The Case of the Missing Dinosaur Egg Page 2

  Nate had seen them, too, and he nudged me. “Cammie, isn’t that—”

  “Mr. Morgan and Mr. Webb!” I waved. “Hey, hi! How are you?”

  Mr. Morgan and Mr. Webb are security guys for the Smithsonian. Now they came over to the van and nodded hello. Neither of them smiles much, and Mr. Webb hardly even talks.

  Tessa got right to the point. “Are you here to investigate the missing egg? It’s okay”—she winked—“you can tell us.”

  Mr. Morgan made sure no one was listening before he answered: “In fact, we may need to ask for your help. From what we’ve been told, the situation is, uh . . . complicated.”

  Tessa pumped her fist. “Woot—I knew it! The First Kids are back on the job!”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Or were we?

  All the rest of that day, we waited for a call . . . but none came.

  I did get my wish to play with our big furry mutt, Hooligan, outside on the South Lawn. Nate practiced piano—did I mention he is some kind of piano genius? And Tessa cleaned up after the stray cat and kittens we found a couple of weeks ago near the Rose Garden. They live mostly in a box in Hooligan’s room, which is two doors down from ours on the White House second floor.

  Tessa and I ate dinner with Granny and her special friend, Mr. Bryant. Nate ate with his mom in their apartment on the third floor. After Mr. Bryant went home, Tessa, Nate and I played a few hands of hearts with Granny in the solarium, which is kind of like our rec room.

  Finally, Granny announced it was time for bed, but Tessa wanted to stay up and watch Jan and Larry, our favorite TV newscasters.

  “Maybe the dinosaur exhibit will be on,” Tessa said.

  “You just want to see if you’re on,” Nate said.

  Tessa didn’t disagree, and Granny said, “Okay, five more minutes.”

  Nate grabbed the remote, turned on the TV and . . .

  Uh-oh.

  What we saw wasn’t Tessa or a dinosaur egg; it was Aunt Jen’s posterior as she hurdled and climbed over chair backs! At least the only visible underwear was her slip’s lacy hem. Watching it, Nate was so embarrassed he had to close his eyes.

  On TV, Larry tried to sound serious: “. . . First Auntie Jennifer Leone making a heroic attempt to catch First Daughter Tessa Parks at the National Museum of Natural History today . . . ,” while in the background Jan was giggling so hard she hiccupped.

  After that, the view switched to some egg fossils, Nate and me doing the thumbs-up and Tessa saying we’d seen a dinosaur hatch.

  Then Professor Bohn and the paleontologist from the museum, Professor Rexington, explained a little about birds and dinosaurs.

  Finally, Jan said, “On a more serious note, Larry, unnamed sources tell us tonight that one of the dinosaur eggs from the exhibit has gone missing.” The screen showed a picture of the missing egg, which sure enough, looked like a gray, egg-shaped rock. “And because the egg was a rare specimen excavated at a site in a certain nearby nation, its disappearance could have international political implications.”

  Larry cut in: “You mean this story is no yolk, Jan?”

  Jan rolled her eyes. “You’re hilarious, Larry.”

  After that they cut to a commercial, Granny said, “Bedtime,” and Nate turned off the TV.

  A ramp leads from the solarium down to the White House third floor. Walking down it, I asked Granny if she knew what Jan and Larry had meant about the missing egg having “international political implications.”

  Granny shrugged. “Try asking your parents,” she said. “It’s a mystery to me.”

  One thing about having your mom be president of the United States—you don’t get to see her all the time. That Saturday evening, she and Dad had to go to some dinner thing. Tessa and I were in bed reading when they came in to say good night.

  “Mama!” Tessa said. “I need a snuggle! Hi, Daddy! Explain about the dinosaur egg, please. Granny said you could.”

  Mom sat down on the edge of Tessa’s bed, and Dad sat down on the edge of mine. The White House has tons of bedrooms, but we share because when we first moved in, neither one of us wanted to sleep alone.

  “What dinosaur egg?” Dad asked. He was wearing a tuxedo, and Mom had on a dark-red dress and white beads.

  Tessa told them how one was missing from the museum, and Mom said, “Oh, dear, muffin—it’s complicated.” She looked at Dad.

