“Yup,” Calder said, grinning. “So can you read it?”
Petra looked up.
“I’ve got the pentominoes, but the punctuation thing …” Tommy whispered to himself.
Petra had never seen Tommy when he wasn’t looking either distracted or self-conscious. His entire body was focused now, hunched intently over the piece of paper.
She stopped trying and watched him, fascinated. Suddenly he grabbed the pencil and wrote,
IGTRZETAN’TY Z’INDUEXAM
Calder reached across the table and whacked Tommy, and Tommy punched him back.
“So?” Petra said. “Explain!”
Tommy did, and Calder thought he’d never felt so happy. Seeing Tommy’s round, shiny head next to Petra’s curly black one, the two of them talking excitedly, made Calder want to jump up and down.
Petra then wrote,
M’PIETRN’FXELCM’TU!
“If you didn’t know what pentominoes were, you’d never get this,” Petra said admiringly. “And it’s still not easy,” she added.
“Not so hard,” Tommy said, beaming at her, “for a finder. But why both the W and the M letters?” he asked Calder.
His old friend shrugged. “W for Wright. M for the Invisible Man. And I wanted 13.”
“Every other letter counts, and the apostrophe just marks the letters that are a part of the message but also happen to be pentominoes,” Petra said. “Very tricky.”
The door to the bakery opened, and two familiar faces came into view. Tommy flipped the notebook shut.
“Ms. Hussey!” Petra said. Their teacher was wearing shorts and an orange tank top, and her hair was tied back with a crinkly yellow ribbon.
“Mr. Dare!” Calder said, and looked from one to the other. Mr. Dare was walking with a limp, but without his cane. He’d gotten a haircut, and looked much better than he had in the hospital — he wasn’t quite as red.
“So how’s the first day of vacation?” Ms. Hussey asked.
“Good,” the Wright 3 said in one voice.
As if she could read the question in their minds, she added, “Mr. Dare and I met the day of the demonstration.” She blinked rapidly, as if she’d said too much.
Mr. Dare cleared his throat. “You kids did a good job with the press. Yes, he’s the one who came to see me,” the mason said, and looked evenly at Calder. “I told him about my fall.”
“And I spoke with Mrs. Sharpe after you did, Petra,” Ms. Hussey said, as if this explained things. “Well, glad to see you all together.” Ms. Hussey smiled, and now it was the kids’ turn to look embarrassed.
Mr. Dare ordered two coffees to go, and didn’t ask Ms. Hussey what she wanted in hers. How did he know she liked cream and four sugars? Petra wondered. And what did Mrs. Sharpe tell her that fit with something Mr. Dare had told Calder?
Calder wondered how much Henry Dare had told Ms. Hussey about their conversation. Tommy wondered why Ms. Hussey had made that remark about the three of them. Petra was still wondering why their teacher and the mason were together.
When Mr. Dare came back to the table, he put the two coffees down for a moment. He looked at the change in his palm, a quarter, a dime, and a penny. “See these?” he asked. “They’re going to disappear.” He shifted the change from one hand to the other, and suddenly both palms were empty. “See? Gone.” He even held his hands up in the air. “Now. I might need that change later.” Suddenly he reached behind Petra’s ear and pulled out the quarter. Then he pulled the dime off Tommy’s sleeve and the penny from the pocket of Calder’s T-shirt. He showed them the change, then slipped it into his pocket. “Now you see it, now you don’t,” he said, and beamed.
“Well, happy beginning of summer,” Ms. Hussey said. Mr. Dare waved as the door to the bakery closed behind them.
“He’s pretty clever,” Tommy said.
“A bit too clever,” Calder said, peering out.
“Ms. Hussey’s looking at her watch,” Petra said. “Maybe they’re getting on the train.”
Tommy was on his feet. “Come on! Let’s see where they’re going.”
Walking along Fifty-seventh Street, Ms. Hussey looked relaxed, and Mr. Dare looked at Ms. Hussey. The three kids ducked in and out of doorways and peered from behind parked cars. Hiding in broad daylight wasn’t easy. They agreed that if they were spotted, they’d explain they were on their way to Powell’s.
