Click Here to Start

by Denis Markell

  It’s still an incredibly weird sensation, as if I am in her body, doing what she would need to do. I click down to the sink, and with triumph click on a tube of lip gloss, which makes a welcome plink and now sits in my inventory, next to the library card.

  I click through to the door of Isabel’s room, which brings me to the stairway. This takes me down to a set of locked double doors behind which I assume is Mr. Archer’s study.

  I grab the library card and click on it, bringing it up on the screen. I drag the lip gloss over to it and smile as the gloss spreads over one side of the card—to make it slippery, I’ve already figured. I take the card and put it next to the doors. It slides into the small crack between them, stopping at the lock, where it eases itself between the latch and the plate. They open, and I am—or rather Isabel is—in.

  It’s only a matter of time…time….Couldn’t hurt to just put my head down for a few minutes….

  “Ted! Ted!”

  I open my eyes and gape in horror at the light streaming in through my window. My dad is shaking my shoulders. I quickly check the laptop and see that it’s in sleep mode.

  Sleep. Argh! How long did I sleep?

  “I’m really sorry, Ted, but we’ve got to get going,” my dad says. “Brush your teeth or do whatever you have to do to make yourself presentable. We’re leaving in five minutes.” He turns. “And later we’ll talk about this obsession with those games. Falling asleep in front of the computer is not acceptable.”

  “Riiight,” I say thickly, wiping the drool from my face with my sleeve. Five minutes? That’s crazy! I can’t solve the game in five minutes! I run to the bathroom while the laptop is waking up, trying to think of anything that will clear up this mess. I figure I’ll tell Isabel the few things I’ve learned and hope that I can figure out the rest on my own. Hey, at least I got a good night’s rest!

  As I frantically go over what I do know, and write it down as instructions for Isabel, my dad calls from downstairs.

  “Ted, you want to say goodbye to your friend or what?”

  “Be right there, Dad.”

  I grab the sheet of paper and book it down to join him.

  Caleb is just pulling up on his bike as we open the door to the car. He hops in and we’re on our way.

  The trip is a whole lot faster this way, let me tell you.

  Dad stops at the corner of Treemont. He turns and looks at me.

  “Noon. Right?”

  “Actually, we said eleven,” I remind him. “You’re meeting students at noon, remember?” Mom may not be right about everything, but boy, is she right about the not-listening part.

  Caleb and I jump out.

  “Maybe I’ll go to the office instead,” my dad mutters, and drives off.

  As we approach the house, Caleb stops.

  “Now, I know you’ve got this all figured out and everything, but I still don’t know how you’re going to get the instructions to Isabel. If anything breaks that beam, going in or out, it sets off the alarm, right?”

  “You’re forgetting one place,” I say with a smile as we walk up the stone steps leading to the front door.

  I point.

  “Of course,” marvels Caleb. “The mail slot. The mail has to be able to get in.”

  I lift the slot and peer inside. No sign of Isabel. The house looks still and cold.

  “Isabel!” I call. No response.

  “Maybe she’s in her room,” Caleb suggests.

  We move around to the side of the house.

  Up in the window, there is no sign of movement. But I can just imagine her on her bed, lying there, looking up at the ceiling. How odd to know a room so well and never have been inside.

  “Isabel!” Caleb yells.

  A familiar face appears in the window and breaks into a smile. I wave and gesture for her to come downstairs. Once again we station ourselves by the mail slot.

  Soon we hear a rustle, and then it’s clear that Isabel is on the other side of the door.

  I lift the slot again.

  “I don’t believe you guys! It’s so great to see you!” Isabel sounds genuinely happy.

  “You too,” I say, proving once again my gift for smooth-talking the ladies.

  “I wish I could get out of here,” Isabel sighs. “But it’s nice that you came.”

  “ ‘O ye of little faith,’ ” says Caleb, and points in my direction.

  “You don’t mean—” Isabel begins, staring wide-eyed at me.

  “That’s from the Bible, by the way. I looked it up,” Caleb adds proudly.

  “I know it’s from the Bible. Matthew chapter eight, verse twenty-six,” Isabel says impatiently.

