by Dan Gutman
“You’re kidding me, right?” Dr. McDonald said, his voice rising slightly. He looked around to see if there might be a camera crew hiding somewhere to film his reaction for one of those TV shows where they pull pranks on people.
“The Hoover Historical Center is the boyhood home of William H. Hoover,” she informed him. “It’s about vacuum cleaners. Would you like a guided tour?”
Dr. McDonald’s eyes were bulging out of his head.
“The vacuum is between your ears!” Dr. McDonald thundered at the woman. “I didn’t drive two thousand miles to go to a museum about vacuum cleaners!”
“Calm down, honey,” Mrs. McDonald said.
“I’m really sorry,” said the receptionist. “But I think you’ll find our exhibits to be quite interesting.”
In fact, the Hoover Historical Center was quite interesting, after the rest of the family managed to calm Dr. McDonald down and agree to take the tour.
It turns out that in 1907 a janitor named Murray Spangler invented a primitive vacuum cleaner because his asthma flared up whenever he swept the floor with a broom. He rigged up a simple machine using a soap box, a fan, a pillowcase, and a broom handle and called the device a “suction sweeper.” William H. “Boss” Hoover was a wealthy businessman who bought Spangler out and started the company.
“This is perfect for Amazing but True!” Mrs. McDonald kept saying as she snapped pictures. “My readers will love this!”
The history of Hoover was called (naturally) “Sweeping Changes.” Display cases were filled with antique vacuums, old ads, and even a recording of Hoover salesmen singing the company theme song from the 1920s—“All the Dirt, All the Grit.”
“I wish I had that song on my iPod,” Coke remarked.
“This is like the history of dirt,” noted Pep with a giggle.
“I had no idea that disposable vacuum cleaner bags could be so interesting,” said Mrs. McDonald. “And who knew that Hoover came up with the vacuum cleaner headlight?”
The family spent over an hour in the museum, until they felt that they knew just about everything there was to know about vacuum cleaners.
“That was fascinating,” Dr. McDonald admitted as they piled back into the RV. “Maybe instead of writing about President Hoover, I should write a book about the history of vacuum cleaners.”
“That book would really suck, Dad,” Coke remarked.
Chapter 15
THE NEXT CIPHER
When the McDonald family climbed back into the RV after the vacuum cleaner episode, there was a six-by-nine-inch manila envelope on Coke’s seat. He didn’t think anything of it at first and put it aside. It wasn’t until a few minutes later that he realized the envelope had not been there before. He tore it open. Inside was a sheet of lined paper with this written on it:
SSGBETPLARAAENXRNDNX
Another cipher.
“Oh no,” Coke muttered out loud.
“What is it, honey?” asked his mother from the front of the RV.
“Nothing, Mom,” Coke said. “I just … dropped something.”
Silently, he handed Pep the sheet of paper. His photographic memory was very powerful, but when it came to deciphering secret messages, he was pretty much useless.
Pep looked over the paper. There were no obvious patterns. Backward, the letters meant nothing. Skipping letters didn’t work. None of the usual strategies she knew seemed to fit. Embedded words—like BET—were always a distraction.
Go to Google Maps (http://maps.google.com/).
Click Get Directions.
In the A box, type North Canton OH.
In the B box, type Somerset PA.
Click Get Directions.
She could solve some ciphers almost instantly. This one was not easy. It would take some time.
Dr. McDonald suddenly pulled off the road into a strip mall.
“Why are we stopping, Ben?” asked Mrs. McDonald.
“I saw a cell phone store,” he replied. “We need to get new ones for the kids.”
“Oh yeah…”
You, dear reader, who has been paying careful attention and perhaps even taking notes, certainly recall that Coke’s and Pep’s cell phones were ruined—they had been soaked in ice cream, hot chocolate sauce, and water back at the amusement park in Sandusky. While the twins didn’t really need to have cell phones, Dr. McDonald considered it a safety issue. If for some reason the family got separated, they would be able to get in touch with one another if they all had cell phones.
