The Alcatraz Escape

by Jennifer Chambliss Bertman

  Now, that was applause that Emily was happy to join in on. People started to stand again in waves, but Hollister wagged his hands for them to sit. When the noise died down enough for people to hear, he said, “Let’s not start that up again,” and everyone laughed.

  Hollister introduced Lucy Leonard, and the woman walked out onstage. Her glossy, dark hair hung like one smooth sheet to her shoulders, and thick, red-framed glasses stood out against her pale skin.

  Emily’s mom shook her head reverentially and said, “Amazing that someone that young can write books as well as she does.”

  “She doesn’t look young—she looks your age,” Emily whispered back.

  Her mom bumped her shoulder to Emily’s. “Hush up,” she said. She leaned forward to concentrate as Hollister and the author settled into the chairs.

  “I have to tell you,” Lucy Leonard said to the audience. “If I wasn’t already on deadline for a different book, this is the story I’d want to write. The bookseller as a hero.” She gestured widely to the crowd, then turned to Hollister. “Your community wouldn’t have done what they did for you if you hadn’t been faithfully serving them all these years and made genuine connections with your customers.”

  Hollister shooed her compliments away with the sheet of paper he held in his hand with notes for his interview. “Enough about me already. I want to jump on something you just said—you’re on deadline for another book? Can you tell us about it?”

  “Well…” Lucy Leonard looked around the theater. “What I can say is that my next book is about Harriet Beecher Stowe. She was Mark Twain’s neighbor when he lived in Hartford, Connecticut, so I was led quite naturally to her through my research for The Twain Conspiracy. I almost felt like Twain himself led me down the path to write this book.”

  Hollister cocked his head. “Really? How is that?”

  The author pursed her lips in a secretive smile. “Let’s say I found something in a collection of his letters that planted the seed for what my focus would be.”

  “Interesting…” Hollister dragged out the word.

  “More than anything, I chose Stowe because she was a fascinating person. Mother of seven, a prolific writer, author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the antislavery novel published in 1852 that helped fuel the abolitionist movement. Her words connected with readers in that pre–Civil War atmosphere and the book took off. Uncle Tom’s Cabin sold more books than any other book in the nineteenth century, second only to the Bible. Now, I’ve been very fortunate to have The Twain Conspiracy on the bestseller list for twenty-six weeks, but that’s nothing compared to having published one of the most popular books of an entire century.”

  Despite Emily’s reluctance to be here and lack of interest in Lucy Leonard’s book, she found herself holding Hello, Universe open-side down in her lap and listening instead to what the author was saying.

  “And Stowe got this recognition in a time when women didn’t have the right to vote, and female writers often weren’t taken seriously. It wasn’t uncommon for women to sign their work ‘anonymous’ or use a male pen name—as was the case with George Eliot, who wrote Middlemarch—in order for their words to be valued and respected. So for Harriet Beecher Stowe to break through those barriers, and to be invited on speaking tours in our country and abroad in Europe, was exceptional.”

  Hollister nodded along as Lucy Leonard spoke. “I look forward to reading that. You mentioned The Twain Conspiracy’s continuing run on the bestseller list, and of course it was also a National Book Award finalist—how does it feel to follow in your own footsteps after writing a book that was so warmly received?”

  “I try not to think about it that way,” Lucy Leonard said. “I focus on the task at hand and the aspects of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s life that I’m interested in, and the best way, narratively, to bring that to readers. But I’ll be honest.…” Lucy turned to the audience, her head angled up so Emily could almost imagine she’d singled her out of the crowd and was speaking directly to her. “The expectations do get to me sometimes. You just have to go for it.”

  Hollister continued the conversation, but all Emily could think about was what the author had just said. All that pressure Emily felt to get into Unlock the Rock, the expectations from others based off her previous Book Scavenger triumphs, the expectations she had for herself … The lady’s Mark Twain book might not have hooked Emily, but she couldn’t let go of Lucy Leonard’s words: You just have to go for it.

