“You guys!” It’s the missing Jin, dripping wet and headed our way. I’m relieved he’s okay, but I’m also furious.
“Where did you go?” I demand. “I had the Helm!”
“Until she lost the Helm,” Hannah adds. I want to kick her, but she’s exactly right. It takes us a moment to realize Jin’s eyes are pinwheeling in his head and his face is the color of shock, which in Jin’s case is vampire pale, just FYI.
“Wait. Are you okay?” I ask. “Was it the near drowning? Did Zeus say something mean? He can do that, you know.”
Jin waves his hands to cut me off. “No.” Distress is evident on his face. Whatever happened, he feels it deep in his guts. “I did something. I didn’t mean to. Or actually, I did, but I shouldn’t have. And now I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to fix it.”
Warm water breaks loose in my ear canal and trickles out onto my shoulder. But it must free up some space in there for connections because a few things come together in that lightning-fast way that doesn’t make any sense later on.
And it all centers on those Chappaqua T-shirts.
CHAPTER 35 STAR AND FISH SCREW IT ALL UP
STAR: Where on earth are you? The last thing I saw was you jumping into one of those getaway boats!
FISH: Unsure. But from the looks of it, maybe Staten Island?
STAR: I thought you were dead.
FISH: Did you find that upsetting?
STAR: Jury is still out.
FISH: Gee, thanks.
STAR: What are you doing on Staten Island?
FISH: I thought I saw the Helm. There was a guy with a golden crown tucked under his arm, so I jumped into his getaway boat. It wasn’t the Helm. It was a paperweight. The guy laughed, told me to go learn my history, and pushed me overboard. It was insulting. And now I’m stuck on Staten Island.
STAR: Did you swim there?
FISH: No! I got picked up by another boat, but they didn’t believe I had any authority to arrest them for trafficking in magical objects. They laughed at me too, but at least they didn’t pitch me over the side. It’s not been a great day.
STAR: For the record, I would like to say I did not agree to this plan at the start. I take no responsibility at all for the outcome.
FISH: What are you talking about? This whole plan was your idea!
STAR: It was certainly not!
FISH: You were the one who would not stop complaining about Siberia. The only reason we are here is because you wanted to go surfing. Thus, this is all your fault.
STAR: I cannot believe you.
FISH: And I cannot believe I let you talk me into using a police boat to break up the Midnight Market after what happened the last time we used a police boat to raid the Midnight Market.
STAR: Are you referring to the situation in the Son Doong Cave in Vietnam? It’s the biggest cave in the world! It has a river and a jungle and could easily fit an entire small city inside it. That was so not our fault.
FISH: It was kind of our fault. Mostly yours. Like it is now.
STAR: It’s not fair that all our bad ideas end up being my ideas.
FISH: Well, there is a big difference between my ideas and your ideas. My ideas work and yours fail. Every. Single. Time. And I have data to support my argument. Unfortunately.
STAR: Whatever. Now you’re being mean about it.
FISH: Anyway, I’d love to debate this for the next one hundred years, but we have real problems to solve and they are fairly urgent. We lost the Helm—that’s what we should be focused on. Those Midnight Marketers are the worst.
STAR: You have to admit, it was a pretty good getaway plan.
FISH: No, I do not, and no, it wasn’t! It was a terrible idea.
STAR: Only because it worked.
FISH: I hate them.
STAR: What do we do now? Can Moose rescue you?
FISH: He’s still AWOL. I’m starting to get suspicious.
STAR: Is it time to panic?
FISH: What? No! We regroup. We wait. We exercise patience. We make up a really good story to tell the bosses.
STAR: Wonderful. I’m going out for a latte. Good luck getting off that island.
FISH: You are a bad partner.
CHAPTER 36 WHAT JIN DID
HANNAH SITS DOWN ON A bench, the Statue of Liberty blinking in the distance. “I guess you better tell us,” she says. I wedge in next to her.
Jin paces in a tight circle, gathering his thoughts, occasionally glancing up at Lady Liberty as if to gather strength. Twice he tries to speak but nothing comes out, just a few tiny squeaks. He’s in a bad way.
