Beth McMullen - The Midnight Market

Lola Benko, Treasure Hunter

The Midnight Market

Beth McMullen

Author of the Mrs. Smiths Spy School for Girls series

PRAISE FOR LOLA BENKO, TREASURE HUNTER

An accessible, colorful romp that ends with an alluring hint of another treasure hunt to come.

Kirkus Reviews

MRS. SMITHS SPY SCHOOL FOR GIRLS

#1: MRS. SMITHS SPY SCHOOL FOR GIRLS

#2: POWER PLAY

#3: DOUBLE CROSS

LOLA BENKO, TREASURE HUNTER

#1: LOLA BENKO, TREASURE HUNTER

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the authors imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

ALADDIN

An imprint of Simon & Schuster Childrens Publishing Division

1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020

www.SimonandSchuster.com

First Aladdin hardcover edition August 2021

Text copyright 2021 by Beth McMullen

Jacket designed by Laura Lyn Disiena

Jacket illustrations copyright 2021 by Elan Harris

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

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Book designed by Laura Lyn DiSiena

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: McMullen, Beth, 1969 author.

Title: The Midnight Market / by Beth McMullen.

Description: First Aladdin hardcover edition. | New York : Aladdin, 2021. | Series: Lola Benko, treasure hunter ; [2] | Audience: Ages 9 to 13. | Summary: Lola Benko seeks out the legendary Helm of Darkness in her second treasure-hunting adventure Provided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020045195 (print) | LCCN 2020045196 (ebook) | ISBN 9781534456723 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781534456747 (ebook)

Subjects: CYAC: Adventure and adventurersFiction. | RelicsFiction. | SupernaturalFiction. | CampsFiction. | FriendshipFiction.

Classification: LCC PZ7.1.M4644 Mid 2021 (print) | LCC PZ7.1.M4644 (ebook) | DDC [Fic]dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020045195

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020045196

For Emelia Von Ancken

there are amazing adventures out there waiting for you, and I cant wait to see what happens.

To: Agents Star and Fish, International Task Force for the Cooperative Protection of Entities with Questionable Provenance, Washington, DC

Subject: Reassignment Notification

We hereby inform you of your reassignment to Siberia. Yes. We know Siberia is very cold this time of yearwell, its cold ALL yearbut this is not to be considered punishment. All Task Force treasure hunters eventually draw a hardship posting. We have just accelerated yours. Siberia happens to be an excellent place to think, and perhaps you might want to reflect on whether you made good choices regarding the Pegasus project. But we repeat, this is not punishment.

And to be honest, we hope you will not embarrass yourselves and beg to stay where you are. It will not work. Remember, begging is beneath the treasure hunters of the International Task Force for the Cooperative Protection of Entities with Questionable Provenance. At the very least, we ask for what we want politely and, let me tell you, that is not going to cut it in this disaster we mean, situation.

A final bit of advice. Pack warm clothes.

And perhaps extra socks.

Sincerely,

The governing body of the International Task Force for the Cooperative Protection of Entities with Questionable Provenance

ITS BEEN EXACTLY THREE MONTHS since a mythical flying horse and his stupid bejeweled necklace ruined my life. Yes. You heard that right. Things were going fine. We had saved the famous globe-trotting, treasure-hunting archaeologist Lawrence Benko, who is also my dad. Better yet, I no longer had to live out of a suitcase while I followed him around on his crazy adventures. I had my own room, plastered with cute kitten posters, at Great-Aunt Irmas place. I went to an okay school (as far as schools go), but, most importantly, I had friends. Real ones! Friends are not easy to make and keep when youre living out of a suitcase. Like I said, everything was fine. But in zooms the flying horse, who rudely stomps all over my life, reminding me I am nothing special.

For any of this to make sense, lets backtrack a year to the botched burglary of a valuable statue. I would never have entered the thieving business, except my father was missing. Everyone said he was dead, but knowing that was impossible, I was intent on finding him. However, a search and rescue mission required resources I didnt have. Enter the ugly statue of spindly ballerinas worth a million bucks, which would have funded my exploits for quite some time until I broke it with my butt falling out a window.

They could have sent me to the slammer for crimes committed against my fellow citizens and innocent works of art, but instead the judge decided on a different sort of punishment. I was enrolled at Redwood Academy, a fancy private school in the Presidio. It was to be my second chance (or third or fourth or fifth, but whos counting?) to be a good law-abiding citizen. But Redwood turned out not to be any sort of punishment at all. At Redwood, I met my best friends, Jin and Hannah, and its a good thing I did because life got so much more interesting when they showed up.

Together (kind of by accident, if Im being honest), we discovered that my father had been kidnapped by an insane person who wanted help finding and using the Stone of Istenanya, a magical rock from an old Hungarian folktale, which was not supposed to exist. But the rock turned out to be real. (Believe me, we were surprised too.) And to make matters worse, whoever possessed it had the power of mind control. Not okay, especially when you factor in that insane person I mentioned. We called her Lipstick, and she was pretending to be a supernice, generous billionaire tech genius named Benedict Tewksbury (actually, she was a tech genius and a billionaire, but she was not nice). Her goal was to use a chat app shed invented called EmoJabber, along with the stone, to control the minds of all her chatting minions. Had she succeeded, it would have been a real problem.

But she didnt! We stopped Lipstick, rescued my dad, and retrieved the stone. Yes, you heard that right. We saved the world. Sometimes when you are a kid, you feel like things are happening to you, without your permission or anyone even asking your opinion. It doesnt matter if you yell or scream or protestthe adults get the only vote. When we were treasure hunting the stone, however, it was the complete opposite.