by Sally J. Pla
“Hello. I guess my friend here—or teammate, I should say—is kind of shy. But he thinks you might be the Clock guy?” she says. “From, er, Trivia Quest?”
It’s not enough detail. I’m going to have to speak up myself. Heart pounding, I lean over the counter and add, in a whisper: “The big old clock over there, it was twenty-nine—and still striking—when the Clock comic book character came out. Right? It was in the 30s. The Clock, he was the first masked comic book hero! Is that it?”
The big-shouldered barista dude wipes his hands on a towel and whistles softly. “Verrrry good!” His eyes dart suspiciously this way and that. “I’m not supposed to talk too much to you Questers, but let me just say congratulations. This clue was a tough one.”
My chest swells and tightens with excitement.
Brian ducks behind the counter. “Here’s your change, sir,” he says, handing me our second golden token of the day. “And here’s your receipt.” Then he steps back into the shadow.
We walk away from the coffee hut, sneak off around the corner to find a quiet spot where we can check out that receipt.
Which is not a receipt at all, of course. It’s the little gold envelope with the next clue.
28
There’s a certain black boat
and a superhero dame
Called one and the same—
Natasha’s other name.
That’s where you need to go.
You’ll find it down below.
“How are your super-senses, Stanley?” Liberty asks me when we’re seated on the bench. It’s almost noon, and she’s just texted her mom not dead yet for like the sixth time this morning. She gulps her coffee and smacks her lips. “Are you hanging in there, Stan? You know, you gotta learn to speak to people. That coffee guy wasn’t gonna bite your head off.”
I make a face at her. “I thought the speaking was your part of the bargain. I solve the clues; you’re the public interface.”
“Yeah, well . . . I’m just saying.”
We sit in silence for a moment, thinking. She finishes her coffee, so I hand her my untouched cup, and she keeps sipping. “Okay,” she finally says. “So tell me about this next one, genius. A black boat and a superhero, both named Natasha? Who’s Natasha?”
I sigh. “Haven’t you seen any Avengers movies?”
Right then, out of the corner of my eye, I notice those two guys in Batman T-shirts walking near. They grab the bench next to us.
We smile; they smile. We are clutching a clue; they are clutching a clue.
I whisper to Liberty: “Let’s move somewhere else.” We get up but one of the men raises his hand and shouts, “Hey! Kids! Hang on a minute!”
Liberty stops cold, and I walk right into her.
“Do we detect fellow Questers?” he says.
Woop.
Okay, that’s a Red Alert.
“Um, we’re not supposed to talk to strangers. Come on, Liberty!” I say.
But Liberty’s stopped in her tracks, clutching our Natasha clue. I can practically see wheels turning in her brain. “Wait a second,” she says. “These clues are HARD. Let’s hear what he has to say.”
“Liberty!” I hiss. “That’s cheating!”
The guy says, “We figured out the Clock clue, just like you guys, but if you hadn’t led us to the coffee hut, I don’t know if we would’ve put that together.”
“Yeah, thanks,” the second guy adds. “So . . . How about we team up for a bit? Or at least do some information sharing?”
Guy One leans in. “What clue did you get?”
“That’s cheating,” I repeat, staring at the ground, my heart starting to pound. I was doing so well until now—had almost forgotten to be nervous. But this situation’s giving me the sweats.
“What’s the harm?” says Guy One, waving his small envelope. “Don’t you want to know what we know?”
The question hangs in the air for a heavy second. “No dice,” I finally say. “Cheating ruins winning.”
“Hey, hey, hey, the point here’s to get us all VIP passes,” says Guy Two.
“But cheating takes the meaning out of it. It takes all the fun out of it.”
“Yeah!” Liberty adds.
I want to get away from those guys, so I take off, winding my way out of Horton Plaza. I only hope Liberty is still behind me.
At the crosswalk, Liberty taps me on the shoulder. “Did you mean it? What you said?”
“About what?”
“That cheating would take the fun out of it?”
I nod. “Of course.”
“Well, then, that’s big. You know what that means, don’t you? It means that in spite of how stressed and freaked out you look right now, you think there’s something fun about this.”
