The Ambrose Deception

by Emily Ecton

  Wilf held the door open for Bondi. “So the clue is…um, in here.”

  “In your apartment. Yeah, you said.” Bondi tossed his messenger bag so it landed with a thump in the chair by the door. He looked around like he expected the clue to come dancing over to greet them. “Okay, where is it?”

  Wilf laughed. “See, that’s the thing, right?”

  Bondi eyed him nervously. Wilf had that crazy, twitchy look that he’d seen on cable shows. If a character in a movie had been acting like Wilf was right now, Bondi would be thinking serial killer. But he was pretty sure it was something else. Something worse.

  “Oh no. What’s the thing, Wilf? Where’s the clue?”

  “See, that’s the thing,” Wilf said again, a smile frozen on his face. He held it for a few seconds more and then cracked. “I don’t know where it is,” he finished in a whisper, his face white. “Don’t tell Melissa. She’ll kill me.”

  “Oh yeah, she will!” Bondi gave a short laugh. “You’re a dead man unless we find that clue in the next, what, forty-five minutes? Because even if I don’t tell her, she’s going to notice we don’t have the clue, Wilf.”

  “I know,” Wilf said.

  Bondi cracked his knuckles and looked around. “Okay, that clue’s got to be here somewhere, right? Let’s find that sucker and save your life.”

  Melissa jogged from the bus stop to the farm area of the Lincoln Park Zoo and then screeched to a stop. It looked like there were two barns there, maybe even three. “Geez, guys, way to narrow it down.”

  There was no time to waste. After hesitating for only a second, Melissa took off toward the Dairy Barn, because nothing says cow like the word dairy. (Well, except for the word cow.) The cows looked up hopefully as she hurried inside.

  “Sorry, no time, cows. I promise to come back later, though.” The brown cow closest to her turned her head away in disgust.

  “Oh, shoot. Sorry, guys.” Melissa ran over and blew a quick kiss to each of the cows. “You guys are awesome. Love you. Gotta go.”

  The brown cow grunted appreciatively at Melissa and went back to her tray of grain. She wasn’t one to hold a grudge.

  Now, where’s the thingie? Melissa said to herself, scanning the building. Aside from the cows, there wasn’t much to see. There was definitely no wax-cow machine in sight.

  “Shoot, shoot, shoot,” Melissa muttered as she headed out. She didn’t know what she’d do if they’d gotten this one wrong. She crossed her fingers and made a beeline for the big red barn next door.

  “Aha!” she squealed.

  There, on the side of the room, was a machine with the word Mold-A-Rama written in brightly colored letters. A glass dome covered the top of the machine, and inside Melissa could see tubes and dials and technical-looking metal rods. And in the glowing, illuminated display window at the top of the machine sat a blue cow.

  Melissa ran over, pulling her money out of her pocket. She’d brought quarters and dollar bills both—there was no way she was going to be caught short this time. She didn’t even mind sacrificing her worksheet money for a good cause. As she fed the first coin into the slot, she read the slogan on the machine. NOW YOU CAN OPERATE THE AMAZING MOLD-A-RAMA. AUTOMATIC MINIATURE PLASTIC FACTORY.

  “Shoot, it is plastic,” Melissa muttered. She hoped that wouldn’t make a difference. Plastic or not, it was the closest to a blue wax cow they were going to get. And besides, she’d already invested a quarter. She just hoped it wasn’t a trick.

  Melissa finished feeding the coins into the machine and then watched while it sculpted a little blue cow. It smelled good, like crayons or something, and was still really warm when it came out of the slot.

  “Blue cow, you are solution number two,” she said, kissing it on the head. She put it on top of the machine and took a few photos from different angles before tucking Wilf’s camera carefully into her book bag. She hoped the photos would be good enough. She didn’t really want to hand this little guy over to Smith—she’d kind of like to hang on to him herself. Besides, what would Mr. Smith do with a blue wax cow? (Okay, plastic. Whatever.)

  Melissa checked her watch. Not bad. If she was lucky, Wilf and Bondi would have gotten a good start on the third clue, and they could go ahead and set up Wilf’s meeting. Heck, if she was really lucky, they’d have solved it. Dodging a wandering toddler, Melissa double crossed her fingers and hurried to the bus.

