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  Text copyright © 2017 Natasha Deen

  Illustrations copyright © 2017 Marcus Cutler

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Deen, Natasha, author

  Lark and the diamond caper / Natasha Deen ; illustrated by Marcus Cutler.

  (Orca echoes)

  Issued in print and electronic formats.

  ISBN 978-1-4598-1400-4 (softcover).—ISBN 978-1-4598-1401-1 (pdf).—ISBN 978-1-4598-1402-8 (epub)

  I. Cutler, Marcus, illustrator II. Title. III. Series: Orca echoes

  PS8607.E444L35 2017 jc813'.6 C2017-900817-X

  C2016-900818-8

  First published in the United States, 2017

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2017933030

  Summary: In this early chapter book, Lark and her brother, Connor, find the culprit when a pair of diamond earrings goes missing from the general store.

  Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

  Orca Book Publishers is dedicated to preserving the environment and has printed this book on Forest Stewardship Council® certified paper.

  Cover artwork and interior illustrations by Marcus Cutler

  Author photo by Curtis Comeau

  ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS

  www.orcabook.com

  Printed and bound in Canada.

  20 19 18 17 • 4 3 2 1

  For Alida

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  The Words Lark Loves

  The Stuff Lark *Almost* Got Right

  Chapter One

  My name is Lark Ba, and I have butterflies in my stomach. Not really. That would be awful for the butterflies. And it wouldn’t be much fun for me either. Butterflies in my stomach is something my halmoni—that’s Korean for grandmother—says. It means I’m really excited or nervus nerevhus nervous. Right now, I am both.

  Yesterday my brother, Connor, and me solved our very first mystery! Which was amazing, because Connor is my younger brother. I’m older by ten whole minutes, which is a lot of minutes, and I didn’t think he would be such a great big help.

  Our case was the bestest. The librarian, Mrs. Robinson, had lost the key to the library. We found it. That made us investigators, which made me so happy. Especially because investigator rimes ryms rhymes with alligator, and I love those.

  Today was going to be an even better, more exciting day. Today Connor and I were going to solve another mystery. I was excited because I didn’t know what kind of mystery it would be. But that wasn’t why I had butterflies in my stomach. I had butterflies in my stomach because Connor and I had to practice our magic trick for our family talent night.

  Family talent night is about learning to do something unyoushal unujual unusual or cool. Dad calls it everyday magic. Once a month, Mom and Dad decorate our living room with colored lights and put on old-folks’ music. Then we have a contest to see who can perform the coolest trick. Last month Dad won, because he fit thirty cheese crackers in his mouth. The time before, Mom won for making a hula hoop spin around her waist for a million years! Okay, maybe not that long, but it was a long time! Connor and I are determined to win this family talent night. We are going to practice and practice and practice until we are the bestest.

  At least, we were going to practice as soon as we figured out what trick to do. “I think I should saw you in half,” I said. “That would be a great trick.”

  “No way.” Connor shook his head. “You’re clumsy and klutzy and—”

  “I am not.”

  “You are so. I don’t think you should have a saw or anything sharp in your hands. Ever.”

  I sighed. “But it would be so cool.”

  “I could saw you in half,” he said.

  “You’re too little to do that.”

  “I am not!”

  I decided to ignore him. We had important desishuns deesixtions decisions to make. We could argue later. “What about if we turn Max into a rabbit?” I asked. “We could dress him up in a top hat and a red cape.”

  Max is our dog. He was sleeping beside Connor on the couch. He lifted his head when I said his name. I rubbed his ears and said, “You’d make a great assistant. We’d just have to get Mom and Dad to get us a rabbit.”

  “Hmm,” said Connor. “Max doesn’t like it when we make him wear his winter coat. He won’t like the cape. And I think he’ll try to eat the hat. Plus, I don’t think Mom and Dad will get us a rabbit.”

  “Those are good points. Finding a really great idea for the magic trick is tougher than I thought.”

  “You know what would be a great trick? Making you disappear,” said Connor.

  “Ha-ha.”

  “But you know what would be an even greater trick?” he asked. “Making you be quiet. Mom and Dad and Halmoni will never believe it if we do that trick!”

  “I can be quiet!”

  “No you can’t. You talk a lot!”

  I took a breath and decided to be patient. After all, I was his big sister. “We need a good trick. And remember, I’m the magician. You are the assistant.”

  “Only for the first time we do the trick,” he said. “But when we do it again, I get to be the magician.”

  “Neither of us will get to be a magician if we can’t come up with a trick.”

  Connor closed his eyes. “I still like the idea of making something disappear, even if it can’t be Max or an annoying sister—”

  “I’m not annoying, and I’m your big sister—”

  “Twin sister.”

  “I’m older.”

  “Argh! By ten minutes!” Connor said.

