Mystery of the Star Ruby Read Online Free PDF Page A

that in the museum,” Henry said. “Rubies and sapphires are just below diamonds on the hardness scale.”
    Benny was confused with all this discussion. “So what did I find?”
    “Rose quartz,” Jonathan said.
    “That’s a nice stone,” Jessie told her little brother.
    “Yeah, but we can’t win the contest with it,” Benny said, disappointed.
    Jonathan scooped ore into his tray. “I was hoping to find something really unusual for my fiancée’s ring. So far, I haven’t had much luck, either.”
    Henry straightened up from digging. He thought he saw a shadow among the pine trees along the trail. Something flashed in the bright sun. A mirror? Who would be shining a mirror up there? Had Cecil come back?
    Just then Benny cried, “Hey! I found something really good this time!”
    Jonathan examined Benny’s find. “Hmmm. This does look interesting.”
    The others stopped working and came over.
    “What is it?” asked Violet. “Let’s check the hardness.”
    Jonathan rubbed Benny’s stone against his garnet. “Oops!”
    He dropped Benny’s stone, which fell with a plop into the creek.
    “My rock!” Benny fished around in the water.
    Everyone searched along the bottom, but Benny’s stone was gone.
    “I’m sorry, Benny,” Jonathan apologized. “My fingers were wet. Your rock just slipped.”
    “It’s okay,” said Benny.
    The kids all went back to digging and rinsing. Soon their collection bucket had several small sapphires and pinkish garnets Jonathan said were rhodolite garnets.
    “I think it’s time to break for lunch,” Jonathan said. He called to Sybil, “Time to eat!”
    Sybil waded over. “I hope you kids had better luck than I did.” She rattled her plastic container. “I found a few sapphires, but nothing bigger than a grain of rice.”
    “We found sapphires, too,” said Jessie.
    Just as Jessie stooped to pick up their collection bucket, Sybil’s foot flew out and knocked it over.
    “Our rocks!” Benny plunged his hands to the creek bottom, but the stones were swirling downstream.
    “I’m so sorry!” Sybil said. “I just lost my balance. I can’t believe how clumsy I am.”
    Jessie couldn’t believe it, either. Sybil hadn’t lost her balance. She had kicked the bucket over. It was definitely no accident.
    Sybil and Jonathan walked ahead of the Alden children on the way to the restaurant.
    “Something funny is going on here,” Jessie said. “Sybil deliberately made us lose our stones. But why?”
    “Maybe she was jealous because she didn’t find anything good,” Benny said. Then he had a thought. “What about Jonathan? Do you think he dropped my rock accidently on purpose, too?”
    “I don’t know what is going on around here,” said Henry. “But something is weird. While we were digging, I saw somebody in the trees.” He described the flashing in the sun.
    “It could have been a mirror,” said Violet. “But it may have been binoculars. Or a camera. Those are both shiny.”
    Jessie nodded. “If the flash was a mirror, somebody could be signaling. If it was binoculars, somebody was spying on us. And if it was a camera, somebody took our picture.”
    “No matter what it was,” Henry concluded, “someone is up to no good.”
    That night after dinner, the kids got together in Benny and Henry’s cabin to discuss the mystery.
    Jessie, who was very organized, wrote down the strange things that had happened.
    “One,” she said, “somebody took my backpack and returned it to our cabin. Two, Sybil and Jonathan both made us lose our stones in the creek. Three, somebody may have been taking our picture or spying on us.”
    “Why?” asked Violet. “None of this makes any sense.”
    Henry went to the window. “Do you hear that?”
    Over the chirping of crickets came a faint, steady chipping noise.
    “It sounds like digging,” said Benny.
    They all stared out into the darkness.
    “There!” Henry pointed down the hill.
    A figure in white flitted around the