Spartacus Ryan Zander and the Secrets of the Incredible

by Elwood, Molly;

  “My parents know I’m here,” I piped up, really just as a way to break the silence. “Just in case you were wondering about that.”

  “Don’t make stuff up, kid.” He didn’t look at me when he said it; he just kept on walking. But he didn’t sound angry, either. “I’m small, but I wasn’t born yesterday. Besides, no one is going to ask any questions around here, so just keep your cool, all right?”

  We passed by several performers in the hall, including a girl with dark, wild hair dressed in a suit with lightning decals. It was the same girl from before, the one who was about my age. She stared at me as we passed, but Remmy kept moving ahead. He was pretty fast for being so small and old.

  When we reached my “room,” he pulled back the thin curtain. There was a small oriental rug rolled out on the asphalt with a stack of folded quilts on top of it. There was a puffy pillow on one end. At first, I was like, is that it? But then, after another moment, it looked so cozy and comfortable, I was actually kind of touched.

  “It’s not much, but it’ll have to do,” he said. “It’ll be nicer in Vegas. Breakfast will be at seven sharp. Get a good night’s sleep. You’re going to need it.”

  And with that, I was alone again. I pulled the curtain shut behind me and set my stuff down.

  Remmy had put a small stool next to the bedding like a nightstand. On it was a small lamp and a drinking glass half-full of something amber-colored. What was it? I took a whiff and smelled that horrible medicinal smell from earlier, from Remmy’s flask. I felt dizzy just smelling the fumes.

  Uh, I think I’ll save that for later.

  I should have been blown away by what’d happened in the last twenty-four hours, but I didn’t have time to think about any of it. Not Lloyd, nor Hailey, nor Blue and White, nor the fact that I was going to Vegas in the morning. I had to follow the questions, to get on the trail of why Bartholomew skipped town. I sat down on the quilts, emptied everything out of my backpack and pockets, postcards and all, and went to work.

  It was time, as Eli would say, to “review the evidence.”

  In my little makeshift room behind the sideshow, I laid out the postcards, arranged by date.

  I’d done this game of staring at the postcards tons of times before, always thinking something would jump out at me, some obvious connection. That’s what happens in the movies. But, as always, I just sat there tapping my fingers, coming up with nothing.

  It was a cold night, and the tip of my nose felt like an ice cube. On the other side of the tent, the sideshow had ended. I could hear performers pass in the hallway, but no one paused at my curtained door. It was late. I just wanted to snuggle down into the bed and think about everything tomorrow.

  Snap out of it, Ryan! Focus!

  I flipped the postcards over and re-read the notes Mom had written.

  Eli and I had always focused on the ones with secret messages. They were all from horrible sounding towns like Crashup Mountain and Farewell. The names were real places—we’d looked them up—but they just got worse and worse over time:

  Eek, Alaska

  Accident, Maryland

  Crashup Mountain, Arizona

  Fearsville, Kentucky

  Breakneck, Connecticut

  Deadman Reach, Alaska

  Why, Arizona

  Imalone, Wisconsin

  Little Hope, Pennsylvania

  Last Chance, Colorado

  Defeated, Tennessee

  Farewell, Arkansas

  Poopout Hill, California

  Another mystery Eli and I couldn’t solve was how erratic the postcards’ locations were. For example, on September 9th, Mom had sent a postcard without a secret message from Nuevo León, México—I remembered it had come in a small box along with the scarab—and then the very next day she’d sent one with a secret message from Eek, Alaska.

  “It doesn’t make sense,” Eli would repeat, his head in his hands. “There’s no way the circus could travel that fast. And why are they hitting so many small towns? And sometimes they leave a city to go halfway across the country, only to come back to another city that is only fifty miles away from where they started?”

  I sat and stared, willing something to click.

  That’s when Lloyd’s wanted poster, which was spread out next to the postcards, caught my attention. Lloyd’s grinning, madman face. The face that was so different than I remembered it being in person.

