The Alcatraz Escape

by Jennifer Chambliss Bertman

  “Mr. Roy?” a chipper voice behind him said, and Errol turned with relief to find a man wearing a burgundy and blue plaid vest.

  “I’m Jack, Mr. Griswold’s assistant.” Jack extended his hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

  “You match this room,” Errol replied.

  “Bayside Press colors,” Jack said. “Not a requirement of working here—I’m just having fun with it. Follow me.”

  Errol Roy followed Jack down a hallway lined with paintings of famous San Francisco authors in ludicrous costumes. He couldn’t help smirking when he saw his own: Errol Roy as a mummy. Clever way to portray him when nobody knew what he looked like.

  Garrison Griswold was already standing when they entered his office. “Wonderful to finally meet you after all these years,” Griswold said.

  Errol couldn’t tell if that was a barb buried in his welcome. “You too,” he replied.

  Garrison Griswold stared at him intensely, like he was trying to memorize every detail. It was unnerving, so Errol focused on the Rube Goldberg machine in the office instead. It was a large glass case that enclosed what looked like a miniature roller coaster for marbles, made out of levers and slides and sprockets and rotating wheels and the like.

  “Thank you for taking the time to speak with me,” Errol said to the marble that clack-clack-clacked down a miniature staircase.

  “Of course. Come, let’s have a seat.”

  “I’m fine standing. I won’t take up much of your time.”

  Errol glanced away from the machine and realized that Griswold and Jack had already sat down in the sitting area of the office. Errol perched on the edge of an armchair. He wanted to get this over with, so his words came out in one long rush.

  “I’d like to participate in Unlock the Rock—or, rather, help craft the narrative of the game—and I have an idea for how I could insert my own mystery into whatever you’ve already planned, assuming you don’t mind making a few changes. My only request is that the story I craft for the game remain a surprise—for everyone, including you.”

  Griswold nodded thoughtfully. “Were you thinking of writing something up or—”

  Errol cut him off. “It’s also important to me that I be there to present my story.”

  “In person?” Griswold asked, surprised.

  “Yes, on Alcatraz, as myself at the event.”

  Griswold and Jack exchanged a look.

  “Don’t get me wrong,” Griswold began. “I know I speak for Hollister as well when I say we greatly appreciate your gesture, but I have to ask: Why? Why now?”

  Errol had anticipated this question. Concentrating on the lamp next to Griswold, he carefully stated his answer. “I’m getting on in years, and I’ve told all the stories I’m interested in telling, except for one. Unlock the Rock would offer me a unique way to tell that story, and I’m not sure I’ll have another opportunity.” For the last bit of what he wanted to say, Errol risked looking directly at Garrison Griswold. “I would also hope that in participating, I might be making amends for having disappointed people in the past.”

  Now it was Mr. Griswold’s turn to avert his eyes. He smiled lightly and said, “I appreciate that, but no amends are necessary. Your help, however, would be tremendous.”

  Errol Roy nodded, to acknowledge Mr. Griswold’s offer of forgiveness.

  “And, of course, you’ll have to cooperate with Alcatraz’s guidelines for events on their premises, and you and I will have to draw up an official agreement.”

  “None of that will be a problem,” Errol replied.

  “Having an author of your stature involved with Unlock the Rock would bring a lot of additional attention to it and to the bookstore’s reopening…,” Mr. Griswold said tentatively.

  “Yes,” Errol agreed. “And I’m fine with you publicizing that I will be involved, if that is helpful to you. As long as I am the only one who will know the details of my story.”

  Mr. Griswold leaned forward, his eyes creased with concern. “But you’ve cultivated a very private life, and doing this might change things for you. Are you sure you’re okay with that?”

  No, I’m not sure, Errol thought, but what he said was, “Yes.”

