by Jill Diamond
“It certainly is tragic,” said Lou Lou’s mom. “Everyone in El Corazón was looking forward to hosting the celebration, and we’ve spent so much time preparing.” She glanced at a box filled with her origami birthday cakes that she would now have to give to Verde Valley. “And poor Peacock losing her beautiful hats! What will happen to the honeysuckle, honey?” Lou Lou’s mom didn’t seem to realize that sounded funny.
“I’m not sure yet,” said Lou Lou. She checked the antique chronometer on the shelf above the stove. “But I’ll know soon. It’s time to go to Limonero Park!”
“Aye, aye, matey!” said Lou Lou’s dad. “You go ahead. We’ll be there once I finish baking catamaran cookies.”
Lou Lou grabbed her red hoodie from the ship’s-mast coatrack. “Great! I’m sure Pea will be happy to have fresh cookies when we get back.” She knew Pea loved the sailboat-shaped sugar cookies topped with blue and white sprinkles.
“Before you go, Lou Lou, I have a joke for you,” her dad said. “What kind of sweater did the pirate wear?”
“I don’t know, Dad.” Lou Lou was reminded of Kyle’s bad jokes.
“Arrrgyle, of course!” her dad replied. Lou Lou mustered a grin before she shut the door behind her.
When Lou Lou reached Limonero Park, it was already busy with the handover of the Bonanza preparations. Many of Lou Lou’s neighbors were there, just like at the Heliotrope. But unlike the Heliotrope gathering, there was no festive feeling in the air. Instead the people of El Corazón moved about the park with sad eyes and heavy hearts. Lou Lou saw Kyle giving his goats to another ruddy-faced boy.
“Please take good care of them, Tommy,” Kyle said. He hugged Jupiter around the neck, and the goat nibbled on Kyle’s hair.
Nearby, Danielle Desserts and her snooty-girl posse were teaching a group of Verde Valley girls to do the Sugar Mountain Sisters’ Shimmy.
“Sashay, sashay, jazz hands!” Danielle commanded. “No, no, no! I said ‘jazz hands’ not ‘spaghetti fingers’! Try it again!” Even though Danielle was being her usual bossy self, Lou Lou sympathized with the sorrowful note in Danielle’s voice. She’d worked hard on the Sugar Mountain Sisters’ Shimmy, and it couldn’t be easy to have to give up dancing in its debut performance.
Before she tracked down Juan to ask about the honeysuckle, Lou Lou looked for Pea. It didn’t take long to find her best friend. Pea stood forlornly between two lemon trees, surrounded by a multicolored sea of hatboxes and bags.
“Hi,” said Lou Lou, putting her arm around Pea’s shoulders. “¿Cómo estás?”
“Bien,” Pea replied, but from her sorrowful tone and her quivering chin, Lou Lou didn’t believe that she was doing well.
“Where’s Mr. Vila?” Lou Lou asked.
“He went to get the rest of the hats. In the meantime, I’m waiting to give these to Verde Valley.” She nodded at the boxes and bags. Following Pea’s gaze, Lou Lou saw the hats Pea had named Lady Lou Lou’s Luxury and Bombay Bazaar. Lou Lou felt a familiar warmth in her ears. She definitely believed the diary was a fake, the Bonanza was stolen, and Verde Valley had no right to take Pea’s beloved hats. But even if the Argyles weren’t lying, Lou Lou still felt upset that Pea would lose her hats.
“Have you checked on your honeysuckle yet?” Pea asked.
“No. I wanted to check on you first,” Lou Lou replied.
“I’ll be all right. I promise,” Pea said.
Lou Lou scanned the park to find Juan. He was over near the long row of honeysuckle talking to Andy Argyle, and from the way Juan was waving his hands, things didn’t look good.
“We can’t just dig up the plants without damaging them,” Lou Lou heard Juan say as she approached. He gave the shovel in Andy Argyle’s hand a dirty look.
“We’ll have to take our chances, won’t we? The honeysuckle belongs to Verde Valley now,” replied the vice-mayor. Lou Lou marched to Juan’s side, not bothering to say any chrysanthemums or try to cool her fiery ears.
“But—” she began.
“What do we have here? A little girl who wants to get her way, just like that hat girl at the Heliotrope. El Corazón seems to be filled with them.” This made Lou Lou even angrier. She hated being called little. “No BUTS,” Andy Argyle added.
