by Dan Gutman
Coke realized what she had in mind. He put his weight against the handle of the sword and pushed it another foot or so into the side of the pit. It held firm, with not much more than the handle sticking out.
Coke hoisted up his sister. She carefully put one foot on the handle of the sword and climbed out of the pit. Then she reached down and helped Coke climb out. They looked into the pit one last time to see the bowler dude lying there, motionless.
“I’ve played in the sand enough for one day,” Coke said.
“Yeah,” she agreed. “Let’s blow this pop stand.”
When they finally got back down to the parking lot, their parents were waiting impatiently.
“What took you so long?” Mrs. McDonald asked. “You were up there for a long time.”
“Did you kids have fun?” Dr. McDonald asked. “What was it like up there? Did it sound different?”
“It was scary, Mom,” Pep said. “Real scary.”
“Did you remember to fill the jar with sand?” Mrs. McDonald asked.
“Uh . . . yeah,” Coke replied weakly.
“So, where is it?”
“I . . . guess I left it up there,” Coke said honestly.
“How could you leave it there?” his mother asked, exasperated. “What is your problem? I swear, I can’t understand you kids. I don’t ask a lot. I ask you to do one simple thing. . . .”
“Can we just get out of here?” Pep requested. She wasn’t about to tell her mother that they used her souvenir to bonk a guy on the head and very possibly kill him.
They piled back into the RV and drove away, serenaded by the sound of the singing sand in the distance.
Chapter 15
I’ll Be Watching You
As the McDonalds drove back on Lovelock Highway up to I-80, the twins sat without saying a word. Suddenly they realized how naive they had been. They had thought that once they’d gotten on the road with their parents, their troubles would be over. They had thought they would be safe in the RV. Who could bother them in the deserts of Nevada? Their parents would protect them.
Right.
Coke felt the back of his head. There was a GPS chip buried in there somewhere, he remembered. Bones had staple gunned it into his scalp. But who knew where Bones was now? He didn’t show up at the sand dune to help them. That bowler dude guy had said that Mrs. Higgins had “taken care of” their friends. Maybe Bones and Mya weren’t even alive anymore.
Go to Google Maps (http://maps.google.com/).
Click Get Directions.
In the A box, type Toulon NV.
In the B box, type Wendover UT.
Click Get Directions.
Coke looked out the window at the big sky. Mrs. Higgins was working with those bowler dudes to kill him and Pep. That much he knew. Maybe satellites were tracking their position, following their every move, listening in on every conversation.
What had they gotten themselves into?
He fiddled with his deck of cards as these thoughts were running through his brain. The cards had become his security blanket in a way. Just holding them calmed him. Pep sat with her eyes closed. She was shaken, traumatized by the incident at the top of Sand Mountain.
Dr. McDonald pulled on to I-80 and announced that his goal was to make it across Nevada by the end of the day. It would be about 320 miles.
“How about a travel game to pass the time?” Mrs. McDonald piped up cheerfully. “I’ll name a place, and you guys have to think of a different place that starts with the last letter of my place. Got it? I’ll start. Vietnam.”
“Miami,” said Dr. McDonald.
“Islip,” said Mrs. McDonald. “It’s a city in New York State.”
“Punjab,” said Dr. McDonald. “It’s a region in India.”
“What about you kids?” Mrs. McDonald hollered behind her. “Don’t you want to play? Get into the spirit of it! Can you think of a place that starts with the letter B?”
“Boring,” said Coke.
He was right, too. There actually is a town in Oregon called Boring. Go ahead and look it up.
“We don’t want to play right now, Mom,” Pep said quietly. “We’re tired.”
“You kids are no fun at all,” Mrs. McDonald said.
She gave up the idea of playing a travel game and slipped a CD out of the visor in front of her—The Best of Police. The first song began to play. A guy was singing about how he would always be watching somebody—every breath they take, every move they make.
The song sent a shiver down Pep’s spine. Somebody was watching them. She took out her cell phone and punched in a text to her brother. . . .
PEP: U think that bowler dude on sand mountain is dead?
