The Case of the Diamond Dog Collar (11 page)

• found the first diamond

• found the other 11 diamonds

• figured out who stole them

• figured out if their disappearance was connected to El Brillante, the missing diamond in a certain nearby nation.

In fact, the only mystery we'd solved was one we weren't trying to solve: where Granny's canary came from.

As detectives we were totally lame.

After lunch, Tessa, Nate, Jeremy and I went outside to play Frisbee with Hooligan on the lawn. This lasted about fifteen minutes. The wind had picked up after Canine Class, and by now it was gray and freezing outside!

I've lived in Washington ever since Mom first was
elected to the Senate. For Tessa, that's her whole life. But Nate just moved from San Diego in January. He was shivering. “I thought winter was over!” he said.

“March is always like this,” I told him. “Sometimes it even snows.”

“What if we go bowling?” Nate asked. The White House has a bowling alley on the ground floor. We had only been there a couple of times. Usually we were too busy.

“Bad news on bowling,” said Jeremy. “I understand they're refinishing the lane. It should be dry by the end of the week, though.”

In the end, we were so desperate we decided to watch TV in the Solarium. Of course, the second we got there, Nate grabbed the remote. And what did he turn on? News!

Tessa said, “
Ewwww!
,” and I tackled him, but he held the remote away so I couldn't get it, then Tessa jumped and almost had it, but he said, “Hey, wait—look!” which I thought was a trick, but it turned out not to be. The picture on the screen was a dog with a red bow in her hair, the Empress Pu-Chi!

I don't mean the actual empress. I mean a photo of her on a sign outside a palace in the capital city of the nearby nation. There was writing in a foreign language on the sign, too. The news guy translated: “People are more important than dogs!”

According to the news guys, protesters in the nearby nation believed Empress Pu-Chi was treated better than poor people, and they wanted a new government.

“You mean they want to fire President Alfredo-Chin?” said Tessa. “But I like him! He forgave Hooligan, and Mom says he's a friend of the American people.”

“Mr. Mormora doesn't like him,” I remembered. “Do you think Mr. Mormora is on the side of the protesters?”

The news guy was still talking. “Opposition forces say their major stumbling block is raising the financial means necessary to effect change. . . .”

“What is he talking about now?” Tessa looked at Nate.

“The people who want a different government need money to get one,” Nate said.

“Is Mr. Ghanamamma one of those people?” asked Tessa.

Nate shook his head no. “He works for President Alfredo-Chin.”

“But Mr. Mormora said he used to sing about poor people and beautiful women,” said Tessa. “That makes him sound like more of a protester.”

“And now he's gone to the jungle,” I said.

Then I thought of something—don't safaris happen in jungles?

“You guys?” I said. “I just thought of something. . . .”

“So did I,” said Nate. “The protesters need money to change the government, right? Well, one way to get money is to work for it. But another is. . . .”

“Steal it,” said Tessa.

“Or steal something valuable—like a diamond,” said Nate.

Sometimes thoughts are like rolling snowballs—they
grow and grow, out of control. All of a sudden we couldn't think—or talk—fast enough. “You mean El Brillante,” I said. “But it's famous like the Hope Diamond, worth everything and nothing.”

“Do you have your notebook, Cammie?” Tessa asked. “I want to see something.”

The television was still talking, but we had stopped watching. We were huddled together on the floor, reading over pages of notes.

“There!” Tessa pointed. “That's what I remembered. Mr. Rubio said sometimes diamonds are cut up into smaller diamonds. So if you needed to get money from a famous diamond, couldn't you cut it up? And sell the pieces?”

Nate was nodding. “If that's true, it could be there's not just a connection between Hooligan's diamonds and El Brillante—Hooligan's diamonds
are
El Brillante.”

Now it was like our snowball had become an avalanche. “Are you saying the protesters stole the diamond, cut it up, put the pieces on a collar and mailed it to Hooligan?” I asked.

“Bingo,” said Tessa.

“But there's a million problems with that!” I said. “I mean, how do you get money from Hooligan? And besides, the collar came from the Empress Pu-Chi—with a letter from Mr. Ghanamamma. Like Nate just said, he's not a protester.”

Nate the know-it-all rolled his eyes like I was the dumbest cousin ever. “Pay attention, Cameron. Let's say Tessa's got it right about Mr. Ghanamamma. Let's
say he's secretly on the side of the protesters. When he sent the collar here, he wasn't really sending it to Hooligan. He was sending it to a confederate.”

“What's confederate?” said Tessa.

“Someone he knew he could trust,” said Nate, “someone who would sell the diamonds then send back the money.”

Tessa was nodding. “But before that person could sell the diamonds,” she said, “they would have to steal the diamonds. So if we find the confederate, then we've found the thief.”

NATE and Tessa's theories were giving me a headache.

