Lola Benko, Treasure Hunter

by Beth McMullen

  “I bet there is,” I reply, offering what I hope looks like a genuine smile because it sure doesn’t feel like one. She had a better day than I did. She didn’t screw up everything.

  But Zeus knows something is wrong. He climbs on my shoulder and chews my hair, stopping every few moments to squawk “Lola!” in my ear. He doesn’t even hop off when I go upstairs. Sitting at my desk, I tinker with Frank 2.0, trying to keep the overwhelming feeling of despair at bay. What have I missed? Is there an angle that I can play? Where is my different perspective?

  But no matter how I look at the situation, all I see is failure. “Tell me what to do,” I ask Frank. Not surprisingly, he doesn’t answer. The Shadow, the stone, and my father could be anywhere. I had one chance and I blew it. My eyes threaten tears.

  “Poor Lola,” Zeus coos. He flutters from my shoulder to my desk and pecks my knuckles.

  “Ouch. Stop that!”

  “Lola,” he squawks, lofting into the air and out my door. He returns with a blue hair ribbon I have never seen before. He places it before me on the desk before taking off again. This time he brings me a refrigerator magnet of the Eiffel Tower. He adds that to the ribbon.

  Five minutes later I have a small pile of odds and ends gathered from around the house. The tears well up. Zeus, that stupid bird, is trying to make me feel better. He’s bringing me presents. This time a slice of orange, his favorite, hangs from his beak. He plops it down in front of me. The juice leaks out. But when the citrusy scent hits my nose, a flicker of memory ignites and I almost tumble out of my chair.

  Lipstick’s perfume. Tewksbury’s wedding cake mansion smelled of Lipstick’s perfume! My heart begins to race. She was the one in the room, the one I was waiting on to leave so I could get in there and take the statue! That’s why she seemed vaguely familiar.

  Oh boy, if the wedding cake mansion belongs to Tewksbury, and Lipstick, who works for the Shadow, was there, that can only mean one thing: Tewksbury and the Shadow know each other! Wait a minute, it could mean something else, too. It could mean that Lipstick is using Tewksbury to help the Shadow. Or that the Shadow has something on Tewksbury and is forcing Tewksbury to help him in his quest for world domination and Lipstick is the go-between. Or Tewksbury and the Shadow are willingly working together.

  In any case, there is a connection between Lipstick, Tewksbury, and the Shadow. This makes me dizzy and a little nauseous and a little excited all at the same time. Zeus watches me, busily sucking on that orange slice. He doesn’t seem at all concerned about my situation.

  Zeus is right! Get a grip, Lola! Think! If Tewksbury and the Shadow are accomplices, there’s the very real possibility that the wedding cake mansion is where they are holding my father! I spring to my feet.

  “Zeus, you’re a genius!” I kiss his fluffy bird head and he makes terrible gagging noises. But I don’t care because I have a new plan. Go to the wedding cake mansion. Find my father.

  Without thinking, I EmoJabber Jin because he refuses any other mode of communication. It takes some back-and-forth for me to convince him to get on the phone. We can’t exchange important information on EmoJabber on account of the Shadow and Tewksbury being in cahoots, but I’m not good enough with emojis to get that point across.

  The moment Jin picks up, I yell, “Tewksbury and the Shadow are friends! Or maybe Tewksbury is being blackmailed? I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. Anyway, it was Lipstick’s perfume!” I must be loud because Zeus flutters out of the room, feathers ruffled in offense.

  “Who?” asks Jin. He sounds sleepy. “What? Perfume?”

  “The rotten oranges. It’s a unique smell. Gross, really. Trust me. And it was at the wedding cake mansion and it’s what Lipstick wears.”

  “Who’s having cake?”

  “No cake. Keep up, will you?”

  I explain it again and Jin is not happy about Tewksbury potentially being a bad guy. “He sponsors the STEM fair!” Jin howls. “He’s nice.”

  “I’m sorry, but there is the potential he’s an evil jerk.”

  “I don’t like this scenario.” Jin is forlorn. “I’d prefer blackmail.”

  “Sorry. But listen.” When I explain the part about my father possibly being held in the wedding cake mansion, Jin says, without pause, “I’m in.”

