Friday Barnes Girl Detective Read online

  “It takes hours and hours of practice to balance the card perfectly on your fingers to do that,” said Friday. She took out one of her uncle’s business cards and handed it to the police chief. “You try.”

  The police chief flicked the card up, but it slipped out of his fingers and fluttered to the ground.

  “It’s not easy,” said Friday, “but Mr. Friedricks did it without even thinking. It was instinctual, automatic; it shows he has at some stage in his life spent years cultivating the techniques of sleight-of-hand magic.”

  “Preposterous,” said Mr. Friedricks.

  “And I was easily able to prove it was true,” continued Friday, “because the Barnum and Bailey Circus Skills University does not have very good online security.” Friday clicked away busily at the computer for a few moments. “So when I hacked into their transcript database I found that you, Mr. Friedricks, graduated magna cum laude twenty years ago with a major in acrobatics and a minor in sleight-of-hand.” Friday turned the laptop around and showed everyone Mr. Friedricks’s transcript.

  “That doesn’t prove anything,” blustered Mr. Friedricks. “A man is entitled to have a misspent youth and start again without it being held against him.”

  “What are you saying, Friday?” asked Uncle Bernie.

  “I’m saying that Mr. Friedricks had all the sleight-of-hand skills necessary to palm the diamond when he opened the box and pretended that it wasn’t there,” accused Friday.

  “Hold on,” said the bank manager. “When a theft is reported we have strict protocols. No one can leave the bank without being searched. Mr. Friedricks did not have the diamond on him when he left the bank.”

  “No,” agreed Friday. “He had it under him.”

  “Does she always talk in riddles?” complained the CEO.

  “Sometimes she can go days without talking at all,” said Uncle Bernie.

  “I wish this was one of those days,” muttered the CEO.

  “I draw your attention to Mr. Friedricks’s boots,” said Friday.

  “Now it’s a crime to wear boots, is it?” asked Mr. Friedricks.

  “We’ll see,” said Friday. “You’ll notice Mr. Friedricks is wearing boots with a three-inch Cuban heel.”

  “So?” asked the police sergeant.

  “Why would a man who is six foot four—” began Friday.

  “Six foot five,” Mr. Friedricks interrupted.

  Friday looked him up and down. “I think you’ll find you have shrunk since you last measured your height.” Friday turned back to the others. “Anyway, why would such a tall man deliberately choose a shoe with a three-inch heel? He already towers over most men. A shoe with a heel is much less comfortable, as any woman wearing heels can tell you.”

  The secretary nodded. She was wearing five-inch stilettos and they were killing her.

  “Therefore,” continued Friday, “the only possible reason Mr. Friedricks could have for wearing such ostentatious height-elevating shoes is so that they would have heels large enough for him to hollow one out and hide a diamond inside!”

  Everyone looked at Mr. Friedricks’s feet.

  “This is an insult!” Mr. Friedricks exclaimed again. “Footwear is not probable cause.”

  “Not in and of itself,” agreed Friday. “But when footwear is combined with a limp!”

  Friday turned on the surveillance footage again and Mr. Friedricks could be seen clutching his foot for a moment, then leaving the bank with a slight limp.

  “A limp that you had when you left but not when you entered,” added Friday. “That is incriminating evidence indeed.”

  “I’m not staying for this ridiculous child’s fantasy. I’ve got a meeting to attend. Some hysterical student told a tabloid they saw a giant ape in the school swamp, and the board has to decide whether they want to sue the student for defamation,” said Mr. Friedricks as he strode to the door. “If you’ve got anything further to say to me, you can say it to my lawyer.”

  “Show us your shoe first,” said the police chief.

  “Where’s your search warrant?” demanded Mr. Friedricks.

  “I don’t need a warrant to search the shoe of a suspect in a bank robbery,” said the police chief. “Now take off your shoe. I may look like an aging man to you, but I should inform you that back in my day I was the all-state wrestling champion for the police force three years in a row. And I had to wrestle against firefighters and paramedics, and they are tricky rascals who cheat.”