“I don’t want their stupid plants, Daddy.” Amanda Argyle stomped over to her father. She was wearing Pea’s hat again. Lou Lou hoped Pea couldn’t see Amanda. Pea’s day was already bad enough. “I took some cuttings when I was here before. We can grow far superior Verde Valley honeysuckle.” Amanda twirled her braids around her fingers and looked smug.
“‘Superior’? Did you say superior?” Lou Lou said. “And do you really think you have enough time—” Juan put a hand on her arm, and Lou Lou got the message. Silence might mean they could save their plants.
“If you say so, darling daughter,” said Andy Argyle. “You can keep your silly honeysuckle,” he said to Juan and Lou Lou. “Come on, Amanda. Let’s go find some of the more interesting Bonanza creations.” Andy Argyle spun on a shiny-shoed heel.
Lou Lou helped Juan water the honeysuckle and went to rejoin Pea. But before she reached the other side of the park, she nearly ran headlong into Jeremy.
“Whoooaaa there!” Jeremy put up his hands to avoid a collision. He backed up a step to peer down at Lou Lou, and one of the red spikes of his hair flopped over. “Hello, my clumsy friend.”
“You’re the one who wasn’t looking where you were going,” said Lou Lou.
“You’ve got a point. Sorry about that,” Jeremy said. “With all that’s going on today, I guess I was distracted. It’s such a bummer to lose all of this.” He looked around at the park.
“It’s so unfair! Even if the Bonanza does belong in Verde Valley, the Argyles are really taking this too far,” Lou Lou replied. “Anyway, Pea and I have our suspicions about their story and the diary. We’ve decided to investigate!”
“Uh-oh, the Argyles better watch out!” said Jeremy. “When it comes to investigations, Lou Lou Bombay and Peacock Pearl mean business.”
“What will happen with the caracoles contest?” Lou Lou asked. “Can you still enter?”
“I hope so!” said Jeremy. “It’s always been open to the whole city, not just the Bonanza host neighborhood, and I haven’t heard any different. Hey, do you and Peacock want to come over later? I’ve tried some new ingredients and I wanna know whatcha think. You can also tell me more about this investigation.”
“Sure!” Lou Lou decided that her dad’s catamaran cookies could wait. “Pea will need some cheering up, and caracoles might just do the trick.”
“¡Excelente! Hasta luego!” Jeremy loped off toward the far edge of the park.
When she rejoined Pea, the hatboxes and bags were gone and Kyle was showing Pea his cosmic kung fu. “And then a crater chop.” Kyle waved his hand through the air. “Followed by a shooting-star side kick.” Kyle threw a leg out to the right.
“Hi, Lou Lou Bombay,” Kyle said. “I was just showing Peacock what I would have done if I’d been here when they took her hats away.”
“I’m so sorry, Pea.” Lou Lou hugged her friend.
“Vice-Mayor Argyle said he would keep them himself until the Bonanza so Amanda could try on every one.” Pea wiped her eyes with her handkerchief.
“Maybe a snack and working on our diary investigation will make you feel better!” Lou Lou told Pea about Jeremy’s taste-testing offer.
“Sounds good,” Pea agreed.
“Did you say ‘investigation’? That’s right up my cosmic alley. Nobody handles an investigation better than Comet Cop!” Kyle said.
Lou Lou rolled her eyes. “I suppose you can come, too, Kyle.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Planning and Pastries
Lou Lou found her parents at the park to tell them her plans. She promised to be home for afternoon catamaran cookies. Then she, Pea, and Kyle headed off to Jeremy’s little green house. When they arrived, Jeremy answered the door wearing a pink
apron with ruffles. Lou Lou couldn’t help but laugh. She wasn’t used to seeing Jeremy wear any color, let alone pink.
“Hey, this is my favorite apron,” Jeremy said. “It complements my complexion, if I do say so myself.”
Pea nodded approvingly. “Christian Dior said pink ‘is the color of happiness.’”
“I hope you don’t mind that Kyle came along,” Lou Lou said.
“Naw, not at all. The more the merrier. And my parents are still at the park, so I could use an extra taste tester.”
Lou Lou had never been inside Jeremy’s family’s new house, but given his love of black, she’d assumed it would be dark and gloomy. Instead, his home was bright, colorful, and cheery, from the paisley-print curtains to the peach-colored walls. Jeremy noticed her looking around.
