The Seventh Level

by Jody Feldman

  There’s a bus backed up to the edge, its rear doors split open, perpendicular to the school, butting the walls, and acting as a shield to the outside. No one can see us slide inside.

  I recognize this! It’s the same bus I rode in to deliver school supplies in October. The one with the sofa-type seats and the dark glass. The one from Lookout Transportation Services. Lookout! The Legend!

  I follow Matti and Kip and buckle up in one of the front sofa sections with the rest of the seventh and sixth graders. The eighth graders take the area in the rear.

  The bus inches forward then stops. Mrs. Bloom and Mrs. Pinchon close the back doors.

  “Everybody in?” calls the bus driver.

  “Let’s go,” says Mrs. Bloom. She sits with the eighth graders.

  Mrs. Pinchon sits with us.

  I look at her. “Mrs. Pinchon?” I say.

  “Yes, Mr. Raines?”

  “With the bad guys? You really had my back today.”

  She nods. “I have always had your back, Travis. Believe it or not.”

  I mostly believe it, and I settle in, pretty much grinning. And I realize something. That really smart kid, Cambridge, isn’t a Legend. Neither are some others I swear would be.

  “Mrs. Pinchon?” I say. “How’d I get here?”

  She laughs.

  “I mean, lots of kids are smarter than me. Why me?”

  “You have the seven qualities,” she says. “You all do.”

  Now everyone is listening.

  “You need to be smart to be part of The Legend, but it takes more than brains.” She keeps explaining, but I’m not used to hearing so many good things from principals. That makes it hard to believe. So I quit paying attention. And while my mind’s replaying the part when we busted Marco and the real oafs, she finishes talking, and everything’s quiet again.

  Shouldn’t we be laughing? Shouting? Celebrating?

  We’re in The Legend! The Legend! All of us here! But where’s here? And why hasn’t anyone asked yet?

  We stop at a red light.

  “I need to ask a question,” I say so everyone can hear. “Where are we going?”

  “Finally!” The bus driver lifts his sunglasses. “It’s about time one of you new people asked.” As he turns toward me, his tiger chain whips around. “Has anyone told you I have a recording studio in town?” he says. “And have any of you sung background vocals on an album?” Chase Maclin winks before he drives on.

  My mouth gapes open. “Are you kidding me?” I say to Matti over the cheers.

  She shakes her head. Laughs. “This is real.”

  “Is it always like this?”

  “You have no idea,” she says. “There’s always more.”

  More? I tighten my seat belt to keep from jumping through the roof.

  I’m ready for more. Always.

  Acknowledgments

  This book has existed on a multitude of levels. In the first, when my author’s learning curve was at its curviest, I was guided along by the people in my original online critique group, especially Lynn Fazenbaker, Cindy Lord, and Carol Norton, who continued to set me straight after we’d moved on.

  In the book’s second level, it took the wise and blunt advice of the YAckers—Diane Davis, Kay Frydenborg, Debby Garfinkle, Martha Peaslee Levine, Mary Beth Miller, and Kate Tuthill—to wake me, in the most pleasant and chocolatiest of ways, to some unpleasant realities.

  Levels three, four, five, and six? I climbed those on the shoulders of my wonderful agent, Jennie Dunham, who rendered such verdicts as No and Not Yet and Still No until that day when she told me to sit down. “It’s ready,” she said.

  And to reach its seventh level, I needed the eyes and minds and talents of the entire team at Greenwillow—Virginia Duncan, Steve Geck, Michelle Corpora, Sylvie Le Floc’h, Tim Smith, Patti Rosati, Emilie Ziemer, Laura Lutz, Barbara Trueson…and especially the editorial abilities and supreme patience of Martha Mihalick, who had to deal with my stubborn attempts to retain the unnecessary.

  Each and every level has been heightened by the support of my family and friends (and occasional strangers), who have allowed my mind the freedom to break beyond its routine borders. More specifically, there’s thanks to my dad’s creativity in signing my birthday cards; to Cassie’s unique way of asking questions; to Paige’s unceasing readiness to help unpaint me out of corners; to one waiter’s lack of attention in serving me mega-caffeinated tea; and to Dick, whose energy I borrowed for Travis long before I realized it.

  And finally, thanks to you readers…and a word of advice. If your mother and your grandmother and whoever cooks among your circle of family and friends…if they make things you love, get the recipes. Today. So here’s to some I got and some I never will. Here’s to Grandma Josie’s brisket, Aunt Molly’s turkey, Debbie P’s chicken wings, Donna’s grilled veggies, Aunt Jeanne’s brownies, my mom’s everything…and especially to Bubby’s moon cookies.

  About the Author

  JODY FELDMAN is the author of The Gollywhopper Games, a Texas Bluebonnet Award book and Midwest Booksellers’ Choice Honor book. She holds a degree in journalism from the University of Missouri, and she worked in advertising before becoming a full-time author. She lives in St. Louis, Missouri.

  www.jodyfeldman.com

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.

  Credits

  Jacket art © 2010 by Daniel Roode

  Jacket design by Sylvie Le Floc’h

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used to advance the fictional narrative. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.

  THE SEVENTH LEVEL. Copyright © 2010 by Jody Feldman. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Feldman, Jody.

  The seventh level / by Jody Feldman.

  p. cm.

  “Greenwillow Books.”

  Summary: Twelve-year-old Travis is invited to become a member of The Legend, Lauer Middle School’s most exclusive secret society, but first he must solve seven puzzles.

  ISBN 978-0-06-195105-3 (trade bdg.)—

  [1. Secret societies—Fiction. 2. Puzzles—Fiction. 3. Behavior—Fiction. 4. Middle schools—Fiction. 5. Schools—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.F3357752Se 2010 [Fic]—dc22 2009021390

  FIRST EDITION

  EPub Edition © April 2010 ISBN: 978-0-06-199965-9

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  About the Publisher

  Australia

  HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.

  25 Ryde Road (PO Box 321)

  Pymble, NSW 2073, Australia

  http://www.harpercollinsebooks.com.au

  Canada

  HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

  55 Avenue Road, Suite 2900

  Toronto, ON, M5R, 3L2, Canada

  http://www.harpercollinsebooks.ca

  New Zealand

  HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited

  P.O. Box 1

  Auckland, New Zealand

  http://www.harpercollins.co.nz

  United Kingdom

  HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

  77-85 Fulham Palace Road

  London, W6 8JB, UK

  http://www.harper
collinsebooks.co.uk

  United States

  HarperCollins Publishers Inc.

  10 East 53rd Street

  New York, NY 10022

  http://www.harpercollinsebooks.com