  Mr. Friedricks slowly and reluctantly bent down, slid off his boot, and showed it to the police chief. “There, you see? Nothing inside.”

  “Let me have a closer look,” said the police chief. He inspected the boot very carefully. He took out the insole and looked over every stitch in the sole.

  “Try twisting the heel,” suggested Friday.

  “That’s an eight-hundred-dollar boot!” exclaimed the secretary, who had a great deal of respect for footwear, expensive footwear in particular.

  The police chief held the shoe firmly and twisted on the heel. It pivoted on one of the boot nails, revealing a cavity within—a cavity that was the exact size and shape of a five-million-dollar diamond.

  “Wow!” exclaimed Friday. “I was right. How exciting! I’ve only ever solved fictional crimes before.”

  “Why would that make him limp?” asked Uncle Bernie.

  “If you had something worth five million dollars in your shoe wouldn’t you walk funny?” asked Friday.

  “But where is the diamond?” asked the police chief.

  “You should search his office,” suggested Friday. “He wouldn’t hide it at home in case his maid or, worse, his wife found it. No, Mr. Friedricks would have more privacy in his workspace. It won’t be in his desk or filing cabinets because there would be a danger that his secretary might stumble across it while looking for something else. So try the light fittings. Most corporate offices have ceilings that are only eight and a half feet high; therefore, Mr. Friedricks would be able to reach that easily without even standing on a chair.”

  “You’ve been spying on me, haven’t you!” accused Mr. Friedricks (which inadvertently was a confession).

  “No,” said Friday, confused by the suggestion. “There was no need. All the information was right in front of me.”

  Mr. Friedricks was now making frantic but futile attempts to get out through the vault door. The police chief took great delight in dusting off some of his wrestling moves. He put Mr. Friedricks in a cobra lock, then handcuffed him.

  “Thank you, young lady,” said the police chief. “We were up on violent crime arrests this month, but down on white-collar criminals, so this is going to do wonders for our statistics.”

  The police chief led Mr. Friedricks away.

  “I’m going to get you!” yelled Mr. Friedricks as he was half dragged up the stairs by the police chief and security guard. “You won’t get away with this! I’m a powerful man! You will regret crossing me.”

  “Please keep your voice down, sir,” said the police chief. “Threatening a child will only add more years to your sentence.”

  “You’re kidding yourself. I’m going to get the best lawyers in the country,” said Mr. Friedricks. “I’ll be out in no time with good behavior—then you just watch out.”

  “I’d steer clear of Friday in the future if I were you, Mr. Friedricks,” Uncle Bernie called after him. “I think you’ve met your match in her.”

  Mr. Friedricks disappeared into the upstairs office area, his loud abuse fading into the distance.

  “Call the golf course,” the CEO snapped to his secretary. “See if you can get me a nine-fifteen tee-off. Barnes, I’ll get accounts to cut a check for your niece here.”

  The CEO walked over to Friday and shook her hand. “Thank you, young lady. You have just saved my company a lot of money. And I haven’t entirely lost my morning of golf. Fine work. Maybe we’ll consult you again next time the professionals are out of their depth.” The CEO glared at Uncle B
ernie as he said this.

  Uncle Bernie realized he had been insulted, but he didn’t care. He wasn’t going to be fired, at least not today, which was a big relief.

  “Wow!” said Uncle Bernie. “Fifty thousand dollars is a lot of money. What are you going to do with it all?”

  “I have an idea,” said Friday.

  Chapter

  4

  How Friday Spent the $50,000

  Friday’s parents were shocked to learn she had been awarded such a huge amount of money. They had never had anything like that large a sum in their own bank accounts. They were even more shocked when they learned how she intended to spend it.

  “I’m sending myself to Highcrest Academy as a full-time boarding student for one year,” announced Friday. “I’ve recently heard it is the finest school in the country.”

  “You’re moving out?” asked her bewildered mother.

  “Yes,” said Friday.

  “But you’re only nine,” protested her equally bewildered father.

  “I turned eleven last October,” Friday pointed out. “You remember. You lent me your credit card so I could buy myself a mass spectrometer.”