I don’t answer. I just hide a smile and start walking, fast, in the general direction of the ocean.
It’s high noon.
The Clock just struck.
29
“WHERE EXACTLY IS this boat we’re looking for, Stanley?”
I don’t answer right away. I know downhill will take us to the harbor, but . . . it’s a really big area.
“We need the Maritime Museum. Which way is it?”
“We’re far. And it’s already past noon. It’ll take a long time to walk there.” Liberty eyes me carefully. “We should take a bus.”
I stop, close my eyes, clench my fists. “No bus,” I whisper.
“Bus.” She grabs my arm and drags me forward. “How is it even any different from the school bus, Stanley? You can do this!”
But it is different. I always know where the school bus is taking me. But a public bus is full of unknowns. Strange crowds. Strange locations. You could get trapped going in the wrong direction. There’s noise. Germs.
Still. She’s right. We need to save some time—and save our legs. So I just nod slowly. We run downhill to a bus stop, and Liberty shoves me up the steps into the Metro bus, which is idling in a cloud of stinky diesel.
When the doors close, I feel like I’ve been swallowed into the guts of some zombie prison hurtling toward oblivion. “Are you sure this is the right bus?” I whisper to her. She nods.
What if we miss our stop? What if we can never get off? What if it takes us farther and farther away from where we need to be? What if some stranger bothers us, and there’s no way to get away?
Liberty’s oblivious to my internal freak-out. We each show our Trivia Quest badges to the driver. Then she yanks me down into a seat and looks around like she owns the place. She settles in and pulls out her phone to text her mom yet again. I look over her shoulder—the same three words: not dead yet.
“Don’t make contact with the dirty surfaces,” I whisper. “Don’t touch that grimy metal pole with your hand, then touch your phone. You’ll transfer germs! Probably thousands of other people have put their hands right there!”
A few passengers are staring at us. An old Mexican lady across the aisle smiles at me. I try to smile back but I really just want to shrink into the floor and disappear.
What would John Lockdown do? How would he handle this? He would lift the bus on his shoulders and fly us in a flash to our destination. He would wave his magic around, like Mr. Clean, and instantly disinfect the whole bus so it was new and perfect. He would turn it into our private super-limo, no other people staring at us. . . .
Aqua. Ochre. Aqua. Ochre. I close my eyes and try to imagine John Lockdown performing epic bus disin-fection.
But: diesel stink, perfume, stale cigarettes. The gross minty aroma of other people’s gum. Body odor, grease. Someone’s fast food. The filthy floor. People pressing in. . . .
“Get a grip, Stanley,” Liberty whispers. “Let’s talk about the clue. Focus on Natasha. Who is she? And what is her other name?”
Okay, okay. I pull the small gold envelope out of my pocket.
There’s a certain black boat
and a superhero dame
Called one and the same—
Natasha’s other name.
That’s where you need to go.
You’ll find it down below.
“There’s only one Natasha in comics, Liberty. Natasha Romanov. And her other name is Black Widow. You’ve heard of the Black Widow, right? From the Avengers, and Iron Man, and—well, actually, she’s from comics starting like in the 1960s. She was supposedly born into Russian royalty but then she was handed off as a newborn to a soldier dude who trained her for the KGB. That’s after she trained as a ballerina—”
Liberty rolls her eyes. “Wow, totally riveting stuff, Stanley, but what’s it got to do with the boat? Do we need to look for a boat named the Black Widow? Because that’s Natasha’s other name?”
“Yes. But we’re not looking for just any old regular boat,” I say. The bus sways onto Harbor Drive and without thinking, I grab the grimy metal pole. Ick.
Liberty nudges me. “Then what is it?”
I sigh with relief. It’s almost time to get off.
“You’ll see,” I say.
30
WHEN MY DAD was really young, like, right out of high school, he joined the navy. He thought it would be a good way to be of service to his new country, and to learn, get some training.
He was stationed on a nuclear sub. He doesn’t talk about it too often—I don’t think he liked it all that much.