After they picked out phones, Coke and Pep ducked outside the store while their parents worked out the details with a clerk.
“Did you figure out the cipher yet?” Coke asked his sister.
“You just gave it to me, like, a minute ago!” she replied, annoyed.
“Do you think you’ll be able to figure it out?”
“I don’t know,” Pep said irritably. “I’ll do my best.”
Coke paced nervously back and forth outside the store, worried that they were getting closer to Washington.
“Where are Mya and Bones?” he asked. “They were supposed to help us, protect us. Some help they are. When was the last time we saw them? In that motel? We’ll probably never see them again. They abandoned us.”
“Look, they said they’d meet us in Washington,” Pep told her brother. “I believe them.”
“Yeah, they also said we could relax and have fun until we got to Washington,” Coke said bitterly. “But Archie Clone almost killed us at the amusement park, and Mrs. Higgins almost killed us at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Maybe they’re working together. Mya and Bones were nowhere in sight. And now we’re getting all these ciphers that make no sense at all.”
“You need to calm down,” Pep said. “We’re going to need you to be sharp when we get to D.C.”
She was right, and Coke knew it. Usually it was Pep who was the nervous one. But the closer they got to Washington, the more anxious Coke had become. He reminded himself to stay strong, stay focused. One slip and it could be all over for both of them.
“Okay!” Mrs. McDonald said as she came out of the cell phone store and handed the twins their new phones. “You kids need to be careful with these. We don’t want to replace them again.”
“Now let’s put some miles away today,” Dr. McDonald said. “Washington, here we come!”
Soon they were cruising at seventy miles per hour down Interstate 76, a superhighway that starts near Akron, Ohio, and goes all the way to New Jersey. They had been in the state of Ohio for a long time. But soon this sign appeared at the side of the road:
“Woo-hoo!” Coke shouted. “The Keystone State! We can get some keystones here.”
“What’s a keystone?” asked Pep.
“I have no idea,” Coke said. “But I do know that Pennsylvania is a state of firsts. They had the first hospital in America. The first library and zoo. They had the first newspaper, the first TV and radio broadcasts. Pennsylvania had the first capital of the United States. And most importantly, the banana split was invented here!”
“You are such a wealth of totally useless information,” Pep said.
“You wish you were me,” her brother replied.
Dr. McDonald pushed his foot down on the accelerator just a little bit harder. The speedometer nudged past seventy, well above the speed limit. He hoped he wouldn’t get a ticket.
All four McDonalds looked out the window. After they had crossed the Pennsylvania state line, there was the definite feeling that they had finally reached the eastern part of the country. They were just 287 miles from Washington now. It no longer felt like a distant land.
Two weeks earlier, Coke and Pep had been on the beach of the Pacific Ocean. Now, the Atlantic Ocean was just a few hours away. Soon they would be in the nation’s capital. As they looked out the window and watched the world go by, they wondered what awaited them in Washington.
Chapter 16
THE GUY WITH THE BLACK COWBOY BOOTS
“Hey guys
, guess what?” Mrs. McDonald said excitedly. “It says here that there’s a flying saucer parked in a field in Mars, Pennsylvania.”
“No!” shouted Dr. McDonald. “We’re not going!”
He had nothing against flying saucers or visiting the town of Mars, Pennsylvania. But Dr. McDonald was anxious to get to Washington. He had never been to the National Air and Space Museum. The World War II Memorial had not been built the last time he was in the nation’s capital. The McDonalds weren’t planning to spend a lot of days in Washington, and one of them would be taken up by his sister-in-law’s wedding. So he didn’t want to waste time looking at flying saucers in Pennsylvania.
Mrs. McDonald continued to leaf through her guidebook.
“There’s a zombie museum near Pittsburgh,” she noted. “It’s in the mall where they shot the movie Dawn of the Dead.”
“No!” said Dr. McDonald.
“We could visit Mister Ed’s Elephant Museum in Orrtanna,” she said. “It has over six thousand—”
“No!”
