by Ida Siegal
TITLE PAGE
CHAPTER ONE: Festival News
CHAPTER TWO: Wear What You Want!
CHAPTER THREE: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
CHAPTER FOUR: The Hunt for a Costume Crook
CHAPTER FIVE: I Know Who Did It
CHAPTER SIX: Cloudy Judgment
CHAPTER SEVEN: Why Do Girls Do That?
CHAPTER EIGHT: Anonymous Tip
CHAPTER NINE: There’s No Such Thing as an Invisible Blanket!
CHAPTER TEN: Check with Charlie
CHAPTER ELEVEN: Lost and Found
CHAPTER TWELVE: ¡La Bruja Blanca!
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Allergies and Answers
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: The Last Report
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: Mystery Solved
EMMA’S TIPS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
COPYRIGHT
READY, Sophia?”
“Yup, ready, Emma!”
“One, two, THREE! Woo-hoo!!!” Sophia and I screamed and laughed as we slid headfirst into a huge pile of leaves in the school yard.
“Ha-ha! That was so fun!” shouted Sophia. She stood up and began brushing all the red, orange, and yellow leaves off her coat. I was still buried under the pile.
“Emma?” Sophia called out as she looked around. I waited silently as Sophia searched for me.
“Emma?” she asked again. “Where are you?”
Then I leapt out of the leaf pile!
“Roar!” I yelled like a lion.
“Ahhh!” she screamed as leaves flew everywhere around us. Then we both fell back down laughing.
“Emma, your hair!” Sophia pointed. “You look like a wicked autumn witch!”
I felt the top of my head and realized I had leaves stuck in between all my long chocolate-pudding Slinkies. You know, my curly hair.
“That’s because I am a wicked autumn witch!” I giggled. Then I held up my arms like a zombie and pretended I was going to stomp on Sophia. She ran away, screaming so loud a bunch of other kids in the school yard heard and ran over to play with us.
“Look out below!” called Javier as he dove into the leaf pile like a cannonball. Leaves were flying everywhere.
We bounced and ran and danced in the leaves until Carmen the yard monitor said it was time to come inside.
“Okay, class, settle down,” said Miss Thompson as we walked into our classroom. “Take out your Spanish workbooks and turn to page thirty-one.”
I love doing Spanish in school. I know lots of the answers because we speak Spanish at home. Spanish is a very famous language, you know. I feel extra famous showing off my Spanish speaking skills!
I have lots of reasons to feel famous these days. After I solved the mystery of Javier’s wormburger at school last month, everyone started coming to me for help. They wanted me to do news reports on them, too.
Like when my friend Shakira lost her sister’s gold heart necklace, I did an investigation and discovered it fell behind the couch in her living room. After I did my news report, Shakira’s mom looked behind the sofa and found the necklace! She found an old magazine, too! Bonus.
And at school, my friend David only had two cookies at lunch one day even though his mom always packs four. I used my camera phone to shoot video of cookie crumbs on Adrian’s hoodie sweatshirt. I showed Adrian the evidence and he sang like a canary! (That means he admitted to stealing the cookies, in detective language.)
“¿Quién quiere leer?” asked Miss Thompson in Spanish language. “Who wants to read … ?” Then she paused when she saw my hair. “Emma, what happened to your hair? Leaves are stuck everywhere,” she said with a concerned smile.
“I know!” I smiled back. “I like it this way. I’m a wicked autumn witch!”
“Oh, I see. Actually, that reminds me,” she added, turning to the rest of the class. “Before we begin our Spanish lesson, I have an important announcement to make. As you know, Halloween is coming up soon …”
We all started oohing and giggling with excitement.
“Yes, yes,” Miss Thompson continued, “and as you also know, the Washington Heights Halloween Festival will be held at our school next Saturday. But this year, in addition to games, a bounce house, and the Halloween dance … there’s also going to be a costume contest!”
The whole class started oohing and aahing even louder. This was big news.
