Minerva Clark Gets a Clue Read online

  For Fiona,

  perfect just the way she is

  Contents

  Praise for Minerva Clark Gets a Clue

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  Also by Karen Karbo

  A Note on the Author

  Praise for

  Minerva Clark Gets a Clue

  “[A] cleverly tangled whodunit. Minerva will quite easily win fans

  who will hope that another mystery needs her attention.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Interspersed with Minerva’s amusing revelations is an entertaining

  mystery with engaging characters and a positive theme.” —SLJ

  “Minerva is wonderful—a likable, well-developed personality. Her

  droll, engaging narrative … speaks to concerns about self-image and

  fitting in that will strike a chord with many readers.” —Booklist

  “What make[s] this book spark are its wonderful characters… . A

  fun-filled novel that combines sibling relationships and teenage

  self-consciousness with mystery and adventure.”

  —Teenreads.com

  “Especially good is Minerva’s increasing self-esteem, which should

  resonate with young girls… . HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.”

  —I Love a Mystery

  “Karbo has found a witty, wonderful heroine in Minerva Clark, the

  best kid detective to come along since Samantha Keyes.”

  —The Buffalo News

  “Karbo’s innovative, good-natured satire of adolescent girl behavior

  shines when portraying Minerva’s quirky but affectionate home life.”

  —The Horn Book Magazine

  - 1 -

  THE WORST DAY OF MY LIFE began at the video arcade. It was a teacher-planning day, so there was no school. I didn’t want to go to Tilt, but Quills wanted me to go with him, so I said yes. It was before my accident, when I said yes a lot, even when I wanted to say no.

  I have three older brothers. Each one is two years, two months, and two days younger than the one before him. Weird, huh? Quills was twenty-two and was on the verge of graduating from college. He was the BIC that day, the Brother-in-Charge.

  The worst day of my life was also the longest day of my life, but isn’t that how it always works?

  Quills had the day off from Kinko’s, where he worked making sure the good people of the world got their flyers Xeroxed, but he’s really the bass guitarist for the band Humongous Bag of Cashews. He’s not famous yet, but one day he will be. In the meantime, he dyes his hair crayon yellow and says things like “the good people of the world,” which is how famous people talk. His real name is Michael.

  I so did not want to go to Tilt. I secretly thought it was stupid and boring. And because it was next to the movie theater, it always smelled like stale popcorn and bath-room cleaner. At Tilt I would do nothing but stand there and watch Quills and his best friend, Toc, who was meeting us there, play Police 911 and Star Trek Voyager for about eight hundred hours.

  I could have just said I wanted to stay home and work on my book of rebuses (here’s my new one:

  Too wise am I. Get it?) and play with my ferret, Jupiter, but if it got around school that I wanted to stay home instead of go to Tilt, people like Hannah McAdams, who was supposed to be my best friend, would call me a freak show loser.

  Hannah and I have known each other since Little Acorns Preschool, when we had both loved digging in the dirt with teaspoons in search of buried treasure. One time we found a Susan B. Anthony dollar, which I still have, and once we found an old piece of tire we were convinced was an Indian arrowhead. Hannah was the first person not in my family to spend the night at my house and the first girl who was allowed to go on vacation with us one year to a dude ranch in California, where she fell off an old pale yellow palomino named Popcorn that was just standing there nibbling on some grass. Once, in third grade, it looked as if we would not be best friends anymore—a girl named Summer Walters slept over at Hannah’s house more than I did—but then Summer moved to Florida when her mother got transferred.

  Hannah says she never called me a freak show loser, but I have the note from Julia, another girl in the seventh grade, to prove she did. If you believe Julia. Which maybe you shouldn’t. I don’t know.

  Anyway, if it got out that I secretly thought Tilt was stupid and boring, and if you believe that Hannah did call me a freak show loser, she would probably call me a double freak show loser, and I would probably run to the girls’ room and cry, and then a rumor would start that I was bulimic, and then people would say double freak show loser doesn’t even begin to describe what’s wrong with Minerva Clark, because how could I be bulimic and still have fat legs?