  I remove the sheet of instructions from my pocket. I go into the speech I’ve so carefully worked out to convince Isabel to follow the walkthrough.

  “Here’s the thing. I sat and thought through your problem as if it were an escape game. I put together what I observed about your house and my best guesses as to what to do to get you out of there and get back the book. I’ve got an idea for the first few steps. But, ummm…I may need your help on the other stuff.”

  “I figured out that the perimeter alarm was only for the windows and the doors, not the mail slot. Pretty slick, huh?” Caleb adds.

  Isabel isn’t listening. She looks at me expectantly. “So what do I do first?”

  “Get your library card.”

  Isabel looks at me like I’m demented. “My library card?”

  Before I can stop myself, I blurt out, “Your library card! The one in your wallet on your desk! Then get some lip gloss from your bathroom and come downstairs.”

  There is a long pause as Isabel takes this in.

  “Look, do you want to get out or not?” I ask firmly.

  Her eyes are locked on mine through the slot. I’m getting a little creeped out.

  Finally: “Yes. I do. So I’ll get my library card and some lip gloss.”

  We hear her footsteps echo on the stone floor of the entry and then up the wooden stairs to her room.

  A few moments pass, and we can see her with her library card in one hand, lip gloss in the other.

  “Just put some lip gloss on one side, slide it down the door until you reach the lock, and pull,” I coach her through the slot.

  “I figured,” Isabel calls back. “We used to do this all the time at school to get into the library when it was closed. It wouldn’t have occurred to me to do it to my dad’s office.”

  There’s a click, and Isabel cries, “I’m in!”

  She comes back to the mail slot and stares at me. “I checked my dad’s desk. I’m pretty sure that’s where he’s put the book, because the drawer is locked, and it normally isn’t, and the book isn’t on any of the shelves in there. So now what?”

  I forget that Isabel is getting pretty good at this too. Great. I need all the help I can get. The fact that her dad put the book under lock and key has to mean something. I’m guessing the book has something to do with the numbers on the house alarm system’s keypad.

  “Okay, so first we need to find the key to that drawer….”

  I begin to mull it over. It’s a lot harder than the game, because on-screen I can just click until I have pieces to use. I remind myself that Graham Archer is a person, not a computer game designer. “He must have hidden it in there somewhere. Would he have left a reminder to himself about where it is?”

  “I don’t want to be the one to say it,” says Caleb, “but seriously, Ted. You play too many of those games. Wouldn’t he just take it with him?”

  I glare at Caleb. I hate him for being right. Is all this just a waste of time? Is the key with Mr. Archer?

  “Actually, I don’t think so,” Isabel says excitedly. “My father hates having too many keys in his pocket. He says it ruins the line of his pants. He usually just has the car key when he leaves, and comes in the house through the garage.”

  “Well, that’s something!”

  Isabel thinks for a minute. “Shouldn
’t we start in the obvious places? Hold on.” She rushes away, and we hear her rummaging in different parts of the house, before she goes back to the study and searches in there. When she comes back, she looks defeated.

  “No desk key anywhere that I can think of, at least nowhere it’d make sense. It’s got to be hidden somewhere pretty obscure.”

  “So where do we start?” Caleb jumps in. “He doesn’t have a calendar, does he? Like Great-Uncle Ted?”

  “No…,” says Isabel, “but he does have a datebook. He says he doesn’t trust computers with his appointments and things. Should I look in there?”

  “Couldn’t hurt,” I answer.

  Isabel comes back with a small leather-bound notebook. She flips through the pages, then stops and holds the book up to the slot. We see a date circled in red ink. September 21.

  “Father’s written something below it,” Isabel says. “ ‘Deliver paper to Shakespeare Conference, LASS.’ LASS?”

  “Los Angeles…,” I begin.

  “—Shakespeare Society!” Isabel cuts in. “Father said he was delivering a paper there in the fall. I think I saw a draft of it on his desk.” Before I can say anything, she’s run back into the study and returns with a packet of papers that has a Post-it on it, marked “9/21.”

