The Crown of Venice Read online

  GROSSET & DUNLAP

  Published by the Penguin Group

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  Original Title: Agatha Mistery: La Corona del Doge

  Text by Sir Steve Stevenson

  Original cover and illustrations by Stefano Turconi

  English language edition copyright © 2014 Penguin Group (USA) LLC. Original edition published by Istituto Geografico De Agostini S.p.A., Italy, 2011 © 2011 Atlantyca Dreamfarm s.r.l., Italy

  International Rights © Atlantyca S.p.A.—via Leopardi 8, 20123 Milano, Italia

  [email protected]—www.atlantyca.com

  Published in 2014 by Grosset & Dunlap, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014. GROSSET & DUNLAP is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA) LLC.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

  ISBN 978-0-698-19307-9

  Version_1

  Contents

  Map

  Copyright

  Title Page

  Dedication

  SEVENTH MISSION AGENTS

  DESTINATION

  OBJECTIVE

  PRELUDE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  EPILOGUE

  Special Excerpt from Agatha's Next Mystery

  I would like to acknowledge the tireless assistance of Gianfrance Calvitti, a close friend and exceptional mystery writer.

  SEVENTH MISSION

  Agents

  Agatha

  Twelve years old, an aspiring mystery writer; has a formidable memory

  Dash

  Agatha’s cousin and student at the private school Eye International Detective Academy

  Chandler

  Butler and former boxer with impeccable British style

  Watson

  Obnoxious Siberian cat with the nose of a bloodhound

  Marco

  Gondolier who guides tourists through the canals of Venice; sings romantic ballads at the top of his lungs

  DESTINATION

  Venice, Italy

  OBJECTIVE

  Discover who stole a priceless golden crown that belonged to one of the Doges of the Most Serene Republic of Venice

  It was a Sunday morning in the middle of February, and a loud blare of trumpets rattled the window glass of the penthouse apartment above Baker Place. The stereo’s surround sound was state of the art; it sounded as if General Custer himself had come back to life and was blowing a bugle into the ear of the tall teenage boy stretched out on the sofa.

  Dashiell Mistery jolted awake, as quickly as if someone had thrown him under an ice-cold shower. His hair flopped over his forehead as he clapped his hands over his ears and jumped into action, dodging piles of clothes and stray electronic devices to slam down the volume control on his stereo. The trumpets cut off midnote.

  Dash stood panting with relief, his eyes puffy from lack of sleep. It was eight in the morning. His brand-new alarm system had done the trick, but the fourteen-year-old student at Eye International Detective Academy couldn’t remember why in the world he had set it to go off so early. He scratched his head as memories of the previous night began to seep through the fog around his brain. “Oh no,” he groaned in despair. “My Criminal Physiognomy class! I’d better get to work!”

  In a flash, he was sprawled in his swivel chair, staring at his army of computers. Every one of the monitors was displaying Alien Hunt, an online video game in which a squad of action heroes patrols a space station, wiping out monsters from outer space.

  He’d spent most of the week using the avatar Phil Destroy, a cyborg warrior armed to the teeth. In a week of marathon sessions, Dash had worked his way up to the national finals, taking on top-ranked players with names like Killderella and Exterminizer. Meanwhile, he’d completely neglected his Criminal Physiognomy homework, and now he was terrified that Professor FB32, who had a sixth sense for sniffing out slackers, would pick on him to answer questions in the class’s next videoconference.

  Would he make a fool of himself? In just a few minutes, his teacher’s face would appear on the screen. He had to get ready immediately!

  Feeling frantic, Dash logged off Alien Hunt and picked up the printouts and notes strewn all over his desk. He formed a mound of paper in front of him, picked up a yellow highlighter, and started to cram. Physiognomy was a difficult subject—it involved looking for clues about a person from their appearance, especially facial features.

  “Okay, okay . . . ‘What does it mean when the subject has a unibrow?’” Dash muttered to himself. He searched through his notes until he found a scrawl on the back of a candy wrapper. “Ah, here we go,” he went on. “It’s a clear sign of an inclination toward theft!”

  He narrowed his eyes and continued to work his way down the review questions. “‘Who came up with this theory?’” he read aloud.

  Dash didn’t need to dig through his notes for the answer to this question. “Simple!” he crowed. “Cesare Lombroso, the founder of criminal anthropology. Which was later debunked by two other professors . . . wait, what were their names again?” He rifled through his pile of paper.

  “Where are my historical notes?” he cried in desperation. He remembered that Cesare Lombroso’s nineteenth-century theories had been revised from top to bottom. But who had done it, and why?

  “I don’t have a clue,” he groaned. “I really need to pay more attention and take better notes! Now what will I tell the professor?”

  To make matters worse, the Eye International symbol suddenly flashed on the monitor screen of his main computer, followed by a message: Connecting, please wait.

