The Bridge to Never Land

by Dave Barry

  “Shut up,” said Sarah. “We need to get our passports.”

  “How? Dad always has them in that stupid thing around his neck.”

  “I know,” Sarah said. “But we only need them for, what, an hour or two? Technically, they’re ours anyway, right?”

  “Technically, I don’t know.”

  Sarah turned to Aidan and put her hands on his shoulders. “Listen,” she said. “We’ve come all this way, and now we’re standing ten yards from the eagle. I am not going to leave without seeing what’s beneath it.”

  “Also the guard is cute.”

  “That too.”

  “But how are we going to get the passports?”

  “I don’t know yet,” said Sarah. She dropped her arms and started walking back toward the hotel. “But I’ll think of something.”

  “That,” said Aidan, mostly to himself, “is what I’m afraid of.”

  CHAPTER 3

  BENEATH THE EAGLE

  INSPIRATION STRUCK SARAH that night in the middle of a bite of hummus.

  The Coopers were eating dinner at Dah Magreb, a Middle Eastern restaurant near their hotel with a sign outside advertising “Nightly Entertainment.” There were no utensils; they ate with their hands, sitting on pillows on the floor. Halfway through their meal, to their dismay, the “entertainment” arrived: a somewhat overweight belly dancer emerged from behind a beaded curtain. She began gyrating, wiggling, and bouncing to unpleasant music blasting from a tinny sound system.

  “Why is it so loud?” complained Sarah.

  “What?” shouted both her mother and father.

  “Never mind,” said Sarah.

  “Oh, no,” said Aidan. “Don’t look now, but jelly belly is heading our way.” The belly dancer was indeed writhing toward their table. She was smiling at Tom Cooper in what she apparently thought was an inviting manner, but she looked more like a horse approaching the trough. Reaching their low table, she plucked at his sleeve, beckoning for him to stand up. He regarded her with a puzzled expression.

  “What does she want?” he asked.

  “I think,” said Natalie, smiling, “she wants you to dance with her.”

  “Noooo,” said Aidan, burying his face in his hands.

  Sarah also frowned for a moment. Suddenly, her expression changed. “I think it’s a great idea!” she said.

  “You what?” said Aidan, jerking his head up. “Are you insane?” He looked around the restaurant; the other diners were watching all this with amusement.

  “Shut up, Aidan,” said Sarah, giving her brother a significant look. “C’mon, Dad! It’ll make a great picture!” She pulled her father to his feet. “Mom, get the camera,” she said. She shoved her father next to the belly dancer, who shook her hips violently at him. He stared at them with an expression of alarm. He was still holding his shish kebab.

  “I’m going to kill myself,” said Aidan.

  Natalie, laughing, rummaged through her purse and pulled out the camera. She was aiming it at her husband when Sarah said, “Hold it! Let’s take this off for the picture.”

  She grabbed the pouch that her father always wore suspended from a cord around his neck, much to the embarrassment of his children, who called it the Dork Sack. This was where he kept money and travel documents—including passports.

  “Here, Aidan,” she said, tossing it into her brother’s lap. “Hold this for a sec, okay?” She gave him the look again.

  “Uh…ah!” said Aidan, suddenly understanding. “Okay!”

  Sarah moved in front of her brother, blocking sight of him from her parents, whose attention was fully focused on the belly dancer anyway. She took the shish kebab out of her father’s hands, pinching its stick between her fingers.

  “Say cheese, Tom,” said Natalie.

  “Feta cheese!” said Sarah, managing to win a grin from her mother.

  But not from Tom. Nervously eyeing the writhing dancer, he attempted a smile, which came across as a wince.

  The camera flashed, blinding Tom. “Got it,” said Natalie.

  “One more!” insisted Sarah. “For safety.”

  “Okay,” said her mom. She raised the camera, held it steady, and it flashed again.

  “How about one with Dad actually dancing?” urged Sarah.

  “He is dancing,” said Natalie. “That is your father dancing.”

  Tom had, in fact, begun to respond to the music by swaying back and forth. Realizing this, he stepped quickly away from the dancer.

