Book Scavenger (28 page)

James nodded slowly, trying to play along with Emily but unsure what she was planning.

As Mr. Remora rummaged through an overstuffed drawer, Emily mouthed to her brother
door
. He gave an almost imperceptible nod and took the slightest step away from her and toward the front door.

“Have you read all these books?” Emily asked Mr. Remora. Even the kitchen counters and top of the refrigerator were covered. Part of her was stalling and part was genuinely curious. Even if she didn't have to limit herself to one suitcase full, it would take her decades to collect this many books, let alone read them.

“No chitchat.” Mr. Remora steered a notepad and pencil around a stack of American Revolution–themed novels.

Emily started to write and then faked a small coughing attack. “Could I have that glass of water?”

Mr. Remora sighed and picked up the full glass her brother had left by the sink. She took a small sip and smiled.

“Thanks.”

Mr. Remora waved his hands in an impatient “get on with it” way.

Using her and James's secret code, she wrote out her plan, but made an effort to act like she was trying to recall the pretend cipher she was conjuring up. James caught on and chimed in, saying things like, “I think it was
T
-
A
, not
T
-
X
.”

Her note read: “Make book chaos. Run.”

It wasn't a genius plan, but it was the best thing she could come up with.

Barry's head dropped back on the sofa, eyes closed. Clyde flipped through a magazine so roughly it was amazing the pages didn't rip out. Matthew had inched about a foot closer to the door now.

“I thought you had the clue memorized,” Mr. Remora said, sounding more disappointed than suspicious.

“You forgot this,” James said. He glanced briefly at Matthew to make sure he was paying attention. Then in their cipher language James wrote
Now!
and many things happened at once: Emily threw her water at Mr. Remora, getting the American Revolution books wet in the process. Mr. Remora shrieked “
No!
” while James toppled tower after tower of books. Matthew leaped to the front door and swung it open, then turned back to kick a pile of books in Barry and Clyde's direction.

“What the—” Barry sputtered, startled from his nap. Inexplicably, Clyde started flinging magazines across the room like he was throwing boomerangs.

Mr. Remora's apartment was a flurry of flying books and crashing objects as Matthew, James, and Emily raced out the door,
The Gold-Bug
still in Emily's hand. Mr. Remora spun this way and that, uncertain where to go. He ducked from one of Clyde's hurled magazines and cried, “Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!”

The three darted into the inky night and across the trafficless street. Streetlamps illuminated their feet as they pounded down the sidewalk toward the Fillmore auditorium. Emily concentrated on the slap of their feet, the weight of her backpack bumping against her, urging her faster, faster, faster. She gripped
The Gold-Bug
tightly in her hand and tried to think of it as a baton in a relay she was desperately trying to win.

“Thief!” Mr. Remora's voice rang out.

Emily didn't think it was possible to go any faster, but his voice prompted an extra jolt of speed. Soon they reached the crowd lined up for the concert. They charged through, dodging people.

“Where's the fire, Crane?” one of Matthew's friends shouted.

“Stop the old dudes!” Matthew yelled back, throwing his thumb over his shoulder.

They passed the main doors of the Fillmore. Angry voices flared behind them. Emily dared a look back. A cluster of people clogged the sidewalk. She could hear Mr. Remora's nasally voice shouting, “Let me through! Let me through!” Barry's head was visible over the crowd, and Emily was sure he watched them round the corner. A gleaming black-and-gold bus was parked along the curb with the front sliding doors open. A man leaned against the bumper, taking a drag off a cigarette.

“Up here,” James shouted, and the three raced up the stairs and onto the bus.

The inside was more like a giant motor home than a regular bus, with two diner-style booths on either side of the aisle and a mini kitchen. A velvet curtain concealed the back of the bus. Emily, James, and Matthew went straight to the tinted windows to see if anyone had followed them.

“What do you kids think you're doing?”

 

CHAPTER

37

IT WAS THE MAN
who'd been leaning against the front of the bus. A toilet flushed from somewhere in the back, and a voice from behind them said, “Hey, Mikey. You had one responsibility—keep groupies off the bus. How hard is it?”

“Sorry, Trevor,” Mikey sputtered. “They flew around the corner. It happened so fast I didn't even realize.”

Matthew made a gerbil-like chirping sound. The color had drained from his face, and he was staring at Trevor with his mouth open.

“Trevor? As in … oh my gosh!” Emily clapped both hands over her mouth and completely forgot there had been a madman book collector on the hunt for them. This was Trevor, the drummer of Flush.

“Sorry we crashed your bus,” James said. “We're not groupies or anything, er—” He looked at Emily and Matthew. “At least I'm not. I mean, no offense. I'm sure your music is great and all, my grandma is kind of strict about what I listen to and—”

James collapsed into the booth behind him. “Sorry,” he said. “It's been a long night.”

He let out a sigh and dropped his head back against the red pleather of the booth.

Trevor chewed on his lip piercing while he studied them. “Do these two talk?” he asked James.

Emily dropped her hands from her mouth. “Sorry,” she said meekly. “I've never met anyone famous before.”

Matthew let out another gerbilish chirp.

“My brother is seriously your number one fan. He's not normally like this.”

Matthew sputtered, “Five … FiveSpade. I'm FiveSpade.”

Trevor raised his eyebrows. “No way!
You're
FiveSpade? I thought you'd be older. No offense, man, but that LEGO Domination video was sick. I thought for sure you were in college at least.”

Trevor dropped his guarded stance and shook Matthew's hand, pulling him in for a back pat, too.

“Man, this is a trip!” Trevor said. He went to the curtain and called behind it. “Zeke! Liam, Neil! Check out who's here.”

A guy with a stubbly beard and tousled brown hair slid aside the velvet curtain and walked out, barefoot and in jeans and no shirt.

