by Hope McLean
Veronica sighed. “I’m just bummed about losing today. Quiz bowl is really important to me, and I want to win.”
“I totally understand that. We work so hard, studying and everything,” Jasmine said. “But you can’t win them all.”
Veronica frowned. “I know that, but it’s why we didn’t win that bothers me. I only care about quiz bowl. Not this other stuff.”
The “other stuff”? Jasmine wondered. Could Veronica mean the jewel thefts? It was strange. While the cat-and-mouse game between the Rivals and the Jewels continued, neither group had ever really talked about it to the other. Maybe Veronica knew how Aaron had gotten into the safe. Jasmine felt her heart race. Should she ask her? Before she could muster the courage, it was Veronica’s turn to bowl.
The rest of the game went quickly. Jasmine didn’t get a chance to talk to Veronica alone again, even though she was ready to ask some tough questions.
“Snack attack!” Erin called. “The smell of cheesy nachos is driving me to distraction. Does anyone else want something?”
“I’ll share some nachos with you, Erin,” Lili chimed in. “And don’t forget some soda, too.”
Erin went off for the snacks while Lili took her last turn. It was the final frame, and the score was close. If Lili kept bowling the way she had been, the Jewels would be the winners.
As Lili was lining up her shot, Erin came back with a tray loaded with food and drinks.
“I thought you were just getting nachos?” Willow asked.
“Everything looked so good, I couldn’t decide,” Erin said. “So I got a little bit of everything. We can share — whoa!”
As Erin stepped behind Lili, she started to lose her balance. The heavy tray wobbled in her hands.
“It’s okay, I’ve got it!” Erin cried. “Wait a sec, maybe I don’t!” she yelled as she fell, the tray flying up into the air.
She crashed into Lili just as Lili was about to bowl. The ball flew out of Lili’s hands and went straight into the gutter. Both Lili and Erin crashed to the floor, the tray landing next to them as a shower of nachos, hot dogs, chicken strips, and French fries rained down on their heads.
“We won!” Isabel cheered.
Erin looked up. Her head was covered in nacho cheese. Lili sighed as she wrung out her shirt, which was now soaked in soda.
“Oh my goodness, are you okay?” Ms. Keatley asked. She helped the girls up and checked them for injuries while Aaron and Ryan laughed. Isabel pulled out her phone and snapped a photo of the fiasco.
Erin grabbed a strand of her cheese-covered hair and stuck it in her mouth. “I’m fine, but I’m still hungry!”
“Don’t di-SPARE — we’ll get you cleaned up,” Mr. Haverford said with a chuckle at his bowling pun.
Willow groaned. “I think it’s time to SPLIT!”
The next day, Willow sat at her desk in her bedroom finishing a book report that was due the next week. She had her door closed. Being the big sister to three little brothers sometimes required locking herself in her room in order to concentrate on her homework. Otherwise Alex, Michael, and Jason would never stop interrupting her.
She hummed along to the radio as she typed. A little background music always helped her to think. Her phone let out a beep, breaking her concentration. She picked it up to read a text from Erin:
Check out Isabel’s Chatter page status. She’s bragging about beating us in bowling! Even worse — she posted the photo!
Willow shook her head. Yesterday had started out so great — with the Jewels beating the Rivals at quiz bowl. Then the diamond went missing, and it all ended in a total disaster with the mishap at the bowling alley.
She quickly logged in to her Chatter account and went straight to Isabel’s page. Sure enough, Isabel’s status said: Best day ever. Beat the Jewels at bowling. Have the pics to prove it!
Underneath her status was a photo of Erin and Lili collapsed on the bowling lane, covered in food and soda. Isabel managed to get the scoreboard into the photo, too, showing the final score. Underneath the photo, Ryan had posted a smiley face as a comment.
Wow, Willow thought. That’s so totally obnoxious.
She navigated to Ryan’s page, curious to see if he was bragging, too. But he hadn’t posted anything since the week before. Veronica’s last update was Friday, the day prior to the quiz bowl meet. She had posted a link to a popular online quiz bowl study site, with a reminder for her teammates to study.
