Emily let this information sink in as they continued up the stairs and into the building. If the island was owned by the military in 1851, then she doubted a gold miner would choose it as a hiding spot for his treasure. She and James had struck out with Treasure Island, and now Angel Island didn’t seem like a promising candidate for the treasure location, either.
The guide said, “At the time Angel Island operated as an immigration station, there was a lot of racial prejudice against the Chinese. There were exclusionary laws that restricted their travel here. Chinese travelers were often detained here for longer periods of time than other nationalities, sometimes as long as months or even years.”
“Why? What were people afraid of?” someone asked.
“Even though the Chinese were among the first to arrive in San Francisco during the Gold Rush, gradually over time, some people began to feel threatened by the number of Chinese who were living here, how industrious they were, and their general willingness to take on menial and even dangerous jobs for little pay. It wasn’t a proud time in our country’s history, and when China became an ally during World War II, President FDR declared the exclusionary laws and prejudiced treatment a historic mistake.”
They toured the dormitory designated for Chinese men. Metal cots stacked three high with barely enough room to sit up. The tour guide mentioned there had been guards and strict rules for what you could and couldn’t do. In order to leave the island, you had to pass a series of interviews about minute details of your life to prove you were who you said you were. It all seemed too much like a prison to Emily, but it wasn’t supposed to be. The people who came here weren’t criminals. They were only people moving from one place to another, something Emily had had a lot of experience with. It had never occurred to Emily that her family’s ability to move whenever and wherever they wanted might make them lucky.
Next to her, James studied a placard with a picture of a group of Chinese men and boys standing in a horseshoe, no shirts on, being inspected by a man in uniform. Emily was shocked to see the majority of the people in the photo looked their age, or not much older. She wondered how those boys felt in the picture. She would have been embarrassed if she’d had to stand in a group of people like that, being looked over like an object. But then she would have been scared if she was alone with that inspector guy, so maybe it was comforting to have the other people in the same situation there. If she had to choose between being embarrassed or being scared, she’d choose embarrassed, but those didn’t seem like fair choices.
“My great-grandfather had to stay here,” James said to Emily.
“He did?” She looked again to the picture, wondering if his great-grandfather was in that group. “How long did he have to stay?”
“I don’t know,” James said with a shrug. “My grandmother said he never talked about it. She’s only mentioned it a few times herself.”
The walls of the immigration station were covered almost completely with poems written by the detained immigrants, the majority of which were written in columns of Chinese. Many of these poems were carved into the walls, and then in an attempt to conceal the words the carvings had been filled in with putty and painted over. Over time, the putty shrank, which almost made the poetry stand out more. Emily traced a finger over one of the characters, admiring the persistence of words refusing to be censored.
“Do you think your great-grandfather wrote any of these?”
“I don’t know,” James said softly, thoughtfully, as he wandered off to scrutinize the poetry.
The tour guide said many of the poems expressed anger or despair from the inhabitants over how they’d been treated, and some expressed hope for what their future would hold.
Emily slowly moved around the room, stepping behind Mr. Sloan, who was sketching in a notebook. Looking at what he was drawing, she saw he was copying down some of the characters.
“Amazing, isn’t it?” Mr. Sloan said, without looking over to her.
“It—it is,” she stammered, embarrassed that she was caught peeking. “Do you know Chinese?”
Now he looked at her, but uncertainly. She nodded to what he’d been drawing. “Yours look exactly like what’s on the wall.”
“Ah, that, yes.” He smiled. “I’m a good mimic. One of my unusual talents. Some people solve crosswords; I practice my penmanship.”
She left the substitute teacher to his copying, and moved over to where James was reading a translation of one of the poems. He said the last line out loud: “Even if it is built of jade, it has turned into a cage.”
“It’s so sad to imagine the people who had to stay here,” Emily said. She pictured someone carefully carving those words, taking breaks to look through the chain-link-covered window.
“It’s only sad if you assume that’s the end of their story,” James said. “If you imagine the person’s next chapter, living over there”—James nodded out the window to the city across the bay—“then it’s heroic. They refused to be broken just because someone tried to hold them back.”
CHAPTER
25
EXACTLY ONE WEEK after the school trip to Angel Island, Emily received an e-mail with the subject “Old Friends.” She read the sender’s name, “M. Oleanda,” and sucked in her breath. Miranda Oleanda. Coolbrith.
Emily and James had continued to study the unbreakable code, even though the letters refused to reveal their secret, but they had assumed Coolbrith’s Book Scavenger quest for their teacher had come to a conclusion when they decoded the breakup message. There hadn’t been any alerts for more hidden copies of Tom Sawyer, and the one they’d placed in Hollister’s store had sat ignored for weeks.