  “I’m still older.” I patted his hand. “But when we grow up, I’ll let you be taller. So we both win.”

  He thought about that for a minute. “Okay, that’s a good deal.”

  I jumped off the couch and went to the bookshelf. We’d just been to the library and borrowed a stack of books. Some of them were about detectives. Some were about astronauts. Some were about magic. The night before, I’d read a super-great book about a P.I. who wore a cool hat and squinted when he talked. “Here.” I gave Connor two books on magic tricks, and I took two books. “Let’s look through these for ideas.”

  I have d-y-s-l-e-x-i-a. Dyslexia. It means that when I read, numbers and letters jump and swim on the page. I have a
special piece of see-though paper to help me. It’s red—my favorite color. And when I read, I put it over the page. Changing the color of the paper can make the words behave. We sat and flipped through the pages. “Oh! I like this one!” I turned the book around so Connor could see the pages. “We can make a coin go through the coffee table!”

  “Really?” He put down his book and came over. “Cool. How do we do it?”

  “We need a fork, a knife, a napkin and two quarters,” I said. “Oh, and a table.”

  He rolled his eyes. “No kidding.”

  I sighed.

  “Let’s go to the kitchen,” he said. “That’s where we’ll find most of those things.”

  Connor, Max and I went to the kitchen. I gave Max a doggy treat, and Connor gave him some water.

  “I’ll get the knife,” said Connor. “You shouldn’t be around anything sharp.”

  I took a deep breath and practiced my patience.

  Then I went to the drawer and brought out two coins from the spare-change jar.

  Connor walked to another drawer and took out a knife and fork.

  “Okay,” I said. “Napkins.” They were in a high cupbored cuboared cupboard. We’d need a chair. Connor helped me take a chair over to the cupboard.

  “You hold it steady,” I said. “I’ll get the napkins.”

  “Are you sure? You’re kind of clumsy.”

  “Connor!” I took a deep breath and reminded myself I’m a patient big sister. “You are stronger than me, so you hold it, okay?”

  “Okay.” He smiled.

  I smiled back. Then I climbed up on the chair and reached for the napkins. Only they were higher than my fingers, so I went up on my tiptoes.

  “Are you sure I shouldn’t do it?” Connor asked

  “I almost have it.” I reached and reached and reached. I couldn’t touch the napkins, but I could touch the plastic plate they were on. I grabbed it and pulled. Only I pulled kind of hard, and the plate went flying out of my hand!

  It flew through the air, hit the fridge and smashed on the floor with a big crash!

  Uh-oh. That was sure to wake Mom and Dad. They were going to be grumpy. We heard a bedroom door open. I looked at Connor. He looked at me. Gulp.

  Chapter Two

  Lucky for us, it was Halmoni. She’s never grumpy with us. Not even with Connor. Which is really amazing, because Connor can be really annoying.

  “I heard some noise,” she said. “What’s going on?”

  “We were trying to get supplies for our magic trick,” I said.

  “For the family talent night? How exciting! What trick are you going to do?” she asked.

  “We’re going to make a coin go through one end of a table and come out on the other side!”

  “My goodness,” she said. “That sounds like an amazing trick!”

  “We need a napkin for it,” I told her. “That’s when the crash happened. I dropped a plate.”

  “Well, it looks like you have the napkins now,” she said. “So why don’t we practice?”

  We sat at the table. I put the fork and knife on the napkin just like the book showed us. “That holds the napkin in place.”

  “Now what?” asked Halmoni.

  Connor looked at the page. “Put one quarter on the table. Make sure it lies flat. Then put your index finger on the top and your thumb on the bottom of the coin.”

  I did what Connor said.

  “Now bring your fingers together. Do it really fast, so the quarter will slide under the napkin.”

  I tried, but pinching a quarter was a lot harder than it looked. After a bunch of attempts, my fingers were sore. “Connor, you try.”

  He did, and he did a better job, but it was still really hard.

  “Halmoni, do you want to try?”

  “I would love to.” She held the edges of the quarter in her hand, then pinched! The quarter disappeared under the napkin. Almost. “Goodness,” she said. “This is tricky!”

  We practiced and practiced—until we heard Mom and Dad’s bedroom door open.

  “Uh-oh!” Halmoni scooped the coins into her pocket and picked up the knife and fork. “We don’t want them to see what we’re doing until we can wow them with your trick!”

  I took the fork and knife from Halmoni and put them away.

  “Practicing magic tricks is hard work,” she said. “Connor, take these napkins and set the table, please. Let’s have some banana pancakes with cinnamon and icing sugar for breakfast.”

  Delicious!

  “Lark, the recipe is in the recipe binder,” said Halmoni. “Can you please find it and walk me through it?”

