Skylar Robbins: The Mystery of the Hidden Jewels - Carrie Cross (most popular novels of all time TXT) 📗

Or like he was on Jeopardy and didn’t know the answer to an easy question. “If I pull her out of class and you’re bluffing, you’re in for a long spell of detention,” he said, glaring at me.

“I’m not bluffing,” I assured him. “As soon I fingerprint her you’ll know I’m telling the truth.” The principal scribbled Whitehead on the card.

Jamal glanced at the clock. “Can I go back to class?”

“Don’t you want to follow through and determine how your iPod wound up in this young lady’s possession?”

Jamal looked at me and shook his head. “Nah, Sky’s straight. She’s tellin’ the truth. Pat Whitehead and her crew have a hate on for Skylar for some reason. Besides, she wouldn’ta busted out all the fingerprint gear if she’d took it.” He winked at me.

“Thanks, Jamal.”

“No worries,” he said, reaching for the door.

“You can go too, Skylar,” Mr. Martinez told me. He blew some stray black powder off the edge of his desk. “I do plan to have a discussion with Pat Whitehead about this, and I will also note the incident in her file. But I don’t see the need to pull her out of class or do any more fingerprinting.”

“That’s fine with me. Sorry about the mess.”

“It’s all right.” The principal looked up at me as if he knew I’d won the game, and was OK with it. “It was interesting,” he admitted.

I packed up my Porta-detective kit and stood there fidgeting for a minute. “Why don’t we just forget the whole thing?” If Pat and Emelyn knew I’d squealed on them to the principal they’d try to get revenge for sure. Dropping The Case of the Stolen iPod sounded like a really good idea.

Mr. Martinez drummed his fingertips on his desk and stared at me. “All right, Skylar,” he finally said. “Since Jamal didn’t want to take this any further, I’m willing to let the matter drop. Go ahead and get to class. I sincerely hope I won’t see you in my office again. Keep your nose clean.”

As if it had ever been dirty. “It is clean, and I just proved it,” I said, pointing at the Uniprint he held in his hand.

He glanced at my fingerprint, tapped his desk, and then looked at me. “My apologies, Skylar. That you did.”

 

30

The Final Clue

After school, I had to do something to get my mind off Emelyn and Pat, so I decided to work on the clues I found under the greenhouse floor. A leaf, a buckle, a dead flower, a measuring tape, a packet of seeds, and some twine. What did they mean? Once again, Xandra had me stumped. I felt like I knew how her mind worked after following so many of her clues, but this one was a real puzzle.

Leaf, buckle, flower, measuring tape, seeds, twine.

Some of those were things you could wear: a twine belt with a buckle, a flower in your hair. But what did that tell me about where Xandra had hidden her jewelry box? Did the kidnappers have it? Did she have it on her? Where was Xandra anyway?

I walked past Smack into the backyard and felt his eyes drilling holes in my back the whole way. Whatever. He didn’t know what I was doing and he wouldn’t be able to follow the clues I’d found if he watched me and took notes. If they thought putting poop on my makeup and sticking a dead rat in my drawer like a bunch of third graders was going to slow me down they were wrong. They were just trying to scare me, and it wasn’t working. Not enough to stop me, anyway.

I sat down on the bench in the gazebo and stared into the rusty box. The buckle was made of metal. It was hard and sturdy. The twine was braided with four thin strands of golden fiber. Long and strong. The aged flower and leaf were unlike the buckle and twine. They were frail. Fragile. Dead. Decomposing. Turning to dust. The exact opposite of the nasturtium seeds: life, promise, growth, beginnings.

I unrolled the measuring tape. It was made of cloth covered with cracked yellow plastic and had numbers and lines printed on it. The end of it was missing. Someone had cut off the tape at five feet, eight inches. What did it all mean? Was that Xandra’s height?

I picked up the packet of nasturtium seeds and turned it over in my hands. The edges were stained light brown and were starting to peel apart. I looked at the red, orange, and yellow flowers pictured on the package. “Why would anyone need nasturtium seeds in Santa Monica when they grow wild all over the place?” I asked myself. “Unless—nasturtiums are a clue.” I looked back toward the house. Smack was standing in the doorway, staring at me. I waved and smiled, showing all of my teeth. Like I was just a dumb kid, playing. He turned around and went inside.

I gently peeled open the top of the envelope. The glue had completely dried out and the packet opened easily. When I peeked inside, my knees jiggled up and down with excitement. There was a message written on the inside of the seed packet in a spidery black scrawl. It looked like it was written with the same fine-point felt pen that drew the footstep map. “Office!” I said to myself, rushing out of the gazebo and running across the yard.

This could be the final clue! I thought, racing past Smack and bounding up the stairs to my room. Grabbing the banister, I pulled myself up the spiral staircase to my office and spun into my desk chair. Opening the rusty metal box, I tipped the lid back so I would have a container to pour the seeds into. I tilted the packet and the tan seeds bounced over each other as they rolled into the lid like dried-out raisins. Then something tinkled as metal hit metal.

I sucked in my breath and picked up a tiny gold key. I knew what it would unlock. If only I could find it. Turning my attention back to the empty seed packet, I ran my letter-opener gently between the seams until I had them all peeled apart. I spread the packet flat on my desk and read the message that was written inside.