  “But I didn’t even tell you what we’re going to do.”

  “Don’t care. Still in. It’s what real friends do. I won’t let you down.”

  At first his response throws me and then I fill up with a fizzy, light happiness, kind of like soda bubbles. It makes me feel bigger somehow. And braver. We are friends.

  “I can get us inside,” I say, determined. Yes. That’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to get into that house and find my father. I have a real friend now! And I’ve had just about enough of being pushed around by the Shadow and his minions.

  It’s time to shine some light on this situation.

  CHAPTER 32 OVERKILL

  THE BREAK-IN MUST BE TONIGHT. The Shadow is bound to have more accomplices than just Tewksbury. He probably has access to mansions all over the globe, and if he decides to move his operation to take over the world somewhere else, there is no way we can follow him because we have no money for travel on account of me being unable to steal any art. We agree to wait until midnight and meet at the bus stop between my house and Jin’s.

  “Wear comfortable shoes,” I say. “And bring a flashlight. No phones. I don’t want to be tracked. And anything else you think we’ll need.”

  “Like doughnuts in case we get hungry?”

  “Practical things,” I clarify. “And I’ll bring Frank.”

  Jin pauses. I can almost hear him roll his eyes over the phone. “Didn’t you just say practical things? Are you going to throw him at somebody?”

  “He’s ready,” I say.

  “He is?”

  I stare at Frank 2.0 and the parts I have not yet put on him littering my desk. No, he’s not ready. But he has to be. No doubt the wedding cake mansion has been wired to the hilt since my last break-in. If we so much as sneeze on a doorknob, an entire army of bad-tempered security guards will likely swoop down and cart us off to jail. But Frank is going to disrupt those cameras so they can’t see us. “He can do it,” I say.

  “If you say so.”

  “Jin?”

  “Lola?”

  “Do we call Hannah?” She blackmailed us with that video. She stole my notebook. But I remember how she crawled back up the Nebula cargo net ladder and untangled me. And she pulled me into the water before I chickened out and sailed to Brazil. And without her we might never have found the stone in the first place. If I’m being honest, Hannah is the friend you want on your side if a zombie apocalypse happens. Or you need to find your lost father in the bad guy’s mansion. She’s not afraid. But does Jin feel the same way? There’s that nemesis thing and all.

  “Well,” Jin says after a pause. “Maybe she’s not so bad. She doesn’t panic and run away from stuff. I guess she’s reliable, too. Sometimes even a little funny. And you know what they say.”

  “I do?”

  “Two brains are better than one, and three brains are better than two. I’ll see you in three hours.”

  When I call Hannah, she acts like I just invited her to an amusement park with the world’s best roller coaster. “Oh, excellent! This is the perfect opportunity for me to test out some new things I’ve been working on. Can’t wait! This is going to be a blast! See you soon!” Does she even consider the downside of our high-risk activities? I bet not. Her eyes are probably doing that sparkle-with-excitement thing right now. When I first saw her at Redwood, sitting at a table all alone, I never would have called it. First impressions are not reliable.

  When Irma goes to bed, I fill my backpack with everything I might need. Duct tape, pliers, a hammer, a length of rope, an old version of the Window Witch that lacks elegance but should get the job done. Gently, I place Frank on top of everything. One of his new googly eyes sags and hi
s pipe-cleaner antennae are bent. He looks forlorn. I refuse to see this as a sign of what’s to come.

  Using the emergency rope ladder, I sneak out of the house, but it’s not a clean getaway. Zeus catches me in the act and I have to bribe him with a handful of jelly beans, which are forbidden because they make him crazy. I sprint to the bus stop, where Jin and Hannah are waiting, standing in the shadows.

  “Sorry I’m late.” I bend over my knees, gasping. “But the bird busted me.”

  “I don’t even want to know the details,” Jin says, shaking his head.

  “No. That’s probably best.”

  “Fortunately, my mom was at the restaurant,” Hannah says. “So I just strolled out the front door. No wild attack birds. She would flip out if she knew I was running around the city with friends in the middle of the night, hunting magic rocks.” She snorts at the idea and Jin cracks up. But her words are ringing in my ears. Friends. That connection I felt after we survived the Nebula and found the stone glows bright. None of us is alone anymore because we are together.

