The Alcatraz Escape

by Jennifer Chambliss Bertman

  “That is one random assortment of stuff,” Matthew commented.

  “Well, then, what about you, mysterious older brother?” Maddie asked. “What’s in your backpack?”

  Matthew had brought a calculator, a flashlight, and a small camera in case he had to turn in his cell phone. There was a large bag of Goldfish crackers, which made Emily roll her eyes because it took up so much space. “And a Swiss Army knife and a lock-picking kit. You know, in case we need to unlock something.”

  Emily and her friends were quiet a minute, staring at Matthew’s open backpack.

  “A lock-picking kit for Unlock the Rock. Why didn’t we think of that?” Nisha said what they all were thinking.

  “What about you, Maddie?” Emily asked.

  Emily hadn’t realized how bulging Maddie’s backpack was until she watched her slide it from her back to the floor with a loud thump.

  “Here’s what I brought: a compass, another calculator, another Alcatraz map from the tour I took years ago, Alcatraz: Believe It or Not by T. C. Baker, Eyewitness on Alcatraz by Jolene Babyak…”

  She continued to list several more books as well as colored pens, highlighters, an eraser, Post-its, and a mini stapler.

  “E-books would have made your backpack way lighter,” James observed.

  “Maybe, but I have an excellent memory for things I’ve read in a physical book. If you had a digital copy and I had a physical copy of the same book and someone timed us to see who could find answers to questions the fastest, I would beat you, no question about it.”

  James raised his eyebrows. “We might need to test that theory, Maddie.”

  “What about you?” Matthew asked Emily. “You haven’t shared.”

  Emily opened her bag to show that, in addition to her Book Scavenger notebook, she’d brought her new night-vision goggles and even more books than Maddie had, among other things. But before she got to any of that, a piece of paper fluttered out. She recognized the print on it before she’d even picked it up off the floor. It was another note made of cutout letters, like the ones she and James had found in their lockers earlier that week. This one read:

  CHAPTER

  14

  “ANOTHER ONE?” James said.

  “Another what?” Maddie strained to see.

  “You didn’t get another one?” Emily asked.

  “Not this time,” he said.

  “What’s going on?” Maddie asked, visibly annoyed at the cryptic way they were talking.

  “Someone stuck this in my backpack,” Emily explained.

  “We both got one like this before,” James added.

  Maddie, Nisha, and Matthew crowded closer to look at the paper.

  “Someone’s been threatening you?” Matthew asked.

  “Trying to scare us away from the competition today,” James said.

  Emily didn’t know if it was the new creepy note appearing in her backpack, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching her. She scanned the crowded ferry deck until she spotted the same girl Nisha had been sketching, who was now watching their group. As soon as Emily made eye contact, the girl exclaimed loudly enough to turn heads, “Oh. My. Gosh.”

  The girl repeated this and dramatically walked toward them, slowly, with her hands up as if she were examining her manicure. People quieted as she cut a path through the crowd. The metal charms on her bracelet tinkled with every step.

  “Hey, she goes to my school,” Matthew said.

  “You are not Emily Crane and James Lee,” she said, turning even more heads. “Tell me you two are not the amazing duo who solved Mr. Griswold’s Gold-Bug mystery. And cracked the unbreakable code. It cannot be you. Can. Not.”

  “Uh…” Emily and James looked at each other, not sure what to say. It was clear the girl knew who they were.

  “I have to shake your hand.” The girl’s long nails dug into Emily’s wrist when she clutched her palm. “My name is Fiona Duncan.”

  Matthew stood up. “You go to Carver High, right? I’m Emily’s older brother,” he said. “I helped them with the—”

  Fiona ignored Matthew and threw an arm around James’s shoulders, squeezing him tightly to her side. “You are as adorable in person as you were on the news! Look at how your hair pops up!” Fiona pressed down Steve, then let go. The tuft of hair popped back up like an inflatable bop bag.

  James grimaced and mouthed, Help me, to Emily, who giggled in response.

  Keeping her arm around James’s shoulder, Fiona said, “So, gang, what’s the plan? Do you know what we’re in for this afternoon?”

