The Alcatraz Escape

by Jennifer Chambliss Bertman

  Maddie groaned. “You two attract too much attention.”

  At the opposite end, an older couple Emily hadn’t realized were also in D-Block exited a cell near the ranger. It turned out he hadn’t been talking to himself. The couple thanked the ranger and left through the door on the far side of the room.

  “There’s a puzzle at that end!” one of the kids cried, and they sprinted to the park ranger, their sneakers slapping down the cement hall. They disappeared inside the cell the couple had exited.

  “Should we go see what’s in there?” James asked.

  “It feels more organized to stick with the clocks, instead of jumping around,” Nisha said.

  “Focus on the task at hand, don’t worry about all the possible outcomes,” Emily agreed, paraphrasing the woman who’d worked on the cube puzzle with their group.

  “It’s going to take us forever to find every clock, and we don’t even know if they’ll end up meaning anything,” Maddie complained.

  “Nobody’s begging you to stick around,” James said. “You don’t have to work with us if you want to do things a different way.”

  Maddie stiffened at that, but Nisha gently tugged on her arm. “We want you to stay,” she said.

  “Let’s check this area for clocks, and when we get to that end we’ll look at the puzzle, since we’re already here,” Matthew said.

  His compromise made sense to everyone, and they got to work seeking out clocks.

  In case another contestant happened by, they worked out a system where Emily and James walked past any clock they spotted but feigned interest in something else. Meanwhile, Nisha stood with her back to the clock while Matthew or Maddie surreptitiously checked the time and told her what to write down.

  There were four clocks in D-Block, all of them broken. Two were stopped at the same time: one hung between the giant windows looking out to the bay and another was inside a jail cell. Both were stuck at 2:40, which seemed odd, but they decided to make note of both just in case the duplication mattered.

  Loud whooping drew their attention to the far end, and the group of three kids came hopping out of a cell shouting, “We did it!” One of them called over to Emily, “Hey, Surly Wombat—have you done that puzzle yet?”

  “No,” she answered.

  “We beat Surly Wombat to a puzzle!” The kids howled with excitement and left D-Block, celebrating.

  Matthew clapped a hand on Emily’s shoulder. “Ignore them. They’re being stupid.”

  “I know. They didn’t bother me.” She really meant that, too, she realized—she wasn’t just being defensive—but she also appreciated her brother looking out for her, so she added, “Thanks, though.”

  It actually struck Emily as funny, in a ridiculous way, that those kids would celebrate solving a puzzle before she did. Thinking about it made her realize that it was the challenge she was passionate about, the actual figuring out of a problem, not winning or being first. Not that she’d complain if she solved the game and won the prizes.

  “Let’s see what they found,” she said.

  The cell was one of six in a row used for solitary confinement. Each one had a solid steel door that could shut over the regular barred door. Everyone stepped inside the cell that contained a puzzle except for Nisha, who refused. She stood next to the park ranger instead, hugging her notebook to her chest.

  If Emily couldn’t imagine having to live in one of the other D-Block cells for a long period of time, she really couldn’t imagine being in solitary confinement. If that steel door were closed, they’d be in total darkness. It smelled like wet rocks and was so cold, her fleece jacket felt as thin as a T-shirt. She’d probably hyperventilate if she were confined in the space for twenty minutes, let alone for days. She knew the men who stayed at Alcatraz were considered some of the worst criminals, but she didn’t understand how being locked in a room like this would help them change for the better. She hoped they at least had been allowed a book and some reading time.

  In the dim light of the cell, they could make out large circles stuck to the cement floor, arranged in the shape of a triangle.

  “It’s a math puzzle,” James said.

  They contemplated in silence. Emily squinted and muttered the numbers out loud to help her focus on the problem and not get distracted by feeling that the darkness of the cell was closing in on her. Soon she spotted the pattern and shouted, “I’ve got it!”

  CHAPTER

  21

  “THE ANSWER is seventeen,” Emily said. She couldn’t handle feeling trapped in the space any longer, so she backed out to stand by Nisha, then explained her answer.