  So I put on my favorite too-big khaki pants and my favorite red Vans hoodie and crawled into the backseat of the Electric Matador, a metallic-blue car from the 1970s that was hideously old and ugly. To make matters worse, Quills had a pair of bullhorns strapped to the front. I didn’t know why Quills couldn’t have a normal beige Honda that people didn’t stare at.

  The backseat was full of old music magazines and computer parts and empty Mountain Dew cans. It was like the nest of some big weird bird. I liked to sit in the backseat, even if no one was up front, so I could duck if I saw anybody I knew.

  On the way to Tilt, Quills passed me his cell phone so I could call my friend Reggie. Reggie and I have known each other even longer than Hannah and I have known each other. We’ve known each other since whatever people are before they’re actual babies, because Reggie’s mom and my mom took prenatal water aerobics together at the YMCA. Even though Hannah McAdams is my official best friend, Reggie is my secret best friend. Because he’s a boy he obviously can’t be my official best friend. Sometimes I really hate seventh grade.

  “Hey, Reg, it’s me. Wanna meet me at Tilt? Quills and me are headed there now.”

  “My mom wants me to go shoe shopping. I’d rather chew on a lightbulb,” he said.

  “And then mash the leftovers into your eyes,” I said. We said stuff like this all the time. I would never suggest that Hannah McAdams mash a broken lightbulb into her eyes.

  “I got ahold of my bro’s Boston Tea Party report,” said Reggie. “We can recycle it for Hazelnut’s class.” Hazelnut was Ms. Hazelton, our social studies teacher.

  “Didn’t your brother have Hazelnut, too?” I asked.

  “About a hundred years ago.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. That morning I was still the kind of girl who didn’t like to get in trouble, who didn’t like anything that drew attention to herself.

  “I’ll flashy thing her and she won’t remember.”

  Reggie was a huge fan of the movie Men in Black. Or, as one of our favorite rebuses went:

  BLmenACK

  Reggie spent a lot of time on the Internet trying to find our if the technology to make the memory eraser really existed. He wanted to use it to erase the memories of everyone who thought he was a pathetic geek instead of the cool geek he wanted to be.

  Reggie was already at Tilt when Quills and I arrived. He was eating a soft pretzel. Reggie had thick brown hair that sometimes got bigger than mine and really long eyelashes. Ladies stopped Reggie on the street sometimes and told him how lucky he was, having eyelashes like that. Like every other boy in my class, he was about two feet tall. I towered over Regg
ie. I was Gigantor next to him. Even though I didn’t think he was hot or anything, it was still depressing.

  Reggie raised his pretzel in salute.

  We went inside. Quills scooted over and grabbed an empty game before anyone else nabbed it. Quills’s best friend, Toc, stood in front of one of the change machines against the wall. He wore his black hair in a tiny ponytail high on top of his head, like someone in an old Japanese painting, and in the summer he painted his toenails blue. Toc was the lead singer and founding member of Humongous Bag of Cashews. Toc stood for The Original Cashew, but his real name was Brad. Last year, in sixth grade, when one of our spelling words was “flamboyant,” I wrote, “My brother’s friend Toc is flamboyant.”

  “Incoming nefarious activity,” Toc announced loudly.

  I pretended I knew what that meant. Probably something a little creepy, knowing Toc.

  He handed Reggie and me each a five-dollar bill, except the paper felt funny and ordinary, not crinkly and important. I didn’t need to look close to know the bill was a color Xerox.

  “You gotta make sure you use this one,” said Toc. He stood in front of the last machine in the row.

  “Why?” said Reggie, turning the bill over in his hand.

  “Said nefarious activity only works on old machines. The new ones got special high-tech sensors or something.”

  Toc took the fake bill he’d given me and slid it into the machine. It clanked twice, then spat out some coins, filling the tiny metal cup beneath its plastic flap with quarters.

  “Sweet!” said Reggie.

