Chapter Six
Dan stared at his torn half of the picture.
It seemed that everything was lost that night, when Isabel set the house on fire. One thing survived: one photo.
Isabel had instructed him to burn it, but Dan never had the heart to. It was strange. The photo was torn down the middle. He only had a half.
The woman in the photo had reddish-brown hair. Her face was covered by a large sunhat. She looked truly happy. Dan had never seen people actually happy. Sure, his dad was happy when the Lucians stole a clue from the Tomas. And his mom was happy when she went on her shopping sprees. Dan Kabra had never seen true happiness.
Suddenly, Dan heard footsteps approaching. He stuffed the picture into his front pants pocket and tried to look casual.
"What were you just doing?" Ian asked, a hint of suspicion entering his voice.
"Does it look like I was doing anything?" Dan asked casually.
"I suppose not." Ian sighed and sat in the seat next to his little brother. "We'll be in Paris by midnight."
Dan nodded, staring out the windows.
Nellie walked out of the rental car place, frowning. She was holding a thick brown envelope. Amy and Natalie looked at each other.
This can't be good.
"What is that?" Natalie asked.
"It's for you guys, apparently." Nellie waved the envelope in the air. "Somebody left it at the counter this morning. The dude there gave it to me."
"That can't be!" Amy shook her head. "No one could've possibly known we'd be here."
But as she was saying it, a chill ran down her spine. Nellie had booked the train tickets and the rental car online last night from their hotel, using her last name. Could someone have tracked them down so fast?
"What does the envelope say?" Natalie asked curiously.
" 'For A. & N. Cahill,' And it's from 'W. McIntyre,'" Nellie read carefully.
"Mr. McIntyre!" Amy reached for the package.
"Wait!" Natalie grabbed Amy's arm. "It could be a trap."
Amy pulled her arm back and frowned. "Are you sure?"
Natalie nodded firmly. "It could be from the Kabras. It might even be a bomb."
"Hold up," Nellie put a hand up. "Why would somebody send two kids a bomb? And who's this McIntyre dude?"
Natalie pushed the package back towards Nellie. "Nellie should open it."
"Uh, pass!" Nellie said.
"You're our au pair!" Natalie insisted. "You're supposed to do this kind of stuff."
"I drive. Not defuse explosives," Nellie held out the package.
Amy heaved a sigh and took the package carefully. She stepped into the parking lot, turned the flap of the envelope away from Nellie and Natalie, and peeled it open ever so slowly.
She expected something to happen. But nothing did. There was a metal cylinder inside that was like a flashlight, except the light was a strip of purple glass running down one of the sides. A note was attached in sloppy handwriting, like the sender had been in a hurry.
Meet me at Independence Hall
this evening at eight, but only
if you find the information.
-W.M.
(P.S. Thank you for calling the ambulance.)
"What information?" Natalie asked over Amy's shoulder.
"The next clue?" Amy suggested.
"What clue?" Nellie demanded, walking over.
"Nothing," Natalie and Amy responded.
Nellie blew a piece of black and blonde hair out of her eyes. "Whatever, kiddos. Stay. I'll bring the car around."
She left them standing in the middle of the parking lot with their bags and Saladin in a cat carrier. Saladin hadn't been exactly excited with the carrier. But Amy hadn't had the heart to leave him behind. Natalie argued that she was allergic to that furball, but Amy pulled the "Grace" card and Natalie reluctantly let the car join their team.
"Mrrp?" Saladin asked.
Amy squatted down and scratched him behind his ears through the bars. "Natalie, maybe we shouldn't meet with Mr. McIntyre. He's the one who told us to trust no one."
"The note was signed by him," Natalie inspected her nails.
"It could be a set-up."
"Then we definitely have to go."
Amy curled a piece of hair around her finger. She hated when Natalie liked to jump head-first into dangerous situations. "If we're going, we'll need to find that information."
"You'll know where to look. You're smart," Natalie didn't meet Amy's eyes.
Sure. Amy was totally confident that they would find one clue in a big city. Before they'd left Boston, she spent some money on books about Benjamin Franklin and Philadelphia from her friends at the used bookshop. She spent the entire trip reading, but she wasn't sure she could do this...
"I have a few ideas," Amy admitted. "But I'm not sure where we're going in the long run. Have you even thought about what this ultimate treasure is?
"Something worth selling all of my clothes," Natalie muttered despondently. "At least it better be..."
"I mean, what could make someone the most powerful Cahill in history? And why are there thirty-nine clues?"
Natalie shrugged. "Thirty-nine is pretty important. It's the code for international direct-dialed phone calls to Italy. It's also the number of the French department Jura. And it's the sum of five prime numbers in a row-3, 5, 7, 11, 13."
Amy stared at her sister. "How in the world do you know all of that?"
Natalie blinked. "I guess I just do."
