All morning, Milo felt ready to burst.
He had to talk to Jazz!
Finally, the bell rang for recess. Milo rushed out to the playground. As soon as he saw Jazz, the whole story spilled out.
“And I never got to look in his desk,” Milo lamented. “Maybe after school—”
“No,” Jazz said. “Your twenty-four hours are up. We’re going to turn that necklace in. Right now.”
The office lady told Milo and Jazz that they would have to wait to see the principal. They sat down in the chairs.
Near them, a younger girl waited too, slumped miserably in her seat.
“What did you get in trouble for?” Milo asked.
The girl seemed ready to cry. “Nothing! I’m sick!”
“Oh. Sorry.”
A worried-looking woman in a business suit rushed in. “Ashley! Honey, are you all right?”
The girl smiled wanly. “Hi, Mom.”
“I came as soon as the nurse called!” The woman turned to the office lady. “My boss will have a fit. Yesterday I was late to work because I had to call the police, and now this. . . .”
Police?
“Excuse me,” Milo broke in eagerly. “Did you lose a diamond necklace?”
“Why . . . yes, I did,” the woman said, looking surprised.
He stood and pulled the necklace from his pocket. “Is this it?”
The woman gasped. “My necklace! But . . . how in the world . . .”
Her daughter burst into tears.
Milo glanced at Jazz. She was staring at the girl.
“What grade are you in?” Jazz asked.
“S-second,” she sobbed.
Jazz turned to Milo. “Told you so!”
The girl and her mother gaped at Jazz. But Milo got it. “Second grade recess?”
“Right before ours,” Jazz said.
Milo felt a twinge of disappointment. So the diamonds he’d found in his desk had nothing to do with the jewel heist after all. Still . . . he and Jazz had solved their case!
“I don’t understand,” the woman said. “Why do you have my necklace?”
Milo handed it to her, then pointed at the girl. “Ask her.”
“I didn’t mean to steal it!” she wailed. “I was only borrowing it for the day.”
“Ashley! You took my necklace?”
The girl turned her tear-stained face up to her mother. “Brianna gets to wear high-heeled sandals to school every day! Sparkly ones! I wanted to look fancy too.”
Her mother’s hands flew to her hips. “And you swore you had no idea where my necklace was!”
“I didn’t,” Ashley sobbed. “It felt bumpy on my neck, so I took it off and put it in my pocket during recess. I guess it fell out. I didn’t know it was gone until I got back to class. I went to look right after school, but I couldn’t find it.”
Milo looked at Jazz. “Spencer.”
She nodded.
The woman turned to them. “So you found my necklace on the playground?”
“Well . . . not exactly,” Milo said. “Actually, I found it in my desk.”
“Your desk?”
“The custodian put it in there,” Jazz cut in. “She found it on the floor where Mandy dropped it.”
The woman looked bewildered. “Mandy?”
“A girl in our class,” Milo explained. “See, Spencer has a crush on her—”
“Spencer? Who’s Spencer?”
“He’s the boy who found the diamond necklace on the playground,” Milo said. “We figured it all out by working backward. Simple.”
Jazz shot him a look.
“Okay, I may have slipped up once or twice along the way,” Milo admitted. “But we got it in the end, right?”
The woman sank into a chair and rested her head in her hand.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” her daughter said. “I wanted to tell you the truth. But I was scared the police would take me away.” She started crying again.
“Ashley, don’t be silly! That would never happen.” Her mother got up and put her arms around her. “No wonder you haven’t been feeling well. You’re worried sick.”
Ashley snuffled. “So I’m not in trouble?”
“You took my necklace without asking, and you lost it,” her mother said. “Worst of all, you lied about it. Oh, yes. You’re in trouble, all right. But with me, not the police.”
Milo and Jazz exchanged a glance. Milo could tell they were thinking the same thing.
This would be a very good time to go back to class.
Milo hurried up the steps and rang the doorbell. He couldn’t wait to show Jazz his new bug-collecting tool. Pretty soon he would know as much about bugs as Mr. Davenport!
When she answered, he held it up. “Ta-da!”
“What is that thing?” Jazz asked, stepping back to let him inside.
“A bug sucker.”
“A what?”
“You use it to pick up little bugs without squishing them,” he explained. “See? You stick one tube over the bug and suck on the other tube, and the bug pops right into the jar. Mr. Davenport showed me how to make it. All you need is a jar and a couple of rubber tubes—”
Jazz’s older brother Dylan looked up from his homework. “Davenport? Not Dan Davenport?”