  I remembered then that Reggie liked to call Toc a poseur. Secretly, I think Reggie thought Toc was cool. Toc had a motorcycle and a Fender guitar.

  “Isn’t that illegal or something?” I asked.

  “Not ‘or something.’ It’s totally illegal,” he said. He collected the quarters, stuck out his tongue, bugged out his dark eyes, and strolled off to find Quills. Toc was so irritating. I didn’t know how Quills could be best friends with him. Probably they dug in the dirt together in preschool.

  Reggie was staring over my shoulder at something. I turned to follow his gaze and saw the arcade game I despised more than any other: Dance Dance Revolution.

  Crap.

  I wasn’t supposed to say that word, even though it wasn’t a true swear word.

  A feeling of doom came over me. Reggie love love loved DDR. I’d forgotten Tilt had one. Had I remembered, I’d have stayed home and worked on my rebuses and let everyone and his brother think I was a double freak show loser.

  Two guys with wispy mustaches were already on the dance pad, stomping around like madmen. The techno music blared, and the pink and blue arrows blinked on the metal dance pad. Reggie watched the arrow on the screen. He tapped his foot and played air drums. I should have made a beeline to the exit.

  Sometimes I am so lame.

  Reggie saw the look on my face.

  “You are such a wuss,” he said.

  I could feel my cheeks heat up, like there was a little campfire burning inside each one. “I am not.”

  “We can put it on light difficulty.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “You’re turning into one of those girly girls who doesn’t want to get her hair messed up.”

  “That is so not true!” I said. Of course it was true. I didn’t want to get my hair messed up. I’d spent twenty minutes in front of the bathroom mirror that morning patting on something I’d bought at Rite Aid with my babysitting money, a green serum with the consistency of snot, which was supposed to get rid of my frizzies.

  The wispy mustache guys finished their game and left. Reggie hopped on the dance pad and started feeding quarters into the machine. This was so easy for him. He was short and quick. He did not have feet so big people made jokes about how somewhere a circus clown was missing his shoes.

  I stepped onto the pad, positioned my feet on the arrows, and knew I’d made a big mistake. I’d forgotten I’d worn the biggest boats I owned. My purple Chuck Taylors were lost somewhere in my room, so I’d grabbed a pair of gigantic white Nikes.

  There was one other thing. Quills had told me to leave my ferret, Jupiter, at home. But there was no way. Ferrets are creatures who like companionship. I take Jupiter everywhere I go, except to school. Most of the time, he just sleeps in the pocket of my hoodie. He was asleep now, but he wouldn’t be for long.

  The music started. It beeped and bleated and Reggie stepped and stomped. I tried to follow the arrows on the screen telling me where to put my feet, but every time I moved I stepped on my own toe.

  Then Jupiter woke up with a start. I had to squeeze both sides of my pouch shut so he wouldn’t escape. He didn’t like that. He leaped around inside my pocket.

  I started sweating. I could smell my BO. I had been so busy with the green anti-frizz serum that I’d forgotten to put on deodorant. How stupid could I be?

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw a flash of red and blue, people entering the arcade. They stopped behind me and Reggie to watch. I could hear them talking, laughing. I knew if I turned to look I would get farther behind in my steps. I tried to concentrate on the flashing arrows and bounce along with the music. I couldn’t help it. I turned right around and there were Julia and the two Chelseas.

  When Hannah and I were in a fight, she sometimes hung out with Julia at lunchtime, but that was only if one of the Chelseas was absent. Chelsea Evans was lactose intolerant and was always in the nurse’s office with a stomachache, and Chelsea de Guzman’s parents took her out of school a lot to go on fancy vacations to places like Prague and Aspen. They were the ones who started calling me Gigantor. The Chelseas that is, not Chelsea de Guzman’s parents.

  They’d stopped at DDR to watch the show. I heard giggling as I clomped around. Why didn’t I just stop? I knew I should have told Reggie no. I knew I should have told Quills no. I hated how I always said yes when I didn’t want to.

  Then I heard one of them say the word “spaz.”

