by Dan Gutman
“Breakfast is served!” Mya announced.
As the twins chowed down, Mya and Bones gave them an update on what was going on.
“It’s good you didn’t go outside today,” Mya told them. “Those bowler dudes are checked in at Treasure Island right up the street, for one night only.”
“Remember Mrs. Higgins, your so-called health teacher?” asked Bones. “She’s working as a psychic healer in Sedona, Arizona.”
“We know,” Pep said. “We saw her. She didn’t try to hurt us at all. She says she’s no longer working for Dr. Warsaw.”
“Can she be trusted?” asked Coke.
“Maybe,” Bones said. “She’s no longer in love with him. We believe she’s come to her senses.”
“What about John Pain?” asked Pep.
“His whereabouts are unknown.”
“And Dr. Warsaw?”
“He was checked into an insane asylum in Arizona, but he escaped,” said Mya. “We understand he has acquired enough uranium to build a briefcase bomb, but hasn’t assembled it yet. We don’t know what his intentions are.”
Pep pulled out her notepad with the four ciphers written in it.
“If only we could figure out how those clues tie together,” she said. “I’ll bet it would lead us to him.”
Bones and Mya looked at the notepad, but it made no more sense to them than it did to Pep.
“We need to be on high alert now,” Mya said. “We feel that Dr. Warsaw may try to set off his bomb very soon, possibly in the next few days.”
“We’ll be home in a few days,” Coke said. “We’re only about five hundred miles from San Francisco now.”
The thought of Dr. Warsaw confronting them in their home made Coke visibly upset. It was obvious to Bones and Mya that he was not the same confident, cocky boy they had met five weeks earlier.
“It will all be over soon,” Bones said, putting an arm on Coke’s shoulder. “We promise you. Stay strong. You’ll need each other now more than ever. Here, we brought you a little present.”
He pulled a “Welcome to Las Vegas” Frisbee out of his bag.
“A Frisbee grenade?” Coke asked, brightening.
“No, it doesn’t explode or anything like that,” Mya replied.
“Does it decompose and give off a noxious gas that poisons the person who catches it?” Coke asked hopefully. “That would be cool.”
“No.”
“Maybe it emits an ear-piercing shriek that blows out their eardrums?” asked Coke.
“No, you just throw it back and forth,” Bones explained, “for fun.”
“Gee, thanks,” Pep said, taking the Frisbee.
Mya and Bones left. Coke flipped on the TV, but there was nothing good on. He tried to read a magazine, but his mind kept wandering. He couldn’t get Dr. Warsaw, John Pain, and those crazy bowler dudes out of his head.
“I’m going stir-crazy in this room,” he finally said to his sister. Let’s go someplace.”
“You heard what Mya said,” Pep told him. “The bowler dudes are right down the street. As soon as we set foot outside this hotel, they’ll be all over us.”
“Then let’s go swim in the hotel pool.”
“Well, okay . . .”
They put on their bathing suits and took the elevator down to the lobby, following the POOL signs. Lining the hallway, as everywhere else, were dozens of slot machines.
“Hey, let’s try one,” Coke said. “I have a dollar.”
“You heard what Dad said,” Pep told him. “Kids aren’t allowed to gamble. It’s against the law.”
“Dad will never know,” Coke replied, looking both ways and fishing a dollar bill out of his pocket. “Come on, let’s do it.”
“What if you win?” Pep said. “You know, if you hit the jackpot, lights start flashing and bells start ringing. I’ve seen it in movies. If you hit the jackpot, we’ll be in all kinds of trouble.”
“What are the chances of that happening?” Coke told his sister. “They program these things so you’ll lose. That’s how casinos make money. Everybody knows that.”
“Well, if you’re so sure you’re gonna lose,” Pep asked, throwing her hands up, “why do it in the first place? You’re just throwing your money away. Just like Dad said.”
“It’ll be fun!”
Coke looked around to make sure nobody was watching, and then slipped his dollar into the nearest slot machine.
