Book Scavenger Read online

  “Ciphers play an interesting role in the history of our world. Battles have been won and lost because of them. Assassinations have been diverted because coded plots were intercepted and deciphered, or conversely, assassinations have been successful. The twists and turns history has taken have often relied on secret messages and whether those messages were able to remain secrets.”

  José raised his hand. “Are you sure we should be doing this? Breaking this code?”

  Emily gave José a small smile of gratitude, but his interjection didn’t deter Mr. Quisling.

  “Your syllabus plainly states that passing notes or doing any work other than class work is done at your own risk.” Mr. Quisling waved to the board behind him. “This is what you risk.”

  “If Ms. Crane were plotting an assassination, let’s see how we’d fare in diverting the course of history.”

  Using the alphabet he’d written on the board, Mr. Quisling drew a hash mark under a letter for each time it appeared in James’s message.

  “The three most common letters in the English language are e, t, and a. By looking at our frequency chart we see that u is used five times in this message, v four times, and k and b three times. It’s highly likely at least one of these letters represents e, t, or a. But which is which?”

  This was the same tactic the character had used to solve the secret message in Poe’s story.

  “Let’s look at our three-letter words: vku, oud, and etf.” Mr. Quisling stood back and rubbed his chin. He circled the vk in vku.

  “The th combination found in the is commonly found at the beginning of other words. In this message, you see vk is also used in vkbfo and vkpuu. This might suggest that v equals t and k equals h, making vku equal the. Let’s go with that and see what happens.”

  Mr. Quisling filled in letters of the message like a game of Hangman. Students began calling out guesses for the words. Before Emily knew it, Mr. Quisling and her social studies class had cracked James’s message:

  MAYBE THE KEY IS FORT.

  I CAN THINK OF THREE.

  “Assassination diverted!” Mr. Quisling cried.

  Emily’s face burned so furiously she thought her eyes might act like magnifying glasses in the sun and set her binder paper on fire. At least James hadn’t mentioned Mr. Griswold or his game in his note.

  A student called out, “It doesn’t make sense!”

  Another said, “Maybe it’s supposed to read fart,” and laughter filled the room. Mr. Quisling clapped his hands and shouted “Enough!” The laughter sputtered until a boy stage-whispered, “The three farts of Christmas past, present, and future.”

  James joined in the renewed titters, but the tips of his ears looked suddenly sunburned.

  Mr. Quisling paced the aisles for so long the laughter faded into suppressed giggles, then uneasy silence and shifting in seats. Emily ran her finger around the diamond carved onto her desktop, avoiding eye contact and hoping no more humiliation was in store.

  Mr. Quisling smacked the desk of a girl, who yelped in surprise.

  “I propose a challenge!” Mr. Quisling proclaimed. “A cipher challenge, in the spirit of Edgar Allan Poe. Here’s how it will work: You may submit substitution ciphers to the class. One cipher per student per week. You can turn in your first ones tomorrow, which is Wednesday, if you wish. After this week, Monday will be the day to submit ciphers. The class will have the week to attempt to break the submitted ciphers. Any ciphers left standing by the end of the week will earn you a free homework pass to use on any assignment this semester. You may earn a maximum of three homework passes.”

  Chatter and excitement permeated the classroom.

  “Don’t lose your heads, people,” Mr. Quisling bellowed over the din. “Be prepared to explain your cipher for the class if it goes unbroken, in order to prove it’s validly constructed.”

  The bell rang, and above the scraping chairs and zipping backpacks, Mr. Quisling shouted, “Bring enough copies for the whole class.”

  As people filed out of the room, Mr. Quisling tapped papers into an even pile on his desk. Without looking up, he said, “Starting off on a bad foot, Emily Crane. Do better tomorrow.”

  Emily nodded obediently, even though Mr. Quisling wasn’t looking at her.

  “You aren’t mad at me, are you?” she asked James in the hallway.

  “Mad at you?” James said. “You should be mad at me. It was stupid to pass the note in the first place. At least this cipher challenge sounds cool.”

  “Don’t get too excited.” Maddie stepped away from the lockers like she’d been waiting for them. “Your cute little code was broken like that.” She snapped her fingers. “I doubt you’ll win any homework passes.”