  CHAPTER

  8

  AFTER SCHOOL, Emily and James walked home, but she was only half listening as her friend talked. All she could think about was what she would do if she couldn’t solve her entry puzzle for Unlock the Rock. She could explain not going by faking being sick, but that wouldn’t solve anything—she’d still miss out, and she didn’t want that. Maybe she could pretend to have lost her ticket? Would they let her play the game then? It was probably a simple thing for Mr. Griswold or Jack to review the website to check if Surly Wombat had qualified before replacing her ticket.

  They walked their usual route home past Hollister’s bookstore. They used to stop in and say hello most afternoons, but they hadn’t been able to for more than a month, since the fire that had ravaged his shop had forced him to close temporarily. The community had rallied around him, as evidenced by the store window papered over with posters, cards, and sheets of butcher paper covered in different handwriting in various colors of marker. Customers and neighbors had let him know how much he and his shop were valued with notes of support like: You’ll be back, better than ever!

  Parked in front of the store was an old VW bus that a neighbor had donated to Hollister so he could have a mobile bookstore while the actual store was under repair. Another neighbor had painted the vehicle with a sign that said HOLLISTER’S BOOK BUS. Often Hollister or his new employee, Diego, would be spotted driving it around to deliver book orders, or parked at a food-truck night. Sometimes Emily could hear the bus traveling through the neighborhood from blocks away, because Hollister liked to play the song “There Should Be a Book” by Lee Dorsey over a loudspeaker.

  Emily kept thinking about her predicament as James pressed his hands to the window of the bookstore to peer through a gap in the notes and cards. “I see Diego unpacking boxes of books,” he said. “No sign of Hollister.”

  Emily was looking at a drawing a child had made. It looked like a person riding a train made of books, with hearts coming out of the smokestack. In beginner handwriting, the note said, Books are my ticket to other worlds.

  Suddenly Emily knew what she had to do.

  “I forgot something at school!” she blurted out.

  James looked at her like she had hiccupped bubbles. “What did you forget?”

  “My … math textbook. Go ahead without me so your grandma doesn’t wonder where you are.”

  Before James could say anything else, Emily spun around and ran back the way they’d come. Their school was in the opposite direction from where she wanted to go, but she had to wait until she knew she was out of view of James before she turned down a side street and headed instead toward Grace Cathedral.

  The cathedral was an immense Gothic-style building that took up an entire block and was built higher than street level, so there was a long and wide set of stairs leading up to it. In front of the entrance and off to the side, opposite a courtyard, was a small alcove where the first labyrinth was laid out on the ground. Cement benches and planters filled with shrubs and trees created a border around the labyrinth.

  When Emily had moved to San Francisco last fall and heard about the labyrinths, she’d imagined they would be more like mazes with high walls and twisty turns and dead ends. But each of the labyrinths at Grace Cathedral was flat, made out of stones placed in a pattern to form a large circle with a serpentine path inside that curved back and forth around itself until it reached a flower-shaped center.

  Although Emily could cross the flat labyrinth and go directly to the center, she didn’t. It felt disrespectful to not walk the path, especially as this was on the property of the cathedral.

  She entered the labyrinth and stepped heel-toe, heel-toe as quickly as possible, but a funny thing happened as she made her way to the middle. The things she was worried abou
t—not finding the golden ticket, not making it into Unlock the Rock, who had left her that note—loosened with every heel-toe step, until one by one they broke free and she was left simply concentrating on her goal.

  When she reached the flower, she faced east to the park across the street. Emily closed her eyes and took a deep breath in. She exhaled and opened her eyes. Looking forward, she saw nothing unusual. Nothing under or on the benches. The planter looked like your average …

  An odd patch of ivy stood out.

  It was a different green from the other plants and had a slight sheen—the more she stared, the more certain Emily became that it wasn’t real. She was certain she’d found the hiding place for the book that held the golden ticket and was about to dart forward when she heard a young voice shout, “Papa, we’re almost there! I can see the top of the stairs!”