“In North Huntingdon, there’s a McDonald’s that has a fourteen-foot-tall Big Mac—”
“No!”
“They have a Big Mac Sauce Gun—”
“No!”
“There’s this place called the House of Oddities near Pittsburgh—”
“No!”
“It’s only a few miles out of our way—”
“No!”
Dr. McDonald had been pretty flexible and understanding up until this point. He had agreed to stop at just about every ridiculous tourist trap as they made their way cross-country. They had visited museums devoted to Pez, yo-yos, mustard, and cannibals. They had visited the largest ball of twine in the world. They had even visited the second largest ball of twine in the world. But now he felt the need to assert himself—especially after the Hoover Historical Center turned out to be about the vacuum cleaner instead of the president. So he drove on.
In Pennsylvania, Interstate 76 is called the Pennsylvania Turnpike. It extends 359 miles across the state. Some people call it the “Tunnel Highway” because it goes through a number of tunnels that were blasted in the mountains.
There was little traffic on the turnpike, and they were making good time. But eventually driver fatigue set in and Dr. McDonald pulled off I-76 near Somerset, Pennsylvania. It was just a few miles to Pioneer Park Campground, at the foot of the Laurel Ridge Mountains.
After a quick dinner, the family went their separate ways for a while. Dr. McDonald bought a newspaper and found an empty hammock where he could read. Mrs. McDonald updated the Amazing but True website. Coke went to check out the lake, where some kids were fishing. Pep worked on the latest cipher they had received, with no success.
The McDonalds had enjoyed a lot of togetherness over the last two weeks, and everybody was starting to feel the need for a little alone time. As darkness fell, they all returned to the RV to go to bed.
In the middle of the night, Coke began talking in his sleep.
“Don’t wanna go to Washington,” he grunted, almost incoherently. “Mrs. Higgins … bowler dudes… Archie Clone… Don’t wanna go… Wanna go home…”
Eventually, the noise woke up his parents. They climbed out of bed to make sure Coke was okay.
“Don’t wanna go… D.C.… Don’t wanna go… Wanna go home…”
“He’s having a nightmare,” Dr. McDonald whispered.
“I guess he really doesn’t want to go to my sister’s wedding,” Mrs. McDonald whispered back.
“Boys hate getting dressed up,” said Dr. McDonald. “I’ll bet that’s it. When I was a kid, I’d do anything to get out of wearing a jacket and tie.”
“Shhhh,” Mrs. McDonald whispered as she tucked the covers in around Coke. “Everything will be fine, honey.”
In the morning, they were back on the turnpike by nine o’clock. Pep looked at her new cell phone and announced that it was the first of July. Three days until the big wedding. Two days until … something was going to happen in Washington. She had no idea what it was going to be.
He had driven about thirty miles when Dr. McDonald noticed the needle on the gas gauge was only slightly above E. At the next rest area—in Bedford, Pennsylvania—he pulled into the gas station to fill up the tank.
While his father took care of the gas and his sister went to buy a pack of gum, Coke went off to use the restroom.
“What’s wrong with the bathroom in the RV?” his mother asked.
“It’s gross, Mom.”
Coke pulled open the door to the men’s bathroom and looked around, just to be on the safe side. Nobody was in there. The three stalls were empty, and Coke went into the middle one.
While he was in there doing his business, he heard the door open and footsteps enter the men’s restroom. Somebody was whistling “The Yellow Rose of Texas.” Coke leaned forward and peeked under the stall door to see that the guy who came in was wearing black cowboy boots. Peeking through the narrow crack near the stall door, Coke could see the guy was wearing a large cowboy hat. But he couldn’t see the guy’s face. There was the sound of water in a sink, and then the electric hand dryer.
The guy was standing just a foot or two away from the stall. It made Coke feel uncomfortable, and he didn’t stand up even though he was finished. He didn’t make a sound. He pretended he wasn’t there.
Then, suddenly, an envelope slid into the stall and came to a stop at Coke’s foot.