Emily hesitantly clicked her mouse to open the new e-mail. Miranda Oleanda wrote:
I appreciate you reaching out to me, but I believe there has been a mistake. While Brian Quisling is indeed an old friend and colleague, it has been over ten years since we have been in contact. I am also not familiar with the game you mentioned—Book Scavenger—and I no longer live in California. I have been living in Ohio with my husband and children for the past fifteen years. The unbreakable code rings a distant bell, but not well enough to remember anything about a map. I’m sorry I can’t be of more help. I’m sure Mr. Quisling would be tickled to know his students care enough about him to want to give him a special gift.
Wishing you the best,
Miranda Oleanda
Emily released her held breath with a confused puff. Mr. Quisling’s ex-girlfriend was married with kids? She didn’t live in California? She’d never heard of Book Scavenger? She thought Mr. Quisling would be tickled to know something?
So this woman wasn’t Coolbrith?
Emily had to let James know about this. She retrieved the broom she kept handy for knocking on the ceiling. Thud. Thud-thud-thud. Thud. That was the pattern that alerted James to an incoming bucket message. On a slip of scrap paper she scrawled:
EKUEO DXLP UNTBW.
(Check your email.)
She dropped the note in the bucket and hoisted it up to James’s window, then returned to her laptop to forward the e-mail from Miranda Oleanda to James.
The knock signaling James’s reply came soon after, followed by the bucket returning to her window with this note:
BI SKU’S FXV EXXWHPBVK, VKUF ZKX BS???
(If she’s not Coolbrith, then who is???)
Exactly. Mr. Quisling certainly thought Coolbrith was Miranda Oleanda. Why else would he have called her Miranda? James’s note continued:
SKXLWQ ZU VUWW KBN?
(Should we tell him?)
Again, Emily wrestled over whether or not they should say something to their teacher. What would they even say? It would have been easier if they’d brought up the code from the beginning, but she’d been suspicious of Mr. Quisling then, and now she didn’t even know where to start. How do you tell your teacher that the girlfriend they think they’re trading notes with—the one who maybe broke up with him in code—is totally not who he thi
nks? Talk about embarrassing, both for Mr. Quisling and for them having to tell him about it. And then what if they were wrong? They needed to find out more before they said anything to him, if they said anything at all.
Mr. Quisling and Coolbrith obviously didn’t care about just any old copy of Tom Sawyer hidden through Book Scavenger. But what if Emily and James reposted the clue for the book under a different user name? Would Quisling go look for it then?
Emily scribbled a note to James:
ZU FUUQ VX IBFQ XLV NXPU.
B KTAU T JWTF.
(We need to find out more. I have a plan.)
* * *
On Friday, Emily and James uploaded their new clue to the Book Scavenger site for the copy of Tom Sawyer hidden at Hollister’s. The difference this time was that they made a dummy account that looked almost exactly like Coolbrith’s: They used the same avatar, and they copied her profile information. The website wouldn’t let them replicate the same user name, but they used Coolbirth and hoped Mr. Quisling wouldn’t look closely enough to notice the typo. Actually, if Mr. Quisling took any time at all to investigate this user—clicked on her book-hunting history, for example, he would find it blank and most likely realize this was an imitation account, but Emily and James hoped that if they mimicked the pattern of Mr. Quisling and Coolbrith’s communication, then he wouldn’t be given any reason to second-guess this latest post.
“And you never know,” Emily said. “Maybe the plan will still work even if he does realize this is someone imitating his friend. I mean, wouldn’t you be curious? If it were me, I’d still go find the book.”
“But is there ever a hidden book you wouldn’t be tempted to find?” James teased.
Emily nudged him. “Just click Submit.”
James’s finger hovered above the Enter button. “This isn’t a bad thing for us to do, is it? Impersonating Coolbrith?”
“Not any worse than Coolbrith impersonating Miranda Oleanda. Something weird is going on with this Coolbrith person, and I don’t think Mr. Quisling has a clue. We’re helping him by doing this. We just need to find out more before we talk to him.”
James nodded in agreement and tapped the key.
CHAPTER
26
SATURDAY MORNING, the Phoenix discovered the Coolbrith copycat post. It had been uploaded to Book Scavenger the night before. He stared at it for a very long time.
Someone was sending him a message.
Someone was boasting they were onto him.
Someone needed to be taught a lesson.
Removing his black gloves from the top drawer of his dresser, the Phoenix tugged them onto his hands before sifting through his collection of vials and glass bottles. He selected the brown jar with the liquid-covered lump inside.
This wasn’t part of his plan. He wasn’t even sure what he was going to do, his rage had taken over the driver’s seat.