  CHAPTER

  10

  THAT NIGHT, when the Cranes got back to their apartment, Emily marched straight to her laptop, logged into the Book Scavenger website, and opened the entry puzzle for the final time. Whatever the outcome might be, she was going for it.

  “Okay, you can do this,” Emily muttered.

  The spiders had to be equal to eight because eight plus eight plus eight equaled twenty-four. There was no other possibility. And then eight minus three equaled five, so the clock was three. Then three plus three plus four would be ten.…

  Emily was starting to feel despair creeping in again. This was exactly what she’d done before, and she already knew that wasn’t right. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and thought, Just go for it.

  She opened her eyes and looked at the fourth line. It started with a clock, so that would be equal to three.…

  “Wait.” The clock on the fourth line was set to four o’clock. She double-checked the other clocks. They were set to three o’clock!

  “That’s the trick!” she whispered.

  The spider was equal to eight, and a spider had eight legs.

  The clock in lines two and three were each equal to three, and they were set to three o’clock.

  The party hat in the third line down was equal to four. “Four dots,” Emily realized, and the other party hat had five dots.

  The fourth line wasn’t three plus four times eight like she’d first thought. It was four plus five times eight. Following the order of operations meant you did the multiplication first, so five times eight equaled forty, plus four equaled forty-four.

  Emily double-checked her math, then typed in the answer and pressed “Enter.”

  CONGRATULATIONS!

  Emily whooped, then flopped back on her bed. She rolled over and grabbed her notebook, ripping a piece of paper free. In her and James’s secret code she scribbled:

  B CXV BF!

  (I got in!)

  Emily crossed to her window, pushed up the sash, and dropped the note in the bucket that hung outside. As she tugged on the pulley, the bucket rose to James’s window directly above hers. She secured the rope to keep the bucket in place.

  She grabbed the broom propped in the corner of her room, which had a split-open tennis ball stuck on top, and used that to knock on her ceiling in the same pattern she and James always used when they had bucket mail: Thud. Thud-thud-thud. Thud.

  When James’s reply was on its way down, he knocked back. She removed the note from the bucket and deciphered his reply:

  XI EXLPSU DXL QBQ.

  (Of course you did.)

  It was nice to have a friend who believed in you more than you believed in yourself.

  * * *

  The next day, Tuesday, Emily andb her friends spent their entire lunch period plotting what to bring for the game. At least that was what she and James and Maddie and Nisha talked about. Vivian was getting a head start on her homework, and because Devin hadn’t gotten into the event, Kevin had decided not to try out. He didn’t want to go if his brother wouldn’t be there, so the twins played a card game off to the side.

  Very little was known about what Unlock the Rock would actually involve. The only guideline provided was that they could bring one regular-sized backpack each, filled with anything they thought could be useful, as long as it wasn’t a weapon or dangerous or alive. Determining what could be useful felt like an impossible task since, as Nisha pointed out, anything could be useful depending on what you were doing.

  “I’ll bri
ng rubber gloves in case we have to wash dishes!” James said.

  “A mousetrap in case we are catching mice,” Maddie added.

  “I’ll pack whipped cream in case we’re making sundaes,” Emily said.

  “One of you should bring a calculator, in case there are equations to solve,” Vivian interjected.

  “That … might actually be useful,” James said, and they wrote it down on their list.

  After they’d brainstormed a bit more, James said to Emily, “Tell me again—after Mr. Griswold announced Errol Roy would be designing the mystery for us to solve on Alcatraz, what were people saying in the Book Scavenger forums?”

  Emily grinned. She’d told James this small bit of gossip on their way to school, not realizing he was going to keep asking to hear it again and again, like a little kid with his favorite picture book.

  “The person in the forums said Errol Roy himself came into the Bayside Press building when he asked to be involved in the game.”

  “I still don’t get why that is so exciting,” Maddie said. “Garrison Griswold runs a publishing company. Book Scavenger is a game about hiding books. What’s so amazing about an author having something to do with one of his games?”

