The Multiplying Mysteries of Mount Ten

by Krista Van Dolzer

  “Well, yeah,” I said uncomfortably. “Is that really so surprising?”

  She lowered her gaze. “I didn’t mean it like that, Esther. I just meant that you solved it—and in near-record time, too.”

  I scratched the back of my head. “Well, no one had done it yet, but we’ve only been here for a day.”

  “Oh, right,” Angeline replied. “It’s not like I’ve seen someone solve it. It’s just that there’s a list in Director Verity’s office. The current record is three hours, but only a few people have solved it in less than twenty-four.” Before I could ask what she’d been doing in Director Verity’s office, Angeline held up her dream catcher. “So what do you think?”

  She was clearly trying to change the subject, but I didn’t mind. When it came to congratulations, I preferred the silent treatment. It was better when people underestimated you. Then they couldn’t see you coming.

  “I think it’s great,” I said. Not only did her dream catcher look exactly like a snail, but her weaving was neat and even. “You should start stringing your feathers.”

  Angeline didn’t reply, just kept making eyes at Graham. He was clearly concentrating, because his tongue was sticking out. It might have been cute if it hadn’t been disgusting.

  “Angeline,” I said, waving a hand in front of her face. When she didn’t respond, I added, “Look, I know he’s kind of cute when he’s not sticking his tongue out, but we’re supposed to be working.”

  Angeline shook her head. “Wait, what?” she asked, blinking. Then she followed my line of sight. “Oh, Graham. Yeah, he’s adorable.” Her pixie nose crinkled. “But he’s also obtuse.”

  I had no idea what “obtuse” meant, but I didn’t take the time to ask. If she was trying to distract me, she was totally failing. I knew smitten when I saw it.

  When Graham scrambled to his feet, Angeline scrambled to hers. “I’ve got to split,” she said.

  “Where are you going?” I demanded.

  “Private tutoring,” she said. “I’m trying to skip Algebra 1.”

  I seriously doubted that—she was probably in Algebra 2—but she was welcome to her secrets. “Oh, okay. That’s cool.”

  She flung her dream catcher in my face. “Would you turn it in for me? I’d turn it in myself …”

  “But you’re supposed to meet Director Verity.” I took her nearly flawless dream catcher. “Yeah, sure, I’ll turn it in.”

  Instead of handing it to me, she let it tumble to the ground, then quietly crept after Graham. I tried not to be offended. If she wanted to lock lips with the cutest boy in a hundred miles, that was none of my business.

  Once Angeline was gone, I set my sights on the math nerds. The soccer fan’s dream catcher had turned into a tangled mess that looked more like a reindeer than a Fibonacci spiral, so he was dancing it on Whistler’s head, singing “Wyatt Got Run Over by a Reindeer,” while Marshane tried not to snort. Another math nerd was doodling Greek letters on the back of an old worksheet, and Munch was sneaking handfuls of Chex Mix when he thought no one was looking.

  I was on the verge of poking my own eye out with my needle when Mr. Pearson interrupted. It was time to eat again. At least they didn’t try to starve us. But I’d only taken a few bites of pulled pork when someone tapped me on the shoulder.

  “Are you ready?” Toby asked, slinging a rope over his shoulder.

  I glanced around the dining room. Angeline still hadn’t come back from wherever she’d run off to, and now Whistler, Marshane, and some math nerd I didn’t know were smack-dab in the middle of a prime-number burping contest. Marshane had gotten up to a hundred and thirty-seven, but now they were trying to decide if a hundred and thirty-seven was prime.

  I arched an eyebrow. “I’ve been ready since we got here.” As much as I enjoyed a good prime-number burping contest, some things were more important.

  Toby headed for the door. He didn’t wait for me to follow, just trusted that I would, and I didn’t disappoint. I’d been following him around since he and Mom had started dating when I was in the second grade. He might not have been my real dad, but you could have fooled me.

  Mr. Sharp met us in the common room with two pairs of galoshes and a couple of heavy-duty ponchos. He didn’t try to make small talk as we climbed into our gear, which meant that he and Toby were going to get along just fine.