  Impulsively, I separated the postcards into two rows: secret code and no secret code. When I was done sorting, I had two equally long rows. Then I rearranged each row by date.

  I was close. I could feel it. But I was tired and my mind kept drifting to all the crazy things that had happened over the last few days. I couldn’t stop thinking about Lloyd and my brush with death, which led me to think about Hailey. Then Blue and White. Then the police station and the two nice-ish cops, and then the story of Zacharias Prizrak and his dying inside a bank vault.

  Criminals. Crime. That was the connection here. But was it important?

  Crime.

  Murder.

  Kidnapping.

  Robbery.

  Robbery.

  Puck and Calyxtus said that Bartholomew used his magic powers to trap Zacharias Prizrak in a locked bank vault. Even if Bartholemew does have magical powers—which I’m pretty sure he doesn’t—why would he send someone into a bank vault?

  …unless he was trying to rob it.

  Ah! Now we were getting somewhere.

  Robbery. Robbery. What had I seen about a robbery recently?

  I thought a moment—and when it hit me, it came in flashes:

  The poster at the police station, talking about the paintings stolen from the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum.

  The security camera photo of the robber standing on the high ledge.

  The weird feeling of déjà vu when I’d seen it.

  The dream about Mom jumping off the roof.

  Everything fit.

  I sprang to my feet. I could hardly stand still to think through the end of one thought before getting to the other.

  The poster felt so uncanny because I’d seen that exact pose before—all those years ago, Mom, standing on top of our house, just before she jumped. That’s why the picture had caught my attention! The person in the fuzzy black and white photo had the exact same pose my mom made when she was about to do something crazy. Something dangerous. Like jumping off a building.

  If I hadn’t assumed the person in the security photo was a man, I would have noticed it immediately.

  I didn’t even have to check, but I did. I tore through my bag and yanked out the picture my mom had sent from the circus, the one of her standing in front of that big, white, cartoonish cannon.

  Exactly the same. The pose was exactly the same.

  The same as my memories. The same as that figure in the security photo.

  It couldn’t be a coincidence. It just couldn’t. Why would Bart cancel the circus on his last night in town? Unless he was worried because something went wrong?

  Like maybe Mom getting caught on camera while trying to rob a museum.

  Who better than my mom to rob places? She knew how to climb and jump; she could contort herself. She was an evil villain’s dream come true!

  I got chills up and down my spine. Actual chills, not the adrenaline-charged chills I’d felt when I was riding with Lloyd or before jumping off the high dive for the first time. No, these were real, supernatural, premonition-type chills, like the kind you sometimes get in bed late at night when you think you see something moving in the closet. The kind of chills that happen only when you’re pretty sure something very, very bad is coming.

  I paced my “room”—which was all of three paces long. Was it possible I was overreacting? Maybe I was seeing things that weren’t there. Maybe it was all a coincidence. Maybe
I needed some sleep. I could hear my inner-Will saying, “Yeah, an evil villain using Mom as a cat burglar makes a ton of sense,” in that sarcastic voice of his.

  But then another thought struck me. I snatched up the gold scarab that Mom had sent me. It was still in the plastic police evidence bag with the note: Recovered at scene. Run past FBI? Interpol? Also, check against known art-theft list.

  Maybe the cops had another reason for thinking it was stolen, besides the fact that it was in Blue and White’s car. Maybe—

  That’s when all the lights in the tent went out, plunging me into darkness.

  “Goodnight, you fantastic humans, you,” called Remmy from somewhere off to my left. There was a general mumble of response from people, all around me.

  Guess there wasn’t much of a choice about bedtime around here.

  I groped my way over to the pile of quilts and lay down. And in the dark, as the sideshow settled around me, an idea crept into my head. And even though I was exhausted and maybe not thinking straight, I was pretty sure it was spot-on. As I gradually slipped away into much-needed sleep, I tried to hold onto it.

