“Shhh!” he whispered. “I’m sorry. But what I found out . . . you’ll never believe it. I had to come and tell you. I think it’s important.”
“Okay,” I said. “Tessa, wake up!”
Tessa and I made Nate look the other way while we put on our bathrobes. Then the three of us sat together on the sofa. It turned out Nate’s mom had told him the same thing Dad told us. After that, he couldn’t sleep either. So he decided to do some research online. “And,” he said, “I learned something very interesting about Eb Ghanamamma’s most famous folk song, ‘Lina.’ ”
“The two of them? Really?” I said after he told us. “So that means the confederate has to be—?”
Nate nodded. “I think so.”
“Let’s look at the notes again,” I said.
The sun still wasn’t up, so we sat in the lamplight and read like we were studying for a test. It took a while, but then I spotted it, a clue we had missed all along: mud.
Piece by piece, the case came together—finally. But there was one more thing we could do to be sure. It was still dark when we tiptoed down the hall and up the stairs to the third floor.
In Nate’s bedroom, the computer was the only light. He opened his e-mail and got the link Ms. Major had sent, put the volume on mute so he wouldn’t wake his mom, and clicked through the Jan and Larry video till he stopped at the very last frame.
I shook my head. “I can’t believe we missed that the first time.”
“But what do we do now?” Tessa said. “Tell Mom? Tell Dad? What if they’re going to arrest the wrong person?”
“No way,” said Nate. “The grown-ups have it figured out—same as we do.”
Remember how Mr. Mormora said to expect a surprise at the last Canine Class?
What he meant was Sports TV Network—STVN!
It turned out Mr. Mormora and Aunt Jen had seen a great opportunity for a story that would make the first family, the first dog and Canine Class all look good. And with Hooligan so popular, STVN loved the idea.
So that day instead of only the usual press guys watching, there were tons more cameras plus play-by-play and color commentary from two veteran sportscasters, Vin and Myron.
Having been up half the night, Tessa, Nate and I moved slowly that morning. By the time we got outside, the rest of the dogs were ready to go. With Mr. Mormora smiling and the sun shining again—it was hard to believe that after class, a diamond thief was going to be arrested.
Mr. Mormora welcomed us and also the audience watching on TV at home. Then he said, “For graduation day at Canine Class, I like to give the canines and their buddies a reward for all their work. For that reason, we are going to play a game.”
The rules were easy. Each CB told his CIT to stay, then ran about fifty feet across the lawn and stopped. On the way, the CB dropped Canine Cookies. If the CIT stayed like he was supposed to, the team got a point. If he didn’t—like if he tried to steal a cookie—the team lost a point. After that, the CB called, “Come!” and the CIT was supposed to run to him or her without stopping. If the CIT did it, the team got more points—one for every cookie the dog ran past.
We divided into four teams. Team One, my team, had Ms. Major and Pickles, Mr. Bryant and Cottonball, the labradoodle and his CB, plus one of the I-don’t-know-whats. Because everybody had so much confidence in Hooligan, he and I were chosen to go last.
Tessa, Nate, Granny and Dad were watching from the spectators’ area as usual. Mom was in the Oval Office, as usual. Malik was over by the spectators, and Charlotte was near the STVN crew, including Myron and Vin.
“A-a-a-a-and—go!” said Mr. Mormora.
Mr. Bryant was first up. He told Cottonball to stay, then he started running.
Mr. Bryant is not a fast runner. But Cottonball did great. He only ate one cookie, and then it was Ms. Major’s turn.
Sadly, Pickles ate every cookie! Now we were way behind—and Ms. Major was really embarrassed.
Lucky for us, the Chihuahua on Team Four was so excited he chased his tail, got dizzy and ran the wrong way. And a golden retriever on Team Three staged a sit-down strike. Finally, his CB had to carry him to the finish line.
Meanwhile, Vin and Myron narrated and kept score. When finally it was our turn, I heard: “Going into the final lap, Team One, anchored by presidential pooch Hooligan Parks, is in second place, just five points behind Team Two. Will the First Dog choke? Or will he run to victory?”
The thing about a race is—it’s fun. And with the STVN excitement and the crowd, I forgot all about diamonds and bad guys and protesters. I just wanted to win!