  He closed his eyes, yawned and nodded all at the same time. “I guess there’s a legend in this certain nearby nation that no life existed there in prehistoric times—not even dinosaurs. Supposedly, the first life didn’t come until much later, when a heroic leader arrived and founded a city. After that came llamas and pyramids and cocoa beans and . . . well, you get the idea.”

  Tessa shook her head. “No, I don’t.”

  But I thought I understood. “Jan and Larry said the egg was found in a certain nearby nation, right? So if that’s true, the legend is wrong. There must’ve been dinosaurs there after all.”

  Tessa shrugged. “Oh, okay. But big whoop.”

  “Big whoop,” Mom repeated, “unless you’re the president of the certain nearby nation and you claim to be the great-great-and-so-on-grandson of the heroic leader. In fact, you claim that’s one reason you’re entitled to be president in perpetuity.”

  “What’s per-pe-whatever you said?” Tessa wanted to know.

  “Forever,” Dad said. “In other words, instead of having elections and somebody new getting to be president, you just stay president.”

  Tessa looked horrified. “Oh, no! You don’t want to do that, Mama, do you?”

  Mom looked tired. “Not tonight, I don’t.”

  “But wait a second,” I said. “The president of the certain nearby nation is Manfred Alfredo-Chin, right? Whose dog is Hooligan’s friend? Whose niece is our friend, Toni?”

  Dad nodded. “That’s the guy.”

  “So if everybody found out the legend’s wrong because now there’s this dinosaur egg, it might be bad for President Alfredo-Chin,” I said. “And he’s already got trouble because of those protests going on in his nation.”

  In case you hadn’t guessed, my little sister is a drama queen. Now she waved her arms the way she does. “Oh, come on! No way did President Manfred Alfredo-Chin ever steal any dinosaur egg! First, he’s our friend. Second, he doesn’t even live here. And third, presidents don’t do stuff like that—do they, Mama?”

  Mom said, “I have never personally stolen a dinosaur egg, nor, to the best of my knowledge, has anyone on my staff.”

  Dad rolled his eyes. “Honey? You know you’re speaking to your family, right? You’re not on television.”

  Mom smiled. “Right. Anyway, I doubt President Alfredo-Chin is responsible for the missing egg. If I had to guess, I’d say the problem is at the museum. And now, muffins . . .” She stood up and yawned. “I am going to say good night. Church tomorrow, remember? It’s Palm Sunday.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  The next day started out normal . . . but got abnormal fast.

  The normal part was Granny waking us for church at eight o’clock. But ten minutes later Charlotte knocked on Tessa’s and my door while we were getting dressed. Charlotte is my favorite Secret Service agent.

  “Mr. Webb and Mr. Morgan are in the Treaty Room, and they’d like to meet with you before church,” she said. “Nate is on his way down.”

  Tessa didn’t say a word—just yanked her dress over her shoulders and headed for the door.

  “Shoes, Tessa?” I said. “Hair?”

  “My hair’s fine, and you can bring my shoes, okay? I’m in a hurry! But, oh . . .” She doubled back, opened her closet and grabbed a pink spangled baseball cap, the one she wears for detecting. “Don’t forget your notebook!” she told me, and left.

  Oh, Tessa.

  I stepped into my own shoes, picked Tessa’s up off the floor, got my notebook and a pen and followed.

  When we first moved here, the house seemed huge—more like a hotel than
a place to live. But now I’m getting used to it—paintings, chandeliers, antiques, elevators and just plain bigness everywhere.

  The first floor, the State Floor, is basically a public place. Tourists come through most mornings, and there’re always staff and marines around. Up here on the second and third floors, though, it’s usually just the family and our guests and maybe housekeepers cleaning. Even so, it’s big and fancy, and you never get away from the history.

  Like now when I walked out our bedroom door? There was a window to my right at the end of the hall. It looks out over the North Portico—the front door—and it’s where Abraham Lincoln stood to make his last speech.

  The Treaty Room, where we were meeting Mr. Morgan and Mr. Webb, is across the Center Hall from our bedroom. Like a lot of presidents, my mom uses it as an office sometimes. There are some famous paintings in it, besides a big desk President Ulysses S. Grant used for cabinet meetings.

