The Midnight Market

by Beth McMullen

  “It certainly raises the stakes,” Hannah says thoughtfully. And she’s right. It does.

  But at what point do the stakes become so high that all hope of overcoming them is lost?

  CHAPTER 13 CABIN TWELVE RULES!

  CABIN TWELVE IS SMALL, WITH a shared living space and two separate bedrooms. Bathrooms are in a central building located about twenty paces into the woods. I do not relish a midnight run to the toilet. Perhaps I can stop taking in fluids at noon?

  In our narrow bedroom, Hannah claims the top bunk, which is fine because her nose is literally three inches from the ceiling. She cannot sit up. She can barely roll over. The bottom bunk is a cave, but at least it’s not like sleeping in a coffin. Jin’s bedroom is a single narrow bed wedged into a sliver of space. By comparison, total luxury.

  Tacked to the inside of the door is a laminated piece of paper, a list of Camp Timber Wolf rules and the number of penalty points campers receive for breaking them. For example, whining will get you six penalty points. Six! And the list does not even clarify what whining is! What if you’re bleeding? It’s as subjective as Olympic figure skating! I don’t like this system already. It feels stacked against us. Oh, who am I kidding? Lipstick, our archenemy, runs the place. If we make it forty-eight hours, I will be shocked.

  Being late for meals, skipping skills sessions, wearing dirty socks—the list goes on. But the worst violation is cell phones. If you are caught trying to communicate with the outside world, fifty penalty points. It’s basically game over.

  This is what I’m thinking at the exact moment I hear a mysterious Ping! Ping! Ping! The blue-bellied river sparrow? The lunch bell? Of course not. Hannah and I turn on Jin, who flushes furiously. He is not good at subterfuge.

  “Ping! Ping! Ping!” yelps Zeus, jolted awake from his nap.

  “You brought an extra cell phone?” I whisper-yell. “It won’t even work! And it’s an expulsion-level crime!” I jab the list on the door with my finger. “Did you forget that Lipstick is already out to get us?”

  “Sorry,” he says, nervously spinning his ugly Paul bracelet. “It’s only that…”

  The contraband cell phone pings again. “Shut that thing up!” Hannah barks. “The least you could do is set it to silent mode!”

  That does seem to be a fairly major oversight. If you are going to commit a crime, think it through. See the endgame. That’s something I learned during my brief stint as a criminal, which is not the same thing as saying I was good at it. But still. This feels like low-hanging fruit.

  “I thought I did!” Jin yells back. He’s hopping around on one foot like a stork. Zeus finds the ride a bit too bumpy and alights for my shoulder instead. I feel used, but now seems the wrong time for that conversation. What on earth is Jin doing?

  Finally, he pulls off his dirty sneaker and tumbles to the ground. Wiggling the heel of the shoe back and forth, he dislodges it and out falls an old smartphone. I am at once horrified and impressed.

  “Wait a minute,” I say. “That’s cool and also, not.” Jin holds up the hollowed-out shoe for us to examine.

  “It was easy.” He’s proud, when he should be full of regret and remorse.

  Hannah glares at him. “Lipstick and now this… this shoe thing?”

  “The Smuggle Shoe 1.0,” I say.

  “Oh, I like that!” Jin exclaims. “Although it implies it can be improved, and I’m not sure how.”

  “Everything can be improved,” I respond.

  “Can you guys please try to see the big picture?” Hannah asks. “Lipstick is not a member of our fan club. Neither are Star or Fish. Or Moose. They all want to see us fail. And that phone is the perfect excuse for them to kick us out.”

  Jin hangs his head. I can’t see his eyes, so I can’t tell if he is remorseful or regretful yet. “It’s just… I had to,” he whispers.

  “Me and Lola can go two weeks without phones.” She glances over at me, suddenly suspicious. “Right? I mean, you’re not going to pull a phone out of your ponytail or anything, are you?”

  I only got my first phone when I came to live with Great-Aunt Irma. It was a hand-me-down, and Irma used it primarily to track my location, which means I rarely took it out of the house, good thief that I was. I can live without one. No big deal. “Of course not,” I reply.