Amy shook her head slightly. You would think that Natalie was an airhead. She was obsessed with clothes (and herself) most of the time. Then she would say something like-something about direct-dialed calls to Italy or a French department. Where did she even learn this stuff? The only people who knew that stuff were children of diplomats or rich kids.
Ian Kabra's face flashed into her mind.
Stop it, Amy! Why are you thinking about him? Stay focused.
"Why are you blushing?" Natalie asked suspiciously.
"It's really...hot." Amy put her hands to her cheeks to cool them down.
The au pair stared at Amy for a while, then sighed. "Anyway, what is that thing exactly?" Natalie pointed to the metal cylinder in Amy's hand.
Amy switched the cylinder on and the light glowed purple. "I don't know, but I have a feeling we'd better figure it out before eight o' clock."
Amy hated cars. She hated them almost as much as she hated crowds. She promised herself that when she grew up, she would live somewhere where she would never have to drive. New York, maybe? Or Venice?
The fear started when Amy first got in a car with Nellie a few years ago. In short, it wasn't pretty.
Nellie rented a Toyota hybrid. She said it was more environmental, which both girls were okay with, but it cost two hundred and fifty-eight dollars a day, and the way Nellie zoomed around corners and gunned the gas wasn't exactly "green." They were on Interstate 95, heading into downtown Philadelphia, when Amy happened to look behind them. She wasn't sure why she did it. A tingling sensation on her neck told her to. It was like they were being watched. Amy didn't know it, but she was.
"We're being followed!" Amy exclaimed.
"Seriously?" Natalie turned around to look.
"Five cars back," Amy said. "Black Mercedes. It's the Starlings!"
"A Starbucks, really?" Nellie grinned excitedly. "Where? Man, I so need a cappuccino right about now."
"Starlings," Amy corrected. "They're our cousins. Ned, Ted, and Sinead."
"No way those are their names," Nellie snorted.
"Yes way," Natalie continued watching the car in disgust. "How can you tell it's them?"
"It's hard to miss Sinead in the passenger seat." Amy blinked.
"You mean her ridiculous hair? I concur," Natalie wrinkled up her nose in disgust.
"It's um, part of the scavenger hunt. We can't let them follow us. We have to lose them, Nellie. Can you do that?" Amy asked urgently.
Nellie adjusted the mirror so she could look them in the eye. "Sit back, kiddos."
Amy and Natalie gulped and buckled their seat belts.
Nellie yanked the wheel to the right and the car meandered across three lanes of traffic. Saladin howled. Natalie sneezed. Drivers beeped their horns; Nellie ignored them and grinned like she was having the time of her life. Just as they were about to slam into the safety-impact barrels, Nellie slipped onto an exit ramp.
Amy and Natalie let out breaths of relief. They lived.
The last view Amy got of the Starlings was Sinead's face pressed against the window of the Mercedes, her jaw hanging wide open as she watched her competition get away.
"Did we lose 'em?" Nellie asked excitedly.
"Mrrp!" Saladin moaned.
"Oh, we lost them." Natalie declared. She caught a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror. "Oh, no!"
"Are the Starlings coming back?" Amy asked.
"No, my hair's a mess!"
Amy stared at Natalie disbelievingly.
"That was a rush!" Nellie cheered. "Where to?"
"Locust Street. Step on it!" Amy instructed.
Nellie pulled up into the parking lot of the Library Company of Philadelphia. It was a big, red, brick building in the heart of downtown. Amy told Nellie to wait in the car with Saladin. Then they began walking up the front steps.
"Another library?" Natalie groaned. "Why can't the clue ever be at the mall?"
"Franklin founded this library," Amy told her. "It's got a lot of amazing books from his personal collection. I bet I can convince the librarians-"
"What's so important about this guy? He invented electricity hundreds of years ago."
"He didn't invent electricity, Natalie," Amy tried not to sound too annoyed. "He discovered that lightning was basically the same as electricity. He invented lightning rods to protect buildings and he experimented with batteries and-"
"I started the whole scarf trend and do I get famous for it?" Natalie crossed her arms.
Amy sighed. Sometimes, she could be really stupid. "Natalie, Franklin got famous for a lot of reason. He started out in a printing business and got rich that way. Then he became a scientist and began inventing. Later on, he helped write the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. He was also an ambassador to England and France. He was a genius. He was famous worldwide; everyone knew him. People liked him and he lived until he was around eighty years old."
"I didn't ask for his whole biography, Amy." Natalie rolled her eyes.
"Oh, sorry." Sometimes Amy was known to get carried away.
"So do you think he knew what it was?" Natalie asked.
"What?" Amy blinked.
"The big treasure that we're looking for,"
That never occurred to Amy. Benjamin Franklin was one of the most influential people in history. If he was a Cahill and he knew about this secret treasure...
"I guess we'll find out."
She pushed open the doors. A rush of cool air hit them. Amy led Natalie inside.
Luckily for them, the librarians were having a slow day. Amy wasn't shy around them at all. She loved librarians. She told them was doing a summer research project on Benjamin Franklin and needed historical documents. Instantly, they all fell over each other to help her.
