The Multiplying Mysteries of Mount Ten

by Krista Van Dolzer

  “Watch it!” Mr. Pearson blurted as he spun away from me.

  I couldn’t help but grin. “You’re back!”

  “As you can see,” was all he said. He shielded the package with his body.

  I strained to see over his shoulder. “Has Toby come in yet?”

  Mr. Pearson shook his head. “Mr. Renfro stayed in town.”

  I felt my shoulders fall. “He what?”

  “There was a piece of twisted metal that he needed for his truck, so he said he’d wait for it.” Mr. Pearson’s nostrils flared. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get started on lunch.”

  With one last harrumph, he continued on his way. My head was buzzing with so many questions that I just stood there, stunned. Why had Toby stayed in town? Even if he’d needed a used part, wouldn’t he have also needed a way to get back up the mountain? He wouldn’t have just left me here—unless someone had made him leave.

  We spent the whole afternoon gathering data at the lake. Mr. Pearson even brought us lunch so we wouldn’t have to take a break. I kept checking the time and coming up with dumb excuses to find my way back to the lodge, but as it turned out, Ms. Gutierrez was even more stubborn than I was. She refused to leave until we finished all her drills and carefully recorded our results.

  By the time we got back from the lake, I was a basket case. I’d spent most of the hike telling myself that everything was fine, that Toby wasn’t really gone, that he’d know what to do about the killer and these clues. But when we rounded the last corner, the very first thing I noticed was that the camp’s cherry-red truck was the only one in sight.

  I stopped dead in my tracks. “Toby’s truck,” I said. “Where is it?”

  Ms. Gutierrez blinked. “Maybe he took it for a test drive?”

  “No, Mr. Pearson said that he left Toby in town.”

  “Well, then, maybe he came back and got it. He must have wanted to make sure it was completely operational before you two, uh, left.”

  She couldn’t have sounded more suspicious if she’d confessed to killing him. She tried to take hold of my arm, but I jerked it out of her grip.

  “How did he get up the mountain? It isn’t like he could have walked.”

  Ms. Gutierrez held her hands up. “Esther, I’m positive there’s a perfectly rational explanation—”

  “Then I want to talk to him,” I said. “And I want to talk to him right now.”

  She glanced at Mr. Sharp, who pushed his glasses up his nose. The math nerds shifted anxiously, but I held my ground. If they wouldn’t let me talk to Toby, I was going to assume that everyone was in on it. That they were all mass murderers.

  Before Ms. Gutierrez had a chance to declare herself, the heavy oak door opened, and Director Verity appeared. Her gaze bounced back and forth between the counselors and me. “What’s going on?” she asked.

  I stuck out my chin. “I said, I want to talk to Toby.” When the director arched an eyebrow, I stuck my chin back in and peeped, “If it isn’t too much trouble.”

  She pressed her lips into a line, and for a second, I was sure that she was going to say no. I started hatching plots to break back into her office and steal her precious satellite phone, but she managed to surprise me.

  “Come on,” she finally said, wrapping an arm around my shoulders. “Let’s go and make that call.”

  She steered me through the door, across the dusty common room, and into her dreaded office. The sunlamp was still on, but now the radio was, too. It took my brain too many seconds to translate the noises into words.

  “—for the next forgery to surface,” the woman on the radio was saying, “but the so-called Fenimore Forger is keeping a low profile at present.”

  The radio clicked off. “Have a seat,” Director Verity said.

  Obediently, I had a seat. I would have liked to hear the rest, but letting myself get riled up about the Fenimore Forger wasn’t going to help me locate Toby.

  She sat down in her chair and offered me her satellite phone. If I hadn’t known what it was, I probably would have thought it was some kind of walkie-talkie with a super-thick antenna. It looked solid enough to bludgeon someone with.

  “If you don’t want to go outside, you’ll have to stand over by the window”—she flicked a thumb over her shoulder—“and angle the antenna toward the sky.”

