Keep Friends Close, Emeralds Closer Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Teaser

  Preview

  Copyright

  Willow Albern shot the basketball from the right side of the court. It formed a perfect arc, then dropped into the basket with a swish.

  “Nice shot, Willow!” her friend Erin Fischer cheered.

  Lili Higashida ran up to the girls, panting. “I hate when we play basketball in gym class!” she complained. “I’m too short!”

  “You’re about the same size as I am,” Erin pointed out. “Besides, as long as we have Willow on our team, we don’t need to do much. She’s the best player in class.”

  Their friend Jasmine Johnson motioned to them. “Come on, guys,” she urged, her curly brown hair bouncing. “Blue team’s got the ball!”

  The four girls ran down the court with the rest of their teammates, all dressed in their ruby-red Martha Washington School gym shirts. The other team wore blue vests over their red shirts.

  A girl on the blue team had control of the ball. She dribbled down the court to make a layup shot but Willow intercepted her, took the ball, and headed back down the court to the other basket. Jasmine sprinted ahead of her, waving her arms.

  “Willow! Over here! I’m open!”

  But instead of passing the ball to Jasmine, Willow stopped near the foul line. She reached out over the girl covering her and shot another basket, her ponytail bouncing on her head as she jumped. Once again, the ball cleared the net with a satisfying swoosh.

  A loud whistle sounded.

  “That’s game! Class time is over,” cried Ms. McKnight, their gym teacher. “Red team wins!”

  The girls on the red team cheered and high-fived each other — but Erin noticed that Jasmine didn’t slap Willow’s hand.

  “What’s the matter?” Erin asked as the team started breaking up.

  “Nothing,” Jasmine said sullenly. “It’s just — sometimes Willow acts like there’s nobody else on the team but her, you know?”

  Willow overheard. “That’s not true!” she protested.

  “Then why didn’t you pass me the ball?” Jasmine countered.

  “Because I had a clear shot,” Willow replied.

  “You did not,” Jasmine said. “Annmarie was covering you.”

  “All right, girls!” Ms. McKnight announced to the class. “I want you to walk a few laps around the gym to cool down.”

  The girls fell in step behind their classmates. Nobody said anything for a minute.

  “Please don’t fight, guys,” Lili said finally. “I mean, we won the game, right?”

  “No, Willow won the game,” Jasmine said. “She made all the baskets. It’s just like quiz bowl.”

  “Wait a second,” Erin said. “That’s not true. We all answer questions during a match.”

  The four friends were members of the school’s elite quiz bowl team, called the Jewels. They competed in matches against other middle schoolers, answering tough questions about all kinds of subjects.

  “Maybe,” Jasmine said. “But Willow’s captain.” She lowered her voice. “And she makes all the decisions about the jewel stuff, too.”

  “Now, you know that’s not fair,” Willow said. “We make decisions together. Anyway, if I was doing everything, like you say, then why are you the one who’s holding on to the diamond?”

  “Hey, keep it down,” Erin warned, looking around. The diamond Willow was talking about was technically stolen.

  “It’s because I collect gems and I know a lot about them,” Jasmine answered in a loud whisper. “Like how to keep them safe.”

  “Oh, really?” Willow asked. “So where is it?”

  “In my locker, of course,” Jasmine said.

  Willow, Erin, and Lili stopped in their tracks.

  “Jasmine, are you serious?” Lili asked. “That doesn’t seem like a safe place at all.”

  “Of course it is,” Jasmine explained. “My locker has a lock on it. And I hid it really well, in a secret box behind my locker mirror.”

  Willow shook her head. “That’s the worst idea ever. You know the Rivals are dying to get that diamond. They can walk into this school any time they want, and our lockers are the first place they would look.”

  The Rivals, the quiz bowl team from Atkinson Preparatory School, had stolen the diamond in the first place. And they would stop at nothing to get it back.

  “She’s right,” Erin agreed. “We need a better hiding place for it.”

  Jasmine looked hurt. “See what I mean? Willow says something, and everyone just automatically agrees with her.”

  “Let’s meet after school and talk about it,” Lili suggested, suddenly very uncomfortable with the way her friends were fighting. “In the library. We can all vote on where to hide it, and then everyone will have a say. Okay?”

  Jasmine and Willow eyed each other.

  “Okay,” Willow said, her dark brown eyes flashing with determination.

  “Fine,” agreed Jasmine.

  “Thank goodness,” Erin said. “Now let’s get changed!”

  * * *

  A few hours later, Erin and Lili got to the library first and found a table. Jasmine and Willow walked through the door at the same time, but neither one of them was smiling.

  “We’ve got to do something,” Lili whispered to Erin. “I hate it when people are mad at each other.”

  “Let’s just talk about the jewels,” Erin replied. “Once we get talking, things will get back to normal.”

  Willow and Jasmine each took a seat.

  “So, let’s discuss the diamond,” Erin said right away. “I was thinking that we should, um, write down a list of everything that’s happened so far. You know, to figure out what to do next.”

