The Thirteenth Mystery

by Michael Dahl

  Table of Contents

  1: Impossible

  2: Double Emergency

  3: Clues on the Carpet

  4: The Dragonstone Disappearance

  5: The Glass Keyhole

  6: Beard and Mustache

  7: The Stairs Between

  8: Taking Steps

  9: Deadline for Abracadabra

  10: Flowers with a Twist

  11: DeVille’s Trick

  12: Shifting Shadows

  13: The Thirteenth Floor

  14: The Twelve

  15: The Old Magic Returns

  16: The Locked Door

  17: No Way Out

  18: The Third Flower

  19: Shadow Man

  20: Ty and the Trap

  21: Ancestors

  From his desk near the back of Ms. Gimli’s classroom, Charlie Hitchcock stared at the three impossible words.

  ABRACADABRA IS MISSING.

  Abracadabra, master of the impossible, the world’s oldest living magician, missing? The same man who had made other people disappear, along with rabbits, airplanes, school buses, and the occasional elephant. How could he vanish?

  If Abracadabra had disappeared on purpose, he would have let Charlie in on his plans. After all, the great performer — known as Brack to his friends — certainly thought of Charlie as a pal.

  No way. Brack would have told me! Charlie thought. He scrunched up the note. Or he would have told Ty, and Ty would have told me.

  Tyler Yu lived and worked at the world-famous Abracadabra Hotel. And while Charlie didn’t exactly consider Ty his friend, the two boys had often worked together to solve puzzles surrounding the hotel’s mysterious guests. It was Ty who had secretly handed the note to Charlie out in the hall, between classes. Charlie knew better than to say or ask anything at the time. Ty couldn’t afford to let anyone know that he was on speaking terms with Charlie Hitchcock, the smartest kid in Blackstone Middle School, and therefore the school’s biggest nerd.

  If Brack didn’t say anything to me or Ty, thought Charlie, then his disappearance wasn’t planned. An accident?

  Charlie heard an odd tap-tap sound.

  “What’s that tapping?” asked Ms. Gimli from the front of the classroom.

  Scotter Larson raised his hand. “I believe,” he began without being called on, “it’s Morse Code, Ms. Gimli.”

  “Morse Code?” Ms. Gimli repeated. “Well, whoever is doing it should stop.”

  “It’s not me, Ms. Gimli,” said Scotter. The blond boy sat up straighter in his desk. “Even though I was the youngest Scout in the tri-state area to receive a badge for Morse Code.”

  Something hit Charlie on the shoulder. He looked up and saw Tyler Yu standing just outside the door of Ms. Gimli’s room.

  The tall boy looked angry. He always looked angry. He tapped harder against the doorframe with a pen.

  “Impossible,” said Scotter Larson. “It doesn’t make sense.”

  Ms. Gimli turned from the whiteboard and looked at Scotter. “What is impossible?”

  “The Morse Code message,” Scotter said. “The Morse message says H-V-R-R-Y-V-P. But that’s not a word.”

  Charlie wrote down the letters in his notebook.

  H.V.R.R.Y.V.P.

  Scotter may think it’s not a word, he thought, but it is. Two words, actually.

  Charlie knew that in order to solve a puzzle you sometimes needed to take into account unpredictable factors. And the most unpredictable factors were personalities.

  In this case, the personality of the person actually sending the Morse Code message: Tyler Wu. Ty knew a lot about secrets and strategy. But he wasn’t the best speller.

  Tyler’s making a mistake, thought Charlie. He’s using three dots instead of two to spell a Morse letter. He doesn’t mean V, he means U. He’s telling me to hurry up!

  Charlie looked at Tyler. The tall boy’s face was turning red. His eyes were glowing.

  Charlie rushed up to Ms. Gimli. “Uh, may I go to the lavatory?” he whispered.

  “Can’t you wait until lunch?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Then hurry up,” said the teacher.

  “Hurry up?” said Scotter to himself.

