Case Closed #4, page 12
“Just kids?” I say furiously.
“I know you are but what am I?” Frank shouts.
“If that was your bet,” Eliza says coolly, “now we know why you have gambling debts. You’re really bad at this.”
Bones shakes his head. “That’s for sure. I never would’ve taken a bet that you’d transport my necklace nearly five hours away from the dig.”
“How did you find us here?” I ask.
“Please. I always have an ace up my sleeve! I have a tracking device on Smarty’s car. Before you even got here, I ordered her to let you borrow her car whenever you needed it in the first place.”
The wind whooshes outside, and I realize that Bones must have had to walk on the narrow ledge to get here. He must have overtaken . . . my breath catches.
“Where’s my mom?”
“Oh, her? The die is cast.”
My throat tightens. “MOM! Mom!” I call. But I hear no answer.
Bones takes a threatening step closer, blocking our exit. He holds out his hand. “My winnings.”
“NO!” Frank shouts.
“I won’t ask again.”
He’s closing in!
* * *
TO SWING HEPHAESTUS’S HAMMER AT BONES, CLICK HERE.
TO THROW THE NECKLACE PIECES OFF THE MOUNTAIN, CLICK HERE.
* * *
“MR. BONES!” I say, sitting on the picnic bench across from him. “Where have you been?”
“Where haven’t I been?” he says. “Italy, Egypt, Russia, Germany, Thailand, Spain—oh, that was a lovely time—”
“No, I mean, where have you been today?”
He rubs his chin, which basically results in him spreading dirt from one side of his face to the other. When this case is over, maybe I’ll use some of my salary to buy him some nice face wash. As a thank-you for hiring us.
“Here and there, all over.”
“Why did you blow Nadira off?” Eliza asks.
“Huh?”
“You were supposed to meet with her,” Eliza says. “And she was mad you stood her up.”
He looks sheepish. Almost nervous. Like he has something he wants to tell us. But first . . . I need to ask about Mom.
* * *
TO ASK MR. BONES IF HE’S SEEN MOM, CLICK HERE.
* * *
WE NEVER WOULD have found the key without the address from Professor Worthington. It’s only fair we tell him about it.
“We found a key,” I say. “We think it goes in the catacombs.”
His eyes twinkle behind his glasses. “You actually found something? I’ve scoured that location multiple times, and—” He looks at us hungrily. “Are you going into the catacombs now? Perhaps you’d like me to accompany you?”
“No!” Eliza, Frank, Mom, and I say at the same time.
“I—I mean,” I stammer, “we appreciate the offer, but we have it handled.”
He looks affronted. “Well! I was only trying to help!” He storms out of the tent in a huff.
That went about as well as could be expected.
“So what now?” Mom asks.
“The tunnels!” Frank cries loudly.
And I’m so excited that at least one of the Thompsons is game for my original plan that I shout, “I second that!”
“I third,” Eliza says to my surprise. She catches my look of shock and says, “What? Honestly, I don’t think the clue I found us is connected to the disk at all. My hunch is that the keyhole is in the tunnels.”
Mom holds up her hands. “Whoa there, team. We’re not doing the tunnels now.”
“We’re not?” I say.
“Not even if I give you my puppy-dog eyes?” Frank says, pouting and batting his eyelashes.
Mom shakes her head. “Puppy-dog eyes don’t work on cat people.” That answer surprises me, since Mom’s never seemed to like animals very much—and now she’s a cat person? Then I laugh. Because when your name is Cat, you’re a literal Cat person. “I’m glad you find me humorous, Carlos.”
“Sorry, but that’s such a corny joke.”
She grins and ruffles my hair. “I’m excited to explore the catacombs with you three. But we’re adjusting to a time difference. We’ve been up for hours. I know for a fact Frank didn’t sleep on the plane.”
“I watched three movies in a row!” Frank brags.
“I don’t feel comfortable taking you into the tunnels in this condition—when we’re on the brink of exhaustion. I have a feeling we’ll need all our energy and strength for the catacombs. So we’ll go first thing in the morning.”
That makes sense to me. We all murmur in agreement.
“I’m glad we’re united,” she says, with a pointed glance at me and Eliza. “Now let’s spend our final burst of energy today interviewing one last person.”
“Well, before the professor came in,” Eliza says, “we had found a letter from Smarty to Bones, basically trashing Nadira Nadeem. We could confront Smarty about it.”
“Or!” I say quickly. “We could ask Nadira if what Smarty said about her is true.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Eliza says.
“Well, I don’t think talking to Smarty is a good idea.”
“Are you serious?”
“Are you?”
Mom frowns, and Frank sighs heavily. Even Frank—who never gets annoyed at anything—is tired of us bickering.
* * *
TO CONFRONT SMARTY, CLICK HERE.
TO ASK NADIRA NADEEM ABOUT THE ALLEGATIONS IN SMARTY’S EMAIL, CLICK HERE.
* * *
IT’S ANNOYING TO have to cross the river five times. And it eats up so many minutes—or maybe even hours. It’s hard to tell down here, where the sun doesn’t reach. It could be evening or the middle of the night, for all I know.
