Theo is my dad’s scandalously thirty-ish boyfriend. His apartment was burgled about a year ago, when he, Dad, and I were on vacation at the beach. All the robbers took was his really old, very smelly baseball card collection, which didn’t seem like that big of a deal to anyone except Theo himself, who claimed (unconvincingly) that the cards were priceless.
The thieves had totally ransacked the place, though, looking for the more valuable stuff that didn’t exist. After the robbery his place had looked a lot like Berlin’s room—drawers flung open, everything strewn around randomly. . . .
“I think Berlin’s been robbed,” I declared.
“How do you know that?” Daisy asked.
“It’s her intuition,” Charlie sniped. “All amateur sleuths have it.”
Charlie was really getting a kick out of tormenting me. Boys can be such jerks.
“Shut up,” I said. “I’m totally right. Look how everything’s been scattered all over. Someone was looking for something.”
“I think it’s just a mess,” Daisy said carefully. “Your purse has got to be in here somewhere. It might take a few minutes to find it. Let’s just cross our fingers that Berlin doesn’t come home.”
“I hope she does,” I said. “She deserves what she gets when she steals someone’s favorite handbag. I’d like to tell her where to stick it.”
Daisy rifled through some of the clothes on the floor. “Just as long as you don’t end up needing a ride to the hospital.”
I snorted. “If anyone’s going to the hospital, it’s her.”
Charlie and I quickly got to work panning through the detritus in search of my missing bag. I was holding my breath, hoping to see the telltale beaded fabric, the hot pink strap.
“She’s got more clothes than even Genevieve,” Charlie said, practically buried in a pile.
“Yeah, and what’s the point when they’re all totally the same?” I mused. “I mean, who really needs ten sparkle tube tops in different shades of blue? Who even needs one sparkle tube top, for that matter?”
Suddenly I spied a swatch of hot pink under a pile of crap in the corner of the room. I lunged for it, triumphant. My beloved purse!
But as I grabbed at the fabric, I realized, with a sinking feeling, that it lacked the satisfying, familiar heft of my handbag. I lifted it from the pile. It wasn’t a purse at all. It was a crumpled, hot pink pair of underpants.
Yuck! I tossed them at Charlie, and he recoiled clumsily, not sure how to react.
We stayed at it for what seemed like forever, and after discovering about five hundred pairs of crumpled-up underpants, we realized that the purse was straight up not there. Charlie and Daisy thought I was silly for insisting that the place had been robbed, but I still thought I was right. In the back of my head I couldn’t help worrying that someone had stolen my purse from the original thief—Berlin.
We were just about to leave when Daisy chirped with surprise from the corner by the dresser.
“Hello! What is this?”
She held up one of those jewel-studded nameplate necklaces that everyone was wearing like two years ago.
“Ha!” I exclaimed. “Berlin would never wear that now. It must be a gift from the Ghost of Bad Fashion Trends Past.”
“I don’t think this is Berlin’s,” Daisy replied. “Look.” She tossed it to me from across the room. When I examined it, I realized that she was dead right: it couldn’t be the heiress’s. For one thing, I quickly saw that the jewels on it were plastic. Berlin is all diamonds all the time. But more important was the fact that instead of spelling out Berlin’s name, the letters on the necklace spelled out a mysterious, lonely word: HATTIE.
I stared hard at those six sparkling letters and then, holding the necklace up to my throat, I examined my refection in Berlin’s mirror. There was no doubt about it: this was evidence. The real question was, how had gotten into Berlin’s room? I gave the trinket one last look before slipping it into my pocket, and then we were off.
FOUR
THE BEST THING ABOUT JUNIOR and senior year at Orchard Academy is the third Friday of every month, which the powers that be like to call “Future Career Day.”
I guess the idea, once upon a time, was that the older kids would get a day off to research what they’re going to be when they grow up. Like, to follow some lawyer around for the day or help a doctor perform surgery.
