The Mystery of the Tenth

by Chantel Acevedo

  The others gathered around as I slowly unfolded the page.

  “This has to be it,” Ari whispered.

  I opened the sheet and it was . . .

  Blank.

  I stomped my foot in disappointment. Our quest would be over really quickly if we didn’t find the next clue soon. On the far wall of the kitchen, a clock in the shape of a cat ticked away, its tail a pendulum swinging back and forth.

  Six fifteen.

  I was never going to make it home on time.

  “No way,” Nia said, and blew out a breath. We all turned toward her just as she peered into the pot Medusa had been stirring. Gathering around, we all saw it, the soup Medusa had been cooking. It was alphabet soup, and the noodles spelled out a message:

  A place under the earth

  Named after the sea

  Is where you’ll find

  The tapestry

  Nia started rattling off sea names. “Caspian, Black, Red, Aegean, East China, Jasmin, Arabian, Caribbean, Philippine, Coral—”

  “Stop!” Thalia cried. “You’re doing my head in.”

  “How can the sea be under the earth?” Mela asked. The steam from the alphabet soup fogged up her headphones.

  Ari shook her head. “No, not a sea, specifically. It’s a place under the earth named after the sea.”

  “I feel like Nia could go on naming seas all night,” I said.

  “Not all night,” Nia replied.

  “What about the big ones? The Pacific Ocean? The Atlantic Ocean?” Thalia asked.

  Mela wiped down her headphones as she talked. “Don’t forget the Arctic and the Indian Oceans!”

  We heard a rustling in the dining room. We listened as the waiters pulled chairs out to sit and wonder what had happened to them.

  “It’s time to go,” I said. “We can figure this out on the ride home.”

  Ari found a back door to the restaurant, and we headed out. I took one last look at Medusa. She was very still but fading away. “Look,” I whispered, and the others turned.

  “She’s disappearing,” Ari said in wonder.

  “I thought she might melt like the Wicked Witch of the West,” Nia said.

  We all looked at her questioningly.

  “What?” Nia said. “The woman was green.”

  The back door opened onto a narrow alley, where we stepped over flattened cardboard boxes and discarded cans on the way to a side street. A rat startled us as it ran close by, and we all screamed.

  “Do you think the cyclops disappeared, too?” Mela asked me, once we were out of the alley.

  I shrugged. “Maybe. Athena must have brought him here to New York for the quest. Medusa, too.”

  I thought of the tenth muse, the one Aphrodite said was helping us all along. If I knew who she was, I’d call her right away. But of course, I didn’t have any idea who the tenth muse might be, or how she’d already helped us before. We’d have to figure this one out ourselves.

  Nia dug out a wrinkled subway map from her back pocket. “Station’s this way,” she said. We were bumped and jostled as we made our way down the steps to the subway platform. It was rush hour in New York. My watch read six thirty as we boarded the train.

  When we finally got outside, it was dusk. My watch read 7:22 p.m.

  My curfew?

  Completely broken.

  Chapter 21

  The Giant in the Room

  When we got off the subway at the 111th Street station in Corona, my dad was standing there, arms crossed, waiting for me. I’d used Ari’s phone to text him the whole ride back, apologizing for being late, telling him we’d had to fetch something for the Student Showcase (again, not technically a lie), and that I’d be home as soon as I could.

  But there he was, waiting. With a scowl so deep on his face that I thought it might get stuck that way.

  “What do you have to say for yourself, muchachita?” he asked.

  “I’m sorry, Papi. Time got away from me.”

  “And you? Who are all of you?” he asked next, eyeballing the muses.

  The muses didn’t say anything, so I jumped in. “Friends from camp, Papi.”

  “You live in Corona?” he asked them.

  “Flushing!” Ari answered for them. “And I’ll walk them home.”

  “Sorry, sir,” Nia said at last, and shook my dad’s hand. “Nia Watson.”

  Thalia stepped forward next. “Thalia Berry here,” she said with a wave.

