by Dan Poblocki
Woodrow laughed and called down the hall. “No, they weren’t. You’re talking about two different words, spelled two different ways. ‘A principal is your pal’ … We learned that in, like, first grade. Remember?”
Sylvester blushed and ran to catch up with the rest of them. “Never mind,” he muttered.
Rosie was able to finagle her way into getting two computers for the four of them. She and Viola worked on one, Woodrow and Sylvester used the other. They divided the list of names and were able to uncover the identity of most of the people in the portraits. When they were finished, the four came back together at one of the circular tables near the computer desks and shared what they had learned.
“They each have two things in common,” Viola said. “The first is that they were all wealthy members of the Moon Hollow community during the twentieth century—bankers, lawyers, a professor, an heiress, an artist, a politician. The second is … they’re all dead.”
“That’s really creepy,” said Sylvester. He shuddered. “Do you think someone murdered all of them?”
Viola shook her head emphatically. “It’s much simpler than that. Judging by their birth dates, what happened to them was natural. They grew old.”
“Are their pictures on the wall simply because they were generous?” Rosie asked. “Or are they connected more specifically to Mr. Clintock and his clocks?”
The group was quiet for a moment, considering Rosie’s question.
“Maybe the answer lies in the words on each of the picture frames,” Viola said. “Truth. Idealism. Merit. Eternity. The First Principles. Do they tell us anything else about how they were connected?”
Woodrow jolted upright and slammed his hand on the table. The large room went silent as all eyes suddenly turned on the group of four kids. “Sorry,” Woodrow whispered, “but what Viola just said gave me an idea.”
“Well … are you going to tell us?” asked Sylvester, leaning forward.
“If Mr. Clintock embedded a message in the clocks he donated to the town,” Woodrow said, “it would make sense that he might leave messages in other places too, don’t you think?”
“Sure,” said Viola, starting to clue in.
“That gallery is named the Clintock Gallery, right?” said Woodrow. “So, it’s likely that Mr. Clintock had some control over whose pictures hung there, what words would be associated with each photo, and even what the group of portraits would be called.” Woodrow paused and bit at his lip. “I think that The First Principles isn’t just a title for the portrait series. It’s a clue about how to decode another secret message.”
“Another secret message?” echoed Rosie. “What do you mean?”
“Like an anagram?” asked Sylvester.
“Sort of,” said Woodrow. “This one is another play on letters. Use the clue ‘The First Principles.’ And think about each word associated with the portraits in the Clintock Gallery. Can you puzzle out Mr. Clintock’s second message?”
Sylvester, Rosie, and Viola sat at the table racking their brains. Woodrow leaned back and watched. Viola had her notebook lying open and was scribbling furiously. Together, the three whispered and fretted until finally they looked up, satisfied. “The First Principles,” said Viola, “tells us to look at the first letters in each word. Truth. Idealism. Merit. Eternity. When we look at their first letters only, we get a new word: time.”
“Exactly!” said Woodrow. “Nice work, you guys.”
“You were the one who figured out the code,” said Sylvester, patting his friend’s shoulder.
“So what’s the rest of the message?” Woodrow added.
Rosie read the last part aloud. “Knowledge. Exemplar. Empathy. Purity. Evolution. Reason. Service. The first letter of each spells out: keepers.”
“Timekeepers?” said Viola, shaking her head. “What have we stumbled on here?”
Rosie glanced over her shoulder at the computer desk. She nodded. “Let’s find out.” The group followed Rosie and gathered around a single screen. This time, she entered the word timekeepers into the Internet search engine. There were way too many solutions to even begin looking through. “We need to narrow the search.”
“How about trying Moon Hollow and timekeepers,” said Viola.
When Rosie searched again using Viola’s suggestion, she gasped at the result. The first website that popped up had to do with obscure secret societies. She quickly read through it. “According to this site, in the mid-twentieth century, there existed a little-known social club right here. They called themselves The Timekeepers of Moon Hollow. But no one knows who the members were.”
