“But you can’t build an island … can you?” Emily stupidly scanned the ground, as if she’d actually see the seams and bolts of an island pieced together.
Emily’s mother pointed the camera in her direction, taking a picture of the view beyond her shoulder. “That part is natural,” she said.
“The part we drove in on from the bridge is a separate island,” Mr. Crane added. “It’s called Yerba Buena.”
It seemed obvious to Emily now. The first part of the island had been an irregular, green-covered lump. It looked wild and rocky, whereas this half was mostly bald concrete.
“You didn’t know about this?” Emily asked James.
He shrugged. “I’m not a San Francisco wiki page.”
The towering buildings of downtown San Francisco taunted her across the bay. Where those buildings stood was once water. She shouldn’t have been so surprised to learn that an entire island could be materialized.
“When was Treasure Island built?” Emily asked, with a sinking feeling that they were way off in their guess about the unbreakable code treasure being buried here.
“There was a World’s Fair in the late 1930s,” Emily’s dad said. “My memory is telling me they made it for that.”
The 1930s. That was well after the Gold Rush, well after Mark Twain had lived in San Francisco, and well after the San Francisco Tom Sawyer had been alive. This couldn’t be the burial spot for the gold.
They continued their ride around the island, pedaling past warehouses that looked abandoned and apartment buildings with a few signs of life, like clothes draped over railings and potted plants that weren’t dead. They cycled past an empty ball field, which struck Emily as a particularly lonely site on this Saturday morning. They’d lived by ball fields in Colorado, and the weekends were always a frenzy of noise and the traffic of parents coming and going. On their way back to the bike shop, they passed the construction site with banners advertising a big island transformation to come.
The more they pedaled, the dumber Emily felt for thinking treasure could be hidden there in the first place. As if the unbreakable code would lead to Treasure Island, and nobody else had guessed that for over one hundred sixty years. She might as well have believed there would be a giant black X painted on the ground to mark the hiding spot.
CHAPTER
22
EMILY, JAMES, and Matthew had their second Book Scavenger advisory meeting on the Tuesday after touring Treasure Island. Jack pushed open the doors to Mr. Griswold’s office as before, but this time they anticipated the dogs that came rushing over. Once again, Claus greeted them with enthusiastic barks, then pranced to his pillow and paraded around with it in his mouth. Angel rolled onto her back and let Matthew rub her belly before trotting over to her basket and curling up with a satisfied sigh.
“Hello!” Mr. Griswold smiled and stood from papers he’d been reading at his desk. He still wasn’t dressed as flamboyantly as Emily was accustomed to imagining for him, but at least today he wore a burgundy sweater with his slacks, which seemed to be a nudge back in the direction of the old Mr. Griswold. That made her hopeful enough to charge forward with her plan.
“Mr. Griswold,” she said. “Look what we found online!”
She offered the printout of his old interview. Mr. Griswold’s hand shook ever so slightly as he accepted the clipping. Emily wasn’t sure if that was from the physical effort of holding the paper steady or if it was upsetting him to see the old interview.
“You looked pretty hip back then, Mr. Griswold,” James said.
Mr. Griswold chortled, and Emily relaxed a bit. He didn’t seem mad, at least.
“Can I see it?” Matthew asked. After looking at the photo, he exclaimed, “Dude! Your hair is curly! Is that a perm?”
“It was a long time ago,” Mr. Griswold said softly. He let Matthew take over reading the interview and seated himself on the couch.
“I like where you talked about how we can control the kind of journey we’re on,” Emily said.
“This part?” Matthew asked. He read aloud from the interview, “Your actions and reactions determine the type of journey you will have. Will it be magical? Joyful? Fearful? Will you be the victim, or will you be the hero?”
“Yes, that part,” Emily said. “It made me think about myself as the main character in my own story.”
“Not just the main character,” James chimed in. “The main character and the writer, too.”
“Right,” Emily said. “We’re writing our own stories with what we do and say every day. And if I find myself in a chapter where bad things happen, I get to decide what kind of story I’m in.”