  “Mela Gupta. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

  My father uncrossed his arms. “Rafael Silva. Mucho gusto,” he said, nodding at them sharply. “Bueno. At least your friends have good manners,” he told me. Then, he turned back to Ari and the muses and said, “Go straight home, or I’ll call your parents.”

  Ari led the muses away quickly, and soon they were out of sight.

  “Papi, I—”

  My father held up a hand. “You’re grounded for the rest of the summer. You come home directly after camp each day. Free time for you is family time. Punto. Understand?”

  I could feel my cheeks getting hot. Yes, I’d broken curfew, but it was for a good reason. If only I could make Papi understand.

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t home in time, but it really was for a camp thing.”

  Papi huffed and started walking. “I don’t want to talk about this now,” he said.

  “Well, I do. I’m not a baby anymore! I’m responsible!”

  Now Papi laughed, but it was that fake, sarcastic laugh people sometimes do when what they mean to show is how deeply not funny the situation is.

  “I am responsible. You have no idea how much.”

  I wanted to tell him everything so badly—about the muses, and Ari, and Athena. About saving Maya last year, which meant helping to maybe save the world someday. About Tia Annie, and how much Mami cried when she left us, and how tough my brothers had to be, how they didn’t cry even when they wanted to.

  “Callie!” Papi shouted, startling me.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Have you been listening to a word I’ve said? And you say you’re responsible. Responsible girls listen to their fathers when they’re talking with them.”

  “At them, you mean,” I mumbled.

  “What?”

  “Nada, Papi.” I was so mad, my vision was blurry. It wasn’t fair! Why did Papi invite me to New York anyway? To punish me? To spend the whole day working and never see me at all?

  Two blocks from home, Papi stopped at a bench on the edge of a park. In the distance, I spied a small church carnival with a Ferris wheel, food trucks, a stage, and a reggaeton group performing. We could hear the music and the squeals of kids on the rides.

  “Come. Sit with your old dad a while,” he said. I sat down. “I know you’re growing up. But I don’t have to like it. I worry about you and your brothers like you wouldn’t believe. From the moment you were born, and I held you, so tiny and pink, I promised that I would never let anything bad happen to you.”

  “But bad things happen to people all the time,” I said.

  “It’s true. They do. I just worry. Can you understand that?”

  I held Papi’s hand, felt the calluses there. He used to tell my brothers and me about what it was like growing up in Cuba, how so many of his friends left the island on rickety boats and patched-up rafts, and how he never heard from them again. Sometimes Papi would tear up remembering this friend, or that one. Then he’d tell us about his own trip, the days at sea, the safety of the beach, and the hard work ahead of him, and we were so proud.

  I wondered if Papi thought of the open ocean when he worried about us. Or if he remembered the dark shadows that slunk underneath his raft.

  If I had known him then, I would have pumped him full of magic and courage.

  Then again, perhaps he’d already had enough of his own magic.

  “I tell you what. You can have this back.” He took my phone out of his pocket. “And I promise to come home early from work all this week.
And this weekend, we can do whatever you want to. The city is yours.”

  I felt better, and not just because my phone was back.

  “Okay. Just, let’s skip Little Italy. I heard it’s a tourist trap.”

  Papi nodded. Then he kissed the top of my head.

  “I love you, mi niña.”

  “I love you, too, Papi.”

  We got up from the bench and walked home, hand in hand. Papi wasn’t a very tall man, and I’d grown past his shoulder. He always joked, “I’m the giant in the room,” and everyone would laugh, but I always believed him.

  Chapter 22

  Whose Camp? Our Camp!

  The next day, Papi walked me to Corona Arts. We heard people banging on the pots and pans before we saw them.

  There was chanting, too—“Whose camp? OUR CAMP!” shouted again and again.

  Then they were in view—dozens of campers marching in front of Corona Arts, holding up signs that read “Save Our Camp,” and “We Demand Arts Funding!” and “Mayor, Fund Our Camp!” The ones without signs were banging on pots and pans with wooden spoons.

  Papi slowed down and held me back. “I’d heard the camp was in financial trouble,” he said.

  I nodded. “Ari told me that the private donors who helped fund Corona Arts in the summer were considering pulling their money for next year.”