“I don’t believe it,” said Viola in wonder. “Did we just uncover the identities of an old secret society in this town? Could the members be the people whose pictures are hanging on the wall in the other room?”
“That’s got to be who they are,” said Sylvester. “Wow.”
Rosie turned to the group. “What exactly is a secret society?”
“My grandfather was a member of the Masons, a really famous secret society,” said Viola. “The societies are kind of like any fraternity or sorority at a college. Basically, they are organizations who keep their goings-on … well … secret.”
“Why?” Rosie asked. “Are they doing illegal stuff?”
“I don’t think so,” said Viola. “My grandfather was a pretty normal guy. I think mostly, his group was a bunch of close friends.”
Sylvester nodded. “I’ve heard that most secret societies are people who help other people.”
“Like what the Kiwanis Club does here in town?” said Rosie. “My sister got a scholarship from them a couple years ago to attend a leadership camp at Moon Hollow College.”
“Or … like us,” said Sylvester. “The Question Marks help people too.” The group chuckled. “What?” he continued, offended. “We solve mysteries!”
“You’re right,” said Viola. “It’s funny to think of ourselves as a secret society … but we are, in a way.” After a moment, she continued. “The First Principles might be a series of the Timekeepers’ beliefs. Maybe those words are not only a code but also a type of … motto.”
“That’s a possibility,” said Woodrow. “The words do represent good qualities. We already know that the members of the group were generous. Mr. Clintock donated his fancy clocks to the town. The others gave Moon Hollow some of their money to help build this library.”
“Nice of them,” said Rosie.
“Who knows what else they did?” said Sylvester. “Hey, Viola, maybe we should tell your mom what we found. About the clocks and the codes. She could run an article in the Moon Hollow Herald about the clocks and the Timekeepers. Wouldn’t that be cool?”
“Oh, definitely,” said Viola. “This is right up her alley.”
Outside, the November sky was overcast. The light was dimming. When the group left the library to walk back to their block, they passed by the large clock once more. Sylvester piped up. “So, now we know who Mr. Clintock’s secret messages were directed at. The Timekeepers of Moon Hollow. But there’s one thing I still don’t understand.” He pointed at the clock. “The numbers. The symbols. The addresses. Those were his codes. They change on a weekly basis. So what? What exactly was he trying to tell the secret society?”
“A club needs a meeting place,” said Viola. “Right?”
“Yeah,” said Rosie, zipping her coat up to her neck, protecting herself against the cold wind. “Like the Four Corners in our backyards.”
“But maybe the Timekeepers had more than one meeting place,” said Viola.
“Totally!” said Woodrow. “Three addresses. Three different spots to get together. The library. The train station. And the gatehouse up at the college.”
“The locations rotated on a weekly basis,” Viola continued. “Mr. Clintock must have set up his clocks as a reminder to the group, in a variety of locations around Moon Hollow, so each member had easy access to find out where the meeting was going to be held that week.”
“They only had to glance at any of the clocks,” said Rosie, “and they’d have their answer. That’s so clever!”
Walking back to their block, they all secretly knew that the Question Marks had once again been pretty clever themselves.
3
THE SENSATIONAL FOUR
Mrs. Hart ran the article on Monday morning. That afternoon, Viola received a phone call from a woman claiming to be from the Associated Press. She asked to speak with Viola’s mom to see if it would be okay to contact the rest of the group. The reporter, who introduced herself as Darlene Reese, wanted to run a story about the four kids who had uncovered the secrets of the little known philanthropic group in Moon Hollow, New York, known as the Timekeepers.
Rinsing lettuce in the sink for dinner, Viola could barely contain herself, she was so ecstatic. The four of them were about to become famous!
“I don’t know if it’s such a good idea,” said Mrs. Hart.
Viola felt as though her mom had just popped a balloon.