“It’s Chappaqua, isn’t it?” I say finally. Jin stops abruptly. Does he look relieved or terrified? I can’t tell. Barf Boy had on a gray Chappaqua Country Day T-shirt. Chappaqua Country Day is the school where Paul goes. And to make matters worse, I now realize the kid who saved me from drowning, who stole the Helm, was also wearing a Chappaqua Country Day shirt. “Paul was on the barge. And his friends. You told him everything about treasure hunting, didn’t you?”
Jin’s face crumples, and that is how I know I’m right.
Hannah leaps to her feet. “What do you mean Paul was on the boat?” she shouts. “Paul Paul?”
“I told him about the Midnight Market before we left camp,” Jin says forlornly. “He said it sounded so excellent and he wished he could go.”
“But how did he know where we were going when we didn’t even know where we were going?” Hannah shouts again. “You better not have that stupid phone in your shoe.”
Jin throws his arms up in the air. “I said I didn’t have it!” But that’s when I notice the bracelet, the Paul bracelet, and the microchip charm.
“The bracelet,” I say. “He’s tracking you.”
“Chipped!” Zeus hollers. Yes. Exactly.
Horrified, Jin stares at the bracelet. “I just… wanted him to like me again,” Jin whispers. “To see that I wasn’t a loser. To see how okay I was even without him. And he did this?” His limbs go loose, and for a second, I think he might collapse in a heap. Instead, he frantically begins pulling on the bracelet until the woven strands snap, and he hurls it into the river.
“I can’t believe you,” Hannah says. “You ruined everything!” We were so close. I had the Helm in my hands. I had our way back onto the Task Force. My head swims.
“I’m so sorry,” Jin mutters. “If I could take it all back, I would.”
“Well, we don’t have a time machine,” Hannah snarls, “so that is not happening.”
“I said I was sorry.”
“Those are just words.”
Okay, Lola. Get a grip. The sign of a good leader is that she doesn’t go to pieces when things turn bad. She is tenacious. She does not quit.
And this is a time when I need to be that leader. I take a deep breath. We can be mad at Jin later for making poor choices, but right now we have another problem. How to steal back what was stolen from us.
“You guys,” I interrupt. “Enough! If we want to get the Helm, we can’t sit here arguing all night.”
They both shut up and glare at me, which makes no sense because I have done nothing wrong other than allow the Helm to be taken right out of my hands. In my defense, I was distracted at the time by potentially drowning.
“What does it look like?” Jin asks tentatively. “The Helm, I mean?”
“Oh, it’s a beautiful gold crown,” replies Hannah, “embedded with rubies and diamonds.”
“Really?”
“No,” Hannah snaps. “It’s a baseball hat. Where do we find Paul? Where does he live?”
Even if we can find Paul, we can’t get to him. We are stuck on an island in the middle of the night with no boat. “I don’t know his address,” Jin says. “I only know the name of his town.”
“Chappaqua,” I mutter. Not helpful. Jin’s shoulders sag. He’s diminished, looking like he might shrivel up and blow away on the next strong breeze.
My heart sinks, and the nauseous
ache of failure settles right in my core. I take a deep, hiccuping inhale, afraid that I might start to cry again, and when I do, I catch the faint scent of… lavender.
CHAPTER 37 THE SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS
I HOLD UP A HAND to silence Jin and Hannah. “Do you smell that?” I whisper. “Lavender.”
“Huh?” Jin glances around, unsure what is happening. But Hannah gets it right away, sniffing the air and grinning.
“They must be here,” she says. “The Chappaqua boys.”
“Oh,” Jin says finally. “The bandanna. They took it?”
I nod. Of course, they have the Helm, so we can’t see them, but because we can smell them, I assume they are nearby and can see us. “Keep talking,” I say. “Act normal.” Whatever that is.
Clearing my head, I take a deep breath. The lavender scent comes from over my right shoulder. Slowly, I inch the group in that direction, wondering how exactly we are supposed to take back something we cannot see. For now, we will have to settle for getting closer. We creep along in the direction of what I think is the group of boys, all the while chattering away about how we might, someday, get off this island.