  The title of the lecture is What Fools These Mortals Be—The Great Clowns of Shakespeare.

  Isabel flips quickly through the paper. “Nothing in here mentions a key. Now what?”

  “That’s okay. Dead ends happen all the time. We’ll just try something else.” I try to picture the game in my head. I remember noticing something on the desk just before I conked out.

  “Does your father have a laptop on his desk?”

  “Yes,” Isabel says.

  “Can you get onto his computer? That’s a good place to start,” I suggest.

  Off Isabel goes. A shout reaches us. “It’s asking for a password! He’s never had a password before!”

  If he’s never had a password before, then whatever it is will reference something recent. I think of her father’s paper. What Fools These Mortals Be. Maybe it wasn’t a dead end after all? “Try ‘WFTMB’!” I shout back.

  “Of course!” Isabel answers. Then she comes back to the door, looking dejected.

  “It didn’t work. Any other ideas?”

  Normally at this point, if I were playing the game, I’d go to Wikipedia. But I realize I have something else just as good right in front of me.

  Isapedia.

  The Great Clowns of Shakespeare. “So who would you say is the most famous Shakespearean clown?” I ask.

  “Will Kempe, of course,” Isabel says immediately. “I mean, he was the original clown who Shakespeare wrote all his comic roles for.”

  “Try adding ‘Kempe’ to the ‘WFTMB’ for the password,” I suggest.

  Off she goes.

  And back she comes, looking irritated. “Still nothing. We’re missing something.” Then her face brightens. “Wait! After Kempe quit Shakespeare’s company, he was replaced by Robert Armin, who created some of the most famous fools! Should I try him?”

  “Sure,” I say. “ ‘WFTMBArmin.’ If that doesn’t work, try ‘WFTMBKempeArmin.’ Or ‘GreatClownsKempeArmin.’ You have to try every combination—”

  “That one worked! I’m in!” says Isabel. I hear a note of triumph in her voice.

  “Now you know how Ted feels when he’s solved one of his games!” Caleb calls.

  “We haven’t solved it yet,” I remind him.

  An excited squeal comes from the study. “I found a folder on the computer desktop marked ‘September 21.’ ”

  Then silence. Caleb and I run around to the side of the house where the study is. We push through the rosebushes to get a better view of the room.

  We see Isabel through the study window as she heads toward the back wall of the room, where there is a series of three framed pictures.

  The one on the left is a photograph of a beautiful woman on a beach, in a thick woolen sweater. I know at once this has to be Isabel’s mom.

  On the right is a family portrait of three skiers. Graham is on one side, his wife is on the other, and Isabel is in the middle, about ten years old. The two adults are laughing, and Isabel is looking up at them.

  Between these two photos is an odd picture.

  It’s a painting of a man with a donkey’s head, stretching his arms as if waking from a long sleep. Looking at him with adoration is a beautiful woman, her hands stroking the fur on his muzzle.

  Isabel marches over to the middle picture and reaches behind it, feeling around. When she pulls her hand out, she waves a key victoriously.

  We watch as she goes to the desk. The key opens the drawer, and she holds the copy of The Maltese Falcon up to show us with a big thumbs-up.

  She leaves the room and we meet her back at the door. She’s laughing.

  “Of course my father would hide the key behind his Bottom.”

  Now it’s my turn to look confused. What the heck is she talking about? Happily, I can always count on Caleb to bail me out.

  Caleb has a baffled look on his face. “What? He hid the key in his butt?”

  Isabel laughs. It’s not her grown-up laugh. More like a “stupid me” laugh. I like it better.

  “Sorry. Family joke. Father got that painting when I was three, and we always called it his Bottom.”

  Now it’s our turn to stare through the slot. Isabel sighs.

  “You guys, Bottom is the name of the comic character in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream who is given the head of a donkey by the king of the fairies.”

  “Uh-huh…,” says Caleb, looking dubious.

  Then it dawns on me.

  “The man with the donkey head in the painting!” I say.

  “Right!” Isabel says. “And Titania, queen of the fairies, is enchanted to fall in love with him.”

