“Private? Like, someone lives on it?” Matthew asked. “That’s pretty rock star to have your own island in the San Francisco Bay.”
“Somebody owns it—a billionaire tech investor who now lives in another country, I believe. But nobody lives there. The island’s never been developed. There’s no running water, no electricity. A little-known secret—but common knowledge among the boating community—is that the owner has granted permission for the grounds to be used for picnics or birding.”
“Birding?” James asked.
“Without any development or human interference, it’s become quite a bird sanctuary over time,” Ms. Linden explained. “But there’s no hunting, fireworks, or overnight camping allowed.”
The librarian studied the paper with the circles again. “If you turned the map this way, then it would look like this group of three is Angel Island, Alcatraz, and Gull Island with the X, with Yerba Buena as the one on the outside of the triangle.”
“Gull Island,” Emily repeated. Between revealing the Chinese characters and learning about this island, they might finally be on the verge of solving this puzzle. It was a hopeful feeling that was quickly squashed when Ms. Linden said, “Your theories are all great. Historians are going to be so eager to jump on this and figure out the answers.”
Emily fumbled her pen, then picked it up. “Historians?” She looked down at the unbreakable code, which had returned to its regular appearance now that Ms. Linden had turned the light off. Of course there would be a surge of interest in the unbreakable code once this discovery became known. The code would probably become a craze again, like what Hollister said had happened when the Niantic was uncovered in 1978. Emily imagined a team of historians barging into the room right that very second and ripping the paper away from her to crack the code themselves.
When Emily looked up from the parchment, Ms. Linden was staring at her, head tilted and a deliberating look on her face. “You know,” the librarian said with slow and equal weight on each word, “I’ll need to file paperwork for this, and that can take a while. I hope you all won’t be too disappointed if the public doesn’t find out about it just yet.”
Emily couldn’t help it—a huge grin spread across her face. She knew Ms. Linden wouldn’t be able to hold off on letting the wider public know about these hidden Chinese characters indefinitely, but at least they would have a little more time to try and figure out the mystery on their own.
* * *
That night Emily sat in her room trying to concentrate on her homework, but really she was daydreaming about the unbreakable code and listening for James’s knock. He planned to talk to his grandmother after their dinner, and Emily couldn’t wait to hear what she had to say.
Finally, the knock came. Emily went to the already-open window and waited for the bucket. She removed James’s slip of paper to read:
SKU STBQ BV NUTFS KXJU.
(She said it means HOPE.)
“Hope,” Emily said softly. A pebble of disappointment plunked into her stomach. She didn’t see how one word could lead them to find the treasure.
She wrote down a response and slipped it into the bucket.
ZKD QX DXL VKBFO BV’S VKUPU?
(Why do you think it’s there?)
James replied,
B QXF’V OFXZ. NTDHU IXP WLEO?
(I don’t know. Maybe for luck?)
Emily frowned, considering this suggestion. Whoever had written these characters went to the trouble of thinking up their plan in the first place, finding invisible ink, and then painting them onto the paper before writing the unbreakable code and map over the top. That was a lot of effort and steps to take in order to do something that was only a gesture of good luck.
Emily didn’t know how it worked, but she was certain the invisible characters were part of the greater puzzle, and she was determined to be the one who figured out the solution.
CHAPTER
33
THAT WEEKEND, James was busy with his family celebrating Chinese New Year, so Emily flopped around her house, alternating between reading, picking at her homework, and mentally willing the letters of the unbreakable code to assemble themselves into some sort of useful message.
She wished she could go to Hollister’s, but the store was closed indefinitely. Emily hadn’t seen Hollister since the fire. She hoped he was doing okay. Devin’s words about business owners setting fires on purpose for money floated back to her. She knew that Hollister worried about his business, but there was no way he’d destroy something he loved for money.
And it still bothered Emily that Charlie had lied about feeding a meter for his car. Why hadn’t he told the truth about what he had been doing when the fire happened? What had he been doing when the fire started? Could he have lied because he was the arsonist? Could Charlie be Coolbrith? She knew he didn’t like Mr. Quisling, but was his grudge deep enough to do something so hateful?
The only thing Emily knew for sure was nobody else knew about the hidden Chinese characters. Emily imagined herself and James digging up gold treasure. How amazing would that be? She’d been fantasizing about finding the gold in order to give it to her parents so they could afford to stay here in San Francisco, but that daydream changed a week ago. Now she fantasized about giving the gold to Hollister. He and his store deserved the second chance.
* * *
The following Tuesday at the Book Scavenger advisory meeting, Mr. Griswold said, “How are you?” in a tone that made it clear he’d heard about Hollister’s fire. Emily felt tears spring to her eyes. She blinked them back, not wanting to cry in front of Mr. Griswold. “I’m so sorry you were there during the fire, Emily,” he said, placing a hand on her shoulder.
Emily blinked again and looked to the floor. “I feel awful for Hollister.”
