The Diamond Mistake Mystery

by Sylvia McNicoll

  “Have a good day,” Renée says.

  “Have fun.” I wave but she doesn’t pull her thumb out of her mouth; she just looks at me with big sad husky-dog eyes.

  Renée and I walk around to the entrance for the senior kids. “You know we should have told Mr. Lebel about Pearl losing that diamond.” I’m just thinking out loud, maybe hoping Renée will make me feel better.

  “He’s going to want to take it to the Brilliant Diamond Show on Saturday,” Renée says. “That’s when he’ll realize the diamond was stolen.”

  “And maybe it really was,” I tell Renée, “from Pearl’s coat pocket. Or even from the table near the front door.”

  “You think it was Harry.”

  “Is his last name really Diamond, do you think?”

  “Nah, just goes well with drywall. Dee, Dee, alliteration, right?”

  “Right.” I don’t know about Harry. Whether he has a thing for diamonds — the one he bought his ex-fiancée sure was big — or whether he thinks he can pick up whatever he wants from someone’s house. He did take his repair money out from Mrs. Bennett’s cookie jar without telling anyone. He handed us the Lebels’ house key without permission.

  But I also wonder how Attila could have bought his car and why he has such a fancy pirate costume in his closet. Pearl mentioned a pirate might have her diamond ring. I want to ask Renée to find out; she’ll be annoyed, though. Anyhow, right now we have French and I need her not to be ticked at me ’cause there’s always group work in Madam Poirier’s class. I don’t want to end up working with Tyson and Bruno.

  Madam Poirier pairs us up to create scripts as waiters and customers ordering breakfast in front of the class. My mouth waters as I hear Tyler order crêpes avec des oeufs au bacon. I wish again I’d eaten more pancakes or had some bacon and eggs with the ones I had. When we’re done acting out our scripts, Madam Poirier assigns us to write menus describing our favourite foods. It’s for homework but we have time to work on it for a few minutes. Sandwich à la Bologna Frit, I write. Mmm. My stomach growls.

  I wonder what Mrs. Kobai packed me for lunch. The only word I know in Hungarian is goulash, which is some kind of food that sounds angry. One more period to go.

  In math, we work on fractions, common denominators to be specific. The owner of a coffee shop sells three slices of apple pie; each is one-eighth of the whole. Another couple comes in and wants smaller pieces, half that size. They order two. We’re supposed to figure out how much pie is left, and suddenly, all I can think of is the great apple tarts Mrs. Lebel gave us. Flaky pastry with cinnamon apples. Mmm. My stomach growls again.

  “Stephen?” Mrs. Worsley calls.

  “Yes?” I answer.

  “How much pie is left?”

  “I don’t think there’s any, we ate it all yesterday.”

  Bruno slaps his desk and Tyson holds on to his stomach, howling.

  Oh, ohhhh! Mistake number three of the day. Fractions question, right. I feel myself going red, but I paste on a grin, ’cause look at me, I’m funny! Class clown, even.

  Other kids laugh along, too.

  “Class! Class.” Mrs. Worsley tries to get everyone to settle down, only her mouth buckles, and she chuckles, too.

  I may not have done it on purpose but everyone in class thinks my answer is hilarious. I have to play along. I give a little heh heh heh.

  “Do you want to try again?” Mrs. Worsley asks. “If the café sells three-eighths plus two-sixteenths of the pie, how much is left?”

  I do want to try again. To be funny, I mean. “There is an infinite number left.” Heh heh heh. “Everyone knows the digits in the number pi go on forever.”

  I grin to dead silence. Nobody laughs this time. My face turns jalapeno hot. Then one person breaks out into hysterical giggles. Renée. “An infinite number, ha ha ha, get it?” she asks Ava, the girl beside her. Ava just leans away. Any minute Renée’s going to start explaining it to everyone.

  I keep grinning because of Renée. Without her, I think I’d twist a piece of hair around my finger and suck my thumb about now.

  DAY TWO, MISTAKE FOUR

  Renée and I eat together since our desks are in the same square of four. At lunch I tear open the reusable vinyl lunch bag Mrs. Kobai packed for me this morning, just a little nervous. There are two rectangular plastic boxes in the bag but you can’t see through the lids or sides.

