Madhattan Mystery (5 page)

“A New York City fourteen-year-old is equivalent to, like, a seventeen-year-old anywhere else. It's a proven—” Her attention switched to a group of giggly girls and she cringed. “Oh, no, it looks like Jen Peterson got Invisibraces and they're hideously obvious. I'll be right back.” And she was off.

Aunt Roz muttered something about Kim Ling being “a pistol” and motioned for Lexi and Kevin to come closer.
She slipped a crisp twenty-dollar bill into Lexi's hand, then sealed it in her fist. “For emergencies,” she whispered. “Now, I have to put in a few hours selling ballet subscriptions after my audition, but I'll see you right back here at a quarter to six. Wait in the vestibule, okay? I don't want you kids wandering around the city.” She gave Lexi and Kevin identical pecks on the cheek and swept toward the double doors, waving behind her. “Stick close to Kimmy—and have fun!”

It was one or the other. Both was asking the impossible.

“Attention, people!” Mr. Glick's voice echoed through the sound system. “Please button your lips and listen up ‘cause I'm only going to say this—” He dropped the mic with an explosive
boom!
Screechy feedback and laughter filled the gymnasium. “All right, ha-ha, very funny. Can everyone please line up at your assigned tables so we can get this show on the road?”

Lexi rushed Kevin to his lineup, then flew over to her designated line without waiting for Kim Ling. Who needed the extra aggravation? She quickly signed in, picked up her registration form, emergency information card,
Safety First
printout, and camp uniform: a puke-green T-shirt with a picture of a tree sprouting musical instruments instead of leaves and
CITY CAMP, WHERE NATURE MEETS CULTURE
printed on the back. She checked to make sure Kevin and Kim Ling were still in line, and made a mad dash back to the empty office where the television set was
still on. She hovered near the doorway. This time she could hear.

“The mayor made a statement earlier,” the gray-haired anchorman said straight to the camera. “Do we—have we got the footage? No? Okay, I'll just read the quote.”

Lexi's ears perked up, wondering if they were still on the jewel heist story.

“‘New Yorkers are being strongly urged to come forward immediately with any information they may have pertaining to this case. Our foremost concern, of course, lies in the safety of our citizens and the apprehension of these dangerous suspects—but, in addition, relations between the United States and the Arab Republic of Egypt could be dramatically affected if this scandalous crime remains unsolved. Once again, I implore anyone with information about the Cleopatra jewel theft to please contact the NYPD.'”

Oh, great. No pressure
.

“Can I help you?”

Lexi jumped. There was a tiny woman behind a large desk at the other end of the room. Lexi hadn't even noticed her before.

“Fascinating case, isn't it?” the lady chirped. “I can't seem to tear myself away.”

Lexi shot her a jittery smile and quickly tore
herself
away.
At least things couldn't possibly get worse
. When she met up with Kevin and Kim Ling at the water fountain,
she realized she was still strangling the sweaty twenty in her fist. She dug into the pouch on her backpack where her wallet always lived, to put it away, but had to keep digging.

“Shoot! Where is it?” Lexi shoved her papers and balled-up T-shirt over to Kevin so she could search more thoroughly. “My pink wallet. It's missing!”

Kevin gasped. “Pickpockets?”

Kim Ling gasped too. “
Pink
? Well, I doubt any of these campers would've ripped you off in front of all these doting parents. When'd you last see it?”

“Oh, man, I'm not sure. In the train station, I think.” Lexi handed her a hairbrush and a stash of peanut-butter crackers from her backpack.
Could the jewel thieves have stolen it somehow? No, they were never that close. But it could've fallen out of my bag when I rushed into the restaurant and they might've picked it up. Why is this happening?

“Anything important in it?” Kim Ling said.

“Just, like, my life. My library card and my student—oh no!” Lexi turned to Kevin. “My favorite picture of Mom was in there. You know the one—on the boardwalk in Atlantic City. Oh, great, and the lipstick blot too!”

“You carry around a blot?” Kim Ling raised a crooked eyebrow. “I won't ask.”

