The Eureka Key

by Sarah L. Thomson

  The EUREKA KEY

  SARAH L. THOMSON

  To Adam,

  who always believed

  in our American dream

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  POSTSCRIPT

  Philadelphia

  April 16, 1790

  My Dearest Richard,

  I fear this shall be my final letter to you. Many days have passed since I last rose from my bed, and the very act of drawing air into my body becomes more difficult by the hour. Do not mourn me—I have lived a life of greater wealth and prosperity than most men, and I have assisted in the birth of a great nation. What more of this world can I ask?

  My only sadness is that I could not acknowledge you as my son; that we are never to embrace as kin in the eyes of history. Even after my death, you will lay blooms upon my grave with the hands of a stranger. For this I am sorry, and will forever be so. I can only hope that you will forgive me, as your mother who raised you has, for keeping her identity and your existence secret from the world.

  As you well know—it was only by chance that your twin brother, William, came to live with us, and you remained with your mother. My Deborah was willing to adopt one illegitimate son, but two? Strange, that though you were not the one raised as a Franklin, you are the one I now trust. Your brother’s continued loyalty to the British Crown is disappointing, to say the least—but then, he was never a proper vessel for secrets. But you, dear boy—with you, I can leave this earthly realm certain that you’ll uphold my wishes and guard the knowledge I have bestowed upon you with your very life. Your true identity as a Franklin may never bear fruit, but I hope that the great service you are doing for your country will act as a feast for your soul. Of all the secrets of this young republic, none are of greater import than the one you hold.

  Trust no one but those within the circle. Remember my gift to you, and the gifts of the other fathers of this country. Keep them safe, and with pride.

  I will leave you now. I do not fear death—on the contrary, as with a good sleep, I believe I shall arise refreshed in the morning.

  Your Loving Father,

  Benjamin Franklin

  CHAPTER ONE

  Sam’s eyes were on the clock: 9:54. He sat at his desk, tense as an Olympic sprinter waiting for the starting pistol to go off.

  He glanced across the classroom at his best friend. Adam looked even more nervous than Sam felt. He gave Sam a little nod and mouthed good luck.

  Sam closed his eyes for a moment, trying to calm his breathing and to focus. He envisioned all the students and teachers in the school like chess pieces, set up in their positions at the beginning of a game. And the game was about to begin.

  The last number on the digital clock blinked out and reformed: 9:55.

  The bell chimed.

  Go time.

  Sam clicked the timer button on his watch. Exactly five minutes and counting. He jumped up, grabbed his backpack, and headed for the door while the other kids were still collecting their books and chasing down stray pencils.

  He zigzagged between the desks and hurdled the trash can.

  Fifteen seconds gone, and he was in the hallway.

  Ahead was the first serious obstacle—Jason McKay, the lanky eighth-grade hall monitor whose job it was to stand by the bottom of the stairs and make sure no lowly sixth graders escaped from the second floor between classes. Jason was watching the crowds of kids roaming the hallway like a hawk—a pawn who took his job a little too seriously.

  Sam reached into his backpack, shoved aside a dog-eared book of sudoku puzzles and his battered Rubik’s Cube, and pulled out a thermos. He loosened the top. He had to get the timing just right—it was his first gambit.

  He glanced back over his shoulder to see Adam emerge from the classroom behind him and move into position on the other side of the hallway. Sam gave him the nod.

  “Hey, Jason!” Adam yelled. Jason turned. “Uh, that red shirt looks great on you. It really brings out the color of your eyes!”

  Lame—but it worked. While Jason stared at Adam, wondering what in the world was wrong with him, Sam spilled the lumpy, gooey contents of his thermos onto the floor. Even he had to admit how truly disgusting it looked—and smelled. He’d stirred it up this morning while his mom was in the shower. Oatmeal, raw eggs, vinegar, and cottage cheese. A masterpiece.

  Sam cleared his throat, coughed violently, and then groaned. Jason whipped his head around, jumping back as he saw the horrific puddle of yuck on the floor. “My stomach,” Sam moaned. “Oh, I think I’m dying . . .”