  He’s figuring it out, thought Charlie. He gathered up his things and left the room.

  “What took you so long?” Ty spat out. “You saw the note!” He turned and headed down the hall. “And before you say anything, yeah, I know the Morse Code was spelled wrong. I did that on purpose so no one else would figure it out.”

  “Wait!” said Charlie, running alongside. “Where are you going?”

  Tyler stopped. He fixed Charlie with a steely look, as if he were pinning the boy to the wall. “I thought you figured that out, too. Aren’t you the smartest kid in school?”

  Charlie said, “You’re going to the hotel? Now? In the middle of the day?”

  Tyler smiled, but it was a cold smile. “Wrong, Brainiac. We’re going to the hotel. Now. In the middle of the day. Our friend needs us.”

  And that was all Charlie needed to hear.

  It was raining by the time Charlie and Ty reached the Abracadabra Hotel in an old section of downtown Blackstone.

  The ancient building — known to its residents as the Hocus Pocus Hotel, but officially named for its founder, Abracadabra — raised its towers toward the dark churning clouds.

  When the boys walked through the glass double doors, they passed from rain, gloom, and thunder to bright lights, laughter, and excited voices. The vast lobby was completely stuffed with people.

  “What’s going on?” asked Charlie. “Is it a party?”

  “Tyler!” yelled a voice. The boys saw a young girl elbowing her way through the crowd. It was Annie Solo, who worked at the front desk.

  “Tyler,” she repeated, trying to catch her breath. “I’m so glad to see you. You got my text!”

  “Text?” Ty said, frowning. “Uh, nope. No text. I don’t have a phone. You must have had the wrong number or something.”

  “I beeped you, too,” Annie said. “Twice. Maybe three times.”

  “Annie, you know I can’t have my beeper on at school,” Tyler said.

  Charlie guessed that Tyler had probably been ignoring the girl’s messages.

  Annie made it no secret that she had a crush on Tyler. Ty, however, felt differently.

  He grabbed Charlie by the collar and started using him as a human plow to push through the crowd. “Sorry, but I’m in the middle of an emergency here,” said Ty.

  “I’ll say,” said Annie, following closely. “This afternoon’s the Friday special preview, as you know. And the tech guy never showed up for it, and I knew that you’ve worked the light booth before, so —”

  “Wait a minute. What are you talking about, Annie?” asked Charlie. It was hard for him to hear her while being shoved between men wearing suits and women in long gowns that glittered like plastic wrap.

  “The magic show preview,” Annie explained. “The preview of David Dragonstone before tonight’s big show! He goes on in half an hour, but we don’t have anyone to run the lights for the stage.”

  “Annie,” said Tyler, without stopping or looking back, “I can’t right now.”

  “But you’re not in school,” Annie pointed out.

  “Neither are you,” Tyler shot back.

  “I’m in a work program, remember?” said Annie. “Every Wednesday and Friday afternoon. What’s your excuse?”

  “Emergency,” said Tyler. “Besides, you wanted me to com
e.”

  “Because your mother asked me to,” Annie said. “And if she finds out you left school, but not to help me, then . . .”

  Tyler’s mother, Miranda Yu, was the hotel manager for the Abracadabra. His dad, Walter Yu, was the head chef of the hotel restaurant, the Top Hat. Although Charlie had met them only briefly, he knew they were deadly serious about work. He often wondered if any one of the Yus ever smiled.

  Tyler stopped.

  The three of them had squeezed a path through the crowd and stood near the row of elevators. Ty’s shoulders slumped, and he looked down at his boots.

  “Okay, fine,” he said. “I’ll run the lights for the afternoon show. But I better get paid for it.” He turned to Charlie. “You go up to Brack’s place and search for clues. Find out where he went in the hotel.”

  “You said he was missing,” said Charlie.

  “Yeah, but he never left the hotel,” Ty told him.

  “How do you know that?” Charlie asked.

  “Surveillance cameras,” said Tyler.

  “So that’s what you were looking at in the office last night,” said Annie.

