Madhattan Mystery Read online

  “You carry around a blot?” Kim Ling raised a crooked eyebrow. “I won’t ask.”

  “And a Post-it with Aunt Roz’s address,” Lexi said, half to herself. Maybe the thieves really were in that black Lincoln, armed and dangerous and following me to my exact location!

  “Pipe down and listen up!” Mr. Glick’s amplified voice rose above the chatter. “We’re splitting you kids into two groups again like we always do—older and younger. If you have a green registration card, you’re in Group A. Blue, you’re in Group B. So if you only remember one thing today, remember your color.”

  “I’m green,” Kevin said, actually turning a pale shade of green. “You guys are blue and I’m green. And you said it was just for registration!”

  “Of course, we will be joining both groups together for specific activities from time to time,” Mr. Glick added, but that wasn’t enough to calm Kevin down.

  “This is so wrong!”

  “You’ll be fine,” Lexi told him. She was too busy freaking out herself at the moment to deal with him freaking out.

  She searched desperately for her wallet while Mr. Glick blabbered on about all the exciting activities the staff had planned for the next three weeks and how everyone would undoubtedly meet their best friend for life. Yeah, right. She kept searching while they sat through a lame slide show of highlights from previous City Camp summers—while Mr. Glick read through the entire Safety First printout—while his pimply beanpole assistant collected the emergency information cards.

  By the time Mr. Glick announced, “That’s it for today, ladies and gentlemen. See you all tomorrow morning, bright eyed and bushy tailed,” Lexi was all searched out and completely deflated. But she refused to cry—she would not cry even if the roof came crashing down on her, which just may happen the way things had been going so far.

  “But it’s only eleven forty-five!” Kevin squawked. He compared the time on his orbiting planets wristwatch with the clock on the wall. “Aunt Roz isn’t coming back till six. What’re we supposed to do all day?”

  “Well, if you goobers had read the schedule, you would’ve known that orientation day only goes till noon.” Kim Ling pulled Kevin’s cap down over his face and led the way out the double doors.

  “Hey!”

  “No worries, McGills. The sun is shining and we’re in the greatest city in the world, which I happen to know like the back of my hand.”

  “So, what’re you saying?” Lexi asked.

  “Welcome to Camp Kim Ling!”

  Ugh. Lexi definitely was not up for whatever that meant.

  “You kids wanna hit the usual tourist hotspots? Times Square, Statue of—?”

  “Been there, done that,” Lexi snapped. “This isn’t our first time here. Besides, we’re not allowed.”

  “Well, don’t bite my head off. Just being the friendly native.” Kim Ling did a strange neck-cracking maneuver that looked and sounded like it hurt. “So, anyway, how insipidly boring was that orientation? A total boondoggle, right?”

  “Is that another one of your crazy made-up words?” Lexi had to ask.

  “No, it’s legit. It means an unnecessary, wasteful activity. Uh, no offense, but you guys might want to start carrying around a pocket dictionary if you’re going to be hanging with me.”

  Lexi added smug and pseudo-intellectual to her mental list of reasons for disliking Kim Ling, although she wasn’t sure what pseudo-intellectual meant exactly.

  “We can do Macy’s,” Kim Ling suggested.

  “Hello? Missing wallet, remember?” Lexi collapsed onto the smoldering top step of the Y and pulled Kevin down with her. “We only have emergency money, so we plan on spending the day without—spending. But don’t let us stop you.”

  Kim Ling didn’t bolt like Lexi thought she would, but plopped down next to her, scratching her head like it was infested with fleas. “Well, Grand Central’s right over there. A hop, skip, and jump. We could check out their lost and found—you know, see if your wallet’s turned up there.”

  From the look Lexi gave her, you would have thought she had suggested they jump off the top of the Empire State Building. “Aah-uh-oh,” she replied to the tune of “I don’t know.” She knew it was unlikely she would run into the jewel thieves again at Grand Central, but even that slim possibility made her knees sweat. “I promised my aunt we wouldn’t wander.”

  Two colorful horse-drawn carriages came clopping around the corner and Kevin practically elbowed Lexi’s eye out grabbing for his camera. “Photo op! So cool,” he gushed. Snap. “Are those buggy rides expensive, Kim?” Snap. Snap.