  James ducked free from her arm and said, “We know as much as you.”

  Fiona cocked an eyebrow. “Sure you do. Stick with that story if you want.” She grinned. “I would if I was in your shoes.”

  “Fiona!”

  A slightly older version of Fiona marched over.

  “Yes, Mom?” Fiona cooed.

  “Your mom?!” Maddie said. “She doesn’t look that old.”

  Fiona’s mother’s eyes settled on Maddie, a sly smile on her face. “Aren’t you sweet. Thank you, dear. Yes, I’m Mrs. Duncan, Fiona’s mother,” she said. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but I need to discuss something with my daughter.” She looped her hand under Fiona’s biceps and tightened her grip to pull her away. “Now,” she said through gritted teeth.

  As they walked away, Emily could hear Mrs. Duncan hiss, “I leave you for one minute and you can’t follow a simple direction? I told you not to talk to anyone.”

  Their voices faded into the chatter around them.

  “Well, that was weird,” James said, and then Fiona shrieked loudly enough to make everyone on the deck go silent. For a wild second, Emily worried that Fiona’s mom had hurt her daughter, but the two stood feet apart.

  “What is it now?!” Fiona’s mother cried, her voice half perplexed, half exasperated.

  “My bracelet!” Fiona wailed, holding up one hand to show a bare wrist. “It’s gone!” Emily remembered the tinkling charms when Fiona had approached them only minutes ago. The news spread like a ripple across the deck that somebody had lost a piece of jewelry. People surrounded Fiona asking what they could do.

  “We should help her find it,” Emily said to her friends, scanning the floor around them. “I saw it on her wrist when she walked over here. It must be nearby.”

  “Why help her? That girl was obnoxious.” Maddie jutted her chin toward the commotion. “There are plenty of wannabe detectives already on the case.”

  “Well, I’m helping look,” Emily said. Matthew, James, and Nisha joined in the search. Maddie sighed and stared half-heartedly at the floor, scuffing her foot at a random leaf. Practically the whole top deck full of people searched for the lost bracelet. Even the lady who’d worked with Emily and her friends on the first challenge had put down her book and was prowling around with everyone else.

  While people scanned the deck around her, Fiona collapsed onto a bench and wailed, “It’s gone!”

  “Are you sure you wore it today?” asked a woman kindly.

  “Of course she’s sure,” Fiona’s mother snapped. “She wears it every day.”

  The woman’s helpful expression disappeared, like a candle snuffed out, and the contestants drifted away from Fiona and her mother to resume their own conversations.

  “That girl thinks she’s the star of her own show. You can just tell,” Maddie said.

  “I thought she was trying to be nice,” Matthew replied.

  Maddie snorted. “You would think that.”

  “Her mom was something else,” James said. “I feel sorry for Fiona.”

  “I bet her mom is overworked and underappreciated.” Maddie’s tone was mocking, like she was parroting something she’d heard an adult say many times over. Then she shook her head like she was tossing away thoughts of Fiona and straightened her shoulders. “We’re going to be at Alcatraz soon. We need to focus. Get our heads in the game. Quick! What year did the federal penitenti
ary close?”

  They stared at Maddie with blank expressions.

  “Didn’t you guys study about the island at all? It was 1963,” she answered. “Name one of the most notorious inmates.”

  Simultaneously James, Nisha, and Emily shouted, “Al Capone!”

  “Did you guys read that book, too?” Nisha asked.

  “Yes, and one better,” Emily replied. She unzipped the small pocket on her backpack and pulled out her tattered copy of Al Capone Does My Shirts. “I brought it.”

  James grinned. “You and your books.”

  “You bring your scytales,” Emily said, “and I’ll bring my books.”

  CHAPTER

  15

  AS THE FERRY approached Alcatraz, everyone clustered along the railings to get a view of the island. The clouds Emily had seen from a distance had settled into a thick fog, creeping around the old, decrepit buildings that dotted the island.