  “Yup, that will do it,” said Aidan, now standing just behind Sarah. He handed the Dork Sack back to his father, then leaned closer to Sarah.

  “Nice move,” he whispered. “I got ’em.”

  The next morning, Sarah and Aidan left the hotel right after breakfast, having promised their parents that they would return by eleven a.m. when the family was due to leave for yet another historical tour. They walked directly to the consulate, reaching it shortly after the doors opened at nine. Manning the security station inside the entrance was the same guard they’d spoken with the day before. He smiled when he saw Sarah, and made a little bow.

  “The Spanish student!” he said. “Bienvenido, señorita.”

  “Likewise,” she said, blushing.

  “Likewise?” said Aidan.

  Ignoring him, Sarah unzipped her backpack and took out the two passports Aidan had removed from the Dork Sack.

  “Here you are,” she said.

  The guard studied the passports, then handed them back. He went through Sarah’s backpack, then directed her and Aidan through the metal detector.

  “That way,” he said, pointing toward the counter. “The woman behind the counter will help you.”

  “Thank you,” said Sarah, smiling brightly.

  “Con mucho gusto,” said the guard.

  “Likewise!” said Aidan.

  “Shut up,” said Sarah.

  The line at the counter was shorter this morning; there were only four people ahead of them. Behind the counter was a clerk, a serious-looking woman who wore her red-dyed hair in a tight bun. She was stamping some documents. The eagle in the archway was just in front of the counter, a few feet ahead of where Sarah and Aidan waited in line. Sarah looked up at it, then down, but all she saw beneath the eagle was a large man in a brown suit, now second in line.

  “I don’t get it,” she said quietly to Aidan. “What’s supposed to be beneath the eagle?”

  Aidan was studying the floor.

  “Beneath your feet,” he said.

  Sarah looked at the floor. It was made of marble tiles, each about two feet square, grayish-white with black veins running through them in random-looking patterns.

  “Yeah? So what? It’s a floor,” she said. “Big deal.”

  “We’re not under the eagle yet.”

  The line moved forward. Now the man in the brown suit was talking to the clerk; behind him was a young woman, and behind her stood Aidan and Sarah, last in line.

  “Okay, now look,” whispered Aidan, pointing at the tile directly under the young woman’s sandals—and directly under the eagle.

  Sarah looked, then frowned.

  “What?” she whispered.

  “That tile is different from the others,” he said. “Don’t you see? It’s not as worn down, and the color’s a little lighter. And the dark lines are…sharper.”

  Sarah studied the marble tile. “So one of the old tiles broke and they replaced it. So what?”

  “Maybe,” said Aidan. “Maybe not.”

  The clerk finished up with the man in the brown suit. The young woman ahead of them stepped up to the counter. Aidan and Sarah moved forward, now directly under the eagle. There still was nobody in line behind them.

  “Quick,” whispered Aidan. “Give me a piece of paper.”

  “Why?”

  “Just give it to me.”

  Sarah unzipped the backpack, poked around inside for a moment, and withdrew a spiral notebook. She tore out a blank piece of paper and hand
ed it to Aidan.

  “Do you have a pencil?” he said.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Just give me a pencil,” said Aidan, snapping his fingers.

  “Okay, okay.” Sarah rooted around in the backpack and produced a pencil. Aidan took it, then glanced back toward the guard station; the guard was talking with two people who’d just entered.

  Perfect.

  “May I help you?” said the clerk.

  “Distract her,” Aidan whispered to Sarah.

  “But what should I—”

  Aidan pushed her toward the clerk. “My sister has a question,” he said.

  “Right,” said Sarah to the clerk. “I’m…I’m studying Spanish, and I need to interview a Spaniard. I mean a Spanish. I mean a Spanish person.”

  The clerk eyed Sarah doubtfully.

  Aidan tugged on the backpack. Sarah clung to it, jerking it away from him.

  “Let go,” he hissed.

  “Why should I?”