Of course, now everyone uses the day off to sleep late, catch up on Days of Our Lives, and eat ice cream for breakfast. Then you have to write a paper about it, saying what you did and how it supposedly will help you gain job experience. The trick is making it sound like you actually did something without technically lying.
Eventually Dr. Felicia Bober, the headmistress, banned food taster and TV critic as acceptable future careers unless you spent the day hanging out at Nabisco or Entertainment Weekly or something, but we all found a way around that rule pretty quickly.
For our part, on this particular Future Career Day, Daisy, Charlie, and I were being more productive than most, using the time to continue our pursuit of Berlin Silver. She hadn’t shown up in school all week, and I was getting itchy to find her. I hated to say it, but the case of the pilfered handbag had become a full-fledged mystery—especially since we’d discovered the state of Berlin’s apartment.
Despite my most charming efforts, none of the administrators at school would give me any clue as to her whereabouts. So we decided to stage a stakeout. Figuring that Berlin would have to be coming and going at some point, Daisy and I set up camp in the park across the street from the hotel, hoping to catch her in the act.
I’d brought my digital camera along because truthfully, I do want to be a photographer when I grow up. I figured I’d just snap a few pictures and pass it off as “career” research. Daisy, on the other hand, claims to want to be a synchronized swimmer. There was no way hanging out in Halo Park was going to help her with that—unless she decided to do her hanging out in the fountain.
Instead she decided to change her career goal to investigative reporter. It wasn’t as glamorous as synchronized swimmer, but she was relieved not to have to wear a swimming cap. (Although I know she secretly thinks the swimming cap is sort of cool.)
Charlie had passed on spending the day with us. His grandmother had given him a boatload of cash to buy a new wardrobe, under the condition that he let Genevieve pick out all of his clothes for him. Charlie, of course, was humiliated, but he wasn’t about to turn down the money. And Genevieve was thrilled—like a little girl who has just gotten a very fancy doll to play with. Charlie was disappointed not to be able to come with us, but he swore up and down that he would ask about Berlin at every boutique he visited.
It wasn’t that much of a stretch—with the kind of clothing addiction that Berlin’s room revealed, she was bound to have been seen by one of the shop owners recently.
“How on earth are you going to turn a shopping spree into a Career Day paper?” I asked Charlie when he told me his plan.
“My future career is rich dilettante,” he explained.
I rolled my eyes. Charlie just couldn’t stop screwing with authority. “Such a rebel,” I said. “Let’s just hope it doesn’t turn out to be the truth. Your sister’s already chosen that career.”
“No. She’s an actress,” he’d told me testily. “And at least I’m being honest. Unlike, you know, everyone else.” He paused. “It’s not like I wouldn’t rather be with you anyway, Lulu. As much as I love Gen, this dress-up thing is going to be a nightmare.”
“True,” I agreed.
Daisy and I had work to do, but I couldn’t help feeling bad for Charlie. With Genevievil picking the outfits, he was probably going to end up looking like a very large poodle. And he was missing out on a fun day of spying.
For our rations I brought thermoses of coffee and gourmet pastries that my dad got from the deli down the street. Daisy supplied the blanket, sunblock, and a transistor radio.
I mean, if I was forced in
to this girl detective game, at least I was going to get a tan in the process. Spring was at its most beautiful, and I needed to get nice and bronze before summer. Plus we’d be more undercover if we were lying on a blanket.
All in all, it was a pretty sweet setup. We picked a perfect sunny spot on the grass directly across the street from the Primrose Hotel for Young Ladies. We laid down our blanket, stripped to our bikini tops and shorts, and started watching.
On our stomachs to start, facing the entrance to the hotel, we waited. And waited. And waited. The only people who left the hotel were three boys and a really skinny girl carrying a corgi in a basket. No one went in. It seemed like we’d been watching the door for an eternity or more when the egg timer went off.
“Fifteen minutes,” Daisy said. “Time to flip.”
I turned dutifully onto my back and realized that all I could spy on from this position were clouds.
