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by Denis Markell

I hear the fatigue in her voice. This will take all of Isabel’s powers.

  “Mr. Yamada spoke to us about it. He told us about how he used to read it to your uncle when he would visit and how your uncle’s eyes would light up…” Isabel sighs.

  An award-winning performance. She sticks the landing. A perfect ten.

  “All right. But we really have to go right now or I’ll never get back in time for my shift with all the traffic on the Canyon.”

  My mom calls Donna Yamada, who says her dad would be happy to see us again.

  Caleb bounds in happily from the living room, sketchbook in hand.

  As we head out to the car, I turn to Isabel. “That was amazing. I think I speak for all the civilized world when I say how grateful we are that you have decided to use your powers for good instead of evil.”

  “You never know,” Isabel says, fixing me with a wicked grin.

  This time, Isabel sits next to me and Caleb in the backseat.

  And this time, the traffic is more problematic. The trip seems to take much longer than it did the first time. We sit in silence, each of us thinking how best to approach Mr. Yamada.

  “I say we bust the guy,” Caleb finally decrees as he absent-mindedly draws a large caped superhero standing over a cowering elderly Asian man. The caped man has scissors in one hand and a bonsai tree in the other. A speech balloon is coming from the avenging hero, who’s saying, “One false move and I snip!” Isabel looks over and giggles.

  “I like the idea of taking his teeny tree hostage,” she says. “But I don’t think that will be necessary.”

  She turns to me with a look of unmistakable admiration and continues. “I bet your great-uncle told him that once you passed the test and found the key, he could tell you everything.”

  “We’ll know soon enough,” I say as we finally turn onto Mr. Yamada’s street.

  It takes a moment to register. First there is the crackling sound of a two-way radio. Then the flashing lights, the ambulance.

  Donna Yamada stands by the open doors, looking like the sky has fallen on her.

  “Oh my gosh!” Mom cries, and pulls the car over to the side of the road. Clawing off her seat belt, she races ahead of us. We follow as fast as we can.

  “You don’t think…,” Caleb gasps. We stop at a respectful distance to watch the two women talk in hushed voices. My mom has her hand on Donna’s shoulder.

  “It wasn’t anything violent,” I say, “if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “And how do you know that?” Isabel asks.

  I gesture up and down the street. “No police cars. It has to be something else.”

  Isabel looks toward the door. “The gurney’s inside. So either he can’t walk…or—”

  Mom walks slowly back to us. “It seems that Mr. Yamada might have had a stroke. The paramedics are bringing him out now.”

  “Would it be all right if we go over with you and talk to Donna?” I ask.

  Mom looks at me for a moment. “I’m going to hope that you will simply tell her your thoughts are with her and leave it at that.”

  “Sure, Mom, of course,” I agree, and we walk over to join the anxious woman. Donna Yamada looks like she’s somewhere else.

  “We’re so sorry to hear about your father,” I begin.

  “It happened so suddenly. It was after the visit…” Donna is looking away.

  “Our visit?” asks Isabel in surprise.

  Donna seems to notice us for the first time. She looks up with a small smile.

  “Oh no, not you. He seemed so happy after you left. He was so fond of your great-uncle, you know,” she adds to me.

  “He’s a very special man,” Isabel offers. I know that if any one of us can reach Donna, it’s Isabel. “How is he doing?”

  “It’s too early to tell,” Donna says, her voice trembling, “but with all of our thoughts and prayers—” She stops and gasps. Her eyes are a mix of surprise and fear. “Th-that’s him! Where did you get that?”

  She is pointing at Caleb’s sketchbook. It’s open to the page where Caleb drew the picture of the man who visited Isabel’s dad.

  “What do you mean, ‘that’s him’?” asks Isabel gently.

  “That face! It’s the man who visited my father this morning!”

  “Are you sure?” I press.

  “Positive. He said he had something important to discuss with my father, and I left them alone together. I heard raised voices, and when I came back, the man was about to leave. My father became very agitated. He collapsed and I called 911 immediately.”

  There is a flurry of commotion at the front door of the neat little house. Two burly EMTs are carefully guiding a gurney over the doorstep.

