t was the beginning of the summer, and two of the three friends, Katie and Emily, were getting ready to go on their summer vacation. Nicole was sick so she couldn't go.

Katie and Emily were going to Venice and then to New Zealand to see where their favorite Lord of the Rings characters had acted. Nicole was disappointed but she was okay. Katie and Emily promised to call her every day. They said "Good by," and off they went to Venice!

When they got to Venice, they immediately went to the tallest building of them all, the Classem. The Classem had a beautiful diamond on it's top. It was priceless. The diamond was as big as a baseball. But it looked much bigger because it had a glass globe over it and as alarm system on that to keep burglars away.

The next day they looked around Venice and called Nicole on the computer to see how she was doing.

"Hi Nicole, how ya doin'?" Asked Katie.

"A whole lot better! In fact, if you girls wait for me I could fly over there to night!" Said Nicole.

"That's great!" Said Emily. Hey, would you like to see Venice on the laptop?"
"We've got the technology to let ya see through the screen." Said Katie.

"Hey, Em, say hi to Nicole!" (Katie calls Emily Em for short.)

"Hi Nicole! Look behind me and you can see Venice! Over to the left is the Classem with the big Diamond on top!" Said Em.

"Cooooool! I'll see you there tomorrow! By."

"By, Nicole see ya tomorrow!" Katie and Em said together.

They went back to their hotel room and told the manager that Nicole would be staying for three more days with them. Later, they met the hotel window washer. She was a nice person and very talkative. She was lively and was contented to be a window washer. When Nicole got there they took her to meet Jane. (That was the window washer's name.) While they were wandering around the hotel, something caught Katie's eye. It was a lamp. A normal lamp so Katie didn't pay much attention to it. Accept that she saw a letter V on the base.

Later they went out to see Venice. To Nicole it was beautiful and beyond words. To Katie and Em, who had already seen it, it was even more beautiful than it was the day before.

The next day they left for New Zealand. They couldn't wait to get there, so they weren't very happy to find out that it would take three days to get there. At least the could enjoy the scenery. When they woke up on the ship the next morning they couldn't find their passports. They went and asked the captain if he had seen them but he said no.

They went out on the deck to think, but Katie said, "Lets go back to our room, I want to tell you something."

When they got the there room, they closed the door and locked it so no one would hear. "Well, what is it?" asked Em.

"Do you remember something we did right before we left? Now I don't mean when we left Venice, I mean when we left the U.S.A.," said Katie.

"We did a lot of things before we left, and before Nicole got sick. So what's your point? Oh, I see now. You mean what did we do with our passports." Said Em.

"You know what I'm talken' about. What did we do with our passports Nicole?" said Katie.

" We duplicated them?" asked Nicole.

"You got it." Said Katie.

"Cool, but where's my pocket book? It had at least $500 in it." Em said in a very loud voice.

"Shhhhh. Some one's outside the door. I can see a shadow!" Said Katie very quietly.

"It's okay." Said Em very very quietly. "I meant to do that because I saw the shadow."

"Oh, I see. Very clever. Very nice. You're good Em, very good. I hope you write a book about this like you always do. Oh please say you will!" Asked Katie.

"I'll have to think about it." Said Em. "Lets go to lunch!"

They had no more trouble the rest of the voyage to New Zealand but had quite a good sightseeing time. When they got to N.Z. they went to their hotel room and signed in as the one and only "Detectives from the DGC." (Detective Girls Club, which is supported by the government.) The clerk was amazed and offered them the best rooms and caviar. They accepted the rooms. (But not the caviar.)

The next day they went to a town house highly recommended by the people at the hotel and were getting ready to enjoy them selves when Katie had to go to the bathroom to wash her hands. When she was in the bathroom she happened to look in the corner and saw a faint glow she called Nicole and Emily and went to check it out.

There was only a wall there but the glow seemed to be coming through a crack in the wall. They pushed on it and the wall slid back into a passage. The light seemed to be coming from down the tunnel so they crept down and at the end of the tunnel they found a room with a light in it. Not daylight but lamp light. They looked in the room and gasped. It was a lamp.

Katie looked at it with wonder. Even though it was only an ordinary lamp, she had the sense that she had seen it before. It was a normal lamp; tall and plain. It had a brass shaft with a brass pedestal and glass bowl at the top. A brass branch came out of that and went up to the light. And last but not least, there was a white lampshade with a brass angel standing on four brass rails that slanted up to a platform. She noticed a V on the base of the lamp. Suddenly, she knew where she had seen it before. It was the lamp that she had seen in the hotel in Venice. Then she realized that it had been stolen. But how did it get here before they did? She had only seen it the day before they left for New Zealand. And there were no more flights or cruises for two days after they left. Katie told her friends about the lamp in Venice and they agreed that the only way for the lamp to get to New Zealand that fast, it would have to have been on the same boat that they were on.