Natalie kept looking at the door, like someone was going to appear at any second. No one did.
The librarians made Amy and Natalie wear latex gloves and sit in a climate-controlled reading room while they brought out old books. Natalie thought this was a little ridiculous. A woman set the first one down and Amy gasped. "This is Franklin's first cartoon!"
Natalie squinted at it. There was a picture of a snake, cut into thirteen pieces. Each piece was labeled with the name of an American colony.
"Aren't cartoons supposed to be funny?" Natalie asked.
Amy shook her head. "Back then, cartoons made a point. He's saying that if the colonies don't join together, Britain will cut them apart."
"Yeah, sure, of course," Natalie pulled out her laptop and powered it up. They'd been in the library for what, five minutes, and she was already bored out of her mind. Natalie didn't mind letting Amy do all the work. The library was her area of knowledge.
Amy examined the other artifacts. There was newspaper that had been printed on Franklin's own printing press, a copy of Pilgrim's Progress that Franklin had owned...so many amazing things. What was she exactly looking for, though?
"Are you finding what you need?" the librarian asked. She had light brown hair tied up in a tight bun. She was very petite and looked fragile, like if she was sitting on a table and you pushed her off, she would shatter into a million pieces. Natalie thought she looked like a dormouse.
"Do you have more? I need things that were important to Franklin, please."
The librarian stood there, thinking for a while. "Franklin's letters were very important to him. He wrote many letters to his friends and family because he lived away from them in Europe for a long time. I'll bring you some of them." she adjusted her glasses and left the room.
"Franklin invented those, too." Amy said randomly.
"Librarians?" Natalie asked, frowning. Benjamin Franklin's was shooting down on her "Cool Meter."
"No, bifocals! He cut up two sets of lenses and pasted them half-and-half, so he could see long distance and short distance with the same pair."
"Oh." Natalie rested her head in her hand. She clicked aimlessly with her right hand. She had an e-mail from Alana, an invitation to a party from this boy named Rick...there was a notice about the big summer sale at the mall. Natalie would miss that. She sighed and began switching the light on the mystery flashlight on and off. There was something about it...
The librarian came back shortly with a stack of old letters preserved in plastic sheets. Amy read through each and every one of them, but it just made her feel hopeless. Nothing jumped out at her. How would she ever find the clue at this rate?
"I found it!" Natalie cried.
"Found what?" Amy thought she was playing around, but when Natalie turned the laptop to face her, there was a picture of a flashlight. It looked similar to the one Mr. McIntyre had sent them.
"It's a black light reader," Natalie announced proudly.
"Oh!" the librarian hobbled over. "Very ingenious. We have one of those for our collection."
Amy looked up curiously. "Why? What do they do?"
"They show hidden or secret writing. During the Revolutionary War, spies used invisible ink to send messages on documents that seemed harmless, like love letters or orders for merchants. The receiver would use heat or a special chemical to make words appear between the lines. We can't damage our documents by spraying chemicals on them, of course, so we use black light readers to check for secret messages instead," the librarian explained.
Amy held up their black light reader. "Can we-?"
"To save you time, my dear, we have checked all of our colonial documents as a matter of course." the librarian said. "There are no secret messages, unfortunately."
Amy's heart dropped. They'd wasted their time here and she still wasn't sure what she was looking for. She had a list in her head of other places to visit, but it was a long list. It was impossible to go to all of them before eight tonight.
Secret messages...
Franklin had written lots of letters to friends and family while living in Europe. Follow Franklin. A crazy idea began to take shape in her head.
"Is there another place where Franklin's letters are on display?" Amy asked the librarian.
She smiled. "Funny you should ask that. Some of his most famous handwritten documents are showing this month only at the Franklin Institute down on-"
"The science museum?" Amy shot to her feet. "On 20th Street, right?"
"Y-Yes." the woman looked startled. "How did you-?"
"Thanks so much!" Amy rushed out of the room, dragging Natalie behind her.
Feel free to pelt me with whatever rotting vegetable you choose. It's been three months-which is a LONG time. I apologize for the delay, but there are many, many reasons.
First of all, school started a few weeks ago, and my teachers are complete nutjobs. Well, one of them is in particular. She's a blonde-headed demon who wears ridiculous lipstick.
I was also kind of stuck on what to do on this chapter, but miracle of all miracles, I figured it out! My beta, Another Artist was a big help as well in putting up with betaing my long chapter. Sorry, Amy! :)
As always, review.
But please don't just do this: OMG THT WUZ SO AWSUM PLZ UPDATE
Seriously? And FYI, telling me to update a story doesn't make me update any faster. It only irritates me.
Do I rush you when you're reading a story?
Yeah, no.
Anyways, just kind of putting that out there.
Thanks to the patient people reading this story. I hope I didn't disappoint with this chapter! (:
-Sky