  Isabel, Caleb, and I exchange anxious glances as we recognize the inert form of Mr. Yamada strapped on top.

  “He has an oxygen mask,” whispers Isabel. “That’s a good sign, right?”

  One of the EMTs is holding an IV bag over Mr. Yamada’s head; the other end is attached to the arm of the old man.

  The other EMT jumps into the ambulance to prepare to load Mr. Yamada.

  The gurney sits for a moment directly in front of us. I can see Mr. Yamada’s pale face, his closed eyes, his damp hair clinging to his forehead. His daughter reaches out to hold his hand. I turn to Donna. “I really hope he gets better soon.”

  Upon hearing my voice, Mr. Yamada’s eyes pop open.

  His eyes find my eyes and lock onto them. Then he reaches out and grabs my wrist.

  “Ghh…yrrghh.” Mr. Yamada is struggling to say something to me. It seems like the most important thing in the world to him. “M…m…” He is desperately trying to find the words to impart something to me.

  “Yes? M…?”

  Mr. Yamada shakes his head. “M…M…” And then, with one last effort, he shouts out what sounds like “Shee guy mass!”

  The old man’s eyes close, and he falls back into unconsciousness. My mom puts her arms around his poor daughter.

  “Donna, what does that mean? ‘Shee guy mass’?” I ask, but Mom glares at me.

  “Leave her alone, Ted. She’s doesn’t need your questions right now,” she says in a flat, even tone that means no talking back.

  After the gurney has been loaded into the ambulance, Mom helps Donna over to the truck, then turns to the EMTs.

  “Where are you taking him? Cedars?”

  “Cedars” is Cedars Sinai, the best hospital in Los Angeles.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  My mom turns to Donna. “He’s going to get excellent care. As soon as my shift is over, I’ll come and see how you’re doing.”

  Donna nods, unable to speak. The EMTs help her into the back, where she sits looking at her father as they close the two doors with a slam. The siren whoops, and the ambulance takes off at top speed.

  No one says much of anything on the ride back to the house, and we’re all shaken after my mom drops us off at home.

  Caleb looks down at the burly man staring back at him from the sketchbook sitting on the hall table.

  “Whoever you are, you sure have lousy people skills,” he says.

  Wearily, the three of us troop up the stairs and down the hall to my room.

  My room.

  I have the sickening realization that Isabel has never seen my room.

  Or smelled it.

  I run to open a window.

  Isabel gives a weak smile as she looks around the collected debris that makes up my bedroom. “Well, this is certainly cozy….”

  “Yep, this is where the magic happens,” says Caleb, flopping down on the bed.

  I turn on the laptop and smoothly kick as many pairs of old underwear and T-shirts under the bed as I can.

  I offer Isabel the chair by the desk. She gingerly steps over an old fast-food wrapper and sits down.

  I lean into the computer and go to Google.

  “First off,” Isabel finally says, “he clearly said the letter M. More than once.”

  “Ye
ah, that’s got to have something to do with it,” I agree.

  “What starts with M?” Isabel asks in a slightly smug tone.

  “Is that a rhetorical question?” snipes Caleb from the bed.

  “How about…Maltese Falcon?” Isabel practically shouts. “He was trying to give you message about the book.”

  “Maybe,” I say. “But I’ll feel a lot better when I can figure out what ‘Shee guy mass’ means.”

  “You’re pretty proud of yourself, aren’t you?” asks Caleb.

  “You didn’t think of it,” Isabel says with a smirk.

  “Yeah, but I also didn’t miss something right in front of me,” Caleb says as he riffles the pages of the book in his hands.

  Isabel and I turn at the same time. “What?”

  We jump on the bed and look over Caleb’s shoulder as he opens the paperback. He stops on page two. It’s been lightly circled in purple pencil.

  He raises an eyebrow and turns to page fifty-four. Also circled in purple.

  “They’re the only two pages circled,” he tells us.

  Isabel scans the pages.

  “There’s nothing important on these pages, is there? I don’t see any numbers or anything about a key,” Isabel reasons. “Although the detective does hide the falcon in a storage locker and mail the key to himself.”