  Wilf’s mother knocked on the door to his room and stuck her head in. Wilf was sitting in the middle of the floor with his head in his hands, and his friend from school was at the desk, seated backwards with his chin propped on the back of the chair. If Wilf’s mother didn’t know any better, she’d say they looked depressed. They certainly had made a mess. There were clothes and papers thrown everywhere, the trash can had been dumped out, and the sheets had been stripped off the bed.

  She made a harrumphing noise. Wilf didn’t respond.

  “Wilf? Hon? Are you two having fun?”

  “Oh yeah. Good times, Mom,” Wilf said without looking up.

  “Mmm-hmm.” Wilf’s mom looked at his closet, which seemed to have vomited its contents out into the room. She was glad to see Wilf bringing friends home, but she’d been thinking more along the lines of board games and snacks, not full-scale destruction. “I can see. Well, I’m going downstairs to the laundry room if you need me.”

  “Okay.”

  “Anything else you need me to wash?”

  “Nope. I’m good.”

  Wilf’s mom waited, but he didn’t say anything else. “Okay, well, that’s where I’ll be. You emptied your pockets, didn’t you? Remember, I’m not doing it for you anymore, Wilf. You need to take responsibility for your things.” She hated to bring it up in front of his school friend, but she was already showing incredible restraint by not mentioning the state of his room. She had her limits.

  “Yeah,” Wilf said, his voice muffled by his arms. “Responsibility.”

  “Okay, hon.” She turned around and headed out. “There are cookies on the counter if you want them later,” she called back over her shoulder.

  Wilf snorted. Cookies. He wouldn’t need any cookies. Not anymore. Because as soon as Melissa got there, he’d be dead.

  Melissa stepped through the apartment’s front door and peeked around. “Hellooo?”

  She checked the address on the piece of paper again. The door had been open a crack, so it wasn’t like she was breaking in. “Wilf?”

  “In here.” Bondi’s voice came from a room down the hall.

  Melissa pulled the cow out of her book bag and held him out in front of her like an offering.

  “Looook what I have!” she sang, stepping into the room. Her grin disappeared. “Geez, guys, what happened to you?”

  The room looked like a tornado had hit it and Bondi and Wilf were two of the casualties. They were flopped over the furniture like rag dolls. Melissa had a feeling it was going to take more than a blue wax cow to perk them up.

  “Blue wax cow?” she said, softly this time, wiggling it in the air.

  “That’s great, Melissa,” Bondi said. “But I think Wilf has something he wants to tell you.”

  Melissa dropped her arm. “You lost the clue, didn’t you.”

  “We looked everywhere!” Wilf said. “Ask Bondi. It’s just not here! Maybe they only gave me two?” Even as he said it, Wilf knew it wasn’t true. He remembered having three clues. He even remembered not reading one of them. He just didn’t remember what he’d done with it.

  Melissa put her cow on the desk and looked around slowly. “Well, it has to be here. Was the room like this when you got here, Bondi?”

  “Oh no, we had to work to get it like this,” Bondi said, nudging a pair of stray gym shorts with his shoe. “We can’t find it.”

  Melissa chewed her lip thoughtfully. “Okay. Could you have left it in the car?”

  Wilf thought. It was definitely a possibility. But no, it didn’t make sense. “Frank would’ve said something. He wou
ld’ve noticed and pointed it out to me. He was helping, remember?”

  Melissa nodded. “Okay. Could you have dropped it outside sometime?”

  Wilf blushed. He really didn’t want to mention his day of puking. “It’s possible,” he finally said. He could have dropped everything he owned on puking day and never known it.

  Melissa threw down her book bag. “Well, that’s it, then. We’re done. Guess you’re heading to the Taj Mahal at three, Bondi, and I’ll go to the Pope’s house and hang around all Monday, since those are the only clues we have left. Hope these debit cards work for airline tickets.” She gave a choked sounding laugh and stared at the floor.

  Wilf and Bondi didn’t say a thing. The only sound was a faucet dripping somewhere down the hall.

  Finally Wilf sniffed. “Have a cookie,” he said, his voice flat. “My mom got them. They’re on the counter.”