  “No problem!” I ran and got my red paper. Then I came back and looked through the binder. When I found the recipe, I read the instrukshun insertshuckhn instructions to Halmoni.

  Connor helped her measure and mix the ingreedients engredients ingredients.

  Pretty soon we had a giant heap of pancakes. And they smelled so good! All sweet and spicy. “We have a big day of magic-trick practicing and mystery solving,” I announced. “I should have lots of pancakes.”

  “Me too,” said Connor. “I might have to lift something heavy.”

  I had four fluffy, yummy pancakes. So did Connor. When we finished eating, we helped Halmoni clean up.

  “What shall we do while we’re waiting for Mom and Dad to leave for work?” asked Halmoni.

  “I know!” I said. “I bet lots of people heard how we solved the case of the lost library key yesterday. We should see if there are any new cases.”

  Connor nodded. “We were awesome. I bet Mrs. Robinson told everyone who came into the library, and I bet those people told other people.”

  “I agree,” said Halmoni. “I bet everyone sang your praises.”

  Connor looked confused. “Why would people sing about us?”

  Halmoni laughed. “It means you did such a good job that everyone’s talking about you! When people talk about you in a good way, it’s called praise. And when they do lots of talking, it’s called singing your praises.”

  “Oh, I get it.” Connor nodded.

  “We should check and see if anyone else needs our help to solve a mystery,” I said.

  “Great idea,” said Halmoni. “Let’s start with the mailbox. After that we can check our emails.”

  We ran outside and looked in the mailbox. Nothing.

  “Time to check the emails and solve a case!” said Connor.

  We ran back inside. Today was going to be the bestest day ever!

  Chapter Three

  Halmoni sat at the computer. Connor was on one side of her. I was on the other.

  “Let’s check my email first,” said Halmoni. She opened her email program. She looked through her messages. There was one from our aunt and one from our uncle and one from our babu—that’s Swahili for grandfather. But there were no emails asking for help from Connor and me.

  “How about if I check the one your mom, dad, babu and I share?” Halmoni checked that one too. There were no messages asking for our help.

  “Wow,” I said. “Nothing at all.”

  “We should stay optimistic,” said Connor.

  I nodded. I like that word. It’s a grown-up way of saying, “Stay positive.”

  “Maybe they sent it to my other address.” Halmoni checked. There was a message from one of her clients and a bunch from her friends. But there were no messages for us.

  I gave Connor my big-sister smile. “It’ll be okay.”

  He nodded, but his shoulders were all droopy.

  “No emails from anyone,” said Halmoni. “That’s great news!”

  Great news? Connor and I looked at each other. What was Halmoni thinking?

  “Great news?” asked Connor. “What do you mean?”

  “It’s great news,” said Halmoni, “because now you get to go out and find work!”

  “I don’t understand,” said Connor.

  I didn’t either.

  Halmoni grinned. “It’s f
antastic because now we can make posters. We can tell the whole world about your being private investigators. It’s much more fun than sitting and waiting for a case to come your way.”

  I really liked this idea, and Halmoni’s plan. It made me think of a word, but I couldn’t remember it. It started with a p, and it had an o in it, and it was a good word.

  She stood. “Come on. We need to be on the ball for this! I’m going to get our craft box.”

  When Halmoni left the kitchen, Connor turned to me. His face had lots of worried squiggles. “I don’t know if I can be on a ball,” he said.

  “Me either,” I said. “Cutting paper and drawing might be hard if we have to sit on Mom and Dad’s yoga balls to do it.” I stopped and had a good think. “Maybe Halmoni can be on the ball, and we can be on the chairs.”

  Connor nodded. “I think that’s a good idea.”

  Halmoni came back with our giant blue craft box. It was full of paper and markers and glue and glitter. We sat around the table. Halmoni didn’t say anything about being on the ball. I decided not to remind her.

  I am really good at drawing. So I made an alligator holding a magnifying glass. Connor is really good at printing. Above the alligator, he wrote, Lark and Connor Ba, Private Investigators. Cases solved for $1. No mystery too big or too small.

  We made a bunch of posters.

  “These look great!” said Halmoni when we had finished. “It’s still early. Let’s walk around. We can put the posters in our neighbors’ mailboxes.”

  She paused and looked at each of us. “Quietly. We’ll do it quietly. It’s still very early.” She gave me an extra-hard look. “Quiet. Got it?”

  I nodded. I knew exactly why she’d looked at me extra hard. She wanted to make sure I made sure Connor behaved.

  It took a long time, but we quietly put a poster in every mailbox.

  “It’s ten o’clock. You know what we should do?” asked Halmoni.

  “Get ice cream?” I said.

  “It’s a little early for that,” said Halmoni.

  “But we’ve been working really hard,” Connor told her.