Chapter 1

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DEDICATION For every kid who solves mysteries with their heart as much as their head.

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Something was wrong at Green Acre Summer School, and Zara Ahmadi was the first to notice.

It was Wednesday — the third day of the week-long program — and the unity trophy was missing. The trophy was a small glass globe on a wooden base, awarded each year to the cabin that best demonstrated the qualities of unity and cooperation. It had been sitting on the mantle in the Great Hall since Monday morning.

Now the mantle was empty.

"Maybe someone moved it," said her cabin-mate, Oliver, when Zara pointed it out.

"Who would move it? And where?"

Oliver shrugged. He was eleven, easygoing, and not particularly worried about missing trophies. Zara was eleven too, but she was the kind of person who noticed when a painting hung crooked or a book was shelved in the wrong order. Her mother called it "attention to detail." Her brother called it "being annoying."

Zara called it useful.

"It was here last night after campfire," Zara said. "I saw it when we came in for hot chocolate. It's gone now, and the room was locked all night."

"A locked-room mystery," said a voice behind her.

Zara turned. It was Kofi, from Cabin Three — a boy with round glasses and an encyclopedic knowledge of detective fiction. He was already grinning.

"Don't look so happy about it," Zara said.

"Are you kidding? A genuine locked-room mystery at Bahá'í summer school? This is the best thing that's ever happened to me."

Zara had to admit he had a point. The summer school schedule was wonderful — prayers at dawn, classes in the morning, arts in the afternoon, campfire at night — but it wasn't exactly thrilling. A mystery was, at minimum, interesting.

"We should tell the counselors," Oliver said.

"We should investigate first," Kofi said.

"We should do both," Zara said. "We tell Counselor Maya the trophy is missing. But we also look into it ourselves. If someone took it, there's a reason. And I want to know what it is."

They told Counselor Maya, a calm woman in her thirties who listened without interrupting and then said, "Thank you for letting me know. I'm sure it will turn up. In the meantime, try not to worry."

This was, Zara thought, extremely unhelpful advice.

She pulled Kofi and Oliver aside after morning class. "Okay. What do we know?"

"So either someone with a key took it," Zara said, "or someone found a way in without a key."

"Or," Oliver said, "it just fell behind the mantle."

They checked behind the mantle. It hadn't.

"This isn't fiction," Zara reminded him.

"The principles still apply."

They spent the rest of the morning gathering information. Zara interviewed the kitchen staff (the side door had been locked since dinner; no one had used it). Kofi examined the windows (all latched from inside; no signs of tampering). Oliver, who was surprisingly good at talking to people, chatted up the other campers and discovered that three different kids had noticed the trophy was gone — but none of them had seen anyone near the mantle after campfire.

By lunch, they had a mystery and zero suspects.

"This is where it gets interesting," Kofi said, biting into his sandwich.

Zara looked at the empty mantle across the dining hall and felt the familiar tingle of a puzzle demanding to be solved.

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The afternoon activity was arts and crafts, which gave Zara time to think. She painted a watercolor of the lake — badly — while her mind worked on the problem.

Who had access to the Great Hall after hours? The counselors had master keys. The caretaker, Mr. Douglas, had keys to everything. The kitchen staff had the side door key but swore they hadn't used it.

She was considering the counselors as suspects — it felt wrong, suspecting the adults, but Kofi's detective books said you had to consider everyone — when Oliver appeared, breathless.

"I found something."

"Someone could fit through that window," Oliver said. "A kid could."

Zara examined the window. It was dusty but not latched. She looked at the garden outside — soft earth, recently watered.

"Check for footprints," she told Kofi.

They went outside. The ground beneath the window was churned up, but not in the way footprints would make. More like someone had knelt there, or crouched.

"This is our entry point," Kofi declared, scribbling in his notebook. "Someone came through the garden, climbed through the closet window, entered the Great Hall through the internal door, took the trophy, and left the same way."

"But who?" Zara asked. "And why? It's a glass trophy. It's not worth anything."

"That's the real mystery," Kofi said. "Not how. Why."

Ramin was ten, quiet, and new to the summer school. He spent most of his time reading alone and hadn't made many friends. When Zara approached him during free time, he looked terrified.

"We're not accusing you of anything," Zara said carefully. She'd learned something in her Bahá'í children's classes about treating people with dignity even when asking hard questions. "We just noticed you were near the Hall this morning and wondered if you saw anything."

Ramin looked at the ground. "I didn't take it."

"I didn't say you did."

"Everyone thinks I did. I can tell."

"We don't think anything yet. We're just asking."

"The door was propped open?" Kofi's ears perked up.