  “And you will?” James asked.

  Maddie smirked. “How about a side bet? Whoever earns the most homework passes or gets to three first wins.”

  James rolled his eyes. “It’s always about winning with you, isn’t it? It’s only worth doing if there’s a ribbon in it.”

  For the briefest moment Maddie winced, but with a shake of her motionless hair, she said, “Sounds like someone who’s afraid of losing.”

  “I’m not afraid of losing. Are you afraid of losing, Steve?” James tilted his head to the side as if he were listening to his cowlick’s reply.

  “What’s in it for the winner?” Emily interjected.

  Maddie’s calculating smile took on a slightly evil cast. “Maybe it’s not about what we win, but what the other has to lose.”

  “What does that mean?” Emily asked.

  Maddie moved two fingers like alligator jaws across James’s hair. “If you lose, you have to shave off that stupid tuft of hair you treat like an imaginary friend. And just that—I want a bald spot in its place.”

  Emily sucked in a breath. Not Steve! she thought. She’d grown attached to the spiky guy. But James didn’t look worried.

  “And if you lose?” he asked. “Will you shave your head?”

  It was clear from Maddie’s expression she hadn’t considered the flip side of this wager.

  “You can dye it,” Emily blurted out. “Red, with white polka dots. Like a toadstool.”

  James bit his lip to keep from laughing.

  “Like I’m doing that,” Maddie said.

  “It’s better than having to shave part of your head,” James said.

  “Way better,” Emily added. “You can wash the color out the same day. James will have to wait weeks for his to grow back.”

  James held up his hands. “Hey, I understand if you’re worried you can’t beat me.”

  “Fine.” Maddie held out her hand to shake. “Start planning a farewell party for Stan.”

  “It’s Steve,” James called to Maddie’s retreating back. “And the only thing he’ll say farewell to is your brown hair when you have to dye it red!”

  * * *

  On their way back to their building after school, Emily and James walked through the stretch of shops and restaurants that surrounded Hollister’s bookstore. A coffee shop, a fancy restaurant, an old movie theater converted into a fitness center, a dry cleaners, another coffee shop, a clothing boutique, a sushi restaurant, and so on. All these businesses were on the ground level of buildings with floors of apartments above. There was more activity squished into those few blocks than the entire New Mexico town Emily had left behind.

  “What’s Maddie’s problem, anyway?” Emily asked. She and James broke apart for three women with yoga mats slung on their shoulders and then came back together.

  James shrugged. “She thinks she’s better than everybody. Good old Mop-Top Maddie Fernandez. Not that I’m one to talk about distinctive hairstyles, of course.”

  “I thought her hair looked more like a mushroom cap than a mop,” Emily said.

  James snorted. “A mushroom! Is that why you came up with the toadstool look if she loses? Why didn’t I see that before?” He looked at Emily slyly. “She’s an evil mushroom queen.”

  “Her Roy
al Fungus?” Emily suggested, and they cracked up. Three adults waiting at a bus stop eyed them suspiciously. James clamped a hand over his mouth, and Emily straightened her posture, but their attempts to look serious just made them break down in laughter even more.

  * * *

  On Wednesday, almost the entire social studies class submitted ciphers for Mr. Quisling’s challenge. On Thursday, every last cipher had been cracked, including James’s, Maddie’s, and Emily’s.

  “What did I get myself into?” James moaned as they walked after school Thursday afternoon. “I can’t believe all the ciphers were broken. This is going to be way harder than I thought. I don’t want to shave off Steve.”

  “Don’t worry! Her Royal Fungus is struggling with the challenge, too. You’re not losing to her yet.”

  “Emphasis on yet,” James said.

  Emily bumped her backpack against his. “You’re a puzzle master! You’ve got this. And I’ll help you. Not that I’ll be much help, seeing as I’ve made zero progress with Mr. Griswold’s secret message.”

  “Have you tried talking to Raven again?”

  “Yeah. She wouldn’t reply until yesterday, and then all I got was ‘I don’t have the information you seek.’ I wish I could stop by Bayside Press and snoop for information about the game.”