“I know.” Mr. Griswold patted her back, and their whole group sat down in his office. Mr. Griswold settled on the couch with Claus stretched out beside him. Emily sat on the other side of the dog, with Jack perched next to her on the armrest. Matthew and James sat in the two chairs.
Angel left her basket and sniffed Matthew’s ankles. He patted his lap, and the dog jumped up, huddled into a ball, and snorted as she closed her eyes. Matthew petted her wiry white fur and smiled.
“Knowing Hollister,” Mr. Griswold said, “he will view this as a challenge to come back stronger, kinder, and even more caring than before. Some people let a difficult loss or hardship warp them, but not Hollister.”
Mr. Griswold and Hollister had known each other for a very long time—half a century, although they hadn’t always maintained their friendship. Emily wondered if Mr. Griswold’s words meant the two old friends had finally reconnected and mended their differences, but Emily thought it would be too personal to ask.
“You’ll see. Hollister can bounce back from anything,” Mr. Griswold mused, petting Claus’s neck. “It’s how we act in the face of adversity that defines us, and Hollister is a good man and a fighter.”
“He said the same thing about you,” Emily said. “That you can bounce back from anything.”
“Did he?” Mr. Griswold had seemed perfectly at ease talking about the bookstore owner, but now that the topic was on himself, he shifted uncomfortably. “Well. See what I said about him being a good man?” Mr. Griswold cleared his throat and said, “Let’s talk about Book Scavenger, shall we? Jack, do you want to tell them your idea?”
Jack nodded, and his hair bobbed enthusiastically. “Sure. This is what we’re thinking: a monthly illustration puzzle on the website for Book Scavenger players to solve. You guys can help us brainstorm ideas.” He pulled a piece of paper from the folder he held on his lap and extended it for Emily, James, and Matthew to look at. “Here’s one example we thought up. We’re calling this puzzle ‘Snakes and Hedgehogs.’ The answer is the title of a book we’ll give away as a prize to a randomly drawn winner.”
“The animals represent a code. Can you guess which one?”
The snakes and hedgehogs wer
e arranged in groups. randomly. Emily didn’t really see a rhyme or reason to it until she realized that the hedgehogs were drawn in a ball-shape and the snakes were long lines.
“Is this Morse Code?” she asked.
“Exactly!” Jack said. “Here’s the key to solve it.”
Emily’s eyes darted back and forth between the drawing and the key. “H … O—”
“Holes!” Matthew shouted, startling Angel on his lap. “I love that book.”
“Correct!” Jack said. “I have another one here, too.” He rummaged through the papers in his folder but didn’t find what he was looking for. “I must have left it in the printer. Let me go grab it.”
Emily liked the idea of illustrated puzzles on the Book Scavenger site and was happy they were being included in brainstorming for them, but she couldn’t help feeling that tug of sadness that Mr. Griswold was reluctant to plan events and real-life games like he used to.
“Mr. Griswold, did James and I tell you we’re on the dance committee at our school?” she asked.
“Emily roped me into doing it,” James added.
“That’s wonderful.” Mr. Griswold smiled. “Are you enjoying it?”
“Actually, yes,” James said. “Emily came up with this crazy idea for a game, and it’s been fun to plan.”
“I was inspired by the games you’ve created,” Emily said, feeling shy all of a sudden. “It’s a presidential relay race with a balloon stomp—it sounds nuts. It’s probably going to be a disaster.”
“Don’t sell yourself short,” Mr. Griswold said. “In my experience, the ideas I thought would be the nuttiest disasters turned into the greatest successes.”
Impulsively, she asked, “Why don’t you come? To our dance this Saturday?”
Mr. Griswold coughed. “Me?”
“Yes.” Emily looked to James and Matthew for encouragement.
“You wouldn’t have to stay the whole time,” James said. “We’re doing the game in the beginning. And it will have you laughing, I promise.”
“You could be a celebrity judge for their game,” Matthew added.
“Oh, I don’t know about that. I’m hardly a celebrity.”
“You are to these nerds,” Matthew replied.
Emily kicked her brother’s foot, and Angel looked up, perturbed again with having her nap interrupted. “What Matthew means is Book Scavenger fans love you.”
“Well, I’m flattered that you would want me there.” Mr. Griswold tugged at the collar of his sweater. “I know I’ve done events with schools in the past, but that was … before everything happened last year. The only places I’m really comfortable now are my home and this office.” Mr. Griswold lifted his shoulders in a small, hopeless shrug.
Mr. Griswold, Emily realized, was like she had been on the stairs in Hollister’s bookstore: unsure if it was better to go forward or back. She had stood there, stuck with fear, not wanting to make the wrong decision. But not doing anything didn’t help. If she had continued to stand there on the stairs, the fire would have made the decision for her. You make your choices, or the world makes them for you.
“You know what someone wise told me once?” Emily asked.