“Go ahead,” he said. “Give it a pull. What are they gonna do, throw us in jail?”
Pep sighed, and pulled the lever.
The screen of the slot machine had four squares on it. They spun vertically for a few seconds, and then stopped. Whether you won or lost depended on how many of the squares matched up.
When the squares stopped spinning, this is what was on the screen. . . .
“Isn’t it supposed to be pictures of cherries and fruit and stuff like that?” Pep asked.
She looked at the screens of the slot machines on either side. None of them had numbers.
No coins slid out on the tray at the bottom, but a few seconds later, a card slid out. It was the size of a business card. In fact, it was a business card. Pep gasped when she saw what was printed on it. . . .
DR. HERMAN WARSAW
INVENTOR/CONSULTANT/GENIUS
On the back of the card, handwritten in pencil, were five words. . . .
This is the last one
Go to Google Maps (http://maps.google.com).
Click Get Directions.
In the A box, type Las Vegas NV.
In the B box, type Baker CA.
Click Get Directions.
“That means 8980 is a cipher!” Pep shouted. “And it’s the last one!”
The twins never made it to the pool. They went back to the room to try to figure out what it all meant.
CIPHER #1: MAY 28, 1937, VOLKSWAGEN IS FOUNDED
CIPHER #2: 49:08. 28:40.5
CIPHER #3: FIREWEED
CIPHER #4: BULLARD
CIPHER #5: 8980
It still didn’t make sense. But very soon, it would.
Chapter 21
FUN IN THE SUN
“You kids missed all the fun!” Mrs. McDonald gushed when she got back to the hotel room.
She and Dr. McDonald proceeded to regale Coke and Pep with stories of their adventures visiting many of the oddball museums and attractions Las Vegas had to offer. Her only regret, she said, was that the Liberace Museum had closed several years earlier.
“So what did you two do while we were out?” asked Dr. McDonald.
“Nothing.”
Everybody got a good night’s sleep, and after checking out of the hotel in the morning, the family stuffed themselves at one of the many all-you-can-eat breakfast buffets found on the Strip.
Mrs. McDonald started grabbing snacks to munch on in the car, but the rest of the family convinced her that would be unethical—if not illegal—so she put everything back.
“It’s all-you-can-eat, Mom,” Pep scolded her. “Not all-you-can-stuff-in-your-purse.”
Everybody had gorged themselves. It was hard to imagine being hungry after a Las Vegas buffet.
“I don’t want to eat again for the rest of my life,” Coke said, rubbing his belly.
There are only a few roads heading west out of Las Vegas. Dr. McDonald pulled the Ferrari onto I-15, also known as the Mojave Freeway. In just twenty minutes, the bright lights and glitz of Las Vegas were completely gone and the hot, flat, wide-open spaces of arid Nevada were back. One couldn’t help but wonder why human beings had chosen to build a strange playground in the middle of the desert for people to lose their money on slot machines and roulette wheels.
“I have an announcement to make,” Dr. McDonald said shortly after leaving the city limits of Las Vegas.
“Uh-oh,” thought both twins. When their father had an announcement to make, it was usually not good news.
“I slept on it,” their father continued, “and after going to
the Atomic Testing Museum yesterday, I’ve decided not to write that Trinity novel we talked about.”
“Why not, Dad?” Pep asked. “That would have been a cool story.”
“There are dozens of books about the first atomic test,” he explained. “The world doesn’t need another one. I want to write something totally original.”
“Dad, you should write a novel about a guy who can’t come up with an idea for a novel to write,” Coke suggested.
“It’s been done.”
“So what are you going to write about, Dad?” Pep asked.
“I don’t know,” Dr. McDonald replied. “I’ll come up with something.”
Pep opened her notepad and turned to the page with the five ciphers they had received. She focused on the fifth one. It would be the last one, according to Dr. Warsaw’s card.
