The Trail of the Screaming Teenager (4 page)

That was filled with sand too.

She hopped in and started to sing.

Then she stopped.

What was the matter with her?

She had to solve a mystery.

She had to solve it fast . . . before tomorrow when they saw Mindy Merrill again.

She put her head back. Her hair floated out around her.

She sighed. No one was left to be the thief.

No one was the thief.

She closed one eye.

Maybe the necklace had fallen in the sand.

She thought about it.

No. Definitely not.

Jill would have found it with the Marvelous Metal Finder.

This whole thing was a puzzle.

She shook her head.

Water splashed into her ear. “Glug,” she said.

She jumped up.

She climbed out of the tub and hopped on one foot.

Noni shouted up from downstairs. “What’s going on?”

“An ocean is in my ear,” Dawn yelled.

“What?”

The water trickled out.

“Don’t worry,” Dawn yelled. “It’s on the floor now.”

She looked in the mirror.

Her hair was all snarled.

Jill wasn’t the thief.

Jason wasn’t the thief.

Only one person was left.

Dawn Tiffanie Bosco.

How terrible.

How ridiculous.

She sat on the edge of the tub.

She stirred the water with one foot.

She had to think out loud.

“Girl wearing a necklace. Girl running. Boy chasing. Necklace gone. Not in the sand. Not in newspaper. Not teenager. Not Arno. . . . Wait a minute.”

There was something. Something with Jill. Something with her polka dot box. Something with pink.

What was it?

Someone banged on the bathroom door.

It was her brother Chris.

He was home from baseball camp.

“Are you talking to yourself?” he called.

“I’m solving a mystery,” she said.

She stirred the water one more time.

“YEOW.” She pulled the plug. “I’ve got it.”

She grabbed a towel and dried her feet.

She wrung out her bathing suit and dressed as fast as she could.

She charged downstairs.

Noni was washing watercress.

“That stuff makes me shiver,” Dawn said.

Noni popped a leaf into her mouth. “Uhm, wonderful,” she said.

“Where’s my Polka Dot Private Eye box?” Dawn asked. “I need it right away. This minute.”

Noni pointed with her foot. “On the back step,” she said. “It’s all sandy.”

Dawn opened the back door. She began to drag in the box.

“Don’t . . .” Noni began, and sighed. Too late.

A trail of sand followed Dawn across the kitchen floor.

Dawn stopped at the kitchen table.

“I need to get something,” she said. “Something to solve the mystery.”

She sat back on her heels.

“Uh-oh. The box is locked.”

Noni put another piece of watercress in her mouth. “Of course it is. I gave you the lock.”

Dawn raised her hands. “But where’s the key?”

D
AWN YANKED ON HER
purple-striped bathing suit. It was her favorite.

It was still wet from yesterday.

So what!

Maybe she could solve the mystery today. She pulled a comb through her hair.

She’d solve it if Arno was at the beach.

And then she’d have time to find some coins . . . special ones.

She grabbed her detective box and headed for the car.

Arno, that killer kid, had the key.

She was sure of it.

Last night she and Jill had gone through Jill’s green jar.

Jill had a million things. Pennies, nails, an old silver pen, a sandy pink bottle-cap, and a watch that didn’t work.

“I know I had a key in there,” Jill had said, frowning. “No old coins, but a silver key. A little silver—”

“My little—” Dawn had said.

Right now Dawn marched across the beach ahead of Noni.

She was dragging her Polka Dot Private Eye box.

Jason and Jill were way ahead of them.

“Here,” said Noni.

Dawn backed up.

She threw off her flip-flops.

The teenagers were there.

Any minute Gladys-Mindy would ask about the necklace.

Arno was there too.

He was standing on top of a pile of sand. “I am the king,” he shouted.

Dawn marched up to him. “You are the king with my key. I need it back. Please.”

“Tough,” he said. He patted his pocket.

Dawn stood up straight. “I am the Polka Dot Private Eye. I have a mystery to solve.”

Arno’s eyes opened wide. “Why didn’t you say so?”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a sandy key.

Dawn raced back to her blanket.

Arno raced behind her.

Jill and Jason were waiting.

Even Noni looked up from her crossword puzzle.

“Now, ladies and gentlemen,” said Dawn. “You will see . . .”

Mindy hopped across the sand toward them. “My necklace?” she called.

“You will see . . .” Dawn began again. She pulled the detective box closer.

She turned the key in the lock.

Arno stuck his nose over her shoulder as she flipped open the lid.

She opened her mouth. “Yucks, what a mess.”

“Ick-o,” said Arno.

“What happened?” asked Jill.

Dawn looked. The inside was covered with pink glop.

“I was afraid of this,” she said.

She reached out. “May I have your green jar?” she asked Jill.

Jill handed it over.

Dawn fished through it.

She held up a sandy pink bottle-cap.

“This belongs to my No Sunburn, No Kidding jar,” she said.

“That’s the whole mystery?” Arno asked.

Dawn sighed. “Give me time.”

She stuck her hand in the pink glop.

She pulled out a furry pink mustache.

She yanked out a furry pink eyebrow.

And then . . . she pulled out an almost-diamond necklace . . . covered with pink glop.

“My necklace,” yelled Mindy. “Terrific.”

“But how . . .” Jill said.

“I was putting on my No Sunburn, No Kidding,” said Dawn.

“Good girl,” said Noni.

“Mindy hopped over the blanket,” Dawn went on. “She hopped over me.”

“The necklace fell off . . .” Jill said.

“And landed in the box,” said Dawn.

Arno tapped Mindy on the shoulder. “The important thing, no kidding, is the reward.”

Mindy smiled. She reached into her purse. She handed Dawn a coin.

“A quarter.”

“Let’s buy me ice cream,” said Arno.

Mindy shook her head. “Look at it closely.”

Dawn held it up. “Nineteen seventy-six.”

“It’s special,” said Mindy, “for the two-hundredth anniversary of this country.”

“Liberty quarter,” said Dawn.

“Lucky,” said Jill.

Arno picked up the Marvelous Metal Finder. “Let’s find some more.”

“Wait a minute,” said a voice behind them.

Dawn looked up. She could see a man holding a newspaper. A man with knobby knees.

“How about a merry-go-round ride?” said the man.

“Why not?” said Dawn. She smiled at Mr. Ott. “Let’s do it before something else happens around here.”

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.