In 1976, my grandmother died at the age of 19. I know, you have only read one sentence and someone has already died, but this is important. Before my grandmother died, she gave birth to my father. Although her parents were very supportive, she couldn't take care of him. When he was 4, she gave him up for adoption and bought 100 copies of the same play script, her favorite of course. No one knows what happened to those copies of Romeo and Juliet, but my father says the answers are in the house. She had committed suicide 3 days later, and no one knew why.

Sorry, I haven't introduced myself. Hi my name is Calvin Reddick. I'm 19 years old and I live in Portland, Maine. I'm currently enrolled at UNH, but I'm on summer break. Now, what I was saying was that my grandmother had left a very important mystery for my family to solve. But the thing is, we don't know where to start. My father was too young to know where his mother's house was, but he knew it was in New York. He grew up in Long Island where he was put through many foster homes. The only thing he remembers about his mother was that one night when he snuck downstairs was his mother sitting at her desk. He remembers her writing things in booklets, and highlighting lines. She then reached under her desk and pushed a button. The bottom of the fireplace lifted up and she threw all the books down the hatch. Pretty creepy, right?

Anyway, my father has tried to figure out how to find those scripts, but has failed every time. He keeps saying to help him look or continue the quest, but there is no beginning. I am determined to find out what happened, and make sure my father doesn't go insane. I hopped on my computer and typed "long island orphanages" into Google. I sent all the links to my father and hopefully he will recognize one that he stayed at. I have a plan to solve this mystery, but I'm going to need some help. I call up my best friend Anthony, who is a total idiot at times, but a pure genius with strategic thinking.

"What the hell do you need to tell me at 3 in the morning?" I can tell he's really mad because he never swears.

"I need your help with something, it's a puzzle"

"What, like a jigsaw puzzle? I can come over in the morning and help you with that, but for now please jut let me sleep!"

"Well actually it's more like a real life mystery. It's about my grandmother."

"I'll be over at 7, but I better see pancakes and a glass of orange juice sitting at the table when I get there."

"Fair enough, get some sleep buddy. See ya!'

I couldn't sleep, I just kept looking at the foster homes' websites and trying to find some information. I was just about to shut the computer when I saw something. It was the cover photo for an orphanage website and in the back, was my father. He must have been 8 or 9 in the picture, but i knew it was him. I jot down the URL and phone number on a green sticky note and stuck it on my US map. I took a pin and poked it right in the middle of long island, approximately where the orphanage was. I was ready to take on this mystery, to find out what really happened.

To be continued...