  When Mr. Sharp opened the door, a blast of cold air greeted us, instantly fogging up his glasses. That was summertime in the Rocky Mountains for you. Still, the rain wasn’t as bad as it had been on the drive up or even during last night’s explorations. My galoshes squelched agreeably as we crossed the muddy driveway and climbed into the camp’s enormous truck, a bright red monstrosity with CAMP ARCHIMEDES emblazoned on both sides.

  The drive down to Toby’s truck took a heck of a lot less time than the hike up to the camp, and Mr. Sharp was only going ten or twelve miles an hour. When the gully appeared around a bend, Mr. Sharp flipped a careful U-turn, then slowly backed up to the bank. Once he was as close as he could get without sinking the monstrosity, he shifted into park and silently climbed out of the truck.

  We used the same logs that Toby and I had used before to make our way across the gully, so by the time we reached our truck, my legs were sore and wobbly, and a thin line of sweat was dripping down the middle of my back. Toby said that exercise was nature’s (mostly) foolproof way of getting your creative juices flowing, so I tried to let them flow. While they went to work with Toby’s rope, I dipped my fingers in the mud the truck’s tires had stirred up and added fresh smears to the boulder. It was no cave painting, but it felt good to create, to use my fingers again.

  While they went back and forth between the truck and the monstrosity, I smeared more mud on the boulder. I started with geometric shapes, mostly triangles and rectangles, but it didn’t take long for a larger image to emerge. I was just about to add a roof to my abstract painting of the lodge when, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed something flutter.

  At first, I thought it was a leaf, but when I looked at it, really looked at it, I realized it was a piece of paper. Somehow, someone had tacked it to the base of the nearest tree. It could have been out here for days, except it was as white as a baby’s first tooth—and nothing that insubstantial would have survived yesterday’s storm.

  I was tempted to ignore it, but whoever had tacked it to that tree must have known that whoever came along wouldn’t be able to resist. After making sure that Toby was still busy with the truck, I waded through the rain-soaked grass and ripped the piece of paper off its nail. It was a white sheet, folded once, but on the inside were typewritten words:

  Once upon a time, there was a camp, and in that camp, there was a sphinx. The sphinx’s name was Sphinx, since that’s how these stories work, but since Sphinx was the only sphinx, no one ever got confused.

  Sphinx ruled the camp, but the other monsters didn’t seem to notice. As far as monsters went, they were kind of unobservant. Centaur and Unicorn kept their eyes trained on the ground as they galloped here and there, and Griffin and Pegasus had their heads stuck in the clouds. Manticore and Minotaur kept getting into fights, and Harpy and Siren only listened to themselves. Hydra had too many eyes. Cyclops didn’t have enough. Phoenix might have paid attention, but Phoenix had this pesky habit of sometimes bursting into flames. Gorgon and Chimera didn’t care, and frankly, Satyr was a moron.

  Instead of waiting for the others to recognize its contributions, Sphinx decided to just show them. Sphinx invited them to tea, but when they arrived at Sphinx’s table, Sphinx was nowhere to be found. A typewritten note was there instead:

  Find the clues, then solve the puzzle.

  This note made as much sense to the monsters as this story makes to you, so they paid no attention to it. The tea hadn’t stopped steaming, and the sugar cubes were glistening, so they sat down at the table and spread their napkins in their laps. Pegasus had just poured the tea when Sphinx leaped out of the bushes, spotted the easies
t target, and snapped Pegasus in half. The others were rightly horrified, but Sphinx didn’t seem to notice, just sat down and drank the tea. Sphinxes always took a life when their riddles went unsolved. That was just what sphinxes did.

  Do not make the same mistake.

  I snuck peeks in both directions. I kept waiting for someone to jump out and yell, “You should have seen your face!” but the bushes barely stirred. It was like the wind itself was somehow holding its breath.

  I read the note again, but it still didn’t make sense. I knew what centaurs were, but I’d never heard of manticores. And what in the world was a chimera, anyway? I was about to trash the note when I remembered that centaurs had something to do with Greek mythology—and that Archimedes was an ancient Greek name.

