The Hidden Room

by Dori Hillestad Butler

  Isla set the flashlight between her and Sai, and tore open the envelope. Sai immediately grabbed the flashlight and started turning it on and off, on and off, on and off.

  “Don’t,” Marly said, laying her hand over Sai’s. “It looks like you’re flashing SOS. People are going to think you need help!”

  “Nuh-uh,” Sai argued. “SOS is like this.” He blinked short-short-short, long-long-long, short-short-short. “I’m doing this.” He blinked on, off, on, off. “It’s different.”

  Marly rolled her eyes.

  “Do you want to hear our new letter?” Isla asked, holding up another paper From the Desk of Harry P. Summerling.

  “Yes! Duh!” Marly and Sai spoke at the same time.

  Isla smoothed the paper on her lap and began reading. “‘Dear Treasure Troop. If you’re reading this letter, that means you have found the tree house—’”

  “Because we rock!” Sai interrupted.

  “‘You’ve also found the hidden cubbyhole inside the tree house,’” Isla continued. “‘And you even found a way to read my invisible ink. Clearly, I have not underestimated you three at all.’”

  “No, you have not,” Sai said proudly.

  Marly elbowed him. “Let her finish.”

  “‘Guess what?’” Isla read. “‘There is more treasure to be found!’” They all glanced at one another, their eyes shining with anticipation. “‘You’ll find what you need inside my house, in a hidden room that looks out over the city. But finding that room won’t be easy. One ghost guards the doors. Another keeps the key. The very important key. I hope you’re not afraid of ghosts.’” Isla swallowed hard, then kept reading. “‘You have until August 25 to find the hidden room. Otherwise this treasure will be lost forever. If you ever find yourselves stuck, remember who you are. That will always get you through. Good luck! Yours, Harry P. Summerling.’”

  “I can’t believe it,” Marly said. “There really is more treasure.”

  “And we get to go search a haunted house to find it,” Sai said, rubbing his hands together.

  A flash of concern crossed Isla’s face when Sai said haunted. But she blinked it away. “I wonder what the treasure is,” she said.

  “I bet this time it’ll be money,” Sai said. They had all thought the treasure was going to be money last time. Marly had planned to use her share to buy a plane ticket to visit her friend Aubrey, who had moved away at the beginning of the summer. But she wasn’t disappointed when it wasn’t money. She still missed Aubrey, but she wasn’t as lonely as she had been at the beginning of the summer. Not since she, Isla, and Sai had started spending time together.

  Sai hopped down from the bench. “So, what’s our next puzzle?” he asked eagerly.

  “There isn’t one,” Isla said.

  “What do you mean there isn’t one?” Marly asked. There was always another puzzle.

  Isla studied the paper. “We have to find a hidden room. That’s all it says.”

  “Yeah, but we’ll find it by solving a bunch of puzzles, right?” Sai said. “Like how we found the tree house.”

  “I don’t know.” Isla turned the paper over. It was blank on the other side. “I don’t see any other puzzles.”

  “Maybe Ms. Lovelace was supposed to give us another envelope, too,” Sai suggested.

  That was how it had worked the first time. Ms. Lovelace had read that first letter from Mr. Summerling out loud. Then she gave them another envelope, which held their first puzzle.

  “Let’s go ask her!” Marly said, getting up from the bench.

  Isla handed the letter to Marly, who shoved it inside her bag with the notebook. Then they marched back to Ms. Lovelace’s office.

  They opened the door and found Ms. Lovelace standing at the front counter, riffling through some papers inside an open folder in front of her. She quickly closed it. “Yes?” she asked with an awkward smile as Marly, Isla, and Sai approached the counter.

  They all nudged one another, trying to figure out who should do the talking. Marly decided she would. “Did you maybe forget to give us another envelope?” she asked boldly. “One that has another puzzle in it?”

  “No,” Ms. Lovelace said, running a hand through her hair. “I’ve given you everything I was supposed to give you.”

  “Are you sure?” Sai asked.

