Battle of the Brightest

by Hope McLean

  “Oh,” Erin said. Out of all of the Rivals, she actually liked Veronica and felt a little guilty about what she had just said. “Um, sorry, Veronica. But I don’t know how we can trust you guys after everything that has happened.”

  Veronica let out a huge sigh and sat down next to Erin on the bench.

  “I don’t blame you one bit,” she said, and Erin looked at her in surprise.

  “I never, ever wanted to be involved in those jewel thefts,” Veronica admitted. “School is really important to me. I’m proud to be on the quiz bowl team. If I could be on a team that won Nationals, I knew it would look really great on my college applications later on.” Veronica frowned. “But then Ryan talked us into stealing the ruby. And then the diamond. And then the emerald. Instead of practicing for quiz bowl, we spent most of our time planning the next heist. But I was afraid to say anything. I thought they might kick me off the quiz bowl team, so I went along with it. Quiz bowl is one thing that actually makes my parents proud of me.”

  A memory clicked in Erin’s head. “That’s right! Your older sister was Miss Hallytown.”

  “Yes, my perfect beauty-queen sister, Amelia,” Veronica said with a rueful laugh. “And I remember you have a perfect older sister, too.”

  Erin wrinkled her nose. “Oh, yes, the wonderful and amazing Mary Ellen.”

  They laughed together.

  “But seriously,” Veronica said, “Ryan is trying to turn things around. He is really mad at his uncle. And I feel guilty about those stolen jewels. I just want to see them returned to their rightful owners. And I know in order to do it we’ll need your help.”

  Erin let out a deep breath. “I don’t know,” she said, pausing to think about it. “Hey, I really like your shirt.”

  Veronica had her long black hair pulled into a messy ponytail. She wore jeans and a T-shirt that had a picture of a petri dish on it that said, “When life gives you mold, make penicillin.”

  Veronica laughed. “Thanks. You should have seen the argument I had with my mom over it. She always wants me to wear frilly, girly stuff like Amelia does. And she’s always giving me my sister’s hand-me-downs.”

  “Veronica, I think your mom and my mom could be best friends.” Erin smiled briefly before her face turned serious. “If you pinky swear to me right now that everything Ryan said is true, I will help you find the sapphire.”

  Veronica held up her little finger. “Pinky swear,” she said solemnly. Erin linked pinkies with her and shook.

  Erin stood up and then groaned. “I just remembered Isabel. How do you deal with her?”

  Veronica grinned and pulled her earbuds out of her pocket. “I wear these a lot when she is talking.”

  They were both laughing as they walked back into Café X. The Jewels looked up at them in surprise. Erin sat down next to them as Veronica made her way back to the Rivals’ table.

  “So?” Lili asked hopefully.

  “I’m in,” Erin said. “But I say we need to be careful. I like Veronica, but I don’t trust the others.”

  “Agreed.” Willow nodded. “We’ll do this, but we’ll be smart. Let’s go tell them.”

  The girls walked back to the Rivals’ table and sat down.

  “We will help you find the sapphire,” Willow said.

  “Great!” Ryan replied. “Now let’s get started. First, we’ll head over to Aaron’s house and set up a command center. Next, we’ll —”

  “Whoa!” Willow put her hand in the air. “Slow down. We said we’ll help, but as equal partners.” She looked at her friends. “I think we’d all be more comfortable meeting at my house,” she said as Erin, Jasmine, and Lili nodded their heads in agreement.

  Ryan gave his signature smug smile. “But Aaron has a superfast Wi-Fi connection and a fifty-six-inch television in his bedroom so we can hook up our laptops. I’m sure you don’t have those things.”

  “Whatever we used before, it was good enough to find the diamond for you,” Willow reminded him as her eyes flashed. “It’s my house or the deal is off.”

  “Fine,” Ryan said reluctantly. “Let’s head over.”

  As they all got up and gathered their things, Jasmine hung back to talk to Willow.

  “How weird is this going to be?” Jasmine wondered. “Hanging out with the Rivals at your house?”

  “I never would have seen this coming!” Willow said. “But I’m interested to see how they work together. Ryan sure is bossy.”

  Jasmine worked hard to keep a straight face. Willow could be a bit bossy herself at times!

