Lulu couldn’t wait to read the next clue, which went like this:

Open the striped curtain.

Raise the wooden blind.

Close the window all the way

And maybe you will find

What you are looking for.

There was only one room in the house with a striped curtain and wooden blind, and that was the bathroom next to Lulu’s bedroom. And sure enough, when she opened and raised and closed, as she’d been instructed, there was a note card taped onto the window. Unfortunately, the note card said:

YES, MAYBE YOU WILL FIND IT.

AND MAYBE YOU WON’ T.

Under that message, in smaller print, was another message:

So what do you think?

Is it under the sink?

Lulu looked under the bathroom sink, where she found another message:

NO, IT ISN’ T!

Obviously, Ms. Solinsky was messing with her. Speaking out loud in the empty room, a disgusted Lulu announced, “I am not amused.”

Below that message, however, was what seemed like a serious clue, a clue that Lulu was finding hard to read. She was finding it hard to read and even harder to understand because her eyes kept closing with exhaustion. It said:

In the living room, cleverly hidden,

Is the very last clue I have written,

Leading you directly to your goal.

You must rhyme what you need to find first

With the opposite of WORST,

On top of which is a thing that rhymes with HOLE.

And that thing that is rhyming with HOLE,

(As well as with POLE and with ROLL)

Is filled with things you can reach your hand in and take.

But although all these things rhyme with CUTE

(And BOOT, SUIT, TOOT, and LOOT)

The one that you are looking for is a fake.

Lulu didn’t think much of a poem that had the utter nerve to rhyme “written” and “hidden,” but by now she was so sleepy that she couldn’t think about anything but sleep. “I need to go to bed. I have to get some sleep. I’ll get some sleep, and I’ll wake up real early tomorrow, and before I even eat breakfast, I’ll figure this out.”

Early on Friday morning, however, nothing got figured out. Lulu was still too sleepy and too fuzzy-headed. Besides which, this clue was really really HARD! (Maybe some of you DON’T think it’s hard, in which case, smarty pantses, step right up and give us the answer right now. As for the rest of you—feel free to read on.)

Anyway, it was not until late in the morning—while Lulu was learning state capitals in her geography class—that CHEST (which rhymes with BEST, which is the opposite of WORST) and BOWL (which rhymes with HOLE and POLE and ROLL) all of a sudden popped into her brain, along with FRUIT (which rhymes with CUTE, plus BOOT, SUIT, TOOT, and LOOT). Then she had to wait for over four more maddening hours until—at last!—school was over and she could go home. And reach her hand down till she found—among the real FRUIT in the BOWL on the living room CHEST—an apple that was definitely fake. And read the clue that was hidden inside the fake apple. And follow that final clue to what she was looking for. It said:

Search no more. Search no more.

It’s inside the chest, in the bottom drawer.

And it was!