The Midnight Market

by Beth McMullen

  “Chickens brood,” I protest. “I am not a chicken.”

  “You know what I mean,” Dad clarifies. “Sulky.”

  “I’m a tween, Dad. We sulk. It’s our civic duty.” Besides, everything is wrong in my life right now. What choice do I have?

  “The Pegasus disaster… I mean, situation happened,” Dad says. “Moping won’t change that.”

  I groan. Even he can’t convince himself it’s a situation, and he’s the one who suggested it in the first place! Zeus pecks the screen a few times in my defense. Thank you, bird. At least someone understands.

  “But what if my friends have other better friends now and my team is finished and I’m back to being plain, boring Lola?” I blurt.

  “Excuse me? You are certainly not any kind of plain or boring. Ditch that idea immediately.”

  “Fine,” I grumble. “But Jin and Hannah and me. It’s wrecked. Everything has changed and I don’t like it and I don’t know what to do.”

  I am well aware that I’m whining, and I fully expect Dad to take me to task for it. He does not abide complaining, but instead he looks thoughtful.

  “Sometimes,” he says, “when I’m on an archaeological dig with a team that isn’t working so well together, I look for experiences we can share, something to bring us together and remind us why we are there together in the first place.”

  “I tried that,” I mumble. Ice-cream cones, STEM projects, and all.

  Dad grins in a way that’s completely out of line with how I feel, which is less smiley and more gum on the bottom of a shoe. “Why are you so happy?” I demand.

  “I may have just the thing to right your ship.”

  “A 127-carat diamond?” I ask.

  His grin falters briefly. “Sadly, no. But it’s still good. They have a summer camp, you know. For future treasure hunters.”

  A what? I push Zeus aside to better see Dad.

  “Mean Lola!” Zeus screeches. “Mean! Mean!” He flits to my desk and begins busily rearranging his booty.

  “Say that again, Dad. A summer camp for treasure hunters?”

  “Well, it’s more like a Task Force recruiting-type thing, but it happens in the summer and it’s held at what used to be a proper summer camp. They bring people to their training facility on Timber Wolf Island in the Thousand Islands—that’s in New York—and try to pick out potential future treasure hunters.”

  “How many islands?” I ask.

  He laughs. “It’s actually closer to two thousand, but that’s a bit awkward to say. One thousand eight hundred and sixty-four, to be exact. It’s an archipelago, you know, a group of islands, straddling the Canada–United States border in the Saint Lawrence River, which flows out of Lake Ontario. To count as an island, the piece of land must be at least one square foot and support two living trees. What a hoot!” I recognize what is happening. Dad is off on a tangent. Soon he will be lecturing me on evidence of early homo sapiens found on the islands. I must head this off before it is too late.

  “Dad!” I yell. “Future-treasure-hunter camp!”

  “Oh. Right. Where was I?”

  “The recruiting thingy,” I remind him.

  “Of course. Timber Wolf Island. Anyway, all the agencies do these types of camps: CIA, NSA, FBI, the Center.” There’s a pause. Dad shifts uncomfortably on the tiny screen. “Did I say the Center? That doesn’t mean anything. Forget it.”

  My father, a man of many secrets and a really terrible liar. I quickly commit the Center to memory for a future internet search. Maybe they are in the market for kids who can claim on their résumés to have saved the world?

  Dad clears his throat. “I think you and your friends are suffering low morale, and I really hate seeing you droopy and boneless and broody. Going to Timber Wolf Island might be just the ticket. Perk you right up.”

  “Do they even take kids?” I ask. My pulse speeds up and my palms grow a little clammy.

  “Of course they do!” Dad says with a chuckle. “It’s all kids. You know how European soccer teams recruit kids when they are not even in double digits yet?” I nod. Sure. “Well, it’s the same with the agencies! If they hear of a promising potential talent, they jump right on it. This is not something they talk about with the public, but it happens nonetheless.”

  This is so great! But my enthusiasm quickly falters. Star and Fish hate us. They would never let us attend camp. “Um… Dad? Although this sounds really fun, I don’t think the Task Force would let us in. We are not their favorite people.”