  It was very, very important.

  Chapter Twelve

  I don’t know how I slept, or even if I slept. All I knew was suddenly there was sunlight and a weird lapping sound. I opened my eyes to see a dirty white cat drinking from a glass next to my head.

  Lousy. Remmy. The Sideshow of Curiosities and Mayhem.

  Call Eli!

  I jumped up, startling Lousy, who knocked the whiskey glass off the stool. I don’t know how I was fast enough, but I caught it before it hit the ground.

  I checked my watch—a quarter after six. I had forty-five minutes to find a phone, call Eli, solve a mystery, and get back in time for my free ride to Vegas.

  I packed everything except for the postcards without secret codes. These I slipped into my back pocket. I’d grab my backpack and suitcase when I got back.

  Outside, a few workers were taking stakes out of the tent. No Remmy in sight. I considered asking one of the workers for a cell phone, but I didn’t want anyone hearing what we were going to say. I remembered seeing pay phones just outside the fairgrounds, and took off in that direction.

  

  “Okay, Vegas,” Eli was saying over the phone. Eli had seen the announcement that Bartholomew’s had canceled and had already been hard at work. “I got you a ride all figured out. There’s this Mormon choir bus—”

  “No, no, no, I’m good for that. I got the ride all taken care of.”

  “You do?” He sounded a little disappointed.

  “The sideshow is going to give me a ride on their bus.”

  “Now that’s what I’m talking about!”

  “I need something else, though. Listen carefully. Search for ‘Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico.’”

  “What about it?”

  I looked down at the first “normal” postcard from Mom.

  “Check the news from September. Robberies. Art gallery robberies, bank robberies, something like that.”

  “Why am I doing this?” he asked. I ignored the question and waited. “The MARCO—the Museum of Contemporary Art of Monterrey. How’d you know? They lost an entire collection by one artist. He was a gold sculptor. They said that—”

  “Does it say anything about a scarab?” I interrupted.

  “No…no, no scarab. Wait. Yes!” he exclaimed. “Wait, you don’t think that—”

  “Now search Philadelphia, for October.”

  “Geez, bossy much?” he asked, but I heard him typing and clicking. “Crap—again! The Academy of Natural Sciences lost their—I don’t know how to say this—their Had-ro-saurus fobla-something. A giant dinosaur skeleton. It just went missing one night. Where are you getting this stuff?”

  I leaned back against the glass in the booth, my hand to my forehead. It was happening. It was all really happening.

  “Hello? Ryan? What’s this for?”

  “They aren’t just stealing people,” I said.

  “Devil in a hang glider!” Eli cursed. “What are you talking about?”

  “I think I figured it all out—Bartholomew is using his kidnapped circus people to rob places. It’s all in the postcards. I mean, it’s not in them. It’s where they’re from.” I looked at my watch. Crap. It was already 6:45!

  “Look, just a few more, to make sure. Here’s the next: Lebanon, Ohio. November.”

  A pause. Then, “Warren County History Center. Some antique crap and—oh, get this, antique postcards. That’s funny because—”

  “Yeah, yeah I get why it’s funny,” I cut him off. “Springfield, Illinois. December.”

  “Some fine china from the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library.”

  “Abe Lincoln’s china?” I repeated. “Like plates and stuff?”

  “Looks that way. But what about the other cards?” Eli asked. “The ones with the secret codes?”

  “I figured it out,” I said excitedly. “Remember how we said that her travel path didn’t make sense?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Her path makes sense when you remove those ones,” I explained at a fast clip. “They move across the country in a straight line. Those other ones are fake.”

  “Like maybe she got a set of cards from places with sad names, just to help clue you in?”

  “Exactly!” I said, so glad to have someone else understand so I didn’t feel crazy.

  Going on like this, we discovered that Bartholomew had knocked off at least five museums in the past ten months. I had twenty-five postcards (thirteen of them being the coded ones asking for help), but I knew they performed somewhere different every few days, so maybe all this was only the tip of the iceberg.