“Well . . . yeah,” Milo said. “I think so. He’s my teacher.”
“How do you know Mr. Davenport?” Jazz asked her brother.
“Are you kidding? Dynamite Dan? He’s practically a legend,” Dylan said. “Back when I was your age, he was the star of the high school basketball team. When he went up for a slam dunk, it was like he had rockets on his feet.”
“Wow,” Milo said.
Dylan sighed. “He led the team to state. But then . . .”
“What?” Jazz asked.
“It was the last few seconds of the game. The score was tied. Westview got the ball and passed it straight to Dan. He headed down the court.”
“What happened?” Milo asked. “He missed?”
“He never made the shot,” Dylan said. “Halfway down the court, Dynamite Dan stopped in his tracks and let go of the ball.”
“You’re kidding!” Milo said.
Dylan shook his head. “Then he yelled ‘Tiger!’ and hit the floor.”
“Tiger?” Jazz asked.
“Yeah! Everyone thought he’d gone loopy. Turned out he meant tiger beetle. It’s this bug that’s really hard to catch.”
“So Westview lost the game because Mr. Davenport saw a bug?” Jazz asked.
“Naw. One of the other guys scooped up the ball and made the winning point,” Dylan said. “But Coach had a total cow. He kicked Dan off the team.”
“Poor Mr. Davenport,” Milo said.
Dylan shrugged. “I don’t think he minded all that much. Dynamite Dan liked basketball, but he was really into bugs.”
“He’s still into bugs,” Milo said.
“Maybe he’s still into basketball, too,” Jazz said. “Remember that guy in the black van?”
Milo thought back. Dynamite Dan. Sunday night. “You mean—they were talking about a basketball game?”
“That’s what I think.” Jazz pulled out her purple notebook and pen. “I’m going to put it in our letter to Dash. Along with the big news about the real jewel heist.”
“News?” Milo asked.
“Didn’t you hear?”
He looked at his bug sucker. “I’ve been busy.”
“They arrested the jewel thieves,” Jazz told him. “It turned out to be an inside job. The jewelry store owner hired a gang of robbers to break into his store so he could collect the insurance.”
“I don’t believe it!” Milo said. “No wonder the robbers knew just what to do.”
Jazz nodded. “The owner showed them where the cameras were, which jewelry was most expensive—everything.”
“What did he do with the jewels?” Milo asked.
“The police found them hidden all over his house. Trixie Astor’s necklace and tiar
a turned up at the bottom of the vegetable drawer.”
Milo laughed. Then something in Jazz’s open notebook caught his eye. Was that an ink splotch? No, it was crawling off the page. It was a bug!
He grabbed his bug sucker and leaned over the table. Shwwwuuup— Gulp.
“Did you get it? Where did it go?” Jazz peered into the jar, then looked up at him.
He stared back at her.
“Oh, Milo! You didn’t swallow it!”
Milo nodded unhappily. “I don’t know how it happened. I did just what Mr. Davenport said. The jar, the rubber tubes, and . . . oh.”
“What?” Jazz asked.
“I think he might also have said something about a small piece of nylon stocking for a screen,” he admitted.
Jazz patted his arm. “You’ll get it next time.”
“I’m not sure I want to,” Milo said. “I’ve kind of—well, I’ve kind of lost my taste for bug collecting.”
Jazz laughed. “Well, you don’t need to be a bug expert. You’ve already got the best hobby in the world.”
“I do?” he asked.
“Absolutely, partner,” she said. “Sleuthing!”
A few days after Milo and Jazz wrote to Dash Marlowe, a letter arrived in the mail. . . .
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lewis B. Montgomery is the pen name of a writer whose favorite authors include CSL, EBW, and LMM. Those initials are a clue—but there’s another clue, too. Can you figure out their names?
Besides writing the Milo & Jazz mysteries, LBM enjoys eating spicy Thai noodles and blueberry ice cream, riding a bike, and reading. Not all at the same time, of course. At least, not anymore. But that’s another story. . . .
ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR
Amy Wummer has illustrated more than 50 children’s books. She uses pencils, watercolors, and ink—but not the invisible kind.
Amy and her husband, who is also an artist, live in Pennsylvania . . . in a mysterious old house which has a secret hidden room in the basement!
The Case of the Diamonds in the Desk Page 3