“I’m very glad my words had that effect on you,” Mr. Griswold said. “It’s important to be hopeful when you’re young.”
Emily wanted to reply, It’s important to be hopeful when you’re old, too, but she thought that might be rude. Instead she said, “It’s important to be hopeful always.”
“Yes, it is,” Jack interjected. He’d been reading the interview over Matthew’s shoulder. “You three are smart kids, you know that? No wonder you’re so good at puzzles and scavenger hunts.”
Emily wasn’t sure how she’d expected Mr. Griswold to react to seeing his old interview again. She knew he wasn’t going to jump up and down and shout, Thank you for showing me this! and then race into his secret bookcase room and hop out wearing a suit and top hat pinstriped in Bayside Press colors with a matching walking cane, but she thought she might at least see a small spark ignited.
She charged forward with the second half of her plan. If Mr. Griswold had tried to revive interest in solving the unbreakable code decades ago, then hearing about their map discovery—how the x fell perfectly in one of the circles when the paper was folded—would certainly excite him.
“The other thing we wanted to tell you has to do with the unbreakable code,” she said. “James was playing around with grille ciphers the other day—”
But before she could say anything more, Mr. Griswold snapped his attention to his watch. “Oh, dear,” he said, and hoisted himself up from the couch, “I haven’t been paying attention to the time. I have a vet appointment for the dogs.”
“You … do?” James said. The three kids exchanged confused looks. Even Jack looked a little thrown.
“Oh,” Jack said. “I didn’t realize there was a time conflict with this today.”
“Before you go, could we tell you—”
Mr. Griswold spoke over Emily, appearing not to hear her. “Claus, Angel, walk!” At the sound of walk, Mr. Griswold’s office erupted into yips and whines and dancing doggy feet. It almost seemed to Emily that it flustered Mr. Griswold to hear the words unbreakable code, and he was trying to cause a distraction from the topic. Mr. Griswold attached their leashes to their collars, the chains jangling together. Over the racket, he called to Jack, “If you could run the show for this meeting, that would be great. Last time, we talked about setting you kids up as admins, so Jack will show you the ropes for that.”
With a hasty wave, Mr. Griswold and the dogs were out the door. The clack-clack-clacking of the constantly moving marble in the maze contraption seemed louder than ever after Mr. Griswold and the dogs had left.
Emily frowned. She had thought reminding Mr. Griswold of his own words would help him return to normal. But now Emily was starting to think maybe it wasn’t that he had forgotten what he used to be like. Maybe the problem was that he remembered all too well and couldn’t bear to face his old self anymore.
CHAPTER
23
LOCKER DOORS SLAMMED, creating an uneven percussion as Emily and James walked to their next dance committee meeting. Between Treasure Island being a dead-end lead for the unbreakable code and Emily’s flopped plan to cheer up Mr. Griswold, she felt a little down but hoped the distraction of planning a dance would help.
James pulled open the science classroom door. Mrs. Ortega paced the room with her hands pressed to her back, her pregnant belly leading
the way. The twins were the only committee members who hadn’t arrived yet.
“Hey, Vivian,” Emily said, taking the seat next to her, “did you get the info about the DJ?”
“Yes.” Vivian didn’t look up from her homework. “He’s confirmed for the dance.”
James shook his head, bewildered. “I was sure Charlie would say no. I guess he needs the money.”
Across the table, Nisha and Maddie were playing dots and boxes, a game Nisha had also taught James in their chemistry class. You make a four-by-four grid of dots and take turns drawing a line between two dots. Whoever makes a line that closes four dots into a box puts their initial inside the box and goes again. The person with the most boxes at the end of the game wins.
Vivian looked at the classroom clock and hopped up from her seat. “We need to get started.”
Emily wondered if Kevin and Devin had decided to drop the committee—she wouldn’t have been surprised. She knew they’d only been at the first meeting because James had asked them to come. Actually, she wouldn’t have been surprised if James had dropped out, too.
The door to the science classroom banged open, and Emily turned to see Kevin and Devin carrying a large cardboard box between them.