  “Hey, Esther,” Toby said, startling me out of my thoughts. “We could use a little help.”

  “Yeah, sure,” I mumbled numbly, crumpling the note into a ball. I hadn’t wanted to keep thinking about Greek monsters, anyway.

  “Could you grab that clamp?” he asked without bothering to point. He knew I’d know which one.

  Obediently, I retrieved the clamp and handed it to Toby, but my mind was on the note, turning it over in my head like the rocks in my old tumbler. But it wasn’t getting any smoother. There couldn’t really be a killer at Camp Archimedes—right?

  CHAPTER 8

  The note stayed in my pocket for the rest of the afternoon. A part of me wished we could go, wished I could pretend I’d never seen it, but the truck still wasn’t fixed.

  And how could I ignore the note?

  I kept sneaking it out and going over it again, but it made no more sense on the ninth read than it had on the first. If it was real, then it was evidence, so by not turning it over—to the police or the director—I was helping someone kill. But if it wasn’t real (and my logical side had to admit that this was probably more likely), then screaming bloody murder would undo all the progress that I’d made. I’d go back to being the head-in-the-clouds artist. No one at Camp Archimedes would ever take me seriously again.

  I was still weighing my options when Graham plopped down beside me, bouncing the beanbag I was sitting on. Since it was still drizzling outside, we were stuck in the sitting room, where Mr. Pearson was trying to teach us how to carve stuff out of wood. The goal was to make a woodcut with a shape that would tessellate (which was a fancy way of saying it could cover a flat surface with no gaps or overlaps if you stamped it a bunch of times). I was trying to keep it simple, but mine looked less like a triangle and more like a lopsided acorn.

  “Looks like you could use some help,” Graham said.

  I surveyed my handiwork. “Yeah, I guess I could.” The note sat on my thigh, as big and itchy as a boil. “I’m not really thinking straight.”

  He sent me a sideways glance. “That isn’t what I heard.”

  He was obviously referring to the First Problem.

  “Oh, please,” I said, making a face. “You didn’t even hear my answer. And if one more person asks me for a selfie, I might have to clobber him.”

  Graham held up his hands. “I promise not to ask you for a selfie.” With a shy grin, he added, “But I’d take one if you offered.”

  Anxiety curled in my stomach like pencil shavings in a sharpener. Was Graham flirting with me? It certainly seemed like he was flirting. But I thought that he liked Angeline—or maybe Angeline just liked him? It was hard to keep things straight. Either way, I wasn’t going to risk a friendship by flirting with some boy.

  “Sorry,” I said blithely, “but my phone is on the fritz.” I craned my neck to see what he’d been working on. “So how’s your woodcut coming?”

  It was the same trick that Angeline had used on me, but if Graham noticed the shift, he didn’t take the time to point it out. “It’s a falcon,” he said proudly.

  And it was. Not only did his woodcut look exactly like a bird in flight, but I suspected it would tessellate as well as the rectangle we’d started with.

  “You should start stamping it,” I said as I nudged the paint toward him.

  Reluctantly, he picked up his paper (which had slid off the beanbag and gotten stuck to his sneaker). “Yeah, I guess I should.” But instead of reaching for the paint, he squinted at the other side.

  My stomach did a somersault. Somehow, I knew what he was squinting at.

  Graham held the paper out to me. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  Unlike the other sheets of paper Mr. Pearson had passed out, this one was thin and smooth, and the message’s typewritten letters matched the letters on my note:

  Satyr and Minotaur share a cabin with two other monsters.

  I snatched the clue out of his hands. “Where did you get this?” I demanded.

  “From Mr. Pearson,” he replied. “I took the next one in the stack.”

  So had the clue been meant for me and Graham had gotten in the way, or had the note been meant for Graham and I’d gotten in his way? Or were we supposed to work together? I was getting paranoid.

  I must have been giving Graham the stink eye, because he leaned away from me. “Are you all right?” he asked. “I don’t mean to be rude, but you’re kind of scaring me.”

  “It’s nothing,” I replied. I started to give him the paper, then changed my mind at the last second. “Do you mind if I hang on to this?”