Ms. Hussey and Mr. Dare leaned over the giveaway box outside the bookstore, picking up first one book and then another. Then all the books went back and the two turned down Harper Avenue, walking purposefully toward Fifty-ninth Street.
They were talking and laughing, and Ms. Hussey was gesticulating. The kids walked silently on the far side of the street, trying to look as if they were just enjoying the morning.
When they reached the train underpass at the end of the block, Ms. Hussey and Mr. Dare were gone.
“They must be up on the platform,” Calder said. All three knew that they weren’t allowed to go downtown without asking, but this was clearly a special situation.
“Are we sure this guy isn’t just pretending to be friendly? What if Ms. Hussey’s in danger?” Tommy thought of the worker outside the Robie House the morning after the demonstration.
“Yeah, what if he’s luring her someplace? Maybe he’s afraid she’ll stir up more trouble,” Petra dug in her pocket. “Great — I still have some grocery money. I’ll explain to my mom later.”
They hurried across Harper Avenue, waited beneath the underpass until the train roared in overhead, then flew up the stairs and down the platform to the nearest door. Once in the train car, they were relieved not to see either adult.
Tommy pulled a sandwich bag of red fish out of his pocket and passed it around. “Red herring time,” he said. They each ate one.
At the Van Buren stop, where they’d gotten off on their class trip to the Art Institute earlier that year, they spotted a flash of orange whisking into a stairwell. But by the time they were out of their seats and off the train, there was no sign of their teacher or the mason. Tommy’s eyes skated along the car behind theirs, and he saw a set of heavy black glasses very like the ones on the man outside the Robie House, the man who had frightened him.
“Hey!” Tommy said, and at that moment the man raised his newspaper so nothing was visible but the top of his baseball cap.
“It’s that man I saw by the Robie House!” Tommy said, but by the time his words were out, the train had whooshed by. “I think,” he finished lamely, then told Calder and Petra about what had happened several days ago on the way to school.
“Spies must have a hard time not imagining things,” Petra agreed. “Once you get suspicious, everything looks important.”
The three formed a tidy equilateral triangle on the platform, the crowd parting around them. “Well, how about we go to the Art Institute?” Calder said. “Knowing Ms. Hussey, if she’s not being kidnapped she’s probably taking Mr. Dare to the museum.”
Petra added, “And if they’re not there, we could check for something similar to your fish, Tommy.”
“Good idea,” Tommy said. “If we find something like it, I could bring the carving in and show it to one of the museum people.”
“Yeah — tell them a family member gave it to you,” Calder said. “And if it’s worth a bundle, maybe they’ll buy it!”
The three walked along Michigan Avenue toward the Art Institute, but saw no sign of Ms. Hussey and Mr. Dare. The midday sun glinted mercilessly off skyscraper windows, off cars creeping through traffic, off the sidewalk beneath their feet. It was a relief to enter the museum.
“Hey — ‘Chinese, Japanese, and Korean art,’” Calder read aloud. They stood in front of an invitingly dim doorway on the first floor. “Let’s check it out.”
Petra and Tommy joined him in front of a statue of a muscular man wearing nothing but shorts and a piece of cloth tied around his waist. His hair stood straight up on his head, he was frowning hideously, and he had
three glass eyes, one in the middle of his forehead. In his right hand he clutched what looked like a heavy stick. The veins on his arm stood out with the effort.
“Awesome,” Calder said.
“‘Japanese Thunderbolt Deity,’” Petra read, squinting at the shadowy wall label. “‘Twelfth century.’ It says here that the thunderbolt represents the power of wisdom to penetrate ignorance and destroy evil.”
There were four other guardian statues in the room, each in a separate glass case. One, grimacing horribly, had close-together eyes, fangs, fat cheeks, and what looked like a wig of curly hair. “‘Japanese: one of the five Buddhist Lords of Light,’” Petra read. “He represents wrath against evil. Hey, just like the Wright 3.” She turned to look at Tommy and Calder, who were busy making hideous faces at each other.
Just then they heard a familiar voice, faint but unmistakable. “A mystery?” Ms. Hussey asked.
“Hide!” Calder whispered.
