There was a door that led to the backyard, and another door beside the refrigerator. Sai opened that one, but it was just a pantry. It held a container of oatmeal and a few canned goods. Not much else.
“Let’s see what’s upstairs,” Sai said. They trooped back down the hallway, rounded a corner, and thudded up the stairs.
They ended up in a hallway with five closed doors.
“Let’s see what’s behind door number one,” Sai said, opening the first door.
“A bedroom,” Isla said.
The next room was a bathroom. Then two more bedrooms. And a final door at the end of the hall. Marly tried the handle.
Locked.
But unlike the front door, this one required a key.
“I bet this is our hidden room,” Sai said.
“I don’t know,” Marly said. “It’s just locked. It’s not hidden.”
Sai got down on his hands and knees and tried to peer under the door.
“See anything?” Isla asked.
“No,” he said, disappointed.
“Let’s take a closer look inside each of the bedrooms,” Marly said, turning around. She went inside the yellow one. It didn’t have much in it. Just a bed with a white bedspread and a plain brown dresser. There was nothing on the dresser or the walls. Nothing in the closet. Marly had a feeling this room had been used even less recently than the kitchen.
“Isla? Sai?” she called when she returned to the hallway. “Where are you?”
“In here,” Isla said, coming out of the bedroom across the hall. “There wasn’t anything interesting in there.”
Marly craned her neck. That room looked a lot like the one she’d just come from except the walls and dresser were white and the bedspread was blue. As they passed the bathroom again, a small square door on a wall in there caught Marly’s eye. She went to check it out. It was just a clothes chute.
“Where’d Sai go?” Marly asked when she rejoined Isla in the hallway.
Isla shrugged. “Maybe he found something in that last bedroom.”
The only room Marly and Isla hadn’t been in on this floor was the one closest to the stairs. They peeked in and saw it was just as plain as the other two. The walls were green. The bedspread white.
Sai wasn’t in there.
“Sai?” Marly called, louder this time. “Where are you?”
No response.
Marly had a bad feeling about this.
“SAI!” Marly and Isla yelled.
“Down here,” Sai called from somewhere downstairs. “I think I found another puzzle.”
Marly and Isla glanced at one another, then charged down the stairs.
“Where?” Isla asked. “Where are you?”
“In here.”
Marly and Isla followed Sai’s voice into the living room and found him hunched over the Scrabble game.
“I don’t think this is a real game,” he said, staring down at the board. “See? None of the words go over the starting square.” He touched the pink square in the middle of the board.
“Also, there aren’t any racks of letters on the table,” Isla pointed out.
“Maybe the words are another message for us,” Marly said. She opened their notebook to a clean page and started copying down all the words on the board: first, dictionary, the, letter, in, three, scrabble, and words. Then she sat down on the overstuffed sofa and tried to rearrange the words into a sentence.
“First three two-letter words in the dictionary?” Marly said as Isla and Sai plopped down beside her. “No. We didn’t use the word Scrabble.”
Isla twirled her hair around her finger. “Well, there is such a thing as a Scrabble dictionary,” she said. “So it could say ‘First three two-letter words in the Scrabble dictionary.’ Is there a Scrabble dictionary in here?”
Sai hopped over to one of the bookshelves, then tilted his head as he scanned the books.
Isla checked the other shelf. “There is one!” she cried, pulling out a hardcover book. “I’m not surprised. Mr. Summerling always liked weird words. And there are lots of weird words in here. Like words that have a Q, but no U.”
“What?” Marly said. She’d never heard of a word that has a Q in it but no U.
“We don’t care about weird words right now,” Sai said, taking the book from Isla. “We care about the first three two-letter words.” He flipped back to the beginning of the book.
Marly studied her notebook. “You know? The message could also say ‘First two three-letter words in the Scrabble dictionary,’” she said, chewing on the end of her pencil.
“Wait, what was that?” Isla cried.
“What was what?” Marly lifted her head. She didn’t hear anything.
But Isla was clearly talking about something she’d seen in the dictionary. Not something she’d heard elsewhere in the house. Isla took the dictionary back and quickly turned the pages until she found what she was looking for.
“Look.” She held the book so Marly and Sai could see the small rectangle cut into the pages of the book. Tucked inside the rectangle was a silver key.
“Wow!” Marly’s eye opened wide. “That’s a great place to hide something!”
“This could be the very important key.” Sai grabbed it, accidentally knocking the book from Isla’s hands onto the floor. “I bet it unlocks that door at the end of the hall!” He bolted for the stairs.
“Wait, Sai,” Isla said, picking up the book. “The whole reason we went looking for a Scrabble dictionary was so we could find the first three two-letter words, remember?”
“Or the first two three-letter words,” Marly added. “That’s what the puzzle was really about. Finding those words. We need to find them and write them down.”
Sai groaned and dragged himself back. “I think the whole point of that puzzle was to find this key!”
“There could be two reasons for the puzzle,” Isla said. “To find the key and look up those words.”
Marly agreed. “We may have to enter these words into some other puzzle we haven’t found yet,” she said. “I think we should look them up before we go off exploring. It won’t take long.”
