Nancy Drew: Mystery of the Six and a Half Keys
Chapter Twenty-One

Nancy had gone from knight time in the tunnels to nighttime in the courtyard. She wondered exactly how long she had spent inside the tunnels. Surely it hadn't been more than five hours!

Nancy's phone rang, playing the song "Uptown Girl" by Billy Joel. She quickly answered it.

"Adela, hi," Nancy said. "I was just about to call you. I found the alchemist's journal, but I can't read it. I'm going to need you to translate it."

"Okay," Adela said. "What's the first sentence?"

"Um...it's a section called hád...hada...hakuna matata," Nancy said.

"Hádanka," Adela corrected her. "That's Czech for 'puzzle' or 'riddle'."

"Right, can you translate...um...everything in this section for me?" Nancy said. "I don't know ancient Czech. Or modern Czech, really. All I did to prepare for this case was watch the Cat in the Hat movie, which has a joke about Czechoslovakia, which isn't a country anymore, so I have no idea how that script got past the fact checkers."

"I'd love to translate the journal for you," Adela said. "But I have other plans tonight. I won't be able to get the journal from you until 3 AM, at the earliest."

"What are you doing tonight that's more important than stopping the biggest jewel heist of the century?" Nancy asked.

"I was invited to a killer party," Adela said. "The afterparty's at the Hungerkunstler Café, so just leave the journal there, and I'll pick it up then."

"Uh...okay," Nancy said. "When can I expect a finished translation?"

"I'll message you as soon as I can," Adela said.

Nancy wasn't entirely sure how much she could trust Adela on this one, but a free translation was a free translation. "Then I guess I'll leave the journal with Patricie," she said.

"Oh, Patricie doesn't work nights," Adela said.

"I'll leave it with her assistant, then," Nancy said.

"She doesn't have one of those," Adela said.

"I'll leave it with whoever is working at the café," Nancy said. "Bye!"

Nancy hung up the phone and went into the café, only to discover that nobody was working. The area behind the counter was completely empty. Anyone could easily walk up and take whatever they wanted!

"This place is lucky it doesn't get robbed," Nancy said, before rethinking her statement. There were a few customers in the café, who would probably notice if she stole a coffee machine. It wasn't completely unguarded.

"This place is slightly harder to rob than the museum," Nancy corrected herself. She threw the book at the counter, then pulled out her phone to text Patricie. She paused, as she saw that she had a twelve new text messages.

One was from Deirdre Shannon. "DREW. Why is some guy in Germany threatening to sue me? I swear, if I find out you had something to do with this..."

All the other texts were from an anonymous number. The first one looked like secret instructions to a puzzle. It read "We love our past. You don't belong here."

An hour later, there was a second message. "Um...do you need a hint? Because it looks like you haven't solved this puzzle yet."

"Okay, here's a hint. Check the bold letters. They refer to something inside the café."

"You still haven't solved the puzzle yet? Okay, more hints. Notice how each bold letter refers to a section of the library?"

"Notice how the library sections have numbers? Enter the correct numbers into the phone for a map."

"Wow, it looks like you still haven't solved this puzzle yet? Okay. Um. The map leads you to a book, but it's locked. Maybe the numbers on the map will help?"

"Don't forget the map is upside-down."

"The math isn't that bad. It's all a bunch of single digit addition and subtraction. Don't be scared."

"It's been over twelve hours and you still haven't taken the key from the book yet?! This is ridiculous. I didn't make the puzzle that hard! Look, here's a picture of the correct solution. I took it from Arglefumph's YouTube channel."

"No, I didn't make a second account, just so I could subscribe to his channel twice. That'd be weird."

Nancy shook her head. She definitely should have checked her phone earlier that day. It sounded like her unknown helper—whoever it was—had gotten increasingly frustrated with her lack of progress with the book puzzle.

Nancy quickly located the correct book and spun the dials to the correct numbers. The book open up, revealing a large black key.

"All right, I got one of the six and a half keys!" Nancy said. "And it only took 21 chapters, too! At this rate, I'll have the mystery solved before Chapter 137!"