Maddie was in the gathering crowd, standing off to one side of the platform by herself. Emily was still upset with her for having been so quick to believe the accusations about her brother, but there was something about how she stood a few feet removed from anyone else, shoulders hunched forward, that made Emily soften. Emily had spent years being the outsider, the lonely girl, the one without a group of friends, and she didn’t want anyone else to feel that way, even someone Emily was annoyed with.
Emily had wondered why Hollister had made the announcement and not Mr. Griswold, but as she scanned the dining hall, she saw that both Matthew and the publisher were missing from the audience.
They must still be talking. She wondered if their absence was a good or bad sign about their conversation. Maybe Mr. Griswold didn’t believe Matthew. Maybe the fact that a stolen bracelet had been in her brother’s pocket was enough to convince Mr. Griswold. Maybe Mr. Griswold was calling their parents and sending Matthew back alone on a ferry right that very minute.
Emily wished her brother was here.
Her memory replayed the look Matthew had given her when she’d hesitated to speak up on his behalf. He was her brother, and while Matthew could be impulsive or outspoken, he wouldn’t steal. And he wasn’t the sort who would do anything in order to win. He was competitive with himself, but what mattered to him the most was having fun while playing the game, not whether he came in first. That was why he’d been so much fun to play Book Scavenger with when they were younger. He’d come up with elaborate stories—they were spies on a mission or aliens who’d just landed on Earth—and the adventures they’d have on their way to find hidden books were often more fun than the actual book-finding part.
Instead of standing here, thinking all these things about her brother, Emily realized she should go tell them to Mr. Griswold. She might not have spoken up for Matthew earlier, but it wasn’t too late. Even if he wasn’t in trouble, she wanted him to know she supported him.
“I’ll be right back,” she whispered to James and Nisha.
“You okay?” James asked.
“I’m going to check on Matthew,” she said.
James nodded. Emily inched her way through the crowd. When she reached the outer fringe, she spotted Lucy Leonard on the outskirts of the room. While everyone else was coming into the dining hall and all eyes were on the stage, the author slipped out to the cellblocks.
Emily followed. She told herself this was likely the way to Mr. Griswold and Matthew—she assumed they were somewhere in the administrative area, which was across the cellblocks from the dining hall—but she was also curious about what Lucy Leonard could be up to. Every time Emily had observed her this evening, she’d been slightly odd. Not really socializing with anyone, although Emily did remember her joining in the group of people who’d helped look for Fiona’s bracelet.
In fact …
Emily slowed her walking as something occurred to her.
Lucy Leonard had been on the ferry when Fiona lost her bracelet.
She’d also collided with Matthew before he’d been caught by Errol Roy. If planting the bracelet in her brother’s pocket had been premeditated, that would have given her a good opportunity. And she’d seemed distracted when Emily had asked her about Book Scavenger and had hurried away.
What if Lucy Leonard had found the bracelet on the ferry, and then later dropped it in Matthew’s pocket when he was too distracted to notice?
Why Lucy Leonard would do this, Emily had no idea. But the more she thought about it, the more it seemed like the only feasible explanation for Matthew’s situation.
Her brother had been framed.
CHAPTER
28
EMILY SNUCK OUT of the dining hall into the cellblock area just in time to see Lucy turn onto Michigan Avenue. When Emily turned the corner, the corridor was empty and lit only by the solitary bulbs that hung in each cell up all three tiers. The skylights high above had deepened into a dark blue. Peering down the shadowy hallway that led to the cordoned-off A-Block, Emily noticed that the plywood door had been left ever so slightly ajar.
Were her eyes playing tricks on her? Emily stepped closer. The latch had been rotated to hang down on the sheet of wood. Looking behind her once more, Emily inched the plywood open and squeezed through to the other side.