  Dad waves off my concerns as if they are nothing. “The Task Force owes me,” he says with a sly smile. “They will do whatever I ask. But Timber Wolf Island will not be easy. It’s hard work. Lots of training-type things. And activities. And, well, you get the idea. But if you and your friends want to go, I can arrange it.”

  This is exactly the sort of thing to get us working together again, as a team, and get us back in the good graces of the Task Force. All we have to do is be completely awesome and not mess up at all, even a little. Like, we need to be perfect. I let that idea settle for a moment. Perfect. What are the chances of that happening? But this is our chance. We cannot blow it.

  “Well, what do you think?” asks Dad. “Do you want me to make the call?” Do I want him to make the call? Is he insane? Of course I do! My friends cannot ditch me if I get us into treasure-hunter summer camp!

  “Yes!” I shout.

  Zeus does not appreciate my enthusiasm. He glides out of the room, cawing, “Loud Lola! Loud Lola!”

  “Fabulous,” Dad replies. “It will make everything as right as rain and get your confidence back up. I’ll follow up with the parents and of course Irma, but in the meantime take the liberty of telling your friends. I hope they are enthusiastic about the idea. Now, Lola, my darling, I need to get some sleep because I have much to do tomorrow—”

  “Wait!” I interrupt. “I didn’t even get to ask you about the diamond hunting. How is it going?”

  “Two steps forward, one step back,” Dad says with a sigh. He looks tired, as if not fully recovered from his kidnapping ordeal. Or maybe the image is grainy. “Although in the case of this particular treasure, it’s two steps forward, five hundred miles back. But the scenery down here is lovely.” That’s just Dad all over, looking for the silver lining in failure. “Now good night, my dear.” He clicks off before I can ask any more questions. Not that I would. I’m too distracted by the idea of Camp Timber Wolf! It has to be better than Paul and Bodhi, right?

  I text Jin and Hannah immediately. And then I wait.

  CHAPTER 6 ALL FOR ONE… OR MAYBE NOT?

  AND WAIT AND WAIT AND wait. Nothing! Crickets! I go to bed and I wake up and still… silence. I go so far as to check voicemail for a message, even though making phone calls is not done. The initial elation I felt about Camp Timber Wolf being the right thing to bring our team back together basically evaporates like fog in the sunshine. Straddling grumpy and sad, I put off calling Dad and telling him not to bother following up with the camp idea because, like an idiot, I still cling to a sliver of hope that Jin and Hannah will decide we are worth it. For the record, I’m fully aware that slivers of hope can end up breaking a person’s heart.

  I mope around the house with Zeus trailing behind me, being annoying as only an overly articulate parrot can be. Great-Aunt Irma warns Zeus to be careful, as moody tweens are dangerous creatures. Zeus, undeterred, flutters to my shoulder and pulls my hair.

  “Stop that,” I grumble. “You’re going to give me a bald spot. And I don’t need to be friendless and bald.”

  “Lola,” he coos, blinking his glossy eyes at me, all innocent-like, before returning to pulling my hair.

  “I said stop!” I give him a shove.

  He flaps to the top of the bookcase. “Mean Lola! Mean!”

  “You were pulling my hair!” I shout in my defense. “Not the other way around!” I half expect him to correct me and explain that he does not, in fact, have hair. This is so not my d
ay. I’m about to get really nasty and call him a good-for-nothing birdbrain when the doorbell rings. Zeus goes bananas when the doorbell rings. It does not make any difference who it is. But he is thrilled right down to his pinfeathers to find his dearest love, Jin, on the other side. And beside Jin is Hannah. My heart skips. Maybe all is not lost. Not yet anyway.

  “Hey,” I say casually, rubbing the spot on my head. I don’t really know what to say next. I texted them about camp and they didn’t answer. What makes it worse is that I bet they discussed it themselves, leaving me out of the conversation. An awkward silence fills the entryway.

  “Come on in, guys!” Great-Aunt Irma yells from the kitchen. “The show is just getting started! I have popcorn.” Oh boy. Great-Aunt Irma is at it again, hijacking drones for her own amusement.

  “Popcorn?” Jin asks, sniffing the air. “With butter?”

  “Never mind that.” I usher them in and up to my room. Popcorn aside, I do not want to have to explain Irma’s harmless fun, especially when I suspect it is not exactly harmless.

