I thought it was a spare.”
Mr. Thompson raised an eyebrow. “There are no spares with glitter stickers.”
Caught.
She ended up confessing. She said she just wanted to try it out over the weekend and forgot to ask me. Totally not okay. She got a warning.
And me? I got my violin back and moved up to first chair a week later.
Mystery solved.
Case #12: Closed.
That’s Detective Mila for this week’s case. Thanks for reading. Bye!