“Go Team One!” hollered Nate from the sidelines.
“Woo-hoo-hoo!” hollered my drama queen sister.
I was sprinting across the South Lawn, dropping Canine Cookies as I went—and that’s when I saw her: Ms. Kootoor! She had her Blueberry Bag over her shoulder, a matching sun hat on her head. She was pulling a rolling suitcase. And she was almost to the White House East Gate!
But where were the marines, the Secret Service, the D.C. police to arrest her? Didn’t they know she was a diamond thief escaping?
“Hurry, Cameron! Hurry—what’s the matter?” Ms. Major hollered.
I didn’t know what to do. I looked over at Tessa and Nate. Couldn’t they stop her? But from where they were standing, they couldn’t even see her.
“What’s Cameron Parks doing, Vin?” I heard Myron ask.
“Can’t tell, Myron. She appears to have stopped dead in her tracks.”
“Could it be a strategic move, Vin?”
“Well, she’d better move fast. The newfie-cross on Team Four is trying hard to stage a comeback!”
I dropped a cookie, ran and dropped another. Then things got worse. Ms. Kootoor was only a few yards from the East Gate, and no one seemed to care. Instead, Charlotte, Malik, a couple more Secret Service agents and three marines were all walking toward Mr. Mormora.
I got a bad feeling.
Had the grown-ups gotten it wrong? Did they think Mr. Mormora was the thief?
At the finish line, I turned back toward Hooligan, who was sitting and staying like a Top Dog to be.
“Go ahead, Cameron. Call him! Hurry up!” said Mr. Bryant.
Mr. Mormora, by now, was looking right to left as marines and officers approached. Meanwhile, Ms. Kootoor got closer and closer to the gate. The guards might stop her, but only for a moment. Everybody loved Ms. Kootoor, and she’d been going in and out for days.
If I didn’t do something fast, she’d escape.
And an innocent man would be arrested!
Hooligan cocked his head. He couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me either. And that’s when I knew what I had to do. The whistle! It was for emergencies, wasn’t it? And this was an emergency.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
“THE girl had a powerful whistle in her pocket, don’t you think so, Vin?”
“My ears are ringing, Myron. What do you suppose she’s up to?”
My whistle’s shriek had been followed by an echo—Tessa’s. She hadn’t seen Ms. Kootoor. But she knew if I had an emergency, she had an emergency, too.
Then the strangest thing happened. Every bird in every tree on the South Lawn went crazy all at once–shrieking, trilling and singing. I even heard Humdinger up in his cage: Twee! Twee! Twee!
A second after that, the canines started in, either howling or trying to dig down under the sound—all but Hooligan. He looked up, spotted Ms. Kootoor and forgot Canine Class altogether. So much for Top Dog—he bounded toward her at top speed. She must have known she’d never outrun him, but she dropped her suitcase and tried.
No way.
Hooligan was on her in a flash, while all the time Myron and Vin kept talking.
“What’s that going on by the East Gate, Vin? Oops and ow! That’s gotta hurt. Looks like the presidential pooch knocked down the thin lady with the big plaid purse.”
“Mmm hmm, knocked the purse clean out of her hands, Myron.
Did you see that?”
The shrieking whistles distracted the officers closing in on Mr. Mormora, but only for a moment. Then, when they had him surrounded, a funny thing happened. The CITs—the dogs—all looked in his direction. And next thing you know, they forgot everything they learned in Canine Class and sprang to the rescue.
Have I mentioned dogs love Mr. Mormora?
Meanwhile, I was chasing Hooligan. Even though Ms. Kootoor was a diamond thief, I couldn’t let him hurt her.
Would he hurt her?
My mind was going as fast as my feet. Why had the birds gone crazy? Why had Hooligan acted different than the other dogs?
Meanwhile, a couple of Secret Service agents had peeled off to chase me, and I could hear them on their radios. “Fussbudget in jeopardy, Fussbudget in jeopardy.”
Oh, fine. Remember how I didn’t want to tell you my Secret Service code name? Tessa’s is Fireball. Mine is . . . Fussbudget. It’s what Granny calls me when I’m having a bad day.