Congratulations. If you are the smart, brave soul who followed clues to locate this box rather than stumbling on it by accident, you know exactly what this key unlocks. Your final challenge is to put these last clues together in the proper order, pinpoint the exact location, then use the key. At the end of the rope you will find the beginning of new adventure. Good luck.

And it was signed, Xandra Collins.

By the time I finished reading Xandra’s note my heart was racing. “It is the key to her jewelry box,” I breathed, staring into the confusing collection of clues. If only I can figure out where she hid it. I ran my fingers over the buckle, the twine, and the measuring tape, then dropped the seeds into an envelope and put it in my desk. Opening the secret compartment behind the middle drawer, I hid the golden key. My office was stuffy. I needed some fresh air to clear my head.

Running back down to my bedroom I looked at the clock. 5 p.m. Quitting time. Two seconds later I heard Smack’s truck start and rumble down our hill.

Excellent.

I hurried down the stairs and ran outside. Carried the box into the backyard and set the contents on the grass. First I uncoiled the twine and tugged it into in a straight line. Then I measured it using the broken tape. The twine was twelve-and-a-half feet long. Jogging over to the guardrail, I stood at the very beginning of it and looked down its length as it curved around our yard. Then I bent over the railing and stared down into the canyon, the black metal cool underneath my fingers. Yellow-flowering mustard weeds sprouted in between jagged boulders. Nasturtiums grew in puffy clumps. Their bright yellow, red, and orange blossoms peeked out from between round leaves that looked like pale green lily pads.

The mustard plants had broad green leaves with curvy edges. I remembered learning how to identify plants during botany in Mr. Bidden’s class. Suddenly I caught my breath and looked back into the box of clues. The crumbling brown leaf had the same shape as the leaves on the mustard weeds. The dead flower had tiny shriveled petals attached to its withered stem. They grew in clusters, just like mustard flowers. I picked it up and sniffed the petals to see if I smelled mustard, but they just smelled like dust.

Pulling the twine up off the grass, I held onto one end and tossed the rest of it over the railing. The end of it dangled near some mustard weeds. “But which one is the right plant?” I said aloud, running next to the railing and looking over. There must have been hundreds of batches of weeds and flowers growing next to and around each other. “How far down the guardrail do I—”

I stopped in my tracks and raced back to the part of the yard where I’d left the measuring tape and snatched it up. “Five feet, eight inches,” I said breathlessly. Starting at the far end of the guardrail, I measured off five feet, eight inches. I held one end of the twine and tossed the other end over the edge. The end stopped at a boulder that jutted out of the mountainside. No mustard weeds. No flowers.

“That’s not it.”

Running down to the other end of the guardrail, I measured five feet, eight inches down the rail and threw the end of the twine over the railing. The end dangled twelve-and-a-half feet down the canyon side and landed right at a thick batch of mustard plants. They were entwined with flowering nasturtium vines. Was Xandra’s jewelry box just twelve-and-a-half feet out of my reach?

Hanging over the railing, I imagined trying to climb down the hillside without plunging into the canyon and breaking my neck. There was no way I could do it by myself. If my mom thought riding the dumbwaiter was dangerous she would completely lose it if I tried this. And I had no time to waste. I had to try to find the jewels before Smack and his boys came back or my parents got home from work. Yanking the phone out of my pocket, I speed-dialed Alexa.

“Hey Skylar, what’s—”

I didn’t let her finish. “I know where Xandra’s jewelry box is.”

“What?” she shrieked. “You found it?”

“Not exactly. What’s your brother doing right now?”

“Big or little?”

“Big. Ronnie. Is he home?”

“Yeah, I think he’s in the gara—”

“Can he come over right now and help me get the box?”

“Probably. I’m sure he’ll help.”

“Go get him. And hurry—we need to do this before my parents get home.”

“What are we going—”

“Tell him to bring his rock-climbing gear. I’m in the backyard. Hurry!”

While I waited for Ronnie, I used a sharp rock to scratch a mark into the railing at the spot where the measuring tape ended. Suddenly I flinched. I’d heard something. Like a bush rustling, as if a small animal were climbing through it. Or a large human was hiding behind it.

My head whipped around and I looked into the corners of my backyard. It felt like

someone was watching me. Moments later I knew I was right. Two round lenses were spying on me from behind the hedge in the neighbor’s yard that backed to ours.

Binoculars. With one brown eye looking through them? As soon as I started to walk toward them to get a closer look, the lenses disappeared. Our neighbor’s bushes were thick and I couldn’t see anything except movement: a thin figure, sprinting away from his hiding place. Knowing he was busted. Who was spying on me? Someone from Crew Gang? Who else could it be?

The next-door neighbor had recommended Smack, and now one of his boys could be hiding in their yard. Were our neighbors plotting with them to find the hidden jewels? Is that why those creeps were referred to us in the first place? A chill crept up my spine.

No time to follow up on it now.

Ronnie’s truck rumbled up the hill and stopped. I jogged back over to the fence and spotted his carrot-colored hair as he came through our side yard. He held a helmet and a pair of gloves and had a thick coil of rope over his shoulder. “Skylar!” Alexa shouted, running up to