They went back to the front of the town house and asked for the manager. They told her about the passage and the room and the lamp. The manager closed the town house and went back to the room to look at the lamp. She said that she would leave the lamp there and close up the room and said that it wasn't worth it to worry about.

They went unhappily back to their hotel room to talk about it.

The next day they got a call from the town house manager. When Katie hung up the phone and turned to them happily.

"We have a case to get on!" She said.

"What do you mean?" Asked Em.

"The lamp has disappeared. And the manager said that we could have the case! She also said that the big diamond has disappeared and the money the U.S. was going to use to stop the war. And we have that case to!!!" Said Katie.

Bump.Bump.Bump."Ahhhhh!"

When they heard that they were instantly on their guard; Nicole ran to the phone. Katie ran to the door and Em ran to the suitcase to get the handcuffs and the first aid kit. Then Katie and Em ran out the door to see what had happened. It was Jane. They helped her up and she frowned at them.

"What are you doing?" Katie asked.

"I give up." Said Jane. I can't do it anymore. I have to tell someone."

"What do you mean?" Asked Katie.

"I mean that I stole the lamp and the diamond and your passports and the money. I can't tell you where the money, the diamond or the passports are. But the lamp is at the bottom of the Atlantic in a metal box. Right on the Barer reef." Said Jane.

"Tell us more." Said Em.

"No, no, no." Said Jane.

"Why not?" Asked Nicole.

But Jane would not say anymore. They took her to jail and went to the diving and submarine station for a submarine ride to the bottom of the Atlantic. They talked to a guy named Ace Genius. He was the one to go to rent a sub. So they talked to him and got their gear and went to pick-out their sub. He showed them the best sub and gave them a free pass for it and a steel rope and hook. They put on their gear (Ace went with them of course) they got in their sub and they went to the bottom of the Atlantic.

The group was amazed when they entered the Atlantic but they were even more amazed when they saw the Brier reef. It was so neat. Filled with color and piled so high that when you were on the bottom looking up you could not see the top. But then they saw what they had feared, a great white shark. It was huge. It was swimming around the barer reef and they guessed it was hunting.

As soon as the shark left, they searched the ground to find the metal box. When they finally found it the shark had returned. They stayed so still that the shark didn't notice them. So when he disappeared Ace and Katie took the metal rope and hook and went out to get the box. It took a little while to figure out how to attach it to the box, but they got it right when the shark came back. They grabbed the rope and sped back to the sub. They almost didn't make it and the shark was on their heels when they got in and shut the door. They made sure that they had everyone and they got out of there quick.

When they were sure they were safe, Ace said, "We did it!"

"We sure did! Lets open it and get a good look at it." Said Katie. "Hey wait a minute. You haven't seen it have you Ace?"

"No I haven't." Said Ace.

"Wait, why should we show you? Your not on this case." Said Em.

"Well I guess you could say I kind 'a am." Said Ace.

"How can you say that?" Asked Katie.

"I am Ace Dect and I am on the case of the diamond. Here's my ID." Said Ace.

"Well here's ours." Said Katie.

"That's great," said Ace, "Then we're one big happy family." "Let's join forces!" Suggested Nicole.

"I like that idea." Said Ace." Let's call ourselves the four detectives!"

"That's a great idea!" Said Katie, Em and Nicole.

"Let's talk about that on the way back to the station." Suggested Ace.

So on the way back they talked about what they would do with the lamp. Katie asked if Ace could move back to the US to the house beside theirs, and they could build a tunnel from one house to the other so that they could work on the lamp at night. They all agreed to the idea and that they should pretend that they were not friends. So they took the cruise back to Venice (on opposite sides of the boat of course) then the plane back to the US.

Back in the US it took three months to find out where the diamond was. But they found it thanks to Nicole. Nicole was toying with the lamp one day when she turned it over and found a plug. She ran through the tunnel to get the rest of the group who were researching the lamp. They all ran back through the tunnel to the secret room they had at the back of the house to pull the plug. Since Nicole found it they let her pull it. She pulled it and it came out and out fell the diamond, the passports and the money.

They all ran to the phone and Ace called the US government. Then they called the airport to tell them the president was coming then they all hopped in the car and drove to the airport.

At the White House, they all celebrated, and the president promoted them all to supreme detectives.