  “They’re called hansom cabs, and this is New York—everything’s expensive.”

  Lexi perked up at the sight of the decked-out horses, too, and the cute drivers in top hats—until the second carriage almost got rammed by a double-decker tour bus. The dapple-gray shook his head with a frustrated whinny, adding to the clamor of horns, sirens, and deafening street drills. “Omigod, did you see that? Poor horse.” She let out a groan. “I am so over this place already. All that crime in the news; then my wallet gets lost or stolen, or whatever. I’m sick of breathing in exhaust fumes. And urine. I miss the smell of—I don’t know, fresh-cut grass and—”

  “Stop dissing my city!” Kim Ling scolded. “If all you’re gonna do is kvetch and complain, then keep the lips zipped.”

  Lexi didn’t lash back since she knew Kim was right. If you haven’t got anything good to say … So with chin propped on hands, she watched the hansom cabs disappear into a blinding splotch of sunlight and yellow taxicabs. The other two followed suit. They sat silent and motionless in a grumpy clump, staring at the endless parade of passersby and picking up snippets of their cell-phone conversations.

  “He had the nerve to go over my head, straight to the manager of East Coast Operations. What a—”

  “—jerk chicken. And these amazing buffalo wings that are super spicy and—”

  “—hot under the collar. So, I tell him, I go, ‘Dave, give the new guy a shot. I mean, one less commission ain’t gonna kill ya.’”

  Shot? Kill? Lexi found herself gritting her teeth. She had had more than her fill of eavesdropping, thank you very much! Her heartbeat was giving the street noise a run for its money as she stared down at the cracked sidewalk, thinking what a bummer New York had been so far.

  That was when she saw it lying there next to her left sneaker—a pure white feather like the ones her mother used to collect. A tingle wriggled up the back of Lexi’s neck. Her mom had called them angel-wing feathers. “They’re good luck!” she would always say, and snatch them right up.

  “Kev, call Aunt Roz. Tell her she doesn’t have to meet us back here, that we’ll see her back at the apartment. Say—I don’t know, that they have a special bus or something to bring us home. Otherwise she’ll drop everything to come get us and we don’t want to screw up her whole day.”

  “You mean lie?”

  “No—it’s just so she won’t worry. Lies don’t really count if they’re told to make someone feel better,” which was yet another lie to make someone feel better. What kind of example was she setting for her little brother? “Ugh, never mind, I’d better do it.”

  “No, I will!”

  “You know,” Kim Ling said, “there actually is a City Camp bus with Eastside-Westside drop-off points. It doesn’t start till tomorrow, though, and you have to sign up in advance …”

  While Kim Ling was droning on and Kevin was making the call, Lexi reached down and discreetly grabbed the white feather. In an instant she was six years old again, tugging on her mother’s skirt.

  “Ew, Mommy, drop it!”

  “It’s pretty, don’t you think?” her mom had said through one of her heart-melting smiles.

  “Nooo! It’s just a yelchy pigeon feather. Miss Schroeder says that pigeons are rats with wings and that they carry a disease.”

  “Well, cookie, teachers have to say things like that.” Lexi’s mom carefully wrapped the feather in
a tissue and slipped it into her purse. “How do we know this feather didn’t fall from an angel’s wings—just like the one Daddy puts on top of our Christmas tree, only real? She could be sitting up on a fluffy cloud right now staring down on us. Look! See?” And she pointed up past the striped awning of the Silver Spoon Cafe. “There she is, waaay up there!”

  “Where?”

  “Oops, you missed her! She just flew up to heaven.”

  “Nuh-uh.” Lexi giggled. “You made that up.”

  “Now, why would I do a thing like that, silly?” She kissed Lexi’s forehead with a giant “Mwah!” and they took off down Main Street again, hand-in-swinging-hand. “Some people think finding a shiny penny is lucky,” she had told her, “or four-leaf clovers. But we don’t have to believe what everyone else does, right, cookie? Mommy believes in—”

  “Angel feathers.” Lexi finished the sentence out loud, catching herself back in the present. She was squinting into the sun over the jagged city skyline, and had to quickly look away.

  “Huh?” Kevin asked.

  “Nothing. What’d Aunt Roz say?”

