The House of Found Objects (A Bea Bellerose Mystery) - Softcover

Beckett-King, Jo

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1665967188 ISBN 13: 9781665967181

Verlag: S&S Books for Young Readers, 2026

Inhaltsangabe

For fans of Margaret Peterson Haddix’s Greystone Secrets series comes a mystery that’s “delightful, charming, and full of unexpected twists” (Shelf Awareness, starred review) and packed with cryptic clues and wonderful word puzzles as two cousins search for their grandmother’s missing portrait.

Twelve-year-old Bea from Passaic, New Jersey, is visiting her family in Paris for the summer when her grandmother’s most precious heirloom—a drawing by Henri Matisse—goes missing. After a cryptic clue arrives on Bea’s doorstep suggesting its whereabouts, Bea is determined to pursue the lead.

Without the French skills to navigate her way around the landmarks of Paris, she teams up with her cousin, Céline, whose clear-eyed French directness makes her a perfect partner for curious, problem-solving Bea. The girls embark on a city-wide search, deciphering riddles, solving puzzles, and cracking codes as they try to locate the Matisse, find a thief, and identify their mysterious benefactor.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Originally from the North of England, Jo Beckett-King spent several years in Paris after graduating from university. Following a stint in New York, she now lives with her husband and son in San Francisco, where she writes and works as a French–English translator. In addition to her middle grade fiction, Jo writes for adults; her short stories have been listed for the Bridport Prize and the Bristol Short Story Prize in the United Kingdom. Visit her at JoBeckettKing.com.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Chapter 1 • 1 •
The envelope on the floor was sealed with red wax and addressed to “La jeune fille,” elegantly written in fountain pen. There was no stamp or even an apartment number: it had been slipped under the door overnight.

Bea put aside her dog-eared copy of 101 Brain-Bending Puzzles and crouched down to inspect the envelope. Although she was still a beginner at French, she knew enough to understand that it said “The young girl.” She opened the door and swiveled her head both ways to check the landing, but there was no one to be seen.

Back inside she thumbed the ridges of the embossed seal. Why would someone send her a letter? She had been in Paris for only a week, and apart from her aunt and grandmother, she didn’t know anyone in the city. Her parents were both away at a conference, so Bea had been shipped off to stay with family in France. And the only other person in the apartment was Aunt Juliette. The note definitely wasn’t meant for her aunt. Aunt Juliette was a femme not a fille.

Maybe someone had slid it under the wrong door by accident.

“Coucou!” Aunt Juliette called out just then, as she swept into the hallway in her blue cotton pajamas. Even though Aunt Juliette was fluent in English, she liked to sprinkle her sentences with French words to help widen Bea’s vocabulary. She had already explained that coucou was a cross between “hi” and “peekaboo,” which seemed like a pretty childish thing for adults to be saying to one another.

Before her aunt had the chance to ask any questions, Bea shoved the envelope into her pocket—she didn’t want to get in trouble for snooping before she’d even found out anything snoopworthy—and greeted her aunt the way she always did in the morning: “Salut.”

“Can you grab us some pastries for breakfast from La Boulangerie Beaumarchais?” Aunt Juliette pressed a five-euro bill into her palm. “The usual, please.” That meant a chocolate croissant with sliced almonds on top.

“And can you drop this off at your grandmother’s for me?” Aunt Juliette passed her a heavy book with a pastry chef posing next to a pyramid of brightly colored macarons on the cover. “Tell her I’m sorry I’ve kept it so long. Anyway, I need to hop in the shower. I’m late for work.”

Work—that was all Aunt Juliette ever seemed to do. As a journalist at a weekly news magazine, she had been too busy to do anything even remotely fun since Bea had arrived in France. Every morning Bea would gaze out the kitchen window at all the people going about their day, knowing that she’d be stuck inside until her aunt came home at night. Sometimes, she would visit Mamie, her grandmother, and keep her company in the antique store for a few hours, though there was only so much she could do to help since she barely spoke French. She mostly felt like she was taking up space.

