The Case of the Diamond Dog Collar (13 page)

No way.

Hooligan was on her in a flash, while all the time Myron and Vin kept talking.

“What's that going on by the East Gate, Vin? Oops and ow!
That's
gotta hurt. Looks like the presidential pooch knocked down the thin lady with the big plaid purse.”

“Mmm hmm, knocked the purse clean out of her hands, Myron. Did you see that?”

The shrieking whistles distracted the officers closing in on Mr. Mormora, but only for a moment. Then, when they had him surrounded, a funny thing happened. The CITs—the dogs—all looked in his direction. And next thing you know, they forgot everything they learned in Canine Class and sprang to the rescue.

Have I mentioned dogs love Mr. Mormora?

Meanwhile, I was chasing Hooligan. Even though Ms. Kootoor was a diamond thief, I couldn't let him hurt her.

Would he hurt her?

My mind was going as fast as my feet. Why had the birds gone crazy? Why had Hooligan acted different than the other dogs?

Meanwhile, a couple of Secret Service agents had peeled off to chase me, and I could hear them on their radios. “Fussbudget in jeopardy, Fussbudget in jeopardy.”

Oh,
fine
. Remember how I didn't want to tell you my Secret Service code name? Tessa's is Fireball. Mine is . . . Fussbudget. It's what Granny calls me when I'm having a bad day.

Ms. Kootoor was on the ground when I reached her. But Hooligan didn't want to hurt her. He didn't even want to sniff her. He was all about the Blueberry Bag—trying to get his nose inside. I could see right away Ms. Kootoor wasn't dead or anything, but her stockings were torn and her jacket was dirty. I bent down, but before I could ask if she was okay, I heard Myron again.

“Vin—what do you suppose is going on there? It appears the Secret Service agents are attempting to arrest Mr. Julius Mormora.”

“But the loyal canines have formed a wall of protection, Myron. They're snapping and snarling! They won't let the officers through!”

At the same time, Hooligan's head emerged from Ms. Kootoor's Blueberry Bag—and there was something familiar-looking in his mouth: a bright red diamond dog collar!

HOOLIGAN was not the Top Dog. In fact, Mr. Mormora announced that just this once, there wasn't going to be a Top Dog.

Instead, he wagged his finger at the CITs. “While all of you have made excellent progress, canines that truly have class always stay in place until their CBs release them.”

I was disappointed, but Hooligan thumped his tail and smiled his doggie smile. You would have thought he got a trophy! I don't know why, but I had a funny feeling Mrs. Hedges was right. Now that Canine Class was over, he would forget all about being perfect and go back to having too much energy.

When commencement was over, Mr. Mormora waved good-bye and got into his limousine. He had a plane to catch. Oh—and it turned out his safari wasn't in the jungle at all. It was at a wild animal park in Ohio.

Myron and Vin were packing up, and the last dogs
were leaving when Tessa and Nate came over from the spectator area. Nate looked like I felt—dazed—but Tessa had a huge grin on her face. “We did it, Cammie! We solved the case, found the diamonds, and saved President Alfredo-Chin from protesters!”

I held up my hand. “High five.”

“You don't seem excited,” said Tessa.

“Ms. Kootoor looked awfully sad when Malik put the handcuffs on her,” I said.

“Did she say anything?” Tessa asked.

“
Oh
, yeah,” I said. “She wanted to know how we figured it out. I told her about Nate going online and finding out about her and Mr. Ghanamamma—that they used to be sweethearts long ago, and he wrote his song ‘Lina' about her. And I told her how we saw the mud on her shoes in the clip from Jan and Larry, so we knew she'd been out on the South Lawn when the diamond disappeared.”

“But how did she call Hooligan from so far away?” Tessa asked.

“It was the diamond whistle,” I said. “The whole thing about her dad giving it to her? She made that up. The truth is the whistle's that special kind that only dogs can hear. Dogs and birds, that is. While she was staying in the White House, she trained Hooligan to come whenever he heard it. For a reward, she used cut-up hot dogs!”

“So that's what was in the cooler,” Nate said.

“Oh!” said Tessa. “And when Hooligan went crazy?
And knocked over Mrs. Hedges? Ms. Kootoor must have blown the whistle. We couldn't hear it, but Humdinger and Hooligan did.”

“That's what I figured, too,” I said. “Then today when I blew the whistle, Hooligan ran for Ms. Kootoor—just the way she'd trained him. He must've expected there'd be hot dogs in the Blueberry Bag. But instead, he found this.” The collar had been in my pocket for safekeeping. Now I pulled it out. With all twelve diamonds, it sparkled in the sunlight. Pretty soon either Charlotte or Malik or the guys in gray suits would take it. But for now? I bent down and buckled it on Hooligan's neck.

He raised his nose in the air. He knew he looked handsome.

“Ms. Kootoor told me one more thing,” I said. “She didn't do it for the money. She did it for love.”

“
Awwww
,” said Tessa.

“
Ewwww
,” said Nate.

“But there are still some things I don't understand,” said Tessa. “Like—”

Surrounded by aides and Secret Service agents, here came Mom striding toward us through the Rose Garden. “
Mama-a-a-a!
” Tessa called, and the two of us ran to meet her.

“Good news, girls. The security alert has been lifted,” Mom said. “So things will be getting back to normal around here.”

“What's normal?” I asked.

“Madam President?” said one of her aides. “Excuse
me, Madam President?” said another. “It's very important that we—” “You have a meeting in five minutes, do you realize—” “There's an urgent call from—”

Mom squinched her eyes shut, took a deep breath and held up her hand. Instantly, her aides stopped talking. “Muffins?” she said. “If the weather holds, I am planning a family picnic for noon today on the Oval Office patio. How does that sound?”