8980
Numbers were harder to figure out than letters, Pep always found. And four digits didn’t give her much to work with. It was obviously a very short message. The Internet wasn’t much help. Pep borrowed her mother’s laptop and searched for “8980,” but all that came up were a bunch of street addresses and model numbers for various products.
After staring at her notepad for a long time, Pep closed it with a sigh. She could work on it again later.
Everyone had settled in for a long drive, but just an hour and a half after leaving Las Vegas, this sign appeared at the side of the road. . . .
As if on cue, the whole family spontaneously burst into that old song—“Cal-i-forn-ia here I come, right back where I started from . . .”
Everyone stopped right there, because nobody knew the next line of the song.
“Woo-hoo!” Coke shouted. “We’re home, baby!”
Well, not exactly home. California is a big, long state. If you were to drive from the top to the bottom, it would be about eight hundred miles.
However, if they kept driving without a stop, the McDonalds could be home that very same day. It’s only about three hours from the state line to Los Angeles, and after that it’s a five-hour straight shot up I-5 to San Francisco. But just knowing that they were finally back in the state of California again made everyone feel like they were home.
When you think of Southern California, you probably think of the glamour of Los Angeles—beautiful movie stars, spectacular mansions, swimming pools, and crowded freeways. But here, right near the Nevada border, there was none of that. This part of California is desert, and some of the most unforgiving desolation in the world. If not for the water and electricity supplied by Hoover Dam, parts of Southern California would be virtually uninhabitable.
Mrs. McDonald dropped her Nevada guidebook in the trash. She didn’t have one for California. Who buys a guidebook to their own state? She did, however, open her laptop so she could go on the internet and see if the family would be passing by anything she could use in Amazing but True.
“Hey, guess what?” she said. “The world’s largest thermometer is in Baker, California!”
Dr. McDonald rolled his eyes.
“Bridge,” he said delicately, “yesterday we went to the Houdini Museum, the Mob Museum, and the fake Statue of Liberty. How about we take a break today? Is it really crucially important for you to see the world’s largest thermometer?”
“Yes!”
Dr. McDonald gritted his teeth and sighed. Once again, he knew he was going to be the one to give in. He had to. It was Amazing but True that paid for the whole vacation. That silly website earned a ridiculous amount of money. It was only fair for Mrs. McDonald to decide where they would go on the trip. This was another reason why he wanted to write a novel. If he could get on the bestseller list, he would be a more equal partner when it came to making these kinds of decisions.
“Oh, come on, Ben,” Mrs. McDonald said, more sweetly. “The world’s largest thermometer is right on our way. We don’t even have to get off the road.”
That was true. Less than 50 miles from the California state line, they reached the little town of Baker, punctuated by gas stations and fast food joints.
“There it is!” Pep shouted, pointing at the distant structure sticking up out of the ground.
The world’s largest thermometer is hard to miss. You can see it for miles around.
“Pull over, Ben!” Mrs. McDonald suddenly shouted. The thermometer was still several blocks away.
“What? Did I hit something?” Dr. McDonald yelled as he slammed on the brakes and swerved off the road into a parking lot.
He hadn’t hit anything. But he had almost driven right past Baker, California’s, other claim to fame, the Alien Fresh Jerky store!
“We’ve got to stop here,” said Mrs. McDonald.
It was irresistible. On the outside of Alien Fresh Jerky was a fake flying saucer and an alien sitting on top of a sign and waving a cowboy hat. On the inside was a mechanical alien fortune-teller, alien mugs, refrigerator magnets, and similar knickknacks. That, and “the best jerky in the universe,” of course.
“I wonder if Moe, Larry, and Curly have been here,” Pep whispered to her brother.
“They probably own the joint,” Coke whispered back.
Nobody was hungry after their big breakfast, but Mrs. McDonald bought a few strips of beef, gator, and turkey jerky for souvenirs. She took some notes and photos for Amazing but True, and then it was back in the Ferrari to drive to the giant thermometer, just past some palm trees down the road.