  Jin raises his eyes, and if I had to label the emotion there, I’d call it conflicted. What is going on? This is not fear of electronic withdrawal. “You should probably tell us what’s up,” I say. “We’re going to figure it out eventually, and this way, we save time.”

  Jin sighs. It’s heartfelt and deep, like he is letting go of a burden. “It’s kind of complicated.”

  Hannah and I take seats on the saggy old couch. “We have six minutes,” Hannah says. “Maybe just summarize.”

  Jin begins pacing the small room, worrying the Paul bracelet. “Okay. Well. I… ah… didn’t want to leave Paul out in the cold, you know? When I told him where I was going and what I was doing, he was so excited about it!”

  Hannah snorts in disgust. “He said you were destined for failure. Did you forget that part?”

  Jumping immediately to Paul’s defense, Jin explains, “He was joking! Messing with me, that’s all.”

  “Was he?” Hannah responds, eyes narrowed.

  “Go on,” I command.

  “Well, he asked for all the details, you know, in real time, and I figured… well, I guess you can see what I figured.”

  “I cannot believe this,” Hannah growls. “Just because you don’t see someone or talk to them every single second of every single day doesn’t mean you aren’t friends.” Wait a minute. Is she talking about us? Was her post-Pegasus rejection all in my head? Because it sure felt real.

  Jin abruptly turns on her. “He’s my best friend.” Is?

  “He pretended you were dead,” I say flatly.

  “I already explained that,” Jin says quickly. “He was adjusting to his new life. It was hard.”

  When I met Jin, he declared that we could never actually be friends because Paul had dumped him and broken his heart. We could work together on a project, stuff like that, but friendship? No way. He was never doing that again. That was fine with me. I knew nothing about having actual friends because I was a nomad and never stayed in one place long enough to make any. Eventually, he came around and I figured it out, and fast-forward to us in a log cabin in the woods. But I do find the sway that Paul holds over Jin a little desperate.

  “I cannot believe you put us all at risk for someone lousy,” Hannah says with a grimace.

  “He’s not lousy,” Jin shoots back.

  Uh-oh. The temperature rises in our little cabin. Hannah and Jin might come to blows, and that would be a whole other level of lousy. I hold up my hands. “Come on, you two. This is not helping. But the phone has to go. You get that, right?”

  “Yes! Of course! I’ll get rid of it. I promise.”

  Hannah extends her hand. “No. I’ll get rid of it. Hand it over.”

  And this is the exact moment that a horn blasts so loudly that Zeus vaults straight to the ceiling, all aflutter. In a panic, Jin stuffs the phone between the lumpy couch cushions. “All campers! Ropes course! ASAP!”

  Somehow hearing Lipstick’s voice blaring over speakers is worse than even I could have imagined. Dad likes to say that you make your own luck.

  But sometimes bad luck happens to you anyway.

  CHAPTER 14 THE ROPES COURSE OF DOOM

  FOR THE UNINITIATED, A ROPES course is a series of utility poles and elevated platforms. Between the platforms, obstacles are strung along ropes and cables, like wobbly planks or spinning discs that slip easily from beneath your feet, leaving you dangling in the air. Some courses are high off the ground and require a harness and tether, and some are only a few feet up. This particular one that we now face is almost to the moon, partially hidden in the dense pines.

  There are about twenty campers gathered around a table laden with harnesses, teth
ers, pulleys, and helmets. It’s my first up-close look at the other campers, and I’m sorry to say that my initial assessment seems to hold true. They are like minor league superheroes, the kind that get a TV show instead of a movie franchise. There is also a good chance they can do quadratic equations in their sleep, speak multiple languages fluently, are practiced in the art of code breaking, and have read all the classics. Like, really read them, as opposed to saying they read them.

  By comparison, what have we got? As if reading my mind, Hannah nudges me and says, “Don’t forget we saved the world.”

  Moose clears his throat. “As of today, all campers have arrived on the island, so we are ready to begin our full training regimen. You will be tested physically, mentally, and emotionally. The International Task Force for the Cooperative Protection of Entities with Questionable Provenance is uninterested in treasure hunters who cannot take the pressure. If you feel you are one of those people, don’t waste our time. Please leave now.” He pauses for dramatic effect. No one moves a muscle. “As we train, you will come to know and love the guiding principles of treasure hunters from around the globe. The Task Force was founded in 1857. And while you may think you are smarter than the collective wisdom of those who came before you, you are not. You are nothing. Nod if you understand.” Heads bob in unison. We are nothing. Got it. “The principles are… Expect the unexpected. Understand and respect that which you hunt. Pick your partners wisely. Always have a plan. And finally, most importantly, what we call the Phoenix directive.”