Sai exhaled impatiently while Isla turned to the beginning of the book. “Okay, Marly,” she said. “The first three two-letter words are—” She frowned. “I don’t know how to pronounce them, so I’ll just spell them. A-A, A-B, and A-D.”
Marly copied them into the notebook. “You weren’t kidding about weird words,” she muttered. “What does A-A even mean?”
“It’s some kind of lava,” Isla said, reading from the book. “Ready for the first two three-letter words?”
“Sure am.”
“A-A-H and A-A-L,” Isla said.
“More weird words,” Sai said as Marly wrote them down. Isla closed the dictionary and set it on the fireplace mantel.
Marly couldn’t disagree. But she was glad they’d taken the time to copy those words into their notebook. Mr. Summerling never gave them a clue without a reason.
“Now can we take the very important key and try it in the locked door upstairs?” Sai asked.
“Yep,” Marly said, tucking the notebook into her bag.
They dashed for the stairs. But before they were even halfway up, the doorbell rang.
They all froze on the stairs.
“Who’s that?” Marly asked, gripping the banister.
Whoever it was rang the doorbell again. Then pounded on the door.
“Should we answer it?” Sai asked.
“Let’s see who it is first,” Isla said.
They crept back down the stairs and over to the front door. Marly put her uncovered eye to the peephole.
An angry green eye stared back at her.
Marly gasped. “It’s Jay Summerling!”
“I know you kids are in there,�
�� Jay growled. “Open this door!” He pounded on it again.
Marly shrank back. Her heart was pounding almost as hard as Jay’s fist. “He must not know the code for the lock,” she said.
“Good. Let’s not open the door,” Isla said firmly.
Marly was in total agreement there.
“I’ll go make sure the back door is locked,” Sai said. “We don’t want him to sneak in or anything.” He zoomed down the hall.
“You kids are trespassing!” Jay yelled. “Open this door right now or I’ll call the police!”
“Go ahead!” Marly couldn’t resist yelling back. “We’re not trespassing. We’re allowed to be here. Are you?”
“Shh!” Isla hissed, grabbing Marly’s arm. “Don’t talk to him!” Her eyes were wild with fear.
“He already knows we’re in here,” Marly said. He may have even followed them from Ms. Lovelace’s office. Maybe that was why she’d had that creepy feeling that someone was watching them before. Maybe Jay had been watching them.
Strangely enough, Marly didn’t feel scared. Not too scared, anyway. Not as scared as Isla seemed to be. Maybe that was because she knew her mom was right next door.
“Anything you find in that house is mine, not yours! Do you hear me?” Jay yelled as he pounded some more.
Marly and Isla eyed each other. What does he think we are going to find in this house?
Finally, the pounding stopped. Footsteps thudded across the front porch and a shadow passed by the living room window.
“Uh-oh. What if he’s going around to the back door?” Marly whispered. She and Isla hadn’t moved.
“Hopefully Sai got it locked,” Isla whispered back.
But Sai hadn’t come back yet.
“Sai?” Marly called in as loud of a voice as she dared. “Where are you? Is the back door locked?”
No response.
“He maybe can’t hear us,” Isla said.
Marly and Isla inched along the hallway toward the kitchen. The back door rattled. Then someone pounded on it.
Marly froze. She grabbed Isla’s hand. Her heart pulsed in her throat.
But no one came in.
Finally, the pounding stopped and the house went silent.
“Is he gone?” Isla mouthed.
“I don’t know,” Marly mouthed back. They continued down the hall, their backs pressed against the wall. But when they got to the kitchen, Sai wasn’t there.
“Where is he?” Isla said, barely above a whisper.
Marly let go of Isla’s hand and took slow, careful steps toward the back door. She pressed her ear to the door. Then, with a shaky finger, she moved the shade just enough to see out onto the back porch and yard.
No one was out there.
“I think Jay’s gone,” Marly said with relief. “But yeah, where’s Sai?”
Marly and Isla grabbed hands again and moved into the dining room. No Sai. Then the living room. Still no Sai.
“Why can’t he just stay in one place!” Marly grumbled.
“Because he’s Sai,” Isla said.
Marly nodded. That was exactly why.
Then Marly noticed the electric fireplace. Strange. The logs were all lit up!
“Isla?” Marly said, staring at the fireplace. “Was the fireplace on when we were in here before?”
Isla turned. She grabbed her hair in her fist. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “Who turned it on?”
“Sai?” Marly suggested. She hoped it was Sai. Because if it wasn’t him, who else could it have been?
She walked along the fireplace and examined every single brick. “Aha!” she said when she noticed a small switch sticking out between two of the bricks. “I bet this turns it on and off.” She flipped the switch and the fireplace went off.
That made her feel better.
But thirty seconds later, the fireplace came on again.
All by itself.
“That was weird,” Marly said, not taking her eyes off the fireplace.
Isla reached over and turned it off.
Once again, it popped back on. Then it started blinking: blinkblinkblink! Blink! . . . Blink! . . . Blink! . . . blinkblinkblink!