But one weekend, after Cal and I had been bugging him, asking a lot of questions about what being on a sub was like, he drove us downtown to visit the Maritime Museum. They have a Soviet sub from the 1970s there. It’s not like the one my dad was on—it’s ancient, a piece of history. But still, going down there and visiting that sub was pretty cool.
My dad said there was a nickname for those old Foxtrot B-class Soviet subs—and if he remembered correctly, they were called Black Widows.
“Who knows this stuff? You’re a trivia master, Stanley!” says Liberty as we walk up to the roped-off museum entry dock.
At the ticket window, a pale, skinny woman with red hair, bright red lipstick, and extremely blue eyes is sitting behind the desk. Something about her seems familiar.
I freeze in my tracks. “Wait,” I murmur. “Wait. I think I know her. But I’m not sure.”
Liberty rolls her eyes at me and sighs. Then she steps up.
“Excuse me, ma’am. Um, are you supposed to be the Black Widow? I mean, Natasha?”
“Could be. Who wants to know?” The lady stares at us, eyes wide, and loudly pops a chewing gum bubble.
I know who she is now. I’ve just never seen her without her wraparound sunglasses and trucker hat.
“Black Widow,” Liberty repeats. “As in, ‘Natasha’s other name’? Did we get the clue?”
I step forward. “Wait—are you—Olga? Is that you?”
My bus driver breaks into a grin. “Aha! Stanley! The keed from Canyon Rim, with the loud big brother.” She gives me a thumbs-up. “But I am not Olga today. I am as you have guessed: Natasha. My boyfriend, he is organizer. I go to Comic Fest every year as Black Widow. It’s fun!” Then she slides two slips of paper under the glass. “Good guessing job, keeds! Here are your entry tickets!”
“Thanks, but aren’t you supposed to give us a golden coin? And the next clue?” Liberty asks.
But Olga—I mean Natasha—only winks and opens the gate. “Tickets good for submarine only,” she says in her thick accent.
“I can’t believe you know her!” whispers Liberty as we walk down the dock to the boats. Which makes me feel weirdly proud, although I’m not sure what for exactly.
We walk past several ships on display. There’s the old-fashioned H.M.S. Surprise, with its tall masts and furled sails, and a little tugboat with rubber-tire bumpers all around it, to keep it from crunching into the dock. And finally, there it is, just as I remember: that Black Widow sub. Half submerged in the water, with a gangplank leading to its big black metal hull. A piece of history. A Soviet relic.
A museum attendant—or maybe it’s just some old guy in a yachting cap—smiles and waves us up the gangplank.
We make our way to the open hatch, and I start down some steep metal steps. It quickly becomes dark and enclosed. The smell of machine oil and fuel reminds me of the bus.
At the bottom of the stairs, if I remember right, is the torpedo room. “Liberty?” I peer back up to where she’s still hesitating on the top step. “Come on down!” The sunny sky behind her head makes me squint.
“What if I just wait for you up here?” she says in a wavering voice.
“Seriously? After all this, you’re telling me you’re afraid? Of the sub?” I climb halfway back up, and find her backing away from the hatch.
“It’s too . . . small down there. Too closed in.”
“You made me get on the bus. So now you can do this,” I say firmly.
We stare each other down, until she finally sighs and inches toward the stairs.
I guess we all have different things that set us off.
The large, red-and-white-painted torpedoes are the first things you notice as you step into the hold. I put my hand on their cold, hard surface. It doesn’t feel dangerous. “Imagine you’re deep underwater for months at a time, ready to kill or be killed at any moment,” I say to her, going for high drama.
“Shut up.” Liberty is breathing funny but she is inching forward with me now, through the series of hatches.
“It’s okay,” I tell her. “You can do this. You’re perfectly safe.”
“So you’re just loving this, right?” she snarls.
When we get to the kitchen, or mess, or whatever you call it on a submarine, we’re surprised by two sailors, sitting still as statues at a tiny table. For a quick moment, I think they’re dummies, part of the exhibit. They’re wearing navy jackets with brass name tags: Anton Vanko, and Ivan Petrovitch.
