“Is Hollister here?” James asked.
Emily wasn’t sure at first whether the guy heard James, because he didn’t look up again, but then he said, “He’s here.”
Once they realized that was all the direction they were going to get, James said, “I guess we’ll go find him.”
They wandered to the back of the store and heard Hollister before they saw him, clomping down the metal staircase that led to the storage loft he had nicknamed the Treehouse.
“Hey, kids. Happy Tuesday!”
“Not for that new guy up front,” James said.
“Who? Charlie?” Hollister waved dismissively. “He’s a marshmallow inside. C’mon.”
They followed Hollister back to the front counter. “Charlie is a jack-of-all-trades. Computer programmer, website designer, social media expert. Didn’t you say you DJ, too?”
“Here and there,” Charlie replied.
“All that, and a full-time college student.” Hollister shook his head. “Don’t know how you do it.”
If Hollister’s praise flattered him, Charlie wasn’t showing it. He drummed a pencil eraser on the open textbook and continued to study.
“I hired Charlie to help with tech stuff. Fix up my computer, set up some social media for the store. I had a serviceable website—”
Charlie grunted, and Hollister chuckled. “It did the job, provided the pertinent info. Anyway, Charlie is going to be sprucing that up—”
“More like setting it on fire and starting from scratch, but sure,” Charlie said.
“And then getting the store up on Twitter and Instagrammatic—”
“Instagram,” Charlie corrected him.
Emily thought it was ironic that someone as antisocial as Charlie was being put in charge of social media, but Hollister didn’t seem to mind.
“See how I need him?” he said. “I can’t be bothered with all this digital stuff. I live and breathe paper, but you can’t be stubborn about the future. Not if you want to stay in business. Got to keep moving with the times.”
Emily thought about the conversation she’d overheard between her parents, about the publisher client of her dad’s who went bankrupt. Her dad had other people he worked for, at least, but Hollister had only his store. She would be so sad if it had to close.
“Do you need help with anything else, Hollister? I was hoping to make some extra money.” Emily cringed as the words came out of her mouth. She was just thinking about Hollister staying in business, and now she was asking him to pay her?
Hollister didn’t seem concerned. “Too bad the holiday season just passed—I can always use gift wrappers that time of year.” He tapped his nose, thinking.
“You need money?” James whispered, surprised.
Emily shrugged. “My allowance is small.” She hadn’t said anything about her parents’ money problems to James because his grandmother was their landlord. She knew he wouldn’t say anything unless he thought it could help, but if it got back to her parents that she’d overheard her dad was struggling to find work, that wouldn’t be good.
“You’re too young to hire officially,” Hollister said, “but if you bring me a letter of permission from your parents, then I think we can make it work. It might not be much, or glamorous, but it will be something.”
Emily leaped forward and hugged Hollister. Her parents didn’t have to know she planned to save her money and turn it over to them. “Well, gee!” he said. “That was nice. Charlie, how come you didn’t react that way when I offered you your job?”
Charlie turned a page in his book in response.
“Hey, Hollister,” James said, “how is what he’s doing right now helping with social media?”
Charlie replied in a bored monotone, “I’m updating his operating system. Should be finished soon.”
Hollister tipped his head forward like he was saying there you go. “So what brings you kids in today?”
“Could we hide a book in your store for Book Scavenger?”
“Sure, go right ahead,” Hollister said.
Emily and James bowed their heads together for a brief conference on where to hide the green pouch holding Tom Sawyer. They ended up tucking it inside one of the tote bags dangling near the front counter.
“Hey, Hollister,” Emily said once they were finished. “Have you heard about something called the unbreakable code? Our teacher Mr. Quisling is—”
Charlie groaned. “He’s still at Booker? Mr. Quisling is the worst.”
“You went to Booker?” James asked.
Charlie nodded. “So he’s still droning on about the unbreakable code?”
Emily and James exchanged a look.
“Not really,” Emily said cautiously. “But you’ve heard of it?”