  Tyler ignored her. “There are cameras all over the lobby,” he told Charlie. “See?” Charlie followed Ty’s pointed finger and noticed small gold-colored gadgets attached to the lobby’s pillars.

  “We can see anyone going out or coming in through the hotel doors,” said Ty. “There are more cameras at the loading dock in the alley. But Brack wasn’t on any of them. He has to be somewhere in the building.”

  Unless he found a magic way out, thought Charlie.

  “Brack was supposed to be at Dragonstone’s rehearsal last night, but he never showed up,” chimed in Annie.

  “I know,” said Ty. “That’s why I’m worried. He’s been gone for, like, at least eighteen hours now.”

  Charlie knew Brack would never miss a rehearsal. He was way too good a performer for that.

  Was he hurt? Or sick? Brack was older than the hotel bearing his name, and old people sometimes had health problems.

  “He’s gone. Vanished,” said Ty.

  “Can the hotel’s security cameras tell us where Brack went inside the hotel?” asked Charlie. “It must be caught on film.”

  “They only look at the exits and entrances,” said Ty. “Mom wants to upgrade for the whole hotel, but she hasn’t been able to yet.”

  Annie grabbed Tyler’s arm. “Okay. We need to hurry,” she said. “They’re opening the doors for the preview show in ten minutes.”

  “Go up to Brack’s and look for clues,” said Ty. “Then come back here and we’ll search the hotel together.”

  “I’d love to!” said Annie.

  Tyler opened his mouth to object, but Annie quickly led him away from the crowd and through another door.

  “Don’t worry,” Charlie called out to Ty’s vanishing back. “I’ll be fine.”

  Charlie entered an elevator and pushed the gold button at the very top.

  Don’t worry? he asked himself. Who am I kidding? I skipped school, Brack is missing, and I don’t know what I’m supposed to look for.

  It was the perfect time to worry.

  The spring shower had grown into a raging thunderstorm. Wind and rain whipped fiercely around the tall downtown buildings as Charlie ran from the shelter of the elevator toward Brack’s home. The magician’s house was perched on the rooftop of the old hotel. It was surrounded by empty flower gardens and leafless trees that stuck out of cement pots like upside-down claws scratching the air.

  When Charlie reached the front door and grasped the knob, he was cold and soaked with rain.

  I’m so stupid, thought Charlie. I should have asked Annie for a key to get into Brack’s place. Now what am I going to do?

  Charlie shivered and tried the knob. The door was unlocked. Cautiously, he stepped inside. The hall light was on. “Brack!” he called.

  As he stepped forward, rain puddled on the carpet around his shoes. Charlie dropped his backpack on the floor and yelled again. “Brack!”

  There was no answer.

  Charlie felt odd looking through his friend’s house while he was gone. As if he were breaking the law. But he knew he had to do it. He had to search for clues.

  Like the empty cup on the table in a small sitting room. That was the only other room in Brack’s apartment where the lights were on. The room was full of magical props from hundreds of stage shows. The walls were covered with colorful, old-fashioned posters. But the empty cup seemed out of place to Charlie.

  He picked it up and sniffed. Yuck! Coffee. He hated the taste and smell of coffee. Come to think of it, so did Brack. So why was it there? For a guest?

  Why are the lights on? he wondered. Annie said Brack never showed up at the magic show rehearsal last night. Brack must have been here, and then disappeared before morning.

  Charlie noticed a table nearby that held leather-bound books and more magic props. In the middle of the table were two items that snagged his attention.

  A cardboard tube lay on a yellow notepad. The tube was empty. A name was stamped at one end: LAND REGISTRAR, BLACKSTONE COUNTY.

  On the yellow pad were a few words, scrawled in pencil.

  Tiger lily here? Charlie stood back up and looked quickly around the room. There were no flowers in here. What did Brack mean?