  “Sure, okay.” Melissa turned around and plodded to the kitchen. She never turned down a free cookie. Bondi and Wilf trailed behind her.

  “Is your mom here?” Melissa asked as she picked up a cookie.

  “She’s downstairs,” Wilf said, taking milk out of the refrigerator. “Laundry room. She should be back soon, though.”

  “Hope you emptied out your pockets, Wilf,” Bondi said in his best mom voice. He took a cookie and turned to Melissa. “She seemed pretty hard core about that. Wilf needs to take responsibility.”

  Wilf sniffed. “Yeah, responsibility. Who cares? What difference does it make?”

  “Pockets…” Melissa slowly lowered the cookie from her mouth. “Did you empty your pockets, Wilf?”

  Wilf stared at her.

  “How long has she been down there?” Melissa had a look of horror on her face, and when Wilf looked at Bondi, Bondi had one, too.

  “A while. She should be back soo—” Suddenly it hit Wilf like a punch in the stomach. “Oh man, my pockets!”

  Melissa threw her cookie back onto the plate and ran out of the apartment. “Which way? Where’s the laundry room?”

  Wilf shot past her and jumped down the stairs in two bounds. “Basement! Hurry!”

  “It’s going to be too late,” Bondi said, racing after them. “She’s been down there half an hour!” One of those clues would be pulp in ten minutes, never mind half an hour.

  Wilf raced down the long painted cinder-block hallway in the basement and threw himself against the laundry room door, bursting in with Melissa and Bondi tumbling in behind him.

  Wilf’s mother was sitting on a plastic chair next to a line of spinning washers, a ratty paperback novel in her hand. “Wilf? Hon, what’s wrong?”

  “Laundry? Done yet?” Wilf gasped.

  His mother gave him a look like he’d gone crazy. “Not even started. The washers are all full. They should be done in just a sec, though. Why?”

  Wilf grinned. “Forgot to empty my pockets.”

  Beloved co-editor in charge of the moon.

  “Come on!” Wilf said, slamming his book shut. “The moon? How can you even pretend this is a real thing?”

  After they’d rescued the third clue from Wilf’s pants, they’d headed to the library to try to solve it. But so far they hadn’t been able to find the link between Chicago and the moon, let alone who the moon’s editor was.

  “It’s a real thing,” Bondi said, taking the clue out of Wilf’s hand and examining it. “We just have to figure out how.”

  “The moon?”

  “Hey, my clue told me to have ice cream in 1910, and I managed to do it,” Melissa said. “At least the moon isn’t in the past.”

  “You had ice cream in 1910?” Bondi said, blinking twice. Suddenly his clues seemed a lot less difficult.

  “Maybe I’ll take you sometime,” Melissa said, shrugging.

  “Do you not hear how crazy this is?” Wilf sat up and stared at them.

  Bondi put down the clue and sighed. “Look, Wilf, you know what? Don’t worry about it. Me and Melissa, we can figure this all out and just tell you what to say at your meeting. How’s that sound?”

  “Well, no, I’m not saying—” Wilf sputtered.

  “Yeah, that would work,” Melissa said. “You could even still go around with Frank and do whatever to keep them from suspecting. Sound good?”

  Wilf gaped at them. “No! No way. This is my clue. My responsibility, not yours. Give me that.” He snatched the slip of paper away and held it close to his chest while he looked at it, like he expected Bondi or Melissa to fight him for it. “Okay, so this is what I figure. This could be a clue about a real editor of something called the Moon. Is there a magazine or something called that? Or maybe this is a moon thing and the editor stuff is bonus. Right? So that’s what we need to figure out.”

  Bondi grinned at Wilf. “Well, shoot, we need to threaten your clues more often! Next thing you know, you’ll be emptying your own pockets.” He turned to Melissa. “You hear that? Moon magazine. Sounds like a plan.”

  Melissa scooted her chair back up to the library computer and started typing. Technically, her time to use it had already run out, but so far she’d managed to hang on to it by glaring at everyone who came her way. “Okay, so magazine called the Moon…Nope. Nothing.”

  Bondi whistled. “Wow, that doesn’t seem right.”

  Melissa pointed at the screen. “No, see? There’s a bar with the word moon in its name, and a restaurant, but nothing that would have an editor.”