  Aidan drew open the backpack’s zipper farther, while at the same time he pulled on the backpack’s strap. The clerk shook her head impatiently. Americans.

  “Don’t pull!” Sarah said to him. “You’re going to—”

  Aidan tore loose the backpack, but it tipped and dumped its contents.

  “—spill it,” said Sarah. “Nice move, moron.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Aidan, not sounding at all sorry. “I’m going to pick it up now.” He dropped into a crouch and cleared off the tile in the middle of the backpack’s spilled contents: a Kleenex travel pack, three packs of gum, four tubes of mascara, some coins, hair ties, hair clips, a hair scrunchie, and the hair spray that Sarah carried everywhere. The counter prevented the clerk from seeing him. Aidan looked back; the guard remained occupied screening the two arrivals.

  As Sarah stammered out a vague story about her needing an interview, Aidan placed the document onto the cleared section of tile. The dark lines on the tile showed clearly through the thin paper. Aidan moved the paper around, rotating it one way, then another. Suddenly, he stopped.

  “Yes!” he exclaimed, a little too loudly.

  “What?” said Sarah, looking down at her brother.

  “Just getting this picked up!” Aidan said, still too loud. He stuffed a few items into the backpack.

  Sarah turned back to the clerk, who was craning forward to peer over the counter. Sarah sidestepped to block her view of Aidan, who was now using the pencil to trace the lines in the stone.

  “Sir!” Aidan jumped as the guard’s stern voice called to him from the security area. “What are you doing?”

  Aidan looked up; the guard was walking quickly toward him.

  “What are you doing?” the guard repeated.

  “Picking up what I spilled,” said Aidan, now stuffing things into the backpack.

  “With a pencil?”

  “Oh, that,” said Aidan, looking at the pencil in his hand as though he’d just noticed it. “Ah…I’m tracing.”

  “You’re tracing the floor?”

  “The grain in the marble,” said Aidan. “It’s very…interesting.” He continued tracing.

  “Sir, this is not a museum or a cathedral,” said the guard. “Please, no more tracing. Collect your things, please.”

  “But I’m almost done,” said Aidan, working frantically.

  The guard reached him and put his hand on Aidan’s shoulder. “Sir,” he said, “I’m afraid I must ask you to leave.”

  “Okay, okay,” said Aidan, making a few last pencil strokes. “I’m done anyway.” He gathered the remaining spilled items from around him and shot a look at Sarah as he stood, handing her the backpack.

  “All right, then!” she said to the clerk. “You’ve been most helpful. Thank you.”

  “What about the interview?” asked the clerk.

  “I…ah…I just remembered,” said Sarah. “It’s not Spanish I’m studying. It’s Italian! I’m always getting those two languages mixed up. So sorry! Thank you! Bye!” She turned and followed Aidan, who was walking quickly toward the door. Once outside, Aidan burst out laughing.

  “Italian?” he said. “Italian?”

  “Hey, it was the best I could do. But what was with spilling everything? What were you doing there on the floor?”

  “Tracing,” said Aidan, grinning proudly. “And you won’t believe what I got.”

  “What did you get? Tell me!”

  Aidan held up the piece of paper. “I have no idea,” he said.

  CHAPTER 4

  MAGILL’S MESSAGE

  “LET ME SEE IT!” said Sarah, grabbing for the piece of paper.

  “Not here,” said Aidan, pulling it away. “He’s watching.”

  Sarah looked back toward the consulate and saw the security officer standing at the top of the steps, regarding them curiously. They walked quickly away, not looking back until they had gone two blocks.

  Aidan motioned her into a coffee shop. She ordered a decaf latte. Aidan bought something with a complicated Italian name that tasted like a vanilla milkshake.

  “Okay,” said Sarah. “Now let me see.” Aidan handed her the tracing he’d made from the floor. It was covered with strange lines, very much like the document they’d found in the desk.

  Sarah studied it for a moment, then said, “Great. Before we had one piece of paper with a bunch of random lines. Now we have two. We’re really making progress.”