She found herself in a concrete room, three stories tall like the rest of the prison. The long wall had windows that spanned the second and third floors, but they were blocked on the outside by more scaffolding wrapped in white plastic sheeting. Having windows but not being able to see outside made the room claustrophobic. The room served as an entry space to the A-Block cells, which were cordoned off by a cage wall that spanned all three stories. There was a gate in the cage wall that had been left wide open.
A voice inside Emily questioned what exactly she was doing, why she was walking back here where she knew full well she shouldn’t be. She should turn around, and forget Lucy Leonard, and find her brother and apologize, and return to her friends, and offer fake congratulations to Bookacuda, and grin and bear it while he rubbed in his win.
But if her brother had been set up, she wanted to clear his name, and she wanted to understand why.
Emily walked through the open gate into A-Block, her heart beating rapidly.
The faint glow of moon cast enough light for her to make out the vertical silver slats of the jail-cell doors to her right, and the banisters overhead for the walkways on the second and third tiers. The insides of the cells were black, the kind of black that would have her imagining lurking men or creatures if she stared long enough, so she faced straight ahead to the long corridor.
Emily’s sneakers squeaked softly on the concrete floor as she walked to the other end. It was incredibly quiet over here. When she’d first walked through the makeshift plywood door she’d been able to hear the distant reverberations of Hollister’s voice, but not anymore.
Lucy Leonard was nowhere to be seen.
The shadow of something solid and square loomed ahead of her, like a very large box, but when Emily got close enough, she could see that it wasn’t a box, but waist-high walls that enclosed a staircase leading underground.
The dungeon.
Emily stood at the top of the stairs staring down, wondering if that was where Lucy had gone. There was no other option, unless Emily had been mistaken about her entering the plywood door in the first place.
The stairs were steep and ended in darkness. In the faint light, Emily could see strips of paint peeled away from stairwell walls.
Emily was starting to doubt the task that she’d given herself when a loud metallic clang made her jump. Her heart nearly shot through her nose. Though the cellblock was dimly lit, she could see well enough to make out that the cage wall no longer had an open rectangle of space—someone had shut the cage door behind her.
Emily ran back to the gate and pushed on it. Locked.
“Hello?” Emily called. “Hello?”
Silence.
How had this happened? Had a park ranger come in and closed it, without first checking to see if anyone was in this area? She pressed her cheek to the wires, straining for a better look at the area she’d first entered into after stepping beyond the plywood door. Her stomach tightened when she saw the shadow of a person walking away.
“Hey, I’m in here!”
The shadow was tall and willowy, with a halo of tight curls springing from its head.
“Fiona?” Emily called.
But Fiona, if that was who it was, kept moving until Emily couldn’t see her anymore. Emily hooked her fingers through the grid of wires and pushed and pulled and pushed and pulled. The door clanged, but it didn’t open.
She waited a beat longer before calling one more time. “Hello?”
More silence.
Emily was trapped in Alcatraz A-Block, and the only person who knew where she was had probably been the one to lock her in.
CHAPTER
29
ER
ROL ROY needed to get off this island. The musty concrete smell mixed with the rich foods being served was making him feel ill. Alcatraz had an energy of its own, and he could sense it infecting him, twisting his mind into knots. Every passing minute, as Hollister waved contestants into the dining hall and waited for people to gather, was excruciating.
Finally the bookseller had a trio of kids on the stage.
“What is the answer you’ve come up with?” Hollister asked, extending the microphone to the young contestants.
Errol Roy pulled his handkerchief from his pocket and pressed it to his temple.
Instead of leaning over to speak into the mic, the short boy with a sharp nose and beady eyes grabbed it from the bookseller’s hands. With the cockiness of a kid at a spelling bee who knew he was reciting the winning word, he said, “Anglin and Morris. That’s the answer.”
Roy straightened.
The audience was mostly silent, other than a few hushed exchanges here and there.
Hollister turned to Roy, an eager smile on his face. “Did they get it right?”
“No,” Roy said.