“Look what we brought!” They tipped the contents onto one of the lab tables and dozens of white wigs, tiny round wire-frame glasses, and top hats spilled out.
“Team costumes!” Devin said.
“What teams? What costumes?” Vivian asked. She frowned at the assortment of items sprawled in front of her.
“For the presidential games,” Kevin explained. “We came up with costumes for three teams of presidents. Part of the challenge can be putting on your costume as fast as possible, and then we all compete in some sort of game.”
James strung the elastic bands of a long black beard around his ears. Emily picked up a pinafore. She couldn’t believe the twins were actually latching onto this crazy idea she’d thrown out for the dance. Vivian sifted through the items with everyone else, and Emily tried to gauge if the way she petted the puffy white wig and gingerly lifted a tie was a positive thing or negative.
“Where did you get all this stuff?” Emily asked.
“Our mom volunteers at a costume bank. It’s part of her charity organization. We’ll have to return some of this stuff when we’re done, but she’s donating the rest to our class.”
Devin handed James a black suit jacket and then dropped a top hat over Steve. The hat sank down over James’s eyes, making his face mostly hat/nose/long beard. “Team Abraham Lincoln!” Devin declared.
“I’m swimming in this coat.” James, with his hat still covering his eyes, raised his arms so the sleeves slouched to his elbows.
“It makes it funnier,” Kevin said. He dressed himself in a blue coat, white wig, and pinafore. “Team George Washington,” he explained.
“Or Thomas Jefferson,” Devin added. “It’s basically the same look.”
“Stick with Washington,” Vivian said, and pointed to Nisha. “Make a note of that.” Vivian picked up the remaining items and put them on herself: a mustache, wire-rimmed glasses with a cord dangling from one side, and a tie. “Who am I supposed to be?”
“Teddy Roosevelt,” Kevin and Devin said together.
Across the room Mrs. Ortega groaned.
“What’s wrong with President Roosevelt?” Kevin asked.
Mrs. Ortega shook her head, her lips pressed into a thin line. “Not the costumes. The baby.” She lowered herself into a chair, but didn’t last long before she was back up and pacing. She waved a hand. “Go on. I’m fine.”
Their eyes lingered on the teacher with hesitation before Vivian said to Kevin and Devin, “So you have enough of these costumes to divide everyone at the dance into three teams?”
“Definitely yes with the wigs and beards and hats and glasses. My mom can lend us some jackets and ties, but we might need to borrow more of those.”
“That should be easy enough to organize,” Vivian said, indicating for Nisha to make a note of that as well. “All right. So we have three presidential teams. This was your idea, Emily. What exactly will we do for the game?”
Nisha waited, pen poised to jot down whatever she said. Maddie cocked her head and smirked, as if she could smell Emily’s insecurity. James removed the top hat from his eyes and gave her an encouraging nod. Only Devin and Kevin didn’t seem that invested as they played hot potato with a George Washington wig.
“Well,” Emily said, “with three teams we could…” Hanging from the ceiling of the classroom were models of atoms made out of Hula-hoops with a cluster of balloons in the middle. “We could do a balloon stomp.”
Nisha wrote this down.
“What’s that?” Vivian asked.
“Each team member ties a balloon on a string to their ankle. We’d have different colors for each team—”
“Red, white, and blue would be presidential.” Vivian tapped Nisha’s notebook.
“Then the object is to stomp the balloons of the other teams. Last team with an unpopped balloon wins.”
“Cool,” Kevin and Devin said, attempting to stomp on each other’s foot.
“We could turn it into a relay race, too,” James volunteered. “The costumes for each team could be in a giant box at the start. Each player dresses up, runs through an obstacle course, then ties on a balloon. Once an entire team has balloons on, they can start popping the other teams’ balloons.”
The more they talked, the more Emily could actually visualize the game taking place at the dance. It sounded ridiculous, sure, but the kind of ridiculous that might be a lot of fun, like the sort of event Mr. Griswold would plan.
Mrs. Ortega gave a loud yelp.
“Sorry, kids,” she wheezed. “We’ve got to end this meeting. I need to call my doctor.”