  After a moment, they realize I’m not laughing along, a little lost in the feeling. “Lola looks serious,” Jin observes. “Like she’s thinking. Or napping.”

  “I hope you’re thinking about how we get into the wedding cake mansion,” Hannah adds.

  Suddenly, I’m grinning at them like a fool. We are about to do something dangerous and potentially very stupid and yet I’m bursting with happiness. It’s too embarrassing to explain, so I get on with explaining what’s next. “I got it all figured out. I’m a pro, remember? We climb up the wall, just like I did the last time. We turn on Frank to block all his security. We use the Window Witch to get inside. We find my father.”

  “Basically, what you did before, minus the falling two stories and breaking your wrist?”

  “Yes.” And this time I’d like to leave with what I came for.

  The night bus is quiet, just a few people snoozing toward the back. I pull Frank onto my lap and tinker with his guts. There is nothing I can do now to make him work better. Mostly, I just need to keep my hands occupied so they don’t shake. Hannah stares at Frank, indignant. “That’s the electromagnetic pulse generator?”

  “Function over form,” I grumble. “Pretty gets you nothing.”

  Hannah snorts. “I can’t believe I was afraid you guys were going to beat me. That thing is a mess! What does it even do?”

  “It’s going to get us into the mansion undetected,” Jin says confidently. I give him a wan smile. If Frank fails, Jin and I will suffer humiliation on a level heretofore unseen in the middle school STEM fair arena. Plus, we will likely get arrested. And lose my dad. The stakes are high.

  The bus stops and picks up a few stray passengers. “Whatever.” Hannah shrugs. “You guys and your Frank. Well, take a look at what I brought along.” She opens her backpack and pulls out two tin lunch boxes.

  “Doughnuts?” Jin asks hopefully.

  “Don’t be a dope.” Hannah flips open the lunch boxes to reveal their contents. One holds a small plastic device, about the size of a deck of cards, that looks like a modified transistor radio from the 1970s, but way cooler. A small button glows blue at its center. A coiled pair of headphones is tucked in beside it. The second lunch box contains a pair of thick boxy goggles.

  “I couldn’t decide between a hearing amplifier and night vision goggles for STEM fair,” she says smugly. “So I’m prototyping both.” Two projects? There are no random wires hanging out of either, or charred plastic. “Constructed completely from stuff you might find in your garage or kitchen. I’m dying to test them.”

  Hannah, aspiring spy or thief? Could go either way.

  CHAPTER 33 THIS WAS UNEXPECTED

  THE WEDDING CAKE MANSION IS dark and ominous, but only because I know that inside is a madman who kidnapped my father and is busy plotting world domination. Otherwise, it would just be dark.

  Jin is salty, mumbling about Hannah and the definition of overkill and why she feels like she has to do two projects when a normal human would only do one. I’m more concerned that Frank will explode the minute we turn him on. While I’ve made vast improvements, I would not venture so far as to call him reliable just yet. We stand on the sidewalk trying to look casual and doing a poor job of it. Jin hops from foot to foot and Hannah chews her cuticles like she has them to spare.

  A man walks a pint-size dog on the opposite side of the street, his face illuminated by the blue glow of his phone. We wait for him to pass before squeezing through a gap in the hedges and into the yard. The little hairs on my arms prickle. I just know Dad is in there. I can feel it. This is going to work!

  Or maybe it won’t. The ivy that is meant to be covering the wall is completely gone. “Is this the wall we’re supposed to climb?” Hannah asks, following my gaze.

  “You mentioned ivy,” Jin adds.

  “We have a problem,” I whisper. Murdering the ivy was the obvious thing to do in response to my break-in, even if it was not so nice for the ivy. I should have anticipated this. When I came here for the ballerinas, I planned everything down to the tiniest detail. This time I thought about it for ten minutes. Dad likes to say that when the going gets tough, the tough get going. A difficult situation is just something to work through. Get comfortable being uncomfortable. And the missing ivy sure makes me uncomfortable. I scan the side of the house for a different way in that will not get us immediately caught. The wall is smooth and whitewashed, not even a protruding brick to use as a handhold. There are no windows on the first floor, and the second story is abnormally high up because this is a mansion and everything is grander than in a regular old house.