The floral scent intensifies. They are close. Why can’t we hear them? Does the Helm provide a bubble of silence, too? That would be unfair. This entire situation is unfair! We traded for the Helm, straight up, and Paul and his horrible posse of idiot friends stole it from us. At this moment I’d like nothing more than to kick Paul into the harbor.
The lavender scent is strong now. They must be right here. It occurs to me that they are messing with us, but that is not surprising. It’s what they have been doing all along. I’ll admit, it troubles me to think we were so easily fooled. They took the Helm right out of my hands. I might never get over that.
I’m in the middle of this ugly thought when suddenly, I’m sure someone is breathing down my neck. Like, literally. It is hot and steaming and smells of barbecue potato chips eaten sometime in the last few hours. Another reason I don’t like these kids! Why ruin a perfectly good potato chip with bizarre orange flavoring that stains your fingers and tastes like feet? It takes all my willpower not to reel around and grab whoever it is. Using only my eyes, I try to communicate to Jin and Hannah that our adversaries are directly behind me.
“Do you have something stuck in your eye?” Jin asks. “Want me to take a look?”
“They are right there,” I hiss, jabbing my thumb in their direction. Without missing a beat, Hannah launches herself into the air, her arms flailing in loopy circles as she flies.
“Hannah!” Jin yells. But she doesn’t land on the hard ground. Instead, she collides with bodies we cannot see, arms still swinging wildly. Someone yelps in surprise. Now on the ground, Hannah sweeps her legs side to side, and the boys tumble around her.
But as they tumble around her, suddenly we can see them, three boys in Chappaqua Country Day T-shirts. It worked! Paul is the one with my bandanna tied around his neck, the fan blowing his shaggy bangs straight up in the air. The second boy is Barf Boy from the barge, and the third wears soggy checkerboard Vans. I take in these details in a hot second as the baseball hat of invisibility, knocked off Paul’s head, sails into the air. As Jin and I lunge for it at the same time, we collide, and the hat falls from the sky right back into Paul’s hands. No!
“Nice try, suckers!” he yells, pulling it tight on his head and instantly vanishing.
Vans and Barf Boy spin wildly, looking for him. “Paul! Where are you? Grab our hands! They can see us!”
“Ben can come,” Paul says gleefully. And in a flash, Barf Boy disappears. “Daniel, you’re fired. You were never really into this anyway. And you whine and complain all the time about everything. It’s a total downer.”
“What? You can’t do that!” Daniel howls. “How am I going to get home?”
“Don’t know. Don’t care! Later, loser!” I imagine Paul dancing around like a maniac, dizzy with his new power.
“I don’t know if this is a good idea, Paul.” This comes from Ben, his voice heavy with doubt. “There aren’t any other boats here. He’s going to get in trouble if he gets caught.”
“When he gets caught.” Paul snickers. “Daniel, remember when I was new at school and you wouldn’t let me sit at your table? I wasn’t cool enough for you. You called me Puny Paul. You laughed at me. But who’s laughing now? Who’s cool now? You guys were pathetic before me.”
An eerie silence settles over the boys. Daniel stares into the darkness, bewildered. “Ben, you can’t let him do this,” he says.
“But Ben isn’t in charge, is he?” Paul replies icily. “Are you, Ben?”
“No,” Ben whispers.
“If you want to stay behind with Daniel, a happy little loser twosome, you totally can. Make your choice.”
There is a long pause, during which I think Ben might decide to bolt. But he doesn’t. “I’m in,” he says. “I am. Bye, loser Daniel.”
Moments later, we are greeted by the almost imperceptible sound of an electric boat engine starting up. Daniel blanches. “He took the boat and left me here,” he mutters. “I can’t believe it.”
You better believe it! And why are you surprised? Paul is the worst friend in the history of friends. How did you not see that coming? But I will give Paul credit. He has a weird power over people, like Jin, who was willing to do anything to get his attention.
Emerging from the shadows, we race to the water’s edge in time to see an empty black escape raft puttering away into the darkness.
“I am getting really sick of him,” Hannah growls. “And why didn’t we think to tie up at least one of our rafts?”