  Back at Willow’s house, they all crammed into Willow’s small but neat bedroom. The Jewels sat on the bed, while Ryan took a seat at Willow’s desk and Aaron and Veronica sat on the floor.

  “How quaint,” Isabel sniffed as she settled into a beanbag chair.

  Erin’s face got red but just as she opened her mouth, Ryan took charge.

  “Aaron, search for any sapphires that were sold in 1949,” he barked. Aaron nodded and pulled out his laptop from his bag. “Veronica, check for any sapphires that may have been donated to a museum around that time.” Veronica grabbed her smartphone for the search. “Isabel, continue cross-referencing historical events with sapphires.” Isabel took her laptop out and got started right away.

  The Jewels watched with their mouths open. “It’s like watching soldiers,” Lili whispered to Erin.

  Ryan turned to the girls on the bed. “As for you, I thought maybe you could —”

  Once again, Willow interrupted him.

  “Ryan, sorry, but this is not how we work.” She shook her head. “And if you’re asking us for help, it means you haven’t been getting anywhere on your own. I think you should try it our way.”

  Aaron stopped typing and looked up from his screen. “She’s got a point, Ryan. All this research has gotten us nowhere.”

  “Fine,” Ryan said as his mouth tightened. “And what exactly is your way?”

  Lili jumped in, smiling sweetly. “Basically, we just talk!”

  Ryan raised an eyebrow. “How advanced,” he smirked.

  Willow shot him an angry look as Jasmine spoke. “We brainstorm together,” Jasmine explained. She pulled her notebook and pen out of her bag. “Let’s start at the beginning. What do we know about the sapphire?”

  “It was stolen from Atkinson in 1949,” Isabel explained.

  Jasmine began to write. “Any idea who stole it?”

  Isabel shook her head. “No. There was a police investigation but no one was arrested. In fact, the police were baffled at the time. There were no leads.”

  “My relatives tried for years to find it,” Ryan added. “To their knowledge, it has never surfaced anywhere. It’s like it disappeared.”

  Aaron scrunched up his face as he concentrated. “I did find an old newspaper article from that year that mentioned the Memento Mori,” he remembered.

  “What’s a Memento Mori?” Erin wondered.

  “It’s a super-secret club at Atkinson that still exists today,” Ryan clarified. “It’s only for upperclassmen, and no one knows who exactly is a member of the Memento Mori. It’s very exclusive, and they’re known for pulling outrageous practical jokes.”

  Isabel laughed. “Everyone suspects it was them who turned the swimming pool green this past St. Patrick’s Day.”

  “Were the Memento Mori around in 1949?” Lili asked.

  Aaron nodded. “According to the newspaper article, yes.”

  The Jewels exchanged glances. “So maybe the Memento Mori stole the sapphire as a joke!” Jasmine guessed.

  “But wouldn’t they have returned it?” Veronica said. “They’re known for playing jokes, not stealing things.”

  Willow thought it over. “Since we don’t have any other leads right now, it’s worth looking into,” she said.

  Ryan shrugged. “It’s impossible to get information on them. They’re a highly secretive group. Even I don’t have any connections to help us there.”

  Lili smiled. “N
ot a problem, Ryan. Because I think I do!”

  Eli gripped his flashlight tightly as he made his way through the northernmost section of the Atkinson campus, a remote spot past the sports fields. He had never been back this far, and it felt a little strange. The path he walked on, used mostly by the cross-country team, led directly into a heavily wooded area. It was a few minutes before seven thirty at night but already pretty dark out. He let out a big sigh. Why do I let my little sister talk me into these crazy stunts?

  Over a week ago, his sister, Lili, had asked him for a favor. “Please, Eli,” she begged. “We need to learn more about the Memento Mori. Rumor has it that it’s a secret club only for Atkinson upperclassmen. And you’re an Atkinson upperclassman!”

  Eli knew all about the Jewels; the Rivals; and the ruby, diamond, emerald, and sapphire. In fact, he had helped out the Jewels many times before. He had even planted a GPS device on Ryan once. And now the Jewels were working with the Rivals! He shook his head, thinking how crazy it all was. But he had to admit, he was curious about the sapphire’s location and what clue the gem might hold.