  “Okay,” said Aidan, “but it has to mean something. I mean, this guy Magill went to all that trouble…”

  Sarah dug into the backpack and pulled out the paper from the desk. She laid it down next to the tracing.

  “Same thing, right?” she said. “Random lines.”

  “But they’re not the same,” said Aidan.

  “No,” said Sarah.

  “Maybe you have to fold them,” said Aidan. “Let me…” He reached for the papers; in doing so, he bumped his drink, splashing some out of the cup. Sarah yanked the papers away from the spill.

  “Watch it!” she said.

  “Sorry,” said Aidan. “I was just gonna—”

  “Hey,” said Sarah. “Look.”

  Aidan looked. Sarah, in pulling the papers away, had held them up to the window, one atop the other. The sunlight was streaming through them both.

  The dark lines were now intermingled.

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” said Sarah.

  “I have no idea what you’re thinking,” said Aidan, mopping up his spill.

  Sarah, ignoring him, had pressed the two papers against the window and was now manipulating them—sliding them back and forth, flipping them over, rotating them, trying various combinations.

  Suddenly, she stopped. She was now holding the papers still, pinned against the glass.

  “Oh my god,” she said. “Aidan, look.”

  Aidan looked—and gasped. The random-looking marks had aligned to form numbers and letters.

  “Whoa,” said Aidan. “What is that? Are those numbers money? Because if they’re money, we are rich.”

  “We don’t know it’s money,” Sarah said. “What’s this star supposed to mean? And the arrow? And what about ‘Feed guards’? What guards?”

  “I dunno,” said Aidan. “Maybe they’re guarding the money? I really hope it’s money.”

  Sarah got out a pen and carefully traced the floor marks onto Magill’s document, which now carried the full message. They both studied it some more.

  “I don’t think the numbers are money,” said Sarah. “It seems like they’re too exact.”

  “Maybe it’s foreign money,” said Aidan. “Like pounds, or kilograms.”

  “Kilogram is a weight, you moron.”

  “Oh yeah? Which moron figured out what was under the eagle?”

  Sarah, not having a good answer to that, said, “We’ll have to figure this out later. We need to get back or Mom and Dad’ll kill us for making them miss the tour. And we don’t want Dad realizing we took our pa
ssports.”

  “Good point.”

  They left the coffee shop, walking back toward the hotel.

  “So what tour are we going on today?” said Aidan.

  “Some boat tour. On the Thames.”

  “Great! We can ride past another batch of old buildings and Dad can get all excited about how old they are.”

  “Yup,” agreed Sarah. She was still looking at the document. “But while we’re on the boat, we can try to figure out what this means.”

  “Yeah, right,” scoffed Aidan. “Maybe the tour guide will give us a clue.”

  As it turned out, that was almost how it happened.

  They’d been on the tour boat for about an hour, motoring past the Houses of Parliament, the London Eye, the Tower of London, Tower Bridge, and many other points of interest—at least of interest to Tom and Natalie Cooper, who were fascinated. Sarah and Aidan, sitting in the row behind them, were not so excited—Aidan was playing a video game on his phone, while Sarah was surreptitiously studying Magill’s strange message.

  As the winding Thames made a sweeping left turn, the guide, who’d been narrating the tour through the boat’s public-address system, announced that they were approaching Greenwich, site of the Royal Observatory. The guide spoke in a rich baritone voice with the kind of British accent that makes even the simplest statement sound brilliant to Americans. Tom and Natalie were hanging on his every word.

  “The observatory,” intoned the guide, “is the location of the prime meridian, zero degrees of longitude. All longitude on Earth is measured from here.”

  “How about that, kids?” said Tom Cooper, turning around to Sarah and Aidan. “Hey! No electronics, young man!”

  “What?” said Aidan, looking up from his game. “Oh, yeah.” He quickly pocketed the phone before his father confiscated it.

  “We’re at zero degrees!” Tom said.

  Aidan’s brow furrowed. “What are you talking about? It’s got to be eighty degrees out.”

  Sarah snorted.

  “Not temperature,” said Tom. “Zero degrees longitude.”