  “No answer. I left a message.”

  Lexi slid the feather into her shorts pocket. She only half believed these feathers were signs from her mom appearing at just the right time—comforting her, encouraging her to suck it up and move forward. But half believing was more than enough for her.

  All of a sudden Kim Ling sprang up like a jack-in-the-box on caffeine. “Guys! You want horses and grass? Follow me.” She flew off the steps and plunged into a thick cloud of manhole steam without even turning to see if Kevin and Lexi were behind her.

  But they were—watching her curse out a speeding cab.

  “The light is still red, moron! Drive much?”

  “Okay, tell me, why’re we following her again?” Lexi asked Kevin.

  “You got me. But she does crack me up.”

  Lexi shook her head in wonder. “She’s like the Pied Piper of Manhattan—with road rage.”

  5

  A HORSE OF

  A DIFFERENT COLOR

  As it turned out, destination Central Park was beyond spectacular! A humongous oasis right in the middle of the city, with more grass and trees than all of Cold Spring. Maybe not, but a full 843 acres, according to Kim Ling. And since the park was blocked off to afternoon traffic, there wasn’t a car in sight. Bikers, joggers, and Rollerbladers shared the roadway instead, along with those hansom cabs. And it was cool. At least ten degrees cooler than the rest of the city, Lexi guessed, and seemingly miles away from Grand Central Station with its lurking jewel thieves and mole people. Finally she could breathe.

  “Oh, look, you can see ’em from here,” Kim Ling said, picking up speed. “A bargain at two bucks a ride.”

  “You said nothing in New York was cheap,” Lexi reminded her.

  “Wrong. I said everything in New York was expensive.” See, it was answers like that that made Lexi want to scream. But she didn’t. She took a calming, cleansing breath and scoped the area instead. Sure enough, the bobbing helmets of horseback riders were visible just beyond a thick row of trees. Kevin must have noticed them too. He was suddenly clinging onto Lexi’s dangling backpack strap.

  “Where’re we going?” he asked Kim Ling. “I mean, just ‘cause I took a picture of a couple of horses—”

  “—doesn’t mean we know how to ride,” Lexi finished. “Don’t we need, like, special boots—and an insurance policy?”

  “You guys don’t ride at home out there in Amish country?” Kim Ling asked, her neon flip-flops kicking up dirt.

  “It’s not Amish!” Lexi said. “And no.”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “How could it not—?”

  “Because I’m not talking about those horses, Patty Paranoia.” Kim Ling pointed across the road to a clump of vendors in front of some round brick structure. “I’m talking about those horses. Let’s go. My treat!” Once again, she took off with no group consensus. And once again, Lexi and Kevin followed her. To the Central Park Carousel?

  What a relief! For Lexi anyway. But she wasn’t exactly sure how Kevin would react.

  “This goes a lot faster than your average carousel,” Kim Ling had to go and say when they met up with her at the ticket booth. “A lot faster. And no brass ring. That’s ‘cause they don’t want kids reaching for it and busting chins.”

  “What?” Kevin turned that greenish shade again. “I don’t know about this.”

  “C’mon, Kev, it’ll be fun.”

  “Geez, man up!” Kim Ling said to him, handing three tickets to the ticket-taker. “It’s not like it’s a mechanical bull—it’s a baby ride.”

  That remark got Kevin unstuck somehow and he followed the girls onto the carousel platform with the enthusiasm of someone boarding the Titanic.

  “That’s what they said about the Haunted Mansion ride at Kingsley Park,” Lexi whispered to Kim Ling. She helped Kevin onto the smiliest horse with the shiniest gold mane and just as she was about to mount the one next to it, a boy in a plastic fireman hat beat her to it. “Shoot. Are you going to be okay by yourself, Kev, or should I—?”

  “Just go already,” he said, wrapping his arms around the shiny pole.

  “I’ll be on this one right in front of you. Hold on tight.”

  A rinky-dink rendition of “Do You Know the Way to San Jose” began playing loudly and Lexi quickly hopped onto the horse Kim Ling was saving for her. As soon as the carousel came to life, Kim Ling leaned over to her and shouted, “So, what’s the scoop?”

  “Shhh! Kevin fell off a ride. He was around five. Split his head open.”

