The Case of the Cool-Itch Kid (4 page)

Dawn could feel her heart pound.

“Who’s there?” yelled Lizzie Lee.

The door banged shut.

Someone began to scream.

Dawn scrambled to her feet.

In the mist it was hard to see.

“Look,” she said.

A shape. Someone moving across the parking lot.

Someone she knew?

Yes.

But who?

M
ISS
P
ERRY BLEW HER
whistle. “It’s a great day, everyone. Open your eyes.”

Dawn opened one eye.

It couldn’t be morning yet.

She had just gotten to sleep.

She’d been dreaming . . . dreaming about running.

Something kept catching her feet.

Glue.

A whole parking lot filled with glue.

Dawn opened the other eye.

Yellow patches shone on the cabin wall.

Miss Perry was right. It was a beautiful day.

Dawn sat up straight.

She snapped her fingers. “I’ve almost got it. I’ve almost solved the crime.”

“Oh, no,” said Lizzie Lee. “I wanted to solve it first.”

In the bunk above, Jill turned over. “Too tired,” she said.

“Wake up, lazybones,” Miss Perry said.

Lizzie Lee jumped out of her bunk. “Tell me,” she said to Dawn.

Dawn pulled a comb through her hair. “I don’t exactly have it. Not yet, I mean. I know it has to do with glue.”

“Today is Wednesday,” said Know-It-All. “The best breakfast. It’s pancakes.”

Dawn was starving.

She rushed out of the cabin with the others.

They headed for the Devil’s Den Dining Room.

“Tell me about the mystery,” said Lizzie. “I’ll help you finish it up.”

Dawn raised her shoulders in the air. “It’s about the glue. I just can’t—”

“Remember what the Cool-Cat Detective Book says,”

They said it together: “Go back to the beginning.”

Dawn stopped walking.

She closed her eyes, “In the bus—”

“I’m sick of the beginning,” said Lizzie. “Try to remember the middle part.”

“What’s the middle?” Dawn climbed the steps into the dining room.

Inside, the pancakes smelled wonderful. Almost as good as Noni’s. Dawn thought for a minute. “Last night,” she said. “That’s the middle. We went into the bus. We found a broken shell.”

She slid into her seat.

She poured a gallon of syrup on her pancakes. She shut her eyes. “Someone went back into the bus. Someone took my mirror.”

“Someone broke your mirror,” said Lizzie.

Dawn nodded. “Someone who likes cookies.”

She opened her eyes. “Oh, no. I’ve just solved the mystery.”

Jill looked up. She had a ring of syrup around her mouth. “Oh, no,” she said, too.

“Oh, yes,” said Dawn. “Jill Simon. My only friend.”

“Not your only friend,” said Lizzie Lee.

Jill put a huge piece of pancake in her mouth.

At the same time she started to cry.

Dawn felt like crying, too. “You went back into the bus.”

“It was scary, very scary.” Jill took a breath. “I had to do it, though.”

“But what . . . how?” Lizzie Lee began.

“I went back that first day, too,” Jill said. “Back for my wallet. I wanted to buy a piece of Triple Dipple Bubble Gum.”

“You took a bite of my chocolate chip cookie,” Dawn said.

Jill took a gulp of milk. “I just love—” She broke off. “I was going to tell you. I knew you wouldn’t mind.”

Dawn nodded.

“But then . . .”

Lizzie Lee leaned closer.

Jill put down her glass. She swiped at her mouth. “I sat on your mirror.”

“Oh, no,” said Dawn.

“Only a little bit,” said Jill. “I was going to fix it one two three.”

“But then . . .” Dawn said.

“I had to get the glue.” Jill sighed. “Then I had to find the missing shell.”

Dawn nodded.

“But something horrible was inside the bus,” Jill said. “I couldn’t get—”

Dawn and Lizzie laughed. “We were the horrible thing,” said Lizzie.

And Dawn said, “Don’t worry. I’ve got the shell. We’ll fix the mirror together.”

Know-It-All leaned over. “I’ll help. I’m good at that kind of stuff. I learned it here at camp.”

“I’m sorry,” Jill said. “Really sorry.” She mopped up the last of her pancake. “I guess we can go home now.”

“Go home?” Lizzie asked.

“Go home?” Dawn said.

She took another bite of her pancake.

They were as good as Noni’s.

Definitely.

The door opened.

Someone came in with a package.

“Special mail for Dawn Bosco,” the woman said.

“Wow,” said Lizzie. “It’s as big as a whale.”

“I hope it’s food,” said Jill.

Dawn shook her head. “I think I know.”

She started to tear open the paper.

She could see pink polka dots. She could see a note.

DEAR DAWN:

HERE IS YOUR POLKA DOT DETECTIVE BOX. I PUT SOME CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES INSIDE.

LOVE,

  NONI

P.S. HOW’S THE HORSEBACK RIDING?

Dawn looked at Jill. “Horseback riding. I nearly forgot.”

“Horseback riding starts on Thursday,” said Know-It-All. “It always does.”

“We’d better not go home,” said Jill.

“No.” Dawn wiped her mouth. “Besides, I have my detective box now. We might find another mystery to solve.”

Patricia Reilly Giff came from a family of storytellers. She learned to read when she was four and never stopped, delighted with that widening world of story. She read through her classes in her elementary school, St. Pascal Baylon, and through her years at her high school, the Mary Louis Academy. Perhaps that’s why math and science are still so mysterious to her.

She majored in history and education at Marymount College and then went on to St. John’s University for a master’s degree in history, delighted that she could read her way through the lives of kings and queens, through plagues and wars.

In 1959, she married James Giff, a New York City detective, who had stories of his own. It was a perfect match because he thought it was fine that she spent hours reading instead of attending to the pots on the stove or the potatoes growing in the closet.

She spent the next twenty years raising their three children—James, William, and Alice—teaching, first in New York City and then Elmont, Long Island, and attending Hofstra University for a professional diploma in reading.

But always she wanted to write stories of her own, so her husband built her a small office out of two closets in the kitchen.

That was the beginning. She wrote about her childhood and her children, she wrote about the children she taught, and now she writes about her grandchildren and what interests them. She visits school and libraries and loves to talk with people who enjoy reading.

She received an honorary Doctor of Letters from Hofstra University and from Sacred Heart University. Several of her books were chosen as ALA-ALSC Notable Children’s Books and ALA-YALSA Best Books for Young Adults. They include
The Gift of the Pirate Queen; All the Way Home; Nory Ryan’s Song
, a Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators Golden Kite Honor Book for Fiction; and Newbery Honor books
Lily’s Crossing
and
Pictures of Hollis Woods
.
Lily’s Crossing
was also chosen as a Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor Book. She’s also won the Christopher Award.

In between, she cares for an indoor garden of almost two hundred plants—and reads, of course.

Patricia Reilly Giff on a September day in 1937 in St. Albans, New York. The future
Polk Street Mysteries
author is two years old.

Patricia Reilly Giff (age four) with her sister, Annie (age two). The picture was taken at Christmastime circa 1939.

Patricia Reilly Giff on May 1, 1955 (age twenty) with her little poodle, Nikki, who was just eleven weeks old at the time.

Patricia Reilly Giff fishing on the Delaware River near her vacation home in East Branch, New York, circa 1976. In the background is her dog, Heidi.

Patricia Reilly Giff with her two sons, Jimmy (left) and Bill (right) circa 1991. Missing from the picture is her daughter, Alice.