He ducked to the left, into a room filled with large ceramic statues, Tommy ran to the right, and Petra straight ahead.
Calder’s room was alive with a parade of large horses, camels, and muscle men stepping on what looked like angry gnomes, all displayed in floor-to-ceiling glass cases. He dropped to a crouch and slid sideways into an alcove. A wall label above his head read: BUDDHIST PAGODA, 724 A.D. He added the numbers in the date and got thirteen.
“‘Guardian Statues Trampling Demons’!” Ms. Hussey exclaimed.
“I want one,” Mr. Dare said.
Calder could just see them on the far side of the room, facing in his direction. Had they spotted him?
Petra found a dark corner behind a wooden screen and sank to a sitting position, hugging her knees. She could see the calm profile of an elegant, seated woman, a statue as big as she was. She had two extra arms on her right side, and all three arms waved in different directions.
“A secret …” She heard Mr. Dare’s voice coming from another room, but which one? There was an opening behind her, a door diagonally ahead, and another two or three doors visible in the next room. The place was perfect for a game of hide-and-seek.
Next she saw Ms. Hussey’s orange shirt move slowly through a room with many pale green vases and bowls.
“Tragedies in that house … celery …,” her teacher said as she bent to look at a round pot with a bird’s head on the top. Celery? What on earth were they talking about? As Ms. Hussey’s and Mr. Dare’s voices faded into the next room, Petra took a deep breath and looked around. Tommy and Calder were nowhere in sight.
Tommy had found himself in a long gallery with framed prints on the wall. He knelt behind a display case. Inside was one of the largest teapots he’d ever seen, a delicious tangerine red with a black handle. It was just the kind of thing his mom would love.
The prints were detailed landscapes filled with people doing cheerful things: walking over bridges, chatting, hanging clothes. Apiece of writing on the wall explained that they were by a Japanese artist named Hokusai, and mentioned Frank Lloyd Wright as an adviser to the man who’d collected them. Wow — Wright got around.
Tommy waited in deep silence for what felt like a long time. No one entered or even passed by the room, not even a guard. Where was everyone? Through a far doorway he could see a larger-than-life, green Buddha seated on a throne.
The room was airy and square, divided by low glass cases containing a sprinkling of brightly colored ornaments. Tommy took two steps toward the Buddha, then heard voices and the sound of Ms. Hussey laughing. He spun around, ran toward a set of darkened glass doors that said PLEASE ENTER, and darted inside.
He was in a forest of black columns. An exhibit of painted screens glowed at the far end of the room. To the right, behind glass, was a row of gigantic pots — some were big enough for a small kid to hide in. Finding himself alone in the room, he breathed a sigh of relief. It was then that he saw Ms. Hussey reach for the door handle.
Tommy hurried toward a corner, hoping to press against the wall and not be seen. There, running parallel to the room, was a passageway that led toward a door that said, STAFF ONLY. What luck!
“Amazing space,” Ms. Hussey exclaimed. “Peaceful …”
“Looks like a cave,” Mr. Dare said. “Nothing in here that’s small enough. Let’s keep going.”
Nothing small enough … So they were hunting, too. Tommy’s eyes grew big. He counted to ten and popped out of his hiding place. Ms. Hussey and Mr. Dare had left the adjoining room and were headed through another. Tommy ran quietly after them, ducking behind a family with five kids. He was just congratulating himself on his expert spying when he stubbed his toe on the corner of a display case.
“Ow!” he whispered, and kicked the case with his other foot. Ms. Hussey turned at the sound, and Tommy crumpled awkwardly to the floor and rolled out of sight. The family moved on. As he checked for blood, something poked him in the back.
Calder was crouching beside him, and Petra was behind Calder.
“You okay?” Petra whispered, trying not to laugh.
Tommy scowled. “Fine,” he whispered back, although his toe was killing him.
Calder got up on his knees and peeked through the glass. He gave the thumbs-up sign. “They’re gone.”
“Mr. Dare said they’re looking for something small — come on!” Tommy said, and the three crept in single file, Tommy limping after Calder, into a room filled with blue and white china. They were surrounded by painted fish and dragons.
Tommy’s heart began to pound.