  Between the trees that separated the labyrinth and the long set of stairs that led up to the cathedral, Emily soon saw a cap, worn by an old man, bobbing up the steps. The cap stopped moving for a second, and Emily could hear a man’s voice say, “Hold on, Iris. Give me a second.”

  “We’re going to find it—I just know it!” The little girl, who had to be Iris, bounced on the stairs, so her head was visible, and then not, visible, then not.

  “Don’t get your hopes up yet, dear. Let’s wait and see what we see.”

  Realizing this young girl and her grandfather were obviously looking for the golden ticket, too, made Emily’s shoulders droop. All she had to do was run forward and grab it and it would be hers. But watching that girl’s braids flap up and down with every bounce, Emily remembered being about the same age, when she was in third grade and new to Book Scavenger and so excited to go on book hunts, and so crushed when the book she’d been scouting wasn’t there. Not that she didn’t get excited now, but it was a different feeling when it was all brand-new. Emily knew this golden ticket was one of very few left, and if Iris was also looking for it, then it might be the young girl’s only chance to get into Unlock the Rock.

  Emily looked from the fake clump of ivy to the stairs where Iris and her grandfather stood, and back to the ivy.

  She took a deep breath, spun on one foot, and walked away.

  CHAPTER

  9

  SURPRISINGLY, EMILY felt okay about leaving the golden ticket behind. She knew Iris was going to be ecstatic when she found it, and Emily did still have one more try with her puzzle. If she got the answer wrong again, well, that was just a chance she was going to take. There had to be a trick to solving it, like the fake ivy hiding the book near the labyrinth. Once you saw it, you couldn’t unsee it.

  But first you had to see it.

  When Emily turned onto her street, James was on the sidewalk in front of their building, a device in his hands to direct the remote control car he’d made. The car whirred up the very steep hill toward Emily until it tipped over on its back. She scooped it up and righted the vehicle, facing it downhill, then scuttled alongside the car as James drove it back to himself.

  “Did you get it?” he asked when she stopped in front of the building.

  Emily froze. How had James known she’d gone to look for a golden ticket?

  He gave her that hiccupping-bubbles look again. “Your math book?” he reminded her.

  “Oh. Yeah, I did.”

  James’s dark brown eyes reflected such genuine concern, she couldn’t keep the truth from him any longer. She had to come clean.

  “Actually … I didn’t forget a book. I was trying to find a golden ticket.”

  “You were? Did you…” James looked to either side of them, even though nobody else was outside, and lowered his voice. “Did you not get in?”

  “No—I mean, I don’t know. I have one try left. I’ve been kind of freaking out. The pressure, you know?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me? I would have gone with you.”

  “I know,” Emily said. “I just feel dumb that I’m stuck on a puzzle.”

  James shrugged. “Everyone gets stuck sometimes. If it wasn’t a challenge, it wouldn’t be fun. I can try and help you.”

  Emily shook her head firmly, her ponytail wagging. “Thanks, but no. I need to solve it myself.”

  * * *

  Emily opened the Unlock the Rock entry page, determined to click “yes” this time and give her puzzle one last go, when a knock on her open door startled her.

  Emily’s mom stood in the hallway. “Almost time to go!”

  “Go where?” Emily asked, exasperated.

  Her mom pressed her hands to her hips and mirrored her exasperated look. “Emily! First you make fun of my favorite book, which I beg you to read, and now you forget about the author talk?!”

  “Right, right,” Emily muttered, closing her laptop. “Lacey Lopez.”

  “It’s Lucy Leonard. Even if you’re not excited about her, you can be excited about supporting Hollister. He’s the one who’ll be asking her questions tonight. Surely that’s something you can look forward to.”

  It was putting off the inevitable, but Emily was a little relieved she wasn’t going to find out her Unlock the Rock fate quite yet.