“And a Post-it with Aunt Roz's address,” Lexi said, half to herself.
Maybe the thieves really were in that black Lincoln, armed and dangerous and following me to my exact location!

“Pipe down and listen up!” Mr. Glick's amplified voice
rose above the chatter. “We're splitting you kids into two groups again like we always do—older and younger. If you have a green registration card, you're in Group A. Blue, you're in Group B. So if you only remember one thing today, remember your color.”

“I'm green,” Kevin said, actually turning a pale shade of green. “You guys are blue and I'm green. And you said it was just for registration!”

“Of course, we
will
be joining both groups together for specific activities from time to time,” Mr. Glick added, but that wasn't enough to calm Kevin down.

“This is
so
wrong!”

“You'll be fine,” Lexi told him. She was too busy freaking out herself at the moment to deal with him freaking out.

She searched desperately for her wallet while Mr. Glick blabbered on about all the exciting activities the staff had planned for the next three weeks and how everyone would undoubtedly meet their best friend for life.
Yeah, right
. She kept searching while they sat through a lame slide show of highlights from previous City Camp summers—while Mr. Glick read through the entire
Safety First
printout—while his pimply beanpole assistant collected the emergency information cards.

By the time Mr. Glick announced, “That's it for today, ladies and gentlemen. See you all tomorrow morning, bright eyed and bushy tailed,” Lexi was all searched out and completely deflated. But she refused to cry—she
would
not
cry even if the roof came crashing down on her, which just may happen the way things had been going so far.

“But it's only eleven forty-five!” Kevin squawked. He compared the time on his orbiting planets wristwatch with the clock on the wall. “Aunt Roz isn't coming back till six. What're we supposed to do all day?”

“Well, if you goobers had read the schedule, you would've known that orientation day only goes till noon.” Kim Ling pulled Kevin's cap down over his face and led the way out the double doors.

“Hey!”

“No worries, McGills. The sun is shining and we're in the greatest city in the world, which I happen to know like the back of my hand.”

“So, what're you saying?” Lexi asked.

“Welcome to Camp Kim Ling!”

Ugh
. Lexi definitely was not up for whatever that meant.

“You kids wanna hit the usual tourist hotspots? Times Square, Statue of—?”

“Been there, done that,” Lexi snapped. “This isn't our first time here. Besides, we're not allowed.”

“Well, don't bite my head off. Just being the friendly native.” Kim Ling did a strange neck-cracking maneuver that looked and sounded like it hurt. “So, anyway, how insipidly boring was that orientation? A total boondoggle, right?”

“Is that another one of your crazy made-up words?” Lexi had to ask.

“No, it's legit. It means an unnecessary, wasteful activity. Uh, no offense, but you guys might want to start carrying around a pocket dictionary if you're going to be hanging with me.”

Lexi added smug and pseudo-intellectual to her mental list of reasons for disliking Kim Ling, although she wasn't sure what pseudo-intellectual meant exactly.

“We can do Macy's,” Kim Ling suggested.

“Hello? Missing wallet, remember?” Lexi collapsed onto the smoldering top step of the Y and pulled Kevin down with her. “We only have emergency money, so we plan on spending the day without—spending. But don't let us stop you.”

Kim Ling didn't bolt like Lexi thought she would, but plopped down next to her, scratching her head like it was infested with fleas. “Well, Grand Central's right over there. A hop, skip, and jump. We could check out their lost and found—you know, see if your wallet's turned up there.”

From the look Lexi gave her, you would have thought she had suggested they jump off the top of the Empire State Building. “Aah-uh-oh,” she replied to the tune of “I don't know.” She knew it was unlikely she would run into the jewel thieves again at Grand Central, but even that slim possibility made her knees sweat. “I promised my aunt we wouldn't wander.”

Two colorful horse-drawn carriages came clopping around the corner and Kevin practically elbowed Lexi's eye out grabbing for his camera. “Photo op! So cool,” he gushed.
Snap
. “Are those buggy rides expensive, Kim?”
Snap. Snap
.

“They're called hansom cabs, and this is New York—everything's expensive.”