“Zeke!” Matthew said.

“'Sup.”

Trevor gripped his arm. “Zeke—guess who this is.”

Zeke looked Matthew up and down. “Liam's cousin?” he said.

“No, man.
FiveSpade
. Can you believe it?”

“LEGO Domination?” Zeke nodded. “Sweet.”

Emily knew her brother was as shocked by this as she was, because he hadn't yet taken the opportunity to say “I told you so” and rub it in her face that the members of Flush really did know who he was. She dropped her backpack to the floor and sank into the booth next to James. Trevor's enthusiasm and cheer helped temper the stress from dealing with Mr. Remora.

James stared out the window. “See anything?” she asked.

He shook his head. “They haven't come down the street. We lost them.”

They'd gotten away. Emily puffed her cheeks up and blew the air out slowly. They were safe now, on a tour bus with Flush, of all places.

All the members of Flush were in the front of the bus now, greeting her brother, aka FiveSpade. Neil opened the mini fridge and tossed around sodas. Liam hopped on the counter and started playing with a Zippo lighter, flipping it open and spinning it in his hand so it closed. Trevor was saying, “So 'Frisco's your home base, FiveSpade?”

Matthew nodded. “For now. But don't call it 'Frisco. Locals hate that.”

Emily released her grip on
The Gold-Bug
, flexing her fingers. She'd been gripping it hard for so long the linen cover had left an impression on her palm.

Gently, she ran her fingers over the top. She tilted the book this way and that, watching the light play off the golden beetle. The last clue had been
scarab
, but so far she couldn't spot anything unusual about it.

“What do you see?” James whispered.

Emily shook her head. “Nothing.” She opened the cover and scrutinized the inside scarab. A tinier version than the cover beetle, drawn in black ink. No numbers or letters or symbols printed around either one or hidden inside. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe the scarab clue had nothing to do with the book. Emily sagged at the thought of this. To have gone through all that drama for nothing … What if she'd gotten her brother or James hurt, and all for a book that didn't hold the answer she assumed it would. What would Mr. Remora have done if they hadn't escaped?

These thoughts spiraled in Emily's mind while she zoned out, watching Liam flick open his Zippo with a lit flame, then whip the top closed. The flame reminded her of the gold-bug story, where a message is revealed when parchment is heated up. Emily looked down at the black beetle and back to Liam.

“Could I borrow that?”

Liam looked scandalized. “You can't smoke!”

Emily blushed. “No, it's for an experiment.”

Liam somewhat reluctantly held out the lighter. She tried rubbing her thumb against it like she'd just watched him do to make the flame appear, but she couldn't make it work. “Can you light it for me and wave it over this page?”

Matthew was still carrying on a conversation with the other Flush members. He'd relaxed into his normal self now and was describing the new stop-motion video he was in the middle of making.

Liam waved the lighter over the white page with the black scarab. “Like this?” he asked her.

“Maybe a little closer,” she said when the page remained white.

“Too close!” Trevor yelled, noticing what Liam was doing. Liam jerked his hand back in surprise. The guys in the bus erupted in laughter.

“Sorry,” Liam said with a grin.

“It's okay,” Emily said. “It was probably a dumb idea any—”

“Look!” James pointed to the page. Lines, the color of weak tea, began to appear around the black beetle.

“I was right!” Emily waved Liam back to the book. “Do more! There must be invisible ink on this page. The heat makes it visible.”

The group huddled around the book to watch as line after line slowly began to appear, revealing a map of San Francisco. The beetle marked a spot on the map labeled
PORTSMOUTH SQUARE, RLS
.

“That's it! We have to go there!” Emily said.

“Right now?” Matthew asked.

“I don't know, Em,” James said.

In a low voice to James, she pleaded, “It's the end of the game. It must be. This is the treasure map that marks the spot. We lost Mr. Remora. He doesn't have
The Gold-Bug
,
and he doesn't know about this map or have any idea where we'd be headed. If we do this tonight, we solve Mr. Griswold's game. We can call Jack at Bayside Press tomorrow, and we'll tell him about Mr. Remora, too.”

James tugged thoughtfully at Steve, considering all this.

“Don't you want to see what Mr. Griswold's treasure will be?”

Finally he nodded.

She stood up from the booth. “We're leaving now,” she said.

“Tonight?” Matthew asked. His face looked pained, like she was telling him he couldn't have a puppy.

“You don't have to go,” Emily said. “I know you have your ticket.”

Matthew gnawed on his lip, staring at the map. Finally, he shook his head. “Meeting you guys was cooler than anything I could have imagined,” he said to the members of Flush. He turned to Emily. “But I'm not letting you two go off by yourselves. There'll be more concerts. I'm on your scavenging team whether you like it or not.”

Trevor clapped Matthew on the back. “You're a good bro, bro. We're heading backstage in a minute here. You guys can borrow Mikey, and he'll drive you over, but you'll have to get your own ride home.”

“And don't worry, FiveSpade,” Trevor said. “We'll hook you up.”

 

CHAPTER

38

EMILY, JAMES,
and Matthew stood in the dark and deserted Portsmouth Square. The only light came from the dull orange glow of lampposts and the high-up windows of surrounding buildings. A fog had descended on this part of the city. It wrapped around trees and crept through bars of the playground.

“Do you know anything about this place?” Emily asked James.

“They call it the heart of Chinatown. A lot of elderly people hang out here during the day. My uncle comes here to play cards.” He pointed toward the pagoda-style awning that sheltered picnic tables. A lump of sleeping bag was curled up on one of the benches, its dark form bold against the white fog. “I guess it's also a hot spot for homeless people.” They'd stay away from that area if they could help it.