The Impossible Clue

by Sarah Rubin

  Della is the older twin.

  I started to sop up the milk while Della went upstairs to change. We’re fraternal twins, so we don’t look that much alike. Della has honey-blonde hair that she styles so it bounces when she walks, like a little floating exclamation mark making all of her actions more dramatic. I’m blonde too, but it’s the gingery variety. I wash my hair with whatever shampoo Dad has left in the shower and put it back in a braid while it’s still wet. If I didn’t know we were twins, I wouldn’t believe we were even related.

  As I scrubbed the floor, I could hear Della banging around my room. I’m not a neat freak, but I like to know where my things are. Della didn’t have that problem. Her idea of unpacking was dumping her suitcase into the drawers I’d emptied out for her and asking me if I knew where she’d left her shoes. I think Mom still puts away Della’s clean clothes.

  ‘Alice,’ Della called down the stairs. Her voice was crystal clear, even through the closed door. My sister knew how to project. ‘Where are my socks?’

  ‘Top drawer on the right,’ I yelled back.

  It was going to be a long summer.

  I’d got the worst of the mess cleaned up by the time Dad came home. Della had come back downstairs and was sitting cross-legged on our brown corduroy couch doing deep-breathing exercises. Dad looked at us both and smiled.

  ‘My two favourite girls together!’ He paused, savouring the moment. I think Dad wished Della came to stay with us more often, but he wasn’t the one who had to share a room with her. Dad put the takeaway bag on the counter and began unpacking the food.

  He’d gone to Pho Hoa, the Vietnamese restaurant up the street. The hot, tangy smell of lime juice and chillies began to fill the room. Dad’s glasses fogged over from the steam.

  ‘Smells great,’ I said. ‘What level did you get?’

  Dad and I had been building up our spice tolerance since the beginning of the year. I laid out three bowls at the end of the counter.

  ‘Level four. Prepare yourself.’

  Della scrunched up her nose and looked worried.

  ‘Uh, Dad,’ I said, checking the bag to see if there was another container. ‘Did you get a mild one for Della?’

  Dad’s face fell. ‘Oh, sweetie, I’m so sorry. I didn’t think. Do you want me to go out and get you another one? It’s just up the road.’

  ‘No. It’s fine,’ Della said quickly. ‘We have spicy food in New York too . . .’

  Maybe, I thought, but Dad and I had been working up to level four for months now.

  I took a sip, the hot, sour soup burning all the way down the back of my throat. I could feel my sinuses clearing. It was just what I needed after the air conditioning at the Delgado place.

  ‘So, Della.’ Dad took a mouthful and then wiggled the empty spoon at my sister. ‘Any luck with the casting agent?’

  Della smiled. ‘There’s an open audition at the Walnut Street Theatre tomorrow. They’re doing Annie.’

  I saw the flame in Della’s eyes go from ember to bonfire. Annie was The Big One, the Hamlet of twelve-year-old theatre girls. She took a triumphant spoonful of soup and immediately started to cough and splutter.

  Level four was definitely not for beginners.

  I got up to get her a glass of milk, but then I remembered there was no milk. Not any more. Instead, I handed Della a slice of white bread. She stuffed it in her mouth and let it soak up the spice. Tears ran down her cheeks.

  ‘I’m so sorry sweetie, why don’t you let me go out and get you something else? Anything you like. Do you want me to go get some Italian ice?’ Dad had his keys in his hand and was almost out of the door before Della managed to speak.

  ‘Dad, I’m fine,’ Della wheezed. ‘I’ll just have some toast. I shouldn’t really eat anything spicy before an audition anyway.’ She poured her soup back into the styrofoam cup and sealed the lid.

  ‘Oh, of course not. I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.’ Dad sat back down at the counter slowly. He always tried way too hard when Della came to visit and ended up getting mad at himself.

  We sat in silence while Della put two slices of bread in the toaster. Awkward silence. I had some more soup and tried not to make any slurping sounds.

  ‘Why don’t you tell Della about the press conference?’ I suggested. It was the best thing I could think of to make him feel better.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I guess it was pretty interesting.’

