“Hide!” said Jeremy as the City Archives door slowly opened. Lou Lou, Pea, Jeremy, and Kyle dove behind a large trunk. Lou Lou tucked the diary into her satchel. Jeremy reached up and pushed down his hair’s red spikes so they couldn’t be seen.
“Is it Vice-Mayor Argyle?” whispered Pea, her voice trembling.
“I don’t know. But if it is and he finds us, we’re in so much trouble,” Kyle replied. “I’m technically not supposed to bring any unauthorized persons or space aliens in here.”
No one said a word as they heard the door open wider. Lou Lou rubbed her ears to ease the burning. Pea was frozen in place. Kyle bit his pinkie fingernail, and Jeremy rolled a piece of his hair around in his fingers.
“Hello? Who’s in here?” a woman called. Lou Lou exhaled quietly and her ears cooled a little. At least it wasn’t the vice-mayor. All of a sudden, her nose began to tickle. Oh no, Lou Lou thought. Please not now. But she couldn’t help it.
“Achoo!” sneezed Lou Lou. Pea’s eyes went even wider.
“I know there is someone in here,” the woman’s voice said. “I heard you! Come out at once!”
This is it. We’re busted, thought Lou Lou. Then Kyle put a keep quiet finger to his lips and made an okay sign with his other hand. He stood up. “Greetings, Wanda,” Kyle said.
“Kyle? What are you doing here? You don’t volunteer on Thursdays.”
“Not usually,” Kyle replied. “But I came in today to finish some filing. It’s important to have everything in perfect planetary order before the Bonanza!”
“Oh my, you really are a lovely boy,” Wanda said. “Albeit a little odd.” Lou Lou didn’t have to look to know that the woman was eyeing Kyle’s cape.
“Well, I’m done here for today,” Kyle said. “Wanda, have I ever showed you my cosmic kung fu?”
“I don’t believe you have,” Wanda replied. “But I’m not sure—”
“You’ve really got to see it,” said Kyle. “I will teach you a shooting-star side kick so you can defend yourself in case of an invasion from the Tyrosians. But we need to go outside to the courtyard so we have more space.”
Lou Lou peeked over the trunk just in time to see Kyle gently pulling on the arm of a woman in a blue dress with big blond hair. Wanda didn’t see Lou Lou, but Kyle looked at her and raised his eyebrows as if to say, Make a break for it, Lou Lou Bombay. Once Kyle and Wanda’s voices disappeared down the hall, that’s exactly what Lou Lou, Pea, and Jeremy did, rushing out of the City Archives, down the hall and the stairs, through the grand foyer, down the front steps, and into the spring sun. When they were a safe distance from City Hall, they stopped to catch their breath and calm their nerves.
“Lou Lou!” Pea said between huffs and puffs. “I can’t believe we stole the diary.”
“We didn’t really steal it,” Lou Lou replied. “We accidentally borrowed it.”
“She’s got a point,” Jeremy said.
“We better give it back before anyone notices. We could get in big trouble,” said Pea.
“She’s got a point, too,” Jeremy said.
“Don’t worry. We’ll return it,” replied Lou Lou. “But now that we have it—accidentally, of course—we might as well read it to see if we can get the Bonanza back!”
“That’s the best point of all!” Jeremy said.
* * *
After their close-call Diary Mission, Lou Lou, Pea, and Jeremy didn’t have enough time to examine the diary before they were all due home. Pea said she’d hold on to it until they could get together again to read it.
The following morning, Lou Lou saw Kyle in English class. She never thought she’d be so grateful to him. He’d helped Lou Lou and Pea once before to solve a mystery without knowing he was doing it. But this time, Kyle had been genuinely brave, and he was the reason that they weren’t all in big trouble right now.
Lou Lou stopped at Kyle’s desk on the way to hers. “Thanks for what you did yesterday,” she said. Lou Lou noticed Danielle staring at her. Kyle saw it, too.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Lou Lou Bombay!” he said loudly. “Perhaps the gravitational forces on this planet have affected your brain.” Then, under his breath he said, “Bring it back to me as soon as you can.”
“I knew it! I knew you had a crush on him! Or he has a crush on you! Or whatever!” Danielle said. Lou Lou just rolled her eyes and moved on to her desk.