Thankfully, her father spoke up from his office. “They deserve the attention,” he called out down the hallway. “I’m really proud of you guys. Those clocks have been around town for how long … and no one else has thought to look closer?”
“I’m not saying they’re undeserving,” said Mrs. Hart. “I just don’t know if I want Viola’s name plastered across the Internet. The Moon Hollow Herald is one thing … but the Associated Press is huge. Who knows what kinds of people pick up on these things?”
Mr. Hart wandered into the kitchen. “Well … what does Viola want to do?”
“I suppose I should ask my friends,” Viola said. In her mind though, she shouted, I want to talk to the reporter!
It turned out that the rest of the group felt the same way. Later, after asking permission from their parents, Viola, Rosie, Woodrow, and Sylvester video-chatted with Darlene from the Harts’ computer. The reporter asked them about their experience, and they told her a little bit about the mystery club. But after the conversation ended, Woodrow looked upset.
“What’s wrong?” asked Sylvester.
Woodrow sighed. “I thought the coolest part about the Timekeepers was that they kept themselves a secret for so long. Now everyone is going to know about us: the Question Marks.”
The others glanced at one another, trying to gauge if they all felt the same way. Finally, Viola spoke up. “We never said what we were doing was a secret. Maybe after this, people will come to us with even more mysteries to solve. I mean, other than the clocks case, things have been slow lately.”
Woodrow still didn’t look convinced.
“Don’t worry about it, dude,” said Sylvester, turning toward Woodrow. “This isn’t going to keep all the cute girls from staring at you. In fact, they’ll probably start staring at me too.”
Rosie and Viola crossed their arms and rolled their eyes.
4
THE BUNGLING BARGAIN HUNTER
(A ??? MYSTERY)
By the time Mrs. Hart’s news article appeared on the Herald‘s website on Wednesday, the group had a couple reasons to get together other than to talk about their impending fame. They had some more mysterious stories to share.
The sun had been going down earlier and earlier. The air was too cold for them to meet at the Four Corners for an extended time anymore. So, Sylvester invited them to join him in his new bedroom.
The basement was unfinished—cinderblock walls, wood-plank stairs, storage shelves in the far dark corners. It was damp and smelled a bit like stale laundry. Hal-muh-ni’s old yellow couch sat against the wall. She had also given Sylvester her big Oriental rug so that he wouldn’t have to walk barefoot on the concrete floors. To him, it was very little consolation for being pushed out of his bedroom.
The four sat down on the plush fibers amid the intricately swirling and colorful patterns next to Sylvester’s bed.
“Who’s up first?” said Viola.
Rosie raised her hand. “This one comes from my oldest sister, Grace,” she began. “Over the summer, she took a part-time job at a boutique at the shopping indent on Oakwood Avenue.
“One of her favorite parts of the job is watching for shoplifters. She thinks it’s fun to bust them. Once, she told me how she noticed two women with a huge shopping bag standing in a corner of the store near a pile of jeans. They kept glancing at her in a weird way. Grace noticed that it would have been really easy for them to simply slide the pile off the display table into their big bag and walk out of the store. So she immediately went over to the women and asked if she could help them. They said no, but Grace continued to stand there with her arms folded. The women got so mad they stormed out.”
“Ha!” said Sylvester. “Your sister is so tough.”
“She might be tough,” said Rosie, “but that didn’t help her last night.”
“Oh no,” said Viola. “What happened?”
“According to Grace, it had been a really busy evening. She was working at the cash register. One young woman came up, smiled, and plopped a bunch of merchandise on the counter. Before Grace could ring her up, the store manager, Tori, tapped her shoulder and pulled her aside. Out of earshot of anyone else, Tori mentioned that she’d heard that this woman was trouble. She’d recently been caught in some other local stores trying to steal stuff. Tori told Grace to be careful. My sister was feeling pretty confident, so she agreed and returned to the register.