At least they’re not all being jerks, Willow thought before checking out Aaron’s page. Aaron had posted something only a few minutes ago. It was a video of his dog, an adorable black-and-white border collie, doing a trick. Aaron twirled his fingers in the air, and the dog spun in circles like it was chasing its tail. Aaron praised the dog and gave it a treat before the video ended. Okay, so at least he has a heart.
She browsed his page a little bit more when something caught her eye under the “Family” section. He listed a brother named Logan. The photo looked a lot like Aaron. Willow didn’t know he had a brother. Curious, she clicked on Logan’s account. Logan had lots of friends, and they all seemed to go to Hallytown Middle School — not Atkinson.
I guess Aaron and Logan go to different schools, Willow considered as she clicked on Logan’s photos. As she looked through them, she spotted one that was captioned “Me and my bro.” Aaron and Logan stood side by side. Although they wore different clothes, Willow couldn’t tell who was who. They were the same height and there was more than just a resemblance between them. Could they be twins?
Willow checked Logan’s info. He listed his birthday as August 6. Next she looked at Aaron’s birthday. It, too, was listed as August 6.
Willow grabbed her phone and started texting. The other Jewels needed to know about this — and fast!
* * *
“Thanks for getting online,” Willow said to Jasmine, Lili, and Erin over her computer’s microphone. Her friends’ faces smiled at her from her computer screen. “We have to talk about this right away!”
“It’s not every day that you call a webcam meeting,” Jasmine said, giggling at how official that sounded. “I had to use my mom’s computer to do this. Mine doesn’t have a camera.”
Lili waved. “Hello! So, what’s the new info?”
Erin snorted. “Yeah. It’s not exactly breaking news that Isabel is a jerk. She posted a photo of us covered in goo at the bowling alley on her Chatter account. And she’s bragging about how she beat us at bowling.”
Lili clicked her tongue. “She is so mean.”
“Well, after Erin told me about that, I checked all of the Rivals’ Chatter accounts,” Willow explained. “I wanted to see if they were all badmouthing us. Turns out it was just Isabel. But I found something else that was pretty interesting.”
Willow changed the view of her webcam to display her live computer screen instead of her face. On it was the photo of Aaron and his brother Logan.
“What the heck? Is that two Aarons?” Erin asked.
“Nope, it’s Aaron and his brother — his twin brother,” Willow said.
The girls were silent for a moment as they studied the photo.
“I didn’t know Aaron had a twin brother,” Lili said excitedly. “Do you know what this means?”
Willow switched her webcam view back to her own image. “I do. It means Logan could have been stealing the diamond while Aaron was competing. I knew that janitor looked like Aaron!”
Jasmine had her chin cupped in her hand. She was staring off into space.
“Earth to Jasmine!” Erin called.
Jasmine look startled. “Sorry, guys. I was lost in thought. After all the excitement at the bowling alley yesterday” — she was interrupted by Erin’s groaning and Lili’s giggling — “I forgot to tell you something strange Veronica said to me. She was really down in the dumps.”
“I noticed,” Willow said. “The way Isabel, Aaron, and Ryan were acting, you would have thought they won the quiz bowl match.”
&nb
sp; “Not Veronica. When I asked her what was wrong, she said it was WHY they didn’t win that was upsetting her.” Jasmine described the encounter. “She wasn’t upset because they lost, she was bummed because of the reason why they lost.”
“Why they lost,” Lili repeated thoughtfully. “The Rivals really seemed off their game yesterday. I was able to pick up a lot of the art and history questions. Aaron was slow to hit the buzzer. And when he did, he got a couple of questions wrong. Which, for the Rivals, is, like, totally unheard of.”
Erin snapped her fingers. “He even got that question about Charlotte’s Web wrong. It wasn’t like him.”
“Maybe that’s because it wasn’t him,” Jasmine said excitedly. “Maybe it was Logan instead!”
“And that’s why Veronica was so upset,” Willow chimed in. “Because she knew they were switching her experienced teammate with his brother!”