The room ended in a hall with freestanding cases running down the middle. The kids spotted their teacher and the mason in front of a wall display, and tiptoed along behind them, hiding just out of sight behind three gigantic bells. Suddenly, they didn’t care if they were caught — they needed to try to find out what Mr. Dare knew, and whether Ms. Hussey was safe.
“You remember my great-grandfather was Frank Lloyd Wright’s mason,” Mr. Dare said. “Well, Wright went to Japan shortly before he built the Robie House.”
“Yes, 1905,” Ms. Hussey murmured.
“Oh.” Mr. Dare sounded surprised. “Done some research, have you?”
“A bit,” Ms. Hussey said cautiously.
“Well, here’s a secret you won’t find in any book: Wright apparently bought a little present for himself in Japan — a very old jade fish that had been made in China. Who knows? Maybe it was exactly like the carvings here. It was his talisman, a good luck piece that he carried in his pocket.
“The Japanese share a number of their tales with China, and Wright had apparently heard an ancient Chinese legend about a carp that swims upriver and leaps over waterfalls and becomes a dragon, which was a desirable thing. Unlike the bloodthirsty, irrational Western ones, Asian dragons symbolize wisdom and the power to rule. They represent the highest authority in any society; the emperor, for instance, always had dragons embroidered on his clothing. Ambitious fellow, that Wright.
“Well, according to my great-grandfather, Wright carried this talisman for several years. And then one day during the construction of the Robie House, the fish fell through a hole in the architect’s pocket. He was sure it had happened on the south side of the house, where workers were digging a trench. He was very upset and told all of the men, even offered a reward. As far as I know, the carp was never found.”
Tommy, his mind whirling, couldn’t look at Calder and Petra. I have Frank Lloyd Wright’s fish! I found it, I found it!
Petra remembered Mrs. Sharpe’s story about the lost talisman and her hint about a mystery attached to the house.
Calder tried not to think — he could already smell trouble.
“Wow,” Ms. Hussey said. “That’s a great story.”
Mr. Dare continued, “And that’s not all. After the house was finished, Wright confided in my great-grandfather that since the carp would have to remain at the site, and it symbolized his own passage from carp to dragon at a difficult time in his life, he had coded himself into the
structure. The idea was that a part of him would remain behind with his talisman, so that his voyage could continue. He laughed about it being a superstitious thing to do, but my great-grandfather could tell it was no joke.”
“Fabulous!” Ms. Hussey’s voice sounded strange — either excited or afraid. “And where is the code?”
“Apparently Wright never told anyone. He talked about leaving an invisible something behind, but that was it. During my couple of days in the house, I kept an eye out for initials, a hidden compartment, a buried piece of paper or a photograph, but I never found anything.”
The Wright 3 were hardly breathing.
Ms. Hussey spoke, her voice now bright and eager. “But he made it! He built Fallingwater! That’s a brilliant house that Wright designed in Pennsylvania twenty-five years after the Robie House, a house that sits on the crest of a waterfall. Hey, he made it to the top of the falls, he did become a dragon, so his fish talisman must have worked! Maybe that’s why he had to save the Robie House, and save it twice….”
There were a series of rustling noises as the two headed for the exit. Quiet resettled on the Asian Wing.
Tommy took a long, deep breath. He felt dizzy. Calder and Petra were already on their feet and pulling him over toward the wall case.
In front of them was an array of small, stone fish. All were curved, like Tommy’s, and one had a dragony head. A number had the same finely etched spiral pattern on them. All were about the same size as Tommy’s find, maybe two inches long, and all were jade.
Calder whacked his old friend on the back. “It’s the discovery of a lifetime, Tommy! You found something so valuable — you’ll go into the Hall of Fame for Finders!”
Tommy grinned. If anything, the carving he had found was an exquisitely detailed version of the creatures in front of them. In comparison with these other fish, his find was a small masterpiece.
“It’s a wish come true,” Petra added, peering eagerly at the wall label. “Chinese, Eastern Zhou Dynasty, about fourth to sixth centuries B.C.” She turned toward Calder and Tommy, her eyes shining. “B.C.!! That’s more that two thousand years old!”
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