The Clue at the Zoo (4 page)

She saw things in a blur.

Something brown on the path. Green trees.

Someone was calling.

Then arms reached out for her.

“Are you all right?” a voice asked.

Dawn looked up. She saw the woman with a rose dangling from one ear. “It’s you again,” she said.

The woman pushed at the rose and smiled. “I remember you, too.”

Jill slid to a stop next to them. “I’ve got the book,” she yelled. “Don’t worry.”

Dawn sat up, rubbing her head. She could see the twins. They were racing away.

“Not their book,” she said. “Definitely not their book.”

“I didn’t think so,” said Jill.

“Are you all right?” said the woman.

“I guess so,” Dawn said. She brushed off her knees. “I was trying to solve a mystery, but . . .”

The woman was looking around. “I can’t imagine where that dog—” She broke off. “Glad you’re all right.” She started toward the bat house calling, “Fifi, come back.”

Jill sank down next to Dawn. “I’m worn out. All this running. Up and down. Back and forth. I haven’t even seen one anteater.”

“I know.” Dawn sighed.

Then she sat up straight. “Just a minute. I just thought of something.”

Jill sighed too. “I wish you wouldn’t think. I wish you’d just forget about this whole thing.”

“R.L.,” said Dawn. “RRRRRR. LLLLLLL. And P-S-N.”

“And ABCDEF,” said Jill.

“Don’t be silly.” Dawn tapped Jill on the shoulder. “I think I just solved the mystery.”

“Good,” said Jill. “Now how about going to see the anteaters?”

Dawn shook her head. “No. Just follow me.”

They started up the path.

They passed the seal pool.

“Will you please tell me what’s going on?” Jill asked.

“I’ll show you,” Dawn said. “In about half a minute.”

A
CROWD WAS STANDING
at the alligator swamp.

They were listening to a man in boots. “See its eyes,” he was saying. “They’re set on top of the alligator’s head. That way the alligator can hide in the water. It still sees what’s going on.”

Dawn looked around.

Arno was standing on top of a rock. He had his arm around a large tan dog.

“Come on, Jill,” Dawn whispered.

They tiptoed up behind Arno.

Dawn grabbed his shoulder. “Gotcha!”

Arno jumped.

The dog started to growl.

“You didn’t scare me,” said Arno. “Not one bit.”

“Hey,” said Jill. “That dog’s a monster.”

Dawn narrowed her eyes. “Sounds like the growling we heard before.”

“I know,” Arno began. “Remember I told you he was—”

“Alligators have short legs,” said the man in boots. “They don’t use them in the water, but it means they can walk in the swamp too.”

“You owe me two dollars, Arno,” said Dawn.

“These kids never keep quiet,” said someone. It was the woman from the movie.

“Sorry,” said Dawn. “Let’s go somewhere else.”

They wandered back onto the path.

“Two dollars,” Dawn said again.

Arno shook his head. “Do not.”

“You most certainly do,” said Dawn. “I won the bet. I solved the mystery.”

Arno ran his tongue around his lips. “You couldn’t solve—”

“I have your book,” said Dawn.

Arno looked surprised. “You figured that out? Not bad.”

Jill looked surprised too. “Arno’s book? Arno’s? But his initials aren’t R.L. They’re A.E.”

Arno shook his head. “Uh-uh. R.L. Listen. RRRRRRR-no. LLLLLLL-iot. That’s my name.”

Jill looked up at the sky. “Can’t spell.”

“I can almost,” said Arno. He looked at Dawn. “How did you find out it was mine?”

“You dropped it on the path. On purpose.” Dawn narrowed her eyes.

Arno was laughing.

She nodded. “It had to be you. I should have known it all along. It wasn’t Candy. It wasn’t the twins. It certainly wasn’t the woman with the rose.”

“Very good,” said Arno.

“You hid your money in the book,” said Dawn. “Then you wrote P-S-N on it for poison.”

“You’re going to take my dollars?” said Arno. “I’m just a poor little six-year-old kid and you’re going to take my money.”

Dawn narrowed her eyes. “I should dump you right in the alligator—”

Jill shivered. “Don’t even think of that.”

Dawn grinned. “Only kidding.” She handed the book to Arno. “I should take your money. Instead I want to hear what a great detective I am.”

“Well,” Arno began. “I guess—”

“Yeow,” Jill yelled. “I just solved a mystery. All by myself.” She jumped up and down.

The dog began to growl.

Dawn and Arno looked at Jill. “You couldn’t solve a mystery,” said Arno.

That was just what Dawn was thinking.

She wouldn’t say that, though.

Jill was a good friend.

Jill put her hands on her hips. “Where’s Fred?” she asked Arno.

“That’s right,” said Dawn. “What happened to Fred?”

Arno pointed.

Jill pointed too. “I knew it,” she said.

Dawn scratched her head. “The dog? The dog is Fred?”

“Right,” said Arno. “I told you. FAT. Fred’s been running around all day looking for his mother.”

“Wrong name,” said Jill.

Dawn leaned over. She looked at the dog’s collar. “F-I-F-I,” she spelled. “Fifi.”

“That spells Fifi?” said Arno. “I thought it was Fred.”

“See what I mean?” said Jill. “The dog is Fifi. And the woman with the rose is looking all over for her.”

Dawn slapped her head. “Very good, Jill. Very, very good.”

Arno spoke up. “Fred had a rose in his hair too. It fell out.”

Dawn and Jill nodded at each other. “You knocked everyone over,” Dawn told him. “The woman must have dropped the leash. . .”

“And she’s been looking for Fifi ever since,” said Jill.

“Fred’s mother,” said Arno.

“Fifi’s mother,” said Jill.

“I can’t believe it,” said Arno. “You solved a mystery too.”

Jill pulled at one braid. “Lost my bow somewhere.”

“Never mind,” said Dawn. “We’ll find it. We’ve straightened everything else out. We just have to give the dog back to the woman with the rose, find your bow”—she grinned—“and then go see the anteaters.”

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.