  No goulash, no goulash. Or any angry Hungarian food for that matter. I cross my fingers and take a deep breath. Calm, calm. Renée may be watching my face, after all. I open up one of the plastic boxes, and it’s all sectioned off. None of the different foods touch each other, which is a good thing.

  Yay! A couple of pancakes sit in one section. I carefully lift one, hoping for a third. No luck. Apple slices, some cheddar wedges, and pink cream cheese fill the other sections.

  “I hope you like cold pancakes.” Renée spreads the cream cheese over one of hers and picks it up like a cookie.

  “Love them. I could eat pancake sandwiches.” Which is what we’re doing. I open the second container and find carrot sticks, broccoli, and some crackers.

  “Sorry. No pie. My mom’s not a baker,” Renée says.

  “And I’m all out. Sadly, Mrs. Lebel’s pie did not have an infinite number.”

  Renée snorts milk out her nose.

  It’s great to have a friend who really gets your jokes. I picture Pearl sucking her thumb by herself in line today. “Do you think Pearl has any friends?”

  Renée shakes her head. “Everyone in her class got invited to Aswan’s birthday party …”

  “Except her.” I frown. “I wonder if we could help her make a buddy.”

  “August seems like a bit of a loner. What if we took him to the library with us tomorrow afternoon?”

  “To the Halloween party?”

  She nods.

  Renée’s right, like always. If we want August and Pearl to become friends, we have to throw them together. I sigh. It would mean another little-kid tag-along. I didn’t even want to take Pearl. “She was kind of mean to him yesterday,” I say.

  “You could talk to her about that. You are her reading buddy.”

  Somebody should talk to Pearl about how to be nice to other kids; again, Renée is right. “Can you …” I was going to suggest she do it, but at that moment, we hear squeals and screams coming from outside.

  Tyson runs to the window. “It’s a raccoon.”

  “It’s standing at the kindergarten fence,” his buddy Bruno says.

  I jump up and go to the window for a look.

  Renée joins me. “Awww!”

  “So cute.” Round and furry with bandit mask markings on its face and a fluffy striped tail, the raccoon pokes its long fingers through the fence holes as if it wants to touch or grab something. “Guess Ms. Lacey didn’t catch it this morning.”

  The raccoon waves its long fingers. Saying hi to the kindergarteners? Miss Buffet herds the little kids away from the animal and into the classroom. Then Mr. Rogers hurries out, dragging a large garbage can from one hand and carrying an apple in the other.

  He steps through the kindergarten gate and pitches the apple away from the fence. The raccoon, still on its hind legs, pivots. Its shiny black eyes stare at the fruit, but it doesn’t move. Thinking it over? Mr. Rogers steps forward. The raccoon drops down.

  Holding the handles on both sides, Mr. Rogers turns the garbage can upside down and raises it slowly. In that moment the raccoon bolts for the apple, snatches it, and waddles away.

  “Yay!” Bruno cheers.

  But Mr. Rogers chases after it.

  The raccoon’s waddle turns into a mad scurry.

  Big man that he is, Mr. Rogers’s legs stretch long. He’s a fast pirate. Looks like he may catch up. But then the raccoon scrambles up a tree and tucks into a hole half hidden with branches.

  “Hey, look! The dog catcher’s coming,” Bruno shouts. “This should be good for a laugh.”

  The truck rol
ls into the parking lot and then drives along a footpath to the tree. Ms. Lacey jumps out and takes her metal pole from the back of the truck. She joins Mr. Rogers and they both squint up at the raccoon.

  It’s time for the outdoor part of our first break so we all rush outside to watch. But our principal, Mrs. Watier, stands on guard, her high heels planted just past the edge of the blacktop. “You can look but you cannot go closer! It’s a wild animal!”

  By this time Ms. Lacey has aimed the metal loop of her pole near the hole. The raccoon ducks and makes a chitter-squeal sound. She tries again. The squeal turns into a hissy scream.

  Again and again, she tries. It seems like an impossible job, getting that loop over the raccoon, like one of those arcade games where you aim the claw to try for a stuffie. But Ms. Lacey takes her time, smiles even, and then suddenly hoists it out, the metal loop around its waist.

  The animal doubles over screeching as its long fingers try to loosen the noose around its stomach.

  “Aw, man!” Tyson says.