After school, Lou Lou and Pea met as usual at the SS Lucky Alley for PSPP tea and scones. Jeremy couldn’t join them because he had Comic Book Club, which also ruled out Kyle coming over. Today, the girls only managed formal PSPP hellos before abandoning polite speech and moving on to diary talk.
“Where should we start?” Lou Lou asked, turning the diary around in her hands. “Have you read any of it yet?”
“I copied a few pages to practice my penmanship, but I was waiting for you to do the serious reading,” Pea said.
“Great!” Lou Lou skimmed through the diary until she found the entry that Andy Argyle had read at the Heliotrope. She was a little disappointed that it said exactly what he’d said it did about the Bonanza and Verde Valley. But as Pea pointed out, if the vice-mayor had faked what he read from the diary, he would definitely make sure the actual diary backed up his story.
Next, Lou Lou opened to a random page and began to read aloud:
“Date: The twelfth of April.
Dearest Diary,
Diego and I are truly happy in our lovely new home, Verde Valley. Together we have built a beautiful gazebo like the one in Barnaby-on-Pudding, but our gazebo is painted in the style of Diego’s village. We hope that Verde Valley and the surrounding land will become a grand city! More settlers will join us here soon, including my darling, Alice. The climate is ideal for her pet goats.”
Lou Lou paused. “Pet goats? That’s not true, right? Giles’s wife didn’t have pet goats, so the diary is not real!”
Pea shook her head. “Actually, that part is definitely true. That’s one reason Kyle was training goats for the Bonanza, remember?”
“Oh, yeah.” Lou Lou had forgotten that Kyle’s landscaping “space” goats also had some historical meaning. She skipped ahead to another page.
“Date: The thirtieth of April.
Dearest Diary,
O happy day! Alice has finally come to Verde Valley. Diego’s paramour, Catalina, is here as well. To celebrate their arrival, we had a picnic in our beautiful gazebo. Alice left her goats at home so they wouldn’t get sunburned, but I think she enjoyed herself nonetheless.”
“Argh, I don’t want to hear any more about the stupid goats!” Lou Lou thought back to the first passage Pea had read. The part about the gazebo reminded Lou Lou of something. “Pea, with all the Diary Mission excitement I never told you about Andy Argyle’s office. It was filled with gazebo paraphernalia! There were photos, miniatures, and even magazines called Gazebo Exorcist!” Pea looked confused. “I mean Gazebo Enthusiast!” Lou Lou said. “And the whole ceiling was painted to look like a gazebo dome.”
“Interesting!” Pea replied. “I guess that means Vice-Mayor Argyle will be excited to have the new gazebo in Verde Valley. But it doesn’t really prove anything, except that he likes gazebos.”
“Right.” Lou Lou flipped through the pages of the diary. “There’s got to be something in here that’s useful!” She was getting frustrated.
“Maybe we should start reading from the beginning?” Pea suggested gently.
“Sure, the beginning seems like a good place to … begin.” Lou Lou opened to the first page and read aloud from the diary while Pea nibbled on a raspberry scone. It started with Giles’s tale of his sea journey from Barnaby-on-Pudding. The talk of great sailing ships and storms was the sort of thing that Lou Lou’s dad would like, but it wasn’t helpful to Lou Lou and Pea. Lou Lou took a bite of her own scone and skipped ahead until she found the entry from Giles’s arrival:
“Date: The second of March.
Dearest Diary,
I have some wonderful news to share. Today, I finally arrived in this new land and also made a friend! He is a man from the south named Diego who is just as eager as I am to make this lovely place a home. I do not speak his language, nor he mine, but I am confident we will learn. He seems very kind. Oh, and he has a beautiful chestnut mare! The weather here—”
“Wait! I just remembered something!” Pea said. She almost never interrupted Lou Lou, so Lou Lou knew it had to be important.
“Really? Something helpful?” Lou Lou asked. She hoped Pea’s great memory would save the day.
“Chestnut. You said ‘chestnut mare,’” Pea replied.
“Yes. So…?”
Pea’s blue eyes lit up in a way that made her whole face glow. “Abuela Josie told us that Diego’s horse was—”
“Sorrel!” It was Lou Lou’s turn to interrupt Pea. “You’re a genius! We got it, Pea! The diary is wrong about the color of Diego’s horse, so it must be a fake. I knew it all along!” Lou Lou closed the small book with a triumphant clap. They were sure to get the Bonanza back now! She could hardly believe it had been so easy!