The Riddle of the Red Purse Read online

  Everyone stood up.

  “I see Drake,” said Sherri. “Harry too.”

  “Look at the fish food,” said Dawn. She held up the box.

  She poured a little into her hand.

  She took a little of the sandy stuff out of the purse.

  “It’s the same,” said Jason.

  Dawn looked at Jill.

  Jill was smiling. She was nodding her head up and down. “I put some fish food in the purse,” she said. “I brought it for show-and-tell.”

  “Here’s your purse,” said Dawn.

  Jill came to the back of the room.

  “You’re a great detective,” she told Dawn. “How did you guess?”

  Dawn held up her fingers. “I’ll bet you bought your fish at Wuff Wuff’s.”

  “Right,” said Jill. She tucked her purse in her pocket. “My angelfish. I buy my fish food there too. The fish just love it.”

  Dawn took a breath. “One more thing. You’re the only one who likes cheese.”

  Ms. Rooney smiled.

  Emily Arrow clapped.

  Linda raised her hand high. “Wait a minute,” she said. “Jill had the pennies wrong. She had the nickels wrong. She even had the dimes wrong.”

  Jill looked as if she were going to cry. “I can’t help it,” she said. “I’m terrible at math.”

  Linda nodded. She looked at Dawn. “Not bad,” she said. She started to smile.

  Dawn smiled too.

  She went back to her seat.

  The riddle was solved.

  She couldn’t wait for the next mystery.

  She hoped it would happen soon.

  A Biography of Patricia Reilly Giff

  Patricia Reilly Giff came from a family of storytellers. She learned to read when she was four and never stopped, delighted with that widening world of story. She read through her classes in her elementary school, St. Pascal Baylon, and through her years at her high school, the Mary Louis Academy. Perhaps that’s why math and science are still so mysterious to her.

  She majored in history and education at Marymount College and then went on to St. John’s University for a master’s degree in history, delighted that she could read her way through the lives of kings and queens, through plagues and wars.

  In 1959, she married James Giff, a New York City detective, who had stories of his own. It was a perfect match because he thought it was fine that she spent hours reading instead of attending to the pots on the stove or the potatoes growing in the closet.

  She spent the next twenty years raising their three children—James, William, and Alice—teaching, first in New York City and then Elmont, Long Island, and attending Hofstra University for a professional diploma in reading.

  But always she wanted to write stories of her own, so her husband built her a small office out of two closets in the kitchen.

  That was the beginning. She wrote about her childhood and her children, she wrote about the children she taught, and now she writes about her grandchildren and what interests them. She visits school and libraries and loves to talk with people who enjoy reading.

  She received an honorary Doctor of Letters from Hofstra University and from Sacred Heart University. Several of her books were chosen as ALA-ALSC Notable Children’s Books and ALA-YALSA Best Books for Young Adults. They include The Gift of the Pirate Queen; All the Way Home; Nory Ryan’s Song, a Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators Golden Kite Honor Book for Fiction; and Newbery Honor books Lily’s Crossing and Pictures of Hollis Woods. Lily’s Crossing was also chosen as a Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor Book. She’s also won the Christopher Award.

  In between, she cares for an indoor garden of almost two hundred plants—and reads, of course.

  Patricia Reilly Giff on a September day in 1937 in St. Albans, New York. The future Polk Street Mysteries author is two years old.

  Patricia Reilly Giff (age four) with her sister, Annie (age two). The picture was taken at Christmastime circa 1939.

  Patricia Reilly Giff on May 1, 1955 (age twenty) with her little poodle, Nikki, who was just eleven weeks old at the time.

  Patricia Reilly Giff fishing on the Delaware River near her vacation home in East Branch, New York, circa 1976. In the background is her dog, Heidi.

  Patricia Reilly Giff with her two sons, Jimmy (left) and Bill (right) circa 1991. Missing from the picture is her daughter, Alice.

  Patricia Reilly Giff with her husband, Jim, visiting an elementary school classroom to talk about her popular Polk Street series. Giff speaks at schools, libraries, bookstores, and conferences across the country, where she shares stories of how she became a writer.

  Patricia Reilly Giff in her gazebo workshop at her house in Weston, Connecticut, circa 1997. Giff says she tries to write a little bit every day, whether she is sitting in her home or taking a long trip by car or train.

  Patricia Reilly Giff speaking to a class in a school library about books and writing. Giff also holds writing classes for adults dedicated to writing for children, and many of her students go on to become published authors.

  Patricia Reilly Giff signing books for fans at a bookstore in Long Island, New York. She grew up nearby in the Queens neighborhood of St. Albans, New York.

  Patricia Reilly Giff with grandson Billy in the Dinosaur’s Paw, a children’s bookstore opened by Giff and her husband, Jim, in 1990. Giff’s son Jimmy now runs the store, located in downtown Fairfield, Connecticut.

  Patricia Reilly Giff and her husband with their seven grandchildren at her home in Trumbull, Connecticut, over the 2004–05 winter holidays. From left to right: Bill, Patti, Caitlin, Christine, Jimmy, Conor, Patricia, Jim, and Jilli.

  Patricia Reilly Giff’s daughter and best friend, Alice, with her two children. In the middle is Jilli, Giff’s youngest grandchild, and on the left is Patti, who is named after her grandmother.

  Patricia Reilly Giff reading to her grandchildren Christine, Patti, Caitlin, and Conor in her home library in Trumbull, Connecticut. The picture books are set on the bottom shelf of the library stacks, so her young grandchildren can reach their favorites without any help.

  About the Illustrator

  Blanche Sims was born in Cleveland, Ohio. Her grandfather was a portrait painter and art professor. He has paintings in the Smithsonian. She would send him drawings and he would reward her with chocolates and other gifts. In elementary school her teachers would ask her to draw historical events to display in class.

  Blanche has worked as an illustrator for young people’s art at Famous Artists School and later at Xerox in the art department. Then she became a children’s book illustrator. Among the many books she has illustrated is the Polk Street series.

  Blanche lives in Sandy Hook, CT. She has four children and eight grandchildren.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  copyright © 1987 by Patricia Reilly Giff

  illustrations copyright © 1987 Blanche Sims

  cover design by Georgia Morrissey

  978-1-4532-2040-5

  This edition published in 2011 by Open Road Integrated Media

  180 Varick Street

  New York, NY 10014

  www.openroadmedia.com

  e of the Red Purse