  “Oh, I do remember,” said her father. “I thought it odd because we had a perfectly good mass spectrometer in the garage.”

  “Yes, well, actually, I didn’t buy a mass spectrometer,” revealed Friday. “I bought an electric conversion kit for my bicycle because you keep forgetting to pick me up from school events, and I needed a way to get from A to B.”

  “Friday, you’re getting off the point,” Uncle Bernie reminded her. He was present to help explain things to her parents. Like many super-bright academic people who spend all day thinking about complicated tricky things, they could get totally flummoxed by the simplest everyday conversation.

  “I’ve got fifty thousand dollars. What could be more worthwhile than spending it on my education? So I’ve decided to send myself to the best and most expensive boarding school in the whole country,” said Friday. “Besides, if I must attend school, then I’d like to go somewhere that operates on a profit motive.”

  “But why?” asked her father. Capitalism baffled him. It all seemed like such a lot of effort.

  “Because I want to do something different,” said Friday.

  Her parents still looked at her blankly.

  “Quantum, Quasar, Orion, and Halley all went to the same schools.” (These were the names of Friday’s brothers and sisters.) “Now all six of you are university academics researching theoretical physics. I want to do something else.”

  “So study particle physics,” suggested her father.

  “Or astrophysics,” suggested her mother.

  “Also, because if they operate on a profit motive,” said Friday, ignoring their response, “the PE teachers will accept bribes, so that I am never forced to run cross-country again.”

  Friday’s parents considered this. It was a concept that made sense to them.

  “Hmm,” said Friday’s father. He put the end of his pen between his teeth and started chewing on it. He didn’t suck on lollipops but he had his own habit for when he was lost in deep thought. And this was quite a conundrum for him. He was going to have to buy another twelve-pack of Bic pens. It was clearly a multi-pen problem.

  “Why don’t you reflect on the issue?” suggested Friday. “Then you could write me a paper outlining the pros and cons of my decision.”

  “That’s a good idea,” said Friday’s mother, brightening up. She liked writing papers.

  “I’ll give you two months to write it,” said Friday. “You need to consider the issues thoroughly.”

  “I don’t know,” said Friday’s father, looking concerned.

  “Would you prefer three months?” guessed Friday.

  “I think you had better make it four,” said Friday’s father. “We may need to do research.”

  “With a control group,” said Friday’s mother.

  “Obviously,” agreed Friday’s father.

  * * *

  And that’s how Friday knew she had won. Because the starting date at her new school was in seven weeks. By the time her parents had finished their paper; handed it in three weeks late (it is traditional in academic spheres to hand in all papers at least three weeks late); waited four weeks for her response (which she had no intention of giving); then forgotten the day of the week, month, and year and moved on with their research, she would be well into her second semester at her new school and it would be churlish of them to try to withdraw her at that point.

  Chapter

  5

  A New Chapter

  It had not occurred to Friday to be nervous about starting a new school. School was something she was good at. Normal concerns about whether she would make any friends did not occur to Friday because she had never made any friends, unless you counted long-dead authors like Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, and Charlotte Brontë (and her former school psychologist did not).

  When Friday packed her suitcase to leave for her new school, her only concern was whether she would fit all her favorite books in her suitcase, not what clothes she would look good in to make a first impression. The first impression she wanted to make was no impression. She wanted to go unnoticed.

  Friday had long ago found that a certain shade of brown cardigan when paired with jeans was even more effective than complete military-grade camouflage if you wanted to blend into any situation and go unnoticed. Khaki is great in your average jungle, but if you dress head to toe in khaki and then try to borrow a book from the local library, everyone will stare. Whereas if you wear a brown cardigan, you can hide both in the library and in the bushes outside the library—whichever you prefer to do.

  There was the matter of how Friday was going to get to the school. Uncle Bernie had offered to give Friday a lift, but then his car broke down. While Friday was an excellent self-taught mechanic with an extensive working knowledge of the internal combustion engine, she didn’t have access to a foundry or molten iron, so there was not much she could do about the crack in his head gasket. Uncle Bernie felt terrible about it. He took a taxi over to Friday’s house to give her a special parting gift.

