The Red Blazer Girls: The Mistaken Masterpiece

Informationen zum Autor Michael D. Beil Klappentext The perfect series for kids who loved THE LEMONADE WAR series and are ready for more mysteries! "With wit! cunning! snappy dialogue and superior math skills! The Red Blazer Girls represent the best of girl-detectives while still feeling relatable and real. Nancy Drew would be right at home with this group." -- Huffington Post 's 15 Greatest Kid Detectives List Sophie! Margaret! Becca! and Leigh Ann are back in an all-new Red Blazer Girls caper. In the third installment! Sophie is nose to fist with her arch-rival! Livvy! all while taking care of movie-star Nate Etan's dog! when Father Julian hires the Blazers to help him authenticate a painting. Mayhem and mystery follows as the girls attempt to uncover the truth. Oh! and! uh! Sophie's friend-who-is-not-a-boyfriend! Raf! is back. . . . Michael Beil! a New York City high school English teacher and life-long mystery fan! delivers a middle-grade caper that's perfect for middle-grade readers who have finished THE LEMONADE WAR series and are ready for more advanced mysteries! Chapter 1 Trust me, I thought it was a non-contact sport, too. I glide through the water after a picture-perfect flip turn, the muscles in my arms and shoulders grateful for those two seconds of rest before my face bursts through the surface. With fifty meters to go and a comfortable lead, I could relax and cruise to the finish, but that's just not me. I'm not about to let a little discomfort get in the way of a personal best time in the 400 individual medley, so I come out of the turn and start the final lap with arms and legs churning. The last twenty meters feel like I'm swimming in oatmeal, and when I finally touch the wall, every molecule in my body is aching and I am struggling to get enough air in my lungs. My swim coach, Michelle, is standing over me, smiling at the stopwatch in her hand. She bends down, holding it closer for me to see, but the chlorine in my eyes makes it hard for me to focus. "Good?" I ask, squinting. "Nope. Grrr-eat. You broke your own record by almost three seconds." In the lane to my left, my teammate Olivia "Livvy" Klack touches the wall and lifts her perky, perfect nose to face Michelle. "Nice job, Liv," I say, trying to be friendly. "Thought you were going to pass me in the backstroke." Of the four strokes in the 400 IM--butterfly, back, breast, and freestyle--the backstroke has always been my weakest, and it is Livvy's strongest. Livvy doesn't even bother to look at me. She just kind of grunts and swims away, ducking under the lane markers to go talk to her friends, who are still finishing. "What is with you two?" Michelle asks. "Long story," I say. And it is. For now, let me just say that while the Red Blazer Girls--that's me and my three best friends, Margaret Wrobel, Rebecca Chen, and Leigh Ann Jaimes--were busy solving the Mystery of the Vanishing Violin, we had a little run-in with Livvy and her friends. I know it sounds incredibly juvenile, but she started it. It's not my fault she picked a fight with four girls who are smart, stubborn, and not at all above a little revenge if the situation requires it. It did. So we did. And while she used to just ignore me, she now appears to be embracing an active hatred of me. It's our last practice before our first meet, which is against a team from Westchester that has been together for years and is rumored to be really tough. We, on the other hand, have only been practicing at the pool at Asphalt Green, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, for a month. When I was nine and ten, I was on another of Michelle's junior swim teams, but I took a year off from the sport to concentrate on school and the guitar. Funny thing, though. It turns out there is enough time in the day to swim, too, if you're willing to get up at fi...

Auteur

Michael D. Beil

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The perfect series for kids who loved THE LEMONADE WAR series and are ready for more mysteries!

"With wit, cunning, snappy dialogue and superior math skills, The Red Blazer Girls represent the best of girl-detectives while still feeling relatable and real. Nancy Drew would be right at home with this group." -- Huffington Post's 15 Greatest Kid Detectives List

Sophie, Margaret, Becca, and Leigh Ann are back in an all-new Red Blazer Girls caper. In the third installment, Sophie is nose to fist with her arch-rival, Livvy, all while taking care of movie-star Nate Etan's dog, when Father Julian hires the Blazers to help him authenticate a painting. Mayhem and mystery follows as the girls attempt to uncover the truth. Oh, and, uh, Sophie's friend-who-is-not-a-boyfriend, Raf, is back. . . .

Michael Beil, a New York City high school English teacher and life-long mystery fan, delivers a middle-grade caper that's perfect for middle-grade readers who have finished THE LEMONADE WAR series and are ready for more advanced mysteries!

Échantillon de lecture

Chapter 1

Trust me, I thought it was a non-contact sport, too.

I glide through the water after a picture-perfect flip turn, the muscles in my arms and shoulders grateful for those two seconds of rest before my face bursts through the surface. With fifty meters to go and a comfortable lead, I could relax and cruise to the finish, but that's just not me. I'm not about to let a little discomfort get in the way of a personal best time in the 400 individual medley, so I come out of the turn and start the final lap with arms and legs churning. The last twenty meters feel like I'm swimming in oatmeal, and when I finally touch the wall, every molecule in my body is aching and I am struggling to get enough air in my lungs.

My swim coach, Michelle, is standing over me, smiling at the stopwatch in her hand. She bends down, holding it closer for me to see, but the chlorine in my eyes makes it hard for me to focus.

"Good?" I ask, squinting.

"Nope. Grrr-eat. You broke your own record by almost three seconds."

In the lane to my left, my teammate Olivia "Livvy" Klack touches the wall and lifts her perky, perfect nose to face Michelle.

"Nice job, Liv," I say, trying to be friendly. "Thought you were going to pass me in the backstroke." Of the four strokes in the 400 IM--butterfly, back, breast, and freestyle--the backstroke has always been my weakest, and it is Livvy's strongest.

Livvy doesn't even bother to look at me. She just kind of grunts and swims away, ducking under the lane markers to go talk to her friends, who are still finishing.

"What is with you two?" Michelle asks.

"Long story," I say.

And it is. For now, let me just say that while the Red Blazer Girls--that's me and my three best friends, Margaret Wrobel, Rebecca Chen, and Leigh Ann Jaimes--were busy solving the Mystery of the Vanishing Violin, we had a little run-in with Livvy and her friends. I know it sounds incredibly juvenile, but she started it. It's not my fault she picked a fight with four girls who are smart, stubborn, and not at all above a little revenge if the situation requires it. It did. So we did. And while she used to just ignore me, she now appears to be embracing an active hatred of me.

It's our last practice before our first meet, which is against a team from Westchester that has been together for years and is rumored to be really tough. We, on the other hand, have only been practicing at the pool at Asphalt Green, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, for a month. When I was nine and ten, I was on another of Michelle's junior swim teams, but I took a year off from the sport to concentrate on school and the guitar. Funny thing, though. It turns out there is enough time in the day to swim, too, if you're willing to get up at five in the morning. Margaret is still amazed that I'm doing it; after all, I used to grumble and be grouchy all day whenever she decided we absolutely needed an early start on the mystery of th…