COKE: Don’t no. Don’t wanna no. Probly not.
PEP: We couldve killed him. The sword was just lying there.
COKE: Coulda shoulda woulda.
PEP: If hes still alive he could bother us again.
COKE: I no.
Pep pulled out her pad and pencil to resume work on the unsolvable cipher they had found on the windshield that morning.
JNTET FFHNO LCDNB LTYUL VSEED
NTHTU EWNYI TOECO KOTEA
EORIEDPNOITOR
She tried reading every second letter to see if it made any sense that way. Then she tried reading every third letter, and then every fourth letter. Then she tried them all backward. It was just gibberish. She closed her eyes again.
People who have never been to Nevada tend to think it’s just a barren desert with two big cities: Las Vegas and Reno. In fact, it’s the most mountainous state in the nation and is filled with jagged canyons, lush valleys, gorgeous fields of alfalfa hay, sheep ranches, and cactus. Lots of cactus. And yes, the occasional rattlesnake, Gila monster, and kangaroo rat.
There are also a lot of cool places in Nevada, especially for people who gravitate toward the offbeat.
Like Coke and Pep’s mom.
Mrs. McDonald reached into her tote bag full of guidebooks and pulled out one titled Eccentric America.
“Hey, in Middlegate they have this thing called the Nevada Shoe Tree,” she announced. “It says here that some couple was about to get married and the groom was afraid his bride was going to run away, so he threw her shoes up into the tree. Lots of other people threw their shoes up there too, and today that tree is filled with shoes. We should go there.”
“Middlegate is a hundred miles south of here,” Dr. McDonald said. “I’m not driving that far out of our way to see a tree with shoes on it.”
“You’re no fun,” Mrs. McDonald said. “Hey, here’s something that’s only about five miles off the highway, outside of Imlay. It’s called Thunder Mountain.”
“Is it an amusement park?” Pep asked.
“No,” her mother replied, “a Creek Indian named Chief Rolling Mountain Thunder built a house out of concrete, old car bodies, and lots of other stuff he found lying around. The top floor is made out of bottles, and the windows are made from car windshields.”
“That sounds cool,” Coke remarked.
“It sounds like a waste of time to me,” Dr. McDonald said bluntly. “I thought you were all so anxious to see that ridiculous ball of twine in Kansas.”
“Yeah!” Pep said, suddenly remembering. “Let’s drive straight through to Kansas. We want to go to the ball of twine.”
She shot a look at her brother. No words were necessary. They both remembered that they had a mission to accomplish. Somebody was going to pull off an attack at the largest ball of twine in the world. Neither of them wanted to get out of the RV until they got there. Neither of them wanted to repeat what happened on Sand Mountain.
“Well, we have to stop here,” Dr. McDonald said to the others as he pulled off at an exit marked Battle Mountain. “We need to gas up. And how about we eat lunch out today?”
He pulled into the parking lot of a fast-food joint. The twins got out of the RV cautiously. They looked around for any sign of guys with bowler hats, blow guns, and golf carts; or ps
ychotic health teachers; or other suspicious characters. Not seeing anything out of the ordinary, they relaxed a bit. Dr. McDonald led the family into the restaurant. The sign said SEAT YOURSELF, and they slid into a booth. The waitress, an older woman, came over with menus.
“Welcome to Battle Mountain,” she said cheerfully, “the Armpit of America.”
“That’s not a very nice thing to say about your own town,” Mrs. McDonald said with a laugh.
“Honey,” the waitress said, “it’s our claim to fame.”
It was true. She told the McDonalds that back in 2001, The Washington Post had named Battle Mountain, Nevada, the Armpit of America. Instead of being humiliated over it, the town had convinced the company that makes Old Spice deodorant to sponsor an annual Festival in the Pit. They had featured events such as antiperspirant tossing and an armpit beauty pageant. But those festivities had “dried out” a few years back.
“Bummer,” Coke said. “Too bad we missed that.”
“That’s what I love about America,” Mrs. McDonald said, taking notes for her website. “You never know what you’re going to find.”
