Luz Lopez

“Luz Lopez is just about to share her latest project with us. Let's all give her a hand."

The Girl Scouts clapped obediently, and a sullen girl with long, curly hair pulled back tightly from her face rose from their midst . . .

"The invention you see has been put to the test and has proven highly successful in the field. My mother keeps a small patch of flowers in front of our building. For the last few months, someone has been wrecking her garden . . .

I always suspected Mrs. Gonzalez, one of our neighbors. She's never liked my mother, and she's always saying rude things to my sisters. But I didn’t have any proof.

That’s when I had my stroke of genius. I found an old baby monitor in the trash outside my building, and with a few adjustments, I was able to convert it into the apparatus you see before you—a short-range bugging device.

I planted my device under her kitchen sink. Then, all I had to do was tune my scanner to the right frequency and wait for Mrs. Gonzalez to confess her crimes.”

"Luz," the horrified scout leader broke in. "You can’t bug people’s homes! Are you aware that you've committed a felony? The Girl Scouts do not condone illegal activities!"

"The Girl Scouts," replied Luz, filled with righteous indignation, "believe in truth, justice, and the American way. Which part of that did I violate? In my opinion, nothing could be less American than destroying other people's gardens."

Kiki leaned over to me.

“We have our first recruit," she whispered, reaching into her backpack and pulling out a golden envelope with Luz’s name inscribed on the front.

"Recruit?" I asked.