Everybody inched back from Mrs. Ortega like she was a bomb set to explode, except Maddie, who crossed to a lab sink. “Have you been drinking water? My mom thought she was having my half sister early, but it turned out she hadn’t been drinking enough water.” Maddie pulled a Dixie cup from the stack on the counter. “Here, drink this.”
Mrs. Ortega accepted the cup but said, “Really, you all, I’ll be fine. You can head home now.”
Maddie stayed by Mrs. Ortega’s side while the rest of the students helped put the costumes back in the boxes for Kevin and Devin. When Emily and James left the room, Maddie was keeping an eye on their teacher and holding her purse as Mrs. Ortega spoke to someone on her cell phone.
CHAPTER
24
THE NEXT DAY was the annual seventh-grade trip to Angel Island. The wind whipped Emily’s ponytail back and forth as she and James leaned against the railing on the top deck of the ferry. On a bench behind them sat the last-minute substitute teacher for Mrs. Ortega, who was on bed rest because of her contractions the day before. The substitute was Mr. Sloan, the same man who had told Mr. Quisling he was looking for sub work at the Poe book party, and then observed their social studies class a couple of weeks ago. He sat with his head clutched in his hands. Every so often, a moan would drift over to where Emily and James stood. He didn’t handle being on water very well.
As they approached Angel Island, a blinding ribbon of sunlight unfurled across the water to a marina tucked in a cove. Trees transformed from a generic green mass into distinct broccoli shapes. This was a real island, a natural island, as opposed to that flat faker Treasure Island.
“Maybe we have the grille cipher wrong, and it’s actually marking Angel Island,” Emily said.
The thought was hopeful and disappointing at the same time. Hopeful because at least then they would have a location to focus on. But Angel Island looked pretty massive compared to Treasure Island. They had pedaled around Treasure Island in less than an hour, and it was flat and spare. Angel Island was hilly and heavily forested. It would take days or weeks to explore the whole thing.
The ferry docked, and Emily and James crossed the deck to join thei
r classmates and parent and teacher chaperones filing down the stairs and off the boat. Mr. Sloan stood, a little shakily, his face the shade of pistachio ice cream. Another seventh grader, José, clapped Mr. Sloan on the back as he walked by, making the substitute grimace.
“Yo, Mr. New Guy, if you puke, don’t face into the wind,” José said.
Emily and James stepped around Mr. Sloan and joined the flow of people heading off the ferry. There were more than just Booker students on the ferry, so the shouts of various teachers instructing their students on where to stand was confusing when they walked up the ramp and stepped off the dock. Emily and James walked past a group of students wearing matching navy St. Raymond sweatshirts chanting a song about llamas, then crossed the pavement to stand with the Booker group of students, teachers, and parent chaperones waiting in front of a small pink building.
A light wind wafted the smell of sewage their way. James pinched his nose and said in a nasally voice, “You’d think we could pick a different meeting spot than in front of the bathrooms.”
Mr. Sloan, with a slightly less green face, was the last to arrive. Their class climbed on an open-air shuttle and bumped along a path around the perimeter of the island until the immigration station came into view.
It was a long, two-story building dwarfed by the forested hillside that rose behind it. A rigid procession of cement stairs led up to the building. The cement planters on either side of the stairs were engraved with words like dreams, hope, and fears.
A tour guide welcomed their group and explained that immigrants came through Angel Island for a thirty-year period between 1910 and 1940. Emily scanned their surroundings, thinking about how the unbreakable code and the hidden treasure happened well before the island was used for immigration.
Emily raised her hand. “What was here in 1851?”
James snorted, knowing what she had on her mind when she asked the question.
“Let’s see … 1851?” The guide looked around thoughtfully. “A Spanish explorer gave it the name Angel Island in 1775, and of course the Miwok Indians were in this area long before that, but in 1851, California was a brand-new state, only a year old. Angel Island was actually declared a military reserve that year, but I don’t think it was utilized until the Civil War. There was a ship, however, used as a prison, that was anchored offshore.”
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