The Secret Box

by Whitaker Ringwald

  I pointed to one of the intersections, which lay in the middle of Lake Oneida in New York State. “We’ll need a boat if we want to go there. I don’t know how we’d do that.” I pointed to the second intersection. “Hey, that’s Washington, DC. That’s easy to get to. Let’s try that first.”

  “You want to go to DC?” Ethan asked.

  “I want to open the box. DC makes a lot more sense than a lake. Besides, Juniper wouldn’t send me out on the water. That would be totally dangerous.”

  Ethan chewed on the end of the pencil. “Do you think your mom will let you take the train to DC?”

  I sat on the edge of my bed and released a long sigh, like a leaking balloon. No way would Mom let me go to Washington, DC, on my own. She was as protective as a momma bear. I think being a single parent made her feel that she had to be both my dad and my mom, so she went a little crazy sometimes trying to fill both roles. And I’d gotten into some trouble lately, so she didn’t totally trust me anymore. She was still mad at me for the whole grocery-store incident.

  Let’s get one thing straight—I’m not a shoplifter. I was just wondering how it would feel. I was standing in the candy section and I thought about how easy it would be to stick a Snickers bar up my sleeve. If I acted normal, no one would know. I could walk right out the door. So I did. But as soon as I got outside, I felt really bad and I turned around to put it back.

  I wasn’t fast enough.

  Turns out they have security cameras all over the place and someone had been watching me. The manager called Mom and I thought she was going to explode when she stormed into the office at the back of the store. “Jacqueline Alice Malone,” she hissed, her face bright red. “What were you thinking?” She was wearing her apron and name tag from the diner.

  I didn’t know how to explain it. “I’m sorry.”

  The manager agreed not to call the police as long as I didn’t come into his store again without adult supervision. I felt like a baby who needed a sitter.

  “Why?” Mom asked when we got into the car. “Why would you steal?”

  “I just wanted to try,” I said with a shrug. “I was going to put it back.”

  “You wanted to try?” She gripped the steering wheel until her fingers turned white. “Have you done this before?” I shook my head. She took a long breath, released her hands, and looked into my eyes. “Listen to me very carefully. Stealing is wrong. And it’s not the life I want for you.”

  “Life? What are you talking about?” Jeez, was she overreacting or what? “It was just a candy bar. It’s not like I’m trying to be a career criminal.”

  “Career criminal?” She clenched her jaw. “Don’t do it again. Ever. Do you promise?”

  “Yeah, okay. I won’t do it again.”

  I hadn’t told Ethan. It was way too embarrassing. I’d shared most everything with him but not that.

  So how could I get to Washington, DC? If the candy-bar incident had happened a few months ago, maybe Mom would have cooled off by now. But it had happened just last week, so the memory was still fresh. “We’re going to have to get someone to take us,” I told Ethan.

  “Us?” He groaned. “When did I volunteer?”

  He hadn’t, of course, but we were partners. “We’ll need a chaperone.”

  “Who?”

  “Tyler,” I said.

  Ethan cringed. “No way. I’m not driving all the way to Washington, DC, with my brother.”

  “Why not? He’s got a driver’s license and a car.”

  “Why not?” Ethan’s voice cracked. It had started doing that lately. “Uh . . . well, the first reason is because he’s a terrible driver. It took him four tries to get his license. He couldn’t figure out how to parallel park so he blamed it on the car.”

  “Then we won’t let him parallel park,” I said.

  “Okay, but the second reason is he’ll make us listen to his gaming music.”

  “We’ll wear headphones. That’ll work.”

  “Maybe.” Ethan rearranged himself in the desk chair. “But there are other reasons, like—”

  “I know all the reasons,” I interrupted, summoning my confident voice, the one I used when I needed to convince Ethan to help me. “I know Tyler’s a pain. But we can’t ask your parents to take us, and we can’t ask my mom to take us. We have to keep the box a secret. Tyler’s the only choice.” I grabbed the box off the bed and held it in front of Ethan. His face was reflected in its gleaming surface. “This is really, really, really important to me. I need your help. Please?”

  Ethan crossed his arms and grumbled under his breath. “Yeah, okay.”

  “Yay!” I cheered, happy that I was going to solve this mystery but also happy that Ethan was going to be there with me—because going on this adventure without him would be like going to Disneyland alone. And who wants to ride Space Mountain solo?