  Dash ran his hands through his hair. “I’m sunk!” he repeated again and again.

  But weirdly, the face that appeared on his screen was not his professor's, but that of the school secretary, a middle-aged woman with frown lines framing her mouth. “We’re sorry to inform you that Agent FB32 is engaged in a mission and won’t be able to teach today’s class,” she announced. “The Criminal Physiognomy class is postponed until next Sunday. Happy investigating, everyone!”

  The smile on Dash’s face spread from one ear to the other. What amazing luck! Now he had a whole week to revisit the topic and take better notes, and he decided to start right away. But his stomach was growling. It wouldn’t hurt to have something for breakfast first, would it? He picked up the phone and ordered his favorite breakfast: a three-cheese pizza with double pepperoni, anchovies, and jalapeños. He’d nicknamed it “Zombie Pizza” because the smell alone could wake the dead.

  He had just put down the phone when a BLIP! let him know that his friends were online for a game of Alien Hunt.

  “I can’t give in to temptation,” Dash lectured himself. “I have to focus on my detective
career.”

  But his resistance crumbled in seconds. I’ve got a whole week, he told himself. He swiveled to face his computer, put on his headset, and greeted Clarke and Mallory, whose avatars were waiting for him at the entrance to the first level. Phil Destroy entered the dark corridors of the spaceship, overcome with the thrill of the challenge.

  “Blast that monster! Zap it!” Clarke’s voice shouted through the headphones.

  “Look out! They’re coming out of the walls!” Mallory yelled at the top of her lungs.

  “I’ll have to bounce pretty soon, guys,” Dash interrupted. “I’m getting a pizza delivered.”

  “Hey Dash, did you hear about all the apartment thefts?” asked Clarke.

  “No, what happened?”

  “Scotland Yard says every one of the victims had a pizza delivered right before they noticed their stuff had gone missing,” his friend explained.

  “It happened to us,” added Mallory. “They stole my mom’s silver teapot.”

  Dash snickered. If the police had called him to investigate, he would have solved the case by now.

  “They wouldn’t have much luck with me,” he declared between blasts of his turbo-charged ray gun. “I’m much too smart to fall for a scam like that!”

  The ring of the doorbell distracted Dash from the game. He swung the door open and welcomed the pizza delivery man. His name was Derek; he was a nice guy who always told Dash wild stories about his deliveries around the city. And he didn’t have a unibrow, so he was clearly not a thief!

  “That’ll be sixteen,” said Derek.

  After digging around on the table, Dash managed to unearth his wallet and hand over a twenty. Derek walked off, thanking him for the generous tip.

  But the morning still had surprises in store. As he scarfed down his first slice of hot Zombie Pizza, the aspiring detective noticed that the special titanium device hanging on its hook above the sofa was flashing.

  “Dash! What are you doing? We’re getting annihilated!” Clarke’s protests rang over the headphones.

  Dash ignored him and grabbed his titanium EyeNet, the high-tech device used by every student at his detective school. The message on the screen made him immediately lose his appetite.

  INVESTIGATION IN VENICE! UTMOST URGENCY.

  CONSULT THE ATTACHED FILES ASAP.

  Dash abandoned his half-eaten pizza and took off like an intercontinental missile to his cousin Agatha’s. He left the apartment so fast that he didn’t even notice that his favorite baseball glove had vanished.

  On clear mornings like this one, a satellite high over the outskirts of London would have detected a curiously perfect square of land with a lavender rectangle right in the middle. The estate below was laid out geometrically: the gardens, walkways, fountains, and the venerable Victorian mansion with its distinctive lavender roof.

  This was Mistery House, the ancestral home of twelve-year-old Agatha and her eccentric family. Her parents spent very little time in London, breezing in for quick visits between trips to far-flung corners of the earth, often traveling for months at a time. As Agatha grew up, she became so comfortable with their comings and goings that she stopped even going to the airport to see them off. She preferred to stay at the mansion, making lists of all the projects she could tackle in their absence and getting to work as soon as she could.

  During this trip, she’d decided to inventory and clean the Colonial Gallery.

  “When was the last time we dusted in here?” Agatha asked the butler, Chandler, as she unlocked the heavy bolt.

  Chandler shifted his weight, looking vaguely uncomfortable. “It must be at least a year, I should think, Miss.”

  “So long? And to think I used to explore it so often when I was a kid . . .”

  “Mr. and Mrs. Mistery have never requested that I clean it,” confessed the butler, a little embarrassed. “And I must admit that it had completely slipped my mind.”

  “It’s better this way. Now there are even more things to rediscover,” said Agatha happily, stroking the tip of her upturned nose. “Come on, let’s go get our hands dirty!”