“Only because he wouldn’t shut up about it. There was a series of books that came out when I was in his class—The 39 Clues. A bunch of students were into it and this game that went along with the story. Mr. Quisling would go on and on about real-life puzzles, like the unbreakable code.”
Hollister whistled long and low. “The unbreakable code. Haven’t thought about that in years!”
“You know it, too?” Emily said.
“Sure, sure. There was a big to-do about it decades ago. Way before your time. There was an old ship that was discovered buried under the city that made the news—”
“The Niantic?” Emily said.
Hollister nodded, eyebrows raised. “I’m impressed! Yes, that sounds right. When it made the news, so did a legend about that code. Apparently it survived a fire on the Niantic.… I can’t really remember the details, but there was a revival of interest in trying to crack it back then.”
Emily chewed her lip. They knew Mr. Quisling had been there when the Niantic was rediscovered, so he probably participated in that revival of interest.
“It didn’t get solved, though, right?” Emily asked.
“No, I don’t think so. If you already know about the Niantic, then you probably know as much as I do. Although”—Hollister snapped his fingers—“you do know somebody who led the charge for trying to solve it back in the eighties.”
“Who?” Emily and James asked in unison. Emily was certain Mr. Quisling would be the name that came out of Hollister’s mouth, but it wasn’t.
CHAPTER
17
“MR. GRISWOLD,” Hollister said.
“Mr. Griswold?!” Emily and James repeated, in unison once again.
“Are you sure?” Emily asked.
“I’m getting old, but I don’t think my memory’s failing me that badly yet.” Hollister laughed. “Yes, I’m sure.”
Emily and James exchanged a look.
“Well…” Emily began, thinking about their recent visit to Bayside Press. Why wouldn’t Mr. Griswold have said more when they asked him about the unbreakable code? “Do you think Mr. Griswold’s memory could be failing him?”
“We saw him last week and asked him about the unbreakable code,” James explained.
“He barely seemed to know what we were talking about,” Emily added.
“Did he, now?” Hollister harrumphed. “Well. Could be from his injury, I suppose.” He looked concerned. “He most definitely knew about the code at one time. I witnessed his obsession firsthand—it was back when we were co-owners of this store. He was convinced there was a way to spin the renewed interest in the unbreakable code into traffic to our store, but beyond carrying books with an angle on treasure hunts and ciphers, we weren’t able to capitalize on it.”
“Weird,” Emily said softly, more to herself than anyone else. She thought about how Mr. Griswold had seemed like a watered-down version of himself. “Have you seen him recently? Since he’s been out of the hospital?”
Hollister rested a hand on her shoulder and held her gaze with his good eye. “He’s been through a lot. But Gary always bounces back. Don’t worry.”
Emily wanted to feel uplifted and reassured by Hollister’s words, but she couldn’t help it: She was
still worried.
* * *
At the start of Mr. Quisling’s class on Wednesday, Emily dug through her backpack to find a paper she’d printed at home the night before, after their visit with Hollister. “I forgot to show you this on our walk to school,” Emily said, and handed the paper to James.
“It’s an old interview with Mr. Griswold. I found it on Book Scavenger,” she said. In the website forum, there was a section dedicated to everything Garrison Griswold. Several years ago, another Book Scavenger user had scanned and posted an old interview from a magazine.
James laughed looking at the photo that accompanied the interview. “Check out his hair! I didn’t realize it was so curly.”
“The striped pants are pretty sweet, too,” Emily said. “But that’s not the most interesting part. Read it.”
The interview featured Mr. Griswold shortly after he’d launched Bayside Press, more than a dozen years before Book Scavenger existed.
INTERVIEWER: You have a reputation for being a treasure-hunt enthusiast. In 1980 you spearheaded interest in a cipher that dates back to the Gold Rush and is alleged to lead to a miner’s lost fortune, and you also participated in the Masquerade treasure hunt in England. Why are you drawn to activities like that?
