Tokyo Heist by Diana Renn Page B

friends.”
    “What?”
    “It’s easier for you, isn’t it, if I’m always available. Good old reliable Edge. He’ll show up at a moment’s notice. He’ll be a sounding board for all your ideas. He’ll bring you coffee. He’ll film your suspect.”
    “Look, if you don’t want to help me solve this mystery, then don’t. Nobody’s forcing you to do anything.”
    “So you don’t want my help?”
    “I don’t. I can do this on my own.”
    “That’s what you want?”
    “That’s what I want. Go to film camp with Mardi. Have a nice summer.”
    “Fine. I will.”
    “Fine.”
    “Great.”
    I run out the door, out of the house, past Mrs. Downey, whose mouth drops in astonishment. I run all the way to the bus stop, imagining I’m Kimono Girl, running so fast she becomes airborne, surrounded by radial speed lines and sparks.

9
    S unday morning, the brakes complain as my dad coaxes the Volvo down a steep private drive. I should be excited as my dad pulls up beside an iron gate. Soon I’ll be viewing a real crime scene. But mostly I feel nauseated. I can’t stop replaying my fight with Edge.
    I haven’t even wanted to think about the van Gogh mystery since then. After I got back to my dad’s on Friday evening, I cried for a couple of hours, trying to figure out how a great day with Edge turned so ugly so fast. I don’t know how we’ll ever erase the mean things we both said and start over.
    Eventually, I escaped into Kimono Girl , a story I could control. I picked up on page eleven. I managed to storyboard four more pages. In my story, a van Gogh painting called Sunrise Bridge is swiped off the wall of the Seattle Art Museum. The suspected thief is a notorious Seattle art criminal, the Cormorant, so called because she always leaves a sketch of a cormorant behind, the curved neck shaped like a question mark.
    Kimono Girl resolves to catch her. She hides in the museum paintings, studying the people who work there, thinking this might be an inside job. She gradually begins to suspect a freelance conservator named Kara Mirant, who comes and goes at odd times, always lingering in the gallery of nineteenth-century European paintings. One day, KG follows Kara to her studio in Belltown to look for clues. She watches Kara work at a drafting table late into the night, then leave, walking briskly down to Alaskan Way and the piers. She follows the art conservator onto Pier 43, then gasps as she morphs into the Cormorant and flies out over Elliott Bay. Now KG knows she has to find that painting. And she’s dying to see what Kara was working on at that drafting table.
    Well, KG wouldn’t sit in a car gaping at a fancy house. Neither would Kyo and Mika in Vampire Sleuths . They’d all get inside to view the crime scene and start asking questions. Just because Edge is off the case doesn’t mean I should quit, too. I don’t have much time left. My mom gave her permission for me to go to Japan, and we’re leaving in just four days.
    Holding our bouquet of obviously-last-minute flowers, I get out of the car. As I follow my dad to the Yamadas’ front door, I frantically pick the red sticker off the plastic, wishing we had gotten something nicer than discount pink carnations from the nearby Mobil station.
    The Yamadas’ house is flat and low, tucked into the hillside, with a wide deck facing the lake. Deep blue tiles shimmer on the roof. The yard resembles a real Japanese garden with pruned shrubs, red maples, winding white-stone pathways, and a miniature stone pagoda. A fountain bubbles up from a pond, where orange koi glide among lily pads.
    Kenji greets us at the door. “Please, if you don’t mind.” He gestures to a basket of slippers by the door. “It is a Japanese custom.”
    We exchange our shoes for beautiful silk slippers. I choose green ones with a pattern of white cranes. My dad chooses black with red dragons. Then we follow Kenji into a living room. One whole wall is windows, displaying the gray-blue lake.