Minerva Clark Gets a Clue (23 page)

Each note also listed the best number at which to reach each brother. The notes were Mark Clark's idea. It was the first summer I'd be left alone most of the day. Thirteen is a well-known awkward age, too old for a babysitter and too young to have a summer job.

When no one was home, Casa Clark felt enormous. We called it Casa Clark because, unlike every other old wood-shingled bungalow on our street, ours was a stucco box that looks like a Mexican restaurant. It used to be pink, but before my parents got a divorce they painted it light brown. It has three floors and a brass fireman's pole that went from the third floor straight into the kitchen, which I used to love as a kid, but now is sort of an embarrassment. I don't know why.

I woke Jupiter up from his nap. Jupiter is my ferret. His cage is kept behind the grand piano in the living room. He was dead asleep, snoring inside a black denim pants leg. Jupiter loves nothing more than sleeping inside a pants leg. He has a whole assortment of pants-leg sleeping tubes, and as a result my brothers and I have a whole assortment of cutoffs.

I tried to cuddle Jupiter under my chin, but he threw himself out of my arms and ran across the hall to the dining room. He took three mad laps around our big table, leaped on a chair, then onto the table, where he knocked over a near-empty carton of milk that had been
sitting there since breakfast. It spilled onto the open newspaper.

I stared at the empty red and white carton, lying on its side. The sight of the milk-soaked newspaper gave me an idea. I tugged my phone from my back pocket and punched in Chelsea's number, scooped Jupiter up, and dropped him back into his cage. He didn't like this at all. He thought we were going to play, and we were, until the spilled milk gave me an idea.

“Chelsea, it's me, Minerva Clark. The girl who bought your ring, you said she was in line in front of you at the coffee place?”

“Yeah, why?”

“What did she order and how did she pay?”

“What did she order? Coffee. That's why it's called Coffee People. 'Cause people buy coffee there.” She giggled for no reason. Like many girls in our grade, Chelsea had a laugh that sounded practiced.

“Just a cup of coffee? Not a latte or something more complicated?”

“Complicated how?”

“You know.” I started feeling a mood coming on. Was Chelsea being dense on purpose? “Like a half-caf, half-decaf soy macchiato, extra hot.”

“She did, actually. I remember because I started feeling totally tweaked that it took her so long to explain exactly what she wanted. It was already almost ten thirty.”

“How did she pay?”

“With money?”

“Did she use a card? A credit or debit card?”

“Definitely. One of those. There was some something about the receipt. She gave the cashier person the wrong one and they traded. Then she threw it away anyway.”

“You saw her throw it away? You're sure?”

“Positive. I remember being at amazed at how long her hair was. And the only time she was standing with her back to me was when she was at the garbage can, sticking the receipt through the little flap thingy.”

“I thought you said she was in front of you.”

I could practically hear Chelsea roll her eyes. “She
was.
But we were too busy talking about my ring for me to notice, you know?”

“Perfectimento. I know how we can find her. Meet me at the airport in half an hour.”

Explore the inner workings of
Minerva Clark's
mind!

Read her blog …

Send a ferret-gram …

Get
MinervAdvice
…

Check out
www.minervaclark.com
for all the fun!

Copyright © 2005 by Karen Karbo
First published in 2005 by Bloomsbury Publishing
Paperback edition published in 2006

Electronic edition published in 2012

All rights reserved.
You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce, or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages

Published by Bloomsbury Publishing, New York, London, and Berlin
Distributed to the trade by Holtzbrinck Publishers

The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:
Karbo, Karen.
Minerva Clark gets a clue / by Karen Karbo. — 1st U.S. ed.
p. cm.

Summary: A thirteen-year-old girl in Portland, Oregon, loses all self-doubt when she is zapped
by lightning and uses her newfound courage to solve a murder mystery.
[1. Self-confidence — Fiction. 2. Murder — Fiction. 3. Identity theft — Fiction. 4. Mystery and
detective stories.] I. Title.
PZ7.K132Mi 2005 [Fic] — dc22 2005012242

eISBN: 978-1-6196-3104-5 (e-book)

Bloomsbury Publishing, Children's Books, U.S.A.
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010