  Dad ran through the facts of the case, slowly at first, but picking up speed as he went.

  ‘And then the scientist working on this top secret invisibility project walked into his office and vanished without a trace. It was a locked room, with only one exit and we know from the security cameras that Dr Learner didn’t come back out that way. But when his assistant went to look for him, he wasn’t in his office.’

  ‘So someone messed with the security cameras,’ Della said, spreading peanut butter on to her toast.

  ‘Ah, that’s what I thought, but Mr Delgado’s assistant assured me that the security cameras are controlled by a professional security company in the city. And there’s no way someone tampered with the recording.’ Dad slurped up a noodle and then wiped the drips off his chin.

  Della sat back down at the counter. ‘Then there must be another way out of the office.’

  ‘Not according to the floor plan.’ Dad was enjoying himself now.

  Della took a bite and chewed thoughtfully.

  ‘Well, then I guess he must have turned himself invisible. That’s what he invented, right?’

  I groaned. Della’s idea of what scientists do was based on the time she played Dr Frankenstein in the fourth grade.

  ‘People can’t turn invisible,’ I said.

  ‘But Dad said he was a scientist studying invisibility. What else would he be trying to do? He probably drank some chemicals that turned his body clear.’ She giggled. ‘Maybe he’s running around the lab naked right now.’

  ‘He didn’t turn himself clear,’ I said, rolling my eyes. ‘Besides, even if he did, clear isn’t the same as invisible. You can still see things that are clear.’

  Della raised a disbelieving eyebrow at me.

  ‘Glass is clear, but you can still see glass. It refracts light.’ I could feel my voice starting to rise. ‘If you really wanted to turn invisible, you’d have to figure out a way to stop light from touching you. Sure, maybe Dr Learner can do that on a small scale, like molecular-level small, but there’s no way he could invent something that could make him actually disappear. He’d have to change the laws of physics, and even then—’

  I stopped mid-sentence when I noticed the smile on Della’s face. She was winding me up.

  ‘You’re too easy, Alice!’ Della laughed, and licked a bit of peanut butter off the side of her hand.

  I put my face on the table and covered my head with my arms. I couldn’t believe I fell for it. No one knew how to push my buttons like Della.

  ‘That was payback for the milk shower you gave me before.’ Della paused. ‘But I still think his research must have had something to do with how he disappeared. I mean, he must have tons of gadgets and gizmos in his lab that he could use. Or some other scientist kidnapped him or something.’

  I wasn’t a huge fan of the way Della used ‘gadgets and gizmos’ to describe state-of-the-art scientific equipment, but she had a point. If anyone could figure out how to disable a security camera, it would be a scientist studying the physics of light.

  ‘Well, as much as I’d love to sit and banter with you two sweethearts, I’m afraid I have a story to write,’ Dad said. I’ll leave you girls to clean up. I need to go do some research.’ He slurped down the last of his soup and kissed each of us on the forehead. Then he put his bowl in the sink, grabbed a water bottle out of the fridge and went into his downstairs office.

  ‘Story fever’s setting in,’ Della asked after the door shut.

  The door swung open again and I jumped. Dad stuck his head out.

  ‘Ali
ce, we’ll take a drive over to Delgado Industries in the morning and check things out, OK?’

  He popped back into the office, closing the door behind him before I had a chance to answer.

  ‘Oh, yeah. It’s setting in big time.’

  ‘I don’t know how you live with him.’ She finished her toast and put her plate in the sink. I shrugged. I liked living with Dad. He let me do things my own way.

  Della leant against the wall and watched as I washed up. ‘So how do you fit into all this?’ she asked.

  ‘You remember that kid I texted you about? Sammy?’

  ‘The one who follows you all over the school?’

  I waited until she took the clean bowl I held out and started drying it before I answered her. ‘That’s the one. Well, his father is Mr Delgado.’

  ‘And he asked you to find the scientist?’

  ‘That’s about it.’

  Della tilted her head to the side. ‘Is he serious?’

  I snorted. ‘No. He just wants me to run around and make a good story.’