  “Ay,” Papi said. “That would be a shame.” His eyes darted to a place beyond me. “Mira,” he said, pointing to the front doors.

  There stood Maris. She was standing on a milk crate and had connected a microphone to an amp. “Testing,” she said into the mic, her voice blasting out onto the street. The pots and pans stilled, and the signs dropped a few inches.

  Maris smiled. “Thanks for coming out, everyone. This was just phase one of our plan to save Corona Arts!”

  Everyone shouted, and the signs went up again. So this is what Maris wanted to talk to me and Ari about! She’d planned a whole protest!

  “There’s a petition going around asking the borough president to speak to the mayor about earmarking more funding for our summer camp. Please sign it! Our message is clear,” Maris said. “We love our camp and want it to remain open next summer. Phase two of our plan is the Student Showcase and impressing the private donors. Their help, along with the mayor’s funding, would ensure that Corona Arts will not only stay open, but will thrive for years to come! We need to give it all we’ve got. What do you say, Corona Arts?”

  Everyone cheered. I noticed that Maris was wearing two cuffs made of aluminum foil, one on each wrist. She’d drawn a star on each one with a permanent marker.

  “Are those supposed to be handcuffs?” Papi said, squinting at Maris.

  I laughed. “I’m guessing those are Wonder Woman’s bracelets on a budget.”

  Papi chuckled, too. “Well, if there’s a kid with superpowers around here, I’d put money on her,” he said.

  If only you knew, I thought. I was pretty sure that if Papi found out I was a muse, he’d search out Clio and have several words with her before making me quit.

  “Have a good time at school and be home by five today.”

  “Okay,” I said. By now, the crowd of students was heading into the school, most of them on their phones posting pictures of the protest. I caught up with Maris in the stairwell on the way to our poetry class. “Maris!” I shouted. “That was amazing.”

  She looked down, a rosy glow coloring her cheeks. “Thanks. Somebody had to do something. Hopefully, news of our protest gets back to the mayor. Do you like my sign?” Maris held up what looked like a flattened cardboard box. In simple black crayon, she’d scrawled:

  THIS SIGN WOULD LOOK BETTER IF THE ARTS WERE FUNDED.

  It was the ugliest, plainest sign I’d ever seen, but that was the point.

  “Genius!” I said.

  Maris dropped her voice to a whisper. “I know.”

  We walked into class, where Mr. Theo was scrolling through his phone. When he looked up, he beamed and made a trumpeting sound. “Brava, Ms. Emad! You’re the talk of the town!” he said, and showed us a local neighborhood app full of pictures of the protest, and lots of comments that read “Good job, kids!”

  Maris thanked him, set down her sign, and started gathering paintbrushes and paint for our poems.

  “Hey,” I said to Maris as I sat down beside her with a fresh section of butcher paper. “I’m sorry Ari and I didn’t let you tell us about your plans yesterday.”

  “Sometimes even cartoon characters have good ideas,” she said softly.

  My heart dropped. She’d heard Ari, then. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

  Maris didn’t say anything. She only went back to work quietly, her aluminum foil cuffs crinkling as she painted.

  At lunch, the camp director came on the PA system. “I appreciate your enthusiasm this morning, campers,” Ms. Neptune said. “But we must ban protests without permits, by order of the 112th Precinct of the New York Police Department.”

  I heard the moans and complaints of students all through the camp.

  Ms. Neptune went on. “However, I have sent a recording of your protest to the borough president’s office, as well as the mayor’s, and to our donors, who have since expressed the hope that the Student Showcase goes off without a hitch and promised to be there in person this year. So chin up, campers! Let’s do our best to save Corona Arts!”

  The speaker shut off, and Maris, Mr. Theo, and I sat in silence for a while.

  “This neighborhood won’t be the same without Corona Arts,” Mr. Theo said.

  “No, it won’t,” Ari said, standing in the doorway. As usual, bright threads were stuck in her hair here and there. She came over to Maris, sat down, and pulled out two squares knitted with bright yellow yarn. “For you. Because I’m sorry I pushed you away yesterday. And because you’re pretty cool.”