  Now when I walked in carrying my notebook and Tessa’s shoes, Mr. Webb and Mr. Morgan were sitting on a sofa holding coffee mugs, Tessa was sitting across from them in a chair and Granny and Charlotte were standing beside her. Nate wasn’t there yet—no surprise. He is not a morning person.

  I gave Tessa her shoes. “Granny said I can have coffee,” she told me as she buckled them, “because this is a business meeting.”

  Coffee tastes terrible, but no way would I let my little sister out-grown-up me. “Can I, too?” I asked.

  Granny said, “Yes you may,” and rang for Mr. Patel, the cutest White House butler. Meanwhile, Nate came in, looking sleepy.

  When we were settled, Mr. Morgan thanked us for agreeing to meet so early.

  “No problemo!” said Tessa. Then she took a sip and made a face. “Is this what coffee’s supposed to taste like?”

  Granny got her some sugar.

  Mr. Morgan continued, “Mr. Webb and I started our investigation into the missing egg at the museum yesterday. But we’ve run into some roadblocks, and we’re hoping you can help.”

  “Actually, Mr. Morgan,” Tessa interrupted, “we have already solved the case.”

  Mr. Morgan looked surprised, but not half as surprised as me, Nate and Granny. “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  Tessa waved her arms the way she does. “What Mom and Dad said last night—duh! President Manfred Alfredo-Chin stole the dinosaur egg!”

  This was not the first time Tessa had changed her mind overnight. But Nate, Granny and Charlotte hadn’t been there when Mom and Dad told us about the legend, so I filled them in.

  “Thank you, Cameron,” Mr. Morgan said. “Mr. Webb and I are also aware of the issues in a certain nearby nation. However, our initial investigation indicates they are irrelevant.”

  “What’s ‘ir-rel-e—’?” Tessa started to ask.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Nate said.

  “It matters to me!” Tessa said.

  “I mean the word ‘irrelevant’ means it doesn’t matter,” Nate said. “So Mr. Morgan’s saying President Alfredo-Chin didn’t steal the dinosaur egg.”

  “That is our opinion at this time,” said Mr. Morgan.

  “Well, that’s a relief,” said Tessa. “But then who did?”

  Sometimes I can’t believe my sister. “Tessa—if they knew that, they wouldn’t be asking us to help, would they?”

  Tessa was ready to admit I was right—except before she could, Mr. Morgan proved I was wrong. “We are confident we know who stole the egg,” he said. “Professor Cordell Bohn.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  If I were dramatic like my sister, I would have jumped out of my chair, waved my arms and probably stomped my feet.

  I liked Professor Bohn! He knew interesting stuff about dinosaurs, and besides, he was smiley and funny and not like the other so-serious grown-ups. I didn’t want him to be an egg thief, and I didn’t believe he was one, either.

  But I am not dramatic like my sister. So what I did instead was ask very, very calmly, “How do you know?”

  Mr. Morgan explained.

  It turned out he and Mr. Webb had spent Saturday afternoon and evening interviewing Professor Bohn, Professor Rexington and a few other people. What they learned was that Professor Rexington had been waiting for the dinosaur egg to arrive from a certain nearby nation all week. Then, at lunchtime Friday, a wooden crate showed up on her desk.

  “It was the right kind of crate with the right kind of label,” Mr. Morgan said. “Naturally, she assumed it was the dinosaur egg.”

  “Wait a second,” said Tessa. “What do you mean it ‘showed up’? Didn’t someone bring it to her?”

  “Someone must have, but she was at lunch, and we don’t know who,” Mr. Morgan said.

  “Write that down, Cammie,” Tessa said.

  I held up my notebook so Tessa could see I already had. Tessa nodded. “Good work. So then what happened?”

  Mr. Morgan explained that inside the crate, Professor Rexington found the gleaming, cream-colored ostrich egg, wrapped in crumpled newspaper and brown straw.

  “She knew right away it belonged to an ostrich,” said Mr. Morgan, “and she immediately notified Professor Bohn. Rather than being upset, he was amused. He told her he fully expected the egg fossil to show up later in the day.”