  And Charlie knew that the Hocus Pocus Hotel did not have a thirteenth floor. Not officially. It had a floor above the twelfth one, of course, but it wasn’t numbered thirteen. It was called the fourteenth floor. Many hotels did the same trick. Lots of people were superstitious and refused to sleep on an unlucky thirteenth floor. So hotels just dropped the 13 and substituted 14 in its place.

  Maybe Brack was writing about a magic trick for one of his shows.

  Lightning flashed through the windows of the house.

  I better get back downstairs, thought Charlie. He tore the paper off the pad and stuffed it into his backpack.

  He made one last quick tour of the house to make sure the windows and other doors were locked. There was no way in or out except through the front door. Charlie stood, his hand on the doorknob, looking out at the fierce storm.

  Brack must have been in a hurry when he left, Charlie thought. Otherwise he would have locked the door. Or maybe he realized he was hurrying to the rehearsal, and he just forgot.

  Charlie frowned.

  Nothing in Brack’s house seemed to be a real clue. The magician might have been visiting with an old friend who liked coffee. Maybe he’d been working on a new magic trick that involved carpets and flowers, and then headed down to the rehearsal. Nothing unusual.

  Charlie picked up his backpack and froze.

  On the damp carpet, lay an object he had not seen before. It had been hidden by his pack. He squatted down and picked it up. A clump of hair.

  Fake red hair.

  “Find anything?” asked Ty when Charlie got back downstairs.

  Charlie nodded. “Yeah,” he said, reaching into his backpack. “Wait till you see —”

  “Tyler!” yelled Annie. “It’s about to start.”

  The three of them were standing inside the booth that controlled the lighting for the Abracadabra Theatre.

  The booth was on the rear wall of the theater, opposite the stage, and high above the audience. Charlie could see the tops of five hundred heads, facing the stage and waiting for the entrance of David Dragonstone.

  “Here goes,” said Ty, sliding a lever on the huge control panel.

  Bright lights lit up the stage and a roar of applause shook the walls. David Dragonstone — tall, thin, with piercing eyes — walked out onto the stage and waved.

  “That guy’s the magician?” said Ty. “He looks like a kid.”

  He has red hair, thought Charlie.

  The boys and Annie w
atched the entire show, which lasted an hour. Tyler kept busy reading the light cues from sheets on a clipboard.

  Then came the final trick of the performance.

  On the stage far below, bathed in brilliant light, several assistants strapped Dragonstone into a straitjacket. A chain was wrapped around his ankles. Then a hook was attached to the chain and the young, redheaded magician was hoisted into the air.

  The audience gasped. Dragonstone rose higher and higher. He came to rest, thirty feet above the stage, upside down. Then, without warning, a strange man climbed onto the stage.

  The stranger wore a flowing black robe. He had dark hair that hung to his shoulders and a black mustache and pointed beard. “Ladies and gentlemen,” said the man in a commanding voice. “Behold, the amazing Dragonstone, in his final act of the evening.”

  He gestured to the young magician twisting high above him. “Dragonstone has amazed audiences throughout the world. It is my humble duty and great pleasure, as the Wizard DeVille, to announce this final feat of illusion and legerdemain.”

  “Leger what?” asked Ty.

  “It means trickery,” said Annie. “Like a trick that a magician can do with his hands.”

  Dragonstone can’t use his hands, strapped in that jacket, thought Charlie. There’s no way out of it.

  “Behold!” cried the wizard. “And tremble with fear!”

  The hook holding David Dragonstone snapped open. The magician plunged headfirst, still straitjacketed, toward the stage, thirty feet below.

  The straitjacket hit the stage. But instead of a thud, it made hardly a sound.

  The wizard, DeVille, ran over to the lifeless form. He lifted it up easily with one hand. It was only the straitjacket, and it was empty. Dragonstone had fallen toward the stage, but he never reached it.

  The redheaded magician had completely disappeared.

  “Dragonstone has disappeared,” shouted DeVille.

  A member of the audience began clapping. Then another. And another. Soon everyone in the audience was cheering and shouting.

  “What a trick!” said Annie.