Book Scavenger (26 page)

Vivian raised her hand and spoke at the same time. “Your message still doesn't make sense. You can't use nonsense words and expect us to figure them out—can he, Mr. Quisling?”

Before Mr. Quisling could reply, Emily spoke up. “Those aren't nonsense words,” she said, realizing she could read James's message even though nobody else in the class could, and she smiled at what it said. “He used a substitution cipher to encrypt his message as a backup, in case you figured out the scytale. Right?” she asked James.

He nodded, smiling. James held up a piece of paper that showed their secret code. “This is the cipher key I used. Decoded, my message reads
Royal Fungus
.”

When James sat back down, Mr. Quisling clapped. Emily joined in without even thinking about it. She lowered her hands quickly, embarrassed by her show of enthusiasm, but James gave her a half smile and Steve a “good job” pat on his tips. Small gestures, but they made Emily feel a million times lighter.

When the bell rang and everyone collected their things, James shuffled down the aisle and out the classroom without a glance her way. Emily didn't realize she must have been obviously watching him until Maddie stood beside her and said, “Looks like too little too late.” She plumped up her mushroom-cap hair with one hand. Maddie was only trying to get under her skin, Emily knew that. And it worked, too, but not in the way Maddie might have been hoping for. Hearing her fear verbalized by Maddie, that her friendship with James was over for good, had the unexpected effect of making Emily realize how silly it sounded. It wasn't too late. And oddly enough, Maddie of all people had just given Emily a brilliant idea for how to make things right.

Back at her apartment that afternoon, Emily wrote a note for the bucket. All it said was:

B'N SXPPD

(I'm sorry)

She placed the note in the sand pail. She picked up the reindeer antlers and taped a paper towel to them, arranging the items to look like a white flag waving for a truce. She stuffed the antlers in the pail, making sure the flag would be visible in James's window once raised. When the bucket had been lifted, she secured the rope so the pail would remain there until James retrieved it.

A while later the ceiling creaked. James's window was opposite his door, so Emily knew he'd see the antlers and flag when he walked into his room. Whether or not he'd check it was another story.

The creaking stopped, then resumed again, and James's window slid open. His snorting laugh and the tinkle of a bell carried down through her open window.

He returned a response:

B'N SXPPD VXX

(I'm sorry too)

Emily sent a follow-up note:

ETF ZU VTWO?

(Can we talk?)

James came over, and they spent Friday evening catching up on the week.

“You had those men trekking all the way to the Sunset? And Babbage is Mr. Quisling?” He shook his head, disbelieving. “I stop talking to you for a few days and all sorts of stuff happens. The most exciting thing for me was dinner with my dad at Michelangelo's.”

“Winning a homework pass for Quisling's challenge is nothing to yawn over. You're one up on Maddie now. You know she's stressing that she'll have to make her hair look like a toadstool. Which reminds me, I have a plan I think you'll like. I'm calling it: Operation Royal Fungus.”

*   *   *

Monday marked three days since Emily had deciphered the scarab clue. It still stung to think about
The Gold-Bug
squeezed onto a shelf somewhere and Mr. Griswold's game going dormant. But it was the words of her brother, of all people, that comforted her. She'd rather have played some of Mr. Griswold's game than none of it at all. And things had been righted with James, so she hadn't lost everything.

On their walk to school, they rehashed the plan for Operation Royal Fungus. It hinged on them maintaining the appearance of their fight, so they parted ways before they reached Booker.

At lunchtime, James staked out a table next to Maddie's in the library, his latest code work spread in front of him. When Emily approached, James made a big show of scooping his papers together.

“Can I help you?” he asked. His anger and annoyance was so palpable, Emily forgot for a second that they were pretending. “I…” she stammered.

Maddie nudged the girl next to her and jutted her chin in Emily's direction, which was exactly the motivation Emily needed to surge forward with the lines she and James had practiced.

“What are you working on?” she asked.

James didn't look at her.

Emily dropped into the seat beside him, their backs to Maddie. “James, come on. Are you still mad? You've won a homework pass now.”

He gathered his papers and tapped them against the table. “No thanks to you. And Maddie could make a comeback, so I haven't won our bet yet. This new cipher makes my other one look like a preschooler's puzzle. There's no way I'm sharing it with you and risking it being stolen or copied.”

“Your Baconian cipher would have been broken anyway,” Emily said as James held the stack of papers behind him, hovering over his wide-open backpack. “I mean, binary code? Doesn't that seem kind of obvious? Especially coming from a computer geek like you.”

“What?” James released the papers. The plan was for them to fall onto the floor instead of into the backpack, but for their scheme to be believable, neither one of them could look to make sure that was, in fact, what had happened.

“Besides, I saw that idea in a book,” Emily continued with their script.

“Prove it.”

James grabbed his backpack without looking at it and followed Emily as she marched across the library and disappeared between rows of bookshelves. When they were out of sight from the tables, Emily whispered, “Did she fall for it?”

James bent to a low shelf and slid aside books to create a tiny window. He crouched down and peered between the spines, watching for a moment before he held up a triumphant thumb.

“I practically dropped the papers at her feet,” James said. “Of course she couldn't resist.”

“Well, let's hope she uses them. And then the rest is up to Mr. Quisling. Hopefully he notices.”

*   *   *

In social studies, James made a big show of looking for another missing item when Mr. Quisling collected the cipher challenge submissions. No surprise to Emily or James, Maddie turned in “her” submission for the challenge. Mr. Quisling accepted it and looked it over. Slowly he raised his head, his eyes locked onto Maddie like lasers.