  So Eli began casually dropping hints around Atkinson that he was interested in joining the Memento Mori. “I heard a rumor that the Memento Mori were responsible for turning the swimming pool green,” he said loudly to his friend Zane in the crowded locker room one day after gym. “That was so cool.”

  He mentioned it to other friends at lunch where he was sure to be overheard. Even getting noticed by the Memento Mori was a long shot, so he was totally psyched when he discovered a mysterious note in his locker the day before:

  Ithuotes Ftesw7nt Yomtn3ow Ojmoi0ro

  Uommgito Wieohnhd Anerttws Nttrahe

  But Eli couldn’t make heads or tails of it. He brought it home to show Lili, who was in her room doing homework with Erin.

  “I know how to read HTML, but this has me baffled,” he told them. “It’s letters and a few numbers, but they don’t make any sense.”

  “I love cracking codes.” Erin rubbed her hands together. “Codes were used throughout history all the time, to relay orders to soldiers in battle, to exchange messages about secret organizations. You name it, they did it all. Let me at it!”

  “Hmmm.” She frowned as she studied the note carefully. “It could be a code-word cipher, but I don’t think it is. The words are too long. Plus we would have to guess the code word. That could take forever.”

  She turned to a fresh page in her notebook and rewrote the note out. “Okay,” she said. “It’s eight words and sixty-three letters total.” She grew excited. “I think it’s a simple block cipher!”

  Erin drew a grid in her notebook, one with eight rows and eight columns. She began to write the letters from the note into the rows. She wrote the first letter or number of each word, and then she went back to the beginning and wrote down the second letter or number of each word. She kept going until all of the letters were in the grid. When she was finished, she sat back and threw her pencil down triumphantly.

  “Easy!” she announced. Lili and Eli peered at her notebook.

  Lili read it out loud: “‘If you want to join the MM, meet us tomorrow night at seven thirty in the northwest woods.’ Wow, Erin, I’m impressed. That was super-smart!”

  Eli nodded in agreement as Erin blushed. “It was nothing,” she said modestly.

  Lili turned to Eli. “Do you know what they mean by the northwest woods?”

  “I think so,” Eli said. He brought up the Atkinson website on his laptop and clicked on the campus map.

  “Your school sure is fancy,” Erin said as she looked at the large drawing that showed six different buildings, as well as sports fields and tennis courts.

  “It’s big, too,” Eli said. He pointed at the screen. “I’m pretty sure they are talking about this part. It’s the wooded area behind the sports fields.”

  Lili looked worried. “Are you sure it’s safe?”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll bring a flashlight with me.” Eli tried to reassure his sister, but inside he felt a little nervous, too. After all, he didn’t know who the members of the Memento Mori were.

  After his Computer Club meeting the next day, Eli said good night to his friends, grabbed the flashlight he had brought from home, and made his way through the dark Atkinson grounds. He started on the path that went through the woods and looped to the west.

  “I hope I’m right,” he mumbled to himself as the woods closed around him. He shivered nervously and ran his hand through his spiky black hair. It sure was creepy back here.

  The path started to veer to the left. I’m almost there, he thought. The beam of the flashlight created sinister-looking shadows as he walked. He tensed and stood still as he heard a rustling noise in the woods. The sound faded, and he began to travel the path again. His nerves were starting to get the better of him. The flashlight was shaking in his hands. For just a second, the beam of light moved off the path, plunging the trail ahead of him into darkness.

  Eli almost screamed when a creature jumped out of the shadows. But it wasn’t a creature at all. His hands were shaking so hard that he almost dropped the flashlight. Eli was looking right into the dark hollow eyes of a grinning skeleton!

  Eli’s feet were glued to the ground, even though his brain was yelling at him to run. He forced himself to direct the flashlight beam onto the thing in front of him.

  Not one, but two skeletons stood before him, blocking his path. Wait a minute — they’re wearing hoodies, jeans, and sneakers! Eli thought. They’re guys wearing skull masks! He took a deep breath.

  The taller of the two extended his hand toward Eli. In it was an envelope.

  “Take this,” he said in a deep, muffled voice. “If you accept this challenge and are successful, you will be a Memento Mori. If you fail, you will never hear from us again.”