The burgers were greasy but good. Then it was back onto I-80. Soon there were signs for Elko, Nevada, where the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering is held each year. That’s right, cowboys and cowgirls come from all over the world to recite poetry. Mrs. McDonald suggested they stop and try to meet some cowboys there, but the sun was getting low in the sky and Dr. McDonald wanted to press on.
Small Nevada towns passed by: Osino . . . Halleck . . . Deeth . . . and even a town called Welcome. Continuing down the highway, with darkness falling, they crossed the state line.
“Woo-hoo!” Coke yelled, clapping his hands. “Did you know that it’s illegal to hunt whales in Utah? That’s pretty strange, considering it’s landlocked.”
Mrs. McDonald smiled to herself. It was nice to know that her son shared her fascination with useless information.
“Nobody cares, Coke,” Pep told her brother. “How many miles to the largest ball of twine in the world?”
Mrs. McDonald punched it into her laptop.
“Nine hundred and eighty-seven miles!” she announced.
“Woo-hoo!”
They had to drive a few miles before they saw signs for a campground that allowed RVs. Coke asked his dad if he should do a dump before they went to sleep, but it was decided to wait a few days until the level in the holding tank was higher. They all changed into pj’s and crawled into their little beds.
Before she turned off her light, Pep took one last look at the cipher that had been in the back of her mind all day.
JNTET FFHNO LCDNB LTYUL VSEED
NTHTU EWNYI TOECO KOTEA
EORIEDPNOITOR
She was stumped. Frustrated after a few minutes, she gave up and slipped the pad under her mattress. She flipped off the little light and went to sleep.
If you ever woke up in the middle of the night with an idea or a vivid dream, you know that the human brain doesn’t just turn on and off like a light. It keeps thinking even when you’re sleeping. It is an amazing machine.
Just before dawn, Pep awoke with an idea. She got out of bed and shook Coke until he opened his eyes.
“I got it!” she whispered in his ear. “I think it might be a rail fence cipher!”
“A what?” Coke rubbed his eyes. “Are you crazy? You’ll wake Mom and Dad. Go back to sleep.”
“No, I need your help.”
Pep reached for her pad and wrote out the cipher again with no spaces between the “words,” this time dividing the letters into two rows.
JNTETFFHNOLCDNBLTYULVSEEDNTHT
UEWNYITOECOKOTEAEORIEDPNOITOR
Next she wrote down the first letter of the top line: J. Then she wrote down the first letter of the bottom line: U. The second letter of the top line: N. The second letter of the bottom line: E.
JUNE
Now she was getting somewhere! With her brother fully awake and whispering in her ear, Pep kept writing down letters, alternating between the top line and the bottom line. It didn’t take long to work out the entire message that way.
JUNETWENTYFIFTHONEOCLOCKDONTBELATEYOURLIVESDEPENDONITTHOTR
And when she added spaces where they seemed to fit . . .
JUNE TWENTY FIFTH ONE OCLOCK DONT BE LATE YOUR LIVES DEPEND ON IT THOTR
“THOTR?” whispered Coke. “What’s THOTR? That part must be a mistake.”
“No, it’s like a signature,” his sister whispered back. “THOTR must be the person who’s been sending us these messages!”
They looked at the letters THOTR carefully. They didn’t look as if they were anybody’s name. The word hot was in there. Hotter? Other? Throttle? Otter? Pep switched the letters around, looking for words that might fit. TROT. TO. TOT. ROT. HOT TO TROT?
And then, simultaneously, they both figured out what THOTR meant.
“The house on the rock!”
Mr. and Mrs. McDonald nearly woke up from the noise.
“THOTR stands for ‘the house on the rock’!” Pep said. “We need to be there at one o’clock on June twenty-fifth. That’s our birthday!”
“It’s also four days from now,” Coke informed her.
“But we don’t even know where this stupid house is,” Pep said. “It could be anywhere. How are we supposed to find it?”
“Beats me.”
Chapter 16
Dads Gone Wild
Coke and Pep leaned over the message, staring at it as if the words might change if they looked at them hard enough.