  “You start at the bottom left corner and add two to get seven. The next time, instead of adding two you add four, and the next time it’s six, and so on.”

  5 + 2 = 7

  7 + 4 = 11

  11 + 6 = 17

  17 + 8 = 25

  25 + 10 = 35

  35 + 12 = 47

  47 + 14 = 61

  61 + 16 = 77

  “The number you add goes up by two each time,” she said.

  “So…” Still inside the cell, Matthew stared at the dots on the floor. “Is something supposed to happen?”

  “You mean like confetti cannons exploding in celebration?” Maddie asked.

  “No, but that would be a nice touch,” Matthew replied.

  James turned to the park ranger. “Do you know what we do next? Are we supposed to tell you the answer?”

  The ranger shrugged. “I’m here to answer any questions you might have about Alcatraz, but I don’t know anything about the puzzles. However, if you want to know more about how this island’s history goes back well before the federal prison, even well before the Civil War when Alcatraz was a military outpost, to the original inhabitants of this area—the Ohlone and Coast Miwok peoples, who initially lived throughout the Bay Area—then I’m your guy.”

  Maddie had already opened the door to the next room. “Okay, we’ll keep that in mind,” she said, waving everyone through. “If we want to help Hollister get that money, we’ve got to keep moving.”

  That reminder was all the prodding Emily needed. Their group filed out the door to the D-Block and into the next space. “Maybe what we do with the seventeen will become clear once we solve more puzz…” Emily’s voice trailed off as she took in their surroundings. The windows in this soaring three-story room were ablaze from the setting sun. Peach light washed over the cold concrete walls. But what really caught her breath were the books.

  Underneath the windows, shelves lined the room, squeezed full with colorful spines. A quick glance at some of the titles—the Harry Potter series, The Book Thief, Greenglass House, Seabiscuit, and two rows full of Errol Roy’s books—signaled this was set up for Garrison Griswold’s game and not part of the historical prison tour, because most, if not all, of these books had been published after the prison closed in 1963. Emily stroked the book spines, and she started to browse. She couldn’t help it—it was like they entranced her in a spell, which was broken when Nisha nearly shouted, “There’s a clock!” Then she clapped a hand over her own mouth, remembering they were trying to be discreet.

  In an attempt to cover Nisha’s goof, Maddie intoned like a robot, “That clock is broken. How are we ever going to know what time it is?”

  “It’s almost six.” At the sound of Mr. Quisling’s voice, Emily looked up. She’d been so transfixed by the books, she hadn’t realized he and Miss Linden were in the room. Two college-aged guys were also there, browsing books on the shelf, and the young girl, Iris, whom Emily had seen at Grace Cathedral and earlier on the ferry with her grandfather, passed through to enter D-Block the way Emily and her friends had come out.

  “Hurry, Papa, hurry!” Iris said, tugging the older man’s gloved hand. He exchanged a smile with Mr. Quisling and Miss Linden and rolled his eyes in a good-humored way.

  “No wonder I’m starving,” Matthew said. “We should take a break for food.”

  “We d
on’t want to run out of time to get Hollister’s store that money. Didn’t you bring Goldfish crackers?” Emily reminded her brother.

  “You won’t have to take a break if you order the roast beef sandwich.” Miss Linden winked.

  Emily and her friends turned to each other with wide eyes. “There are puzzles with the food!” James said.

  “Of course, Mr. Griswold would think of that.” Emily shook her head. Hollister hadn’t been exaggerating when he said there were puzzles and clues to be found everywhere. She wondered how many other puzzle opportunities they’d walked right by.

  “One puzzle at a time, remember?” James said. “Let’s finish what we’re working on first.”

  “And what are you working on?” Miss Linden asked in a teasing tone.

  “Oh no, you’re not tricking us into revealing what we know,” Maddie said.

  Nisha had already written down the time of the first clock she’d spotted while they talked, shielding her notebook from the view of others. Behind Mr. Quisling’s and Miss Linden’s backs, Matthew directed Nisha’s attention to another clock, an old cuckoo, sitting on top of a bookcase.