  I probably should have jumped at the chance to put some space between us, and yet I stayed right where she was. If she’d had something to do with Toby’s sudden disappearance, she surely would have guessed that I would want some privacy, but if she’d also guessed that I would guess what she’d just guessed, didn’t that undo the guessing? Instead of playing her mind games, I held the phone up to my ear, but it was as dead as her daisy.

  “Oh, I must have forgotten the SIM card.”

  How convenient, I was about to say, then caught myself at the last second.

  She snatched the phone out of my hands, produced a small chip out of nowhere, and snapped the chip into the phone. When the blue screen glowed to life, she passed the whole thing back to me. “Now you have to dial two zeroes and a one, plus the number you want to call.”

  I dialed two zeroes and a one, then glanced at Director Verity. She was pretending to flip through a magazine, but from the way her eyes were skipping back and forth across the pages, I could tell that she was watching. When two of her pages stuck together, I quickly punched in Toby’s number.

  “Don’t you have something to do?”

  “Nothing that can’t be done later,” she said. “This phone can be tricky.”

  The phone wasn’t the only thing that could be tricky.

  It kept ringing and ringing. I kept my eyes glued to the window, hoping she would take the hint, but she kept flipping through her magazine (which was thicker than most books). She did look up once or twice, but when her gaze landed on the picture on the corner of her desk, she sent me a sideways glance, then calmly turned it upside down. My fingers itched to flip it over, but I couldn’t muster the courage before the call went to his voicemail.

  I didn’t bother to leave a message. It seemed like a waste of time. But just because he hadn’t answered didn’t mean he couldn’t answer. Toby had never been much of a phone picker-upper.

  Or at least that was what I told myself.

  Director Verity looked up. “Unavailable?” she asked.

  I forced myself to nod. “Can I try my mom instead?”

  The director cleared her throat. “You know, it’s possible that everything’s worked out precisely as it was supposed to. Maybe you were meant to come—and maybe now you’re meant to stay.” She leaned forward in her seat. “Do you understand, Esther?”

  Goose bumps crawled up and down my arms, but I forced myself not to rub them. I wanted her to think I had absolutely no idea what she was referring to. “I just want to call my mom.”

  Director Verity leaned back. “If that’s what you really want,” she said.

  I punched in Mom’s number, then punched it in again after two zeroes and a one. This time, it only rang twice before it kicked me to her voicemail.

  “Hey, Mom,” I said after it beeped. “Everything’s great, everything’s fine—nothing weird is going on—but I wanted to check in and see how things were there at home. You haven’t come across Westinghouse’s Resting Place, have you?” Westinghouse’s Resting Place was one of Toby’s works-in-progress, a deconstructed microwave designed to look like a graveyard, but he’d been stuck on it for months. I couldn’t tell Mom what was happening with the director listening in, but hopefully, that would tip her off. “Well, I should probably let you go. My phone doesn’t work up here, but if you need to get in touch, you can reach me at this number. It’s Director Verity’s.” Under my breath, I added, “Love you.”

  We weren’t a touchy-feely family, but chasing homicidal maniacs put things in perspective.

  After wiping off the grease that my cheek had left behind, I handed her the phone again. She didn’t bother t
o pretend that she hadn’t been eavesdropping, just returned it to her desk.

  “Did you need anything else?”

  I needed lots of things—answers, Toby, Angeline—but since I strongly suspected she knew more than she was saying, I just frowned and shook my head.

  Time for another secret meeting.

  CHAPTER 15

  The clock on my phone had just flipped to 7:12 when Marshane got up and stretched, drained his root beer in one swallow, and announced he had to pee. He’d been nursing the root beer since dinner so this announcement would sound plausible. The last thing we wanted to do was give away our careful plan.

  We’d spaced out our departures by two minutes and twelve seconds—twelve was Marshane’s favorite number—so we wouldn’t look suspicious, but the other people in the game room probably couldn’t have cared less. Whistler and a kid who never spoke were playing some kind of board game, Brooklyn was reading in the corner, and Mr. Sharp and Ms. Gutierrez were too busy playing footsie with each other to pay attention to their charges. Still, Marshane didn’t look at me as he sauntered toward the bathroom, and two minutes and twelve seconds later, I sauntered after him.