  In the past when her family had gone to hear authors talk about their new books, it was always in a bookstore—one of the various stores here in San Francisco or where they’d lived in previous states—but tonight’s event was being held in a theater. Emily’s parents had said it would be a small theater, but it didn’t seem small to Emily. There were several hundred seats above and below them.

  They sat in red velvet chairs in the balcony. The ceiling was an elaborate pattern of paneled stars with chandeliers hanging down. Below, the stage was spare, decorated only with a rug, two armchairs, and an end table in between.

  Matthew whistled, taking in the space. “This lady must be a big deal.”

  “Her book is excellent.” Their mother nudged Emily with her elbow. “It’s not too late to read The Twain Conspiracy.” She was a Superfan, with a capital S, and had kept trying to get Emily to read the book since the unbreakable code had had to do with Mark Twain. Her mom said the book was a page-turner, but Emily hadn’t been able to get into it.

  “Does it have a psychic in it?” Emily didn’t have high hopes that an author who wrote something she had found boring would be very interesting to listen to, so she’d brought the book she was in the middle of, Hello, Universe, as well as her flashlight pen so she could read and even make notes in the dark. Sometimes when Emily read books, she liked to write comments or thoughts in the margins. It was something she’d been doing as long as she’d been reading on her own.

  “I can’t say I remember a psychic,” her mom said.

  “Well, this book has a psychic.”

  Emily’s dad leaned forward in his seat, peering down at all the people settling into the rows below. “Your mom’s not the only one crazy about this book. Look at everyone here!”

  “Just because something is liked by some of the people doesn’t mean it needs to be liked by all of the people,” Emily countered. “Plenty of people love macaroni and cheese, but Matthew hates it.”

  Matthew made a retching noise. “Ugh. Even the thought of it is gross.”

  Emily’s mom smiled. “Point taken. It’s good to stretch yourself sometimes, though.”

  Emily held up Hello, Universe. “Maybe you should stretch yourself and read this.”

  “You’re right! Maybe I should.”

  “Shhh.” Emily’s dad nodded to the stage. “Here comes Hollister.”

  The chandeliers dimmed. The bookseller looked so small as he shuffled to the center of the stage. He wore his button-down shirt untucked, and it billowed as he walked, his graying dreads gathered loosely behind him. The event had been scheduled by Hollister’s bookstore before it suffered the fire, and Emily knew he’d been looking forward to it. He’d been the one to tell her mom about it when she bought her copy of the book from him. With everything Hollister had lost in the fire, Emily was glad that tonight could
n’t be taken from him.

  Matthew cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, “Yeah, Hollister!” then leaned to their dad and asked, “Am I allowed to do that in a fancy place like this?” Before he’d finished his question, more people called Hollister’s name and started applauding.

  Even though he was far away, Emily could tell Hollister was surprised. Or maybe embarrassed. He batted their cheers away, which only amped up the volume.

  “What a way to start the night,” he said.

  People jumped to their feet, giving him a standing ovation.

  Hollister shook his head and turned away from the crowd for a moment before facing them again and saying, “Come on now, people. I need to hold it together for Lucy Leonard. Help me out here.”

  Everyone laughed and settled back into their seats.

  “Seriously, though, thank you, each and every one of you, for your support for Hollister’s. I imagine you’ve heard about Unlock the Rock, Garrison Griswold’s latest challenge. That was going to be a fund-raiser for my store, but you all—my neighborhood, the bookseller community, strangers—came through for me in ways I never would have expected or dreamed. So now we’re calling it a fun-raiser, and I hope to see many of you there to raise the fun, all right?”

  With the cheering and hooting that followed, it felt to Emily like the whole theater must be going to Unlock the Rock. She slouched in her seat and doodled a spider, a clock, and a party hat in the margin of the page she’d left off on in Hello, Universe.

  Hollister continued, “If I don’t see you there, we’ll be raising the fun again at the grand reopening of my store Sunday. Can you believe that? Thanks to our community rallying, Hollister’s bookstore will be open again next week.”