Lexi perked up at the sight of the decked-out horses, too, and the cute drivers in top hats—until the second carriage almost got rammed by a double-decker tour bus. The dapple-gray shook his head with a frustrated whinny, adding to the clamor of horns, sirens, and deafening street drills. “Omigod, did you see that? Poor horse.” She let out a groan. “I am so over this place already. All that crime in the news; then my wallet gets lost or stolen, or whatever. I'm sick of breathing in exhaust fumes. And urine. I miss the smell of—I don't know, fresh-cut grass and—”

“Stop dissing my city!” Kim Ling scolded. “If all you're gonna do is kvetch and complain, then keep the lips zipped.”

Lexi didn't lash back since she knew Kim was right.
If you haven't got anything good to say …
So with chin propped on hands, she watched the hansom cabs disappear into a blinding splotch of sunlight and yellow taxicabs. The other two followed suit. They sat silent and motionless in a grumpy clump, staring at the endless parade of passersby and picking up snippets of their cell-phone conversations.

“He had the nerve to go over my head, straight to the manager of East Coast Operations. What a—”

“—jerk chicken. And these amazing buffalo wings that are super spicy and—”

“—hot under the collar. So, I tell him, I go, ‘Dave, give the new guy a shot. I mean, one less commission ain't gonna kill ya.'”

Shot? Kill?
Lexi found herself gritting her teeth. She had had more than her fill of eavesdropping, thank you very much! Her heartbeat was giving the street noise a run for its money as she stared down at the cracked sidewalk, thinking what a bummer New York had been so far.

That was when she saw it lying there next to her left sneaker—a pure white feather like the ones her mother used to collect. A tingle wriggled up the back of Lexi's neck. Her mom had called them angel-wing feathers. “They're good luck!” she would always say, and snatch them right up.

“Kev, call Aunt Roz. Tell her she doesn't have to meet us back here, that we'll see her back at the apartment. Say—I don't know, that they have a special bus or something to bring us home. Otherwise she'll drop everything to come get us and we don't want to screw up her whole day.”

“You mean lie?”

“No—it's just so she won't worry. Lies don't really count if they're told to make someone feel better,” which was yet another lie to make someone feel better. What kind
of example was she setting for her little brother? “Ugh, never mind, I'd better do it.”

“No, I will!”

“You know,” Kim Ling said, “there actually is a City Camp bus with Eastside-Westside drop-off points. It doesn't start till tomorrow, though, and you have to sign up in advance …”

While Kim Ling was droning on and Kevin was making the call, Lexi reached down and discreetly grabbed the white feather. In an instant she was six years old again, tugging on her mother's skirt.

“Ew, Mommy, drop it!”

“It's pretty, don't you think?” her mom had said through one of her heart-melting smiles.

“Nooo! It's just a yelchy pigeon feather. Miss Schroeder says that pigeons are rats with wings and that they carry a disease.”

“Well, cookie, teachers have to say things like that.” Lexi's mom carefully wrapped the feather in a tissue and slipped it into her purse. “How do we know this feather didn't fall from an angel's wings—just like the one Daddy puts on top of our Christmas tree, only real? She could be sitting up on a fluffy cloud right now staring down on us. Look! See?” And she pointed up past the striped awning of the Silver Spoon Cafe. “There she is,
waaay
up there!”

“Where?”

“Oops, you missed her! She just flew up to heaven.”

“Nuh-uh.” Lexi giggled. “You made that up.”

“Now, why would I do a thing like that, silly?” She kissed Lexi's forehead with a giant “Mwah!” and they took off down Main Street again, hand-in-swinging-hand. “Some people think finding a shiny penny is lucky,” she had told her, “or four-leaf clovers. But we don't have to believe what everyone else does, right, cookie? Mommy believes in—”

“Angel feathers.” Lexi finished the sentence out loud, catching herself back in the present. She was squinting into the sun over the jagged city skyline, and had to quickly look away.

“Huh?” Kevin asked.

“Nothing. What'd Aunt Roz say?”

“No answer. I left a message.”

Lexi slid the feather into her shorts pocket. She only half believed these feathers were signs from her mom appearing at just the right time—comforting her, encouraging her to suck it up and move forward. But half believing was more than enough for her.