  “And you never told us this?” I ask incredulously.

  “We’d already found the key, and it wasn’t mailed, so I didn’t think it was important,” Isabel snaps back.

  “You guys are missing something,” Caleb sings in a nyah-nyah voice.

  I glare at him. “Okay, big shot. Let us in on it.”

  “Sorry, it’s just not so often I figure out something before the great Ted Gerson, so I wanted to enjoy the moment,” Caleb says.

  “Okay, you’ve had your moment. Now tell us or I’m taking a pair of Ted’s old underpants that he tried to hide under the bed and pulling them down over your head,” Isabel replies calmly.

  I’m not sure which is worse, that Isabel saw me do it, or hearing her say “Ted’s old underpants.”

  “Two numbers are circled. Two and fifty-four. And in what color?”

  “Purple?” I say. Then it dawns on me.

  “Remember the blank piece of paper back in Great-Uncle Ted’s apartment?”

  “Violet,” Isabel laughs. “Ultraviolet.”

  I turn from my Google search. “Purple…well, 254 nanometers falls in the spectrum for ultraviolet light, right?”

  “But we don’t have the lamp,” Isabel says, bummed. “How are we going to—”

  Caleb sits up. “Ted, you still have that UV pen, I bet!”

  I nod. “Somewhere in my desk.”

  Isabel looks at me strangely. “You have a UV pen?”

  “Sure,” Caleb explains. “It’s a spymaster kit thing. You write notes in invisible ink to each other that can only be read under UV light. We both got them for Christmas.”

  “I see,” Isabel says, nodding. “Like, when you were eight or something.”

  “Actually,” Caleb answers proudly, “it was last year.”

  I don’t have to turn back from the desk to know that Isabel is suppressing a giggle. She clears her throat.

  “Well, that’s one advantage of being a ner—I mean, liking that kind of thing, I guess,” she says.

  I pull out my desk drawer. I remove random Pokémon cards, Lego pieces, an old Transformers toy from a Happy Meal, and a plastic Slinky from a birthday party I probably went to in third grade.

  Finally, after what seems like every embarrassing thing I’ve ever owned has been taken out and put on display, I find the pen. Miraculously, the battery still works.

  I hand the pen to Caleb.

  “We just run this UV bulb on top of the pen over the pages in the book and see if anything pops up,” Caleb tells Isabel, and they set to work.

  I turn back to my computer. I type in “shee guy mass” and get nothing.

  Well, I do get someone Chinese whose name is Shi Gai.

  “Bull’s-eye!” Caleb cries. “We’ve got a winner!” He crosses his arms in triumph.

  “I don’t see anything,” Isabel sniffs. “There isn’t anything written.”

  “We’re not just looking for words,” he reminds her. “See? That letter is underlined.” He grabs his sketchbook. “This is going to take some time. We have to be really careful not to miss anything.” He writes down the letter M.

  “A coincidence?” asks Isabel. She leans in and watches Caleb run the UV light from the pen over the page. They turn the page and she points excitedly.

  “Another one!” Caleb writes the letter O next to the M.

  “Have you checked the page numbers too?” I ask as I try yet another spelling of “shi gai mas.”

  Caleb looks sheepish. “That’s the kind of thing he asks me when I get stuck in an escape game.”

  Sure enough, one of the page numbers turns out to be circled under the UV light.

  I’m having a lot less luck.

  Nothing is coming up for me. I try putting “shi gai mas” into a Japanese-to-English translation program and it shows nothing.

  Isabel takes a break from the book and looks over my shoulder.

  “Maybe Japanese uses another letter for the sh sound?” she suggests.

  “Maybe,” I say. So I try “chi gai mass” as Isabel returns to help Caleb.

  The closest thing I find is “chi gai massage,” a business with a sexy-looking woman smiling out from the Web page. Don’t hold me to this, but I’m reasonably sure that wasn’t what Mr. Yamada had in mind.

  “How’s it going over there?” I call.

  “We’re halfway through,” Isabel reports. “We’ve got a whole bunch of letters and numbers, but I’m not sure it’s making sense.”