“Daisy, we’re never going to catch her like this,” I complained.
“Well, we can’t get half a tan, can we?” Daisy asked rhetorically.
I sighed. “I just wish she’d show already.”
“Relax, Lulu,” Daisy soothed. “You don’t get a good tan if you can’t sit still for at least for twenty minutes.”
“Hello!” I said, exasperated. “This is about getting my bag back, remember? Besides.” I sat up and gestured. “There are all these hot guys just wandering around totally unattended, and we’re ignoring them.”
Daisy perked up. I knew that would get her attention.
My hope was that we could hit on some new information while hitting on someone. Or better yet, several ones.
Based on the principle that the people most likely to have information on Berlin were the type with a Y chromosome and based also on the fact that the park was teeming with ultra-choice specimens thereof, I hatched a plan.
It went like this: when we spotted a guy we wanted to talk to, we went up to him, still in our tanning outfits, and explained about Future Career Day. I’d snap a digital photo, and Daisy would conduct a brief investigative interview on the Berlin question. It seemed like the perfect way to kill not two but three birds with one stone.
Working decidedly on our side was the fact that Daisy was in her bikini.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m happy with what I’ve got, but Daisy’s boobs are practically too perfect to even exist. For some reason, they make guys act like they’ve been sedated.
Berlin and Daisy must possess a similar kind of magic when it comes to the male of the species because we quickly encountered three guys who were all pretty familiar with the missing Miss Silver. None of them had seen her recently, though, and they weren’t that interested in talking about it anyway. They were too busy drooling and staring at Daisy. She didn’t seem to notice.
There was Joshua, a writer for the Halo Reader, who was dressed down in expensive-looking jeans and a white T-shirt. He had dated Berlin in January before realizing that she was seventeen, not to mention slightly weird. Those were his words, not mine. Personally, I would have described her as way weird or possibly even a total mutant.
Then there was Lars, a dreamboat house DJ from Germany who had dated Berlin in March. “Her name, you see,” he told us in adorably broken English. “It reminds me, yes, of my home, and she is quite lovely, too. But she has many secrets that she not speak. I think maybe, such as, she is not honest about I’m not sure, you know?”
I certainly did know, but it hadn’t done me any good yet.
I thought about offering Lars my number, but when I took out my notebook to scribble it down, he entered into a deep conversation with Daisy. Something about “the perfect beat.” I didn’t want to bother them, so I decided to be nonchalant. I opened my camera and snapped a picture of the fountain instead.
The guy who seemed to have been closest to Berlin was Marcus, a deeply bronzed out-of-work model. When Daisy asked Marcus about Berlin, he got a faraway look in his eyes.
Actually, I was afraid for a second that he was going to cry, which would have been way too embarrassing for me to handle. He told us that he had fallen head over heels in love with Berlin in February, only to have her drop off the face of the planet after he’d told her that he wanted her to meet his mother.
The weird thing was that however smitten, not one of these guys seemed to know any real details about Berlin, outside of how gorgeous they thought she was.
I was trying hard to resist, but it was difficult not to feel a little sorry for Berlin. She was certainly popular, in her own ignominious way, but no one seemed to really know her, not by a long shot. It was kind of sad.
Even Marcus, who still seemed beat up over the fact that she had ditched him, was really surprised to learn that she lived right across the street.
At the last minute, dangerously close to sympathy, I put on the brakes and reminded myself that if Berlin the thief was cut off from people, it was no one’s fault but her own. One way or another, her relationships with all these guys had ended because she hadn’t been willing to show them who she really was.
Daisy must have been thinking along the same lines because once Marcus had shuffled off, her sensitive side came out with a vengeance. “Poor Berlin,” she said. “She must have been so lonely.”
“I thought you were the one who hated her most.”
“Well, she does bug me, but you have to wonder why she shuts everyone out. Practically all those guys would have totally fallen for her—if she had let them.”
Anxious for some Berlin news on any front, I called Charlie on his cell.
