The Diamond Mistake Mystery

by Sylvia McNicoll

  August dashes off after her. Seems like he’s forgotten her pirate insult and is finally talking to her. “Over this way, Pearl. We need to hunt for the treasure chest.” Project Make-a-Friend takes a happy turn.

  Renée and I hang around Attila for an extra moment. “Thank you,” I tell him. Then I can’t help myself. It’s mistake number seven in the making. Despite the fact that I know it will tick Renée off, I ask the question. “How can you possibly afford that SUV on this drawing job?” C’mon, Renée must want to know, too.

  “Hawh!” Renée glares at me.

  I guess she isn’t that curious, after all.

  “Not that it’s any of your business,” Attila says, “but you’re right, art never pays that well. The SUV belongs to Nagymama. She just bought it. I get to use it as long as I drive her around.”

  “Ohhhh. That’s why you took her grocery shopping!” I say.

  Three witches slump down noisily on the couch, cackling about wanting their portrait, so we move away, hunting for August and Pearl. Renée’s not talking to me, though.

  “I found the treasure chest! I found it!” August calls.

  We follow his voice to a large cardboard pirate chest full to the brim with small toys. Pearl gallops over and squeezes in ahead of us.

  “Now we can choose our prize!” August says to Pearl.

  They stand in front of the toys, side by side, unicorn princess and pirate.

  “You first,” August says.

  With August watching closely, Pearl hooves over the bling for a long time. Then she chooses — what else but a large plastic-and-crystal pink diamond ring.

  August snatches up a stick-on moustache and beard, and slaps it on right away. Renée and I score a couple of Dogman keychains. Perfect.

  Then we join all of the kids back in the events room to meet Scalliwag and Pirate Pete.

  Black Bart Attila joins Pirate Pete and together they act out parts of a story in front of the group. Attila growls at Pirate Pete. He turns to his audience. “Join me now!” he commands.

  All the little kids chant along, “For it’s first come, first serve, to steal a pirate’s treasure.” He makes them try it again even louder. Each time after that, when Attila repeats the line, the audience hollers it out again.

  Pirate Pete mimes finding the spot where he buried his treasure and pretend-digs it up quickly, all the while chuckling and chanting the line.

  “Mine … all mine!” He rubs his hands together. He’s so into it. I’m back to wondering whether he wouldn’t have just loved picking up Pearl’s show-and-tell ring if she dropped it on one of their meetings.

  Haww! A large spider puppet drops down. The little kids shriek and scream. The spider scares Pirate Pete away. Black Bart steps back in and scores the treasure without even lifting a shovel. Very much Attila-style. No surprise, we all join in on his favourite line yet again: “For it’s first come, first serve, to steal a pirate’s treasure.”

  “And now we’re going to sing Scalliwag’s favourite song!”

  That’s when we break into “Itsy Bitsy Spider.”

  Scalliwag bobs his head on the first line, opens up his feathers on the next. By the last line, he’s full into his head-banging routine, so we sing it again. The little kids love him. Renée and I do, too. Way more fun to act like a little kid when you’re twelve and expected to be mature.

  After the song, Attila passes out grape juice boxes and cookies. Some are even “glue-gun free” and Pearl stuffs her face.

  Attila and Pirate Pete twist balloons into swords and animals to pass out to all the kids. We end up being the last ones. Attila makes me a dog, Renée a mouse, and a couple of swords for August and Pearl, which seems like a mistake when they start a sword fight and Pearl stabs August. But instead, he giggles and stabs her back. The balloon swords bend backwards. Project Make-a-Friend is a success!

  I check my phone and see that it’s three o’clock. “Time to go!” I tell them. As we turn to leave, we face the library’s inside glass doors and can’t help noticing the tons of people out there. They all part to make way for somebody or something entering from the parking lot door. We turn again in that direction to check it out.

  DAY THREE, MISTAKE EIGHT

  The grey armoured truck parked at the glass doors looks like a fortress on wheels. Two women in bulky navy uniforms — security guards — wrestle a tall, black box down a ramp, through the entrance and hall, and into the Brilliant Diamond exhibition room. A third woman stands guard with her hand on a gun in her holster. The gun makes my stomach do a backflip, kind of the same way as when I hear about plane accidents on the news.