  Jin takes his usual place at my desk, and Hannah flops onto my unmade bed. Zeus clings to Jin’s shoulder, chewing gently on a bit of shaggy hair and sighing with delight. Leaning on my cluttered dresser, I shift my weight from foot to foot and focus on the T-shirts hanging out of an open dresser drawer, much too aware of the awkward silence. Hannah finally speaks up.

  “It’s not that we don’t want to go,” she says. My heart leaps briefly before crashing as the words sink in. When someone says it’s not that they don’t want to go, it means they do not want to go. “But it’s just that we have other stuff going on right now. Bodhi would be super bummed if I left. We’re training for a competition in August.”

  “And Paul wants to be a team in Sea of Thieves, you know, the video game. I have a lot of practicing to do because I’m not very good.”

  Paul. Bodhi. Me, screaming.

  “Besides,” Hannah adds. “After Pegasus, I don’t know if this is something we are good at, you know? Like, should we even be bothering?”

  “The idea kind of makes me sick to my stomach,” Jin says. “I think finding the Stone of Istenanya and your dad was just a freak thing. Pegasus proved as much.”

  Wow. Things are much worse than I expected. How do I talk them out of their doubt when my own constantly bubbles up?

  Enough of that, Lola! Get it together. You have to convince them it’s worth it. Beg if you must. Whatever it takes!

  I take a shaky breath. “Do you guys remember how awesome it was to be on the inside, to be part of the Task Force?” My words hang in the air. There is a beat of silence, during which a memory flashes in my mind. I was looking out an apartment window in a rainy city somewhere in Europe at two girls roughly my age. They were walking to school—uniforms, backpacks, umbrellas—and they were laughing. The girl with long hair said something so funny to the other girl, with red sneakers, that she doubled over in a fit of giggles. And oh, how I wanted that, the whole scene. I am not giving up my friends without a fight.

  But maybe the wheels are turning and they are remembering? As honorary Task Force treasure hunters, we had resources. We had drivers and computers and smartphones and a big situation room where we could write ideas on the walls in marker without getting in trouble. No one told us to go to bed. No one questioned our right to know things. Or to order pizza at midnight. And the snacks were outrageous. Sure, saving the world was good. But also, it was just really excellent.

  “It was pretty great,” Hannah acknowledges.

  “So, do you want to be boring old middle school students or do you want to be treasure hunters?” I ask.

  “Treasure hunters!” Zeus shrieks, causing Jin to practically jump out of his skin.

  “Well, the bird’s got it right anyway,” I say, rolling my eyes. No one says anything, but I have their attention. I push on.

  “I bet there is no one at this camp who has experience like we do,” I continue. “We actually saved the world. Lipstick was set to turn us all into zombies, but we didn’t let that happen.”

  “That part was fun,” Jin agrees, nodding. “Scary at times, but fun.”

  “Plus, they have a dessert buffet that is open all day long. And all night!” That might not technically be true, but, as my father would say, if I’m putting all my eggs in this basket, I better make sure the basket includes a lot of dessert. I grin widely at Jin and Hannah, willing them to forget Sea of Thieves, boyfriends, and winged-horse disasters, and say yes to camp. Is it going to work? I hold my breath.

  Hannah throws my pillow up in the air like a basketball. “Well, my mother did threaten to make me work in the restaurant if I didn’t find something college-application worthy to do ASAP.” She scrunches up her face. “She said white-water rafting doesn’t count.”

  “Saving the world is definitely worthy,” I blurt.

  “And my parents are forcing us to take an RV trip,” Jin says with disgust. “Stuck in a tiny tin can with my brother for two weeks. Kill me now.”

  “Maybe we go to camp?” Hannah asks, glancing at Jin. “You promise it will at least be fun, right?”

  “Heaps of fun,” I answer quickly.

  “I guess we could try?” Jin says.

  “What’s the worst that can happen?” Hannah asks.

  “Oh, I can think of a lot of things,” Jin replies. I don’t want to go down the road of figuring out all the terrible things that could happen at camp because that will inevitably lead to them saying a big, fat “no.”

  “You might get a couple of mosquito bites,” I say quickly. “But that’s it.”