“I guess stealing the diamond was more important to them than winning the match,” Jasmine said. “To all of them except Veronica. She was not a happy camper.”
Erin smiled as a thought dawned on her. “So if Logan was onstage, pretending to be Aaron —”
“That left Aaron free to dress up like a janitor and steal the diamond!” Lili cried.
“I knew those no-good Rivals stole the diamond!” Erin shouted. “Why do they even bother trying to fool us? We’re just too smart for them.”
Willow grinned. “We’ve got to tell Principal Frederickson about this first thing tomorrow morning!”
The girls met at school fifteen minutes early the next morning. They went right to Principal Frederickson’s office.
“Good morning, Jewels,” Ms. Ortiz, the school secretary, said with a smile. “I heard about your win on Saturday. Congratulations!”
“Thanks,” Willow replied. “Can we please talk to Principal Frederickson? It’s about quiz bowl.”
Ms. Ortiz hit the intercom. “The Jewels are here to see you.”
“Let them in,” came the principal’s reply.
Principal Frederickson looked surprised to see the girls.
“Is everything all right?” she asked.
“We figured out something,” Willow said excitedly. “Aaron Santiago has an identical twin brother! We think Logan was competing in the match while Aaron was stealing the diamond.”
“That would certainly explain things,” Principal Frederickson said thoughtfully. But then she got a stern look on her face. “I thought I told you girls to stop being detectives.”
“We weren’t out detecting or anything,” Erin protested. “Willow was just looking online and found it. It fell right into our laps!”
“We thought you’d want to know,” Willow added.
The principal eyed each of them carefully. “You’re right. I’m glad you told me,” she said. “However, I certainly hope nothing else falls into your laps regarding the jewels.” She looked right at Erin.
Erin held up her right hand. “We promise.”
Principal Frederickson nodded. “Good. Now please get to class. Have a good day, girls.”
Jasmine shuddered when they got to the hallway.
“She is so scary when she’s about to get mad,” Jasmine said.
“I know,” Lili agreed. “She reminds me of the Dragon Queen in the Ice Odyssey video game.”
“She’s being unfair,” Erin protested. “We never asked to be involved in all this. But the Rivals dragged us in. I can’t just step back.”
“Me neither,” Willow said. “But I think we have to.”
* * *
At lunch that day, the girls sat together at their usual table. Lili was sketching in a notebook with her Statue of Liberty pen, and Erin absently poked at her salad with a fork.
“I’ve been thinking,” she said. “How did the Rivals know where the diamond was?”
Jasmine looked around nervously. “Erin, we shouldn’t even be talking about this.”
“I’m not detecting,” Erin said. “I’m just thinking. I can’t control where my brain wants to go.”
“Or your mouth,” Lili said with a giggle, and Erin frowned.
“Hey!” Erin protested.
“Well, I can’t stop thinking about it, either,” Willow said. “The Rivals knew exactly where to look. It’s almost like they heard our conversation with Principal Frederickson.”
The girls were quiet for a moment, and then Jasmine’s eyes got big.
“Maybe they did!” she said excitedly. “They could have planted a bug in Principal Frederickson’s office.”
Lili made a face. “Like a spider?”
“No, like a listening device,” Jasmine said.
Willow nodded. “That’s a good theory. Except that Principal Frederickson’s office was alarmed, remember? But the alarm only went off when Aaron stole the diamond.”
“And Principal Frederickson just started helping us anyway,” Erin added. “So if they wanted to get information about the diamond, they probably would have bugged one of us.”
Jasmine looked horrified. “Oh my gosh, what if they did?” she wondered. She lowered her voice to a whisper. “What if they’re bugging us right now?”
“When would they have done that?” Willow asked. “We’ve only seem them a couple of times since the diamond was stolen in New York.”
“Then maybe they did it in New York,” Jasmine shot back. “Or maybe at one of the quiz bowl meets since then.”
Erin suddenly clapped a hand over her mouth and pointed to Lili’s Statue of Liberty pen. She slowly removed her hand. “What if they bugged one of our pens?” she whispered.