  But off to one side of the wall, the missing ivy has exposed a rusty drainage pipe, bolted every five feet, running straight up to the roof and right by a balcony, perfect for our purposes. “We’ll use this,” I say, giving the drainage pipe a tug, as if to prove it is stable. Which it is not. It creaks and grinds against the wall. The ivy was probably the only reason it didn’t collapse.

  “You’re kidding, right?” Even in the darkness, I can see the fear in Jin’s eyes.

  “It will work. I swear.”

  “You go first.” Hannah steps aside and gestures to the pipe. I wedge my foot on the first bolt. It’s slick and it takes a few tries to secure. I have to be faster. Every second we stand around out here, we are closer to being doomed. And I don’t want to be doomed. I want to get in this stupid house. I pull myself up with my one good hand, grabbing the pipe and pushing my chest forward so gravity doesn’t yank me off. Wedging my knees on either side of the pipe, I press them together to create enough stability that I can reach higher. I pull up and slide my knees. It is not elegant, but slowly I begin to move toward the balcony. Five feet up, I wedge my foot in the next bolt and stand, taking a moment to catch my breath.

  “How’s it going?” Jin whisper-shouts.

  “Oh, piece of cake.”

  “You’re lying,” Hannah says, matter-of-fact.

  “I am. But I only have one hand. So please be quiet. I need to concentrate.” It takes about ten minutes for me to get to the second-story balcony, where I fling myself over the edge and promptly collapse in a heap. It takes about thirty seconds for the panting to stop. Finally, I wave down to Hannah and Jin, gesturing for them to hurry up.

  “No big deal,” I whisper.

  And for Jin it’s really not. He makes it look easy. Must be his long arms and legs because he is next to me in no time at all and he’s not even tired. Hannah goes next. About halfway up, she freezes. This is the girl who climbed up the Nebula’s cargo net ladder to save me from certain death, or at least something very unpleasant? What is she doing down there? We don’t have all night. Any second now, there will be dogs or a police helicopter or something else awful. I know from experience.

  “Come on!”

  “It’s coming off,” Hannah whimpers. “The pipe.” And just as the words leave her lips, the pipe begins to peel away from the w
all. Instinctively, I lunge for it, almost pitching clean over the balcony railing. Hannah screams. Not good. Quickly, I wedge the pipe into the crook of my good elbow. Hannah clings like a koala bear to a eucalyptus. But gravity is fighting hard to pull me down too.

  As my balance falters, I envision calamity. Broken bones and Judge Gold and making license plates until I shrivel up and die. The Shadow wins. I can’t fall. I can’t let go of the pipe. Abruptly, I stop plunging.

  Jin has me firmly by the belt loops. “No sudden moves,” he whispers. I nod, gently so as not to disrupt our very tenuous balance. “Hannah, don’t move.”

  “Oh, no way,” she says. “Not moving. But I might pee my pants.” This makes me giggle. I shouldn’t giggle. Giggling will send both of us directly to the ground.

  “Stop laughing,” Jin commands. “Or I will let go.”

  I clamp my lips shut as Jin slowly reels me back from the edge. I keep a firm hold on the pipe. When Jin and I have it steady, we instruct Hannah to climb. It takes her a minute to get going. I get it. It’s scary to fall two stories. Finally, Hannah tumbles onto the balcony, landing on her back, gasping and sweating. “My legs are shaking. I don’t feel so good.”

  “I saved your life,” Jin gloats. “I can’t wait to remind you the next time you’re being a brat.”

  “You’re the worst,” she says, breathing rapidly. “But thanks for not letting me fall to my death anyway.”

  An awkward silence follows. “Um, you’re welcome?”

  I give her another minute to recover before urging my team on. “Getting up here was only the first step. We haven’t even gotten to camp three yet.”

  “Who said anything about camping?” Jin asks.

  “Everest camp three,” I explain. “It’s the third place you stop when you’re climbing the mountain, when the hard part is still in front of you and you basically can’t breathe. In other words, we have a lot to do.”

  “You sound like your dad,” Hannah says.