Ms. Kootoor was on the ground when I reached her. But Hooligan didn’t want to hurt her. He didn’t even want to sniff her. He was all about the Blueberry Bag—trying to get his nose inside. I could see right away Ms. Kootoor wasn’t dead or anything, but her stockings were torn and her jacket was dirty. I bent down, but before I could ask if she was okay, I heard Myron again.
“Vin—what do you suppose is going on there? It appears the Secret Service agents are attempting to arrest Mr. Julius Mormora.”
“But the loyal canines have formed a wall of protection, Myron. They’re snapping and snarling! They won’t let the officers through!”
At the same time, Hooligan’s head emerged from Ms. Kootoor’s Blueberry Bag—and there was something familiar-looking in his mouth: a bright red diamond dog collar!
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
HOOLIGAN was not the Top Dog. In fact, Mr. Mormora announced that just this once, there wasn’t going to be a Top Dog.
Instead, he wagged his finger at the CITs. “While all of you have made excellent progress, canines that truly have class always stay in place until their CBs release them.”
I was disappointed, but Hooligan thumped his tail and smiled his doggie smile. You would have thought he got a trophy! I don’t know why, but I had a funny feeling Mrs. Hedges was right. Now that Canine Class was over, he would forget all about being perfect and go back to having too much energy.
When commencement was over, Mr. Mormora waved good-bye and got into his limousine. He had a plane to catch. Oh—and it turned out his safari wasn’t in the jungle at all. It was at a wild animal park in Ohio.
Myron and Vin were packing up, and the last dogs were leaving when Tessa and Nate came over from the spectator area. Nate looked like I felt—dazed—but Tessa had a huge grin on her face. “We did it, Cammie! We solved the case, found the diamonds, and saved President Alfredo-Chin from protesters!”
I held up my hand. “High five.”
“You don’t seem excited,” said Tessa.
“Ms. Kootoor looked awfully sad when Malik put the handcuffs on her,” I said.
“Did she say anything?” Tessa asked.
“Oh, yeah,” I said. “She wanted to know how we figured it out. I told her about Nate going online and finding out about her and Mr. Ghanamamma—that they used to be sweethearts long ago, and he wrote his song ‘Lina’ about her. And I told her how we saw the mud on her shoes in the clip from Jan and Larry, so we knew she’d been out on the South Lawn when the diamond disappeared.”
“But how did she call Hooligan from so far away?” Tessa asked.
“It was the diamond whistle,” I said. “The whole thing about her dad giving it to her? She made that up. The truth is the whistle’s that special kind that only dogs can hear. Dogs and birds, that is. While she was staying in the White House, she trained Hooligan to come whenever he heard it. For a reward, she used cut-up hot dogs!”
“So that’s what was in the cooler,” Nate said.
“Oh!” said Tessa. “And when Hooligan went crazy? And knocked over Mrs. Hedges? Ms. Kootoor must have blown the whistle. We couldn’t hear it, but Humdinger and Hooligan did.”
“That’s what I figured, too,” I said. “Then today when I blew the whistle, Hooligan ran for Ms. Kootoor—just the way she’d trained him. He must’ve expected there’d be hot dogs in the Blueberry Bag. But instead, he found this.” The collar had been in my pocket for safekeeping. Now I pulled it out. With all twelve diamonds, it sparkled in the sunlight. Pretty soon either Charlotte or Malik or the guys in gray suits would take it. But for now? I bent down and buckled it on Hooligan’s neck.
He raised his nose in the air. He knew he looked handsome.
“Ms. Kootoor told me one more thing,” I said. “She didn’t do it for the money. She did it for love.”
“Awwww,” said Tessa.
“Ewwww,” said Nate.
“But there are still some things I don’t understand,” said Tessa. “Like—”
Surrounded by aides and Secret Service agents, here came Mom striding toward us through the Rose Garden. “Mama-a-a-a!” Tessa called, and the two of us ran to meet her.
“Good news, girls. The security alert has been lifted,” Mom said. “So things will be getting back to normal around here.”
“What’s normal?” I asked.