  “Guess this explains why they don’t put the circus dates on their website, huh?” I smirked.

  “No kidding. I can’t believe they made your mom steal that streetcar from the Minnesota Streetcar Museum,” Eli said, his voice full of awe. “I mean, how did she even do it?”

  “It doesn’t mean it’s her,” I snapped. “Maybe it was Charlene.”

  “Who?”

  “This—this lady I saw who looks just like Mom—like exactly. Oh, and she was with this guy who looked like a shark—”

  “A what?”

  “A shark.”

  “A shark?”

  “Yes,” I answered impatiently, looking at my watch. “A shark-shark. I think it’s the plastic surgery guy—not that he’s the doctor, he just someone who—look, I know, it doesn’t make sense. Google it, see what you find. I gotta get going.”

  “Well, if your mom is doing this—and I’m not saying she is,” Eli added quickly. “But if she is—it could be that Stockholm thing. You know it even happened to Amelia Earhart?”

  “I have to go,” I said. “The next time I talk to you, Mom will be with me. I hope.”

  “Just let me know if you need anything. I’m here for you, friend.”

  “Sure,” I said. “Hey, Eli—thanks.”

  “You’re welcome. Good luck, Ryan.”

  “Thanks. See ya.”

  I raced back into the fairgrounds, thinking about what it all could mean. There was no way this was all a coincidence. I thought back to the Prizrak-bank-vault story. I should have asked Eli to check on that, too. I made a mental note to look it up later.

  I came up to the fairgrounds gate and glanced at my watch: 7:02. I was just in time. I was starving and looking forward to that breakfast Remmy had promised me. I imagined all sorts of warm things like french toast or pancakes. I thought I could almost smell the food. I wondered what it would be like, eating all together, the crazy sideshow folks and me.

  That’s when I got close enough to see that the sideshow tent was gone. And not just the tent. Everything was gone.

  There were no t
rucks. Nobody around.

  No Remmy.

  I’d only been gone, what, forty-five minutes? How could they have packed up so fast? They wouldn’t just leave me, would they? Remmy had practically promised.

  I sat down hard on the sidewalk as my heart broke in my chest. And when I realized my backpack and suitcase were also gone, it broke a second time. My heart was in fourths.

  Don’t panic, I willed myself. How much worse off was I really than if I’d never met Remmy? Sure, I didn’t have my stuff. I didn’t have the suitcase. But I could figure out another plan. A better one. I could get through this. I still had Eli on my side. I still had Will’s money in my pocket.

  Go back to the payphone and call Eli. My inner voice was actually being helpful, for once. I took a deep breath. I felt calmer.

  All right.

  I’d gone maybe twenty feet down the sidewalk when I heard the squeak of old brakes coming up behind me. I turned and saw the sideshow bus, with Remmy’s grinning face sticking out the door.

  “I told you 7:00 a.m. sharp, didn’t I?” he called.

  

  The moment I stepped into the bus, everyone inside greeted me with an enthusiastic, “Hello, Spartacus!” which I answered with an awkward smile and a wave. There were about twenty people, and I recognized some of them from backstage the night before.

  “Where have you been?” asked Remmy. “We’ve been looking for you. Hurry up and take a seat.” Remmy slid into the driver’s seat. I realized with a start that he was actually driving the bus. I wondered how he could see the road, let alone reach the pedals, but I didn’t want to stare.

  The bus was set up all crazy, like you’d expect a circus bus to be. They had changed it so people could live in it—there were oriental rugs on the floors and across the ceiling. Some of the windows had these plastic static clings that made them look like they were stained glass. Then there were the three sets of narrow bunk beds in the back, stacked three tall. They were more like shelves, really, but the top ones had posters tacked up above them, like you’d see in a kid’s bedroom. Some had curtains hanging down that made them more private.