  Jason covered his mouth with his hand and waved Sam away. “Gross—get away from me, man! Go to the nurse!”

  “Sorry,” Sam mumbled, and staggered down the stairs, doubled over as if in pain. Once he was out of Jason’s sight, he straightened up and checked his watch.

  Forty-five seconds gone. So far, so good.

  Sam paused as he reached the first floor, pressing his back against the wall of the stairwell so he could peer out into the hallway. At the other end was the main office, right next to the school entrance.

  The seventh-grade classrooms were on this floor, and the crowds had already started to thin as kids made their way to the next period. Sam spotted Mr. Greene, the gym teacher—complete with orange tracksuit, scowl, and a whistle on a lanyard—walking toward the men’s bathroom with a crumpled copy of Uberjock magazine in his hand.

  “One,” Sam muttered under his breath. Ms. Lee, the principal, was next. She stepped out of the main office and headed for the teachers’ lounge with her empty coffee mug, high heels clacking on the linoleum, just as Sam had known she would.

  “Two,” he whispered.

  A moment later, the front door of the school popped open, and a heavy-set man in a brown uniform backed in with a stack of boxes. “Hi, beautiful!” he called out, and Ms. Ferris, the white-haired secretary in the main office, giggled girlishly.

  “Three.”

  Just like clockwork, Sam thought. But he forced himself to focus again. Too early to get cocky.

  All the pieces were in place. It was Sam’s turn to move.

  He stepped out of the stairwell and started walking at a steady pace—not too slow, not too fast—down the hallway.

  The delivery guy propped open the entrance door and the door to the office. Whistling, he went back outside for the rest of the packages.

  Just before he reached the office, Sam ducked so that the tall counter shielded him from Ms. Ferris’s sight. Hunched over, his rubber-soled shoes silent on the freshly waxed floor, Sam scuttled along the length of the counter and right through the principal’s open office door.

  Two minutes gone.

  “What’ve you got for us today, Jimmy?” Ms. Ferris was asking.

  “Oh, just some copy paper, new pens, and . . .” He pulled out a single red rose from his back pocket and handed it to the secretary.

  Sam glanced back. Oh, barf.

  Ms. Ferris was smiling at Jimmy; Jimmy was smiling back. There was no one else in their little world—certainly not some kid sneaking into the principal’s office. Sam eased the door shut and spun around.

  He’d done it.

  No mistakes. Not a wasted second.

  But there was still more to do.

  Sam settled himself into the principal’s leather chair in front of her computer. He tapped the mouse, and the com
puter screen brightened.

  A tiny window appeared in the center of the display. ENTER PASSWORD.

  Okay. This was it. The moment of truth.

  Sam cleared his mind, as he did whenever he had an especially difficult puzzle to solve. You can do this, he thought to himself. After all, this wasn’t the first time Sam had been in Ms. Lee’s office. He’d sat on the other side of this desk often enough. Sure, the things he had done were against the rules—though they should have thanked him for the time he reprogrammed the school bell to play the theme music from Interstellar Zombies—but they weren’t just any old pranks. They were works of art.

  Apparently Ms. Lee had no appreciation for art, because he always got detention.

  Every time he had gotten in trouble, he’d watched the principal type in her password to access his records. He’d never been able to see the keyboard—but he had heard the keystrokes. Seven of them.

  A seven-character password. On the face of it, the calculations weren’t pretty. With thirty-six letters and numbers, there were over 78 million possibilities. If the password was case sensitive: over 3.5 billion! And if you factored in symbols . . . Sam didn’t even want to think about that. But he knew he could figure this out. Sam could figure anything out.

  Ms. Lee was a no-nonsense type of lady. Sam remembered her typing that password fast—so it was unlikely to be a string of random numbers and letters. No, the password had to be something personal, something familiar.

  Sam took a slow breath to steady his fingers and let his gaze drift over the principal’s desk. Every puzzle had an answer, and he had a feeling this one was right in front of his nose.

