The Many Mysteries of the Finkel Family

know any other mysteries that need solving.”
“What about Ima’s brooch? It’s been missing for a week now. Don’t you think that should be investigated?”
Huh? What brooch? Then, Lara remembered. Ima had lost her special brooch and was asking everyone to keep an eye out for it. Lara resisted the urge to roll her eyes. That was hardly the kind of case worthy of FIASCCO.
“She probably just left it in a box somewhere. Or loaned it to Aunt Miriam or something.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Why don’t you try to find out?”
Lara sighed through gritted teeth. “Because it’s a really boring mystery! I told you, I’m going to take care of things with Dad. If you’re so interested in Ima’s brooch, you find it.”
“Maybe I will,” Caroline said. But she did not seem very enthusiastic about the idea.
Lara straightened her back and picked up her pen again. No matter what Caroline thought, she was going to figure this out. She considered the options. Maybe she could find top secret information on his computer? Hacking into other people’s computers was one of Georgia’s favorite tactics.
The problem was, Lara had no hacking skills whatsoever. Well, okay. Lara wouldn’t need to hack anything. She could just sneak into Dad’s office and borrow his laptop for a bit.
That led to another problem: How could Lara get into Dad’s office without him noticing?
She considered sneaking in under cover of night, then dismissed the idea as too risky. Her parents’ bedroom was right next to Dad’s office, and Ima was a notoriously light sleeper. Lara did not relish the idea of having to explain what she was doing in the office at midnight. So, she’d have to sneak in during the daytime. She just needed the right distraction. Fortunately, she could recruit an accomplice.
Lara barged into Benny and Noah’s room. She kept her eyes alert to avoid tripping on the many thingamabobs spread out over Benny’s half of the floor. Lara had long since stopped bothering to track exactly what objects Benny had claimed for his projects. So long as he wasn’t trying to use any of her things, she didn’t care.
And there was Benny, tinkering with paper clips on his bed.
“If you’re here to help me with my machine, then you can’t,” Benny informed her. “The contest rules say that only the inventor can build it.”
“I am not here to help with your machine.” Lara, diplomatic as always, did not point out her lack of interest in such a thing. “I have something else for you to do.”
Benny didn’t look up from his contraption. “Why should I? You’re not the boss of me.”
Fortunately, Lara had anticipated this very response. “Because if you do me a tiny little favor, I’ll give you two of my hairclips for . . . for whatever you’re doing.”
“Deal,” he said instantly, bouncing off the bed with a flourish.
Lara fidgeted with the edge of her shirt. “I’m so glad we could come to an agreement. So, here’s the plan. I need you to create a distraction downstairs while I . . . do something important.”
There was no need to tell Benny exactly what she planned to do. That would just invite more questions.
Her brother’s grin appeared positively devilish. “If you’d told me that’s what it was, I would have done it for free.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. So do you have any ideas?”
“Yeah! Maybe a smoke grenade! I was reading on the Internet about how to make one, and—”
“No! No explosions or smoke or anything else that puts the house at risk of total destruction.”
For goodness’ sake, Lara added silently. Maybe Lara wasn’t exactly being the most responsible big sister at the moment, but she could at least set a few commonsense rules.
“But you said you wanted a distraction.”
“And I do. Just something a little less dangerous. Please. Come on,” Lara prodded. “You have to have some ideas.”
After Lara vetoed a few of Benny’s more outrageous suggestions, the plan was finalized. Lara headed for the hallway bathroom—her designated waiting spot for the mission. As she squatted by the sink, she tried to ignore the ache in her knees and the heartbeat hammering through her chest.
Right on cue, a loud crash sounded from downstairs. Benny’s loudest voice followed a moment later. “Da-aad!” he cried. The panic in his voice sounded very real even to Lara.
“Coming,” Dad said. Heavy footsteps thumped down the hall, past Lara’s hiding spot.
Lara slipped out of the bathroom. Dad was nowhere to be found, and he’d left the office door wide open.
Before she could talk herself out of it, Lara made straight for the laptop. Guessing his password was easy—nlcb777. Really, using the first initials of Lara and her siblings was quite uncreative.
Unfortunately, Dad’s desktop was a mess, with approximately a jillion icons crammed together. There was little order to any of it. A recipe for apple turnovers. The handbook for Pinecone Arts Academy parents. A whole lot of files with useless names like “doc3.”
“Come on,” Lara whispered. Surely there had to be something relevant in all of this.
Ah. There it was, right next to Spider Solitaire: a file called “termination letter.”
Lara emailed the document to herself quickly, then raced out of the office. Mission complete.
She let herself into Benny and Noah’s bedroom. She’d promised Benny hair clips in exchange for his help, and she intended to deliver. The clips sat in her pocket—a necessary sacrifice for Benny’s assistance.
The loud voices coming from downstairs told Lara that Benny’s distraction had not yet ended.
Lara sat on Noah’s desk chair and examined the room. Her older brother’s half of it was not particularly neat, but neither was it messy. A pennant for his high school was mounted on the wall surrounded by pictures of Noah and his friends. His physics textbook sat open on the desk, right next to a manual on auto repairs. Lara frowned. How horrifically dull! She couldn’t imagine why her brother would want to actually read that thing. Well, that wasn’t her concern.
Next, she considered Benny’s part of the room. Now that really was a