  James scoffed, thumping his hand to his chest like he’d swallowed something down the wrong tube.

  “An author? An author? Is J. K. Rowling just an author? Is Tolkien just an author? Errol Roy is the greatest mystery writer of all time. He wrote Liars and Thieves and No Witness and Rise of the Moon and a bunch of other classics.”

  Devin looked up from his game. “I know Liars and Thieves. That was a great movie.”

  “The book was way better,” James said. To the rest he explained, “It’s about a private investigator who has this ex-convict come to him who says he’s being blackmailed and framed for a robbery. The convict’s turned his life around and doesn’t want to mess anything up. The PI believes him and starts to investigate and then—” James holds up his hands. “I don’t want to ruin it. Just read it. Errol Roy is so well known, the library has an annual Errol Roy Day, where they host a mystery theater based on one of his books. Local celebrities are often in them, like the mayor or a Giants player.” He pointed to Emily. “Mr. Griswold participated a few times.”

  “So you’re a megafan,” Maddie said, jotting down another item on their brainstorming list. “That’s why it’s a big deal.”

  “No,” James said. “I mean, yes, but no, that’s not why it’s a big deal. Errol Roy is super private. Nobody even knows who he is! There are rumors that he’s not even real and his books are written by a bunch of different people.”

  “Like Carolyn Keene?” Emily asked. “The author of the Nancy Drew series?”

  “She’s not a real person?” Nisha asked, looking a bit crestfallen. “I didn’t know that.”

  “If Errol Roy really was at Bayside Press the other day, that’s the first time ever there has been an actual confirmed sighting. He is so mysterious, I didn’t even know he lived in this area. And I’ve read all his books!”

  Vivian looked up from her math problems. “But you knew about the Errol Roy mystery-theater thing,” she pointed out.

  “Well, yeah,” James said. “But he was never there. I thought every city had one! Every city should. Maybe they do? Anyway. All I’m saying is if Errol Roy has something to do with Unlock the Rock, it’s going to be epic.”

  CHAPTER

  11

  ERROL ROY stood in the entry to his apartment. His curtains were drawn. Dash was curled up in the reading chair—his favorite spot—with the lamp glowing on the table beside him. Tomorrow afternoon was Garrison Griswold’s event, and there were a few things Errol still needed to set up.

  He perched his panama hat on his head, opened the top drawer of the cabinet next to the front door, and removed both his set of keys and the spare. His hands were trembling, which at his eighty-six years of age wasn’t abnormal, but these tremors were so bad he couldn’t stop the keys from clinking together like sleigh bells.

  “Be good, Dash,” he whispered before slipping outside his apartment.

  He crossed the hall and knocked on Valerie’s door. He wasn’t sure he’d ever done that before. She opened it slowly and peered through the gap. “Oh! Ernie, hello.” She pushed the door wide. Her sweat suit was ruby red this evening.

  “Did your cat get out again?” she asked.

  That’s right, he had knocked on her door once before, years ago, when Dash went missing.

  “No, but funny you should mention my cat.” Errol focused on her doorbell. “I’ll be gone tomorrow afternoon and evening. Could you check in on him? Dash is his name. Give him fresh food and water.”

  “Of course, of course. I’d be happy to,” Valerie said.

  Errol extended his spare key but hesitated before releasing it into her palm. There were things he wanted to convey to Valerie, but he didn’t know how.

  “It’s important to me that Dash is well taken care of. He’s a great cat.”

  “Of course, dear, of course. I understand—he’s your baby. You know, I’ve had cats most of my life, so I really do understand. I nearly adopted another last year, but at my age it seemed like that would be foolish. Some days I think it was foolish not to. Your Dash will be well taken care of tomorrow—don’t worry about that for a second.”

  Valerie plucked the key from his fingers. Errol remained standing there, feeling like there was more to say but the words weren’t coming to him.