  “Positive,” Ms. Lovelace said.

  Marly, Isla, and Sai exchanged surprised looks. Now what?

  “Okay, thanks,” Marly said. There was nothing else to do but leave.

  “So . . . ,” Isla said as they started down the street. “We’re just supposed to go over to Mr. Summerling’s house and look for a hidden room?”

  “I guess?” Marly said. Though it seemed odd to her that they would have free rein to run around inside someone else’s house all by themselves. Would their parents even allow that?

  “If that’s what the letter says, then that’s what we have to do,” Sai said, picking up the pace.

  Marly agreed. Odd or not, they had to find the hidden room inside Mr. Summerling’s house. They had to find the new treasure.

  “Wait.” Isla stopped walking. “How are we going to get inside the house?”

  Marly stopped, too. “Good question,” she said, scratching her head. They had a key to the gate to Mr. Summerling’s front walk. They’d found it during the other treasure hunt. But they didn’t have a key to his house. How would they get in?

  “We’ll figure it out when we get there,” Sai said impatiently. “Come on!”

  Marly and Isla raised eyebrows at each other. Finally, Marly shrugged. Maybe they would figure it out when they got there.

  “Okay, but let’s stop at Marly’s house and tell our parents where we’re going first,” Isla said.

  “Fine,” Sai said.

  They started walking again. But after a few steps, Marly suddenly had the strangest feeling someone was watching them. She turned and saw a mom pushing a little kid in a stroller, and two men in business suits carrying cups of coffee. None of them seemed to be paying any attention to the three of them.

  They kept going. But still, Marly couldn’t shake that feeling. Nor could she stop glancing over her shoulder.

  “What’s the matter, Marly?” Isla asked the third time she did it. “Why do you keep turning around?”

  “I don’t know,” Marly said. “I just have this weird feeling that someone’s watching us.”

  “Who?” Isla asked.

  “I don’t know,” Marly said again.

  Sai turned all the way around. “I don’t see anyone.”

  “Neither do I,” Isla said.

  Marly knew Isla and Sai both had way better eyes than she did. If they didn’t see anyone, then there probably wasn’t anyone there.

  “Let’s just go,” she said.

  “You want to what?” Marly’s mom leaned back in her desk chair, her eyes fixed on Marly and her friends. “No. Absolutely not. You are not going to wander around inside Mr. Summerling’s house by yourselves.”

  Marly half expected this. “But he wants us to. See?” She showed her mother the letter Ms. Lovelace had given them, then held her breath while Mom read it to herself.

  Isla and Sai shuffled their feet and avoided looking at Marly’s mom. They all knew that if they could get one parent to agree to this, the others would probably agree, too.

  “I don’t know, honey . . .” Mom handed the letter back to Marly.

  “You always said Mr. Summerling was quirky,” Marly said. “You said he was quirky, but nice. This is just another example of him being quirky!”

  Mom tilted her head. That meant she was thinking about it.

  “Please, Mom,” Marly begged.

  “Please, Mrs. Deaver!” Isla and Sai chimed in.

  Mom sighed. “Why don’t you all get yourselves a snack while I t
alk to the other parents and see what they think,” she said, reaching for the phone on her desk.

  The kids went into the kitchen, and Marly got everyone cartons of yogurt. They ate standing up.

  “Our parents are never going to let us do this,” Isla said.

  “They might,” Sai said.

  Marly didn’t say anything. But now that they knew there was more treasure to be found, their parents had to let them search. They just had to!

  As they were finishing their yogurt, Marly’s mom came in. “Two hours,” she said. “I want you all back here in two hours. And be respectful while you’re there.”

  The kids all jumped up and slapped high fives.

  “Thanks, Mom!” Marly gave her mom a hug. Then she and her friends trooped next door.

  A tall hedge and black wrought iron fence surrounded Mr. Summerling’s property. There were old appliances, tires, and other junk scattered around the overgrown yard. The faded yellow house had a wide front porch and a tall square tower that stuck up above the trees.