  Hannah’s hand shoots straight up. Moose is so taken aback by the interruption, he accidentally calls on her. “What is Phoenix?” she asks. “Other than a city in Arizona?”

  “Huh?” Poor Moose. I almost feel sorry for him, but not quite.

  “None of the other principles had names,” she points out. “I’m trying to be a good treasure hunter and understand the big picture.”

  There is some muttered agreement among the minor league superheroes. Moose grumbles. “Fine. The cautionary tale of Phoenix and Gryphon, who were the best treasure-hunting team in the history of treasure hunting. There was nothing they couldn’t find. All the big ones—the Chrysaor golden sword, the Asi sword, the Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi sword, the Harpe sword, the Ascalon sword…”

  Hannah’s hand darts up. “Anything other than swords? Because that’s a lot of mythical swords.”

  “I’m the one telling the story.” Moose shoots death rays out of his eyes at Hannah, which she does not notice or does not care about.

  “Well?” She places her hands on her hips, waiting. She’s going to get us kicked out of here for insubordination if she doesn’t be quiet.

  “If you’d stop interrupting, I will tell the story. Now, Phoenix and Gryphon also found the cloud-stepping shoes and the seven-league boots.”

  “Footwear,” Hannah mutters. “Big deal.”

  Moose glares at her. “Not enough for you? How about this? They also found Zeus’s lightning bolt.” A hush falls over us. Even Hannah’s mouth hangs open. Zeus’s lightning bolt? For real? “But its power drove Gryphon mad, and she attempted to murder Phoenix and steal the bolt. Phoenix escaped with the bolt, but instead of returning to the Task Force as she was meant to, she went rogue and vanished, never to be heard from again. Rumor has it she broke the bolt into pieces to reduce its power and hid those pieces so no one would ever find them.”

  Moose’s eyes sweep over the group to make sure we are paying attention, but he doesn’t need to. We are rapt, hanging on his every word.

  “Think about it,” he continues. “Broken pieces of bolt sitting out there, unprotected. Imagine what would happen if someone got ahold of one? Their power is limitless. The world we know would cease to exist. And Gryphon, who escaped from prison less than a year later, is probably still out there searching for them, driven by a lust for the ultimate prize.” Is he trying to scare us? I think he is trying to scare us. I shiver head to toe.

  “And so here is the lesson,” he continues, “the Phoenix directive. Never go rogue. Never. Only bad things will happen if you do.” He lets that settle in for a moment. Murmurs, echoing his words, rise from the group. Don’t go rogue. It’s bad. Got it.

  “Now down to business!” Moose shouts, abruptly changing gears. “The ropes course is about team building and keeping your wits in challenging situations. You will be evaluated, as always, so don’t lollygag around.”

  “Lollygag” is the perfect word to crack the tension. A small giggle escapes Jin. Hannah snorts. I elbow Jin and step on Hannah’s foot. No laughing. We have a contraband cell phone and a smuggled parrot. We are on very thin ice.

  “Your task is to make it around the course twice. I expect you to demonstrate the ability to learn from your mistakes. Like in life, some of you will have to sacrifice your ambitions for the good of the overall team. Team assignments are as follows.”

  Moose rattles off names. I think they are codenames or call signs, like military pilots or something, because I don’t know any regular people named Viper or Galaxy Girl or Unicorn or Hotdog or Bubbles. For the record, he refers to us by our given names, which in this situation somehow serves to make us seem silly. We will just have to prove ourselves on the course.

  Our group of three is third in line. We are behind high school kids who are not going to win any gold medals for whispering. We hear everything they say despite their best efforts to keep it quiet. There is a girl with a retro Ms. Pac-Man T-shirt and a boy with a slew of colorful woven lanyards dangling from his neck. The other boy has the longest, stretchiest arms I’ve ever seen, with fingertips that practically brush his kneecaps. His arms undulate like waves.