“What?” Mr. Griswold angled his head curiously, petting Claus’s neck.
“It’s how you act in the face of adversity that defines you,” she said. “I think you should define yourself by accepting our invitation to watch our game.”
Mr. Griswold’s mustache lifted into a smile. He wagged a finger at her. “I see what you did there. I’ll think about it. Okay? How about that?”
Emily and James grinned at each other. “We’ll take it,” Emily said.
CHAPTER
34
THE REST OF THE WEEK, Emily continued to study the unbreakable code, certain both the Chinese characters and the English letters were necessary for solving it; otherwise, why would the miner have included them? It was clever to make it so you had to know two languages in order to solve the message, like two different locks wrapped around a treasure chest.
Thursday night, Emily got the idea that maybe the translation for the Chinese characters—hope—was the keyword for a cipher, similar to the “remember the Niantic” cipher in the note Mr. Quisling dropped at the Poe book party. If that were the case, then the key for the unbreakable code would look like this:
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
H
O
P
E
A
B
C
D
F
G
I
J
K
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z
L
M
N
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z
It seemed like the perfect solution. But when she lined up the letters of the unbreakable code:
R E S A R X M U T A E T P P M A T D I I B H R F
and translated them using that key, the result was still nonsensical:
R D S E R X O U T E D T C C O E T H K K F A R I
Emily had been so sure she was onto something, but the fact that she wasn’t made her feel like she was falling behind in a race. It had been a whole week since they’d found the Chinese characters with Ms. Linden. The librarian wasn’t going to be able to stall for too much longer before the general public knew about their discovery. Who knew how quickly someone else would figure out the code? And then Emily’s shot at finding the treasure would be gone.
* * *
On Friday morning, Emily was sliding her books into her backpack, about to head downstairs to walk with James to school, when her computer dinged. A notification from the Book Scavenger site. She’d left her laptop open on her bed and leaned forward to read the message.
It was an alert for a hidden copy of Tom Sawyer.
Emily hesitated before tapping a key to find out more about who had hidden the book and where. “It’s just another book hidden through Book Scavenger,” she chided herself. “Don’t be such a chicken.”
She pressed Enter.
It wasn’t just another book. Coolbrith had hidden another copy of Tom Sawyer, this time at Coit Tower. Emily had to tell James. She scribbled down the clue and raced down her stairs.
When she flung open the front door, James was waiting on the stoop. A clear plastic poncho covered his head and backpack on this gray and drizzly day. He had one palm extended up into the water dripping over the eave of their porch.
“Are we late?” he asked, noting her panting.
Emily took a deep breath, trying to calm her charged-up feeling. There was a new challenge for Mr. Quisling in his quest. Did that mean there would be another fire after he found the book? She opened her umbrella and filled James in as they began walking.
“I wish we had time to go before school,” she said.
“At least Mr. Quisling can’t go right now, either,” James pointed out.
“Maybe if we go to Coit Tower right after school, we could find the book before anyone else and remove it, so the arsonist won’t set another fire.”
“That might stop him today, but we took the book hidden in the redwood park, and now Coolbrith’s hiding another one,” James reasoned. “We should say something to Mr. Quisling.”
James was probably right. They should talk to Mr. Quisling and tell him what they knew. But they didn’t have anything concrete to show him. They could tell him fires had been set af
ter he’d found copies of Tom Sawyer through Book Scavenger, but would he believe them? They could tell him Coolbrith was using an e-mail in his name, but maybe he already knew that. Maybe Coolbrith was someone Mr. Quisling knew, and there was a logical reason for the e-mail that didn’t have anything to do with an arsonist. Not to mention how angry their teacher might be if he found out they’d been eavesdropping on his quest.
“What we need is proof,” Emily said. “Starting with finding out who Coolbrith is.”
“And we do that by…”
“Let’s go to Coit Tower after school, find where the book is hidden, and then stake it out. If Mr. Quisling looks for the book, maybe Coolbrith will also make an appearance.”
James nodded. “Do you have the Book Scavenger clue?”
“I copied it into my notebook. I’ll show you when we get to school.”
Once inside the halls of Booker and out of the rain, Emily and James huddled together in a stairwell before the first bell, her umbrella dripping dry on the landing in front of them. Emily’s notebook was open to the page where she’d written down the Book Scavenger clue:
D
O
K
E
R
U
B
O
L
O
U
O
T
E
S
M
W
L
O
T
O
H
H
T
U
C
O
T
S
L
E
W
O
L
O
F
“Great,” James said sarcastically. “Another grid of letters, just like the unbreakable code. Because we’ve had so much luck figuring that out.”
“I’m sure we can get this,” Emily said. Thinking maybe it was a substitution cipher, she started making a frequency chart, listing every letter that was in the message and how many times it appeared. She was only halfway through when James noted, “There aren’t any word breaks.”
The Unbreakable Code Page 16