  I felt both pitted-out sweaty and like I was going to cry. The pink and blue arrows got blurry. The music pounded in my head. I lost my balance and crashed into Reggie. He didn’t miss a beat. The giggles behind me turned to snorting laughter, the kind that makes you laugh even harder.

  That’s when I missed a step and the edge of my foot landed on the edge of the dance pad, my ankle twisted, and I fell off. Jupiter was thrashing around my pocket. I worried about squishing him, so I turned as I fell and landed on my back, right onto the dirty, fried-food smelling carpet. My head went clunk! I’d knocked the wind out of myself.

  I looked up into the faces of Julia and the Chelseas. Their straight swingy hair hung like show dog ears on either side of their skinny heads. I would never have that hair. Julia and Chelsea Evans had their hands clamped to their mouths, but I could still see their smiles. Chelsea de Guzman was madly text messaging someone.

  Julia squeaked, “Oh my God, are you all right?”

  They all burst out laughing. Reggie kept on stomping around on the dance pad.

  I caught my breath, rolled over onto my knees, and got on all fours. I was face-to-face with the egg-smooth knees of Chelsea de Guzman, who was wearing a stone-washed jean miniskirt. Her knees wobbled around as she shrieked with laughter. It was the hysteria that kicks in when you start laughing so hard because you are laughing so hard. I got to my knees, brushed the ancient food crumbs and gunk from the bottom of a thousand shoes off my palms. Reggie was deep into his madman dance, his thick brown bangs bouncing off his shiny-with-sweat forehead. He would not help me. Quills and Toc would not help me.

  I lurched to my feet and ran out of Tilt, past the movie theater, past Sbarro’s and Chicken Connection and McDonald’s Express, and down the long corridor that led to the bathrooms. No one was there. I locked myself in one of the stalls but didn’t even pretend to go to the bathroom. For some reason I remembered last year’s talent show. Quills had convinced me to sing “I Wanna Be Sedated” by the Ramones, an
d an eighth-grade boy yelled out, “We want you to be sedated,” and everyone laughed so hard it made me forget the words, and I just stood up there with the campfires blazing in my cheeks.

  I sat on the toilet in my stall for what seemed like eight hundred years, sobbing like some stupid baby. Ladies came in and out, but no one noticed me at all. I tried to pull out a piece of toilet paper to blow my nose, but it was a fat roll crammed into its holder and all I could rip off were scraps.

  Was this what my entire life was going to be like? Or was this simply what happened on the worst day of your life?

  If this sort of thing happened to Julia, the two Chelseas, Hannah, or Reggie, I never saw it. They had small bodies that were easy to control. They had normal-sized feet. Even Reggie’s head of springy brown hair wasn’t like mine—a thick snarl that was curly in front, wavy on the sides, and straight in back. My hair could be the monster in a sci-fi movie.

  I reached inside the pouch of my hoodie to pet Jupiter. Once on Animal Planet I saw a show about ferrets and how they can sense a person’s feelings. Jupiter probably would have rather been dashing around playing, but he stretched out flat along the bottom of my pouch so I could run my hand over his soft white fur, trying to calm myself down.

  Then I walked around the mall for a while, half waiting for Reggie to realize that I wasn’t coming back to Tilt. I thought as my secret best friend he would come in search of me. Quills would kill me for leaving Tilt without telling him, but I didn’t even care. I found a dollar on the ground and bought myself an Orange Julius, stuck my snarly hair inside my hood, and started walking home.

  While I was walking, I thought up a new rebus.

  DKI

  Mixed-up kid. I thought it wasn’t bad.

  - 2 -

  I HAD WALKED ABOUT SIX blocks when I heard a car zoom past. It was one of those wild spring Portland days where it rains really hard for about three minutes, then the sun comes out. The car stopped at the corner and waited. It was a red Jetta, and it was jacked up just a little in the back, kind of perky. On a normal day, a day that was not the worst day of your life, getting a ride in the rain would be a most excellent thing. Today, though, it was another of the strange, upsetting things that would happen.