  There was a bowl of candy. Two cat figurines—one holding an umbrella, one about to pounce on an eternally startled mouse. A pile of student files. A cat mug with pencils in it. And three photos of the biggest, fluffiest orange cat Sam had ever seen.

  Okay, Sam thought. Ms. Lee is clearly a cat lady. Figures.

  Sam squinted at one of the photos, where he could see a silver heart hanging from the cat’s rhinestone-studded collar. It had a name engraved on it. A name with seven characters.

  Sam grinned. Bingo.

  He typed, “D-I-C-K-E-N-S.”

  Holding his breath, he clicked OK.

  The password box blinked out. The desktop popped up—another picture of Dickens covered with little folders and icons.

  He was in!

  Three minutes gone.

  Sam’s fingers flew across the keyboard as he accessed the school’s main database where students’ records were kept. He typed ROBINSON, ADAM, into a search box. He jiggled the mouse impatiently as the computer slowly processed his request.

  A window opened up. Adam’s grades.

  A whole column of A’s, straight down the screen. Every quarter, every class—until the last one. There it was: a big, fat, disastrous D. In gym class, of all things—where you pretty much just had to show up breathing and semiconscious to get a passing grade.

  But Mr. Greene hadn’t taken kindly to Adam choosing the jazz band over his baseball team back in March. He’d had it out for Adam’s GPA ever since. Every time Adam dropped the ball in gym class, every time his shoelace was untied—that was another failing grade.

  It wasn’t fair.

  And Sam wasn’t going to let that jerk get away with it.

  Two quick keystrokes, and Adam’s D became an A.

  Take that, Mr. Greene.

  Sam closed the school records, put the computer back to sleep, and checked his watch. It had taken a little longer than he’d hoped. Four minutes and thirty seconds gone.

  Time was running out. All Sam had to do now was get back to class without being caught, and the game would be his.

  He cracked the door open and saw Ms. Ferris and Jimmy still chatting it up.

  No.

  No, no, no—this is not supposed to happen! he thought in a panic. Jimmy should be gone by now! He was always gone by now.

  There was no way he could sneak back out through the office with those two standing right there. He’d be caught for sure. Leave it to Jimmy to sacrifice his delivery schedule for a few extra minutes with his sweetheart.

  Sam closed the door again and began to sweat. But there was always an unexpected move to play. He just had to find it in time . . .

  Then his eyes fell upon Ms. Lee’s open office window.

  In five seconds, Sam’s sneakers were hitting the grass outside.

  Sam raced along the brick wall to the school’s entrance. The main door was still propped open. He ducked through and was barreling toward the stairwell when he slammed right into Mr. Greene. Sam looked up at the gym teacher’s scowling face, his heart hammering.

  “Watch it, you klutz!” Mr. Greene said, and slapped at Sam with his magazine. “What are you doing down here, anyway?”

  “Um . . . laps!” Sam puffed, thinking fast. “Gotta keep up my game—am I right, sir?”

  Mr. Greene grunted. “Get to class, Solomon, or you’ll be doing push-ups in the mud.”

  Flooded with relief, Sam took the stairs three at a time, vaulted over his own fake-vomit slick, and saw Jason on his way down the hall with the custodian and his mop.

  “The nurse says I’m fine,” Sam called out. “Just some kind of a flesh-eating virus—no biggie!” Sam skidded around the two of them and threw himself into his seat in Mrs. Ramirez’s math class just as the clock flashed 10:00 and the bell rang.

  While Mrs. Ramirez was collecting homework, Adam glanced nervously over at Sam from the next row. Sam gave him a thumbs-up.

  Sam could see Adam’s whole body sag with relief. Sam knew what his best friend’s dad was like about grades. Mr. Robinson would have grounded Adam for a month if he had brought home a D. Even a stupid, undeserved D in gym.

  Adam dropped his homework on the floor and jumped out of his seat to get it. As he got back up, he smoothly slipped a folded twenty-dollar bill onto Sam’s desk.