  Bondi leaned back in his chair. “No, I’m sure it’s true. But I mean, what the what? There’s nothing?” He made a face at Melissa.

  Melissa scanned the page online. “Yeah, I’m not spotting any obvious Chicago moon editors at all. Maybe it’s something small, though.”

  Wilf shook his head. “Forget the editor stuff. Focus on the moon thing. How about those moon-landing guys? The astronauts.”

  Melissa typed quickly and peered at the screen again. “Okay, Armstrong was an Ohio guy, Buzz Aldrin is a New Jersey guy, and this Collins guy…sheesh, it looks like he lived everywhere but Chicago. So no good there.”

  Wilf looked deflated. “Well, I tried.”

  Bondi elbowed him in the ribs. “We’ll get it. We’ve still got time.”

  Melissa looked at her watch. “I don’t. It’s almost Gran’s McDonald’s time. We’ll figure it out, though. Something moon. It’s got to be obvious.”

  “Right.” Bondi patted the books. “Wilf and I will stay here and figure it out.”

  Wilf wilted. “We will?”

  Bondi elbowed him again. “Come on, it’ll be a cinch. We’re practically there! Moon something, right?”

  “Right,” Wilf said sadly.

  Melissa grinned at Bondi and headed home on the bus.

  Melissa had just gotten the door unlocked when the phone in her pocket started ringing. She hurried inside, dumping her book bag and answering quickly, hardly even acknowledging Liam, who was standing in the entryway holding a newspaper.

  “Hello?” Melissa said quietly. She could hear her grandmother bustling around in the living room.

  “We figured it out,” Bondi said breathlessly. “It’s a moon rock. There used to be one at the Tribune Tower, that newspaper building on Michigan Avenue. The Chicago Tribune had its offices there, and it had two super-famous co-editors back in the day. They were gone by the time the Tribune Tower got the moon rock, but it was their program that got it there, so it’s got to be one of them, right?”

  Melissa nodded and made a face at Liam, who was still just standing with the newspaper, not saying anything. It was weird.

  What? she mouthed silently.

  Liam held up the paper so that Melissa could read the headline. She stared at it, then looked up at him. He nodded slowly.

  “Melissa? Melissa?” Bondi’s voice sounded tiny coming out of the phone now dangling in her hand. She lifted it back up to her ear.

  “Melissa, did you hear me?” He sounded irritated. “We know the answer to the third clue. We figured it out.”


  She took the newspaper from Liam. “That’s great. I figured it out, too.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Liam just showed me a newspaper article. I know what’s going on. I know what the clues are for.”

  ECCENTRIC MILLIONAIRE’S FINAL PRANK?

  Heirs forced to compete for inheritance

  by Nasira Mondello

  CHICAGO Since the death of eccentric multimillionaire Enoch Ambrose, the executors of his will have been strangely quiet about the terms and even about who will inherit the vast fortune Ambrose left behind, rumored to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars. We now may know the reason why.

  According to an anonymous inside source, Enoch Ambrose’s will states that, in order to inherit, the millionaire’s children, Linus Ambrose and Sybil Ambrose-Murgeston, both of Chicago, must compete with each other, pitting one heir against another in a twisted, winner-takes-all competition.

  Attorneys at Hughes, Hughes & Hughes, longtime lawyers for Enoch Ambrose, refused to confirm or deny the existence of such a requirement.

  Exactly what this competition may involve is still unknown, but when asked about this rumor, Sybil Ambrose-Murgeston had no comment except to tell this reporter to “cram it down your piehole.”

  FROM THE DESK OF

  Mr. Linus Ambrose

  1600 N. Astor Street

  Chicago, IL

  My dear brother,

  Anonymous leaks to the press? I would have thought such a thing beneath even you. But you continue to astonish me with the depths to which you are willing to sink. Pig.

  Your loving sister,

  Ms. Sybil Ambrose-Murgeston

  1601 N. Astor Street

  Chicago, IL

  Dearest Sybil,

  Accusations? Again? I had nothing to do with those anonymous leaks. It looks to me as though the only one speaking to the press has been you. Perhaps you should, what was that charming turn of phrase? Oh yes. Cram it down your piehole.