The Mystery of the Gold Coin Read online

  “Nah. I went to the park to kick the ball around. Nobody was there, though.” Theo looked away.

  Ethan felt bad. He and Theo often went to that park together to play soccer on the weekends.

  “So what are you doing?” Theo pointed to the flower garden.

  “I’m looking for my gold coin. My grandpa gave it to me as a going-away present. But I dropped it somewhere yesterday,” Ethan explained.

  “Wow! Is there anything I can do to help? What does it look like?” Theo asked.

  “Well . . . it’s about the size of a quarter. It has a globe on one side and a hawk on the other,” Ethan replied.

  Theo thought for a moment. “I have a gold coin in my coin collection. It’s an old train token. I actually thought it was a quarter. It doesn’t have a globe or a hawk on it, though.”

  Just then, Ella came out of Bead Mania.

  “Sorry it took so long. I didn’t find your coin.” She turned to Theo. “Oh, hi! Are you here to buy some beads?”

  “No way,” Theo replied. “I’m on my way home. I have to study for that math test tomorrow.”

  “We’d better go, too,” Ella said to

  Ethan. “We still have two more stores on our list.”

  “Yeah,” Ethan agreed. “Bye again,” he said sadly.

  “Bye, Eth,” Theo replied.

  Just then, Theo tossed his soccer ball at Ethan. Ethan returned it with a perfect header. Theo jumped up in the air and caught it neatly.

  The two boys laughed and waved good-bye.

  “I hope you find your coin!” Theo called out.

  Ethan hoped so, too. Soon.

  CHAPTER 7

  A Little Bit of Luck?

  Ella and Ethan’s next stop was the Wise Owl bookstore.

  “I guess you two didn’t buy enough books when you were here with your dad yesterday,” Mr. DeMarco joked when the twins walked in.

  On Saturday, Ella, Ethan, and their dad had picked up some books for the trip. Ella had selected The Secret Garden. Ethan had chosen The Borrowers.

  “Actually, we are here to solve a mystery,” Ella told Mr. DeMarco.

  Mr. DeMarco pushed his glasses up on his nose. “A mystery? You mean like something from a Nancy Drew or Hardy Boys story?”

  “Exactly!” Ella said. “Ethan’s gold coin disappeared yesterday, so we’re retracing our steps.”

  “I may have dropped it here,” Ethan added.

  “A gold coin? Hmm . . . I don’t think I’ve seen one of those lately,” Mr. DeMarco said. “But let me look in my cash register. Maybe it got mixed in with the other coins somehow.”

  “Is it okay if we look around for it?” Ethan asked.

  “Of course! Take all the time you need,” Mr. DeMarco replied.

  Ella and Ethan agreed to split up to search for the coin. Ella would take the kids’ books room, and Ethan would take the main room.

  Once she was in the kids’ room, Ella searched everywhere. But there was no sign of Ethan’s coin.

  A girl with red braids wandered into the room. Her face was buried in a book.

  “Hannah?” Ella called out.

  The girl glanced up. It was Hannah!

  “Ella!” Hannah exclaimed.

  The two girls rushed up to each other and hugged.

  “What are you doing here?” cried Hannah. “I thought you were gone!”

  “We’re leaving this afternoon,” Ella told her.

  Hannah sighed. “I’m going to miss you so much! What’s going to happen to our book club? And our poetry club?” She and Ella were always coming up with fun clubs for just the two of them.

  “Well, we can e-mail our poems to each other. And we can e-mail about the books we read, too,” Ella said.

  Hannah nodded eagerly. “Yes! And you have to tell me about all the places you visit. And send lots of photos, too. I am so jealous!”

  “You are?” Ella asked, surprised.

  Hannah nodded. “You’re taking a trip around the world. You’re the luckiest person I know!” she exclaimed.

  The girls exchanged one last hug before Hannah left to meet up with her mom. Ella took a minute to sit down on a beanbag chair and write in her journal.

  Just then, Ethan rushed into the kids’ room.

  “Hey, Ella! Guess what?” he said excitedly.

  CHAPTER 8

  A Bright Idea

  “Did you find your coin?” Ella asked her brother.

  Ethan shook his head. “No, but I just thought of something! Theo told me he added a train token to his coin collection by accident because he thought it was a quarter.”

  “So?” Ella responded.

  “So what if someone found my coin and didn’t look at it carefully? Maybe they thought it was a quarter, too,” Ethan said.