  “No way.”

  “Way. They had to shut it down and everything. Me and my parents and a few park people went back into the tunnel …” Reliving it made Lexi’s mouth go dry. She forced a swallow. “He was wedged between some giant pulleys and cables but I could see the Day-Glo number nine on his football jersey. I was the only one small enough to fit in there—you know, to yank him out.”

  “Wow. So you’re his yīng xióng.”

  “What?” Lexi could barely hear over the music.

  “His hero! No wonder he worships you.”

  “He does?”

  “And let me guess—nine has been your lucky number ever since.”

  Yes! Lexi had never made that connection before. The girl really does have a brain the size of Utah. She brushed a clump of curls off her astonished face and leaned closer to Kim Ling, girl genius. “I mean, he tries to hide it but he’s still afraid of, like, absolutely everything. Things got worse when Mom died, but Dr. Lucy says he’s making steady progress.”

  “Dr. Lucy?”

  “Our therapist. Lucille Dixon.”

  “Huh. Well, that explains a lot.”

  Lexi wasn’t sure how to take that remark. “Like what?”

  “Like, why your brother is over by the cotton-candy stand right now.”

  Lexi whipped her head around and saw an abandoned horse grinning back at her. A blur of reds, blues, and yellows spun around the girls as they rose up and down, up and down, waiting for the carousel to stop. It made three more revolutions along with Lexi’s stomach before the thing finally slowed down. She flew off her horse before it came to a full stop and rushed over to Kevin, who was sitting cross-legged on the ground. Texting?

  “What happened?”

  “I’m not riding that death machine.”

  Kim Ling showed up a second later. “You okay?”

  “He’ll live,” Lexi said. “Who’re you texting? It’d better not be Dad.”

  “Billy Campbell. At space camp.” He looked up at Kim Ling with a dim glint in his eyes. “We’re both gonna be professional astronauts.”

  “Oh, interesting,” Kim Ling said, nodding. “Lemme get this straight. You can’t even survive a carousel ride and you wanna be—?”

  A sharp look from Lexi shut her right up. “C’mon.” Lexi gently pulled Kevin to his feet by both hands and brus
hed off his bottom. She was being a parent again big time, but oh well. “We should probably get going.” But the park was a gigantic green maze. “Hey, Kim, point us toward the street so we can catch a taxi back to the brownstone.”

  “Yeah, right—by yourselves? Just follow me.”

  Kim Ling took charge again, which was no big surprise, and led them past a huge fenced-in spread of grass she said was the Sheep Meadow, but it was peppered with sunbathers, not sheep. They kept trudging along the roadway with Kim Ling pointing out every single statue and endless “flora and fauna” until she took a sharp left, shouting, “Behold, Bethesda Terrace!”

  “I thought we were going home,” Lexi said.

  “We’re taking the scenic route. Trés European, no?”

  Not a big selling point, what with her dad trekking through Europe with her evil stepmother, but when Lexi peered down at the courtyard, she was awestruck by the lovely view. The statue of a glorious angel rose from the center of a circular fountain and there was a small river gleaming in the background alive with ducks and rowboats. The sky couldn’t have been more crystal blue—and suddenly there was a billow of white.

  “Oh, look, a bride. That’s good luck!” Lexi pointed to a wedding party posing on the cement staircase leading down to the courtyard. “Who’d get married on a Wednesday?”

  “Well, it does have the word wed in it,” Kim Ling said to no response. “Oh, wait, that’s not real. It’s a photo shoot. See? The bride’s wearing sneakers and there are clothes-pins cinching the back of the groom’s tux. Nothing escapes the well-trained eye of an investigative journalist.”

  “How exciting!” Now this was the New York City Lexi had in mind. She did a quick check on Kevin, who was back to quasi-normal, doing his own photo shoot of break-dancers behind them, and returned her gaze to the model bride. “Wouldn’t you love to get married in a beautiful dress like that?”

  “Who said I want to get married at all?”

  A loud blast of music turned the girls’ heads. There was a scraggly man on a beat-up bicycle pulling up next to them. He was rapidly changing channels on an old-fashioned radio duct-taped between two whirling pinwheels on the handlebars. Kim Ling gave Lexi a distorted look of horror.