  Ms. Lacey carries the raccoon, still attached to the pole, into the back of her truck.

  Bruno’s mistake, number four of the day, was thinking any of this scene would be good for a laugh. We all end up feeling sad for the furry bandit.

  “It wasn’t bothering anybody,” Bruno complains.

  The truck backs down the pathway into the parking lot and then turns and heads out on the street.

  Renée chews her lip for a moment. “You know … raccoons like shiny things.”

  “That’s nice. What are you saying?”

  “Just that they pick up tinfoil and sometimes cans for their den.”

  “Oh. Ohhhh. You think it would pick up a pink diamond ring?”

  “Shhh! They’ll hear.” She tips her head toward Tyler and Bruno. Then she shrugs her shoulders. “It’s a long shot but we should check.”

  “That hole is a little high for me to see in. If I were just a bit taller, I could check.” I’m the tallest in my class; usually, I want to be shorter.

  Renée makes a cradle with her hands. “I can give you a boost.”

  I look around for Mrs. Watier but she’s heading back inside with our pirate custodian. “We’ll get in trouble.”

  “Will we, if we find the pink diamond?” she asks. “We’ll be heroes.”

  I frown; it’s a risk. No one else seems to be interested in that hole in the tree anymore. Bruno and Tyson start up a game of mini hockey on the blacktop. A bunch of kids play on the slides and climber. Others chase each other on the field.

  “Okay,” I say. “But let’s hurry.”

  DAY TWO, MISTAKE FIVE

  It should only take a few minutes for me to step up onto Renée’s hands and check out the hole. With a bit of luck, no one will notice me behind the branches. I turn on my cell phone’s flashlight and then hop up, shining the light in the hole.

  I wobble on one foot, staring and blinking. No pink diamonds. But, oh my gosh! Three pairs of shiny black eyes stare back at me. Little mouths open and I hear pitiful mewling. Hungry miss-my-mommy squeaks and squeals.

  “Get down from there, at once.” Mrs. Watier’s voice. Where did she come from?

  I crash down from Renée’s hand-cradle to the ground, scramble up, and face our principal.

  Her eyebrows look like shaggy thunderbolts. Her voice snaps like lightning. “I thought I told all of you to stay clear of the raccoon.”

  My jaw drops. It was a mistake to think we would get away with this. Mistake number five of the day. “But Mrs. Watier —”

  “The raccoon has already been taken away.” Renée interrupts my sentence.

  “No, no, no!” I jump in. “That’s the point. Mrs. Watier, we need to call Animal Control back. The hole up there is full of raccoon kits!”

  “What? You see!” She keys something into her cell phone. “What if they had bitten you?” Mrs. Watier talks into her phone now. She wouldn’t listen to me even if I did have an answer for her.

  Renée grabs my arm. “Those babies must be starving. If you hadn’t have gone up there, those little guys would have died.”

  Some mistakes are worth making.

  DAY TWO, MISTAKE SIX

  I hate going to the office. Last time I went there, it was because I grabbed a bag of defrosting liver instead of my lunch. Blood dripped down my leg, everyone saw, and Mrs. Watier thought I was hurt. Just another fun mistake to live down.

  Today, Mrs. Watier makes Renée and me sit on the bench to wait for her. We’re not even supposed to talk while we’re there. Parents give us the what-did-you-do look as they walk by to pick up sick kids or deliver forgotten lunches. I try to smile just a little so as not to seem like a criminal. The clock on the wall shows me the minute hand dragging its long finger along the black dots, five so far. I am so bored. Can I take my phone out?

  A line of kindergarteners shuffles past with library books in their hands. Pearl steps out of formation and plunks down between us on the bench, like she belongs. “Miss Buffet told us how you saved the baby raccoons,” she says.

  August drifts out of line a few seconds after Pearl, and eyeing her, drops a paper on my lap. “I made this picture of you.” He stands waiting.

  “Thanks.” I pick it up and share with Renée and Pearl. Renée’s clothes are painted with red glitter while I’m done in earth brown. We have big blobby fingers. There are brown things on our shoulders.

  August frowns at Pearl.

  “You draw cute raccoons,” Pearl says.

  Okay, I can make out little striped tails on the brown things; sure, they’re raccoons. The rescue story has grown. At no time were any raccoons on our bodies.