  Once the ferry docked, everyone funneled down the staircases to the main level. Emily and her friends were shuffling toward the exit when a kid stepped directly into her path and jabbed Emily’s side with his elbow as he moved ahead.

  “Hey!” Emily said.

  “Sorry.” The boy’s tone didn’t sound at all remorseful. He sneered at her and said to his two friends, both a head taller than him, “Oh, look, it’s Swamp Bat.”

  There was only one person on the Book Scavenger website who called her that: Bookacuda.

  She remembered that his profile said he was an eighth grader, but he didn’t look it. Bookacuda was about her size, with sandy-brown hair and pale skin that made his freckles look like flecks of paint.

  Emily rolled her eyes and focused on moving with the herd of people. She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of letting him think she cared.

  “Who are you?” James asked, irritation in his voice.

  “This is Bookacuda,” the girl in the trio answered.

  “Are we supposed to be impressed?” Maddie asked.

  “If you’re not now, you will be,” Bookacuda said. He turned back to Emily. “We’ll see how far luck gets you today, Swamp Bat.”

  Emily knew the best thing to do with trolls was ignore them, so she did, but his dig still got under her skin. They also brought to mind the note left in her backpack—YOU SHOULDN’T BE HERE. Earlier that week, when Emily couldn’t figure out that entry puzzle, she’d felt like it was her big secret. She’d felt like a fraud.

  Now she wondered, had that been obvious to everyone all along?

  Bookacuda and his friends pushed ahead and disappeared into the stream of people exiting the ferry. The Unlock the Rock contestants gathered in the shadow of an old building, four stories tall with windows that stared blankly out to the restless water. A black-and-white penitentiary sign hung on the concrete façade with the words Indians Welcome scrawled above in dark red paint. To Emily, it looked anything but welcoming.

  Shielding her eyes from the sun, she took in the intimidatingly tall silhouette of a guardhouse on stilts. Seagulls swooped around it like vultures. The structure was empty, but Emily could imagine being back in time when a guard was stationed up there with a gun watching over the island.

  “This is creepy,” Nisha whispered, turning in a half circle.

  “Alcatraz is one of the top tourist destinations in the United States,” Maddie said. After a beat she added, “But yeah, this is kind of creepy.”

  A woman wearing a park-ranger hat and bulky green jacket stepped forward from her post next to a kiosk that held maps and brochures. “It’s history, that’s what it is,” she said, and waved Emily’s group and the rest of the contestants over to the line of trams that would drive them up the incline to the prison at the top.

  “Let’s find a seat in the front,” Maddie said.

  The front tramcar had four benches: one facing forward, one facing backward, and in between those, like the long part of a capital letter I, two more benches placed back-to-back. The whole train was pulled by a tiny truck only big enough to hold the driver. Emily and her friends were stacking their backpacks on the rear bench of the head passenger car when Bookacuda and his boy and girl bookends took the open seats.

  “Hey, dude, we were going to sit there,” Matthew said.

  “Was this reserved for you?” Bookacuda asked. He crossed his arms and looked up at Matthew.

  “Don’t be a jerk,” Emily said.

  “I’m not the one acting like a Book Scavenger princess. Are you going to expect special treatment the entire game?”

  “I wasn’t…” Heat raced up Emily’s neck to her cheeks. “I don’t want special treatment.”

  One of Bookacuda’s friends—the boy with the curly pile of hair on top of his head—poked him in the ribs and then nodded to something behind Emily.

  Bookacuda jumped up from his seat and broke into a wide grin. “Mr. Griswold!” He waved enthusiastically and extended his hand as the publisher approached. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Bookacuda, the youngest Book Scavenger at Sherlock level.”

  Mr. Griswold clutched his hand and smiled. “Wonderful, wonderful. So glad you are joining us,” he said. Noticing Emily, James, and Matthew, his smile grew even wider. “My advisory team! Hello, you three.”

  Standing behind Mr. Griswold, Bookacuda scowled and turned away, his friends following him. Emily tried not to show her delight.