  “Whoa. That must be the pink diamond,” Attila says.

  “I’ve heard it’s worth millions,” Pirate Pete says.

  “Forty thousand,” says August. Wow, see what having a friend does for him? He’s speaking up now and sounds so sure of himself.

  Renée squints at him.

  “No-oo,” Pearl argues, unicorn-style. “My daddy says eight thousand.”

  Both pirates turn to look at Pearl. Pirate Pete’s mouth opens, but no words come out.

  “Huh?” Attila grunts.

  August and Pearl don’t answer. Neither seems bothered about the missing show-and-tell diamond turning up, either.

  Weird, weird, weird little kids. I shake my head. I don’t even know the price of gummy bears, let alone some random ring. I can see why Pearl might know the diamond’s worth: Daddy told her, right? But why August? Or is this diamond random to him?

  My neck prickles.

  Before I can ask him how he came up with his number, August starts waving.

  “Who’s there?” I ask. I see Ruby and Mrs. Lebel walking into the exhibition room.

  But he answers, “Uncle Andy.”

  “I don’t see your uncle anywhere,” I say. I see our crossing guard, Mrs. Filipowicz, and our local artist, Mr. Kowalski, but no other men.

  August frowns. “He ran inside. He didn’t say hi.”

  Pearl throws back her head and neighs. “Mommy, Ruby!”

  We can’t miss Mrs. Lebel. Dressed in a floor-length black dress with a gold-crown band in her long blond hair, lots of chains around her neck, and bangles around her wrist, she looks like Wonder Woman’s mother. Next to her, Pearl’s sister wears a white, flouncy blouse and jeans with a row of holes on both legs — pirate girl if I had to describe her costume. Only pirate girl carries a black top hat and a roll of tickets.

  Neither waves back to Pearl; they just continue walking into the exhibit room.

  “No one out there can hear you,” Renée explains to our pouty unicorn princess. “C’mon, let’s go in.”

  We push out the library doors, Renée in the lead, Pirate August and Unicorn Princess Pearl in the middle, and me trailing at the rear. Then we troop across the hall to the gym that also doubles as Brant Hills’ auditorium.

  Inside, we move to the right and stop to take it all in. The gym sure looks different. The basketball nets are folded into the ceiling. Four rows of glass cases divide up the room, all brightly lit and sparkling with different colours of jewels. I recognize many of our neighbours, as well as my principal, Mrs. Watier, browsing the jewellery displays.

  Something wet drips onto my arm, and I look up to see if there’s a leak in the roof.

  “Watch out!” Renée says, too late, as something crashes into my leg.

  “Buddy! Bad boy!”

  Mouth panting drool, Buddy the Rottweiler jumps onto me, big paws on my chest. I shut my eyes tight as he slurps at my face.

  “Oh, please, don’t let him do that,” his owner says. “We’re trying to train him not to jump.”

  I open my eyes again and push out my knee to bump him off. Then I flick his drool off my costume with my hand.

  “Should he be inside a city building?” Renée asks. “I thought only service dogs were allowed.”

  “Oh, but we had to stop in to see the unveiling of the Blushing Diamond. I just remembered wh
en we spotted the truck or I would have left Buddy at home. He won’t be any trouble.” She smiles at a clerk behind a counter. “And” — she waves a grey-and-white ticket — “I’m hoping to win a diamond myself.”

  The clerk looks away.

  I rummage in my pocket for a liver bite and hold it up to my eye level. Dad says the best way to manage bad behaviour is to train the dog to do the same behaviour when it’s acceptable. But first things first: I wait till Buddy fixes his eyes on the liver bite. “Wait, wait … and jump,” I say softly, but Buddy’s left the ground before he could have heard the word. He crunches happily.

  We keep walking. Nearby, Mr. Rupert and Mrs. Klein are bent over a case. Mr. Rupert’s hands are tucked in fists behind his back as though he has to resist crashing through the glass and taking something. Mrs. Klein’s hands hover over the case, fingers spread wide like raccoon claws reaching for an apple.

