My Detective Kit

After my mom reminded me to check the Lost and Found first thing in the morning I raced up the two sets of stairs to my bedroom. Downstairs, our house was full of workmen. All six of them looked dirty and sweaty. Most of them had ugly colorless tattoos on their arms: snakes and crosses and skulls with empty eye sockets. Some of the guys were installing new light fixtures and others were putting in curtains and blinds. They had taken down all the old ones and had carried many loads of junk to the dumpster we'd rented. The whole bottom floor smelled like B.O. The men were all working hard. Except one.

I knew who the foreman was, because he bossed everyone around but didn't seem to do any work himself. It was the short, angry-looking guy I'd spotted before school. His name was Barney, but the workers all called him Smack. I guess if my name were Barney I'd use a nickname too. Smack was no taller than me, but he was very wide and had giant shoulders and one squinty eye. The way he walked with his legs far apart reminded me of a pirate. He had a squeaky voice, and there was something fishy about the way he moved around our house. Every now and then he would look over his shoulder or snoop around in our stuff for a minute. I planned to keep my eye on Smack.

Once I was back inside my room I dumped my backpack on my bed, closed the door, and burned vanilla incense. I wanted to hurry and finish unpacking so I could start my search for Xandra Collins's clues. On our first night in the new house I had taken a quick look through all the rooms on every floor, and didn't find a thing except rat turds and bird droppings. But it didn't surprise me; I didn't expect clues to be neatly folded on shelves in the library or resting inside a bowl in the kitchen. I knew this was going to take some work. And according to the mysterious note, it would also take guts.

I worked at putting away my book collection first. My mom's old Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden mysteries were in the top of the first box. Sarah Dessen, Deb Caletti, and Meg Cabot novels made up the next layer, and I had tucked Gilda Joyce: Psychic Investigator, Model Spy, and some other hard covers around the sides. I ripped open the second box and unpacked my Gallagher Girls and Amanda Project paperbacks.

When I finished the third box and all my books were on their shelves, I looked around the small space and tried to decide how to arrange my new bedroom. My summer friend Kat had a cool room in a beachfront house in Shadow Hills. Her bedroom was divided into four quadrants, one representing each element: earth, water, air, and fire. I decided to decorate mine the same way. "Grandpa's desk symbolizes earth, since it is made of wood. So the earth section will be the turret room." His antique desk was already up there, topped with orange, green, and brown candles and my fern. Perfect.

I moved a little marble table next to the wall and put my desktop fountain on top of it. "This is the water quadrant." Running into the closest bathroom to fill a glass, I poured water into the fountain and turned it on, smiling when the water began to trickle over the rocks. I hammered a little nail into the wall behind the fountain and hung up the Dream Catcher I made in summer school. I had woven little shells in between knots of blue-green yarn around a circular frame. Maybe I'd get a couple of black goldfish and put seashells from the beach around the bottom of their bowl.

"The air section can be over here." I set my glass butterfly figurine on a shelf by the window and planned to make a mobile out of feathers, twigs, and string that would spin in the breeze. "Now for fire." I arranged candles on the top of my little bookcase, and finished the fire quad with my new incense burner.

Then I took out my favorite possession besides Grandpa's badge: my detective kit. There were places in our new house that I could investigate using each item. The jumbo flashlight would be perfect for exploring the backyard, the hillside, and the hidden floor, after I found it. My pocket penlight would light up the shadowy corners of the bedrooms and my office, the insides of cupboards, and other secret spots where clues might be hidden. Black light flashlight: useful everywhere. I could see blood, fingerprints, and invisible ink when I shined its ultraviolet light in the dark.

My laser pointer shot a red beam of light across the room. It was really only useful for pointing at things or for blinding myself or someone else, according to my mom. If she knew how I had actually used it to defend myself over the summer it would have curled her toes.

There were protective gloves and goggles, and a measuring tape, pen, and sketchpad for taking notes at crime scenes. I had a magnifying glass that I used to look for clues, tweezers to pick them up with, and evidence envelopes to put them in. When I got home from Shadow Hills, the listening device I'd sent away for had finally come. My Soundtrap was a directional microphone that was the size and shape of a new pencil, connected to a pair of earbuds. Perfect for eavesdropping. I'd saved up my chores and weeding money for months to pay for it and it was worth every quarter.

My favorite detective tool was my fingerprinting kit. It had black and white dusting powder for finding fingerprints, a brush to dust on the powder, and clear strips of tape for lifting the prints. There were Case Solution cards to paste fingerprints or other clues onto, which I labeled with invisible ink. And of course I had my pink, Super-Zoom binoculars. I would probably need every single item in my kit to help me find Xandra's hidden jewels.

My Porta-detective kit contained a miniature set of spy tools. It was a pink metal carryall with leopard spots that looked like a lunch box, so I could take it to school and stay undercover. You never knew when your detective gear would come in handy.

When I got sick of unpacking I took a break and decided to make a sign for my office door. First I carried my art supplies and detective kit up the stairs and sat down at my desk. Grabbing a ruler, I drew pencil lines on a piece of white poster board. Then I used my stencil to draw the letters, and colored them in using marking pens in different shades of violet and blue. I decorated the borders with pink and purple glitter ink.

"Perfect," I said, holding up my sign and admiring my work. I hung it on the turret room door with heavy-duty pushpins.

Open for business! I opened the note-taking app and typed, "The Mystery of the Hidden Jewels." If I could solve this mystery, maybe my agency would finally get famous. I liked to fantasize about going on exciting missions, deep undercover.

I was seated at a formal table in a castle dining room next to the highest member of a Middle Eastern government. A microphone the size of a pinhead hid under a button on my silk blouse, and a micro-camera disguised as a jewel dangled from my necklace. I flirted with my handsome enemy until he was distracted, then dropped a pill into his drink. When the drug loosened his lips he revealed a plan to attack the United States, which I recorded. I brought the Top Secret information back to America, revealed the plot to the FBI, and prevented a terrorist attack.

The fantasy evaporated when a horrible banging sound made me jump right out of my chair. I hurried over to the window and looked down into the yard, spotting a construction worker with a black beard and muscles so big he looked like a professional wrestler. He was ripping broken wood trim and the old rain gutter off of our house. I'd heard Smack's squeaky voice yelling at him earlier. His name was Sledge. Picking up a huge pile of junk, Sledge groaned loudly as he heaved it into the dumpster. Then he snooped around the backyard for a minute, glancing over his shoulder to see if anyone was watching him.

Sledge cracked his knuckles and peeked into the gazebo. When he looked up at the turret, I dropped to my knees so I wouldn't get caught spying. The cleaning crew had obviously missed the turret room, because the windowsill was covered with dust. I had just started to stand up when something caught my eye.

There was a pattern in the dust.

I looked at it more closely and my heart started to pound. I stood up, snatching my detective kit off the floor. Plucked out my magnifying glass and studied the windowsill through it. I sucked in my breath and the hair stood up on my arms.

I had just found the first clue.