Lola Benko, Treasure Hunter

by Beth McMullen

  Jin’s nostrils flare. “At least I had a teammate.”

  Uh-oh. This is getting ugly. Hannah’s cheeks burn. “I choose to work alone,” she snaps. “I don’t have time for the complications of other people.”

  “That’s a good one. Really, no one wants to hang out with you because you won’t even let your teammates go home for dinner or do their homework or go to the bathroom.”

  “Success requires sacrifice,” Hannah hisses. “Not that you would know anything about that.” My adrenaline surges as I prepare to launch myself between them before they come to blows.

  “You have no idea what you’re talking about,” Jin says, his voice shrill. “Paul and I shared the work. We were equal partners. He didn’t own me.”

  I’d say in terms of insulting each other, they are also tied. I wait to see what is going to happen next. Will someone throw pancakes? Will there be pandemonium?

  Hannah offers a condescending smile. “You keep on telling yourself that.” Jin’s hands ball into tight fists. I’m busy watching the back-and-forth and therefore completely unprepared when her attention turns to me.

  “You must be Lola the art thief,” she says.

  “Failed art thief,” I mumble.

  “Who cares? I’m impressed. I also heard you’ve partnered with Jin for the STEM fair. You must be brave, too. Or stupid. I don’t know which.”

  My head pivots toward Jin, whose eyes plead with me not to bust him. “Sure,” I say after a pause.

  Hannah’s eyebrow spikes. “And, New Paul, I hear you’re building an electromagnetic pulse generator?”

  “We are?” Is this his plan to get back on the winners’ podium? I have some thoughts to share on that.

  “How… interesting.” She studies me. I squirm. “Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you, Lola the art thief.”

  “Failed art thief,” I repeat. As soon as she is out of earshot, I turn to a sheepish Jin.

  “Partners? New Paul?”

  “I am so sorry, but she was up in my business about how I can’t cut it without Paul and I just snapped and threw your name out there and then I couldn’t take it back.”

  “An electromagnetic pulse generator?”

  “I thought it would be cool. You know, mess up everyone’s electronics. But don’t worry. I’ve made a lot of progress on the project. It’ll be easy! You’ll barely have to do anything!” His eyes search my face for some indication of how this is going to end up.

  But think about it. If I’m involved in a STEM fair project, Irma and Emily cannot be suspicious of my behavior. STEM fair projects have “playing along” written all over them. They can also provide cover when necessary.

  “Fine,” I say. “I’ll do it.”

  Jin grins. “Paul used to say I trusted too much in feelings and that was bad, but the minute I saw the ThumbBot, I knew we were destined to be partners. You are exactly what this project needs.”

  After school, I take a detour to the Marina to case Bay Area Mini Storage and I have a feeling too. A bad one. There are security cameras everywhere and a chain-link fence topped with coils of razor wire. There’s a gate secured with an electronic keypad requiring an entrance code. There might be an angry dog. I sit on a bench across the street and scowl. Bay Area Mini Storage is definitely a two-handed job and I’m one hand short, stuck in the smelly green cast for four more weeks. I pull a purloined apple from my overstuffed backpack and take a bite. There has to be a solution to this problem.

  How about a mechanical hand? Irma has one of those garbage grabbers she uses to pull stuff off high shelves. Maybe with some wire, glue, and oven mitts I could reconfigure it into something to get me over that fence. I’d call it Mittens 1.0. It might work.

  Unless it’s raining. And the glue melts. And the wire rusts. And the grabber snaps in two. And I get hung up on a bunch of razor wire. Which leaves me caught.

  As I sit there, contemplating the future failure of the nonexistent Mittens, another idea forms in my head. It’s not a good idea either. It’s a terrible idea. Why would I even entertain such an idea? There is no good reason to ask a perfect stranger for help. Okay, I guess Jin is not a perfect stranger—we are STEM fair teammates, after all—but I just met him and we are definitely not friends. He’d probably call the police or tell his parents or, worse, confess to Principal Boxley.

  Forget it. As I pitch my apple core into a trash bin, I vow to find another way into the storage locker.