"With a flat gray rock. I moved it when I went in, so the door closed behind me."

This changed everything. The door had been propped — meaning someone had deliberately created access. And they'd done it from inside, since the door locked automatically from outside.

"So the thief was already inside the building when the door was locked," Zara said. "They propped the door, went back in, took the trophy, and left through the propped door."

"That means the thief was at campfire," Kofi said. "It's someone in the program."

The three detectives looked at each other.

"But why?" Oliver asked again. "Why would anyone steal a unity trophy?"

It was the right question. And the answer, when it came, would surprise all of them.

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The summer school held a daily reflection circle after morning prayers — a time when campers could share thoughts, feelings, or concerns. Usually, kids talked about homesickness, or something they'd learned in class, or a funny thing that happened at the lake.

This morning, Counselor Maya opened the circle by saying, "I understand the unity trophy is missing. Does anyone want to share their feelings about that?"

Silence. Then a girl named Priya, from Cabin Two, raised her hand.

"I think it's sad," she said. "The trophy is supposed to represent the best thing about summer school — working together. And now it's gone, and instead of working together, some people are whispering about who took it. We're becoming less unified because of a unity trophy. That's... ironic."

She was right. Zara had been so focused on solving the mystery that she hadn't noticed the atmosphere changing. Kids were suspicious of each other. Ramin was eating alone because people had started avoiding him. Cabins were pointing fingers.

Counselor Maya let the silence settle. Then she said, "Unity isn't a trophy. It's a practice. What would it look like to practice unity right now, even in the middle of this situation?"

More silence. Then Kofi, surprising even himself, spoke.

"It would look like assuming the best about whoever took it. In the Bahá'í writings, we're told to look at everything with a searching eye. But we're also told not to breathe the sins of others. Maybe both things can be true."

After the circle, Zara sat under the big maple tree and thought. She had been treating this like a puzzle — a problem to be solved with logic and evidence. But it was also a human situation involving real people with real feelings.

She found Ramin during afternoon free time. He was sitting by the lake, throwing pebbles into the water.

"I believe you didn't take it," she said, sitting beside him.

"Thanks." He threw another pebble.

"But I think you might know who did."

He was quiet for a long time. "If I tell you, you have to promise not to be mean about it."

"I promise."

"It was my sister. Shirin. She's in Cabin Four."

Shirin was nine — small, bright-eyed, and intense. Zara had barely spoken to her.

"Why?"

"Because last year, our cabin won the unity trophy, and then Baba — our dad — got sick. Really sick. He was in the hospital for months. Shirin kept a picture of the trophy by his bed because she said it was proof that good things happen. She said it had special power."

Zara felt her heart tighten.

"Baba got better. And Shirin... she believes the trophy helped. She knows it's not magic. She's not stupid. But she believes in signs. And this year, our grandmother is sick. So Shirin..."

"Took the trophy."

"She took it to send to Maman Bozorg in Iran. She packed it in her suitcase. She was going to mail it home. She thinks if the trophy is near someone you love, it protects them."

Zara sat with this for a long time, the lake lapping gently at the shore.

She went to Cabin Four and found Shirin on her bunk, arms wrapped around her pillow. The glass trophy was under her bed, wrapped carefully in a sweatshirt.

"Shirin," Zara said, sitting on the floor. "Ramin told me about your grandmother."

Shirin's eyes filled with tears. "Is she going to be okay?"

"I don't know. But I know that taking the trophy isn't the way to help her."

"It helped Baba."

"Your love helped your Baba. The doctors helped your Baba. The prayers your family said helped your Baba. The trophy is glass and wood. It doesn't have power. You do."

Shirin cried. Zara held her hand and waited, because she had learned from her own mother that sometimes the best thing you can do is be present while someone feels what they need to feel.

When Shirin was ready, they walked together to the Great Hall. Shirin placed the trophy back on the mantle herself. Counselor Maya was there, and she didn't scold or lecture. She hugged Shirin and said, "Would you like us to say prayers for your grandmother? All of us? The whole camp?"

That evening, seventy-three kids and twelve counselors sat in the Great Hall and said prayers for a woman in Iran they had never met. The unity trophy gleamed on the mantle above them, catching the candlelight.

Zara looked at it and understood something she hadn't understood before. The trophy wasn't unity. This — seventy-three kids praying for a stranger's grandmother — this was unity. The real thing. Unsolvable, unmeasurable, and infinitely more powerful than glass.

Kofi read it later and nodded. "Best case we ever solved," he said.

He was right.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Crimson Ark Publishing creates mysteries where the biggest clue is always compassion.