  “Now we have to figure out how to convince Tyler.” I glanced at the alarm clock next to my bed. It was getting close to dinnertime. Mom would be home soon. “He’s already seen the box and he knows we’re trying to solve the puzzle. Do you think I should tell him the truth? It would make things a lot easier.”

  “Sure, you can tell him the truth,” Ethan said. “If you want him to blackmail you for the rest of your life. Remember when he found out I got a D on my history test? I’d stuffed the test in the bathroom garbage can and he found it and basically made my life a living hell. I had to dust all his Star Wars figurines and wash all his socks by hand. By hand. Have you smelled Tyler’s socks?”

  “Yeah, I remember.” The blackmail wasn’t a surprise. Tyler often used blackmail to enslave us, his lowly relations. What I couldn’t understand was how Ethan got such bad grades when his head was full of so many facts.

  I stared out the window, my mind seeking some sort of plan. How could we convince Tyler to take us? He thought we were a couple of annoying kids, so he wouldn’t care about helping us. “We have to give him a reason to go,” I said. “Something he can’t refuse.”

  Ethan shrugged. “The only things he cares about are his trophies and his games.”

  I spun around. “Yes, that’s it. Maybe there’s something going on like a gaming event.” I set the box on the desk and squeezed into the chair next to Ethan. My fingers flying across the keyboard, I began to search for events in WA DC. “There’s a symphony,” I read. “Classical music. There’s a cat show. A bunch of plays. There’s a geocaching event. There’s a lecture by some doctor. There’s—”

  “Go back,” Ethan said. Then he pointed to the geocaching event. I clicked on the link. “It’s a competition.”

  “What kind of competition?”

  “Geocaching is like a treasure hunt. You use a global positioning unit to find the treasures. Look, it says anyone can enter but you need to be in a team of two or more.” And then we both said, “There’s a trophy!”

  This had possibilities. Tyler pursued trophies like a big-game hunter. I read farther down the page, then groaned. “Crud! It was last week. We missed it.” I sank against the chair. It would have been perfect. Luring Tyler with a trophy would have been easier than luring a cat with tuna fish. “Wait a minute, I know what to do.” I pasted the event’s flyer into a new document, then changed the dates to this week. “Ta-da!”

  “The font doesn’t match,” Ethan pointed out. “He’ll notice.”

  “He won’t notice if I do this . . .” I put the word trophy into a huge bold font so it almost jumped off the page. Then I snickered. “He won’t notice anything else.”

  Gravel crunched beneath tires as Mom pulled into the driveway. “We’ll talk to him in the morning,” I said, printing the flyer, then shoving it into my desk drawer. “I’ll come over right after breakfast.” Then I grabbed the box and hid it in the back of my closet, under my winter coat. I didn’t want to leave it, but I knew it would be safe. Mom never asked me to clean my closet.

  “When he finds out we changed the date, he’ll kill us,” Ethan warned as we head
ed downstairs and out the front door.

  “He won’t kill us.”

  “Then he’ll do something worse.” Ethan grabbed his bike handles. “He’ll make us wash his underwear. By hand.”

  At that moment, I couldn’t think of anything more disgusting. But it was a risk I was willing to take. Because that box was my birthday present and I was determined to open it.

  Curiosity may have killed the cat but I was no cat.

  7

  Jax

  Sunday

  “Bye,” I hollered as Mom backed the car out of the driveway. She was leaving early because Sunday was the busiest breakfast day at the Chatham Diner. She waved.

  I ran upstairs to check on the metal box. It was still sitting in the back of my closet, underneath my winter coat. I gave it a little pat and said, “Don’t worry, you’ll be safe.” I know it’s weird to talk to a box. I’d checked it umpteen times during the night. I didn’t usually worry about things getting stolen. Why was I so worried now?

  After munching a couple handfuls of Cheerios, I jumped on my bike and rode to Ethan’s. The streets were pretty empty. I passed a few joggers. The house where the two annoying dorkies lived was next. Dorkies are half dachshund and half Yorkie. They raced from their front porch, snarling like rabid hot dogs. “Oooh, I’m really scared,” I taunted. “You guys are totally terrifying.” They yapped and lunged, but I managed to swerve around them without causing an accident scene.