  Maris picked up one of the yellow squares, unfolding it to reveal a red star stitched into the center. She gasped, tore off her aluminum foil cuffs, and put on the new ones Ari had made. Then she struck a Wonder Woman pose. “What do you think?”

  “Amazing!” I said.

  “Wonderful!” Ari added. Maris got up to show Mr. Theo. Meanwhile, Ari whispered, “Distract them.”

  “What?”

  “Use your powers. Distract them. We have work to do.” Ari brought out her phone and searched for a map of Brooklyn. She tapped a few icons, zoomed in on the page, and said, “There. Atlantic Avenue.”

  “And?”

  “There’s an abandoned subway tunnel under Atlantic. A place under the earth named after the sea, remember? That has to be it,” Ari said. “So, magic time, baby.”

  “You want to go now?” I asked. The clock in the classroom read two. That only gave me three hours to get home by five, like Papi had said.

  Frustration bubbled up in my body. Yes, I wanted to help Ari, especially now that I knew the tenth muse and Ari’s quest were linked, but I also didn’t want to get in trouble with Papi again. I’d come all this way to spend time with him, Laura, and Rafaelito, but it felt like all I’d done was make everyone upset.

  Ari glared at me. “You need to get your priorities straight,” she said.

  “My priorities?” I whispered back. “You tell me that this quest is a priority. Clio tells me that the tenth muse is a priority. My father says being home on time is a priority.”

  Ari leaned back into her chair and rolled her eyes. “Only one of those ends with me losing my humanity forever. Gosh. How can you choose between that and being grounded?”

  I wanted to scream. Just shove my face into a pillow and shout until I lost my voice.

  “You okay?” Mr. Theo asked. Maris looked up at us, too. She lifted her arms up and showed off her Wonder Woman cuffs again.

  If I could turn the moment into a comic book page, the words “Get tough, Callie” would be right over Maris’s head, inside a white speech bubble. That’s what Mario had told me to do, and my brother was right.

 
I made a choice and imagined Mr. Theo and Maris working on a long poem, one that took up an entire wall, both of them so lost in it that they didn’t notice I was gone. The magic tingled, like it always did, and the picture in my head grew clearer and more precise until . . .

  “Mr. Theo!” Maris shouted, an idea lighting up her whole face.

  “Maris!” Mr. Theo replied.

  Then they were off, running for their notebooks, jotting down ideas.

  “Thanks,” Ari said.

  I lifted my bracelet to my mouth and called the others. “Muses, it’s time to muster. Meet at the museum ASAP.”

  Chapter 23

  Aphrodite’s Gifts

  By the time Thalia, Nia, and Mela got to the museum, it was already three o’clock. Guilt ate at the corners of my brain, like a little mouse making a home for itself. But I tried to remember that Ari was in immediate danger. Getting into trouble again would be worth it if we saved her.

  We narrowly missed bumping into Clio on the way out of the museum. Nia, Mela, Thalia, and I crouched behind a set of vending machines in the café, while Ari pretended to browse the sandwich selections.

  “I’m starting to feel really bad about disobeying Clio’s orders,” Nia said, now that Ari was out of earshot.

  Clio paused as she neared the machines, patted her pockets, then went into the café. I could have sworn I heard her stomach growling as she passed us by.

  “Me, too,” Mela said.

  “Me, three,” Thalia added. “How are we ever going to find the tenth muse without help from the Gray Sisters?”

  “One problem at a time, I guess,” I said, but my heart wasn’t in it. I hated the idea of disappointing Clio and the other grown-up muses.

  We watched as Clio chose a salad and a bottle of water. She sat with her food near a window, picking at limp lettuce with a sad look on her face.

  “She looks absolutely gutted,” Thalia said. “And it’s all our fault. We’re supposed to be helping her locate the tenth muse.”

  I felt a pang in my chest. It was possible that the very existence of the muses was in danger. That’s what Clio had said. And here we were . . . hiding behind junk food. Clio sighed over her sad salad, and I nearly bolted out from where we hid, ready to confess everything.