Jin sputters out some explanation about how his knot-tying ability is not world-class, but Hannah is not listening. She charges back to Daniel, who is now forlorn and totally confused.
“Aren’t you the ones from the Midnight Market?” he asks. “Who we took that invisibility baseball hat from, right? What are you doing here?”
Hannah is toe-to-toe with him. “What are we doing here?” she bellows. “What do you think we are doing here? You stole our Helm! Tell me where your friends are going right now, or I will dedicate the rest of my life to ruining yours.”
“She’s totally not kidding,” Jin says. Daniel’s face collapses. He is close to tears. I remind myself that he was part of the gang that mugged me when I was drowning. He is not a friend, but wet and bedraggled, he doesn’t look like much of an adversary right now either.
“Paul said he wanted to go into the torch of the Statue of Liberty because it is off-limits,” Daniel says. “You know, illegal and stuff. That’s where they are probably going.”
We stare into the night toward Liberty Island, which is close but also not. “Let’s swim it,” Hannah suggests. “We are getting that Helm back no matter what.”
“It’s too far,” Daniel points out. “You won’t make it.”
“Be quiet,” I snap. But he’s right. “It’s too far. We won’t make it.”
Does this mean our hunt ends in defeat? Does Paul win? Do we return empty-handed, complete failures who will be instantly kicked out of camp for going rogue? I can tell I’m running on pure adrenaline because random thoughts keep intruding, including what it must be like to live inside Paul’s head. How anxious and uncomfortable to always have to pretend you are something other than what you are. Why would you want to be friends with people who don’t like you? I also think about waffles dripping with butter and maple syrup. My hands squeeze the princess crystals in my pocket.
Wait. The princess crystals!
“You guys!” I pull them out and hold them up. “Look!”
“You stole princess crystals?” Hannah asks, aghast. “I thought you said your life of crime was behind you?”
“Princess who?” Jin looks back and forth between us.
“No, I didn’t steal them! Sparkle Lady gave them to me right before we jumped overboard. She said they might come in handy.”
“Can someone
please explain?” Jin demands.
“Princess crystals,” I say. “They can be magical, I guess? You can make wishes but only small, simple ones.” I hold up one of the crystals. It’s like a snow globe full of silver glitter, but the glitter swirls and swims in an unearthly substance. Definitely not liquid, almost like fog. And it glows faintly. I give it a little shake. “Like, how about I wish for a boat to bring us to the Statue of Liberty?”
“And the boat is loaded with snacks,” Jin adds quickly. “For us and Zeus.”
“Snacks!” Zeus bellows. Of course, nothing happens. Did I really think it would?
“Try again,” urges Hannah. “Sometimes these magical objects are finicky, you know?”
I shake the glass ball again. Streaks of silver swirl in the fog, and the ball grows warm in my hand. And almost soft, like the hard glass shell has turned to squishy rubber. “I’d like a boat full of snacks to take us to the Statue of Liberty, please.”
“You have to say ‘wish,’ ” Jin whispers. I do? How does he know? Who made him the princess-crystal expert?
I clear my throat. “Sorry. I mean I wish for a boat full of snacks to take us to the Statue of Liberty. Please. And thank you. And have a good day. Or technically, night, I guess. Oh boy.”
We wait, a little breathless, in the eerie silence. But nothing happens. Suddenly I feel ridiculous. “This is stupid,” I say, throwing the princess crystal at the ground. It hits, exploding in a cloud of silver sparks. And in the distance, an engine hums. Bright lights appear on the water.
A glittery glowing boat, not much bigger than the rubber rafts, glides gently to a smooth stop right at the water’s edge. There is no driver. Tendrils of fog rise up and wrap around us, urging us forward.
“Look,” Jin says with awe. Stacked in the bottom is a smorgasbord of snacks. There are Goldfish crackers, Twizzlers, shiny purple plums, granola bars, packets of applesauce, a box of Oreos, and a bag of kale bits for Zeus.
“Take me with you!” Daniel pleads as we climb aboard. “You can’t leave me here!”
The Midnight Market Page 15