  Her white Siberian cat, Watson, had already darted into the darkened room and was prowling from pillar to post, sniffing the assorted antiques. Armed with an enormous feather duster, Chandler strode across the threshold and went straight to the windows to let in some fresh air. A small breeze stirred up a thick cloud of dust. Luckily, the butler had come prepared, covering his immaculate dinner jacket with a protective layer.

  The Colonial Gallery was located in the house’s vast basement, and the ancient stones of the manor’s foundations could be seen at points where the plaster had chipped away over the years. Like a museum exhibit, the hall was divided into sections, each dedicated to one of the Mistery family’s celebrated ancestors. Over the centuries, each of them had gathered precious exotic relics from all corners of the globe and brought them back to London, where they were now stashed in cabinets and shelves or displayed on pedestals.

  As soon as the dust had settled, Agatha walked across the room and looked around as though she were gazing at an enchanted palace. “Marvelous!” she whispered. “Why did I wait so long to come back down here?”

  Her voice was full of regret. This part of the house was a treasure trove of curiosities. Agatha had a mind like a steel trap, and could effortlessly memorize details of anything that crossed her path. She spent her free time devouring books on all sorts of topics, and jotting down the most interesting facts in her trusty notebook. It was all part of her plan to become a world-famous mystery writer!

  The butler tried to soothe her. “Mistery House is too big to keep tabs on every room . . . It’s always hiding some new surprise!”

  Agatha rubbed her hands together. “You’re right, Chandler,” she said with a smile. “Do you mind if I take a quick peek around while you get started cleaning?”

  “Not at all, Miss.”

  Agatha approached the first pedestal. The bronze plaque bore the name Margaret Mistery. Agatha’s great-aunt had been an intrepid anthropologist, specializing in musical instruments. She had collected Celtic harps, Egyptian lutes, Amazonian drums, and many other unusual instruments.

  “This must be a didgeridoo,” said Agatha, pointing at a five-foot-long hollow tube.

  Chandler paused to shake out his feather duster, glancing at the unusual item. “Do you need a hand moving it?” he asked.

  “Thanks. I’d like to get a closer look at the carvings.”

  “As you wish, Miss Agatha.”

  Chandler was a former heavyweight boxer, and he kept in shape with constant exercise. The massive didgeridoo seemed to weigh little more than a twig in his giant hands.

  “If my memory serves me correctly, indigenous Australians carve these from huge eucalyptus branches that have been hollowed out by termites,” Agatha said with excitement. “They paint them with traditional tribal colors and play them during ceremonies.”

  The butler nodded.

  “Don’t you think it’s amazing?” Agatha asked him. “It’s an antique, probably dating back to the Stone Age.”

  “It seems a bit unwieldy, to be honest,” said Chandler. “How do you play such a thing?”

  “You blow into it like a trombone and tap on the tube to modulate the sound.” Agatha was more and more engrossed. “Want to give it a try?”

  Chandler brushed the instrument down with the feather duster, then put it to his mouth and blew as hard as he could.

  A cloud of dust puffed out of the far end of the tube, covering Watson from head to tail. The cat jumped, startled, and fled to a corner to clean his fur.

  “So sorry,” Chandler apologized. “I didn’t see him there.”

  The aspiring writer laughed heartily while moving on to the second pedestal, which displayed a huge wooden totem.

  The plaque revealed th
e name Miles Mistery, translator of Native American languages during the English settlement of the New World. The Mohicans had taken a fancy to him and swamped him with all sorts of gifts from various tribes.

  Agatha noticed a strange object hanging from the totem, a circle of bent wood hung with feathers and strips of deerskin. She recalled reading somewhere that they were called dream catchers, and that according to the Native Americans, they were used to encourage good dreams and rid the user of nightmares. She took out her notebook and pen, jotting down notes for a story.

  “Okay, the first scene could begin like this . . . ,” she muttered. “The settlers believe that the dream catchers are calling in evil spirits to frighten their herds away . . . a girl in the village discovers that it’s really a band of greedy fur trappers, playing on their superstitions . . .” She continued to write for several minutes, while Chandler dusted and polished tirelessly. “That could work!” she exclaimed with satisfaction, closing her notebook and putting it back in her pocket.

  Just then she heard a thud. In his wanderings, Watson had knocked over a large ebony mask found in sub-Saharan Africa by Frederick Mistery. Uncle Fred, as Agatha’s mother called him, had been a celebrated ballet dancer. One day he’d decided to give up the stage and went to live among African tribes so that he could learn their dances. He had returned in a ship full of fascinating objects: statues, ritual staffs, spears, carved shields, and many other intriguing artifacts. The most precious of all was the scary-looking headdress Watson had bumped.

  Agatha went to examine the carving. Maybe the giant mask would inspire a story. Chandler hurried over to help set it back in its place.

  But Agatha seemed to have other ideas. “What do you say I try it on?” she asked.