  “Well, I’m glad someone is focused on the task at hand,” Miss Linden said. “Your teacher has been, uh, a little distracted.”

  “I’m not distracted. I’m observant.”

  Miss Linden grabbed Mr. Quisling’s hands and wobbled his arms. “Come on, sourpuss. Let’s get in the spirit of the game! Don’t you want a year of books? And a bookshelf of honor in Hollister’s store? We could call it Quisling’s Corner. That has a nice ring.”

  Their teacher grunted in response. Miss Linden placed her hands on her hips and turned to survey the library. Her long black hair was threaded with pink and pulled forward over one shoulder. A hint of the tattoos that paraded up and down her right arm was visible above the collar of her fleece pullover.

  “There must be a puzzle in this room, Brian. Probably more than one. Help me out here: If you were going to hide a message using books in a library, how might you go about doing that?”

  Without hesitation Mr. Quisling tonelessly recited, “Arrange books in alphabetical order and place a book with the puzzle inside in the wrong section. Use book titles to form a message and group those together, surrounded by other titles to help conceal them. Arrange books to form a message in Morse code by using tall books as a substitute for dashes and short books as a substitute for dots.”

  “Oh, wow…” Emily said. She felt like she was seeing the room now with puzzle vision.

  “There we go. Now he’s coming back to us.” Miss Linden squeezed his shoulders encouragingly, like a trainer getting a boxer psyched to go in a ring.

  Mr. Quisling couldn’t help but smile. Her pep seemed to be wearing down his resolve to be serious.

  “You’re a fan of Errol Roy’s just like James, aren’t you, Mr. Quisling?” Maddie asked. “Did you think he’d be here, or were you surprised?”

  Their teacher nodded. “I am a fan, yes. And I was very surprised.”

  “Shocked is more like it.” Miss Linden gave him a playful bump with her hip. “That’s why he’s so distracted. We’ve been on a mission to find him—Errol Roy—more so than to find puzzles.”

  Mr. Quisling frowned. “I’m not trying to find him, not like a groupie or anything, anyway. I just thought there was something … peculiar about him being here. I want to observe him more, that’s all.”

  “You too?” James asked.

  “What do you mean ‘you too’?” Emily asked.

  “I also thought it was weird, seeing him.” James had a distant look on his face, like he was watching the moment replay in his imagination. “At first I thought it was because he looked different than I had expected. But he was so uncomfortable talking to us. I don’t get why he came. Nobody would have expected him to, so why bother if it’s going to make you that uncomfortable?”

  Miss Linden nodded sympathetically. “It can be disappointing if a role model doesn’t live up to how we imagine them to be, can’t it? But Errol Roy must be in his eighties, and sometimes when people get to that age, they feel the pressure of time running out. Maybe he’s regretted his reclusive life or felt like he owed an appearance to you and his other readers, but the reality of being here, in front of a crowd, was too much for him.”

  “One thing’s for sure,” Mr. Quisling said. “You kids should enjoy your time playing the game.”

  Miss Linden hooked her arm through Mr. Quisling’s. “Yes, we won’t take you away from it any longer. The clock’s ticking!”

  Emily and her friends exchanged a look, unsure if Miss Linden’s phrase was a signal that she knew about the puzzle they were working on. The teacher and librarian moved on to D-Block.

  “Let’s hurry and find the rest of the clocks,” James said.

  Emily’s friends exited the library through the passageway that led back to the main cellblock room, but she couldn’t resist lingering. It was hard to shake off Mr. Quisling’s list of puzzle possibilities hidden among the library books. Familiar bold lettering caught Emily’s eye. The Twain Conspiracy by Lucy Leonard. Seeing the book gave her that feeling of being on the verge of remembering something you forgot you were trying to remember.

  She pulled the book from the shelf and opened the back cover to look at the author photo. Lucy Leonard’s hair was more sleek and styled, and she wore a lot of makeup, but without the red-framed glasses she’d had on at the event Emily made the connection. There was no denying it:

  The woman in the photo was the same woman who had helped them solve the puzzle on the pier.

  Lucy Leonard was playing Unlock the Rock?