Jasmine, Willow, and Erin quickly dug in their backpacks and took out their pens. Then Erin began to unscrew the battery compartment.
“What are we looking for?” Lili asked.
“Something that doesn’t belong,” Erin whispered back.
Following Erin’s lead, the other girls began to quietly unscrew the battery compartment on their own pens.
“I’m still not sure what we’re looking for,” Lili whispered.
After getting the compartment open, Erin slid the battery out from her pen. She held it up silently. It looked like a regular battery.
Willow did the same, as did Jasmine. Nothing looked unusual. But Lili’s battery wasn’t the only thing to fall out of her pen. A metal circle the size of a nickel landed in her palm, too.
“What’s this?” Lili wondered, holding it up.
Erin grabbed the circle from her and quickly dropped it in Jasmine’s water bottle.
“Hey!” Jasmine cried.
“Sorry,” Erin said. “But I had to deactivate it. I saw it in a movie once. Now we can talk normally again.”
Willow grabbed the bottle and held it up. “That sure looks like some kind of device. Lili, do you think Eli could tell us for sure?”
“Probably. I’ll ask him,” Lili said.
Jasmine sighed, took the bottle from Willow, and capped it. Then she handed it to Lili.
“It’s all yours.”
Lili looked at the device floating inside the bottle, and then suddenly got a panicked look on her face.
“Oh no! Does this mean the Rivals have been listening to everything I’ve been saying?” she asked.
“Only if you’re near the pen,” Erin answered.
Lili groaned. “This is awful! Sometimes I pretend that I’m a Japanese pop singer, and I’ve been using the pen as a microphone. That means they’ve heard me sing the theme to the Super Cute Happy Fun Hour, like, a million times!”
Her friends tried to look mortified for Lili, but they couldn’t hold it for long, and burst into giggles.
“I’m sorry, Lili, but that’s too funny! I can just picture the Rivals sitting around, hoping to learn about diamonds, and instead hearing you sing songs from video games,” Willow said.
Lili pouted, but slowly her frown turned into a smile. “I guess that is pretty funny.”
“How come you never sing for us?” Erin teased. “We l
ike super happy fun, too.”
“No way!” Lili said, shaking her head and laughing.
Jasmine looked worried. “Lili, did you have the pen with you at the quiz bowl match on Saturday?”
Lili nodded. “I’ve been using it a lot. It’s like my new lucky charm.”
“But it shouldn’t matter, because the Rivals already knew about the diamond then,” Erin pointed out.
Willow and Jasmine looked at each other.
“But they didn’t know about the emerald,” Willow said.
“Exactly,” Jasmine said, her eyes growing wide. “But now they do. They know that Derrica Girard has it.”
“We’ve got to warn her!” Erin cried.
Jasmine shook her head. “No way. Principal Frederickson told us to stay out of it.”
Erin frowned. “Well, we should at least tell her that the Rivals know about the emerald.”
“Then she’ll think we’re getting involved,” Lili said. “I don’t think I can face the Dragon Queen again today.”
Willow looked thoughtful. “Maybe … maybe we could send Derrica a warning ourselves — tell her that someone is trying to steal the emerald. Then she could put it in a bank vault or something, and the Rivals would never get it.”
Jasmine nervously rubbed the side of her nose. “That kind of sounds like getting involved to me.”
Erin took out her cell phone and began to press buttons under the table. Cell phone use wasn’t allowed during school hours.
“Let me check her Chatter feed,” Erin said, ignoring Jasmine’s objection. “Maybe we can contact her through there.”
“You subscribe to her Chatter feed?” Willow asked in disbelief.
“I told you, Mary Ellen watches that dumb TV show,” Erin said. “So I’m forced to watch it, too.”
“And your sister forced you to follow Derrica’s Chatter updates?” Jasmine asked with a grin.
Erin ignored her again. “Let’s see. Right now she’s filming the show.”
“Well, I don’t think it’s a dumb show,” Lili said. “They wear some amazing clothes.”
“I kind of like all the drama,” Jasmine admitted. “I mean, could you believe it when Lucille didn’t invite Derrica to that party? They’re supposed to be friends.”