He should have jumped up immediately and opened the stall door. He could have seen the face of the guy who slid him the note. He would have found out who was sending him all those ciphers.
Shoulda, coulda, woulda. Coke didn’t open the door. Instead, he opened the envelope. It wasn’t sealed. There was a sheet of white paper inside.
It was blank.
Now Coke was mad.
“Who is that?” he shouted, as he stuffed the paper back in the envelope and the envelope in his pocket. He got up from the toilet and reached for the little lock on the stall door.
It wouldn’t open. Somehow, the stall had been locked from the outside—by the guy with the cowboy boots. And now those boots were walking across the tile floor and out of the restroom.
That’s when Coke realized that he smelled something, and it wasn’t a bathroom smell. He had been in a lot of smelly bathrooms in his life, but this was worse. Much worse. It smelled like chemicals. The kind of chemicals that you’re not supposed to inhale.
“I gotta get outta here,” Coke mumbled to himself.
He couldn’t slide under the stall door. He couldn’t climb over it. He couldn’t open it. He was trapped.
Gas was filling the bathroom now. There was a hissing sound, as if the gas was escaping from an aerosol container. Coke was choking, his eyes filled with tears. He couldn’t call for help.
He took off his T-shirt, ripped it in half, and wrapped it around his face, hoping to filter out at least some of the poison gas. It was burning his eyes and his lungs.
He leaned on the stall door as hard as he could, but it wouldn’t budge. He took a running leap at it, but the stall was too small to get enough momentum. He was starting to panic.
Finally, he just reared back and kicked the door open, like the police do on TV. The stench of poison gas filled the bathroom. Coke closed his eyes and made a mad dash for the exit door, hoping that door had not been locked too.
He stumbled out to the open air and collapsed on the grass, choking and gagging. Pep was sitting there at the picnic table, waiting for him.
“What is your problem?” she said.
“Did you get a look at the guy who just came out of the bathroom?” Coke asked her.
“Yeah, you just came out of the bathroom.”
“I mean before me. The guy was wearing cowboy boots and a cowboy hat.”
“I just got here,” Pep said. “Man, what were you doing in there? I can smell it from here. What did you eat for breakfast?”
“I didn’t eat anything!” Coke shou
ted. “Some guy tried to poison me in there! And he slipped this envelope into the stall.”
“Oh, great,” Pep said. “I haven’t even solved the last cipher yet.”
“I don’t know if it’s a cipher.”
Coke took the envelope out of his pocket and showed the piece of paper to Pep.
“It’s blank,” she said.
“I know.”
“Come on, let’s get out of here before somebody sees you and thinks you caused that smell,” Pep told her brother. “We can work on this in the RV.”
They rushed back to the parking lot, where their parents were waiting anxiously to get back on the road.
“What happened to your shirt?” Mrs. McDonald asked Coke.
“It ripped,” Coke admitted.
“We can see that,” Dr. McDonald said. “How do you rip your shirt going to the bathroom?”
“Some guy in the bathroom tried to kill me with poison gas,” Coke said, “so I ripped my shirt and made it into a gas mask so I could breathe.”
“Ha, ha! Very funny! You kids crack me up,” Dr. McDonald said. “Let’s go.”
Go to Google Maps (http://maps.google.com/).
Click Get Directions.
In the A box, type Somerset PA.
In the B box, type Williamsport MD.
Click Get Directions.
“I wish you would take better care of your clothing,” said Mrs. McDonald.
Dr. McDonald hit the gas and got on the highway again. In the backseat, the twins looked at the white piece of paper carefully, turning it over, holding it up to the light. It was hard enough to figure all these ciphers out when they were written clearly. Now Pep had to work from a white sheet of paper. It was frustrating.
“Maybe the clue is simply ‘invisible’ or ‘emptiness’ or something like that,” Coke whispered to his sister. “Or maybe the white sheet of paper is the clue itself. Maybe it means the White House! Maybe there’s going to be a terrorist attack on the White House!”
“Or maybe the message was written in invisible ink,” Pep guessed.