“What is it with this house on a rock?” Coke whispered.
“I don’t know,” his sister replied. “But we have to figure it out. Somebody wants us to be there on our birthday.”
“And don’t forget; we need to get to the ball of twine, too,” Coke noted. “We promised Bones.”
With so much on their minds, the twins went back to bed but slept poorly. They were groggy when their father woke them up early. He seemed anxious to check out of the campground and get on the road.
Northern Utah didn’t look much different from the eastern part of Nevada. Flat. Hot. Dry. There wasn’t a whole lot to look at, at least not along I-80. It was going to be one of those staring-out-the-window kind of days.
After a few miles, a sign appeared.
Dr. McDonald veered off the highway at exit 4.
“Ben, where are you going?” Mrs. McDonald asked.
“You’ll see.”
He drove a few miles into the state park without saying a word to anybody. Mrs. McDonald and the twins shot nervous glances at one another. It wasn’t like Dr. Benjamin McDonald to do impulsive, spontaneous things. He was a planner. He liked schedules and lists.
“This is a state park?” Pep asked, looking at the scenery. “It doesn’t look like any state park I ever saw.”
“Yeah, what’s so great about this place, Dad?” Coke asked. “There are lots of cooler state parks we could go to. This place looks like a lot of nothing.”
“A lot of salt,” Mrs. McDonald added.
“That’s exactly what it is,” Dr. McDonald agreed, smiling as he pulled off the access road and onto the white salt flat itself. “Thirty thousand acres of salt. Nothing but salt.”
“And we came here for what reason exactly?” Pep asked.
“Do you have a sodium deficiency in your diet, Dad?” Coke asked.
“Look around you,” Dr. McDonald told the family. “It’s so flat here that you can almost see the curvature of the earth. It’s so barren, even the simplest forms of life can’t survive. It’s like another planet, an alien world of potassium, magnesium lithium, and sodium chloride.”
The twins looked at each other. There was a good chance that their father had lost his marbles.
“Thousands of years ago,” he continued, “Lake Bonneville covered a third of what is now Utah. When the lake evaporated, salt and minerals were left on the bottom. And over time, the surface became flat and hard.”
“Okay, can we go now?” Pep said, shielding her eyes from the blinding sun reflecting off the salt flat. “It’s probably a hundred degrees. If the RV broke down, we could die out here.”
“Yeah, this place is lame, Dad,” Coke added.
“This place is for me,” Dr. McDonald said dreamily. “You get to go to your yo-yo museums and your Pez museums. You get to see your giant ball of twine and all those other goofball places Mom wants to visit. The Bonneville Salt Flats is a place I always wanted to go to ever since I was a little boy.”
“Why, Ben?” Mrs. McDonald asked. “What’s here? Is this some sort of midlife crisis for you?”
“Yes, it is,” Dr. McDonald admitted. “Do you guys know what the Bonneville Salt Flats is famous for?”
“I do,” Coke replied.
Of course, Coke knew all about the Bonneville Salt Flats from a Saturday morning TV special he’d seen years earlier. He remembered every detail.
It turns out that back in 1914, a daredevil named Teddy Tezlaff brought an early car—a Blitzen Benz—out to the Bonneville Salt Flats and drove it 141.73 miles per hour: the world record at the time. Ever since then car buffs from all over the world have come to the salt flats to see how fast they could drive. Over the years they bumped the world land speed record up to 300 mph, then 400 mph, and eventually past 600 mph.
“When I was a kid,” Dr. McDonald told the family, “this guy named Craig Breedlove brought a jet-powered car out here and broke the six-hundred-mile-per-hour barrier. I still remember the name of his car: Spirit of America. Ever since then, I wanted to come to Bonneville.”
“I understand, Ben,” Mrs. McDonald said, patting his shoulder. “So we’re going to watch a race here?”
“No,” he replied. “Same sentence. Take out the ‘watch a.’”
“We’re going to race here?” Pep asked, alarmed.
“That’s right,” Dr. McDonald said. He had a devilish gleam in his eyes, and he gripped the steering wheel tightly.