  CHAPTER

  22

  MATTHEW POKED his head back in the library. “You coming?” he asked.

  Emily followed him out but couldn’t stop thinking about Lucy Leonard playing Unlock the Rock. Her mom would flip out when she told her. Did this mean Lucy Leonard was also an avid Book Scavenger player?

  Walking down the middle corridor, which was called Broadway, they passed the cell Emily had seen when they’d first entered, where a prisoner was reading a book. Matthew leaned against the bars and asked, “Hey, guy, do you know what time it is?”

  “Matthew.” Emily tugged at her brother’s arm. “Don’t give away what we’re doing.”

  A family of two women with a young boy and girl huddled outside the cell of the guitar-strumming prisoner, who was farther down the aisle. The boy knelt on the floor, writing something on paper, and his family members concentrated on what he was doing. Emily didn’t think they had heard Matthew’s question, but she still felt pressure to keep the puzzle they were working on a secret in addition to working as fast as possible.

  The reading prisoner ignored her brother. Matthew bent to get a look at the cover. “A Swiftly Tilting Planet,” he read aloud. “Any good?”

  Emily sighed and continued walking with James, Maddie, and Nisha. Why spend your time doing Unlock the Rock if you weren’t going to take it seriously?

  The prisoner gave in this time and answered Matthew. “Pretty good. Chapter seven is my favorite.”

  “Matthew, you’re not being funny,” she called to him. “Stop wasting time.”

  Her brother frowned and jogged up to their group. One of the moms outside the musician’s cell shouted, “You got it!” The little girl replied, “We solved it?!” She jumped up and squealed, and the foursome ran off. Emily studied the cell when they walked by, but there was only the prisoner, his guitar, and sheet music scattered next to him on the cot—nothing that looked like a puzzle.

  There was also no clock in the cell, and it was a relief to know the other group hadn’t been working on the same thing as them.

  “We’re spending too much time on this one puzzle,” Maddie chided their group. “We need to hurry.”

  They found three more stopped clocks along the Broadway corridor, and four more on the next one over, Michigan Avenue. When they reached A-Block, they were met wit
h a taut wall of plastic sheeting that ran all the way from the cement floor to the third-story ceiling, which kept them from going farther. Dim light illuminated the plastic, revealing bars of scaffolding behind. A sheet of plywood with a wooden latch to keep it closed served as a makeshift door, with caution tape stretched across the barrier on either side, like a belt.

  “What’s through there?” James extended a hand toward the latch.

  An Alcatraz park ranger barked at them, like she was about to prevent them from stepping off a cliff, “That area’s under reconstruction!”

  The ranger was only as tall as Emily, although her Smokey Bear–style hat added several inches, and she wore very large, very thick glasses that obscured most of her face.

  “Sorry,” James said. “We weren’t sure if it was part of the game.”

  “I’ve heard that one before,” the ranger said. “And no, I can’t let you take a quick look around, no matter how careful you might be.”

  Emily and her friends exchanged confused looks. They had no interest in going back there if it wasn’t part of the game.

  “Shame it’s closed off, though. It’s a fascinating part of Alcatraz’s history.” The woman clasped her hands in front of herself and rocked back on her heels. “It’s the only part of this building that dates back to the original military prison that was here on Alcatraz, before the maximum-security prison everyone knows it for today. And, of course, the dungeon’s also back there. That’s what most everyone is curious about.”

  “Dungeon!?” Nisha said, stepping closer to Maddie.

  “I told you the dungeon existed,” James said.

  “Come on,” Emily said. “We need to find the rest of the”—she looked to the ranger, unsure whether she could trust her—“puzzles.”

  The ranger saluted them and continued on her rounds. “Good luck!” she called.

  After walking through the dining hall, library, and all the cellblocks they could access, they had found sixteen clocks, all stopped at a variety of times. There wasn’t a pattern they could discern yet, but there were three areas left to check: the chapel room upstairs, the shower room downstairs, and the administrative offices. They decided to split up in order to be as speedy as possible. Nisha, Maddie, and James went off to check the chapel and shower room, while Emily and Matthew headed for the administrative offices.