  ‘And you said yes?’

  I didn’t answer, but I could feel my face starting to go hot. I rinsed the last bowl and turned off the tap.

  ‘Let me guess,’ Della said. ‘He made you angry and you took the case to prove him wrong.’ I blushed a little harder. We didn’t live together any more, but my sister could still read me like a book. Della handed me the tea towel. I guess I was finishing the drying too.

  ‘I want to call Mom before I go to bed,’ she said in answer to my raised eyebrow.

  I looked at the clock. ‘Della, it’s after midnight in Italy right now. Mom’s probably asleep.’

  Della let her shoulders slump tragically.

  ‘Just call her when you wake up. She’ll be having lunch when you have breakfast. It’ll be like you’re having brunch.’

  She seemed happy with that solution and made her way to the stairs. Della put her foot on the first step and then turned around.

  ‘You’ll let me have the bed tonight, right? I need my REM sleep before an audition.’ She smiled sweetly.

  I knew better than to argue. Arguing with Della was like arguing with a brick wall. You might make the best point in the world, but that wall wasn’t budging for anyone.

  ‘No problem.’

  Della walked upstairs belting out ‘Maybe’. Her voice filled the house with an almost physical presence. I sighed. It looked like I’d be spending a lot of my summer holiday in the library. But then again, I would have done that anyway.

  I woke up at 6 a.m. the next morning. The sun was shining, the birds were singing and so was my sister.

  ‘Good morning,’ Della trilled. She was working the top of her range, an octave usually reserved for calling dogs. Don’t get me wrong, Della made it sound good. But I’d stayed up late going over the file Mr Delgado had given me, and 6 a.m. is no time for music appreciation.

  I sat up slowly, holding my head.

  ‘Do you know what time it is?’ I asked, not expecting an answer. The air bed had deflated slightly during the night and it was a struggle to free myself. The effort made me sweat, or maybe I was sweating already. Dad must not have turned on the air conditioning. Either that or it was broken again. I hardly dared look at the thermometer. Another summer day in Philadelphia.

  ‘I need a shower,’ I said and stumbled out of the room.

  ‘We need to leave by seven. I want to get to the theatre early,’ Della called after me. I nodded, or said yes, I wasn’t sure. I’m not what you’d call a morning person. The music scales started back up again behind me.

  I turned on the shower and let the lukewarm water drown out the sound of singing and bring down my body temperature. Once I was more than half awake, I ran through what I’d read in the Delgado file.

  Dr Adrian Learner was seen going into his office after lunch on Wednesday 17th June. No one saw him again that day. When his assistant, Graham Davidson, came to check on him the next morning, the office was empty. When they reviewed the security footage, there were images of Dr Learner entering his office, and then nothing. The door didn’t open again until Davidson came. From the pictures of Dr Learner’s office and the basic floor plan Delgado had provided, it didn’t look like there were any other ways out of that room. But I couldn’t be sure until I’d seen it for myself. I was also looking forward to seeing the type of equipment Dr Learner worked with. It might give me a clue about the type of invisibility he was studying. And maybe a clue to how he got past the security cameras too.

  I had to admit, the Delgado case was starting to interest me.

  The real question, I thought, is why did Dr Learner disappear. Was he running away from something? Or had someone kidnapped him? He had looked pretty nervous in that security footage. I wondered what the equation was that would help me find the answer.

  Della kicked the bathroom door for me to hurry up. I gave my hair one last rinse and turned off the water. I was dressed and ready to go in under ten minutes. We were in the car by 6.45 a.m. Dad pulled up at the corner of 9th and Walnut, right next to the theatre. Even though the audition wasn’t until 9 a.m., there was already a crowd. Girls of every shape and size stretched around the block, waiting for their chance to audition. There were a large number of redheads, not all natural. And next to them were the stage moms and dads polishing and primping their little stars.

  Della climbed out of the car and smoothed her hair behind her ears.

  ‘Break a leg, sweetie,’ Dad said. ‘Call me if you need anything.’