  Willow looked impressed. “I was thinking the same thing,” she said.

  The girls reached into their backpacks, and each one retrieved a big green pen shaped like the Statue of Liberty. They all glanced at each other and laughed.

  “We look like the Statue of Liberty fan club,” Erin joked.

  “They are pretty ridiculous,” Willow admitted.

  “I love mine!” Lili said, pressing a button on the pen. Tiny green bulbs lit up the statue’s crown. “Now I can write in the dark!”

  “I like it because it reminds me of our trip to New York,” Jasmine said, with a dreamy look in her eyes. “I would love to live there someday.”

  A few weeks before, the girls had traveled to New York City for a regional quiz bowl tournament. Since they’d returned, the Jewels had been busy entering more quiz bowl matches so they could earn points to qualify for the national tournament later that spring. And when they weren’t doing homework, studying for quiz bowl, or babysitting little brothers, they tried to find out what they could about a mystery they’d uncovered: the secret of the four Martha Washington jewels.

  “New York was awesome, but things have been pretty slow since then, jewel-wise,” Erin pointed out. “I think we need to start taking action!”

  Willow waved her pen. “I agree! Let’s start with our notes. First, the Rivals stole the ruby from our school. We figured it out but n
obody believed us. They hid it in a museum and we tried to get it back, but they beat us to it.”

  “Right,” Erin said, busily writing. “And then —”

  “And then,” Jasmine interrupted, “Erin found an old letter from Martha Washington talking about four jewels that hold a secret together: a ruby, a diamond, an emerald, and a sapphire. And she also found a diary of Martha’s where it says the jewels hold clues.”

  Willow nodded. “But before Erin found that in the diary, Lili discovered a note in her coat pocket that told us the Rivals were planning to steal the diamond in New York. Then on the train we got another message telling us to meet at the Alice statue in Central Park. And that message told us we were looking in the wrong place.”

  “Right!” Jasmine agreed. “So we figured out that the diamond was hidden in a desk at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. And then we got another message, a map that showed how the Rivals were planning to steal the diamond. But we tricked them and stole it for ourselves.”

  Erin grinned. “Yeah, that was fun.”

  “And then Jasmine took the diamond out of its setting, and we found a clue etched in the back,” Lili said. “E-Fifty.”

  Jasmine jotted down some notes. “So that’s what happened in New York. Since then, I’ve been researching emeralds and sapphires from Martha Washington’s era to try and find out which gems the Rivals might be after next.”

  “And how’s that going?” Lili asked.

  Jasmine sighed. “I’ve been doing Internet research and taking out every single book from the school library that could help,” she said. “But it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack. We need a clue or something — anything! — to narrow it down.”

  “Lili and I have been scouring the library, too, hoping we could find another letter or something else written by Martha to point us in the right direction,” Erin said.

  “But so far, no luck.” Lili frowned.

  Willow nodded. “I’ve been doing some research, too, to try and figure out what the E-Fifty on the back of the diamond could mean. It could be part of a math equation. Also, there is a World War Two tank that has a model number E-Fifty, as well as a smartphone. But those are way after Martha’s time, so I ruled them out. I’m thinking the E-Fifty will make sense once we see the clues on the other jewels.”

  “If we see the clues on the other jewels,” Jasmine pointed out. “The Rivals definitely have the ruby. For all we know, they might have already stolen the emerald and sapphire, too.”

  All of a sudden Erin nudged Jasmine. “Shhh! Here comes Principal Frederickson!”

  A stern-looking African-American woman marched into the library. Principal Frederickson always walked like she knew exactly where she was going. Today, she was headed right for the girls’ table.

  The Jewels quickly stopped talking and closed their notebooks.

  Erin greeted her in her most polite voice. “Hello, Principal Frederickson.”

  Their principal raised an eyebrow, and Erin swore she saw something resembling a twinkle in her eyes.

  “You don’t have to hide anything from me, girls,” she said. Then she leaned forward, placing her hands on the table. “I know what you’re doing. And I know all about the Martha Washington jewels.”

  The girls were too stunned to speak.

  “I think we should continue this conversation in my office,” the principal said, and the girls immediately stood up and followed her out of the library. Curious classmates gazed at them as they walked away. Their eyes seemed to wonder if the Jewels were in trouble.

  If only they really knew, Jasmine thought, avoiding their stares. After the ruby had been stolen, Principal Frederickson told the girls to forget about it and concentrate on quiz bowl instead. They sure hadn’t done as she’d asked. In fact, they’d only gotten more involved. If she knows about the diamond, too, we’re in big trouble!

  Erin, on the other hand, was excited. Maybe Principal Frederickson knows the secret of the four jewels, she thought hopefully.

  But all of the girls kept their fears and questions to themselves until they were settled in the principal’s office. Principal Frederickson sat behind her gleaming wood desk, and the girls took seats facing her.

  “So, how do you know about the jewels?” Erin blurted out. The suspense was too much for her.