GRISWOLD: There is wonderful potential for a treasure hunt to bring people together in collaboration. I love that. A treasure hunt also forces you to slow down, but with all your senses engaged. Pay attention. Listen. What are your surroundings telling you? Is that rock just a rock? Or does it conceal something valuable? I love the idea of something precious being hidden in plain sight, of noticing the potential for something amazing in something bland.
It’s not what’s at the end of a treasure hunt that motivates me. It’s really not. Some people talk about what they would do with sudden riches—I’m not interested in that. Anyone who focuses on the outcome instead of the journey is missing the point, not to mention setting themself up for disappointment.
INTERVIEWER: Why do you say that?
GRISWOLD: You can’t control an outcome. To any endeavor, whether it be a treasure hunt or something else, a friendship or a business venture. The only thing you can control is yourself. Your actions and reactions determine the type of journey you will have. Will it be magical? Joyful? Fearful? Will you be the victim, or will you be the hero? That’s up to you.
INTERVIEWER: Is a treasure hunt appealing because it provides a diversion from the struggles and stresses of the real world?
GRISWOLD: Not at all. It’s not a diversion. It’s a remedy. Anything we pursue with passion and curiosity can heal us. It’s not unlike my philosophy behind starting a publishing company. I want to populate the world with jewels. Finding that book you connect with is a type of treasure hunt. I want to create things for others and be a force of good and fun and positivity in this world.
“This is great,” James said.
“Don’t you think?” Emily took the paper back and folded it neatly into her notebook. “This part—Anything we pursue with passion and curiosity can heal us—made me think about how different he seems now. Sad and fearful.”
“Broken,” James said, understanding.
“I’m going to bring this article to our next advisory meeting to show him. Maybe reading his old words will help him feel better. I wish we didn’t have to wait, though, and could show it to him this afternoon.”
“Well, we could have.” James leveled a gaze at her that had Steve pointing her way, like a finger. “But you wanted to be on the dance committee.”
“You didn’t have to volunteer, too,” Emily said.
James shrugged in response.
“You two are on the dance committee?” Maddie piped up behind them.
“Mind your own business, Maddie,” James said. “I don’t want to hear it: We’ll make the dance the most boring ever, blah blah blah.”
Maddie opened her mouth for a retort, but the bell rang to start class. Emily and James swiveled in their seats to face forward as Mr. Quisling clapped his hands to get everyone’s attention before launching into the day’s lesson.
* * *
After school, Emily and James made their way to their first dance committee meeting. Emily wasn’t sure why, but she’d pictured the meeting taking place in a room with couches and school spirit posters on the wall and a mini fridge stocked with sodas and a bowl of popcorn for a snack—maybe she’d gotten that idea from a TV show she’d once seen? In any case, she was disappointed to find the dance committee met in James’s science classroom. The stark black tables, beakers clustered on the back counter, and a wall papered with student-illustrated periodic tables did not exude the cozy let’s-make-new-friends atmosphere she’d envisioned.
James’s science teacher, Mrs. Ortega, was the faculty advisor for the dance committee. He’d said Mrs. Ortega was very pregnant, and he wasn’t kidding. Her belly popped out so much that it made a little shelf, which Mrs. Ortega rested her clasped hands on as she walked around the room.
James had roped his friends Kevin and Devin, the twins, into joining the committee so he wouldn’t be the only boy, and they were already there, slapping down cards on a table in the middle of the room. Nisha sat next to them, writing in a notebook, and Vivian had her clipboard poised and her eye on the door to check people off as they walked in.
“Have a seat,” Vivian said. Her pen scratched sharply: check, check. “One more will be joining us, but we can go ahead and—oh, hi, Maddie.”
Emily turned to see Maddie walk into the room. The final member of their committee. James sighed. “Of course it’s her. You’re sure you want to do this?”
“It sounds like fun,” Emily said, although she wasn’t sure anymore. It had seemed like a good idea when she volunteered.
“Is everybody going on the Angel Island field trip in two weeks?” Mrs. Ortega asked.