  “That’s a good idea,” Ella replied.

  The twins said good-bye again to Mr. DeMarco and left the store. They made a quick stop at Galaxy Comics next door, just to make sure the gold coin wasn’t there. It wasn’t—although the storeowner, Mr. Max, gave Ethan a new comic book as a bon voyage present.

  Ethan glanced at his watch as they left the comic-book store. The twins had less than half an hour to find the coin and get home.

  They turned the corner and found themselves in the town square. It was a sunny spring day, and everyone seemed to be out. On one side of the big fountain, a man played jazz music on his saxophone. People stopped by to listen. They tossed coins into his open saxophone case.

  Coins . . .

  “Ella!” Ethan said in a low voice. “What if someone found my coin and gave it to the saxophone player?”

  Ella’s eyes widened. “Let’s go check it out!”

  The twins rushed over to the musician. They squeezed through the crowd to get closer to the case.

  Ethan bent down. No gold coin.

  The musician looked over at Ethan suspiciously. Did he think Ethan was a thief?

  “My coin’s not in there. Let’s keep looking,” Ethan whispered to Ella.

  “Hey, Ethan? I’ve been thinking about something Mrs. Valentine said,” Ella remarked as they walked away. She pulled out her journal and opened it to the second page. She pointed to what she had written.

  “ ‘Sometimes you think you’ve lost something forever. But it turns out, it’s right under your nose,’ ” Ethan read.

  He thought about this. “What does ‘under your nose’ mean?”

  “It means that something you’ve lost might be closer than you think,” Ella told him. “Maybe your coin is right under our noses, and we just don’t know it.”

  “Ethan! Ella!”

  Their neighbor Mrs. Sanchez waved to them from a bench. Her dog, Sugarplum, bounded up to the twins, wagging her tail. Ethan and Ella had known Sugarplum since she was a puppy.

  “Hi, Mrs. Sanchez! Hi, Sugarplum!” Ethan said as the twins joined Mrs. Sanchez on the bench.

  “Are you here to make a wish before you leave for your trip?” Mrs. Sanchez asked.

  “Huh?” Ethan asked, puzzled.

  “At the fountain,” Mrs. Sanchez said with a chuckle. “The two of you have been throwing pennies and making wishes since you were old enough to walk. Why, I remember—”

  “Ella, that’s it!” Ethan practically shouted. “It’s right under our noses!”

  Ella glanced around wildly. “It is? Where?”

  “What are you two talking about?” Mrs. Sanchez asked, confused.

  “We’ll explain later. Come on, Ella!” Ethan jumped to his feet and began weaving through the crowd.

  Ella followed. “Where are we going now?” she asked her brother.

  “To the fountain!” Ethan cried.

  When they reached the fountain, Ethan leaned over and peered inside. He circled it once, twice, three times.

  There were hundreds of coins lying on the bottom. The water glittered like a quilt of silver and copper.

  Ethan swished his hand through the cool water. He saw pennies, nickels, dimes, and
quarters—but no gold coins.

  “I don’t think we’re allowed to do that,” Ella said nervously.

  “Just trust me,” Ethan replied.

  A church bell tolled in the distance. Ethan glanced at his watch again. It was 2:45. They had to get home or they’d miss their flight!

  A cloud passed over the sun. Suddenly a shimmer of gold caught Ethan’s eye.

  “A gold coin!” Ethan cried out.

  He reached into the fountain. He pulled out the coin and studied it closely.

  On one side was a globe . . . and on the other was a hawk. It was his coin!

  He grinned and showed it to Ella.

  The twins high-fived each other. Mystery solved!

  CHAPTER 9

  The Last Good-bye

  Ella and Ethan got home just as their mom’s car pulled into the driveway.

  Mrs. Briar emerged with an armful of shopping bags. “I’m sorry that took so long,” she apologized.

  The twins exchanged a glance. Mrs. Briar obviously had no idea that they’d been gone for the past few hours.

  “Oh, that’s okay, Mom,” Ella said, trying to catch her breath.

  “Yeah, Mom. No problem,” Ethan added.

  Mrs. Briar gave them a suspicious look. “Did you get everything done on your list? Please tell me you did.”

  “Um . . . ,” Ethan and Ella began.

  “Sure they did!”

  Grandpa Harry stepped through the front door holding a cardboard box. “Come have some lemonade before you leave!” he called out cheerfully.