  “You want to hang on to my paper?”

  The way he said it made it sound like I’d just asked for his number. “No,” I said emphatically. “I just want to keep this clue.”

  “Sure, you can hang on to it.” But instead of backing off, he yanked the clue out of my hands. “If you tell me what you’re up to.”

  I forced myself not to shudder. “What makes you think I’m up to something?”

  He motioned toward the other math nerds. “You might be able to fool them, but you can’t fool me,” he said.

  I seriously doubted that, but when I tried to fake him out and yank the clue out of his hands, he easily hopped off the beanbag. I hit the floorboards with a thud.

  Mr. Pearson jumped. “What are you doing over there?”

  “Nothing, Mr. Pearson!” Graham and I replied in unison.

  Mr. Pearson huffed. “Well, do something,” he mumbled. “If you two get me in trouble, I’m going to get you in trouble, too.”

  He didn’t wait for us to answer, just went back to his woodcut (which was slowly turning into a coyote howling at the moon). I scowled up at Graham as I dusted myself off, but he didn’t seem fazed.

  “Well?” he finally whispered when I didn’t say anything. “Are you going to tell me or not?”

  I almost told him to take a hike, then bit my tongue at the last second. What if he took it literally and got himself lost in the woods? “Meet me upstairs at nine thirty. And don’t forget to bring that clue!”

  I spent the rest of the day trying not to think about the clue, which, of course, meant that the clue was the only thing I thought about. To keep myself from going crazy, I retreated to the game room and pulled out my trusty sketchbook. Transforming my photos into sketches would (hopefully) help me calm down.

  I pulled up my first photo, a panorama of the mess hall, in my awesome drawing app, which could superimpose grids over the pictures in my phone. Then I used a borrowed ruler to draw a corresponding grid on the next page in my sketchbook. I could almost feel my bones relaxing as I measured out the lines. I would never understand why everyone wasn’t an artist.

  I was so focused on my sketch that I didn’t hear the footsteps creeping up behind my beanbag until someone blurted, “What’s that, what’s that, what’s that?”

  My pencil lurched across the page. I looked over my shoulder, but it was just the soccer fan (whose name, I’d learned, was Federico).

  “It’s a drawing,” I replied, unable to keep a silly grin from spreading across my face. It was hard not to be infected by his boundless energy.

  He scrunched up his nose. “What’s the purpose of
the grid?”

  I turned my phone toward him. “The photo is this big, but my sketchbook is this big. The grid helps me blow it up without losing the proportions.”

  He tapped his lips thoughtfully. “Seems like cheating,” he replied.

  I tried not to take offense. He was a math nerd, after all. “It’s harder than it looks,” I said.

  He considered that, then shrugged. “I guess that’s probably true.” And with that, he wandered off.

  I waited for him to disappear, then set my sights back on my sketch. At first, my lines were sharp and thick—I guess Federico’s criticism hadn’t quite rolled off my back—but as I forced myself to draw, to let the lines work themselves out, I finally got my mojo back. I was so preoccupied with texturing the fireplace that I didn’t check the time for the next hour and a half. By then, it was 9:17; I’d almost missed the rendezvous.

  Growling, I snapped my sketchbook shut and headed up to Cabin Epsilon for some last-minute supplies. We were going to need something to write on, so I stuffed my sketchbook down my shirt, then slid a flashlight into my pocket. I was in the middle of bundling my hair into a beanie when a cool voice said, “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were sneaking out.”

  I ripped the beanie off and whirled around. Angeline was standing in the doorway with both hands stuck on her hips. I started to answer, then immediately thought better of it. If I told her where I was going, she’d probably insist on going with me, and this seemed like the sort of thing to involve as few people in as possible. But if I didn’t tell her—and if she found out I’d met Graham—what was she going to think?

  “I know this looks bad,” I said, backpedaling, “but it isn’t what you think it is.”

  “What do I think it is?” she asked.

  How was I supposed to answer that? She might as well have given me a shovel, because I kept digging myself deeper.

  Angeline stuck out her chin. “Fine, don’t tell me,” she replied. “But when you end up in the infirmary, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”