Lulu's Mysterious Mission Read online

  At the top of the stairs, however, Ms. Solinsky stopped for a moment. “Inside it. Decided. Hide it,” she said. “As you can see, my little spy-in-training, you’re not the only one who knows how to rhyme.”

  You clever folks reading this story have doubtlessly already figured out what this clue was referring to. But it took Lulu quite a while to think of what goes up and down, and how she complains whenever her mom makes her use one, and that she had already lost a green one, a blue one, a plaid one, two flowered ones, and a frog one, making the yellow polka-dot one that hung in the front-hall closet her seventh . . . UMBRELLA.

  Lulu rushed to that closet, reached inside the hanging umbrella, and found her next clue:

  In something that rhymes with FOX

  Is something that rhymes with EYES,

  And taped to that second something is a clue.

  You’ll discover it all by yourself

  On something that rhymes with ELF,

  And there’s even something for breakfast tomorrow too.

  Two hours later, and getting close to her bedtime, Lulu came up—at last!—with BOX and PRIZE and SHELF and BREAKFAST CEREAL. Rummaging through the cereal boxes that stood on a shelf in the kitchen, she eventually pulled out of the Toasted Yummy Extra-Sugar Bits a purple plastic superhero—the prize—on the back of which was scotch-taped her next clue:

  Inside of a shoe, near the toe,

  Awaits what you next need to know.

  This new clue, so short and simple, made Lulu wonder if Ms. Solinsky had run out of rhymes. Unless she’d gone soft and was giving Lulu a break.

  But three hours later, and way way past her bedtime, Lulu had found no clue in the toe of a shoe, though she’d gone through every shoe in her closet, as well as every shoe of her mom’s and her dad’s, and had even checked out Ms. Solinsky’s combat boots. Disgusted, discouraged, and exhausted, she lay down on her bed to rest for a few minutes and discovered—when she slipped off her sneakers—guess what?

  That’s right! She found a note card, neatly tucked into her left sneaker, near her big toe. And what we’d all like to know (and that includes me) is how, and also when, did that clue get in there?

  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!

  While Lulu was busy searching, Ms. Solinsky watched and waited, not saying a single word till Lulu plucked, from that bottom drawer, a silver disk that hung from a silver chain and upon which were boldly inscribed the letters MM. Then, standing at her tallest and straightest, Ms. Solinsky declared, “Mission accomplished.” After which she carefully clasped the chain—with its gleaming disk—around Lulu’s neck.

  “This disk,” she said, “hereby certifies that you have completed your first Mysterious Mission. My hearty congratulations, Double L.”

  Lulu was almost fainting, this time with joy. “You’re giving me a code name? I’ve got my very own code name? From now on everyone calls me Double L?”

  “I’m afraid I must remind you,” Ms. Solinsky coldly replied, “that this is what’s known as a covert operation. And covert means secret, undercover, hush-hush. You may not tell anyone—ANYONE; unless they’re a fellow spy—your code name or that you’re being trained in spy craft. And you’ll need to remove that disk from your neck before anybody sees it, and put it away where nobody ever will.”

  But Lulu was now in her most impossible, give-me-what-I-want mode. Meaning that she was being a pain in the butt. “I hate this! I hate this a lot! I really hate this!” she said. “I want to wear my silver disk. I want to be called Double L. What’s the point of being a spy if I can’t tell Mabel and Fleischman, and all the kids at school, and Harry Potter”—she meant the other Harry Potter—“and my mom and my dad and Mr. B and . . . everyone?”

  Ms. Solinsky began unclasping Lulu’s silver chain. “We’ll do it my way, or I take back your disk. Furthermore, I’ll deny whatever you say about me, or you, being a spy. I’ll swear that you’re making it up, that you’re telling lies, that you’re imagining things. And I’ll say it so many times that very soon your reputation will be . . . dog poop.”

  Ms. Solinsky looked at her watch. “Your parents,” she said, “will be here in a couple of hours. You’d better decide what you are going to do.”