  “Well,” he finally said.

  Valerie stared at him curiously but kindly. “It’s scary being on our own, isn’t it?” she said. “Not having any family. I understand.”

  She couldn’t really. She had a daughter who checked in on her, and a niece in Austin who visited Valerie once a year. Errol only had Dash.

  “Yes, well, thank you,” Errol finally said. He walked away to the elevator and set out to complete his final and most important task before Unlock the Rock.

  CHAPTER

  12

  ON WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON, Emily and her family walked past the vertical green ALCATRAZ LANDING sign that marked the entrance of Pier 33, and under the blue and burgundy balloon arch that welcomed Unlock the Rock contestants.

  Emily could not believe she was actually here. Contestants of all ages swarmed the pier, wearing backpacks and bundled in jackets and knit hats on this gray San Francisco day. An eager energy jolted through the crowd like an electric charge.

  The pier was a large swath of asphalt between two long warehouse buildings that jutted over the water. In the distance was a white ferryboat with ALCATRAZ CRUISES written across the top, but nobody was boarding yet. Instead the contestants circled a long bank of cubicles set up in the middle of the pier. Inside each cubicle was an identical pile of gigantic blocks. The blocks were each the size of an end table, and it looked as if there was a different image printed on every side of the cube.

  A game setup, Emily figured. She counted ten stalls on the side they faced, and it looked like there was an identical set on the back side.

  Emily’s dad rested one hand on her shoulder and the other on Matthew’s. “I feel better knowing the two of you will be together.”

  “Two?” Emily looked beyond her parents and her brother to see if her dad had spotted James. Her mom gave Matthew a hug and said, “Have a great time.”

  “You mean us two?” Emily asked. To her brother she said, “You’re staying?”

  “You didn’t know he was doing this?” their dad said.

  Their mom pushed Matthew to arm’s length so she could see his face. “I thought you told your sister.”

  Matthew shrugged. “She didn’t believe me when I said I’d get in.”

  Emily’s mouth hung open. She had noticed her brother had brought his backpack when they’d left their house, but she’d figured he was going somewhere after their parents dropped her off at the ferry.

  “Are your friends here?” Emily asked.

  “Nop
e.” Matthew plugged in one earbud and left the other dangling.

  “So…” Emily watched him swipe, swipe, swipe away song selections until he got to one he liked. “Why are you here, then?”

  The look Matthew gave her was a cross between annoyed and hurt. “I’m on the Book Scavenger advisory, too, you know. I care about Hollister’s store. Besides, it sounded cool.”

  “Well, it’s good to know you’ll have each other around,” their dad interjected. “We trust Mr. Griswold and Hollister, of course, and the waiver we signed was reassuring about supervision for kids and teens, but still—”

  “They’ll also have me,” James piped up, having just arrived at the pier himself. “And them.” He waved and Emily turned to see their friends standing together in the distance. The lowering sun reflected off Nisha’s orange-framed glasses, and Maddie stood a head taller, with her arms crossed as she observed the sifting crowd of players.

  “Hey, kids!” they heard a familiar voice call.

  “Hollister!” Emily and James ran over to give the bookseller a hug. Without his store being open so they could drop in and visit, it had been several weeks since they’d last been able to talk with their friend. Emily had seen Hollister from a distance at the Lucy Leonard event, but there had been too many people that night to find him and say hi.

  “You have a beard now,” Matthew noted. “I like it.”

  “You should name it,” James said. “Looks like a Frankie to me.”

  Hollister laughed and shook his head. “No. No way. If I put a razor to my face, I’d feel like I was in a horror show.”

  The dum-dum of a microphone being tapped drew everyone’s attention to the far end of the game setup, where Mr. Griswold stood. He wore what Emily considered his Book Scavenger costume—a burgundy and silver-blue striped suit and top hat with matching walking stick, and a silver bow tie. Emily had seen him dressed like this often in his online videos and photos, but never in person. A little thrill of excitement ran down her spine.