“Yes, it will be lots of fun,” she went on. “Students from all the neighborhood schools will be competing in different categories, like most original costume. Or best group costume. Funniest costume! We want to show our P.S. 387 pride! Principal Lee says the class that wins the most categories will get a pizza party the following week!”
We all screamed and shouted!!
“Okay, okay, settle down. There are some rules you need to know about. First, you have to try to make your costume yourself. Your friends and family can help. And second, all costumes should be based on a literary character.”
“Ooooh!” we all shrieked.
“Miss Thompson, what’s a literary character?” asked Javier.
“I’m glad you asked that, Javier. A literary character is a character from a book. So I want you to think hard about the characters in your favorite books and pick which one you want to dress up as for the Halloween costume contest.”
Ooh. Yes! A great costume idea popped right into my brain. But I was gonna need some help.
AFTER school, everyone was talking about their Halloween costumes.
Lizzie decided to be Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz. And Miss Thompson said that counts because The Wizard of Oz is a movie and a book!
Shakira said she would be Charlotte the spider from Charlotte’s Web.
Adrian wanted to be a Wild Thing from Where the Wild Things Are. We all laughed because he’s pretty wild even when it isn’t Halloween.
Molly wanted to be Roo, the kid kangaroo from Winnie-the-Pooh, but when we were all waiting for the bus after school, Melissa G. told her she couldn’t.
“But I like Roo,” Molly replied. She sounded sad and a little embarrassed.
“But Molly, my three-year-old baby cousin is dressing up as Piglet from Winnie-the-Pooh. Everybody knows Winnie-the-Pooh costumes are baby costumes. I’m just trying to help you. Do you want people to call you a baby on Halloween?”
“I guess not,” Molly answered with a frown. Melissa G. and Molly are perfect-match friends. Just like me and Sophia. Only me and Sophia are nice to each other. Melissa G. says not-nice things to Molly all the time. It’s not right.
So I walked over to them and said, “Let her wear what she wants, Melissa!”
Melissa G. scowled at me. “Mind your own business, Emma!”
Melissa G. has been mean to me ever since I became a news reporter. That’s because people stopped caring that she was in a toothpaste commercial. She hates that I’m more famous than she is.
“Whatever, Melissa,” I said back. Then I looked at Molly and said, “I like Roo and I like Winnie-the-Pooh. You should be whatever you want for Halloween.” I turned back to Melissa G. and said, “So there.” And I stuck my tongue out at her. Then she stuck her tongue out at me.
Sophia saw us arguing and walked over. “I like Winnie-the-Pooh, too,” she said in a nice voice.
“That’s okay, Sophia,” Molly said. “Melissa’s right—it’s kind of babyish. I’ll think of something else.”
Sophia and I shrugged our shoulders and got into line to get on the bus. Molly really should stand up to Melissa G., but we couldn’t make her if she didn’t want to.
“I have the PERFECT costume!!” I told Sophia as we sat down in our usual seats on the bus.
“Ooh, what is it?” she asked.
“Well, it’s from a book the fourth graders are reading in class!” I sai
d.
“Oh, wow. What book is it?” Sophia wanted to know.
“It’s called The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe,” I told her.
“Oh!! I know that book! My older sister, Olivia, has it in her room. It looks sooo good.”
“Yup! I’ll be the Witch … see, I kind of already am!” I pointed to my pudding Slinkies, still covered in leaves. “I just need someone to be the Lion and someone else to be the wardrobe … and we are guaranteed to win the costume contest!”
“That’s so cool. I’ll be the Lion!” Sophia offered.
“Great! Now we just need someone to dress up as the wardrobe.”
Sophia and I started looking around the bus. We spotted Javier sitting in the back. He looked like he was pretending the bus was a spaceship and he was preparing to land on the moon.
Ever since I solved Javier’s wormburger mystery, he’s kind of become our friend. Actually, Javier volunteers to help me sometimes.
Like when I had to find Shakira’s sister’s missing gold heart necklace, Javier was the one who suggested looking behind the sofa with a flashlight. He said one time he looked behind the sofa in his house and found his sister’s ring! It was right next to a rubber band and a peanut- butter-and-jelly sandwich he was saving for later and forgot about. Yuck.