  Anxiety forced me to hurry as soon as I was out of sight. I’d been the last person to leave, so everyone would be waiting for me. As I dashed into the common room, I glanced over my shoulder to see if I was being followed and crashed into Mr. Pearson for the second time that day.

  As we bounced off each other, I immediately dropped my gaze and mumbled, “I guess I didn’t see you there.”

  Mr. Pearson’s nostrils flared. “I believe you meant to say you didn’t see me there again.”

  I didn’t bother to reply, but he didn’t let me off the hook.

  “Where were you going?” he demanded, folding his arms across his chest. There was a tattoo on his forearm that looked a lot like a Rembrandt, but I doubted that it was. As discreetly as I could, I craned my neck to check it out, but then he noticed me noticing and unfolded his arms.

  “Where was I going?” I replied, then wished I could take it back. Could that have sounded any more suspicious? I cleared my throat and tried again: “I mean, I’m going to the bathroom.”

  Mr. Pearson’s eyes narrowed. “Why didn’t you use the one in the mess hall?”

  I willed my voice not to crack. “Someone was using it,” I said.

  He didn’t blink. “I see.” When I just stood there breathing, he flicked a thumb over his shoulder. “Well, then, go to the bathroom.”

  With a sharp dip of my head, I went swiftly on my way. I expected him to go on his, but he just stood there waiting. Watching. At least the door wasn’t locked.

  I hadn’t planned to turn the light on, but since Mr. Pearson was still watching I had to look and act normal. The lights clawed at my eyes as I shut the door behind me and squinted at myself in the mirror. I looked paler than I usually did, less confident, more scared. I wrapped my hands around the sink and waited for my pulse to slow.

  According to Ms. Gutierrez, Mr. Pearson was the last person who’d seen Toby alive.

  But I couldn’t dwell on that. I couldn’t prove anything (yet), and I had a meeting to get to. After giving Mr. Pearson plenty of time to go about his business, I flipped off the lights and gently pried open the window. The air felt cold on my face, and I realized I was sweating—on my forehead, under my arms, and in certain other places that we didn’t need to mention.

  After drying off my hands, I hoisted myself out of the window. Tree bark crunched under my feet as I crept along the wall, loud enough to make me wince. I kept waiting for Director Verity to hear me from her room and step out onto her balcony, but she never appeared. When I reached the storage room, I tapped on the window once, then twice, then three times to let them know that it was me, then let myself in.

  The storage room felt emptier. Graham was slumped against one stack of boxes, and Marshane was sitting on another. Munch was digging through a pouch in the corner by the easel. When he found an old package of Runts, he popped one into his mouth.

  As soon as I dropped to the floor, Graham scrambled to his feet. “Oliver said he couldn’t make it.”

  Marshane didn’t get up. “Actually, he said, ‘I think Esther’s a psycho, but if you guys want to hang out with her, you’re more than welcome to.’ ”

  Graham glared at Marshane, but I couldn’t have cared less.

  “Oliver can say anything he wants as long as he doesn’t interfere.” I glanced down at Munch, who was still digging through his pouch. “I assume those are the lock picks?”

  Munch gave his pouch a pat. “What’s a picklock without his tools?”

  Marshane cocked an eyebrow. “Do you always answer questions by asking another question?”

  Munch’s nose crinkled. “Do you always act like such a punk?”

  Marshane’s grin swallowed his face.

  “Come on, guys,” I said, sighing. “We’re never gonna find them if we keep fighting among ourselves.”

  Graham scratched the back of his head. “What if they’re not out there to find? What if they really did go home?”

  “They couldn’t have gone home,” I replied. “Toby’s truck vanished after he disappeared, and Angeline left her stuff behind.”

  He opened his mouth to answer, then swiftly snapped it shut again.

  I forced myself not to smirk. He couldn’t argue with my logic. “My plan has two parts,” I went on as I pulled out my sketchbook. I’d passed the time in the game room sketching the math nerds as Greek monsters, so I kept that part covered. “The first part is pretty easy—I just need you guys to keep an eye out for more clues. If you find one, get it to me as quickly as you can so we can add it to the log.”

