Ugh, Clove and her obsession with cliff-hangers. Can’t she just get to the point already? Now I’m stuck with all the explaining. Wonderful!

[Not.]

So after Clove left the last entry with such a big mystery, let me tell you what happened next. Sophia screamed. Clove asked her what happened. Turns out her necklace was missing. Yay.

Yesterday, Clove told us this in our meeting and we decided this was a mystery worth solving. We made an amazing plan and today Clove and I brought it to action.

I was hiding near the lockers, carefully watching as Clove approached Sophia. “Found your necklace yet?” she asked her casually. Sophia looked surprised, but quickly put on a sad face.

“No!” she wailed. “I didn’t! And now my parents say that I’m only allowed to wear silver jewelry. Like, ugh.” She moved to leave, but Clove blocked her way.

“How does it look?” Clove questioned.

Sophia frowned. “Why do you ask?” she said a little too quickly, much faster than I liked. She seemed eager to go, almost like she was hiding something…

“No reason,” Clove said, acting innocent. (Clove is an amazing actress BTW. I almost thought she was innocent when she said that.) “I just wanted to see if I could help you search for it. You know, just what besties do.” She slipped an arm around Sophia’s shoulders.

Sophia’s expression lightened. She took out her phone from her bag and showed Clove something on the screen. “It looks like this.”

Clove spent the next three minutes genuinely praising its beauty. “Can you send the picture to me? I’d love to have one in the same design. But with crystals, of course.”

A flash of jealousy showed on Sophia’s face, which Clove didn’t see. But I did. She was probably jealous of Clove’s taste.

None-the-less, she shrugged and did something on her phone. A second later, Clove’s cell buzzed. She flashed her a brilliant (and forced) smile and waving goodbye, Sophia ran into the nearest room. Clove walked towards me and subtly threw me a smile. I gave her a thumbs-up and slowly walked away.

Our investigation had *officially* begun.

In our meeting, I reported the whole conversation and how I thought Sophia was hiding something. Clove said that she had asked Sophia where she had last seen her necklace and her reply was, “Yesterday I had taken it out for P.E. and had put it in my bag. Then I put my bag in my locker.”

Clove had checked her locker and there was nothing out of the ordinary. But there was one box Sophia had not allowed her to touch and explore, no matter how much Clove tried to persuade her.

“Guess what?” Cinnamon said after Clove and I had finished our stories. “I heard that May lost her gold bracelet too. She couldn’t find it after she put it in her locker.”

“Then she should check her locker. Duh,” I mumbled.

“Oh, she did,” Cinnamon countered. “Around twenty times. Coincidence?”

Clove stood up, like she often did when she had to say something. “Ok, gals, this is getting too much,” she said, looking up from her phone. “I just got a text from Cindy and guess what it’s about? Another missing gold accessory.”

Cinnamon looked both shocked and worried. “Looks like our thief has a thing for gold,” she said softly, fingering the simple gold chain she wore around her neck.

I banged my fist on the table, getting Clove and Cinnamon’s attention. “That is the last straw!” I shouted. “We have to hatch a plan to catch the Gold Thief, before we all become broke!”