  “As you know, I was also a student at Martha Washington School,” she said. “Back then, there was a rumor going around that Martha Washington had hidden four special jewels somewhere. Nobody knew where, or why the jewels were important. The story intrigued me, so I looked through some books in the library. But my research didn’t get me very far, and I eventually gave up on it. When I left the school, I concentrated on college and my career — but the story has always stayed in the back of my mind.”

  “And then the Martha Washington ruby got stolen,” Jasmine said, jumping in.

  Principal Frederickson nodded. “Yes. I had always suspected it was one of the four special jewels. And when you girls told me you had proof that the Rivals took it, I wasn’t sure what to think — until Arthur Atkinson made that spectacle on the news.”

  After a private phone call from Principal Frederickson, the director of Atkinson Prep, Arthur Atkinson, had alerted the news. He accused the Jewels of trying to throw suspicion on the Rivals just so they would have a quiz bowl advantage. It was humiliating for all of the girls.

  “That was terrible,” Jasmine remembered with a shudder.

  “Well, that’s when I began to suspect that the Rivals really were behind the theft,” Principal Frederickson said, “and that maybe Arthur Atkinson knew something about the secret of the four jewels. So I started researching again. That’s when I noticed that someone was taking lots of Martha Washington books out from the library.”

  She looked directly at Erin, and a red flush spread across Erin’s freckles.

  “I thought maybe the books would help us figure stuff out,” Erin explained. “And then I read Martha Washington’s diary, and …”

  “I found the diary in the library and put it in your pile of books,” Principal Frederickson admitted. “I thought you girls were having fun with the story, just like I had when I was your age.”

  Willow got a spark in her eyes. “Wait a second! Are you the one who sent us those messages? The ones on yellow paper?”

  Principal Frederickson looked concerned. “No, I did not. What kind of messages?”

  “Before we went to New York, I found a message in my coat pocket that said that the Rivals were going to steal the diamond,” Lili said.

  “And then we found more notes that helped us find the diamond,” Willow added.

  Now it was Principal Frederickson’s turn to look stunned.

  “You found the diamond?” she asked, standing up.

  “Well, we figured out that it was hidden in this desk in the Metropolitan Museum of Art,” Erin explained. “And Ryan from the Rivals stole it, but we tricked him. He thought he was handing it off to Isabel, but he handed it to me instead. And then I handed it to Willow, and she ran really fast —”

  “You stole from the Metropolitan Museum of Art?!” Principal Frederickson gasped in shock. “Do your parents know about this?”

  “No, but we didn’t actually steal anything,” Erin insisted. “The Rivals did. And, besides, the museum doesn’t even know the diamond exists.”

  “And when we accused the Rivals of stealing before, nobody believed us,” Jasmine pointed out.

  Principal Frederickson shook her head. “This is precisely why I wanted to talk to you today. I noticed that you’ve been doing a lot more research on the jewels, and I thought things might have gone too far.” She nervously paced back and forth across the floor. “I can see I was right. Where is the diamond now?”

  “In my locker,” Jasmine piped up.

  The principal stopped in her tracks. She looked right at Jasmine.

  “In … your … locker?” she asked in disbelief.

  “Told you it was a
bad idea,” Willow muttered.

  “I’ll go get it,” Jasmine offered quickly.

  “Yes,” Principal Frederickson said. “Please do that.”

  Jasmine got up and raced off. She returned a few minutes later, her heart pounding. She handed a small black box to Principal Frederickson.

  Their principal opened the lid to reveal a pair of diamond earrings. One of them had been taken out of its setting by Jasmine, back in New York.

  “There’s a clue etched on the back of that one,” Erin said, leaning over the desk to point at the loose diamond. “E-Fifty. But we’re not sure what it means.”

  The principal slowly sat back into her chair. “Amazing,” she said. “But how did you know where to find the diamond?”

  “It was something Erin found in the diary,” Willow replied, and then she explained how the girls had tracked down the desk that had been built by a Quaker friend of Martha Washington’s.

  Principal Frederickson nodded. “That’s brilliant. I know you girls are very smart. But I had no idea you would be so successful. I’m not sure I would have given you the diary if I’d known you’d be semi-accomplices to a national museum heist.”

  Jasmine felt flattered, but confused. “So are we in trouble?”

  Principal Frederickson shook her head. “No, but I’m not happy about this. Things could have gone wrong. Very wrong. What if one of you had gotten hurt? I understand your motives were good. But, you should have told me about the diamond as soon as you got back from New York,” she said sternly. “And now, I want to make this very clear: You girls will stay out of this from now on. If Arthur Atkinson wants this diamond, he’ll do anything to get it. This started out as fun, but I’m afraid it’s getting dangerous.”

  “But we can’t stop now!” Erin protested. “The Rivals still have the ruby. And we don’t know if they have the emerald or the sapphire, or if those jewels are still out there somewhere.”

  “I appreciate your passion, girls. Martha Washington would have been proud of you,” Principal Frederickson said. “But I really think you need to step back and let me handle this from now on. I have my own suspicions about the emerald and the sapphire. And I think you should let me have the diamond for safekeeping.”