  James stopped walking. He stared absentmindedly at a window washer on a platform dangling outside an apartment building. “Well. Why can’t we?”

  Emily looked from the window washer to James, confused.

  “Visit Bayside Press,” James said. “It can’t hurt to try, right?”

  CHAPTER

  15

  AFTER DROPPING their school stuff off at their apartments, grabbing snacks, and getting permission to go downtown, Emily and James found themselves riding the bus to the financial district. They walked from the bus stop to the Bayside Press building. The rattle of streetcars, honking horns, and the bustle of people made this part of San Francisco much noisier than where Emily and James lived. When they turned into the narrow courtyard outside the main entrance of Bayside Press, all the city noise seemed to hush. Emily held up a hand to stop James from walking farther.

  “This is, like, sacred Book Scavenger territory,” Emily said. “Let me absorb this for a minute.” She took in the gleaming tower of an office building, the blue sky reflected off its sides. The surrounding buildings were dull and serious in comparison. “Okay, I’m good,” she said, and they pulled open the glass doors to enter Bayside Press.

  The ground-level lobby was an open space with gray walls, stone floors, and a uniformed security guard standing behind a desk.

  “Hi,” Emily said when they approached the security guard. “We’d like to speak with someone at Bayside Press.”

  “All right,” the man said. “Who are you here to see?”

  “Um…” Emily and James looked at each other.

  “We’re here to see Joe?” James said hopefully.

  The man looked over his glasses at them. “Joe,” he said.

  James nodded confidently. Emily wasn’t sure about “Joe,” but she marveled at how quickly James committed to his story.

  The man flipped open a binder and scanned a list of names. “Joe Beatson, Joe Field, Joe Fu, Joe Kothari, Joe Mason, Joe Shah, Joe Vigil, Joe Vince, Joe Young … Any of those your Joe?”

  James swallowed. “The last one? Joe Young?”

  The man closed his binder. “I made him up. As I suspect you made up your Joe. Sorry, kids, but this is a business. We can’t let just anyone go gallivanting through our hallways.”

  Emily gripped her backpack straps. They’d come all this way and were so close to seeing the inside of Bayside Press, she didn’t want to turn around and leave. Even if they didn’t find an answer to Mr. Griswold’s Gold-Bug puzzle, now that she was here, she craved just a peek behind the scenes where Book Scavenger was created.

  She slid her backpack off her shoulders, unzipped it, and pulled out The Gold-Bug. “What if I told you we’ve found Mr. Griswold’s next game? Could we talk to someone then?”

  James stared at her, eyes wide. They hadn’t talked about sharing their discovery of the book with anyone. It might have been her imagination, but Steve seemed a little extra splayed himself.

  The security guard barely looked at the book. “I don’t doubt you found the next game,” he said in a voice that suggested he actually did doubt it, quite a bit in fact. “But I still can’t let you upstairs without an appointment.”

  “Excuse me,” someone said from behind Emily and James. They turned to see a man about Emily’s parents’ age wearing a burgundy-and-blue-argyle sweater-vest. “I couldn’t help overhearing.”

  “Hey, Jack,” the security guard greeted him. “I told them they need an appointment. They say they’ve found Griswold’s next game, but you know. We’ve heard that one before.”

  They’d heard that before? It hadn’t occurred to Emily that there might be other Gold-Bugs out there waiting to be found.

  “I’ve got this,” Jack said to the guard. To Emily and James he said, “So, I take it you’re fans of Mr. Griswold?”

  “And Book Scavenger,” Emily said.

  “She’s really good at it,” James chimed in. “She’s almost reached Auguste Dupin level.”

  Jack whistled low and nodded. “Dedicated,” he said.

  Emily looked down but smiled. She was still fourteen points away from Auguste Dupin, so she wouldn’t say she’d almost reached it. Still, the compliment and praise were flattering.

  “And what’s this?” Jack pointed to the Gold-Bug book in Emily’s hand.