  “You didn’t have to get me anything,” said Friday. “I already have a full supply of pens and pencils.”

  “Friday, I didn’t get you something because I thought you needed something,” explained Uncle Bernie. “I got you something because I’m going to miss you.”

  “Oh,” said Friday. She suddenly found she had a lump in her throat. She knew it was unlikely to be a growth. This lump was the symptom of emotions, one of the few things she knew very little about. “Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll find someone else to watch TV with on Thursday nights. You could disable one of your neighbors’ cable TV boxes, then invite them over to watch with you.”

  “I’m going to miss you,” said Uncle Bernie. “And I’m going to worry about you being up at that school all on your own.”

  “I’ve always been all on my own,” said Friday.

  “I know,” agreed Uncle Bernie. “But you’ve been on your own in the comfort of your home. Trust me, living with a couple hundred rich kids is going to be different. If you have any problems, I want you to let me know. I want you to stay in touch. That’s why I’m giving you a present. Open it.”

  Friday opened the package. “A portable ham radio?” she said. She was surprised and delighted.

  “I read the Highcrest Academy school rules from cover to cover,” explained Uncle Bernie. “They list all banned electronic devices: computers, smartphones, MP3 players, tablets, video games, Wi-Fi–capable calculators, and laser pointers. But they didn’t say anything about ham radios.”

  “Thanks, Uncle Bernie, for everything. I’m going to miss you, too,” said Friday, giving him an awkward hug. “This is the nicest gift anyone has given me since Aunt Gerta sent me the noise-canceling headphones.”

  * * *

  So on the first Monday of her first term, Friday
found herself having to travel to her new school by bus. Generally, she did not care for buses because she was so good at going unnoticed that people would often sit on her, thinking she was an empty seat.

  When she arrived at Highcrest Academy, Friday looked as though she had spent seven hours squashed, as indeed she had. The bus dropped her on the street outside the school, which unfortunately meant she was still nearly a mile from the nearest school building because the campus had such an unnecessarily long driveway (either to intimidate those arriving at the school, or to intimidate unathletic children who were considering running away).

  Friday started walking slowly up the driveway as a constant stream of expensive imported cars and excessively safe SUVs drove by, kicking up dust and gravel as they passed. Friday’s feet, or perhaps it was her heart, seemed to grow heavier with each step toward the neo-Gothic buildings. She tried to take her mind off her growing sense of foreboding by mentally translating the lyrics of the national anthem into Morse code.

  When Friday finally arrived at the main building she saw a busy scene. The high school students had arrived two days earlier and were buzzing about the school as they moved between their classes. But all the junior high students were arriving that day, so a lot of children were being dropped off by parents, nannies, and chauffeurs. Friday had to wind her way around them, carrying her backpack and dragging a heavy suitcase.

  Friday may not have been a self-conscious girl, but she was observant. So as she made her way through the crowd she began to notice the other children. They were very well dressed, immaculately dressed in fact. And their clothes were not only ironed (a condition in which no item of clothing could ever be found in the Barnes household) but also expensive brands. The children were dressed head to toe in designer clothing. At Friday’s old school, one such item of daywear would be enough to mark you well-to-do and lead to your lunch being stolen by someone hungry for gourmet food.

  Friday began to realize she may have made a tactical error. Her brown cardigan was not going to blend in here. And all she had to wear were three pairs of jeans, seven gray T-shirts, and three brown cardigans. There was no school uniform to save her. Or, rather, there was a school uniform, but it was an unofficial one that all the rich children intuitively knew about, whereas Friday, for whom fashion intuition was one of her few weaknesses, had not received a copy of the unwritten message. Friday started to feel hot, her breathing accelerated, her chest tight—she recognized these symptoms from her first day at preschool. (This was before she had discovered her brown cardigan uniform and she’d made the mistake of wearing a lab coat and rubber gloves because she had heard that four-year-olds were unhygienic.) She was having a fashion-related anxiety attack. Hopefully she would be able to hide in her dorm room before anyone noticed her.