He’d been so braced to hear the correct answer that he couldn’t quite believe it himself. He simultaneously wanted this day to be over and didn’t, and now that he knew the game would continue, he wasn’t sure whether he should feel relief or anguish.
The audience erupted in excited cheers that were cut off when the same young boy who’d guessed the wrong answer stomped his foot and shouted at Roy, “It is too correct!”
Roy’s eyebrows shot up; he was surprised and a little amused.
“It has to be the answer!” The boy—Errol had heard him referred to as Bookacuda—continued. “The Goldfish clue said one sixty-five, which we figured out was the cell number where that guy was reading a book and—”
Mr. Griswold’s assistant, Jack, spoke up from the audience. “I’m sorry, did you say ‘Goldfish clue’?”
“Yes!” Bookacuda threw up his hands like he’d been explaining rain is wet. “The one with the crackers.”
Jack looked confused. “There wasn’t any Goldfish clue.”
The boy pressed his mouth into a thin, mean line. “Yes, there was.” He nudged the boy who stood behind him. “Show them.”
The older-looking boy unzipped his backpack and it fell open. Orange, fish-shaped crackers poured onto the floor, along with squares of paper that fluttered down.
“See?!” Bookacuda waved to the snack food with an impatient hand, but Hollister was frowning.
“You thought that was a puzzle for the game, and you removed it?” he asked. “Sabotaging is against the rules, whether the puzzle is fake or real.”
The kid’s beady eyes widened. Roy tuned out the rest of their exchange, fixating on the squares of paper that had fallen from the boy’s backpack. One had landed near Errol’s shoe. It was the letter D cut from a magazine. Nearby was an S and an E.
His breath felt trapped, like he’d been dunked underwater. His hand found its way to his pocket, and with shaky fingers he removed the crumpled note he’d found when he fell off the tram.
“Why did you do this?” Errol thrust the paper under Bookacuda’s nose. The boy’s pale face became even paler.
“That wasn’t meant for you.… I…” he stammered.
“Liar!” Errol roared. The note shook in his hand, and he imagined his face was crimson. Hollister placed a calming hand on his shoulder.
A boy standing near the stage piped up. “Hey—I think that was meant for me and Emily!”
“For you, James?” Hollister asked. He looked around the dining hall. “Where is Emily?”
“She’s with Mr. Griswold and Matthew,” James replied. “She and I both got notes like that at school, and then there was another one in her backpack when we got on the ferry. We didn’t know who sent them, but apparently”—he pointed an accusing finger at Bookacuda—“he was trying to scare us out of the game.”
The idea that the note hadn’t been meant for him did nothing to calm Errol. The damage had been done. The words he’d read on the paper had him second-guessing everything on this blasted island from the moment he’d stepped off the tram.
“Then explain how it ended up with me!” Errol boomed.
Bookacuda had crossed his arms, attempting to appear tough, but he shrank back. “I … I don’t know, sir,” he said meekly.
The boy and girl standing on the platform behind their apparent ringleader exchanged a look.
“James is right,” the tall boy said quickly. “Bookacuda did want to scare them out of the game.”
“He said it would be funny,” the girl added.
Bookacuda flinched as if he’d been punched. He spun to face his supposed friends. “Traitors,” he growled, his hands in fists at his sides.
“How did you get the notes into our lockers?” James asked. “Aren’t you from Nebraska?”
“He is.” The girl jerked a thumb in Bookacuda’s direction. “We’re all friends from online, through Book Scavenger. I go to school in the East Bay.”
“I go to Booker, with you,” the tall boy said to James. “I found where your lockers are and dropped the notes in them. It was Bookacuda’s idea, but I was the one who did it. I’m sorry if they scared you guys.”
Bookacuda shoved his friend. “Stop blabbing! What’s wrong with you?”
“Hey, hey.” Jack jumped onto the platform from the audience and stepped between the two boys.