  Ethan’s neighborhood was so much nicer than mine. The houses were twice the size and the driveways were paved. His parents were just getting into their BMW when I reached the house. “Hi, Jax,” Aunt Cathy said. She’d cropped her hair super short and wore a new pair of red glasses. Cathy was Mom’s older sister and, from what I’d figured out, she’d been the “good” girl growing up while Mom had been the “difficult” girl. Cathy went to college and graduate school and got married, while my mom traveled and worked odd jobs and had a baby out of wedlock.

  Uncle Phil tossed his briefcase into the car. He’d balded early so all he had left was a narrow strip of hair that wound around the back of his head. But he was still pretty handsome—for an old guy. “What do you and Ethan have planned today?” He looked at me suspiciously.

  “Moi?” I said with a shrug. “Just hanging out. Where are you going?”

  “We’re meeting some clients from China. They’ve developed a robotic toy dog. Unfortunately, they don’t seem to care that it’s Sunday.” Aunt Cathy smiled. “Be sure to eat that barley salad I left in the fridge. It’s healthy.”

  Sure, I’ll eat the barley salad . . . if it’s the very last edible thing left on earth.

  As they drove away, I leaned my bike against the shed, then went into the house. Ethan was eating a bowl of cereal at the kitchen table. Tyler, wearing only a pair of boxers and socks, was standing in front of the refrigerator, staring at the shelves. “Hey, Tyler, whatcha doing?” I asked, trying to sound super cheerful. It’s best to attract the wasp with honey, not vinegar, as the saying goes.

  “Sustenance,” Tyler mumbled. He splurted mustard onto a cold hot dog, then shoved half of it into his mouth.

  “You can get sick if you don’t heat those things,” Ethan said. “You can get listeriosis.”

  “That’s a super-duper interesting factoid,” Tyler said before shoving the rest of the dog into his mouth, “However, what you didn’t take into consideration is that this hot dog is soy, dipstick.” He popped open an energy drink and chugged the whole thing. I hate that stuff. I’m bouncy enough without pouring caffeine and sugar down my throat.

  Clearly my older cousin didn’t care anything about his appearance. Though he had a somewhat cute face, it was covered in stubble and his nose was pimply. He didn’t even bother to wipe the mustard drip from his boxers. And the socks had holes in the heels. “Well, nice chatting with you two dorks,” he said, followed by a burp. “But I gotta get back to the campaign. We’re designing a horde of invading Harpies to battle the Cyclops king.” Tyler slammed the refrigerator shut.

  And he called us dorks.

  “Hey, Tyler,” I said. “We have something to show you.” I held out the flyer.

  He glanced at it. “So?”

  “We thought you might want to register. There’s a trophy.” I said the word trophy real slow. “You could probably win. I mean, how hard can it be? You’re the smartest guy I know.” I almost gagged. Where was my pride? I was practically kissing his feet.

  He took the flyer, his gaze scanning it with the quick-fire precision of a gamer. “Registration is tomorrow, in Washington, DC,” he read. “Teams of two or more.”

  “Ethan and I talked it over,” I said. “We can go as a team.”

  Tyler curled his upper lip. “You two?”

  Ethan had been watching the conversation, his spoon held in midair, milk dripping down the handle. I elbowed him. “Uh . . .” He cleared his throat. We’d rehearsed this line last night over the phone. “You know Mom and Dad won’t let you go with your friends. But they might let you go with us.”

  “The parental units are total drags about my friends.” He scratched his fuzzy chin. “Does that mean you’ll want to share the trophy?”

  “It’s all yours,” I assured him. “We just want out of Chatham. It’s so boring around here. We won’t bug you once we get there. We’ll pretend to be on your team but we can do something else. You don’t even have to see us.”

  “I don’t have to see you?” Tyler read the flyer again. “Okay, if you can convince the units, then I’m in. But I’m not paying for the gas and hotel.”

  “I bet Mom and Dad would pay,” Ethan said.

  “Then it’s settled.” He smashed the can and tossed it into the recycle bin. “Gather your field-trip permission forms, little dweebs. The quest for the geocache treasure will begin at dawn.” He grabbed a loaf of bread, then strode out of the kitchen.

  He didn’t look like someone setting out on a quest, not with his buttcrack peeking out the top of his boxers.