  Jin nudges me and nods toward them. “Do you hear this?” he whispers.

  No. Mostly I’m watching Rubber Band Boy and wondering if he ever gets tangled up in his own arms. But now I listen.

  “It’s lost,” Ms. Pac-Man says, waggling her eyebrows up and down for emphasis. “Sven—that’s the Stockholm asset—said it was on a ship bound for Canada, but then the ship disappeared.”

  “Whoa,” replies Rubber Band Boy.

  “Rad,” adds Lanyards. Okay. I take it back. Maybe they don’t all speak three languages and break codes before breakfast.

  “Remember, we’re being assessed on initiative, quick thinking, flexibility, and all that other stuff. If we are the best, we have a shot at being selected as treasure hunters, for real.” Ms. Pac-Man’s eyebrows dance around some more, clearly excited. “And there is no way I let any of these ding-dongs get a shot at being treasure hunters before me… I mean, us.”

  “What’s getting shot at?” Lanyards asks.

  Ms. Pac-Man looks set to sock him. “Are you even paying attention?”

  “I mean, I am, but…”

  “At treasure-hunter status, you idiot,” Rubber Band Boy explains. “So what’s the plan? How do we do it? How do we show initiative and that other thing you said?”

  “The Helm of Darkness,” Ms. Pac-Man says gravely.

  “The thingy that makes you invisible?” Lanyards asks.

  “It’s not a thingy,” Ms. Pac-Man says. “It’s a helmet. And figuring out where it is will be our ticket onto the Task Force.”

  “But it disappeared,” Lanyards says. “You said so yourself.”

  “Minor detail,” Ms. Pac-Man says with a dismissive wave. “I figure it’s on its way to the Midnight Market, where stuff like that gets sold. It’s not like you can just plop something mythical or magical on a shelf at Target. Or auction it on eBay.”

  Rubber Band Boy furrows his brow. “I thought the market was impossible to locate unless you were on the list or whatever. Like, it’s always moving.”

  Ms. Pac-Man glares at him. “And you think I can’t find it?”

  “Oh, you could totally find it,” Lanyards says quickly. Rubber Band Boy nods in agreement.

  “Listen. All we have to do is pinpoint the location and tell the director, and they get the Helm and we get to be her
oes.” Ms. Pac-Man smiles. “Simple.”

  “But we don’t even have the internet!” Lanyards cries. “How are we supposed to gather information with no internet? Is it even possible?”

  We are so consumed with eavesdropping that we don’t realize they have stopped talking and are blatantly staring at us. “You’re the unicorn kids,” Ms. Pac-Man says with an unkind grin.

  “Major screwup,” Rubber Band Boy jeers.

  Hannah kicks the dirt. “Not a unicorn,” she hisses. “A Pegasus. No horn.”

  “Whatever,” scoffs Ms. Pac-Man.

  “It wasn’t our fault,” I say. “The Pegasus thing.” Let there be no misunderstanding—it was definitely our fault.

  “That’s not what we heard.” Ms. Pac-Man erupts with laughter. Rubber Band Boy and Lanyards join in, although Lanyards looks confused by the whole conversation. I’m not sure he’s qualified to be here, but no one asked me. Hannah glares at them. I grab her arm. There is nothing to be gained from an altercation over magical horses. Besides, here is Moose, arms crossed and highly aggravated.

  “Is this a social hour?” he yells. “Is this free time? Gossip time? Time for chitchat?”

  “No sir!” Ms. Pac-Man, Rubber Band Boy, and Lanyards stand at attention, suddenly all business. I think they salute Moose. Jin throws me a look. Are we supposed to do that too? With a flick of the wrist, Moose sends the terrible threesome up onto the course. When his attention turns to us, my mouth goes dry.

  “Has the stress of being at Camp Timber Wolf affected your hearing?” he demands. I don’t think so because I can hear him loud and clear. They can probably hear him in Canada, too. “I said start on the second course, but you stand here like you’re planted.” He circles us. I think about great white sharks. “I’m watching you three. I’m watching all the time. Now come on!” We race to the start of our obstacle course as if our hair is on fire. Jin’s forehead is shiny with sweat.

  “Benko!” Moose bellows. “You first. And if you cause me any more trouble…”