  They both nodded ceremoniously at Eli before disappearing into the shadows.

  Eli felt his heart pounding in his chest as he hurriedly made his way back down the path, clutching the envelope and the flashlight. There was no way he was opening it until he was somewhere indoors with lots of light!

  * * *

  The next day, the Jewels called an emergency meeting with the Rivals to discuss what was in the envelope. This time, they all gathered in Lili’s bedroom.

  “Is it okay to talk in front of him?” Ryan jerked a thumb at Eli.

  Lili smiled. “Eli knows everything, and thanks to him we’ve got a lead on the Memento Mori.”

  Ryan arched an eyebrow. “Really?”

  Eli nodded. “But I’m going to need your help,” he said to Ryan. He told them all about his walk through the woods and his encounter with two members of the Memento Mori.

  “What’s in the envelope?” Erin asked eagerly.

  Eli groaned. “It’s a task I have to perform. If I can pull it off, I’ll be a member. If I can’t, it’s game over.”

  “It can’t be that bad,” Veronica said, but the look on Eli’s face made her ask, “or is it?”

  “You tell me,” Eli said. “I have to steal a pair of Arthur Atkinson’s monogrammed boxer shorts and run them up the flagpole for the entire school to see. And I have to do it before this week is over or I’ve failed. Oh, and I can’t get caught, either.”

  Aaron laughed. “Yeah, dude, that’s bad.”

  Isabel wrinkled her nose, while Jasmine and Willow shook their heads. “How are you going to do it?” Jasmine asked.

  “I’m hoping Ryan can help me,” Eli said, “although the note was very specific that I had to do it by myself. If they spot anyone helping me, they’ll consider it a failure. But I have no idea how to get a pair of Arthur Atkinson’s boxer shorts!”

  Ryan grinned. “Actually, it’s not as hard as you might think. My uncle comes to school early every morning to do laps in the school pool. He brings his gym bag in the locker room. And I’m pretty sure he doesn’t wear his boxers while he’s swimming.”

  Eli thought it over. “How early does
he get there? I have to retrieve the shorts and run them up the flagpole before anyone else gets to the school. The flagpole is right in front of the main building. I can’t have anyone see me doing it.”

  “He’s there by five thirty a.m. So if you grab the shorts right after he gets into the pool, you should have plenty of time,” Ryan said. “Only one custodian is there that early. He opens up the buildings. You’ll have to time it so he doesn’t see you.”

  Eli groaned again. “I guess I’ll be getting up really early tomorrow!”

  * * *

  The next morning, Eli dragged himself out of bed while it was still dark out. He had asked his mom to drop him off. Mrs. Higashida worked in Washington, DC, as a translator and left the house early each day to beat the morning rush hour.

  “The Computer Club is lucky to have someone as dedicated as you,” his mom said as she dropped him off in front of the school.

  Eli gave her a sleepy smile as he got out of the car. His cover for being at school so early was that he was working on the supercomputer, a big project that had been the focus of the Computer Club for the entire year. It wasn’t a lie, really. He planned to do just that as soon as he successfully completed the stunt.

  Eli climbed the steps of the main building and strode into the deserted school. He walked down the empty hallways and past Arthur Atkinson’s office. The lights were on, but the director of Atkinson Prep was not inside, so Eli made his way to the other side of the building, which housed the locker rooms, gymnasium, and indoor pool.

  He stopped outside the locker room and listened for sounds of anyone moving around inside. All was silent. Eli slowly opened the door and peeked in. The room looked empty. He noticed a suit dangling from a hanger in front of a locker. On the floor below it was a sapphire-blue duffel bag with the initials “AA” on it. Eli crept quietly toward the bag. A sudden splash from the pool area startled him, but he relaxed once he realized it must be Atkinson diving in.

  Quickly, he unzipped the duffel bag and saw a pair of plaid boxer shorts sitting on top. The Memento Mori were right. Atkinson did indeed have his initials monogrammed on them! Eli pulled a pair of scissors out of his backpack. He made two holes in the waistband of the boxers so he could attach them to the flagpole. When he was finished, he stuffed the boxers into his backpack.