  CHAPTER 9 LOLA BENKO, BIG MOUTH

  THE NEXT AFTERNOON, AFTER BARELY surviving a friendly game of Capture the Flag on Redwood’s expansive lawn, but having much better luck opening my locker, my plan is to return to Bay Area Mini Storage and devise a one-handed strategy to get inside unit seventeen that doesn’t earn me a return visit to Judge Gold’s courtroom. Dad always says don’t be afraid to go back to square one. But Jin waits at the lockers, flicking his hair around more than usual, and I sense my plan is headed for derailment.

  “If we are going to win gold in the STEM fair,” he says sternly, “we have to get started right away. I’m sure Hannah has already built a tinfoil satellite to detect alien life on Pluto or something by now.” He rolls his eyes. I feel some pressure, having only just learned what a STEM fair is. And who said anything about gold? I have been misled.

  “You can come to my house,” Jin continues, stuffing random books into my backpack and hurling it at me. “Let’s go.” Clearly no is not an answer Jin is willing to accept. I dutifully follow him out the Redwood gates and down the sidewalk to the closest bus stop. My Bay Area Mini Storage break-in breakthrough will have to wait.

  Jin lives out in a nice neighborhood with steep hills and a high percentage of sunny days for San Francisco. His house is a Painted Lady Victorian, pink and purple with gold trim. It glows with warmth, and as soon as the orange front door springs open, I’m hit with the most delicious smells. Sweet fragrant spices permeate the air.

  “Mom? Dad?” Jin yells, kicking off his shoes and dumping his jacket on the ground. “I’m home.” Out of nowhere, a blur barrels down the hallway and hits Jin full-on. He tumbles backward with a grunt. “Get off me!”

  Pinning Jin to the ground is a small person in a Batman hoodie. “Lola, meet my little brother, Bart, aka fart face.”

  Jin’s mother appears. She has a beautiful smile and long dark hair twisted into a bun impaled by two pencils. “Boys, enough. Who’s your friend?”

  “This is Lola,” Jin says, shoving his brother aside. “We are STEM fair partners. We are not friends. Remember I told you I’m not doing that anymore?”

  His mother sighs. “Right. Silly me. Well, welcome, Lola, STEM fair partner. I’m Julia.”

  “Boo-hoo,” Bart yells, dancing wildly around. “Paul moved to New York.”

  “Shut. Up.”

  “It smells so good in here,” I remark.

  “Oh, that’s just the casserole thingy,” says Jin.

  Julia offers a conspiratorial smile. “It’s something Jin’s dad, Marco, invented and it’s really quite good, even if none of us can remember what it’s called. Would you like to join us for dinner?”

  “Mom.”

  “I can’t allow you to starve your STEM fair partner,” Julia says firmly. “Besides, your dad makes enough food to feed an army. Lola would be doing us a favor. Will you stay?”

  Beside me, Jin glowers. But the house smells so good and it’s been months since I’ve eaten anything but takeout, so I blurt out yes before I can stop myself.

  “Great,” Julia says with a wide grin much like Jin’s. “Make sure to let your parents know.”

  “I live with my aunt. Actually, my great-aunt. Irma.”

  Julia’s eyes drift to my cast. “Well, give her a call so she doesn’t worry. Forty-five minutes until dinner. Now go get to work on that project.”

  “We’ll be in the lab!” Jin yells, racing down the hallway as I scurry to keep up. “No fart faces allowed!” Bart watches us go with sad eyes. His lower lip tre
mbles. I stumble after Jin, through the kitchen, where his father is wearing eye protection and an apron. He’s tall with a slight stoop to his shoulders, dark hair shot through with gray.

  “Jin!” he bellows in accented English as we screech to a stop on the faded kitchen tile. “Have a taste.” He holds out a wooden spoon with a bit of something that looks like pasta sauce. “I’m not sure if the seasoning is right. This casserole thingy can be tricky.”

  Jin dutifully steps forward and slurps up the offering. He tilts his head to one side, brows furrowed. “More cayenne, more salt, a pinch of sugar, and a cinnamon stick,” he pronounces.

  All that from a single spoonful? Does he have magic taste buds? Marco palm-slaps his own forehead. “Of course! Cinnamon. Jin the genius.” He gives Jin a big kiss on the top of his head and Jin looks ready to keel over dead from embarrassment.