“You’re not going, are you?” Maddie asked, taking the seat opposite Emily. She looked pointedly at Mrs. Ortega’s belly.
“Of course. I’m one of the teacher chaperones.”
“I’ve been to Angel Island before,” Maddie said. “It’s a lot of walking.”
“For heaven’s sake, Maddie. I have more than two months until my due date.”
Vivian tapped her pen on her clipboard. “Let’s get started, please.”
“So, what are the plans for the Valentine’s Dance?” Maddie asked.
“First of all, it’s a Presidents’ Day Dance,” Vivian said.
“We should make it a costume party,” James said. “You’d look great in an Abraham Lincoln beard, Vivian.”
Mrs. Ortega cleared her throat. “Why don’t you guys start by making a list of to-do items and—”
“Do we really even need a theme?” Devin asked, slapping another card onto the table. His brother swiped it away and placed two cards from his hand instead.
“Or why not a cool theme?” Kevin added. “Like GameCon.” He framed his hands around the invisible words.
“GameCon?” Vivian spluttered. “What does that even mean?”
“You know, like ComicCon but about games and stuff. It’ll be original.”
“A Presidents’ Day theme is original,” Vivian argued. “GameCon is juvenile. It would be silly.”
“Now, now, let’s not tear one another down in order to make our point,” Mrs. Ortega said.
“Silly?” Kevin pressed a palm to his chest and gasped. “Did you hear that, Dev? Oh, golly gee, heaven forbid we have a dance that’s silly. I forgot that Stanford is going to be judging us on our hoedown skills when we apply to college.”
“No, no—it’s Harvard that cares about hoedown skills,” Devin said. “Stanford cares about how well we twerk.”
“I still think it should be a Valentine’s dance,” Maddie interjected. “It’s on Valentine’s Day. Everyone will be treating it like it is anyway.”
The conversation reminded Emily of debates her family had, like the time they had been driving from Connecticut to
live in Colorado and planned to stop near Chicago for the night. They’d been in the car for almost six hours straight, and everyone was tired and hungry and stir-crazy, and nobody could agree on what to do for dinner. Matthew wanted to find a place in the city where they could eat while watching a live band. Their dad wanted to drive up to Wisconsin to eat cheese curds because he couldn’t believe they’d never done that in the previous year, when they’d lived in Illinois. Emily’s mom wanted to eat in Naperville so she could revisit a favorite bookstore called Anderson’s. And Emily wanted to eat at Hardee’s because she missed their jalapeño poppers.
All the banter about the dance made Emily feel not so far out of her comfort zone.
“Why can’t it be all of it?” she interjected.
It might have been her imagination, but Emily felt like all the arguments halted and every face was suddenly staring at her. She swallowed.
“A Presidential Valentine’s GameCon?” Vivian sounded like she was spitting the words on the table.
James rested his head on a palm, massaging Steve with his fingers, but he looked contemplative, not judgmental.
“We’d dress up as presidents,” Emily said. “People could come as presidential couples if they wanted to make it a Valentine’s thing.” She nodded to Maddie, who frowned. Emily supposed that might not be the kind of romantic dance she’d had in mind, but whatever. “And then we could do some games.” Mr. Griswold had nixed her and James’s ideas, but maybe they could repurpose them now.
“Games?” Vivian cried. “At a dance?”
“There would be dancing, too,” Emily said. “Just more … variety for everyone else.”
“It’s not like anyone danced at the sixth-grade dance,” James said.
Maddie rolled her eyes. “That was sixth grade.”
“The costumes could be mash-ups of presidents and gaming,” Kevin said. “Like Abraham Kong.”
“Abraham Kong?” Devin scrunched his nose.
“An Abraham Lincoln and Donkey Kong mash-up. Or maybe Taft-Man, like Pac-Man and President Taft?” Kevin shrugged. “So we work on the ideas. Emily’s got my vote.”
The Unbreakable Code Page 8
