The Riddle of the Red Purse (2 page)

“Hurry,” Jason yelled.

She thought about Jim closing the gates.

She grabbed the purse.

She put it in her pocket. She started to run.

I
T WAS
S
UNDAY AFTERNOON.

Dawn took her last bite of cake.

Then she slapped her head.

“What’s the matter?” her mother asked.

“Dawn’s slapping a bug,” her brother Chris said.

“There aren’t any bugs in the winter,” said Dawn.

Chris started to laugh. He pointed at her. “You’re the bug.”

Dawn crossed her eyes at him. Then she looked at her mother. “I just remembered something. I have to go to Jason’s.”

She ran up to her room.

She put on her coat and her polka dot hat.

The hat fell down over her eyes.

Dawn took a sock.

She put it in the hat.

Just right. She could see.

She dragged her detective box downstairs.

Noni was watching basketball on TV.

She smiled at Dawn.

Noni went to the closet. She brought back her grey scarf.

“What is that for?” Dawn asked.

“It’s freezing out,” Noni said.

Noni put the scarf around Dawn’s head. She kissed her cheeks. “You’ll be nice and warm.”

Dawn went outside.

She hoped no one would see the scarf.

It made her look like a hippopotamus. A fat grey one.

It kept her polka dot hat on tight, though.

She began to sing. “Frosty the la-la. Had a very la-la nose.”

She wished she knew the words.

Across the street she saw Chris and his friend Donny.

They were looking for something.

“Is that your sister?” Donny asked. “The one with the thing on her head?”

“That crazy-looking kid?” Chris said. “Don’t be silly.”

Dawn put her hands on her hips. “I am so, Christopher Bosco.”

Chris started to make a snowball. Dawn pulled her box around the corner. She went as fast as she could.

Jason was outside his house. He was making a snowman.

It had stone ears and a rock nose.

“Give me your scarf,” he told Dawn.

“We can’t play snowman,” she said. “We have a mystery.”

“Yahoo,” Jason said. He rubbed his mittens together.

“Why are you wearing one red mitten and one green one?” she asked.

“Simple,” Jason said. “I lost one red one and one green one.”

“Look what I found.” Dawn took the red purse out of her pocket.

They went into Jason’s house.

Jason had a terrible playroom.

It had an ironing board in the middle.

It had a TV, a black-and-white one.

It had two old orange chairs.

Jason sat in one.

Dawn sat in the other.

“Open it up,” Jason said.

“Wait till you see,” said Dawn.

She snapped open the purse.

Jason bent over to look.

He fell off the orange chair.

“There’s a paper with writing,” Dawn told him. “And money too.”

She scooped everything out.

There was gritty stuff on the bottom. Sand or something.

It got under her fingernails.

“Yucks,” she said.

Jason held up the paper. “It’s a list for the stores.”

“Double yucks,” Dawn said. “I hate cheese.”

“Look at the money,” Jason said.

Dawn put the money on the ironing board. One dime. One nickel. Two pennies.

“Sixteen cents,” she said.

Jason rolled the dime across the board. “Seventeen.”

He looked at her. “We could buy Gummy Bears.”

Dawn shook her head. “We’re detectives.”

Jason’s mother came to the door.

“We have a mystery to solve,” Jason told her.

“I hope it’s the mystery of the missing mittens,” she said. “How about some cookies?”

“Great,” Dawn said. She hoped they were chocolate chips.

Jason took the magnifying glass out of the box.

He looked at the gritty stuff in the purse.

“Looks like crackers,” he said. “The vanilla kind.”

Mrs. Bazyk came back with the cookies.

They were the fig kind.

They had things that got caught in your teeth.

Dawn shivered.

Jason put two in his mouth. “It’s the riddle of the red purse,” he said. Cookie crumbs flew all over.

“What’s a riddle?” Dawn asked.

“It’s like a mystery.” He looked up. “What can we do?”

Dawn took a cookie.

She was starving to death.

“I have an idea,” she said.

M
S.
R
OONEY CALLED
the roll.

Today three people were out. Sherri, Linda, and Jill.

Dawn had a little cold too. Noni had given her cough drops. The brown kind.

Dawn put them in the back of her desk. Then she went up to Ms. Rooney. “Can Jason and I put up some signs?”

“May I,” Ms. Rooney said. She looked at the signs.

POLKA
DOT
PRIVATE
EYE
FOUND

RED PURSE

17 cents

See Dawn. See Jason.

Room 113.

“Nice,” said Ms. Rooney. “Go ahead.”

Dawn put one in the front of the room.

Then they went out to the hall.

Jason stuck a sign on the bulletin board.

Dawn put one on the art teacher’s door.

They put one in the gym.

“Now what?” Jason asked.