When we’re all across, we can proceed. We shine our flashlights ahead, only to discover there’s a wall blocking our path. The wall features the most enormous painting of a three-headed dog.
“Cerberus,” Eliza says. “I knew we’d see this!”
“Huh?” Frank says, which is exactly how I feel.
“Cerberus is Hades’s dog. You know . . . the three-headed hellhound that guards the gates of the underworld.”
“How would I know that?” I ask. My stomach twists. “The River Styx, and now a hellhound. Are we going into the underworld?”
“We’re already here! Mwahahahahahaha!” Frank cackles.
Eliza shrugs. “Well, technically, we are under the world right now.”
There’s a door in between the hellhound’s legs, and I try it. But no surprise—it’s locked. Above the knob, there are three ancient-looking dials that I can set to a single number. I bet if we had all three of those numbers . . .
“A three-digit code,” I say. “Do you see anything like that?”
“Sort of,” Eliza says. “At first I thought this was a painted collar, but . . . each of the dogs has a set of numbers scrawled across its neck. It looks like a number sequence. If we can figure out the next number in the pattern, we would know which digits to put into this ancient lock system!”
Eliza writes the sequences down in her notebook and shares it with me.
* * *
IF YOU THINK THE THREE BOLDED DIGITS ARE 354, CLICK HERE.
IF YOU THINK THE THREE BOLDED DIGITS ARE 344, CLICK HERE.
TO ASK ELIZA FOR A HINT, CLICK HERE.
* * *
THIS NONOGRAM PUZZLE is so intimidating. “Eliza,” I say, “how do I do a nonogram?”
“It looks scarier than it is,” Eliza says. “First, know that the grid is seventeen by seventeen. That means when we see the number seventeen in a column, then all the squares in that column should be filled in. And same thing when we see the number seventeen in the rows.”
“Okay,” I say. “I can handle that.”
“And look at the numbers across the top. See how they mirror each other? There’s seventeen in the middle, and then next to it on either side, there’s eleven and three, and then eleven and two, and so on until the end? If I’m a betting person like Mr. Bones, then the chances are likely the left side of this image is going to be a complete and exact mirror of the right side of this image.”
“So . . . that means . . . when looking at the numbers going down, we should probably center one, three, five, seven, and all the rest of them, right?”
Eliza beams at me. “Exactly! Here.” She starts filling things in.
Suddenly there’s silence from outside—have Nadira and Bones stopped fighting? Eliza turns to me. “I’ll go distract Bones. Start with the seventeens and fill in every single box in any row or column with seventeen in it, like we talked about. Then go down the left side. Color seven in the middle, then eleven in the middle, then thirteen, and so on. I did some of the harder ones—I think the image will start to take form soon.” And then she dashes away, leaving me all alone.
* * *
IF THE IMAGE IS A DIAMOND, CLICK HERE.
IF THE IMAGE IS A SPADE, CLICK HERE.
* * *
“WE, UM, OVERHEARD you on the phone, Mr. Bones, and you seemed very stressed out.”
“Is that a question?” Bones says.
“Yes. What was that call about?”
“And who is Duff?” Eliza asks.
Bones sighs deeply. He takes off his hat and rests it on the desk. The hair underneath is matted with sweat. “I wasn’t going to tell you because I didn’t want to you to feel like I was dealing you a bad hand. But I was talking to Keira Skelberry’s boss, the benefactor who is funding our research here.”
“And?” Mom says.
“He upped the ante. He’s going to shut down the dig.”
“What? Why?” I ask.
“He says it’s not worth the funding. Not unless I can retrieve the Necklace of Harmonia from its resting place. If I can’t, I’ll be sacked, and this will be a very bad blemish on my résumé. You haven’t gone into the tunnels yet, have you?”
“Yes,” I say, “we have.”
“And?”
“It was dark. And tiny.”
“How far did you go?”
“To infinity . . . and beyond!” Frank says, and I shake my head.
“What about the other artifacts?” Eliza asks. “Does Duff care that all of those have gone missing?”
“I haven’t told him,” Bones says. “I’m on a losing streak, and he’s a bit of a wild card. Has a temper. I thought it would be best if he didn’t know. But to lay my cards on the table, I know he’s more interested in the Necklace of Harmonia than anything else. Do you think you’d be able to shift focus to the Necklace of Harmonia?”
* * *
TO AGREE TO FOCUS ON THE NECKLACE, CLICK HERE.
TO INSIST ON FINDING THE MISSING ARTIFACTS, CLICK HERE.
* * *
MAYBE I CAN just take Smarty’s keys.
“If you want these,” Smarty says, dangling her keys in front of us, “you’re going to have to beg—HEY!”
I swipe the keys out of her hands and run, run, run! When we get to the parking lot, we jump into the car and drive off, leaving Smarty shaking her fist in our rearview window.
“I don’t know, Carlos,” Mom says. “This is wrong. We stole her car.”
“We just borrowed it. It’s fine.”
But it isn’t fine. Within fifteen minutes of driving, a cavalry of white cars with blue stripes are behind us—they flash their lights and blare their sirens.
Mom frowns deeply. “I guess Smarty reported us.”