  Mr. Briar came outside, too. His face and hands were smudged with dirt. “Hi, Jo. Hey, kids! Sorry I couldn’t help with your list. The basement cleanup took longer than I thought.”

  “Andy, you’re a mess! Why, we’re going to have to do a cleanup on you,” Mrs. Briar joked.

  Mr. and Mrs. Briar went inside the house. Ella and Ethan rushed up to Grandpa Harry with big smiles on their faces.

  Ethan opened his fist and showed Grandpa Harry the gold coin.

  “I knew you two could do it,” Grandpa Harry said with a wink.

  * * *

  The taxi was early. It sat in the driveway while Ethan, Ella, and their parents scrambled around the house to make sure they had everything.

  “You’re ready. You’ve got everything. Now, go!” Grandpa Harry ordered the four of them not much later. “I’ll do a last sweep after you’re gone.”

  “All right.” Mrs. Briar gave him a hug. “I’ll e-mail you as soon as we get there.”

  “Bon voyage, JoJo,” said Grandpa Harry.

  Mrs. Briar brushed back a tear. “Thanks, Dad. Love you!”

  Ethan and Ella stood frozen in their spots. Grandpa Harry leaned down and patted them on their heads.

  “I don’t want to say good-bye,” Ella said, choking back a sob.

  “I don’t want to say good-bye, either.” Ethan sniffled.

  “Then let’s say arrivederci instead,” Grandpa Harry suggested.

  “What does that mean?” the twins asked.

  “It’s Italian for ‘see you again,’ ” their grandfather explained.

  A few minutes later, the family piled into the taxi. As it pulled out of the driveway, Ella and Ethan turned around in their seats.

  Grandpa Harry stood on the lawn, waving. The twins waved back.

  “Arrivederci,” they whispered.

  They kept waving until they couldn’t see Grandpa Harry anymore.

  Ella clutched her journal.

  Ethan held his gold coin tightly.

  After all that, both Ella and Ethan really were excited about the big new adventure that was about to unfold. They had sights to see . . . people to meet . . . and, maybe, just maybe, more mysteries to solve.

  Ella Briar and her twin brother, Ethan, had never been to Venice, Italy, before. They’d never been to a floating city, either!

  Venice was made up of a bunch of tiny islands connected by canals and bridges. Some people were using boats to get around, and others were walking over the bridges from one street to another.

  “Here’s our hotel!” the twins’ mother, Josephine Briar, said brightly.

  Pink, yellow, and pale green buildings lined both sides of the canal. Pretty flowers and vines filled the window boxes. There were no cars or bicycles on the cobblestone streets, only people walking.

  For a moment, Ella and Ethan were so shocked by their surroundings that they forgot they were supposed to be sad. Or mad. Or sad and mad.

  Just yesterday, they had said good-bye to everything and everyone they loved. Their mom was starting her new job as a travel writer. That meant she had to travel to different foreign cities and write about them for her newspaper column, “Journeys with Jo”!

  The Briars entered the hotel. A woman greeted them from the front desk.

  “Buon giorno!” she called.

  HARPER PARIS

  loves to travel. Her favorite cities in the world are Paris (like her name!) and New York City. She has collected many souvenirs on her travels, including a good-luck coin from Japan and a reindeer-horn pendant from Sweden. She also loves mysteries. When she was a kid, she read Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew books after bedtime with a flashlight. She now lives with her family (including two cats and a bunny, who are not good travelers) in Ithaca, New York.

  MARCOS CALO

  has worked as a professional artist for more than fourteen years. He has worked in different fields: illustration, animation, and comic books. He lives with his wife and daughter in A Coruña, a small Spanish town by the seaside.

  Little Simon

  Simon & Schuster • New York

  GreetingsfromSomewhereBooks.com

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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  An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division • 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020 www.SimonandSchuster.com • Copyright © 2014 by Simon & Schuster, Inc.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Paris, Harper. The mystery of the gold coin / by Harper Paris ; illustrated by Marcos Calo. – First edition. pages cm. – (Greetings from somewhere ; #1) Summary: Second graders Ethan and Ella are sad about moving away from their hometown to travel the world with their mom, a journalist, and dad, who will home school them, but before they go they have a mystery to solve. I. Calo, Marcos. II. Title. PZ7.P21748Mys 2014 [E]–dc23 2013006969

  ISBN 978-1-4424-9718-4 (pbk)

  ISBN 978-1-4424-9719-1 (hc)

  ISBN 978-1-4424-9720-7 (eBook)