  Even though he was a grown-up, Jack had a round, boyish face that made him look kind and trustworthy. But she didn’t know who he was, other than someone who worked at Bayside Press. What if the book was some sort of valuable Bayside Press item and he took it away? Maybe it hadn’t been such a good idea to pull The Gold-Bug out of her bag.

  “It’s … it’s a book we found while playing Book Scavenger.”

  “And you thought it might have something to do with Griswold’s next game?” Jack didn’t say this in a mocking or condescending tone. Just more like that was a logical thing for them to assume. “Let me show you guys something. Come on.”

  He led them to the elevator. As they stepped inside, he said, “I didn’t actually introduce myself, did I? I’m Jack. I’m Mr. Griswold’s assistant.”

  “For real? You actually work with Mr. Griswold?” James asked.

  “Like, every day?” Emily added. “How’s he doing?”

  “Ah.” Jack looked down for a minute. “Not very well, I’m afraid.” He looked up again, his eyes bright. “But all the well wishes and positive thoughts you can muster for him will help.”

  Not very well, I’m afraid rang in Emily’s ears. She thought of the forum messages she’d read last weekend, when Mr. Griswold was first mugged, and that Book Scavenger user who had said they should enjoy Book Scavenger while they could. She hugged The Gold-Bug to her chest.

  An instrumental version of “Monster Mash” filled the elevator for an awkward moment until they reached the seventh floor. The doors opened to reveal a lobby drenched in Bayside Press colors.

  “Whoa,” Emily breathed out. “This is cooler than I’d imagined it would be.”

  She turned slowly, taking in the silver-blue carpet butted up against burgundy-and-silver-blue-striped walls. A gigantic metal Bayside Press emblem hung behind the stark wall of a receptionist’s desk.

  Jack raised a hand to the receptionist and waved Emily and James through a doorway and down a hall.

  “I’m afraid this tour may not be as exciting as you might hope, if you’re fans of Mr. Griswold,” Jack said as they walked. They passed doorway after doorway revealing grown-ups hunched in front of computers or talking on the phone, messy stacks of paper piled around them. “With his Willy Wonka reputation, a lot of people might imagine our offices to be like an amusement park. But no chocolate river or Oompa Loompa
s here. There are signs of his whimsy, of course.” Jack gestured to the hallway lined with painted portraits of famous San Francisco writers wearing somber expressions and silly costumes. Daniel Handler in a bunny costume, Amy Tan as a farmer, and Allen Ginsberg as a clown.

  Jack stopped in front of a glass-walled conference room with a table piled high with a collection of stuffed animals, flowers, balloons, and books—not unlike what Emily, James, and her brother had come across outside the BART station last Saturday.

  “What’s all that?” Emily asked.

  “Well, in the giant pile are the things people left outside our building for Mr. Griswold. We’ll be donating them to the children’s floor of the hospital where he’s located. But that second pile is what I wanted to show you.”

  They stepped into the room and walked up to a smaller pile. Mostly it looked like a collection of notes or letters, some folded like the one she and James got caught passing in Mr. Quisling’s class. Some of the pages were typed, some torn out of a notebook. There were also odds and ends of books, and then unusual things, like tangrams glued onto poster board and a laminated map of San Francisco that had sticky notes attached to it with letters and numbers scrawled on them.

  “These are all the ‘games’ other people have found and sent to us. We’ve been inundated with them, as you can see.”

  “Are these”—James held up a bag with eight bouncy balls inside, each with a letter written on it—“really Mr. Griswold’s games?” James manipulated the balls in the bag so they spelled out the word anteater.

  “I doubt it,” Jack said. “I can’t say definitively, of course. Only Mr. Griswold could and he’s—well, he can’t do that right now. But I do know a couple of absolutes about Mr. Griswold. One: His games are rarely simple. That World’s Largest Bingo Game he staged at the Giants’ stadium? A logistical nightmare to pull off. Night. Mare.” Jack tugged at the wavy hair that flopped on his forehead, like even the memory was stressful. “And two: he is highly secretive about his games. He’ll keep his plans to himself until he can’t go any further on his own. And even then, he often enlists help without people realizing what they’re helping with. As for this rumored latest game, nobody knew what he was planning. I work with him closer than anyone, and I don’t have the slightest clue.”