  “A guy named Bottom gets a donkey head,” Caleb says skeptically. “It sounds like a real laugh riot.”

  “At least it’s not about some guy who dresses up like a bat and is supposed to scare bad guys,” Isabel snaps back.

  “I think we’re getting off track,” I say. “We need the code. It’s clear that your dad locked up the book for a reason. It has to have something to do with the code.”

  “Of course!” Isabel crows. “We just need to find four numbers in here.”

  “Hunh. How about a year?” suggests Caleb.

  My eyes widen. He’s got it. I know he’s got it.

  “Isabel,” I instruct. “Check the publication date. It’s on the—”

  “Ted! I think I know where the pub date of a book is!” Isabel says, actually rolling her eyes. She opens the book and reads out: “ ‘First paperback edition, 1948.’ You really think this is it?”

  Our eyes meet. “Yes. I’m pretty sure. Only one way to find out.”

  Standing on the steps, we hear her slowly and carefully enter the four numbers into the number pad. BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP.

  I hold my breath.

  Two corresponding beeps are heard. She’s deactivated the alarm.

  The door slowly opens. Isabel stands there, eyes bright with excitement, holding The Maltese Falcon.

  She steps carefully over the threshold to the outside.

  We all stand stock-still, waiting to hear a siren, or any other sign that the plan has failed.

  After ten long seconds of silence, Isabel breaks into a grin, and Caleb and I cheer.

  She is about to leave, and turns around.

  “What are you doing?” Caleb hisses.

  “Resetting the alarm,” Isabel says, her usual calm demeanor having returned. “Just being a responsible daughter.”

  Slowly, the three of us walk down the stone walkway, saying nothing, as if at any moment, Graham Archer will reappear and foil the whole elaborate scheme.

  We walk along, our bodies beginning to relax as the truth dawns on us.

  “We really did it,” Isabel
marvels. She turns and gives a surprised Caleb a huge hug.

  “It…it was mostly Ted,” Caleb splutters.

  I wait for my hug, a big smile on my face. I can’t help it. Things are working out perfectly. I’ve rescued Isabel, and soon we’ll solve the riddle of where the key belongs, and then—

  That’s when Isabel punches me in the face.

  At that exact moment, two thoughts go through my mind simultaneously.

  First, as a middle-class half-Asian, half-Jewish kid, I’ve never punched anyone in the face in the entire twelve years of my life.

  And second, Isabel Archer packs a mean punch.

  Her fist lands squarely—perfectly, of course—on my cheek, sending me reeling.

  “What the heck did you do that for?” I screech.

  “I come from New York, so let me tell you, I’ve known some creeps in my time,” Isabel spits out, “but you are without a doubt the creepiest, most disgusting excuse for a—”

  “You’re mad at him? But he just got you—” Caleb tries to get between Isabel and her prey, but she swings hard and gets me in the gut this time.

  She stands over me, her face red with what looks like a combination of rage and disbelief.

  “How did you know what was in my bathroom? That my wallet was on my desk? God! It’s too gross to even think about! Did you climb into that tree and stare at me at night or something? You…you…”

  “I never thought I’d see it,” Caleb says. “Isabel Archer is actually speechless.”

  Isabel whirls and faces Caleb, her hands still balled into tight fists.

  “Hey! Don’t get mad at me! I wasn’t the one spying on you!” Caleb quickly adds.

  “Caleb!” I moan from the ground. “You’re not helping….”

  “I mean, Ted wasn’t spying on you either! Ted wouldn’t do that. It would be—”

  Caleb talking is good, I think through the pain as I prop myself up on one arm. It gives me a chance to gather my thoughts.

  “Sick! He’s a sicko!” Isabel screams.

  Caleb talking is bad, I think. It gives Isabel a chance to gather her thoughts.

  “I mean, I’m glad you got me out, but just the thought of you—”

  Isabel pushes me back down again, this time with her foot.

  As I writhe on the ground in agony, it occurs to me that perhaps I haven’t thought this through completely. Clearly I shouldn’t have mentioned her wallet and the desk. I should have thought of that. Of course, she would have—ow!