  There was a heavy silence in the living room. Lulu silently stared at Ms. Solinsky. Ms. Solinsky silently stared back. Ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five minutes went by before they even started talking. And it wasn’t until a few seconds before Lulu’s mom and her dad were due home, that Lulu and Ms. Solinsky cut a deal.

  Lulu, much as she hated it, swore never to mention her spy training or her code name, and promised to hide her disk in a safe place. Ms. Solinsky swore to train Lulu in spy craft whenever Lulu’s mom and
her dad went away. She also solemnly promised that when Lulu grew up and applied for a job as a spy, she’d write a letter saying nice things about her. Unless Lulu didn’t deserve having nice things said about her. Or unless Lulu changed her mind and decided she’d rather be president of the United States.

  But then Lulu’s parents came home and almost ruined everything!

  Rushing through the door and dropping their suitcases on the floor, they threw their arms around Lulu and started sobbing.

  “Oh, my precious! My darling! My treasure!” wailed her weeping mom. “We missed you so very much! We hardly could stand it!”

  “Oh, pumpkin. Oh, sweet pea!” her dad said, hugging her tight and soaking her shoulder with his hot tears. “It was awful being without you. We will never, never, ever do this again!”

  Lulu was instantly on alert. “Do what again?” she demanded.

  Her parents answered together. “We will never go away without you. Never!”

  Lulu was shocked beyond shocked. This was a nightmare! A disaster! A catastrophe! She felt that she was about to lose her mind! How would Ms. Solinsky be able to train her to be a spy if her parents were never going to leave her behind?

  “You HAVE to, you’ve GOT to, you NEED to take more vacations!” Lulu shouted. “You need some private, grown-ups-only time. You’ve got to go away a lot, and I will be just fine being babysat by DARLING Ms. Solinsky.”

  Lulu was now jumping up and down—and although it wasn’t a tantrum, it was close—shouting, “Go! You have to go! Go! Go! Go!”

  Lulu’s mom and her dad were dazed and perplexed and completely confused and full of questions: What was going on here? What was she saying? Why was she acting in this peculiar way? Hadn’t she, only a week ago, carried on most unpleasantly when they told her that they were going away without her? So why was she now insisting that she WANTED them to go away without her?

  “Lulu, sweetie . . . ,” her mom began.

  “Lulu, honey . . . ,” her dad began.

  “What’s gotten into you?” they asked together.

  And Lulu, looking first at her mom and then at her dad, replied, “I guess I’m just an extremely difficult child.”

  You won’t be surprised to hear that after at least an hour of quite intense discussion, Lulu—as she so often did—got her way. This meant persuading her mom and her dad (though they swore they would miss her to pieces) to go off on lots of trips and vacations without her. It also meant making them promise that whenever they left town, they’d put her in the care of Ms. Solinsky. Who, to their bewilderment, seemed to have won their daughter’s undying affection. And who, looking great in stiletto heels, loose hair, and a slinky blue dress (she only wore the uniform to intimidate extremely difficult kids) was saying good-bye to everyone and rushing off for a date with Harry Potter.

  • • •

  And so, from that time on, Triple S came to stay—several times a year—with Double L, giving her lessons in spy craft, except when she needed to be disciplined for too much arguing and too little obeying. For Lulu, you won’t be surprised to hear, continued to be difficult, though not as extremely as she used to be. And whenever she was, she was handed a little toothbrush and a bucket of soapy water and told to scrub the steps in front of her house.

  What made Lulu keep being difficult was her absolute conviction that she was the greatest spy-in-training ever. And though, no doubt about it, she was truly gifted and talented, she constantly got into trouble because she constantly wanted to do too much too soon.

  Like trying to wreck, then Restore and Repair, that tree by her bathroom window. (Except that because Lulu’s wrecking was so much better than her restoring, it required all of Ms. Solinsky’s spy-craft skills to rescue the poor tree.)

  Or like trying to Disguise herself as a helicopter. (It took Ms. Solinsky less than two seconds to Penetrate Lulu’s disguise because most helicopters do not wear knee socks.)