“The shopper was nothing but pleasant. As Grace chatted with her, she kept her eyes peeled, in case the woman tried to slip something into her pocket. By the time Grace had placed every item into a shopping bag, she was certain that whatever this woman had been accused of must have been a mistake. The woman seemed completely ordinary.
“Grace gave her the total. It was almost five hundred dollars. The woman handed over her credit card. Grace ran it through the machine without a problem. The woman signed the receipt, and Grace compared her signature to the one on the back of the credit card. They matched perfectly, and Grace was certain everything was fine. She wanted to keep the long line moving. So she returned the card to the woman, handed over the shopping bag, and waved good-bye.”
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” said Woodrow.
Rosie nodded. “About an hour later, Tori called Grace into the office at the back of the store. Tori was angry. ‘I told you to watch that customer closely,’ she said. ‘And you let her steal almost five hundred dollars worth of merchandise from us.’
“My sister couldn’t believe it. She insisted she’d done everything right. She saw the woman pay for everything with a credit card. So how did the woman manage to steal the merchandise?”
“‘You saw the woman use a credit card,’ said Tori. ‘It just happened to be a stolen credit card.’
“Grace got really frustrated. ‘But I checked the signature,’ she answered. ‘It matched the name on the card.’
“Tori sighed. ‘If you checked the woman’s signature against the name on the card, you should have noticed a problem immediately,’ she said.”
“What was the problem?” asked Woodrow.
The group was quiet for a few minutes. “Maybe the signature was a really silly name,” said Sylvester. “Like Minnie Mouse or something like that.”
Rosie shook her head. “It was a real name belonging to a real person. But what kind of name should have instantly clued my sister in that she was being scammed by this woman?”
Viola gasped. “Was it a man’s name on the card?”
“Yes,” said Rosie. “The card belonged to a man named John Whiting. The woman had stolen Mr. Whiting’s wallet that afternoon and had been on a shopping spree ever since, hoping people wouldn’t look too closely at the first name on the card. Mr. Whiting alerted the authorities as soon as he realized his card was missing. My sister just happened to be one of the unlucky ones who got taken in by the woman’s charm.”
“Ugh,” said Sylvester. “That makes me so angry!”
“I have a question,” said Woodrow. “Grace said the signature matched the one on the card. How is that possible?”
“Maybe she practiced copying his handwriting before using it,” Sylvester suggested.
“Wouldn’t that have taken a lot of work?” said Viola. “Probably more than just a few minutes … and it sounds like she didn’t have a lot of time.”
“That’s a really good question, Woodrow,” said Rosie. “How did the woman manage to forge Mr. Whiting’s handwriting on the credit slips so perfectly?”
“She must not have forged it at all,” said Sylvester, as the idea slowly came to him.
“What do you mean?” Woodrow asked.
“I’ve noticed my mom ring up customers at our diner. Sometimes people don’t sign the back of their credit card.”
“Yes!” said Viola. “This John Whiting guy must have left his card blank. After the woman stole it, she simply signed his name for him there. That way, the signatures on the card and the credit slip would match.”
“Poor Grace,” said Sylvester. “Did she get fired?”
Rosie shook her head. “Tori scolded her for not being more careful. But since the police caught the woman less than an hour later, the store recovered the merchandise and Mr. Whiting got his money back. Still, my sister was so embarrassed, she wanted to quit. But my parents told her these things happen all the time and talked her out of making a hasty decision.”
“Those things do happen all the time,” said Woodrow. “When I visited my dad in New York City last weekend, we had our own experience with a thief.”
5
THE JUICY LIE
(A ? MYSTERY)
“Last Saturday, my dad met me at Grand Central Station as usual,” said Woodrow. “But this time, he surprised me with tickets to go see a Broadway show.”
“Really?” said Viola. “I didn’t picture you being into stuff like that.”
“Well, it was a really cool show,” said Woodrow, blushing. “The cast was funny and the story was twisted. Plus, I liked the music.”