“Madam President?” said one of her aides. “Excuse me, Madam President?” said another. “It’s very important that we—” “You have a meeting in five minutes, do you realize—” “There’s an urgent call from—”
Mom squinched her eyes shut, took a deep breath and held up her hand. Instantly, her aides stopped talking. “Muffins?” she said. “If the weather holds, I am planning a family picnic for noon today on the Oval Office patio. How does that sound?”
Her aides started to protest. Three mayors and an admiral were waiting! And what about the walnut blight in Michigan? Mom raised her hand again. “After lunch,” she said.
“Is Granny invited?” Tessa asked.
“Of course,” Mom said.
“Then you’d better invite Mr. Bryant,” Tessa said.
“Mr. Bryant?” Mom said.
“We’ll catch you up,” I said.
It stayed sunny, so we got to eat on the patio—sandwiches, cole slaw, drinks, fruit salad and cookies.
Dad raised a glass of cider. “To Cammie and Tessa and Nate!” he said. “Without their hard work and detecting, the wrong person would now be in jail.”
We all raised our glasses, but—like me—Mom didn’t look that happy. “Are you sad because Ms. Kootoor was your friend?” I asked her.
“You get knocked around a lot when you’re in politics,” Mom said, “even by your friends. I’m getting pretty tough, but yes, it makes me sad.”
“Do you think Ms. Kootoor and Eb Ghanamamma really wanted to help the people?” I asked.
“Possibly,” Mom said. “But they sure went about it the wrong way.”
“A few more things are bugging me,” I said. “Like was the ‘heightened security’ because of the missing diamonds?”
“And is that what you were spending all your time on, Mama?” Tessa asked.
“I can’t tell you everything yet,” said Mom. “But generally? Yes and yes. Just like you girls and Granny, my security team realized pretty quickly that there was a connection between El Brillante and the diamonds on Hooligan’s collar. So they started looking into it. All the evidence seemed to point to Mr. Mormora, and we knew he was leaving today. With time running out, they decided to arrest him, but they had to keep it quiet. And of course we wanted to wait till after Canine Class.”
“What everybody missed was the old romance between Ms. Kootoor and Eb Ghanamamma,” Dad explained. “And I, for one, can’t believe I didn’t put that together. When he sang ‘Lina,’ there were rumors it was about a famous American model. But I never thought how Lina could be a nickname for Madeline.”
“There’s more things I don’t get,” Tessa
said. “Like how come only one diamond was missing, and then the whole collar?”
“My guess,” Mom said, “is that the thief had to prove to her buyer that the diamonds were what she said they were. She took one, hoping it wouldn’t be missed.”
“And what about the Canine Cookies Hooligan found?” I asked.
Granny answered that one. “I think Ms. Kootoor took that box from the outdoor shed, then dropped cookies here and there. She was in the kitchen and heard you talking Saturday morning, remember? She must have thought if she dropped the cookies, you’d suspect Mr. Mormora instead of her.”
“Ahem?” One of Mom’s aides had come across the lawn. He was holding a phone. You could tell he was embarrassed to interrupt.
Mom reached for the phone. “What is it?”
“Oh—it’s not for you, ma’am. It’s for the children.” He held the phone out. “It’s on speaker.”
A voice said, “Hello? Am I speaking to the children of the president of the United States?”
“Hey, President Alfredo-Chin!” said Tessa. “How ya doin’?”
“Very well, thank you,” answered the voice. “Although, we have had a difficult time here in our nation. Now, I am confident things will be better. So I call to thank you for your efforts.”
“You’re welcome!” said Tessa, Nate and I.
“And when the time is right,” President Alfredo-Chin went on, “I am planning to bring my dog, Empress Pu-Chi, to your country for a visit. I know how very much she would enjoy meeting your handsome dog, Hooligan.”
Nate, Tessa and I looked at each other. After what Mr. Mormora had said, we didn’t expect we’d like the empress very much. But then we shrugged and said in a chorus “Sure!” It didn’t really matter, did it? What were the chances the president of a nearby nation would ever bring his dog to Washington, D.C.?
AFTERWORD
THE South Lawn of the White House is the backyard for the president’s family.
And what a great backyard!
Together with the smaller North Lawn in front, it takes up eighteen acres—the size of a dozen football fields.
The Case of the Diamond Dog Collar Page 8