But I had to admit they made a weird kind of sense. And my own puzzle piece fit, too. “Guys?” I said. “There's something else. Mr. Ghanamamma's in the jungle, right? And Mr. Mormora says he's going on safari? So that might mean—”

“Mr. Mormora is going to meet up with Mr. Ghanamamma!” Tessa finished my sentence. “He's the confederate. He's the thief.”

“Too easy,” said Nate. “If Mr. Mormora was the confederate, he wouldn't have told us he knew Empress Pu-Chi and spent time in the nearby nation. He would have tried to keep all that a secret.”

“Maybe he thought we'd find out anyway,” I said.

Nate shook his head. “I'm betting it's Mr. Bryant.”

“But Granny—” Tessa began.

“That's part of his plot, Tessa,” Nate said. “He's
pretending to like Granny, just like Mr. Ghanamamma pretended he was working for President Alfredo-Chin. If Mr. Bryant's the thief, he probably thinks his friendship with Granny will protect him. Except for you guys, he's the one who's closest to Hooligan. If the protesters in the nearby nation wanted to recruit someone to help them, that's who they'd go to.”

“But Mr. Bryant doesn't care about a nearby nation,” Tessa said. “Does he?”

“I bet they're paying him a bundle of money,” Nate said.

“Unless it's Mr. Ng,” I said.

Tessa and Nate looked at me.

“Where did that come from?” Nate asked.

“Mr. Bryant's worked in the White House forever,” I said, “but Mr. Ng came to work right before the collar arrived and right after El Brillante was stolen. That was—” I looked at my notes—”sometime in the last month, according to Jan and Larry.”

Nate and Tessa were listening like this made sense. But the truth is I was making it up as I went along. I just didn't want the thief to be Mr. Bryant.

“Uh . . . ,” I said, “and . . . well, Mr. Mormora thinks Mr. Ng is feeding Hooligan unhealthy treats. So maybe he is, and he's doing it, uh . . . so Hooligan will be his special friend and come whenever he calls. Like maybe on Thursday, he called Hooligan when he was down in the trees by the tennis court hiding.”

Tessa nodded. “Good thinking, Cammie.”

“You're kidding,” I said.

“No, seriously,” said Tessa. “I am officially completely confused. If you ask me, they all did it. But there's still something I can't figure out. Where are the diamonds now?”

IN Nate's room we looked up El Brillante on the computer and learned it weighed sixty karats. Divided by twelve, it would break up into new diamonds that were about five karats each. When we found a picture of a five karat diamond, it looked like the ones on the collar. In other words, it was big and fat for a diamond but small for anything else, about the size of a jelly bean.

Finding twelve jelly beans in the White House would be impossible! In case you don't know, the White House is huge—132 rooms in the main part, plus work rooms and storage areas—not to mention the grounds outside.

Besides, the diamonds might already be gone.

Or maybe not? With the security alert, people going in and out were being checked super carefully—even the staff. It could be that whoever had the diamonds was waiting till it was safer to take them away.

“I have one last idea,” said Tessa dramatically. “And if it doesn't work, I am officially giving up.”

On our way down to the second floor, we ran into Mr. Bryant and Hooligan in the elevator. It was a little strange seeing Mr. Bryant. We not only thought he might be a diamond thief; we also thought he might be lying to our very own Granny about how much he liked her.

And then he said, “Just the people I was looking for! Would you kids mind watching the star pupil for a while? I thought I might get a cup of coffee.”

“With Granny?” Tessa asked suspiciously.

“Why, yes, as a matter of fact,” said Mr. Bryant. “Uh . . . do you have a problem with that?”

Tessa sighed and looked at me, then Nate. “I guess not,” she said. “Come on, puppy.”

Tessa's idea was to interview Mrs. Hedges. We found her coming out of the Lincoln Bedroom. She had a vacuum cleaner in one hand and a rag in the other. Of course, Hooligan was delighted to see his old pal, and lunged—causing Mrs. Hedges to drop everything and duck behind a sofa.

“Hooligan,
heel!
” I said.

Hooligan stopped and looked back, like, Do I have to? But then he circled around and dropped to his haunches beside me the way he'd been taught. “Good dog!”

Now Mrs. Hedges peeked over the sofa and narrowed her eyes. “That dog doesn't fool me. As soon as these classes are over, he'll be back to his old tricks.”

“Mrs. Hedges,” Tessa crossed her arms over her chest. “We have a few questions for you.”

Keeping an eye on Hooligan, Mrs. Hedges came
around to our side of the sofa, sat and made herself comfortable. “Go ahead. I don't mind getting off my feet. That woman Ms. Kootoor is more trouble than half a dozen normal—”

“Mrs. Hedges—” Tessa tried to interrupt.

“—it took a whiskbroom, the vacuum cleaner, and furniture oil to get the dried mud off her closet floor. And there's that cooler she keeps. The ice needs replacing twice a day! What's she need a cooler for? The White House food isn't good enough? Anyway, I've only got one more day of putting up with her. She's packing to leave tomorrow. Now that Mr. Mormora, on the other hand, I'll be sorry—”