Liberty jumps in nervous surprise—hits her head on the low ceiling of the sub. “Ouch! Wait!” she says. “They’re real!”
I try not to laugh.
Their names sound like they are from the Black Widow comics, but I can’t quite place them.
Anton Vanko, the Russian sailor on the left, lifts his heavy black eyebrows, waiting for us to approach.
“So, we’re doing the Trivia Quest,” Liberty says as I fish the clue envelope out of my pocket. “And Natasha at the ticket window, she’s the Black Widow, right? Just like the sub. So . . . did we get it?”
Ivan Petrovitch smiles at her. “Wery good! You have half of it down. But here is part two of the clue: Which of us is the Black Widow’s friend . . .”
“ . . . And,” Anton Vanko adds, “which of us is her foe?”
Which is friend and which is foe?
Liberty throws up her hands. “Don’t look at me. This is totally your wheelhouse, Stanley.” She waits. “Speak, Stanley!” She turns to the two men. “He doesn’t talk much, but he knows his stuff.”
The two men stare at me expectantly. I fixate on their name tags. Friend and foe . . .
“Can he ask you hints?” suggests Liberty. “Like twenty questions?”
“Nyet,” says Ivan Petrovitch, a steely blue glint in his eye.
“I bet Natasha back at the entrance would let us ask. She’s Stanley’s bus driver, you know. And she seems way nicer than you guys,” Liberty says, stalling for time.
“Nyet,” Ivan says. “My Natasha doesn’t play games.”
Suddenly, it clicks.
“Your Natasha? Okay, Ivan Petrovitch. Then you must be the Russian soldier who rescued baby Natasha Romanova after her mother died in a fire, and raised her like your own. Your Natasha. Raised her to be a KGB agent. That was you, right? So that means you, Anton Vanko, must be the foe.” I grin. I’ve got this! “Later,” I add, “when she came to the Avengers, which is the series where most people start to know about her, you—”
Ivan Petrovitch stops me, just as I’m getting warmed up. Oh well. Then Anton Vanko reaches into a briefcase on the bench and hands Liberty a golden token—our third! And a
new clue envelope!
We did it!
Liberty doesn’t even say thanks, or spasibo, or whatever. She launches herself back through that submarine so fast she’s like a human torpedo. I salute the two men, then follow her.
On the surface, the fresh ocean air smells so good. So much better than that dark, cramped space below us. Liberty clutches at my arm, gasping.
“I think—I know—a little better—how you feel sometimes, Stanley,” she says.
I pat her on the back. “Name your favorite color, Liberty,” I say. “I know a little breathing trick.”
31
“I WONDER HOW Joon and Dylan are doing,” I say as we head down the dock toward the exit.
“Don’t worry about them. Just think—we have three gold tokens!” Liberty says. “Almost halfway there!”
“Yeah, but it’s well past one.” We squint in the midday sun as we turn onto the harbor walkway. “Like three and a half hours left. And we need to get four more tokens. Plus—are you hungry?” My stomach gurgles.
“Starved,” she says. “But first let’s open the clue envelope.”
We tear it open, and we both snort when we read it. Because it’s like the clue heard my stomach growl or something.
“It’s the best lunch spot,” sez . . .
Lorena Marquez.
“That’s it? Two measly lines?” Liberty says, her eyes wide. “From that long, complicated Black Widow clue to this ridiculous short one?”
We walk back along the harbor promenade, thinking.
“I am pretty sure Lorena Marquez was one of the Aquagirls,” I finally say. “I’m not a hundred percent sure. There’ve been a lot of Aquagirls.”
Liberty exhales hard. “I don’t get why they call the male superheroes men, like Superman, Batman, Aquaman. But the female superheroes are all called girls. Batgirl, Supergirl, Aquagirl.”
“Well, there’s Wonder Woman. And I think Lorena Marquez is supposed to be young, like in high school or something, so technically she is kind of a girl.”
“If that’s true,” Liberty says, “then Peter Parker should be called Spider-Boy because he’s supposed to be in high school, too. Sorry. It’s not right.”