“Is this a joke, Ms. Fernandez?”

What Maddie didn't realize was that the cipher wasn't James's. The cipher belonged to Babbage, copied word for word. It was a Sherlock Holmes–level cipher, and Emily and James didn't have a clue how to solve it. James had included a fake solution among the pages he pretended to drop in the library. They figured either Mr. Quisling would recognize his own work or later, when it went unsolved, Maddie would have to reveal her solution, which would prove to be a nonsensical answer key once she started walking the class through it.

Emily was so pleased that her trick had worked she almost missed Mr. Quisling's stare shift momentarily to herself. Almost. It was enough to remind Emily of an important detail she'd overlooked. Mr. Quisling knew
she
knew his Book Scavenger identity as Babbage. If he recognized his own cipher from the website, then it was a logical step to connect her to it. Emily studied the carved diamond on her desk. But Mr. Quisling addressed Maddie, not Emily.

“I know this cipher, Ms. Fernandez. And I know it's not yours.”

“But I—”

“Cheating is not tolerated in this classroom, on any assignment. Furthermore, you were warned last week about the consequences of turning in a cipher other than your own creation. I'm disqualifying you from the contest.”

James scribbled on his notebook and raised it for Emily to see
DUS!
or
YES!
in their cipher language. All they'd wanted was to give Maddie a taste of her own medicine. Having her disqualified was an added bonus.

“What?” Maddie cried. “That's not fair!”

“Disqualified. End of discussion,” Mr. Quisling said. “You've wasted enough of our time.”

In the hallway after class, Maddie stomped up to Emily and James.

“You set me up!” she cried so loudly students stopped to stare.

“Do you hear that?” James cupped a hand around his ear. “That's the sound of Steve celebrating my win. Don't worry—you'll look great as a redhead.”

Maddie blushed. “Your win? I didn't lose. I was disqualified.”

“I don't remember that being part of the bet. Do you remember that being part of the bet, Emily?”

“Nope.”

“The agreement was whoever earned more homework passes or got to three first. Disqualification wasn't mentioned,” James said. “I won one, and you have, let me count.… Oh, that's right—none!”

“Whatever. It's a stupid bet. I wouldn't have made you shave your head.”

James snorted. “Right.”

Maddie turned on her heel and marched away into the crowd.

“You'll start a toadstool trend!” James called after her. “Embrace your fate! Don't be afraid of your own destiny!”

“Do you think she'll do it?” Emily asked.

“Not a chance,” he said. “It's okay, though. Watching her squirm was better than the toadstool hair. She probably
would
start a trend. Or she'd at least enjoy all the attention.”

 

CHAPTER

35

SEA LION BRAYS
carried from Pier 39 as Emily and James walked up to their building after school. The sound took Emily back to her first day in San Francisco, almost a month ago. Hearing wild barks in the middle of a city had been jarring, unexpected, but now they were soothing. It wasn't every day that she could hear them, so she knew the noise was a gift. She knew the city well enough now that she could track a route down their hill and through the grid of streets that stretched below to the general location of Pier 39.

They climbed the front steps of their building, which had once looked so starved and severe to Emily. Now it welcomed her like a familiar friend, the contrasting trim above the top windows like raised eyebrows surprised to see her again.

She invited James over to hang out, and as they walked up her stairwell, her apartment filled with skateboard thunder and Matthew chanting Flush lyrics.

“Sorry about that,” Emily said. “Matthew's going to a concert tonight—” Emily was interrupted by whooping even louder than Matthew's singing.

Her parents burst from the kitchen, racing down the hallway toward them. Her dad held a carton of orange juice overhead, and her mom hollered behind him.

Emily and James pressed against the wall to let them run by.

“What's going on?” Emily shouted.

“It's a celebration!” her dad said. “All we had was orange juice. But I don't care! This is the most celebratory orange juice ever!”

Matthew rolled out of his room and dug his heel into the skateboard to flip it up to his hand. Freshly shaved swirls dotted his skull.

“Celebrating me going to the Flush concert? Aww, you shouldn't have.”

“It sold!” Their mom clapped her hands. “
50 Homes in 50 States
sold! Our agent just called us with the news!”

“It sold?” Emily repeated.

Her parents passed out plastic cups of juice, but Emily was too shocked to accept one. Everyone but Emily hopped around, orange juice splattering the floor, and chanted with her parents, “We sold a book! We sold a book!” Even Steve got in on the party with his bobbing back and forth. Her dad swung her ponytail like he was conducting an orchestra.

“C'mon, Em! This is a great day, great news!”

She remained in a firmly non-bouncy state. A feeling something like dread was overtaking her.

Emily yanked her ponytail from her dad's hand and marched to her room. The whooping and hopping dulled as her family and James watched her go. Why was she being such a Scrooge? She knew she was ruining the moment for her parents. How hard would it be to hop around, drink some orange juice, and pretend she was as excited as everyone else?

What an idiot she'd been. She sat on her bed, her backpack still on. She'd let down her guard and gotten herself attached to people and a place when she knew it would be inevitable that they'd move again. Her parents were publishing a book about living in fifty states, for Pete's sake.

James pushed open her door. “Are you okay?” he asked.

A horn honked repeatedly, and Emily heard her brother yell, “Showtime!” Of course he was totally unfazed. He leaned into the adventure and all that. No Jack Kerouac quote could help her now. There was something to be said for stopping to enjoy your surroundings, too, instead of always looking ahead to what came next. She didn't care what was waiting around the next bend. She knew it wouldn't be another puzzle-loving computer nut with a cowlick sidekick.