What was Bea going to tell everyone back home when they asked about her trip? They probably wouldn’t want to hear about the opera singer across the street who belted out arias from her balcony every morning, or the tone-deaf boy in the apartment next door who screeched his way through violin lessons every afternoon, or the elderly woman with the wheezing pug who shuffled along the street together so sluggishly every evening it looked as though they were competing to see who could move the slowest.

When Bea’s mom and dad first told her they were sending her to France, they’d made it sound like some kind of amazing adventure. Aunt Juliette was going to take her up the Eiffel Tower, she was going to go horseback riding in the Bois de Vincennes, and maybe they would even take a cruise along the River Seine. Now here Bea was, stuck in her aunt’s apartment for another week. So much for an adventure.

Just as she was about to leave the apartment, Bea thought about the mysterious envelope in her pocket. With the faint sound of the shower running in the bathroom, she saw her chance. She put the heavy book and the five-euro bill on the table, took out the envelope, and grabbed a knife from the kitchen, which she used to carefully slice the squiggly symbol on the wax seal in two.

Peering inside the envelope, she found a small padlock key and a handwritten note:

La chasse au trésor

(La date limite : 17h00, jeudi, le 29 juillet)

She had no idea what that meant, except she was pretty sure juillet meant “July.” She flipped the piece of paper over and read the rest:

(1/5)

In eastern Paris, a rock star’s life is not forgotten,

as the path to his grave remains well-trodden.

As for me, my wit is legendary.

I draw a crowd, even in a cemetery.

Loyal fans show their appreciation with a kiss,

and if you follow their footsteps, you’ll find something amiss.

But now, the first order of the day.

Rearrange these letters and you’ll be well on your way:

I, Earl Peaches

Earl Peaches? Who? Was it a riddle?

Bea was used to figuring out puzzles. Logic puzzles, brainteasers, math problems—they were kind of her thing, or at least they used to be. But the bigger puzzle here was why she had received the note in the first place.

At least now she had something that would keep her mind busy during the long day ahead. But Aunt Juliette would be expecting her back from the bakery soon, so she stuffed the note and key back into her pocket, picked up the cookbook and the money, and headed out the door.

After the elevator dinged, Bea pulled the heavy iron door open, moved the crisscrossing gate to one side so that it folded into itself, and entered. The elevator had a birdcage design; its antique metal frame was made up of ornate swirls, allowing passengers to see through the gaps in the metal while traveling between floors. One of her aunt’s neighbors, Monsieur Bertrand from the floor above, was standing inside, wearing a flat cap and a miserable frown. They’d met only once, in the building’s lobby the night before, but she remembered his name from a piece of mail he had dropped. She had chased after him to give it back, and when he turned around, Bea was struck by his resemblance to a cartoon villain, with his twirling black mustache and devilish grin.

Bea turned to face the front. From behind, she heard a voice in a scolding tone: “Bonjour, mademoiselle.” She knew that you had to always say hello and goodbye to people in France, otherwise they would think you were being rude. And they would be rude in retaliation.

“Bonjour,” she replied as quickly as she could, in the best accent she could manage. She cringed, hearing herself. They shared an awkward silence until the elevator reached the first floor.

After the bing Bea stepped out and made sure she was the first one to say “Bonne journée” to wish him a good day as she left the building. He mumbled something in response, but by then she was already out the door.

Outside, Bea was hit with the smell of freshly baked bread wafting down the street from La Boulangerie Beaumarchais on the corner. Everything about Rue Saint-Claude felt so, well, French. A woman passed by, holding a baguette under her arm and pushing a bicycle with a wicker basket piled high with groceries, and opposite the bakery there was a café with the name CHEZ GEORGES printed in gold letters on the window. On the sidewalk, chairs faced out toward the street so customers could watch the passing crowds as they sipped their morning coffee. The Parisians...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: S&S Books for Young Readers
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2026
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1665967188
• ISBN 13: 9781665967181
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 304
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: webstar; casetta@mondadori.it; ; Via Mondadori 1,; Segrate Milano; 20090; Italien