“So this is it, eh?” asked Dr. McDonald as he got out of the car.
The world’s largest thermometer was, to be honest, a bit of a disappointment. Admittedly, it is large—134 feet tall and 76,812 pounds. But it isn’t really a working thermometer. It’s just a sign made to look like a thermometer.
“Man, it’s hot out here,” Pep said, wiping her forehead.
“Yeah,” Coke replied, “too bad there isn’t a thermometer around so we can know the temperature.”
“Very funny,” Mrs. McDonald said as she dutifully took photos and notes. The fans of Amazing but True would appreciate the world’s largest thermometer, even if it wasn’t a working thermometer.
Dr. McDonald noticed the words at the bottom of the thermometer, and they prompted him to pull out his road atlas.
“Hey, guys,” he said. “Did you know that Death Valley is less than two hours from here?”
“So?” Pep asked.
“We should go there,” said her father.
“What’s at Death Valley, Ben?” asked Mrs. McDonald. “Isn’t it a bunch of nothing?”
“It’s supposed to be amazing,” said Dr. McDonald. “There’s lots of wildlife, and it’s the lowest elevation in the United States. Parts of it are actually below sea level.”
Death Valley didn’t sound particularly exciting to Mrs. McDonald. What interested her were wacky museums, halls of fame, and tacky tourist traps. As far as the kids were concerned, just the name “Death Valley” gave them the creeps.
“Why do you want to go to Death Valley?” Coke asked his father. “Couldn’t we get stranded in the desert and die there? Isn’t that why it’s called Death Valley in the first place?”
“You watch too many movies,” his father said. “There’s a Death Valley National Park there. How dangerous could it be if they have a national park?”
“Well, you indulged me, Ben,” said Mrs. McDonald, putting her arm around him. “If you want to take a little spontaneous detour to Death Valley, I say let’s do it.”
“Oh man,” Coke whined. “We’ve been on the road for more than five weeks now. I just want to get home!”
“Me too,” agreed Pep.
“Look, we’ve come this far,” Dr. McDonald told the twins. “Death Valley could end up to be the highlight of the whole trip. Come on, where’s your sense of adventure?”
Go to Google Maps (http://maps.google.com).
Click Get Directions.
In the A box, type Baker CA.
In the B box, type Death Valley State Park CA.
Route 127 starts in Baker and goes north over 100 miles to Death Valley. It’s also called Death Valley Road. A mile and a half into the drive, they passed little Baker Airport on the left. After that it was just desert as far as the eye could see.
The Mojave, to be specific. Ten thousand years ago, there used to be a huge lake there. When the water evaporated, it left miles of salt flats, low-lying shrubs, and a few hearty snakes, spiders, and wildlife that could survive one of the harshest environments on earth.
“We’re lucky we have air-conditioning,” Pep said.
Coke cracked his window open a few inches, and hot air rushed into the car. He quickly closed the window again.
The climate of Death Valley is the result of being below sea level and surrounded by mountains. Hot, dry air masses get trapped in the valley and sit there. The highest temperature ever recorded was right in Death Valley, on July 10, 1913, when it reached 134 degrees Fahrenheit. That is hot. It’s not at all unusual for the temperature to get into the 120-degree range during the summer.
They say that bighorn sheep, coyotes, bobcats, and mountain lions roam the area, but the McDonalds didn’t see any as they drove toward Death Valley. All they saw were windswept sand dunes, a few dilapidated wooden shacks, and the occasional rusted-out, abandoned car.
And yet, there was something beautiful about Death Valley. It was almost like visiting another planet.
“I’m glad we decided to come here,” Dr. McDonald said. “Think of it. There probably isn’t another human being for miles around. This is what all of North America used to look like just a few hundred years ago, guys. No advanced civilization. No fast food joints or ugly strip malls. Just nature. And someday, after our species is extinct, this is what America will look like again.”
“You’re totally bumming me out, Dad,” Coke said.
“I’d sure hate to get stuck here,” said Pep.