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

move out of our old house and into a new one. My problem was that I fell in love with this old stone mansion we’d seen, but my mom thought it was too old and dirty and not worth the money. I described how I’d solved the problem by using good arguments to convince my mom to buy the house. Like the greenhouse could be her hideaway, I wouldn’t have to change school districts, and we’d still be close to both my parents’ jobs. My essay practically wrote itself and I was done in less than ten minutes.

With time to kill, I took out my notepad and glanced at everyone sitting near me, but there wasn’t anybody exciting enough to write comments about. I debated playing Silent Detective solitaire, where I check out an interesting person and write down what I think their favorite food is, what they want to be when they grow up, and what they like to do when they’re all by themselves. Then I try to get to know them and find out if I’m right. But I already knew the boy next to me, and the girls on my right were pretty average and didn’t spark my curiosity.

I decided to do a little spying and fished my compact out of my purse. Opening up the mirror, I angled it so I could see the fourth row of desks over my shoulder. Dustin was close to the end of that row, but his head was bent over his paper so I couldn’t see his face. Better not to stare at him anyway. He’d probably look up and catch me. Angling my mirror in the other direction, I pretended to look at myself while I put on lip gloss, but I was really checking on Alexa. Her knees bounced up and down as she frowned at her paper with an angry look on her face. I knew she was willing the words to come, but her pencil wasn’t moving.

I also knew the people sitting near her couldn’t help her with her spelling like I would have. They didn’t know the secret code we’d made up in fourth grade: Alexa would tap her pencil on her desk twice, then whisper a word to herself, just loud enough for me to hear. I glance around the classroom casually to make sure the teacher isn’t looking at us. Then I would bend over my paper and whisper the spelling to Alexa. We never considered it cheating since Alexa was competing with such a disadvantage. I was just helping her catch up to the rest of the class. But a new teacher probably wouldn’t see it that way.

I’d helped Alexa try to hide her dyslexia from our classmates since we were nine, but the older we got the harder it was to fake everyone out. Since last year I’ve tried to figure out how to help her deal with it instead.

All of a sudden Alexa doubled over in pain. I put down the mirror and turned around to look at her. She raised her hand and asked to be excused, and then hurried out of the room. Did she have another stomachache? Or was she trying to get out of writing the essay? Maybe she was afraid we’d have to read our paragraphs out loud and she’d feel embarrassed. I wanted to chase after her to see if she was all right, but I didn’t want to make the teacher mad.

Peeking back into my mirror, I saw Emelyn Peters point at the door and snicker with a tough girl named Pat Whitehead who sat on her other side. Pat’s hair was short on the sides and spiked up in the middle with gel. Her eyes were so light-colored they looked like an albino rat’s. Pat had four brothers, and the five Whiteheads were always getting into fights. “Dyslexa had to GO,” Pat said, and Emelyn bent over her desk laughing loudly. Spying on those two was anything but fun. I put my mirror back inside my purse, wishing I were home looking for clues to find the hidden jewels.

If I had any idea what was already starting to happen at my house I would have been glad to be safe and sound, writing a paragraph in English class.

At lunch I met Alexa at our locker. She smiled, but her face didn’t look happy. “Are you OK?” I asked.

“Yeah. My stomach was killing me so I went to the bathroom and then to the nurse’s office. She called my mom and then gave me a Tylenol.”

“Did it help?”

“Not really. I’m all right. Just hungry.” We headed for the cafeteria and Alexa nudged me. “Look,” she whispered. Dustin and Brendan were just a few tables away. Dustin’s green shirt really made his eyes stand out, and Brendan was leaning over the table, waving his arms like he was telling a funny story. Emelyn and her friends were sitting right behind them, giggling loudly and trying to get their attention.

I looked at Alexa and rolled my eyes. “Emelyn makes me lose my appetite.”

She nodded. “Her whole table is trouble.”

 

After school I took the bus most of the way home. Sitting on the grass by the sidewalk, I checked Facebook and email on my phone while I waited for my mom to pick me up at the bottom of the hill. The waves were flat, so there were no explosive crashes when they broke. Just a quiet sizzle followed by a long shhhhh as the water moved slowly forward and back across the sand. Then I tried to study history, jiggling my foot, reading the same paragraph over and over. The first day of school had me so wired I could barely concentrate.

Dustin Coles was in two of my classes! Fortunately Emelyn Peters was only in one. And there were clues to a fortune hidden somewhere in my new house. I hoped an aggressive bunch of construction workers wouldn’t get in the way of my search. I was also hoping my mom would get there soon so I could get back to work on the mystery, but as soon as she pulled over I wished she’d forgotten to come get me. “Hi Skylar,” my mom said as I swung my legs into the car. “Where’s your sweater?”

“Uh,” I stalled, trying to remember where I’d seen it last. “I’m not sure.”