  They huddled around the locked gate out front. When Mr. Summerling lived here, this gate was never even closed, much less locked. But it was now. Marly dug the little key out of her tote bag and slipped it into the slot at the bottom. The lock clicked open.

  “Have either of you ever been inside Mr. Summerling’s house?” Sai asked as they started up the front walk.

  “No.” Isla shook her head.

  Marly hadn’t been, either. But she’d always wondered what it was like inside. Especially that tower room.

  “I wonder what’s going to happen to Mr. Summerling’s house now that he’s . . . you know . . .” Isla couldn’t say that last word out loud.

  Marly remembered how Jay Summerling had asked Ms. Lovelace about the house in her office that day. Jay had assumed the house was his, but Ms. Lovelace wasn’t sure about that. She had other letters from Mr. Summerling, but she refused to open them. She said she had instructions for when each one was to be opened, and she was going to follow those instructions.

  “Do you guys think Mr. Summerling is really dead?” Sai asked suddenly.

  “What?” Marly asked, shocked.

  “Of course he is,” Isla said. “That’s why Ms. Lovelace read his will.”

  “I don’t know,” Sai said as he clomped up the porch stairs. “His body was never found. And think about the treasure hunt we just finished. When would Mr. Summerling have set it all up? Right before he left for this last treasure hunting trip? Why would he do that? He couldn’t have known he wasn’t ever coming back.”

  Marly stopped halfway up the steps. She hadn’t thought about any of that before.

  “Ms. Lovelace probably set it up,” Isla said. “Mr. Summerling probably left directions for what to do.”

  “But when we started the treasure hunt, Ms. Lovelace told us and our parents that she didn’t know what was at the end of it, remember?” Marly said. “So how could she have hidden that last note in the tree house?”

  “Right?” Sai said, obviously happy to have Marly on his side.

  Isla looked a little pale. “Well, where has Mr. Summerling been all this time if he’s not dead?”

  “Maybe in there.” Sai gestured toward the house. “Maybe he’s waiting for us to come in right now!”

  Isla’s face grew even paler as Sai walked over to the door and turned the knob. “It’s locked.” He frowned.

  “Well, I don’t think we need a key,” Marly said, pressing closer. “See? It’s got an electronic keypad. What we need is the combination, like the lock at the tree house.”

  But unlike the lock at the tree house, this combination required letters, not numbers.

  “We could also try ringing the doorbell,” Isla said. She pushed the button and a doorbell chimed like a grandfather clock somewhere deep inside the house. They tried to peer through the front windows, but dark shades blocked their view.

  No one came to the door.

  “Maybe the combination is hidden in the new letter,” Isla suggested. “You know, like the words make a T were hidden in that other letter.”

  Marly pulled the letter out of her bag and they all put their heads together, which knocked Isla’s headband to the ground. She bent to pick it up.

  “I don’t see anything weird with any of the words or letters in this letter,” Marly said.

  “I can’t believe we’re stuck already,” Sai grumbled. He started pacing back and forth on the porch.

  “Wait, that’s it!” Isla pointed to the word stuck in the new letter. “‘If you ever find yourselves—’”

  “‘—stuck,’” Marly read along with her, “‘remember who you are. That will always get you through!’”

  Sai turned. “Through the door?” He let out a short laugh. “Good one, Mr. S! So, who are we? Sai, Marly, and Isla. But who knows what order he programmed our names?”

  “I don’t think the combination is our names,” Marly said. “Look at the beginning of the letter. ‘Dear—’”

  “‘Treasure Troop,’” Isla said.

  “Ah,” Sai said. He stepped up to the keypad and pressed T . . . R . . . E . . . A . . . S . . . U . . . R—

  It buzzed on the R and a red X appeared in the corner of the keypad.

  “That’s not right?” Marly said with surprise.

  “Maybe you missed a letter,” Isla said. “Try it again.”

  Sai pressed T . . . R . . . E . . . A . . . S . . . U . . . R—

  Bzzzzzt!