  The elderly man who’d walked up with Mr. Griswold gave a tight-lipped smile and stepped past the young contestants to seat himself in the front car facing the water. Hollister appeared, affectionately mussing Matthew’s green-sprout hair as he stepped through their group to sit with Jack on the bench behind the elderly man.

  “I hope we didn’t scare your friends away.” Mr. Griswold gestured to Bookacuda and his sidekicks, who were now halfway down the line of trams, looking for other seats.

  Emily didn’t bother explaining that Bookacuda wasn’t a friend.

  Maddie had claimed benches for Emily and the others in the second passenger car, but they left their backpacks where they’d piled them on the bench in the back of Mr. Griswold’s.

  Soon the trucks towing the tramcars puttered to life, and they were bobbing and bumping up the paved trail. The main cell house had been built on the crest of the small island, and the path to get there was a steep set of switchbacks.

  The static amplification of a ranger’s voice came through speakers, telling them that they were driving through the sally port, an arched opening in an old building, which dated back to the 1800s, and then past the shell of another building that had suffered a fire in the 1970s. The view down to the gray water below was a sheer hillside overrun with tangled greenery.

  Nisha, who was sitting behind Emily, said, “I heard there’s a dungeon in the prison.”

  “A dungeon?” Emily repeated, turning to her friend. The word gave her visions of skeletons chained to stone walls. Nisha nodded emphatically, then shivered.

  “Why do you believe this stuff?” Maddie said. “You’re so gullible, Nisha.”

  “She’s right, though,” James said. “There is a dungeon.”

  “There is?!” Emily and Maddie said in unison. Matthew popped his earbud out to listen better. The tram was making another turn when James said, “It’s not like it was a torture chamber or anything. At least, I don’t think—”

  Emily lurched in her seat as the truck driving their tram jerked to the right, then slammed into a rock retaining wall. People shouted and shrieked. The passenger car in front—with Mr. Griswold, his friend, Hollister, and Jack—tipped toward the wall. Hollister gripped the pole next to him and jumped to the ground as his bench began to rise. Jack followed suit. The backpacks Emily and her friends had left piled on the rear bench tumbled to the ground, followed by Mr. Griswold and his friend, who slid from their bench like grapes rolling off a spoon.

  “Mr. Griswold!” Emily shouted.

  The two men landed in a crouch and threw their arms over their heads, bracing for the
impact of their tramcar as it continued to fall forward, threatening to pin them against the retaining wall.

  CHAPTER

  16

  WHEN ERROL ROY was thrown from the tramcar to the ground, his arms instinctively went up, protecting his head. There were shouts and shrieks. Luggage from his tram fell in a series of thuds. Metal creaked. He closed his eyes to brace for impact, cursing this gloomy island, but the blow Errol anticipated didn’t come.

  He opened his eyes and realized that his tramcar had remained suspended above his head. Hollister and Jack had managed to jump out and grab hold of the poles to keep it from capsizing completely. Others ran forward to help right it. The train of passenger cars behind his had stayed upright in the crash, although people were jumping out, buzzing with confusion and concern.

  Errol had begun to straighten when he spotted a scrap of paper by his foot. Cutout letters spelled the words:

  Errol’s breath caught in his throat.

  He picked up the note. It was crumpled and smeared with dirt, slightly damp from the fog, but otherwise it felt like a fresh piece of paper. This wasn’t litter that had been neglected on the trail. He folded it into his pocket.

  Errol stood and faced Mr. Griswold, who was dusting himself off. The publisher’s colorful top hat had been crushed in the fall, making his getup look more ridiculous than usual when he placed it back on his head.

  “Are you all right?” Mr. Griswold asked, placing a shaking hand on Errol’s shoulder.

  Errol’s body would be scolding him for days to come, but that wasn’t what concerned him at the moment.

  “I’m fine,” he replied. But he wasn’t. He wasn’t fine at all. When he’d stepped from the ferry onto this cursed island, he’d felt the first drips of regret, which now trickled through his body like a poison.

  Mr. Griswold went to check on the driver, who was being looked over by paramedics. It figured that Griswold or Alcatraz would have emergency services on hand.