Lou Lou found her parents at the park to tell them her plans. She promised to be home for afternoon catamaran cookies. Then she, Pea, and Kyle headed off to Jeremy’s little green house. When they arrived, Jeremy answered the door wearing a pink apron with ruffles. Lou Lou couldn’t help but laugh. She wasn’t used to seeing Jeremy wear any color, let alone pink.
“Hey, this is my favorite apron,” Jeremy said. “It complements my complexion, if I do say so myself.”
Pea nodded approvingly. “Christian Dior said pink ‘is the color of happiness.’”
“I hope you don’t mind that Kyle came along,” Lou Lou said.
“Naw, not at all. The more the merrier. And my parents are still at the park, so I could use an extra taste tester.”
Lou Lou had never been inside Jeremy’s family’s new house, but given his love of black, she’d assumed it would be dark and gloomy. Instead, his home was bright, colorful, and cheery, from the paisley-print curtains to the peach-colored walls. Jeremy noticed her looking around.
“Yeah, my family doesn’t share my spooky demeanor.” He winked.
On the counter in Jeremy’s sunny yellow kitchen was a platter piled high with caracoles. “That there’s three of you is actually perfecto!” Jeremy said. “I have three different kinds so you can each try one. I won’t reveal the secret ingredient until you taste them.”
Jeremy handed out napkins and the pastries with a “ta da!” for each. He watched closely as Lou Lou, Pea, and Kyle took their first bites.
“Blech!” Lou Lou spit her bite into her napkin. Pea gave her a horrified look. “What’s in this, Jeremy? It’s … well … terrible.”
“That one has beef bouillon. I thought the secret might be to add something savory, but I guess not.”
“Definitely not,” replied Lou Lou, who couldn’t even think of a way to be nice about the awful caracol.
“I’ll try yours,” Kyle said between mouthfuls of his pastry.
Lou Lou handed it over. “Be my guest.” She glanced at Pea. She’d taken a bite from her own caracol, but had stopped chewing. Her cheeks looked flushed and her blue eyes were wide.
“Pea!” Lou Lou exclaimed. “Are you okay?”
Pea shook her head.
“Oh no!” Jeremy rushed to get Pea a glass of milk. She took a big gulp. “That’s the one with habanero. I guess it’s a bit too spicy.”
“Just a tad,” Pea croaked.
“I’ll eat it.” Kyle took the rest of Pea’s caracol.
“How’s yours, Kyle?” Jeremy asked.
“Not like Señora Basa’s, but still delicious,” Kyle said.
“What’s the secret ingredient in that one?” asked Lou Lou.
“Sauerkraut,” Jeremy replied.
“Ick!” Lou Lou couldn’t help exclaiming. Like beef bouillon and caracoles, sauerkraut and caracoles was not a combination that sounded good.
“I told you, I was trying out savory since I’ve already tested every sweet ingredient I can think of. But I guess it didn’t work.”
“Works for me,” Kyle said. He’d finished his own caracol and was moving on to Lou Lou’s.
“I’m sure you’ll figure it out eventually, Jeremy.” Lou Lou tried to be encouraging even though she wasn’t certain this was true. Pea nodded and smiled weakly after another gulp of milk.
“‘Eventually’ better be soon because the Bonanza is coming right up,” said Jeremy. “It sure would be nice to win the caracoles contest for El Corazón after this horrible week! Speaking of which, tell me about this investigation of yours.”
Lou Lou and Pea—once she regained her powers of speech after the habanero caracol—told Jeremy and Kyle about the snippets of the Argyles’ conversation they’d overheard outside the Heliotrope, their guess that the diary might be a fake, and their suspicion that the Bonanza was actually stolen. Kyle was a bit of a tattletale, but Lou Lou trusted he would keep quiet because he wanted his space goats back. And also to impress Pea.
“Our plan is to examine the diary and see if we can find anything that proves it’s a fake,” Lou Lou explained. “Maybe there are mistakes or maybe the diary is really just a bunch of blank pages except for the made-up part that Andy Argyle read at the Heliotrope.”
“That sounds easy,” Jeremy replied. “The vice-mayor said that people could see the diary in the City Archives, right?”
“Yes. But his exact words were ‘You can come to the City Archives in City Hall and I will show it to you myself.’” Pea had a great memory. She could sing the words to songs from nursery school and perfectly recite messages from old birthday cards.
“Yeah, and there’s no way Andy Argyle is going to show us anything that proves anything,” Lou Lou said. “We need to look at the diary on our own.”
“How will you get into the City Archives? It’s not the kind of place you can just casually visit on your way to the bodega. No sera fácil.” Jeremy was right. They all knew from school field trips that the City Archives were behind a locked door and generally weren’t open to the public.
“Maybe Pea could say she has to research her family history?” Lou Lou suggested. “It wouldn’t really be a lie.”
Pea frowned. “I doubt anyone would let me do that without an adult. And what if that adult is Vice-Mayor Argyle?”
“Get a ladder and crawl in through a window?” Jeremy offered.
“That sounds dangerous,” Lou Lou answered. “And illegal.”
“Ask politely?” Pea said.
“I don’t think that will work,” Jeremy replied. “Particularly if we have to ask the vice-mayor.”
Jeremy scratched his head, Pea looked out the window, lost in thought, and Lou Lou drummed her fingers on the kitchen counter as she considered their dilemma.
“I can’t think of a good way,” Lou Lou finally said. “Maybe this won’t work.”
“Eh hah e ke,” Kyle said. Everyone turned to look at him. He was talking with his mouth full, having finished the beef bouillon caracol and moved on to the habanero one.
“Huh?” Jeremy said.
“Eh hah e ke,” Kyle said again.
“We can’t understand you, Kyle,” Lou Lou said.
Kyle chewed and swallowed. “I have a key,” he said.
“You have a what?” Pea asked.
“A key,” said Kyle. “Since my dad works at City Hall, I volunteer there sometimes. Mostly I handle security and stop alien invasions from the planet Tyros with my supersonic lasers. But during the rare times when the aliens are quiet, I do filing in the City Archives. So they gave me a key.”
Lou Lou’s, Pea’s, and Jeremy’s jaws all dropped.
“Jeepers, Kyle! Why didn’t you tell us this in the first place?” Lou Lou said.
“Because you never asked, Lou Lou Bombay,” Kyle replied.