  “Dad!”

  “Sorry, sorry. Go about your business. Oh wait, who are you?” Marco has just now noticed me standing in his kitchen. “Are you a new friend of Jin’s?”

  Oh boy, here we go again. Marco yanks off one of his oven mitts and offers me his hand. We shake vigorously. I might lose the use of my right arm, and I’m already down the left.

  “This is Lola,” Jin mumbles. “We’re working on the STEM fair project. That is all.”

  “Excellent,” Marco says. “Are you staying for the casserole thingy?”

  “Yes,” Jin says, annoyed. “Can we go now?”

  Marco waves us off. “Go and be brilliant while I whip up greatness in the kitchen.”

  We bolt out the door leading to the backyard. Across the tiny patch of lawn, against the fence, is a stand-alone studio that must be the lab. When Jin flicks on the lights, I gasp. It’s a true maker space, a hacker’s lab on steroids. There’s a 3D printer, a laser cutter, a CNC machine, a 3D scanner, a welder, an actual soldering station, and an oscilloscope. And that’s just what I can see from the door. I might be drooling.

  “Cool, right?”

  “That is so not the right word,” I reply. At Irma’s, I make do with a small box of tools, duct tape, scissors, string, superglue, some other junk. But this is another league entirely.

  “It’s all my mom,” Jin explains. “She likes to make stuff. She made this mad robot once that was supposed to clean our windows, but instead it just went full-on banshee and smashed them all. Hi-larious.”

  That’s it. I’m moving in. “I like your parents,” I say.

  “They’re okay, I guess,” he responds, grimacing. “They met at the Uffizi in Florence.”

  “The museum?” Boy, one piece of art from their collection and I’d be set.

  “Yeah. My dad is Italian and my mom was on a semester abroad in Florence. They were both admiring a Botticelli— you know that artist who likes big hair—when they noticed each other and fell instantly in love. Gross.”

  I smile, at once warm and uncomfortable. I have no idea how my parents met. Jin has chapters in his story that I don’t. “Not gross,” I say.

  “Anyway,” Jin continues, “my mom wanted to come back to her family in San Francisco and my dad couldn’t stand to be away from her and now I’m saddled with the weirdest hyphenated last name ever. So how did you end up at Redwood?”

  “A judge sent me. Instead of jail.”

  Jin snorts. “Is there a difference?”

  “Yes.” I get down on my knees for a better view of the 3D printer. Stacked next to it are spools of the colorful filament used to print objects. Imagine the ThumbBot 2.0 if I had access to this! “In jail,” I say, “I can’t look for my father.”

  There’s an awkward silence. Jin focuses on a space just over my left shoulder. “Um. Well. I heard your father was… had passed away.”

  “No way.” My cheeks flush. “But no one seems to want to find him but me.”

  Jin drums his fingers on the table, brows creased. “You’d better back up and tell me the whole story because right now I’m totally confused.”

  I fiddle with the end of the purple filament, surprised at how strong the urge is to do just that, tell him everything. I give myself a mental kick in the shins. I’m supposed to be reformed. I’m supposed to have accepted my father’s death and moved on. And I don’t know Jin at all. What if he tells the Jelly and she tells Emily and she tells Judge Gold and I end up in the slammer anyway? Who rescues Dad then? But before I can stop myself, the story bubbles up and spills out, like so much milk from an overturned carton.

  CHAPTER 10 FRANKENSTEIN 1.0, OR WHERE IS THAT FIRE EXTINGUISHER AGAIN?

  WHEN I FINISH, JIN STARES at me, eyes bright and agitated. “You stole a car?”

  “Borrowed. I fully intended to return it.”

  He waves off this explanation. “Whatever. Paul always tells me my ideas are stupid. Boy, he’d be super impressed with you. And you were really going to sell the ballerinas on the black market?”

  “Well, I couldn’t exactly put it up on eBay, could I?”

  Jin shakes his head, in disbelief or amazement. I can’t tell which. “All to use the proceeds to bribe people for information about your dad.”

  “And for travel expenses.”

  “Do you even know where to start looking or are you just planning on wandering around Europe until you find him?”

  Put that way, my plan sounds a little stupid. “That’s not it exactly—” I begin.