  I turn back to the screen. I quickly type “chigai mass,” and before I can correct my mistake, Google suggests “chigaimasu.”

  I feel that familiar jolt go through me, like whenever I solve a killer game.

  “I got it,” I say, pumping my fist.

  Caleb and Isabel look down at the laptop as I press the button to reveal what the word means.

  “ ‘Chigaimasu: Not the same, mistake, or wrong, or incorrect,’ ” I read.

  “So he was saying M is incorrect or wrong?” asks Caleb.

  “Great. Now all we have to figure out is who or what M is,” Isabel says sourly, sitting back on the bed and going back to tracing the pen’s light over the pages.

  “Okay. Let’s think,” I suggest. “M could mean Maltese Falcon. Was he telling us The Maltese Falcon was the wrong book?”

  “That doesn’t seem right,” Caleb reasons.

  “M…is there a person named M?” My eyes catch the sketch of the burly man in Caleb’s sketchbook that upset Donna Yamada so much.

  I look over at the man. “Are you Mr. M? Are you wrong? Incorrect?”

  Caleb closes the old paperback. “We’ve got all the numbers and letters.”

  “Let’s see what you have,” I say, and proceed to write them neatly on a new sheet of paper. “The numbers are 23, 44, 57. The letters are M, O, R, P, O, A, R, K, S, R, T, E, T, E.”

  “It has to be an anagram. But what are the numbers?”

  “There are too few to be a phone number,” I say, “unless you missed one.”

  Isabel throws the book at me. “You look, then. I checked Caleb and he checked me. That’s all we found.”

  “It could be an address,” suggests Caleb.

  I nod. “Of course. Look at the letters. If you rearrange them, they make the words Moorpark Street.”

  “Is that near here?” Isabel asks.

  “Not too far. 234457 Moorpark Street.”

  I turn and enter the information into the computer.

  “Wait,” says Isabel. “You hit the M twice. It says MMoorpark.”

  “Right,” I answer. “Hey, don’t hate on mistyping. That’s how I found out what chigaimasu means.” />
  I’m about to retype the address, when I stop.

  “What’s up, dude?” Caleb asks. “Come on, let’s find out where 234457 Moorpark Street is.”

  “Mr. Yamada didn’t say ‘M, chigaimasu,’ ” I say slowly as my mind turns this over. “He kept saying ‘M…M…chigaimasu.’ ”

  I look up at them. “What if he meant ‘M.M. chigaimasu’?”

  “So?” Caleb says impatiently. “So it’s M.M. We don’t know any M.M., do we?”

  “Maybe we do.” I begin typing something into the browser. “M.M.? Monuments Men?”

  The Monuments Men site loads in. But somehow, it looks slightly different.

  “Isabel, do you know how identity thieves get you to enter your private information online?”

  “I think so,” Isabel answers. “My dad warned me about this before I could buy anything on the Web. They set up sites that look exactly like the real sites, only they’re phony. And the Web address is the same except for one small change.”

  “Exactly. Like dot com instead of dot org.” I scroll up and come to the page Stan showed us on his laptop.

  But it isn’t that page. Instead of copying the address from Stan’s business card, I find the site through Google.

  It’s www.monumentsmen.org, not www.monumentsmen .com.

  All the difference in the world.

  “What are we looking at?” asks Caleb in a small voice, like he knows what it is.

  “This is the real Monuments Men site,” I say as we look at the photo. It’s identical to the one Stan showed us, but he’s not in the picture.

  Behind the old man holding the ledger is a different smiling man.

  He has a broad, bald head, a unibrow, big black plastic glasses, and a fringe of hair around his ears.

  “And that,” I say, indicating the man whose face we’ve come to know so well, “is the real Stanley Kellerman.”

  “Nicely done!” says a voice behind us.

  I’ve felt a lot of things in my gut—the lurch of nausea before a big test, butterflies before giving a presentation at school, even the whomping up-and-down of a roller coaster.

  But this is different.

  For the first time in my life, I feel real fear.

  Fear in the pit of my stomach.

  A cold, small thing that slowly begins to grow as I turn with the others and see the man we’ve come to know as Stanley Kellerman standing there.