  “Mosquitoes?” Jin asks, eyeing me. I hold my breath. My heart races. Come on, Jin! “I guess I can live with that. But just a couple, right? Potentially?”

  I nod vigorously. My heart races. Yes! They are coming to camp!

  “Zeus is in too!” the crazy, lovesick parrot screeches.

  I point a stern finger at him. “You are not invited.”

  CHAPTER 7 CAMP LIFE, HERE WE COME!

  WE HAVE EXACTLY TWENTY-FOUR HOURS before we leave for Camp Timber Wolf. It took me about five of them to figure out what inventions to stick in my backpack. First in, the handheld version of Frank 4.0. You can never know when it will be necessary to shut down all electronics in the immediate vicinity. There’s also a cup-holder umbrella that doesn’t seem critical, right up until you dump hot chocolate all over your shoes. There are Ping-Pong-ball smoke bombs and a lavender-infused bandanna with a built-in fan in case you are stuck somewhere stinky and cannot be caught gagging and barfing. I figure at a camp full of teenagers and primitive showers it might come in handy.

  And of course, the Window Witch 5.0, a thin, rectangular piece of metal with a trigger-style handle on one end, capable of opening any locked window anywhere. First, slide the metal rectangular piece under the windowsill. Next, pull the trigger and a hook pops out of the opposite end. Use the hook to open the window. In this new version, I made sure the user can manipulate the hook with the trigger, like a video game.

  The Window Witch 3.0 was what got me cleanly into Lipstick’s mansion on my mission to steal the ballerina statue way back when I was an art thief. When we found Dad and the Stone of Istenanya, I was clear to Dad and Great-Aunt Irma that my criminal days were behind me as I no longer needed to fund a rescue mission. I swore I’d channel my desire to invent, to tinker, into school STEM fair projects and other things that were legal.

  But maybe I didn’t exactly quit. Sometimes at night, when I can’t sleep, when my mind is racing too fast over hills and into valleys, I sit at my desk and modify and update and change and improve. I tell myself it’s a way to relax, but the truth is, somewhere deep down, I can’t say for sure that I won’t need these tools again. And when I do, I want them to work.

  I hoist my full pack onto my shoulder and almost collapse. “You guys,” I groan. “This is way heavy already.”

  “And we haven’t even gotten to the ‘must have’ stu
ff,” Jin points out. Sitting on my bedroom floor, surrounded by piles of gear, we review the required-items packing list. It’s long and it might be in Greek, which, unfortunately, none of us know. I’m trying to downplay the extent of the list because I’m afraid of scaring them off. Or at least Jin. As soon as Hannah realized there was the potential for danger, she forgot her doubt. But Jin is a harder case.

  “What are hydration salts for?” Jin asks warily. Zeus, perched on Jin’s shoulder, eyeballs him adoringly and fluffs his feathers while Jin basically ignores him. Love is complicated.

  “Oh,” replies Hannah, plucking a packet from the pile of stuff. “These are for when you push your body to the limit and are dehydrated and puking all over everything. Bodhi has them in his climbing backpack.”

  “Not okay,” Jin mutters. “And why fiber supplements?”

  Hannah grins. “Because after you are dehydrated and puking and stuff, your body gets massively confused and sometimes you will go days without pooping.”

  “Days?” Jin swallows hard.

  “Or weeks. Who knows?” Hannah shrugs. “Anyway, fiber helps that not happen. Because we might be living on energy bars and granola, now that I think about it. And maybe the occasional orange so we don’t get scurvy.”

  Jin is practically in fetal position. “Scurvy? Like pirates?”

  Hannah nods. “If you go too long without vitamin C, your gums turn purple and ooze.”

  “And your teeth fall out,” I add.

  “And you get bug-eyed,” Hannah says.

  “And you bleed under your skin.”

  “Stop!” Jin yelps.

  “Stop! Stop! Stop!” Zeus repeats.

  I study the list. “Tree-climbing spikes,” I say, holding one up. They are like daggers that attach to boots and allow the wearer to stab her way to the top of a tall tree. “Interesting.”

  “I hate it when you say that word,” Jin whimpers. “ ‘Interesting’ means my teeth are going to fall out.”