  From out of nowhere, a very cleaned-up looking Harry Diamond steps toward the counter, with Salma, his girlfriend. She wears her hair in the longest braid I’ve ever seen; his hair, oiled shiny for his date, has comb marks. “Excuse me, but I’d like to have a ring appraised,” he says to the clerk behind the counter.

  “Hey, young punk. You can’t just jump ahead of us in line. We were here first,” Mr. Rupert says.

  “By the time you decide, the world will end. I just want a quick evaluation of this diamond and then she’s all yours.” Harry pulls out a silver-bell-shaped case and opens it to show the clerk a ring with one clear diamond set on it.

  “Don’t even look at that. It’s stolen property. Call the cops,” Mr. Rupert says.

  The clerk’s eyes open wide.

  “That’s not true,” Salma says. “We shopped for it together.”

  “Then why would you want to sell it?”

  “Because we broke up,” Harry Diamond says. “Now we’re together again and we want something new.”

  “Horse feathers. Hey you! Arrest this man!” Mr. Rupert calls to the security guards passing by. “He climbed into someone’s house through the bathroom window. I have the video to prove it.”

  “Sorry, we just deliver stuff.” The guards continue out the door.

  Mr. Rupert pulls out his phone and scrolls. Then he holds out his phone as the video plays. The clerk and Salma watch.

  Renée and I hustle over.

  Salma presses frost-tipped fingernails over her mouth in shock — gosh, they’re long … and sparkly.

  “Don’t listen to him, miss,” I say. “Your boyfriend helped us unlock a door so we could rescue this girl.” I point to Pearl.

  “You didn’t find anything on the floor when you dropped down to pick up your business cards?” Renée can’t resist asking.

  Harry’s face flushes. Guilt or anger? He shakes his head and frowns. “For about ten minutes, I felt like a real hero.”

  “You were,” Renée says. “I mean, you still are.”

  “How do you know so much about diamonds?” I can’t help asking.

  “Salma and I do lots of research on stuff we’re gonna buy. Kind of our thing.” He smiles at Salma, who smiles back.

  “So why did you break into the basement window after?” Mr. Rupert continues. “You saw something you liked and came back for it.”

  “What? No. If I wanted to steal anything, I just had to climb through that window again.”

  There’s no time to sort it all out as Pearl suddenly yells and breaks away from us, dashing to the opposite end of the room. “Dad-dy, Dad-dy, Dad-dy,” she calls with each footstep she takes. Mr. Lebel stands at a counter, holding up a ring and peering at it through what looks like a cyborg eyepiece.

  He glances up at Pearl and then sweeps the room with his eyes.

  We wave, and when he spots us, he nods and raises a hand.

  Renée and I hang back with August until he makes a break in that direction, too. “Where’s he going?” I ask Renée.

  “I don’t know. To look for his uncle?”

  Farther down the counter, Mr. Van Ooute talks to Mr. Jirad and Reuven, who seem to have a pile of gold chains sitting in front of them on the glass.

  Also at that end, in a large open space on the other side of the counters, is the taller black case with a shiny, white cloth over it. Mr. Jirad and Reuven can’t be pawning off Pearl’s show-and-tell diamond if it’s under that cloth.

  A man stands to the left of the pink diamond case, log-sized arms folded across his chest, mop hair hanging to the security logo across his shirt. Mrs. Lebel and Pearl stand beside him.

  “It’s Mr. Sawyer!” Mr. Sawyer won the Mr. Universe contest a long time ago, but he sold the medal and works as custodian at the high school. “The Lebels must have hired him to guard the ring!” Renée says.

  “What ring?” I finally ask the obvious. “What exactly do they have sitting in that case if Pearl lost their pink diamond on the way to show and tell?”

  Renée lifts her shoulders. “I don’t know. Maybe she fibbed?”

  Our biggest mistake, number eight, may be believing everything Pearl tells us. Over the past couple of days, though, I’ve come to understand that she tells her own kind of truth.

  “Or maybe someone else found it and returned it?” I suggest. “I can’t believe even Pearl could keep up a story for this long.” I watch as she skips around her mother and throws back her head again to neigh. “Or maybe she can.” I shrug my shoulders and shake my head.

  “C’mon, we better catch up with August,” Renée says. “He’s bothering Mr. Van Ooute.”