She threw the gearshift into park and turned to face me. “Don’t tell me you lost it.” I could tell by the way her eyebrows were pinched together that she thought I lost it on purpose.

“Wait. Let me think. It’s not in my locker, and it didn’t fit in my backpack.” I could reason this out if she’d just give me a minute. “I had it in first period but I don’t remember having it at the break. I must have left it in English.” It was probably still hanging on the back of the chair. No way would anyone steal something that ugly.

“That’s convenient. You didn’t want to wear it this morning and now it’s missing.” My mom put the car in gear and steered carefully into traffic.

“I didn’t lose it on purpose.” She glanced at me with one eyebrow raised. “I didn’t. I’m sure I’ll find it tomorrow. If it isn’t in English I’ll try the Lost and Found.”

“Let’s hope you do find it, or its replacement is coming out of your chores money.”

Delightful.

A few minutes later we pulled into our driveway. We sat silently while the garage door opened. “I needed a new one anyway,” I mumbled.

“No you didn’t.”

 

7

My Detective Kit

After my mom reminded me to check the Lost and Found first thing in the morning I raced up the two sets of stairs to my bedroom. Downstairs, our house was full of workmen. All six of them looked dirty and sweaty. Most of them had ugly colorless tattoos on their arms: snakes and crosses and skulls with empty eye sockets. Some of the guys were installing new light fixtures and others were putting in curtains and blinds. They had taken down all the old ones and had carried many loads of junk to the dumpster we’d rented. The whole bottom floor smelled like B.O. The men were all working hard. Except one.

I knew who the foreman was, because he bossed everyone around but didn’t seem to do any work himself. It was the short, angry-looking guy I’d spotted before school. His name was Barney, but the workers all called him Smack. I guess if my name were Barney I’d use a nickname too. Smack was no taller than me, but he was very wide and had giant shoulders and one squinty eye. The way he walked with his legs far apart reminded me of a pirate. He had a squeaky voice, and there was something fishy about the way he moved around our house. Every now and then he would look over his shoulder or snoop around in our stuff for a minute. I planned to keep my eye on Smack.

Once I was back inside my room I dumped my backpack on my bed, closed the door, and burned vanilla incense. I wanted to hurry and finish unpacking so I could start my search for Xandra Collins’s clues. On our first night in the new house I had taken a quick look through all the rooms on every floor, and didn’t find a thing except rat turds and bird droppings. But it didn’t surprise me; I didn’t expect clues to be neatly folded on shelves in the library or resting inside a bowl in the kitchen. I knew this was going to take some work. And according to the mysterious note, it would also take guts.

I worked at putting away my book collection first. My mom’s old Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden mysteries were in the top of the first box. Sarah Dessen, Deb Caletti, and Meg Cabot novels made up the next layer, and I had tucked Gilda Joyce: Psychic Investigator, Model Spy, and some other hard covers around the sides. I ripped open the second box and unpacked my Gallagher Girls and Amanda Project paperbacks.

When I finished the third box and all my books were on their shelves, I looked around the small space and tried to decide how to arrange my new bedroom. My summer friend Kat had a cool room in a beachfront house in Shadow Hills. Her bedroom was divided into four quadrants, one representing each element: earth, water, air, and fire. I decided to decorate mine the same way. “Grandpa’s desk symbolizes earth, since it is made of wood. So the earth section will be the turret room.” His antique desk was already up there, topped with orange, green, and brown candles and my fern. Perfect.

I moved a little marble table next to the wall and put my desktop fountain on top of it. “This is the water quadrant.” Running into the closest bathroom to fill a glass, I poured water into the fountain and turned it on, smiling when the water began to trickle over the rocks. I hammered a little nail into the wall behind the fountain and hung up the Dream Catcher I made in summer school. I had woven little shells in between knots of blue-green yarn around a circular frame. Maybe I’d get a couple of black goldfish and put seashells from the beach around the bottom of their bowl.

“The air section can be over here.” I set my glass butterfly figurine on a shelf by the window and planned to make a mobile out of feathers, twigs, and string that would spin in the breeze. “Now for fire.” I arranged candles on the top of my little bookcase, and finished the fire quad with my new incense burner.

Then I took out my favorite possession besides Grandpa’s badge: my detective kit. There were places in our new house that I could investigate using each item. The jumbo flashlight would be perfect for exploring the backyard, the hillside, and the hidden floor, after I found it. My pocket penlight would light up the shadowy corners of the bedrooms and my office, the insides of cupboards, and other secret spots where clues might be hidden. Black light flashlight: useful everywhere. I could see blood, fingerprints, and invisible ink when I shined its ultraviolet light in the dark.

My laser pointer shot a red beam of light across the room. It was really only useful for pointing at things or for blinding myself or someone else, according to my mom. If she knew how I had actually used it to defend myself over the summer it would have curled her