“Yeah, my family doesn’t share my spooky demeanor.” He winked.
On the counter in Jeremy’s sunny yellow kitchen was a platter piled high with caracoles. “That there’s three of you is actually perfecto!” Jeremy said. “I have three different kinds so you can each try one. I won’t reveal the secret ingredient until you taste them.”
Jeremy handed out napkins and the pastries with a “ta da!” for each. He watched closely as Lou Lou, Pea, and Kyle took their first bites.
“Blech!” Lou Lou spit her bite into her napkin. Pea gave her a horrified look. “What’s in this, Jeremy? It’s … well … terrible.”
“That one has beef bouillon. I thought the secret might be to add something savory, but I guess not.”
“Definitely not,” replied Lou Lou, who couldn’t even think of a way to be nice about the awful caracol.
“I’ll try yours,” Kyle said between mouthfuls of his pastry.
Lou Lou handed it over. “Be my guest.” She glanced at Pea. She’d taken a bite from her own caracol, but had stopped chewing. Her cheeks looked flushed and her blue eyes were wide.
“Pea!” Lou Lou exclaimed. “Are you okay?”
Pea shook her head.
“Oh no!” Jeremy rushed to get Pea a glass of milk. She took a big gulp. “That’s the one with habanero. I guess it’s a bit too spicy.”
“Just a tad,” Pea croaked.
“I’ll eat it.” Kyle took the rest of Pea’s caracol.
“How’s yours, Kyle?” Jeremy asked.
“Not like Señora Basa’s, but still delicious,” Kyle said.
“What’s the secret ingredient in that one?” asked Lou Lou.
“Sauerkraut,” Jeremy replied.
“Ick!” Lou Lou couldn’t help exclaiming. Like beef bouillon and caracoles, sauerkraut and caracoles was not a combination that sounded good.
“I told you, I was trying out savory since I’ve already tested every sweet ingredient I can think of. But I guess it didn’t work.”
“Works for me,” Kyle said. He’d finished his own caracol and was moving on to Lou Lou’s.
“I’m sure you’ll figure it out eventually, Jeremy.” Lou Lou tried to be encouraging even though she wasn’t certain this was true. Pea nodded and smiled weakly after another gulp of milk.
“‘Eventually’ better be soon because the Bonanza is coming right up,” said Jeremy. “It sure would be nice to win the caracoles contest for El Corazón after this horrible week! Speaking of which, tell me about this investigation of yours.”
Lou Lou and Pea—once she regained her powers of speech after the habanero caracol—told Jeremy and Kyle about the snippets of the Argyles’ conversation they’d overheard outside the Heliotrope, their guess that the diary might be a fake, and their suspicion that the Bonanza was actually stolen. Kyle was a bit of a tattletale, but Lou Lou trusted he would keep quiet because he wanted his space goats back. And also to impress Pea.
“Our plan is to examine the diary and see if we can find anything that proves it’s a fake,” Lou Lou explained. “Maybe there are mistakes or maybe the diary is really just a bunch of blank pages except for the made-up part that Andy Argyle read at the Heliotrope.”
“That sounds easy,” Jeremy replied. “The vice-mayor said that people could see the diary in the City Archives, right?”
“Yes. But his exact words were ‘You can come to the City Archives in City Hall and I will show it to you myself.’” Pea had a great memory. She could sing the words to songs from nursery school and perfectly recite messages from old birthday cards.
“Yeah, and there’s no way Andy Argyle is going to show us anything that proves anything,” Lou Lou said. “We need to look at the diary on our own.”
“How will you get into the City Archives? It’s not the kind of place you can just casually visit on your way to the bodega. No sera fácil.” Jeremy was right. They all knew from school field trips that the City Archives were behind a locked door and generally weren’t open to the public.
“Maybe Pea could say she has to research her family history?” Lou Lou suggested. “It wouldn’t really be a lie.”
Pea frowned. “I doubt anyone would let me do that without an adult. And what if that adult is Vice-Mayor Argyle?”
“Get a ladder and crawl in through a window?” Jeremy offered.
“That sounds dangerous,” Lou Lou answered. “And illegal.”
“Ask politely?” Pea said.
“I don’t think that will work,” Jeremy replied. “Particularly if we have to ask the vice-mayor.”
