The Riddle of the Red Purse (3 page)

Dawn pulled out the purse. She showed them the store list.

“Look,” she said.

MILK

BRED

CHEESE

“I hate cheese,” Holly said.

Dawn pointed. “The person doesn’t know how to spell
bread
.”

Holly looked at the purse. “Hey,” she said. “That’s not mine. Mine was bigger. Fatter.”

Holly stood up.

The back of her was wet. “Squish,” she said. She raced down the street.

Just then Donny opened the school door.

“Let me,” said Jason. “Hey, Donny. Spell
bread
.”

“Out of my way,” Donny said. “I’m going to miss the bus.”

“What about the purse?” Dawn called after him.

He waved a purse in the air.

It was more orange than red.

“Found it,” he yelled. “Thanks.”

Dawn looked at Jason.

He had peanut butter all over his mouth.

“We have to start over again,” she said.

He wiped it off. “Good.”

D
AWN WAS LATE
for school. Very late.

Her mother had made her go back upstairs. She had to wear an undershirt.

It was tan. The yuck kind.

She was wearing a brand-new sweater, though. Pink and purple. It was gorgeous.

Noni had made it for her.

Dawn was the last one in the classroom.

Everyone was hanging up his coat and hat.

Ms. Rooney looked up. She smiled at Dawn. “Good,” she said. “Everyone is here today.”

Dawn went to her seat.

It was hard not to yawn.

She had stayed awake late last night.

She had been reading
The Polka Dot Private Eye Book.

It was great.

It told her how to solve mysteries.

Linda and Sherri and Jill were in back.

They were fighting.

It was a whisper fight.

They didn’t want Ms. Rooney to hear.

Ms. Rooney didn’t like fighting.

Linda saw Dawn. “It’s all your fault,” she said.

Jill was crying. “I want my purse.”

“You mean, my purse,” said Sherri.

“No, mine,” said Linda.

Dawn pulled off her jacket.

She saw Linda look at her sweater.

Good thing she didn’t know about the undershirt.

Dawn thought about her book. It said:

ASK QUESTIONS.

YOU’LL FIND THINGS OUT.

She looked at Jill. “What does your purse look like?”

“Red,” said Jill.

“Mine too,” said Sherri.

Linda put her nose up close to Dawn. “Red,” she said in a loud voice. She looked up at Ms. Rooney.

Ms. Rooney was writing in her book.

She wasn’t watching.

“I know red,” said Dawn. She talked as loud as Linda. “But how big? How fat? Stuff like that.”

“They’re all the same,” said Jill.

“They can’t be,” Dawn said.

“Smarty pants,” said Linda. “We made them at Brownies.”

Just then Ms. Rooney stood up. “Class President,” she said, “it’s time for the pledge.”

Dawn raced to the front of the room.

“Class, stand,” she said.

She looked at Jill.

She looked at Sherri.

She looked at Linda.

Whose purse was it?

The class said the pledge.

Then Jill had something to show. It was a picture of her new fish.

Jason had something to show too.

It was a letter from his pen pal.

He read it out loud.

He made lots of mistakes.

Jason wasn’t such a good reader.

Then it was time to copy the board story.

It was a story about the sunny South.

It was easy.

Dawn raced through it.

Sherri raised her hand. “I was in California,” she said. “Remember? I went swimming. That’s like the sunny South.”

Ms. Rooney smiled. “That’s true.”

Dawn tore three pages out of her notebook.

She wrote the same thing on each paper.

Gorgeous,
she thought.

She went up to the pencil sharpener.

On the way back she dropped a paper on Jill’s desk.

She put one on Sherri’s.

She put one on Linda’s.

Ms. Rooney looked up. “Good as gold,” she reminded Dawn.

Dawn went back to her desk.

She’d have the mystery solved in no time.

I
T WAS TIME
for lunch.

Ms. Rooney’s class marched down to the cafeteria.

“Well?” Sherri said.

“How about it?” asked Linda.

Jill didn’t say anything. She just sniffed.

Dawn raised one shoulder. “I didn’t look yet. My group had reading. I had math and everything.”

“Time to eat,” the lunch monitor said. “You can talk later.”

Dawn slid into the seat next to Jason.

Jason was having peanut butter and jelly.

That’s what he always had.

Dawn had cheese.

“Want to swap?” she asked him.

“Are you kidding?” He took a big bite. The jelly dripped on the table.

Jill was at the next table. She leaned over. “I’ll swap,” she said. “I love cheese.”

Dawn ate Jill’s ham sandwich.

She started her dessert.

Apples and cookies.

The best kind.

She told Jason about the papers.

“Great idea,” said Jason. “There was one dime, one nickel, and two pennies. Right?”

“Right,” said Dawn. “Careful with that jelly. It’ll get on my sweater.”

She opened the first paper.

It was Sherri’s.

It said:

“Sherri is out,” said Jason.

“I guess so,” Dawn said.

Jill’s paper was next.

Jason leaned over Dawn’s shoulder. He smelled like peanut butter.

Dawn tried not to breathe.

She looked down. Jill’s paper was a mess. It had a tearstain on the bottom.

“Wrong,” said Jason.

“All wrong,” said Dawn.

Just then Linda came over.

She had ketchup on her mouth.

She wiped some of it off.

“Where’s my purse?” she asked.

Dawn opened Linda’s paper.

It said:

Jason and Dawn looked at each other.

She reached into her pocket.

The riddle was over.

She was sorry.

Jason was too, she thought.

“Here it is,” she said to Linda.

“How about a reward?” Jason asked. “We could buy some Gummy Bears.”

“Reward?” Linda said.

She opened the purse. “Hey. This isn’t mine. This ugly thing. The stitches are all crooked.”

“Not yours?” Dawn said.

“Not yours?” said Jason. “Give it back.”

Linda dropped the purse on the table.

It landed on the jelly.

Dawn wiped the purse off. “Sticky,” she said.

“Now what?” Jason asked.

Just then Sherri came over. “Where’s my purse?”

Dawn shook her head. “Sorry,” she said. “You couldn’t remember the numbers.”

The bell rang.

The lunch monitor blew her whistle.

“Line up,” she yelled. “Time to go back to the classroom.”

“Not fair,” said Sherri.

“Not fair,” said Jill.

Jason and Dawn went to the end of the line.

“Now what?” said Jason.

“Now we still have a riddle,” said Dawn.

D
AWN BANGED OPEN
the school door.

“Hurry,” she told Jason.

Jason stuck out his lip. “I’m sick of hurrying. I hurried all day long.”

“Don’t you watch TV?” Dawn shook her head. “Detectives hurry. They run all over the place.”

Jason jumped off the steps. He threw himself onto a snow pile. “Stop, thief,” he yelled.

He brushed the snow off his jeans. “Too bad we don’t have a thief.”

Dawn nodded. “There is something we can do.”

“What?”

“We’ll stop at my house first,” she said. “Get some cookies.”

She looked at her birthday watch.

It had a green face.

It had purple hands.

It said three-thirty.

She wished Jason would stop fooling around. He was jumping up and down in the snow.

He threw a snowball at the telephone pole.

“We can go to my house,” Jason said. “My mother has some fig cookies left.”