Her aides started to protest. Three mayors and an admiral were waiting! And what about the walnut blight in Michigan? Mom raised her hand again. “After lunch,” she said.

“Is Granny invited?” Tessa asked.

“Of course,” Mom said.

“Then you'd better invite Mr. Bryant,” Tessa said.

“Mr. Bryant?” Mom said.

“We'll catch you up,” I said.

It stayed sunny, so we got to eat on the patio—sandwiches, cole slaw, drinks, fruit salad and cookies.

Dad raised a glass of cider. “To Cammie and Tessa and Nate!” he said. “Without their hard work and detecting, the wrong person would now be in jail.”

We all raised our glasses, but—like me—Mom didn't look that happy. “Are you sad because Ms. Kootoor was your friend?” I asked her.

“You get knocked around a lot when you're in politics,” Mom said, “even by your friends. I'm getting pretty tough, but yes, it makes me sad.”

“Do you think Ms. Kootoor and Eb Ghanamamma really wanted to help the people?” I asked.

“Possibly,” Mom said. “But they sure went about it the wrong way.”

“A few more things are bugging me,” I said. “Like was the ‘heightened security' because of the missing diamonds?”

“And is that what you were spending all your time on, Mama?” Tessa asked.

“I can't tell you everything yet,” said Mom. “But generally? Yes and yes. Just like you girls and Granny, my security team realized pretty quickly that there was a connection between El Brillante and the diamonds on Hooligan's collar. So they started looking into it. All the evidence seemed to point to Mr. Mormora, and we knew he was leaving today. With time running out, they decided to arrest him, but they had to keep it quiet. And of course we wanted to wait till after Canine Class.”

“What everybody missed was the old romance between Ms. Kootoor and Eb Ghanamamma,” Dad explained. “And I, for one, can't believe I didn't put that together. When he sang ‘Lina,' there were rumors it was about a famous American model. But I never thought how Lina could be a nickname for Madeline.”

“There's more things I don't get,” Tessa said. “Like how come only one diamond was missing, and then the whole collar?”

“My guess,” Mom said, “is that the thief had to prove to her buyer that the diamonds were what she
said they were. She took one, hoping it wouldn't be missed.”

“And what about the Canine Cookies Hooligan found?” I asked.

Granny answered that one. “I think Ms. Kootoor took that box from the outdoor shed, then dropped cookies here and there. She was in the kitchen and heard you talking Saturday morning, remember? She must have thought if she dropped the cookies, you'd suspect Mr. Mormora instead of her.”

“Ahem?” One of Mom's aides had come across the lawn. He was holding a phone. You could tell he was embarrassed to interrupt.

Mom reached for the phone. “What is it?”

“Oh—it's not for you, ma'am. It's for the children.” He held the phone out. “It's on speaker.”

A voice said, “Hello? Am I speaking to the children of the president of the United States?”

“Hey, President Alfredo-Chin!” said Tessa. “How ya doin'?”

“Very well, thank you,” answered the voice. “Although, we have had a difficult time here in our nation. Now, I am confident things will be better. So I call to thank you for your efforts.”

“You're welcome!” said Tessa, Nate and I.

“And when the time is right,” President Alfredo-Chin went on, “I am planning to bring my dog, Empress Pu-Chi, to your country for a visit. I know how very much she would enjoy meeting your handsome dog, Hooligan.”

Nate, Tessa and I looked at each other. After what
Mr. Mormora had said, we didn't expect we'd like the empress very much. But then we shrugged and said in a chorus “
Sure
!” It didn't really matter, did it? What were the chances the president of a nearby nation would ever bring his dog to Washington, D.C.?

THE South Lawn of the White House is the backyard for the president's family.

And what a great backyard!

Together with the smaller North Lawn in front, it takes up eighteen acres—the size of a dozen football fields.

The South Lawn includes plenty of beautiful trees, some of them dedicated by presidents long ago. The oldest still standing are two southern magnolias next to the South Portico (the White House backdoor), planted in 1830 by President Andrew Jackson in memory of his wife, Rachel. They usually flower in June.

And speaking of flowers, thousands bloom on the grounds every year. In the spring, more than forty thousand grape hyacinths and oxford tulips bloom around the two fountains alone. John Quincy Adams, president from 1825 to 1829, planted the first gardens and wrote in his diary about two acres covered with at least a thousand “forest and fruit-trees, shrubs, hedges,
esculent (edible) vegetables, kitchen and medicinal herbs, hot-house plants, flowers, and weeds.”

Today, a twenty-person National Park Service crew takes care of the White House grounds, and it's a lot of work. Just mowing the lawn takes eight hours in warm weather, and has to be done twice a week. In charge of it all is the superintendent, who has an office on the ground floor of the White House. Most days he gets to work at six a.m.

And while fictional White House pooch Hooligan has Mr. Bryant to watch over him, real White House pets are often looked after by the White House gardeners and groundskeepers.

Of course, the South Lawn isn't just for pets and plants. Like any backyard, it's also for fun!

In the 1920s President Herbert Hoover often invited his advisers to have breakfast and play a game of “Hoover Ball” on the lawn for exercise. Many presidents have enjoyed golf, and near the president's office in the West Wing is a putting green. The first one was installed in 1954, and the squirrels liked it as much as President Dwight Eisenhower did. He blamed the critters on the president before him, Harry Truman, who enjoyed feeding them by hand.