Isla gasped. “I-i-is it a ghost?”
One ghost guards the doors. Another keeps the key. Are there really ghosts in Mr. Summerling’s house? Marly wondered. Real live ghosts?
Marly wasn’t sure she believed in ghosts. But this . . . this was odd. What is going on here?
“I don’t like this,” Isla said, backing away from the fireplace. “Let’s find Sai and get out of here.” She turned all the way around and headed for the front door.
But Marly couldn’t leave. Not yet. blinkblinkblink! Blink! . . . Blink! . . . Blink! . . . blinkblinkblink! She narrowed her eyes. “Hey, there’s a pattern to the blinking.”
Isla turned back around. She squinted, then moved in closer. “You’re right. There is a pattern.”
blinkblinkblink! Blink! . . . Blink! . . . Blink! . . . blinkblinkblink!
“Short! Short! Short! LONG-LONG-LONG! Short! Short! Short!”
Isla looked at Marly. “That’s SOS in Morse code!”
“I don’t think a ghost is making that fireplace blink,” Marly said.
“It’s Sai!” Isla exclaimed. “He’s in trouble.”
“But where is he?” Marly asked. “And how is he making the fireplace blink?”
The last time they’d seen him, he was on his way to lock the back door. Where had he gone after that?
blinkblinkblink! Blink! . . . Blink! . . . Blink! . . . blinkblinkblink!
“Sai?” Isla pounded on the bricks above the fireplace. “Is that you? Can you hear us?” She turned to Marly. “Maybe he found the hidden room. Maybe it’s somewhere around here.”
Marly had already looked closely at all these bricks. That was how she’d found the switch that turned the fireplace on and off. Was there another switch? Maybe a lever? Maybe even a loose brick?
The girls pushed and pulled at every brick around the fireplace. Every brick they could reach. None seemed loose.
Marly rubbed her eye. She didn’t see any other switches or levers, either.
But the fireplace continued to blink: Short! Short! Short! LONG-LONG-LONG! Short! Short! Short!
“Uh-oh!” Isla said as the fireplace, wall, and floor suddenly began to turn.
“What the—” Marly gaped at the moving floor beneath her feet. Half a second later, she and Isla were thrust into a whole other room.
A dark room.
A flashlight shined in their faces. Marly put a hand up to shield her uncovered eye from the bright light.
“Finally!” Sai said.
“Sai?” Marly and Isla said at the same time.
“Where are we?” Marly blinked. “And please move that flashlight. You’re shining it right in my eye.”
Sai aimed the flashlight at the gray concrete floor. “We’re in a hidden room,” he explained.
“The hidden room?” Isla asked.
“With the treasure?” Marly said with growing enthusiasm. Had they found it already?
“No,” Sai said. “I don’t think so, anyway. Look around. There’s no view of the city. But I’m sure glad we have a flashlight.” He shined it all around the bare walls. The room was completely empty.
“What is this room?” Marly turned all around. It wasn’t large. Maybe half the size of her bedroom at home. “How did we get in here?”
“I don’t know how you guys got in here. But I found a button on the edge of the bookshelf,” Sai said.
“Me too!” Isla exclaimed. “It was like a doorbell. And it was stuck to the underside of one of the bookshelves.”
“Yes!” Sai said. “After I made sure the back door was locked, I came back through the living room
and I saw Jay walking past the window, so I ducked down. That’s when I saw the button. I was curious what it did, so I pushed it.”
“So did I,” Isla admitted.
Marly’s eyebrow went up. “You did?” she said. Isla wasn’t normally the sort of person who pushed buttons if she didn’t know what they did.
Isla cringed a little. “Why didn’t you tell us you were in here?” she asked Sai. “Why didn’t you answer when we called your name? And why didn’t you just come back out?”
“I didn’t hear you calling me,” Sai said. “Did you hear me calling you?”
“You were calling us?” Marly said.
“Yes! I could sort of see you guys through the fireplace if I got down low. It’s a two-sided fireplace. See?” Sai swung the flashlight beam toward the electric log. “I called and pounded on the glass, but you guys didn’t answer. This room must be soundproof.”
“Weird,” Marly said. “Why does Mr. Summerling have a secret soundproof room behind his fireplace?”
“To store his treasure?” Isla suggested.
“But there isn’t any treasure in here. There isn’t anything in here,” Sai said. “Not even a button to get us out of here.”
“What!” Isla exclaimed at the same time Marly said, “There’s no button on this side of the wall?”
Sai shook his head. “The only button I’ve found is the one that turns the fireplace on and off. That’s why I started flashing SOS. It was all I had. I was hoping you’d see that and find me.”
“There has to be another button in here somewhere,” Marly said, feeling along the concrete wall.
“I don’t think there is,” Sai said. “And you have to be standing right up by the fireplace when someone pushes the button. See? This is the part of the floor that moves.” He shined the flashlight onto a half circle in front of the fireplace. There was a small gap between it and the rest of the floor.
Isla stepped onto it. “So, what do we do?” she asked. “Stand here until someone comes along and pushes the button and lets us out?”
The Hidden Room Page 3
