The Mystery of the Third Lucretia Read Online Free PDF

It was more than Mom was used to taking, but we got everything in.
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    This all seemed like a disaster at the time. We never guessed that the wardrobe Camellia had bought for us would be used to solve our mystery, and that before our two weeks in London were over, we’d wish we’d brought along not only everything we had, but all the things we’d left behind.

8
    The Gleesome Threesome in London
    Except for that first Gallery Guy part, our adventure began on our fourth day in London.
    We were staying with our friend Robert, whom we met when he came to America to visit Uncle Geoff. He used to be an actor, but now he owns a restaurant.
    We love Robert and his friend Celia, who says she’s really an actress cleverly disguised as an office worker. Celia has blond hair and she’s very stylish and good-looking. Robert is a big, friendly guy who lives in a converted carriage house in a very unfashionable part of London called Hackney. Even if you’ve been to London already, you’ve never been to Hackney, trust me. Tourists never go there. It’s a place where regular people in London live.
    When other people go to London, they mostly just see the famous tourist places. We do that, too. But when we stay at Robert’s house we also get to see what it’s like to live in London. We drink tea and eat fresh scones from the corner bakery, and eat at a little fish-and-chips place where you go up to a counter and order your fish and they give you these incredibly good pieces of fried fish piled with a bunch of french fries in a waxed paper cone. We watch sitcoms on TV that nobody in America has ever seen, and shop at grocery stores with people in Caribbean head-dresses and Indian saris and African robes, and a lot of Muslim women with their heads covered. And when we’re going back and forth to Robert’s place, we get to take long rides on the subway, which they call the tube or the Underground, and on double-decker buses.
    My mom says that when you go to a place just to see what all the other tourists see, you’re a tourist. But when you go to a place and see how people live and do things in ways that are different from what we do at home, you’re a traveler. I like being a traveler better than being a tourist.
    Mom had come to London mostly to do a story on the British Museum, and Lucas and I went there with her on Friday, our first day there. Mom was meeting with people, and she let Lucas and me just explore the museum on our own.
    The second day, Mom went back to the museum, and Lucas and I stayed in Hackney watching the BBC and exploring the neighborhood. We also got a chance to start writing in the journals Mom had given us to write about our trips.
    On Sunday, Mom, Lucas, Celia, and I went and saw the Changing of the Guard with those guys with the big furry hats outside the palace where the queen lives, and we went to a famous department store called Harrods. Then we went to Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum, where they have incredibly real-looking wax statues of almost every famous person you can imagine, like Princess Di and Elvis and Kate Moss and Johnny Depp.
    About the only problem we had up until then was remembering to look the right way when we crossed the street. In England they drive on the left side of the road instead of the right. That feels confusing when you’re inside a bus or a taxi. It’s also really bad for pedestrians from countries like America where they drive on the right. Like, when I’m home in Saint Paul and go to cross the street, I just automatically look to my left to see what cars might be coming. But in London, if you look left and don’t see any cars, you’ll probably get run down by the bus coming at you from the right—driving on the left side of the road. It’s a miracle more tourists don’t get hit by cars.
    In fact, one time Lucas almost did. But that comes later.
    Sunday is also the day Robert’s restaurant