  “Hey, August, do you want to come with Pearl and us to the Halloween party at the library on Saturday?” Renée asks.

  He nods silently.

  “You have to wear a costume,” Pearl growls at him, sounding almost like her dad.

  August pulls back, nods again, then scurries back to the kindergarten line, which spreads into more of a V, Miss Buffet as the head goose.

  “Wow, he seems excited.” I roll my eyes at Renée.

  “You could have been nicer to him,” Renée tells Pearl.

  “August is a big junk wagon,” Pearl huffs.

  “What?” Renée says. “Listen, when I first met Stephen, I thought he was a junk wagon, too. But you have to give people chances.”

  “Junk wagon? Really?” I ask. “What does that even mean?”

  “You know!” Renée says. “A wagon … that’s junky.”

  “Smelly, yucky garbage truck,” Pearl adds.

  Renée rolls her eyes and shrugs her shoulders.

  “Yeah, well I happen to like garbage trucks,” I say.

  Beena sneaks out of the V next and dumps a zip-lock bag of bear-shaped cookies on the bench. “For saving the babies.” She ducks back in line.

  Aswan moves around her and gives Renée a raccoon eraser. He looks back and forth between Renée and me. “You can share.”

  “Thanks,” I say through a mouthful of bear.

  Pearl snatches it from Renée’s hand, but Renée snatches it right back. “You can’t have it. Aswan gave it to us!”

  Pearl pouts. Her eyes look big and watery.

  “Pearl and Aswan, get back in line please!” Miss Buffet calls.

  Saved from a meltdown! Yay!

  Pearl stands up, and she and Aswan join the flock of kindergarteners. They move into the library and I’m left to watch the long minute finger on the clock again. Tick, tick, the fingernail taps. I can hear it. Five more dots.

  Suddenly, someone knocks against my shoulder. Ow!

  Bruno. “Good job, Green Lantern.”

  How does he mean that? Green Lantern’s been my nickname since everyone saw my superhero boxers in gym class. Good job? Bruno never says anything nice to anyone. I check his face for a sneer but he gives me a thumbs-up. He nods at Renée, too.

  Finally, Mrs. Watier marches out of her office. “I hope y
ou two have had time to think about what you’ve done.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Watier,” Renée and I say at the same time.

  “Fine. You may join your class.”

  Phew! Fifteen minutes on the bench felt like a lifetime. But it was still worth it if it gave those raccoon kits their lifetime.

  The next part of the day goes by perfectly. No more mistakes. Not in language arts or science.

  Then Mrs. Worsley introduces something new: Genius Hour, she calls it. “You all have incredible minds, but like the rest of your body, it needs exercising. So let’s do that. Everyone. Think! Let’s brainstorm some topics we want to know more about!”

  “Minecraft!” Tyson calls out.

  “Horses,” Saffron calls out. Three other girls agree with her.

  “Minerals,” Bruno suggests.

  Renée grins at me. “Diamonds!” she calls.

  “Pink diamonds,” I suggest loudly.

  “Samurai swords,” Tyson says.

  Mrs. Worsley waves her hands up and down. “All of these are good. You need to find a partner and come up with a general question to research. Try to think of what you really want to know.”

  Renée and I instantly partner up. What we really want to know is this: Where is Pearl’s show-and-tell diamond? Mrs. Worsley comes around after a bit and talks to each group about possible topic questions.

  We end up with the question: Why are diamonds valuable? Once we have this, we’re free to go to the library and find a book or research on the computers.

  Renée heads for the non-fiction shelves and I sit at a computer. I google the question, which is pretty boring and confirms what we already know: diamonds are rare and that’s why they cost a lot. “Experts judge them on clarity, colour, cut, and carat weights.” Blah, blah. I google diamond robberies instead and come up with famous diamond heists. Now that’s interesting.

  I start reading about the Antwerp diamond heist where a hundred million dollars’ worth of diamonds and gold disappeared from the city’s diamond centre. A guy posing as a diamond merchant bought a safety deposit box first and then somehow broke into all the others and emptied them. Leonardo Notarbartolo was caught when they found his DNA on a half-eaten salami sandwich left near some trash from the scene of the crime. He went to jail for ten years, but the jewels were never recovered.