Javier also helped me figure out why there were never enough basketballs during free time at gym. He did some snooping and found six missing basketballs stuck in the back of the equipment closet. I did a news report on it, and then all the kids got to play basketball. Javier has good snooping skills, I must say.
We’re actually like a reporting team. Sophia likes to hold the camera phone when we do interviews. She helps me think about clues. I ask the questions and do the news reports. And Javier searches for clues.
In fact, Javier has being doing such a good job snooping, we decided that he should have his own set of tools. Spy tools! Javier says he needs a flashlight (for looking behind things), a magnifying glass (for inspecting things), walkie-talkies (for telling us about things he found), and night-vision goggles (for seeing monsters in the dark, in case they decide to follow him while he snoops at night—I told Javier that sounded silly, but he said snooping detectives have to be prepared for anything).
The only problem is the spy kit costs money. Lots of money. We added up Sophia’s allowance, my birthday money, and Javier’s tooth-fairy money, but it’s still not enough to buy the spy kit. It’ll have to wait.
“Hey, Javier!” I called to him in the back of the bus. He was still making spaceship noises. Apparently the school bus/spaceship was about to make a crash landing.
“Errr … oh, no … watch out, moon creature … we’re comin’ in!!” he said. After a few more booms and pows, Javier finally looked up.
“Oh, hey, Emma,” he said.
“Javier, do you have a costume for the Halloween contest yet?” I asked.
“No. Not yet,” he replied with a toothless smile. Javier barely has any teeth. His baby ones keep falling out and his grown-up ones haven’t grown in yet.
“Wanna be a wardrobe for Halloween?” I asked. I hoped he would say yes, but I wasn’t sure. He might think a wardrobe was a boring costume.
“Are you kidding? Of course YES!!” Javier stood up in his seat and held his arms in the air. I think he was excited.
“Perfect!” I squealed. “Now we have a Lion, a Witch, and a wardrobe!”
“But … hey, Emma?” Javier interrupted. “What’s a wardrobe?”
“Javier?! You agreed to be a wardrobe even though you don’t know what it is?”
“Of course I did! You asked me to be a wardrobe. I knew it would be great—whatever it was.”
Suddenly I felt a little embarrassed. Like good embarrassed. Like I was going to blush. Sometimes I wish everyone else knew that Javier is a really nice kid. People say he’s weird, but that’s because they don’t know him. I think he’s pretty smart! And funny, too.
“Javier, a wardrobe is like a closet,” I explained. “But it’s a closet that’s a piece of furniture.”
“I’m going to be a piece of furniture for Halloween?” Javier asked.
“Um … well … yeah, I was thinking …”
“That … is … the … coolest … costume EVER!” Javier straightened his body and pretended to be really stiff—just like furniture.
That settled that. Our costume group was all set and we were going to make the best costumes ever.
HEY, Mom!” I shouted as I jumped off the school bus.
“Hi, honey!” she replied. “How was school today?”
“It was awesome!” I shouted. “You know what happened?”
“Nope. But I’m hoping you’ll tell me.” Mom smiled and checked to make sure my baby sister, Mia, was still asleep in the stroller.
“There’s gonna be a costume contest at school and you have to make your own costume and it has to be from a book and I know what I’m gonna be and it’s gonna be sooo cool,” I said in a hurry. I had to stop to take a breath.
“Okay, Emma, slow down. And try not to yell, your sister’s sleeping.”
“Okay,” I said in a whisper. “But, Mom,” I continued in my normal voice, “I’m going to be a witch! But not just any witch. I’m going to be the Witch from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe!”
“Now that sounds wonderful, Emma. Very creative.”
Mom told me that the Witch from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is called the White Witch and she wears a long white fur coat and has a magic wand! They have all the supplies we need at the craft store. Mom said could we could go tomorrow morning since it was Saturday and there was no school.
The next morning, I nibbled on some bacon and eggs before we left for the craft store.
“So what do you think about my costume idea, Papi?” I asked my dad.