  “Correction,” I whispered to Ethan. “The quest to open the secret box will begin at dawn.”

  8

  Ethan

  Here are some interesting facts about toys: Twister was originally called Pretzel and the teddy bear was named after President Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt, who liked to hunt bear. And Mr. Potato Head used to smoke a pipe but doesn’t anymore because it’s not politically correct.

  I know these things because my parents own Rainbow Product Testing. Their specialty is children’s toys. If someone invents a new toy for kids, the inventor can send it to Rainbow to make sure it’s safe. They started the company when I was four years old. Dad was sick of teaching at the university and Mom was sick of staying at home, taking care of two boys. She said we acted like wild savages most of the time. I remember Tyler drawing a bull’s-eye on my forehead with Mom’s lipstick, then throwing things at me. I remember him convincing me to flush our entire supply of Costco toilet paper down the toilet until it wouldn’t flush anymore and the bathroom became a lake. I remember the two of us taking all the food out of the refrigerator and putting it on the lawn to see how many raccoons showed up. Eight, as it turned out. And three dogs. Who could blame Mom for wanting to get away?

  When a toy comes to Rainbow Product Testing, it first goes to the laboratory. The lab is my dad’s territory. He holds a PhD in chemistry. The toy undergoes a series of tests to make sure it isn’t made with toxic materials. No lead or radioactive leakage, no biological hazards that might make kids sick. Small parts have to be measured because they might cause choking. Kids eat toy parts all the time. I don’t get that.

  If the toy passes inspection, then it goes to my mom. She runs the marketing department. Mom has a master’s degree in psychology. She helps the client figure out how to package the toy and decides the appropriate age group. Sometimes she brings in kids from the neighborhood to play and she observes them. She used to bring me and Tyler when we were younger, but she stop
ped bringing Tyler when she realized that he wasn’t the same as other kids. He’d piece together a puzzle in less than a minute while the other eight-year-olds were still listening to the directions.

  I pushed my bike into the lobby and leaned it against the counter. Since it was Sunday, there was no receptionist to tell me to put the bike outside. Jax had decided that it would be best for me to deal with my parents and she’d deal with her mom. She thought they might get suspicious if we presented ourselves as a team. She was probably right about that.

  The lobby walls were covered with images of some of the famous toys my parents had worked with. As I walked toward the laboratory, I yawned. I’d had trouble falling asleep, not just because Tyler had beheaded Cyclopses all night, but because I was worried about Jax’s latest plan. Tyler would eventually figure out that we’d changed the date on the flyer. And he’d make summer miserable for us. Well, for me, mostly. It’s easier to retaliate if the victim’s bedroom is right across the hall.

  Whatever was in that metal box had better be amazing.

  I put on a protective white smock and goggles before entering the lab. The lights were bright and the noise from the various machines made my head hurt. Dad was talking to the group from China. “We have complete facilities for both biological and chemical testing,” he explained. “Our equipment includes soxhlet extractors, heating block digestors, ion chromatographers, and a flow injection mercury system.” Dad waited for their translator to do her job, then he continued. “This allows us to test plastic, metal, paint, adhesives, fabric, and fillers, along with—” He noticed me and waved. “Excuse me for a moment,” he told the guests. As the translator spoke to the group, Dad hurried over. “What’s going on, Ethan?” he asked. “Is everything okay?”

  “I need to talk to you about something.”

  “Is it an emergency?”

  “No.”

  His expression relaxed. Who could blame him for feeling relieved? I hadn’t been the easiest kid lately. There’d been a serious conversation a while back about making bad choices. Jax and I had gone to a movie and when it was over, she’d convinced me to sneak into another movie down the hall to see if her friends were inside. We got distracted by a car chase scene and got caught by a manager. Then we went to a sporting goods store and Jax talked me into riding double on a skateboard. We lost control, toppled a kayak, and crashed into a fishing pole display. Mom called a family meeting that night. Tyler suggested that I stop hanging out with Jax. Mom said we needed to be gentle with her. She said Jax made poor choices because she wanted attention. “It’s not easy for a young woman to be without a father.” Dad promised that he’d try to pay more attention to Jax. And I promised to speak up for myself more often. I could still hang out with her, but I didn’t have to do everything her way.