The Mystery of the Tenth by Chantel Acevedo

Author:Chantel Acevedo
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Balzer + Bray
Published: 2021-04-23T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 18

The Queen of Corona

The Queen of Corona was slammed when I got there. The bell over the door rang again and again as kids from Corona Arts and other nearby day camps, or kids who got to hang out at home all day in the summer, filled the shop. I checked the ice-cream counter, but Ari wasn’t there.

Perhaps her mysterious aunt would know where she was.

I walked over to a store employee wearing a polo shirt and a name tag that read JULIO.

“Excuse me,” I said.

He held a can of tomato sauce in each hand. “How can I help you?”

“Where can I find Ari’s aunt?” I asked.

Julio pointed toward the registers with his chin. There was a woman behind the counter, chatting with customers as she scanned and bagged their items. One by one, I watched as the people in line turned and left, clutching their brown bags, wearing huge smiles on their faces.

I grabbed a pack of gum and stood in line. It moved quickly enough, and I could hear Ari’s aunt’s voice as I got closer to the counter. She spoke quietly, but sort of musically. And everyone she talked with ended up laughing at some point. She told each person to “have a marvelous day,” or “un día maravilloso,” or she said something in a language I didn’t understand, making me wonder how many she spoke.

When it was my turn, I put the pack of gum on the counter.

“Hi,” I said. Ari’s aunt was, as expected, very beautiful, and people in the store couldn’t quite keep from getting fixed to the spot where they stood whenever they looked at her. She was Black and her skin seemed to glow from the inside out. She had long brown hair with streaks of gold in it. Though she wasn’t very tall, whenever she spoke to someone, they seemed a little shy around her, as if they were talking to a giant. Round cheeks filled out her face, and when she looked down at me, she gasped.

“Calliope. What an honor. Come, darling, we really should chat.”

“H-how do you know who I am?” I asked anxiously, but Ari’s aunt just gave me a wink. She waved at Julio, who came skipping over to manage the register. “Follow me,” she said.

Ari’s aunt led me through the store to the back, where a little blue curtain hid a small, dark hall and a series of doors. She unlocked one with a key that dangled from a rubber bracelet she was wearing.

“Entrez,” she said, presenting her enormous and totally glam office.

Every inch of the walls, and the ceiling, too, was covered in what looked like pink silk. There was white shag carpeting under our feet. A crystal chandelier dangled above a glass desk. A pair of glossy black bookshelves, crammed with books in pink covers, flanked a fireplace. I hadn’t been to any bodega back-room offices before this, but did any of them have a rope swing hanging from one corner of the

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