  “Hey, no!” Sam whispered. “This was a favor.” Heads started to turn.

  “Take it,” Adam insisted. Sam covered the bill with his hand as Adam sat down again. “It’s the least I can do,” Adam murmured. “You saved my butt—big time.”

  “Eyes up here, please,” Mrs. Ramirez called. Math class began.

  Sam settled back in his chair with a smile, the twenty-dollar bill curled in his palm.

  Checkmate.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “I’m home!” Sam called as he walked through the front door to his house.

  Sam’s mom was perched on a stool at the kitchen counter, and she looked up from her laptop as he walked in. Her nest of curly, nut-brown hair made it look like she had just rolled out of bed, but Sam knew that she’d been working since before the sun rose. Sam had definitely inherited the mass of curly hair—but the work ethic? Not so much. The only thing that could make Sam pull an all-nighter was the Saturday New York Times crossword puzzle.

  “Oh—hi, sweetheart!” his mom said. “Is school over already? Boy, time flies.” She took a sip of her coffee and glanced at the calendar hanging on the wall. “Look at that! Only one more week before vacation. Then the great Solomon family annual camping adventure will begin! Rising at dawn, swimming in the lake, building fires under the stars . . .”

  “Sleeping on the ground, accidentally inhaling bugs, running away from bears . . . ,” Sam continued. “Yep, can’t wait!”

  Mrs. Solomon rolled her eyes. “Very funny, Sam.”

  Sam flashed her a toothy grin before digging in the refrigerator for a soda.

  “Anyway, bugs are excellent protein,” his mom said, typing away. “They’ll fuel you up for those twenty-mile hikes. How was school?”

  “Oh, you know. The usual,” Sam lied. “Nothing special.” Sam plopped down in a chair, popped the top off his drink, and tossed the paper bag he’d been carrying onto the kitchen table in front of him.

  He regretted it the moment it left his hand. His mom was like a bloodhound—she could sn
iff out a lie from a mile away.

  She looked up sharply. Her eyes zeroed in on the bag. Three comic books—one classic X-Men and two Japanese manga—had slipped partway out onto the table. Sam could see the gears in his mother’s brain turning. He’d gotten into a lot of trouble these past couple months, which equaled no allowance, which equaled no money to buy comic books. Her gaze swiveled away from the table and locked onto Sam.

  “New comic books, huh?” his mom asked, her tone way too casual.

  Man. Why hadn’t he gone right upstairs to his room? He was distracted, that’s why. Still buzzing from his success.

  “Uh-huh,” he said, trying to match her tone.

  “How nice for you,” his mom said. Sam suddenly felt like that mouse about to be eaten by Ms. Lee’s cat figurine. “I wonder how you got your hands on those?”

  Yep, he was dead. Awesome. Right before summer vacation too.

  Sam cleared his throat. “More important, how was your day, Mom?” he asked. One last attempt to change the subject. “I bet it was really exciting. You know, out there in the real world. Working hard to provide for our family—”

  “Cut the act, Sam. What did you do?”

  “Me?”

  “Sam . . .”

  “Nothing, really—”

  “Are you going to tell me, or do I have to wait for a phone call from the principal?”

  Sam looked down at the tabletop. “You won’t get a call,” he said carefully. “And even if I did do something—and I’m not saying I did—it would have been for a good cause. Fighting injustice. Like Batman.” He stood, hoping to make a quick exit. Like Batman.

  “Don’t get up from that table. Sit right there. We need to talk.”

  Oh, no. Not that. Anything but that.

  She rose from the counter and came around to sit at the kitchen table next to him. “Sam,” she said. “If you keep this up, you’re going to get into real trouble. Not just detention. Not just a slap on the wrist for a funny prank.”

  Sam sighed, flipping mindlessly through the mail on the table in front of him. He hated it when his mom got all serious. He’d rather she stopped his allowance for another month than look at him with those worried mom eyes.