  “But it didn’t,” Nate said.

  Mr. Morgan nodded. “And when it didn’t, he decided to use the ostrich egg as a prop for his talk and see what happened. Meanwhile, they reported the missing egg to security.”

  “So that’s where you come in,” Nate said.

  Mr. Morgan nodded. “We tried to trace the real dinosaur egg’s route to the United States. Apparently, it was shipped from the airport in the capital of a certain nearby nation. The shipping records show the crate was scanned into the system when it arrived at Dulles airport here in the United States. After that, the crate seems to have disappeared. We think the thief must have picked it up from the airport here, but we can’t find any record of that.”

  For a moment the room was quiet except for the sound of me writing. When I had caught up with my notes, I realized something: “This is all pretty mysterious, but none of it says Professor Bohn is the thief.”

  Mr. Webb said, “On the contrary,” and I almost dropped my pen because that was five whole syllables, and Mr. Webb never says anything!

  Mr. Morgan nodded. “We were suspicious. Why did Professor Bohn insist the ostrich egg was only a harmless prank?”

  “Uh . . .,” I said, “because that’s what he really thought?”

  “Or,” said Mr. Morgan, “because he wanted to delay a full investigation as long as possible. And there is something else. Late last night we made a call to Washington’s top ten p.m. news team: Jan and Larry.”

  “Hey, wow—what a coincidence,” said Tessa. “We watch Jan and Larry, too!”

  Mr. Morgan nodded. “Everybody does. And when Mr. Webb and I heard the broadcast last night, we zeroed in on one thing: the identity of the ‘unnamed sources’ who told them about the egg’s link to politics in a certain nearby nation.”

  “Jan and Larry don’t have to name their sources,” Nate said. “Freedom of the press is protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution.”

  “True,” said Mr. Morgan. “But when national security is involved, the news media is often willing to cooperate. Also, I went to high school with Jan.”

  “So who told them?” Tessa asked.

  Mr. Morgan raised his eyebrows: “Professor Cordell Bohn.”

  Tessa shook her head. “Uh-oh, Cammie. This is not looking good.”

  Meanwhile, Granny said, “Let me see if I’ve got this straight. You think Professor Bohn called Jan and Larry to suggest that the theft was connected to politics. You think he was trying to shift attention away from the truth—that he’s the thief.”

  Mr. Morgan nodded. “Exactly right.”

  I had more questions, but Charlotte looked at her watch. “Ahem? It is getting a bit late if the children are going to get to churc
h.”

  Mr. Morgan and Mr. Webb stood up to leave. “We have a plane to catch.” They were on their way to Pittsburgh, Professor Bohn’s hometown, to continue their investigation.

  “What do you want us to do?” Tessa asked.

  “While we’re confident we have identified the thief,” said Mr. Morgan, “we lack the proof we need. What we’re hoping you can do is help us get that proof.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  After fast good-byes, Granny hustled us into the Family Kitchen, which is also on the White House second floor. There, Tessa, Nate and I poured our coffee down the sink and grabbed bagels with peanut butter to eat on the way.

  Downstairs, three cars were waiting for us. Granny goes to one church, Aunt Jen and Nate go to another—and my family goes to the Methodist one by Dupont Circle. It’s the same one we started going to eight years ago when my mom got elected senator and we moved to Washington from California.

  I like going to church. Mom, Dad, Tessa and I get to be together. We sing. The light coming through the stained-glass windows makes pretty patterns on the floor.

  Because it was Palm Sunday, the service began with the choir coming in waving palm branches and calling, “Hosanna!” After that, we sang a hymn; then a lady read Bible verses about how Jesus was the prophet of Nazareth.

  Finally, the pastor stood up to speak. I tried to pay attention, but I had so much to think about! Solving a new mystery and finding an ancient dinosaur egg sounded fun. Gathering evidence to prove a nice man was a thief? Not so fun. But maybe Mr. Morgan and Mr. Webb were wrong. Maybe the evidence would show that somebody else stole the dinosaur egg.

  I remembered what Mr. Morgan had said about the case and realized right away there was something that didn’t make sense, something that might be a clue: the wooden crate with the ostrich egg that showed up on Professor Rexington’s desk.