  But Jin interrupts. “And even though you promised the judge you’d behave, you sound like you have no intention of stopping.”

  “I need to find my father. If you have any suggestions on how I might do it better, I’d love to hear them.”

  “Hold on.” Jin jumps from his stool and starts pawing through the surrounding cabinets, eventually pulling out a plastic bin and plunking it on the table between us. I peer into the bin at a sad mess of metal parts and bits of plastic.

  “Do not tell me this is it,” I say flatly.

  He gives a twitchy smile and fixes me in an intense gaze. “Now, I’m not known for having good ideas, but what if you help me win the STEM fair and I help you find your father?”

  Huh? I never asked for help. But Jin cuts me off before I can tell him so.

  “Just hear me out,” he says, gesturing to the bin of parts. “Obviously, what I told you before about being mostly done is not exactly true. I admit it. I need help. But it sounds like you need help too. You haven’t found your dad yet.”

  “And what do you know about finding missing people?” I ask.

  “Nothing,” he says bluntly. “But two brains are better than one. We have twice the chance of winning the STEM fair and twice the possibility of finding your dad. It’s just math.”

  He’s right, even if I don’t want to admit it. Finding my father has so far been a complete failure. Maybe extra brainpower is the answer because my single brain sure isn’t getting the job done. I pull the bin closer and take another look.

  “Are baking soda volcanoes out of the question?” I ask.

  “Is that a yes?”

  I shrug. “I guess.” I already spilled all my secrets. How much worse can Jin’s assistance make my already bad situation? Who knows, maybe he will even come up with a good idea.

  Jin’s eyes flood with relief. “This is so great. And volcanoes are for kindergartners. We need our pulse to work.”

  “Don’t panic.” True, our project is seriously ill, but at least this is a problem I have a chance of fixing. We pull a couple of stools around the table, and Jin turns on bright overhead lights, which serve only to make the project look worse. Hunks of plastic and wire are everywhere. It’s bad. I force a smile. “We’ll figure it out.”

  “You think so?” Jin beams, thrilling to a rescue I have yet to perform.

  But how hard can it be to invent an electromagnetic pulse electricity disruptor device that a) doesn’t get us arrested for possessing weapons of mass destruction, and b) wins a super-competitive STEM fair? But I distinctly remember thinking being an art thief would be easy too,
and look what happened there. I shake off the feeling. In these situations, sometimes it’s better not to dwell on the specifics. They will only stress you out.

  “We have to start at the beginning,” I say confidently, scooping up a circuit from the table and examining it.

  Jin nods. “Just tell me what to do.”

  Heads down, we get to work. Of course, saving us from STEM fair humiliation is more challenging with a broken wrist. I end up barking a lot of orders at Jin, who good-naturedly executes them without complaint.

  Finally, Julia calls us in for dinner. The casserole thingy is delicious and I have three helpings. Marco serves us homemade soda, made by pouring sweet Italian syrup into sparkling water.

  Jin rolls his eyes. “No real soda.”

  “I make the syrups myself,” Marco reports, obviously proud. “That way we can experiment with flavors. Ginger, thyme, rose petal, basil.”

  “Dog poop,” Bart suggests, earning a side-eye from his mother.

  While we eat, Jin’s parents quiz us about our day. They want details. Bart is clearly miserable during this recitation of events that have nothing to do with him and covertly flings peas at the far wall with his spoon. His aim is good. He’s got them bouncing off the refrigerator and landing in the sink. After dinner, Julia serves us bowls of ice cream drenched in butterscotch sauce.

  “Take them back to the lab if you want,” she says. So here I sit in a warm space full of cool stuff, eating a cold treat. I might be inadvertently enjoying myself. It’s awfully distracting.

  “How’d you learn to do all this stuff?” Jin asks as I feebly attempt to weld two circuits together.

  “Necessity is the mother of invention,” I say.

  “Did you make that up?”

  “It’s something my dad says. If you need a technology that doesn’t exist yet, you just have to make it. Like when scientists wanted to explore the Mariana Trench or outer space, they had to invent a way to get there. Or maybe you need to open a hidden tomb without messing it up. Or, say, get in through a locked window from the outside.”