“Now nothing,” Dawn said. “We have to go back. We have to do math and stuff.”

“Yucks,” said Jason.

“Double yucks,” said Dawn.

She tried to think.

What else could they do?

“Wait a minute,” said Jason. “I thought of something.”

Too bad,
Dawn thought.

She was the real detective.

She should have thought of something.

“We could ask the principal,” Jason said. “We could talk on the speaker.”

“Right,” said Dawn. “Tell the whole school.”

They rushed down the hall.

“Why not?” said Mr. Mancina. He turned on the switch.

Dawn said, “A-hem.” She tried to make her voice sound important. “This is the Polka Dot Private Eye.”

Jason leaned over. He almost knocked the speaker off the table. “It’s Jason too,” he said.

“We found a purse,” said Dawn. “It has seventeen cents.” She wished Jason didn’t take up so much room.

“Come to Room One-thirteen,” said Jason.

Mr. Mancina patted them on their shoulders. “Good thinking.”

They started back for the classroom.

They stopped for a drink.

Then they looked out the door. It was snowing.

“I forgot,” Dawn said. “I’m the class president.”

“So?”

“We have to go right back. I have to be good as gold.”

They hurried back to the classroom.

“We heard you,” said Richard Best.

“Lucky,” said Emily Arrow. “I always wanted to talk on that thing.”

Ms. Rooney clapped her hands. “It’s time to start spelling,” she said. “Take out a piece of paper.”

Just then the door opened.

It was Holly Best, Richard’s sister.

“You found my purse,” she said.

Ms. Rooney looked up.

The door opened again.

It was Chris’s friend Donny. “I’ve been looking all over. Where’s the purse?”

“A boy doesn’t have a purse,” said Dawn.

“It’s my sister’s,” Donny said. “She’s going to kill me if I don’t give it back.”

“Hey,” said Holly Best. “That purse is mine. Seventeen cents and everything.”

Dawn looked at Jason.

Ms. Rooney frowned. “Settle this after school.”

“I’ll be on the school steps,” said Donny. “At three o’clock.”

Holly made a face. “Don’t worry. I’ll be there too.”

They went out the door.

Dawn took out a piece of paper.

She put her name on it.

She tried to think.

Now they really had a riddle!

D
AWN WAS READY
to cry.

Emily had a hundred percent on her spelling.

So did Jason.

Dawn had two wrong. Only ninety percent.

Ms. Rooney was giving out stars. Green ones.

She went around the room. “Good work,” she told Emily.

“Terrific,” she said to Jason.

She looked at Dawn’s paper. “Try to learn those words. Write them three times.”

Dawn looked down.

She had spelled
careful
wrong. C-a-r-e-f-u-l-l.

She leaned over.

Emily had spelled
careful
with one
l
.

Dawn clicked her teeth.

She looked at her paper again.

Bread
was spelled wrong too.

She had forgotten the
e
.

Bread.

It made her think of something.

What?

She couldn’t remember.

“Put your papers away,” Ms. Rooney said. “It’s time for gym.”

The class went down the hall.

Jason walked with Dawn. “What do you think?” he asked. “Is the purse Holly’s or Donny’s?”

“That’s what we have to find out,” Dawn said.

Mr. Bell came to the gym door. “Today we’re going to have relay races.”

Dawn kept thinking about the purse.

She thought during gym.

She thought at recess.

That afternoon they had handwriting.

Dawn was a good writer.

She made tall, straight I’s.

She made big, loopy B’s.

Then her mouth opened.

She remembered something.

At last it was three o’clock. She walked down the hall with Jason.

“What are we going to do?” Jason asked.

“Don’t worry,” Dawn said.

They opened the big brown doors.

Donny wasn’t there yet.

Holly jumped off the steps. “Where’s my purse?”

Dawn took a breath.

She was glad she had thought all day. “I have to ask you a question,” she told Holly.

“Right,” said Jason.

Dawn sat down on the step. She pulled out her polka dot hat.

“Silly,” said Holly.

Dawn put on the hat. She could feel the steps were wet from the snow.

She stood up quickly.

“What question?” Holly asked.

“How do you spell
Bread
?” Dawn asked.

“I think you’re crazy,” Holly said. “You’re as crazy as my brother Richard.”

Jason jumped up on the step. “Spell it.”

Holly looked up at the sky. “Bread,” she said. “B-r-e-a-d.”

“Too bad,” Dawn said.

“Too bad,” said Jason. He looked at Dawn. “Why?”

“You’d better keep looking for your purse,” said Dawn. “This one isn’t yours.”

“You think you know everything,” Holly said. “Even that dumb Linda Lorca said so yesterday.”

Holly sat down on the steps.

Dawn opened her mouth.

Then she closed it again.

Let Holly get a wet seat.

It served her right.