“No luck yet,” he told me when he answered, his voice staticky on the other end of the line.
“None here either, hombre,” I reported.
Inexplicably, he added, “Not a chance.”
“What?” I asked.
“There is no way I’m wearing a dickey. I don’t care who the designer is.” I realized that he wasn’t talking to me, but to his sister.
“Charlie!” I snapped.
He came back to earth. “What?”
“How many places have you checked?” I let a hint of irritation creep into my voice.
“Well, just one, but . . .” He paused. “Genevieve’s been torturing me all morning. You should see some of the stuff she made me buy. On second thought, you never will because it’s going straight to the back of my closet.”
“Charlie, you’ve only checked one place? Are you interested in helping or are you interested in buying a new wardrobe?”
“Lulu,” he said peevishly. “Don’t blame me. This wasn’t my idea. And may I remind you that it’s not my stupid purse.”
Charlie was right. This was my fight. Not his.
“Well, you’d better watch it, buddy,” I teased. “I can always get another sidekick. Batman has replaced Robin like three times, you know.”
“Four if you take Crisis on Infinite Earths into account,” Charlie said. “But anyway, who says you’re not my sidekick?”
“Ha!” I said. “In your dreams, pal.”
“Listen,” he said. “I’ve gotta go. I have to stop Genevieve before she buys me a five-hundred-dollar beret. I’ll join you guys as soon as I can.”
I said goodbye and clicked off the cell. I smoothed on a new coat of lip gloss, thinking. Something was up with Charlie, but I couldn’t quite place my finger on it. I hoped it didn’t have anything to do with the broom closet episode.
I spaced out for a moment, considering the possibilities, each one of which was more troublesome than the last. When I looked back up at Daisy, she was freaking out—gesturing frantically and craning her neck in about five different directions. Was this her attempt at the hula?
“Lulu! Lulu,” she said urgently, “turn around!” Aha. This was her take on subtlety.
I spun and scanned the park. Across the grass, walking the cutest little bulldog I’d ever seen, was the one and only lead singer of the Many Handsomes. It was Alfy Romero.
He was looking as good as ev
er, in a tight red T-shirt and shredded blue jeans hanging cool and low on his perfect butt. Alfy’s dog hovered adorably around his ankles, dangling a Frisbee from his slobbery jaws.
My head was spinning, overloading on hotness. Daisy could see that I was about to be hopelessly crushed out. “Stay cool, Lulu,” she warned.
Too late. I was off like a shot.
The boy and his dog had already turned in the opposite direction and were marching along at a steady clip. Good thing Alfy chose a fat little bulldog for his pet or I might have lost him. As it was, I made a mental note to take up jogging with Daisy again.
“Stay cool, Lulu,” I repeated to myself.
I didn’t want Alfy to think that I was some overeager freak, even if it was somewhat true. And it was hard not to look at least a little desperate when I was sprinting after him like my life depended on it.
I finally caught up with him while his dog was peeing on the concrete path. I took a sec to smooth my hair and quickly press my glossy lips together. Then I called after him from behind.
“Alfy!”
He turned, leash in hand, and gave me the blankest look ever.
“It’s me,” I said, with an awkward, twitchy little half wave. He didn’t say anything. Why wasn’t he as overjoyed to see me?
“Remember?” I reminded him, stepping closer. “We, um, we met at Big Blonde the other night? And you said I should call you but . . .” I laughed nervously. “There were these two girls, see, Marisol and Rachel, and they totally hate me and everything, and Rachel totally spilled her coffee on purpose and then this total jerk named Berlin? When I got back, my purse was gone! So that’s why I haven’t called.”
Alfy stared at me like I was a lunatic.
My hand sprang up to cover my mouth. My brain had obviously melted down and my body was taking over, telling me to shut up, shut up, shut up. Nothing I had said had made any sense at all. I wanted to clarify, but I knew that if I tried to say anything else, it would come out in pig Latin.
Lulu Dark Can See Through Walls Page 6