Jeremy scratched his head, Pea looked out the window, lost in thought, and Lou Lou drummed her fingers on the kitchen counter as she considered their dilemma.
“I can’t think of a good way,” Lou Lou finally said. “Maybe this won’t work.”
“Eh hah e ke,” Kyle said. Everyone turned to look at him. He was talking with his mouth full, having finished the beef bouillon caracol and moved on to the habanero one.
“Huh?” Jeremy said.
“Eh hah e ke,” Kyle said again.
“We can’t understand you, Kyle,” Lou Lou said.
Kyle chewed and swallowed. “I have a key,” he said.
“You have a what?” Pea asked.
“A key,” said Kyle. “Since my dad works at City Hall, I volunteer there sometimes. Mostly I handle security and stop alien invasions from the planet Tyros with my supersonic lasers. But during the rare times when the aliens are quiet, I do filing in the City Archives. So they gave me a key.”
Lou Lou’s, Pea’s, and Jeremy’s jaws all dropped.
“Jeepers, Kyle! Why didn’t you tell us this in the first place?” Lou Lou said.
“Because you never asked, Lou Lou Bombay,” Kyle replied.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Operation Diary Mission Interplanetary 12 with Universe Coordinates 30/50
Once Kyle told Lou Lou, Pea, and Jeremy that he had a key to the City Archives, they made a plan to actually go there. Kyle insisted on calling this plan Operation Diary Mission Interplanetary 12 with Universe Coordinates 30/50. Since he had the key, nobody disagreed with him, but Lou Lou and Pea called it the Diary Mission for short.
The Diary Mission was scheduled for Thursday after school, which felt to Lou Lou like an eternity away. She tried to focus on schoolwork and her new crop of hyacinths in her garden, but all she could think about was Thursday. Lou Lou even forgot Wednesday was her half birthday until her dad surprised her with half of a capsize cake.
“Thanks!” Lou Lou said after her parents sang half of “Happy Birthday.” She pulled the top half of a candle out of the sunken-in middle of the cake and licked off the gooey chocolate, then gobbled down her piece. She’d meant to only eat half, but Lou Lou couldn’t resist capsize cake. “May I be excused now so I can call Pea?”
“Sure,” her dad said. “But don’t be long because we’re going to watch Survival at Sea. Tonight we’ll find out who gets voted off the ship.”
“¡Feliz medio cumpleaños!” Pea said when she answered Lou Lou’s call. “There’s not really a perfect translation for ‘half birthday’ so I had to make something up.”
“Gracia
s!” Lou Lou replied. “We’re still on for tomorrow, right? I can’t wait to get the diary and take back the Bonanza!”
“Yes, but we shouldn’t get our hopes up too high,” Pea replied. “It’s possible that we won’t find anything in the diary that proves it’s a fake.” Lou Lou knew that this was true. Even though they had a plan, it might not go … according to plan.
“I suppose we should think positively about it,” Pea added. “As Diane von Furstenberg said, ‘Attitude is everything!’” Lou Lou agreed.
Pea changed the subject. “I visited Abuela Josie tonight, and she told me something interesting. My tío Diego was a wonderful baker, and he came up with our city’s recipe for caracoles!”
“Wow! Does Abuela Josie know the secret ingredient?”
“Por desgracia, no,” Pea replied.
“Bummer!” said Lou Lou. “I guess Jeremy will have to keep experimenting with the recipe.”
“Maybe we won’t be taste testers next time, though,” Pea said. Lou Lou laughed.
“Lou Lou!” her dad called from the living room. “The show is on! I think Sailor Sue might walk the plank!”
“Gotta go,” Lou Lou said.
“¡Hasta mañana!” Pea replied.
* * *
Lou Lou could barely sit still in her classes the next day as she thought about the Diary Mission. It didn’t help that every time she glanced at Kyle he winked like they shared a secret. Which they did, of course, but Kyle’s wink was so exaggerated—pulling down the bottom half of his forehead and pushing up the top half of his cheek—that other people noticed. In Science, after his tenth wink of the day, Danielle Desserts finally said, “Why does Kyle keep doing that? Is he your new boyfriend, Lou Lou?”
“No way,” Lou Lou grumbled down at her desk.
Finally, the end of the school day arrived and Lou Lou, Kyle, and Jeremy headed off toward City Hall.