Hollister shook his head and scolded Bookacuda. “These notes are enough to disqualify you from the game, not to mention purposely sabotaging something you thought was a puzzle—don’t get yourself in even more trouble by starting a fight.”
The tall boy was undeterred by Bookacuda’s anger, and he turned to Errol Roy. “We didn’t mean for you to get that note. Honest. We left it when we took Emily’s backpack to hide on the dock. She was supposed to find the note, not you. I’m sorry about that, too.”
The anger drained from Errol, making him feel very tired. “I need to go sit,” he said to Hollister, or maybe he only thought it in his head. Regardless, Hollister was too wrapped up in resolving the drama to respond.
As Errol stepped down from the platform, a girl with short brown hair came forward. To Bookacuda she said, “Did you say you stole Emily’s backpack? That wasn’t her backpack, you dimwit, it was mine.”
The audience had begun to dissipate as soon as players realized the game could still be won, but some had stayed either to listen to the argument or to solve puzzles in the room. Errol Roy shuffled among the people remaining in the dining hall, avoiding eye contact, and headed toward the cell house. The shrill voices carried on behind him, but he tuned everything out.
All he wanted to do was get back to his belongings and get off this island.
CHAPTER
30
“OKAY,” EMILY SAID to herself. She hooked her hands around her backpack straps and paced back and forth. “Okay.”
What did she have in her backpack that could help her? Matthew had his lock-picking kit—that sure would be useful right about now, although because of the chicken-wire nature of the cage, she wouldn’t be able to reach through to the locked handle anyway. And he had the phone. All she’d brought was paper: her notebook and lists and books—fat lot of good that was going to do her. She wasn’t even the one with a flashlight in her backpack, although she had packed her night-vision goggles. Those might come in handy, since she was pretty sure she’d have to brave the dungeon in order to find another way out.
The walk back to the stairwell felt longer this time, and the darkened cells seemed more shadowy, and their emptiness more questionable. Emily kept thinking something moved from the corner of her eye, but she was too afraid to look. It was her imagination, she told herself, or the moonlight filtering through the plastic-covered windows. And anyway, she reasoned further, if someone was actually in the shadows watching her, then they must not want to hurt her or they would have already tried to. It was
like what they say about snakes—snakes only lash out if you take them by surprise.
Somehow that reasoning didn’t ease her racing heart.
Emily stood at the top of the stairs that led down into a black void. Her choices were to wait in this room where the shadows felt like they had eyes and hope someone came looking for her, or to be proactive, brave the dungeon, and look for another way out.
Emily strapped the goggles onto her head, took a deep breath, and descended into the dungeon.
The stairs were steep and short. Anyone with big feet would have trouble walking down them, but Emily’s sneakers fit the width perfectly. Her night-vision goggles washed everything in a dim green light. When she reached the bottom, she could make out the outlines of bricks on the floors and walls. She shuffled forward, hyperaware of how loud her breathing sounded, and followed a zigzagging corridor that led to a space that seemed to be a cross between a room and a very wide hallway.
It smelled like a cave down here. To her right were arched openings. It was getting harder for her to see—she’d forgotten that the goggles worked best outside, with moonlight—but through the arched openings there appeared to be tiny rooms, like the jail cells upstairs, but there were no bars or doors. Up ahead it looked like the path either hit a wall or turned a corner. Emily swallowed and the sound seemed so loud, like a boulder plunked into a pool.
What was she doing, searching for a way out of a dungeon she knew nothing about? Her skin felt chilled and exposed under her ponytail, and her neck hairs were on high alert. But going back upstairs to stand at the cage door and yell until somebody heard her didn’t seem like a better option. Surely Fiona would alert people—eventually—that she was back here? Someone would find her. Wouldn’t they?
Emily concentrated on breathing steadily and staying calm, but it was a losing battle. The hopelessness of her situation and the dark and being afraid were making her chest tighten. It was getting harder to breathe steadily and evenly.
The Alcatraz Escape Page 13