  Or like trying to Hack—imagine! The nerve!—into Ms. Solinsky’s computer. (Except that when she did, she found that every single item of information—including some personal e-mails from Harry Potter—had been transcribed into an unbreakable Code.)

  Or like trying to create a Mysterious Mission, complete with clues, for Ms. Solinsky to figure out and follow. (But Ms. Solinsky figured them out almost as fast as she read them, except when she almost choked on the clue that Lulu had cut up into little pieces and mixed into her morning bean-and-beet omelet.)

  After the b-and-b incident, Ms. Solinsky spoke a few words to Lulu. She spoke in a slow and soft and most serious voice. “You may be pretty good, Double L,” she told her. “But you aren’t—repeat, AREN’T—good enough yet!”

  Lulu hung her head and tried to look sincerely embarrassed. But—let’s be honest here—she wasn’t embarrassed. In fact, she was feeling extremely proud of the stuff she had tried to do, even though it hadn’t exactly worked out. In fact, she was feeling quite positive that even though she might not be good enough YET, she surely would be much more than good enough SOON.

  However, she continued—in the interest of not making trouble—to hang her head.

  Ms. Solinsky, who knew very well how to tell a truly embarrassed girl from a fake one, gave Lulu an oh-so-understanding smile.

  After which she presented her, as she would for years to come, with a toothbrush and a bucket of soapy water.

  Judith Viorst is the author of many books for children, including the classics Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day and its sequels. She lives with her husband, Milton, in Washington, DC.

  Kevin Cornell has secret headquarters in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He has successfully accomplished several thrilling missions, including illustrating Mustache! and Count the Monkeys by Mac Barnett, and The Trouble with Chickens by Doreen Cronin. Leave a coded message for him at kevskinrug.com!

  Simon & Schuster

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  Meet the author, watch videos, and get extras at

  KIDS.SimonandSchuster.com

  authors.simonandschuster.com/Judith-Viorst

  authors.simonandschuster.com/Kevin-Cornell

  The End

  ALSO BY JUDITH VIORST

  Lulu and the Brontosaurus

  Lulu Walks the Dogs

  The Tenth Good Thing About Barney

  Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

  My Mama Says There Aren’t Any Zombies, Ghosts, Vampires, Creatures, Demons, Monsters, Fiends, Goblins, or Things

  Rosie and Michael

  Alexander, Who Used to Be Rich Last Sunday

  The Good-Bye Book

  Alexander, Who’s Not (Do You Hear Me? I Mean It!) Going to Move

  Earrings!

  Super-Completely and Totally the Messiest

  Just in Case

  If I Were in Charge of the World and Other Worries: Poems for Children and Their Parents

  Sad Underwear and Other Complications: More Poems for Children and Their Parents

  ATHENEUM BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS

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  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2014 by Judith Viorst

  Illustrations copyright © 2014 by Kevin Cornell

  Jacket design by Molly Leach

  Jacket illustration copyright © 2014 by Lane Smith Atheneum Books for Young Readers

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

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  The text for this book is set in Officina Sans.

  The illustrations for this book are rendered in graphite and watercolor on paper and then digitally manipulated.

  0314 FFG

  First Edition

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Viorst, Judith.

  Lulu’s mysterious mission / Judith Viorst ; illustrated by Kevin Cornell ; jacket by Lane Smith. — 1st ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: When Lulu’s parents go on vacation, the formidable Ms. Sonia Sofia Solinsky comes to babysit and Lulu behaves as badly as possible to get her to leave until Ms. Solinsky reveals her secret.

  ISBN 978-1-4424-9746-7

  ISBN 978-1-4424-9748-1 (eBook)

  [1. Babysitters—Fiction. 2. Behavior—Fiction. 3. Spies—Fiction.] I. Cornell, Kevin, ill. II. Smith, Lane. III. Title.

  PZ7.V816Lvm 2014

  [Fic]—dc23 2013004350