  “You go ahead.” I take out my phone. “We get Wi-Fi here, and there’s something I need to look up.”

  DAY THREE, MISTAKE NINE

  Pirate Pete thought pink diamonds were worth millions. And I would have expected a little kid like August to have said something goofy, like “kuzillions,” so I’m curious about how much that pink diamond really costs. Once I sign up to the Wi-Fi, I key in “value of a pink diamond.”

  So many advertisements pop up. Lots of articles. I didn’t know there were brown and yellow diamonds, too. I scroll through a bunch. Blah, blah, blah, we already know pink diamonds are rare and most come from Australia. That stops me for a moment. Australia. Mrs. Whittingham comes from Australia.

  Mr. Rogers, our custodian, saunters in at that moment, Ms. Lacey’s arm through his. Even though he’s not wearing his red bandana, that sway in his walk makes me think of someone who’s spent time on a boat.

  “For it’s first come, first serve, to steal a pirate’s treasure,” I repeat under my breath. What has he discovered in the lost and found lately? Maybe he even returned the pink diamond. It makes no sense that it’s sitting in that black case when Pearl has had us looking for it all week.

  I see Renée doubling back to me, dragging August. “He may be your uncle, August, but he’s working right now.” She stops near me. “Stephen, what are you doing?”

  “Checking the value of pink diamonds.”

  “Maybe you could ask one of the many experts standing around here,” Renée suggests.

  “Forty thousand,” August repeats.

  Okay, that’s not just a random number for him. I key in “$40,000 pink diamond.”

  “Mrs. Whittingham is doing a presentation on the Blushing Diamond in five minutes. C’mon! She will probably tell you.”

  I pocket the phone. As we walk toward the other end of the room, we see Mrs. Klein and Mr. Rupert again. He’s arguing with a different jewellery clerk. “That’s too much money. How do I even know it’s real?”

  The woman behind the counter answers in a lowered voice.

  Mrs. Klein smiles broadly at her hand. She’s wearing a purple stone.

  “Amethyst,” Renée answers the question I haven’t asked yet. “February birthstone.”

  Honestly, Renée is my walking Wikipedia.

  The door bangs open behind us, and I turn to see Attila, still dressed as Black Bart, and Star. They seem to have a mission as they head toward us.r />
  “That’s pretty,” Star says to Mrs. Klein. “Amethysts have healing powers, too. Stare into one and it improves your eyesight.”

  “Maybe you won’t need cataract surgery,” Mrs. Klein tells Mr. Rupert.

  “I don’t need cataract surgery now,” he grumbles.

  “Also good for reasoning through issues,” Star adds.

  My mouth drops open; she’s so much like Renée with knowing random stuff.

  Mr. Rupert touches the ring on Mrs. Klein’s finger. “Then I reason this ring costs too much. Yup, it’s working,” he grouches.

  Frowning in his direction, Mrs. Klein pulls the ring off her finger and hands it back to the clerk.

  “Listen,” Attila says, “while you’re deciding on the ring, I have an amethyst broach I want to sell.”

  Attila pulls out a black velvet bag and, with his fingers, pulls the drawstring top open. He takes out a large gold pin with three round purple stones.

  “Where did you steal that?” Mr. Rupert asks.

  “That’s Grandma’s!” Renée hisses.

  “Yes, it is. She doesn’t want it anymore,” Attila says.

  “She said she was going to leave it to me,” Renée argues. “Honestly, Attila, I don’t know about you.”

  “Guess she changed her mind. Why don’t you ask Nagymama yourself, since you don’t believe me?” he says. Then he turns to the clerk. “How much would you give us for it?”

  The lady screws up her mouth, picks up the broach, turns it around, and squints. “Two hundred dollars. But I need to have a note from your grandmother.”

  “What?” Mr. Rupert squawks. “The broach jewels are way bigger than the ring and you’re charging eight hundred for it.” He turns to Attila. “I should buy it off you and have a ring made.” Mr. Rupert doesn’t seem to care whether Attila has permission to sell it or not.

  “Your attention, please.” Mr. Lebel’s raspy voice comes over the gym sound system. “Please make your way to the back, where in exactly two minutes, my wife will be drawing for the winning door prize: the beautiful lab-crafted pink diamond.”