“STEP ON IT!” I shout to Mom. She speeds up, and so do the cop cars. They’re catching up . . . then they’re neck and neck . . . then they’re in front of us. They brake hard.
“AHHHHHHHHH!” we scream as Mom is forced to slam on her brakes.
“The jig is up,” Mom says as officers approach our car.
I guess the keys weren’t the key after all.
CASE CLOSED.
WE HAVE TO run away—before Mr. Bones gets back to his tent.
“GO!” I cry, and we burst out of the exit. We sprint all the way across the dig until we’re at the pit again. Safe!
There’s still some light in the sky, but just barely. It’s past sunset, and—I realize with a jolt—Mom should be back by now.
I dial her phone, but it goes to voicemail. I walk to the parking lot, and Eliza and Frank follow. I’m not sure what I’m looking for since I don’t know which car Mom borrowed to go to the fire ruins. But Mom isn’t in the parking lot.
We walk across the dig, only to find that she’s not there either. And her bed hasn’t been touched since this morning. I feel the panic start to rise in my chest, but I push it down. Maybe she’s at dinner.
But when we get to the buffet line and the picnic tables, she’s not there either. Where could she be? Is she in danger?
We sit down with our plates and wait for her to show up. I shuffle food around my plate; I have no appetite. Only dread.
“You have to eat, Carlos,” Eliza says gently, though I clock that her appetite is less than usual too. I can tell she’s also worried, but trying to keep it together for me. I appreciate that.
“Want me to help you eat?” Frank suggests.
“I don’t see how you can—”
He drops a piece of pita into my open mouth, then moves my jaw up and down with his hands. “Now swallow,” he says, rubbing my throat like I’m a dog taking a pill.
“Get off me!”
“We can try the bird method next,” Frank says.
“You mean the one where the mama bird chews up food and spits it into the mouth of a baby bird?”
“That’s the one!” Frank says.
“Uh, no thanks, I’ll pass.” I grab my fork and swirl some hummus around.
Let me retrace our steps. We split up this afternoon: us to the tunnels, Mom to the ruins of the fire. Did she come back? If not, did she get into an accident? Is she hurt? And if she did return, why didn’t she find us? Did she . . . go to the tunnels searching for us? Did she reach a booby trap?
I wrestle all evening with what to do, but I don’t come to any concrete answer. I just need Mom to show up out of the blue and shout, “Surprise!” But she doesn’t.
I dial her phone over and over again, but I never get any answer. I leave messages until her voicemail is full. I feel like I’m going to throw up.
By the time Eliza, Frank, and I are lying in our cots, I feel twisted and tangled with thoughts. I worry for hours after Eliza and Frank fall asleep. There’s no sleep in my future . . . only a restless, fearful night.
* * *
Day Two
* * *
THE NECKLACE OF Harmonia has wrapped itself once, twice, three times around my mom’s neck . . . she’s choking . . . she’s cursed . . . the Greek gods are grabbing her by the ankles and pulling her away—
I wake up with a jolt.
“Mom?”
Her bed is still empty.
Something is definitely wrong.
I get up and start getting dressed. Eliza’s sleeping, but Frank is awake. He’s just sitting on the bed wiggling his tooth.
“Just let it come out naturally,” I say. “It takes some time.”
“Time I do not have.”
“Um . . . why don’t you have time?”
He sighs. “Because I want to exchange this tooth for money, and I want to exchange money for a souvenir.”
“What souvenir are you going to buy with twenty-five cents? You can basically only afford a lollipop.”
Frank grins excitedly, and he pushes his tooth with his tongue.
“Eliza,” I say, walking over to her bed. “Wake up.”
She nearly jumps out of bed. “Your mom?”
I shake my head.
“I’m sure she’s okay. We can go find her.”
“Go where? We’re not even sure where she is!”
“We need to ask our suspects about your mom. I know we’ve been hired to find the artifacts, but she’s way more important than the missing relics. She’s even more important than the Necklace of Harmonia. And we should start with Dr. Mandible.”
Frustration blossoms within me. Shouldn’t I be calling the shots? It’s my mom.
I think Eliza can read the frustration on my face. Her smile wavers. “Of course,” she mumbles, sounding glum as she zips her backpack closed, “you can decide, since it’s your mom.”
Great, now I feel guilty, on top of irritated. But I’m also too tired and too worried to argue with her. So we walk to the medical tent.
“KNOCK KNOCK!” Frank says, in lieu of actually knocking on a door, since there is no door.
“Who’s there?” a voice calls out.
“LOLLIPOPS!”
I groan.
“Lollipops who?”
“GIVE ME A SUCKER, SUCKER!”
“Frank!” Eliza scolds. “Be polite.”
He nods. “Give me a sucker, sucker. Please.”
I put a palm on my forehead. There’s just no hope with him.
Dr. Amanda Mandible opens the tent to let us in. I clock her checking her watch. She turns to us with that shiny, phony smile. Totally fake. Everything about her is too sweet, too smiley, too giggly. There’s just something off about her. . . .
“I can spare you a minute. Then I must go.”
Is it just me, or is she desperately trying not to spend any time with us?
* * *