“I think it’s wonderful,” Papi replied. “You’re going to be la Bruja Blanca!”
“Ha! I like it when you say “White Witch” in Spanish! It sounds so spooky!” I said it out loud like this: “Brooha Blahnkah.”
“We’ll make you a super-spooky costume.”
“That’s perfect! Perfecto.” I popped a forkful of scrambled eggs into my mouth.
“Meow, meow,” my cat, Luna, chimed in as she jumped into my lap.
“You think so, too, Luna?” I asked as I scrunched down to give her a kiss and a snuggle.
Luna has chocolate-pudding cat fur, just like my chocolate-pudding Slinky curls. She’s also my reporter’s assistant, so she’s allowed to sit at the table even though Papi says he’s not thrilled about it.
After breakfast, we all got in the car to go buy costume supplies.
“Wow,” I said as we stepped inside the craft store.
“EEEK. GAGA GAGA,” agreed baby Mia.
The store was huge! They had every kind of crafting supply, in every kind of color you could ever think of!
“Papi, this is amazing!”
“It is pretty cool,” Papi replied.
We looked around for everything a witch could ever need. They had a ton of hats and brooms and black fabric. They had glitter and feathers and beads. But I mostly just needed white stuff because I was going to be the White Witch.
After a while, I found a white sheet that Mom said we could cut up to make a witch’s dress. We grabbed lots of white feathers and sequins to decorate my dress. Then I found the perfect magic wand—it was gold and shiny. Papi said the White Witch also has a crown. So we bought a package of tinfoil to make spiky icicles. We were going to attach them to a princess crown I already had at home.
Last, but not least, I needed a long white fur coat.
“Mom, I don’t see any fur coats around here.”
“Hmm. A white fur coat. Let’s see,” said Mom as she handed baby Mia over to Papi. Mia was getting fussy, so he took her back to the car for a bottle.
“I know, Emma,” said Mom as an idea popped into her head.
“What?” I asked.
“How about this?” She held up a white shaggy rug.
“A rug? Do you think the White Witch would really wear a rug?”
“I sure do,” Mom insisted. “Look, we’ll get the medium size … wrap it around the top like a cape … and then cinch it around your waist. Then we’ll cut holes for your arms. It’ll be great.”
I suddenly had a vision of myself in a white shaggy rug coat and it was amazing.
“Actually, that’s kinda cool! Let’s get it!” I agreed.
We left the craft store with everything we needed.
Mom, Papi, and I spent the next few days putting my costume together. Miss Thompson told us to bring our costumes into school a couple days before the festival so we could finish them up in art class. I brought all my witch stuff, plus a special surprise for Sophia to add to her Lion costume.
“Okay, class, it’s time to grab your costumes and bring them to the art room,” announced Miss Thompson. “Your art instructor, Mr. Colón, will help with the finishing touches. And one more thing: As you know, the costume contest will have prizes for all the different categories. The Halloween Festival organizers announced there will also be a grand prize for the best costume overall. It’s a gift certificate to Mr. Magee’s Toy Store.”
We all squealed with excitement!!
“So if you win best costume,” Miss Thompson continued, “you can pick out any toy you like, within reason, from Mr. Magee’s.”
“Sophia, we have to win now!!” I exclaimed as we walked to the art room. “Mr. Magee has a spy kit. I’ve seen it in the window. It’ll be perfect for Javier!”
“Ooh, Emma, he would love that,” Sophia agreed. We sat down at a big brown table in the art room. It was covered in dried paint splats.
“Yes, we have to win. I think we can do it,” Sophia continued. “Check out my costume. My mom says the Lion from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is named Aslan and he is fierce. We spent hours making my Aslan costume fierce!”
“Ooh, Sophia, I love it!” I told her.
“See, look,” Sophia said as she plopped her costume down on the table, “I have an orange leotard and tan tights. My mom helped me make a tan oval out of felt and sew it on the leotard for the Lion’s stomach. Then we made a mane from strips of felt in yellow, orange, red, and tan! We made the strips into loops and glued them around a headband.”