  I turned in my seat so I could wave to Della as we drove away. I don’t know if she saw me or not, but she didn’t wave back. She just squared her shoulders and took her place at the end of the line.

  ‘Do you think she’ll be OK?’ I asked.

  ‘What are you talking about? She’ll be great. Your sister’s a pro.’

  That wasn’t what I meant. I was pretty sure Mom always went with Della to her auditions. But there was no point in making Dad worried now. Besides, Della knew what she was doing. She’d been on Broadway.

  As we drove away from Center City, marble buildings turned to brick and then to sagging wood. The pavements became cracked and uneven and the air streaming in through the Plymouth’s open windows stank of old hot dogs and subway steam.

  Then, as if someone had flipped a switch, we hit the suburbs. Like running into a green leafy wall, suddenly there were trees and grass and space between the houses.

  Without any city traffic to hold him back, Dad hit the accelerator. It took Dad twenty minutes to get to the Delgado Industries building off of route 611. Legally, it should have taken forty. I just shut my eyes and counted the number of times we got honked at. Twenty-two. Not even close to the record.

  Dad turned across traffic (twenty-three) and drove up between the two stone pillars that flanked the driveway. A large metal gate blocked us from driving any further. In fact, the whole area around the building was fenced off. A surveillance camera pointed at the driver-side door. Dad leant out of his open window and pressed the call button.

  ‘Yes?’ The voice was covered with static.

  ‘Arthur Jones. Philadelphia Daily News.’

  There was a long and official pause.

  ‘I’m sorry Mr Jones. Your name isn’t on the list.’

  I leant across my father’s lap and stuck my face in the camera. ‘Try Alice Jones,’ I said.

  Another pause. And then without a word the large gate swung open and we drove inside.

  My father was quiet as we looked for a parking space. The kind of quiet a father gets when he’s been shown up by his pre-teen daughter. But by the time he pulled into a spot near the door, he was over it. Nothing gets Dad down for long when he’s on the trail of a good story. He climbed out of the car and whistled. ‘Now that is an office.’

  I had to agree. Delgado Industries was made of stone and ninety-degree angles. It looked like it had been designed on an Etch A Sketch. Maybe it wasn’t everyone’s style
, but to me it was geometric perfection.

  The doors to Delgado Industries were as large and imposing as the rest of the building. We waited for someone inside the complex to unlock the doors. There was a soft click and we pushed them open. Mr Delgado ran a tight ship. I wondered how many different scientists worked there, and how many different experiments were going on at that very moment. For all I knew, someone was developing the next generation of superconductors less than thirty metres away from where I stood. The thought made my skin tingle.

  My dad and I stepped into a spacious vestibule, at least two storeys high. Long rectangles of glass chequered the outer walls, sending stripes of early-morning sun across the floor. There were two silver elevators behind the main reception desk. They matched the silver flecks in the grey floor tiles. I bet someone did that on purpose. A hallway led out of the vestibule to my right, but it was blocked by waist-level turnstiles, the kind you get in subway and train stations but much more advanced. The busy hum of people filled the air. A lot of them wore lab coats, others suits, and there were a few in the unmistakable navy-blue uniforms of a private security firm, walkie-talkies strapped conspicuously to their utility belts. Everyone had a name badge.

  Dad whistled again, craning his head back as we made our way to the reception desk.

  ‘OK, Alice,’ he said. His nose twitched like he could physically sniff out the story. He checked that his notebook was in his pocket and his pencil was behind his ear. ‘Let me do the talking.’

  But Dad never got the chance. As we got to the desk, one of the silver elevators opened. Mr Delgado’s assistant, and possible android, stepped out to greet us.

  ‘Ah, Alice. Mr Delgado is so sorry he couldn’t be here to meet you personally.’ He held out his hand. I shook it. He was one of those people who sandwiched your hand between his palms. I pulled back quickly and wiped my hand on the back of my shirt. It looked like Dad and I were going to get special treatment. As far as he was concerned, I was going to keep Delgado Industries on the front page of every newspaper in town. Mr Delgado’s assistant was there to make sure Dad and I only saw its good side.