Hiss Me Deadly by Bruce Hale Read Free Book Online Page B

cheater's conscience.
    A creepy feeling brushed across my shoulders, almost as if we were being watched. I searched the branches. "This is it?" I asked.
    "Yup," said Natalie, pointing a wing feather. "She was standing right there."
    I crunched across the fallen leaves and squatted. Nothing but twigs and beetles. I shot out my tongue and slurped up one of the hard-shelled bugs.
    Mmm.
After-school snack.
    I rapped on the trunk. "Solid as an oak," I said. "No hidden compartments."
    Natalie craned her neck and surveyed the branches. "Nothing up there."
    Together we circled the great tree, looking high and low. No luck. We came up as empty as a fish-cake plate at the end of a piranha's birthday party.
    I scratched my head. "There's got to be
something
," I said. "Why did that squirrel come here?"
    "To hunt for acorns?" said Natalie with a grin.
    "Aw, nuts," I said.
    As we left, I still couldn't shake that feeling of being observed. Twice I whirled to catch the watcher, but the scene remained as empty as a beach in a blizzard.
    With nothing else to do, I did the unthinkable. I went home and started Ms. Dwyer's double helping of homework.

    The afternoon passed in groans and gnashings of teeth. This Dwyer dame was seriously cramping my style. To top it off, I had about as much luck with the homework as I was having with my case.
    All through dinner, Pinky shot pleading glances at me.
What about the necklace?
was the question I read in her eyes.
    Each time, I lifted my shoulder in a shrug.
    I was mopping up the mashed mantis balls in gravy when Mom dropped the bomb.
    "Kids," she said, "I was going through my jewelry box today."
    Ulp.
    "Really?" I said with a poker face.
    Pinky's eyes grew as big as soup bowls.
    Mom chewed her food. "I wanted to wear something nice for tomorrow night's party, but I couldn't
find my pearls." She peered over her glasses at Pinky and me. "Have either of you seen them?"

    Pinky bit her lip. Her chin trembled.
    I don't know what possessed me then.
    "Uh, yeah," I said. "I was playing, and I got, uh, ink on 'em. So I took the pearls in to have them cleaned."
    (Yeah, I realize I said earlier that Mama Gecko didn't raise no liars. So sue me.)
    While Mom's lecture broke over me like Hurricane Mary on a toy boat, my sister gazed at me like I was the guy who invented chocolate. At last the
tongue-lashing stopped. I promised to return the necklace by the next night, and we cleared the dishes.
    Pinky sidled up to me in the kitchen. "Thank you, Chet. Thank you
this
much." She spread her arms as wide as they would go.
    I looked down at her. "If you try to hug me with those," I said, "you are
so
dead, sister."
    "You're the best, big brother."
    I watched her go. Even my death threats weren't scary anymore. With less than twenty-four hours to find the pearls and solve the investigation, I hoped I wasn't losing my touch.
    Because if I was, my tail would get much more than just a touch from Mom and Mr. Zero.

14. Every Which Way But Luz
    The next day passed in fast motion, like a grasshopper on a hot griddle. Lessons whipped by in a blur. (Of course, they were a little blurry even when I
wasn't
up against the wall on a big case.)
    Ms. Dwyer's scolding over my lame homework seemed to last only a few painful seconds.
    I blinked, and it was lunchtime. I blinked again, and it was late recess.
    Part of the playground had been blocked off. Workers were setting up the booths and rides. The fair would start in just a few hours, and I had no idea who the real thief was.
    Still, Natalie and I kept on plugging. We nosed around for shady serpents, but Percy the rattlesnake
was a no-show. We hunted for Luz, but she was tougher to find than the softer side of a sixth-grade bully.
    We even trailed Johnny Ringo. But that only earned us another vigorous chase from his pet goon.
    Time was running out.
    Finally, just before the end of second recess, our persistence paid off. Down the hall that led to the portable classrooms, we spotted