  “Argh!” Sai stomped his foot. He tried one more time. T . . . R . . . E . . . A . . . S . . . U . . . R—

  Bzzzzzt!

  “Okay, stop.” Marly put her hand on Sai’s shoulder. “That’s obviously not right.”

  “Go ahead and try our names,” Isla suggested.

  Sai tried S . . . A . . . I . . . M . . . A . . . R . . . L—

  Bzzzzzt!

  And S . . . A . . . I . . . I . . . S . . . L . . . A—

  Bzzzzzt!

  And I . . . S . . . L . . . A . . . S . . . A . . . I—

  Bzzzzzt!

  “Wait,” Marly said. “It always buzzes after you press a certain number of letters.”

  “Hey, you’re right,” Isla said. “How many?” She counted on her fingers while Sai pressed M . . . A . . . R . . . L . . . Y . . . S . . . A—

  Bzzzzzt!

  “Seven,” Sai said. “So, what’s a seven-letter word that says what we are?”

  “Oh, I know!” Marly said with a grin. “Let me try.”

  Sai stepped aside and Marly pressed F . . . R . . . I . . . E . . . N . . . D . . . S.

  A green check mark appeared on the keypad and the door unlocked.

  “Hello?” Isla called through the open door. “Is anyone here?” One by one, they entered the house.

  “I think we’re alone,” Marly said, closing the door behind them. There was a living room to their right. Heavy red velvet curtains covered the windows, which made the house seem dark. There was a staircase to the second floor on their left. And a long hallway leading to a kitchen stretched in front of them.

  “Alone with the ghosts,” Sai said, wiggling his fingers eerily.

  Isla glared at him.

  “What?” Sai said. “That’s what the letter says. Right, Marly? One ghost guards the door to the hidden room. Another keeps the key.”

  “The ‘very important key,’” Marly said in a dramatic voice. That line made her smile.

  They moved into the dark living room. There was an electric fireplace surrounded by dusty bookshelves against one wall. A deep red sofa by the window. A half-finished Scrabble game on a table in a corner.

  Isla flipped a wall switch, but nothing happened.

  “Let’s try the floor lamp,” Marly said. She went over and pulled the chain, but the lamp didn’t
turn on, either. “Is the electricity out?”

  “Kind of looks like it,” Isla said.

  “Good thing Ms. Lovelace gave us a flashlight,” Sai said, patting the side pocket of his cargo pants.

  “Yeah, good thing,” Marly said. Though it wasn’t so dark that they needed a flashlight. Some sunlight came in around the curtains. Enough to see by, anyway.

  “See any hidden rooms?” Sai asked as he squeezed past a tall red chair beside the fireplace. He squinted up at the bookshelf, then wandered into the next room.

  “We should stay together,” Isla called after him.

  But Sai didn’t come back.

  Marly sighed. Sai always did things his own way.

  The girls followed him into a room that turned out to be a dining room. It was brighter in here. The curtains were made of a faded whitish-yellow lace, which let in a lot more light. There was a table with eight chairs in the middle of the room, a cabinet full of fancy dishes built into one wall, and a map of an island on the wall across from the table.

  Marly liked maps, so she went to check it out. There was a cobweb on it. She brushed it away.

  The map was hand drawn. In pencil. Summer Island it read at the top. Never heard of it, Marly thought. There were trees and hills and a small lake or pond drawn on the map. Maybe this is one of the places Mr. Summerling searched for buried treasure?

  “Hey, check out this weird kitchen,” Sai called from the next room.

  Marly looked around and realized that not only was Sai gone, Isla was, too. She hurried to catch up with her friends. “Oh, wow,” she said, skidding on the black-and-white tile floor. The checkered pattern made her feel sort of dizzy.

  But that wasn’t the weird part of the kitchen. What was weird was how old-fashioned everything was. Marly had never seen such an old stove or refrigerator before. Not even at her grandma’s house.

  There were no dishes in the sink. Nothing on the counters. And plain shades covered the windows. It didn’t look like anyone had used this kitchen in a while.