  “Oh, that reminds me,” Marshane said as he produced a scrap of paper. “I found this one in the potted palm outside the theater.”

  Cyclops and Chimera share a cabin with no other monsters.

  Graham’s eyes narrowed threateningly. “What were you doing in the theater?”

  “Relaxing,” he replied.

  I fought the urge to roll my eyes. How Marshane spent his free time was up to him, not up to me, but it would have been nice if he’d told me about the clue. “And you were gonna tell us when?”

  He considered that, then shrugged. “Right now?”

  “Fine,” I said waspishly as I crammed it into my sketchbook. I tried to remember where I was. “But the second part involves busting into Archimedes’s shed.”

  Munch’s eyes glowed. “Yes.”

  Marshane raised his hand. “I don’t mind breaking or entering, but why go to all the trouble? Why not just focus on the clues?”

  “The clues are our fail-safe, but I don’t want to let the killer decide our next moves for us.” I let my eyes drift toward the hill. “We’ve got to take him by surprise.”

  They didn’t even try to argue.

  I met their gazes one by one. “Part one will go into effect as soon as we leave this room, but we’ll leave part two until tonight.”

  Marshane snorted obnoxiously. “Because that worked out so well last time.”

  I chucked my pencil at his head. “Last time, Brooklyn sold us out, but she won’t interfere tonight.”

  “How do you know?” Marshane demanded.

  I sent him a secret smile. “Because I know how to push her buttons.”

  CHAPTER 16

  We launched Operation Pepto-Bismol at dinner that evening. After lunch’s lettuce wraps, I was worried we’d be having something troublesome like salad, but we were having sloppy joes. I forced myself not to grin as I slumped into the line. If there was one medium any prank artist could work with, it was a scoop of sloppy joe.

  After asking Mr. Sharp for an extra scoop or two, I grabbed the seat closest to Brooklyn. I tried to make it look like I wasn’t thinking straight, but whatever I was selling, Brooklyn wasn’t buying it.

  “I think you’re lost,” she grumbled, motioning toward Munch and Graham. “Why don’t y
ou go and sit with them?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I just thought it would be nice if we could have a girls’ night in.”

  “What are we going to do, paint each other’s nails?” she asked.

  I gulped. “Yeah, sure,” I said. If I was going to convince her, then I couldn’t flake out.

  Brooklyn rolled her eyes. “I don’t paint my nails, dimwit, and I don’t want to paint yours, either.”

  But I wasn’t deterred. Instead of backing off, I scooted closer. “If you don’t want to paint our nails, we could have an eating contest.” I’d already chugged a chocolate milk, so my breath was nice and ripe. “I spent the afternoon holed up in the bathroom, but I’m feeling better now.”

  Brooklyn’s nose crinkled. “Good for you,” she said as she scooted farther down the bench, but it sounded more like, Stay away from me, sicko.

  “Yeah, good for me,” I said, taking a bite of sloppy joe. A glob of sauce dribbled down my chin, leaving a trail of greasy ooze. When Brooklyn noticeably shuddered, I had to duck my head so she wouldn’t see my smile. You really couldn’t script these things.

  I inhaled my sloppy joe—or at least I pretended to. No sooner had I taken my fifth bite than Munch started sneezing. Violently. While Brooklyn’s attention was on him, I wrapped up my sloppy joe and tucked it into my pocket, then drew her attention back to me by massaging my stomach.

  “Oh, man,” I said, groaning. “Maybe I shouldn’t have pushed it.”

  At first, Brooklyn didn’t answer, and I flinched despite myself. I must have laid it on too thick. Somehow, she’d guessed that I was playing her; now she was playing me. But then she covered her mouth, and I knew I’d gotten to her.

  It was time to move on to phase two.

  “Watch my French fries,” I added as I lurched out of my seat and made a beeline for the bathroom. When I slammed the door shut on my heels, I caught the corner with my toe so it couldn’t close completely. If I was going to get Brooklyn to buy my Kool-Aid after all, she couldn’t miss the grand finale.