He needed to show this someone he wasn’t to be trifled with.
CHAPTER
27
EMILY GOT TO HOLLISTER’S right at ten, when he opened. She actually arrived a little bit early and was leaning against the cool glass of the front window when Hollister walked up, tossing his keys and catching them with one hand. The bookstore owner grinned when he saw Emily. He tossed his keys again but missed catching them, and they clattered to the sidewalk. Emily bent to pick them up.
“Look who’s bright eyed and bushy tailed!” Hollister said.
“James is coming by later, too,” Emily said.
“Then it’s my lucky Saturday.” Hollister rattled the key in the lock. The doorknob bells cheered as Emily followed him inside. She went straight to the display of totes and squeezed the bottom bag to make sure another Book Scavenger player hadn’t found the Tom Sawyer and neglected to update the website. It was still there.
Hollister flicked on the lights, then went to the CD player behind the counter. He kept a collection of instrumental CDs piled next to it. He selected one and popped the disc into the tray, adjusting the volume as sprightly piano music came out of the ceiling speakers.
“Feels like a Miles Davis kind of morning, don’t you think?” he said. He finished fiddling with the stereo, then stood at the counter, drumming his fingers as he took in the space.
“Anything you need me to do today, Hollister?” Emily asked.
“I’ve been meaning to update the window display with more items for Chinese New Year. You said James is coming by later?”
Emily nodded.
“Then you two might enjoy making paper lanterns. We can string them above the books—that might look nice. There’s an old box with decorations up in the Treehouse.” Hollister tossed his head to the back of the store, where the rounding metal stairs led to the storage loft.
The bells jingled, and Emily turned to the front door—probably too eagerly—in hopes that it would be Mr. Quisling, but instead Charlie walked in.
“Oh,” she said.
“Oh to you, too.” Charlie pulled off his newsboy cap and gloves and tossed them onto the counter.
“I didn’t know you were coming in today,” Hollister said.
Charlie shrugged. “There’s some content I need to add to the website, and my roommates were driving me nuts. Figured I could work on the website here.”
Hollister looked at his watch. “This might help me out a great deal. I didn’t have time to pick up a prescription this morning. Maybe I can run out and get that now. You okay holding down the fort?”
Charlie nodded without looking up. He pulled his laptop out of a limp backpack.
Hollister reached under the counter where he kept a notebook and removed a handwritten list. He slid the paper over to Emily. “Here are the books I wanted to add to the front display, if you want to get started pulling them.”
“Sure,” Emily said. The Year of the Dog by Grace Lin was the first title. “Can I use the computer?” Emily asked Charlie, meaning the store computer, not his laptop. He grunted in response and slid aside. Emily typed in the title and found where it was shelved. She left the front of the store and wound her way through bookshelves and under the winding staircase to the back corner that was lined with picture books, children’s novels, and various stuffed animals and puzzles and games.
“Lin, Lin, Lin.” She bumped her finger along the spines. The door jingled—a customer, unless Hollister had forgotten something and come back in.
Eager to see if it was Mr. Quisling, Emily bumped her finger along the spines more quickly, found the book she was looking for, then hurried back to the front. Sure enough, her teacher stood at the counter talking with Charlie.
“Hi, Mr. Quisling!” Emily said with too much perkiness. She was horrible at playing it cool. She wished James was here already.
“Emily! Two of my students in one day,” Mr. Quisling said. “What a surprise.”
Two? Emily looked around, wondering if James had showed up early. Then she remembered Charlie had also been his student, years ago.
“So this is where you work now, Charlie?” Mr. Quisling said.
All Charlie said in response was “Yup.”
“Well. Good for you.”
“James is supposed to be here soon,” Emily said. “We live nearby.” She wasn’t really sure why she was offering him this information. It was just nervous chatter as she became increasingly aware that she had more or less tricked her teacher into coming to find this book.
“You’ll be pleased to know I’m on a book hunt,” Mr. Quisling said, and raised the printout of her and James’s clue. Well, Coolbirth’s clue. Mr. Quisling pointed a finger at Emily. “No poaching,” he said, then laughed good-naturedly. Emily felt a pang of regret as she watched her teacher slip between two bookcases, scanning the shelves like he was browsing. Mr. Quisling seemed extra chipper, and she couldn’t help but think anticipating a new message from his “girlfriend” might have something to do with that.
Turning away, she caught Charlie looking after Mr. Quisling, too.
/> “He’s the worst,” Charlie muttered.
Emily looked over her shoulder, worried Mr. Quisling might have heard. “He’s not so bad,” she said.
“He gave me my only D ever,” Charlie added.
“Oh. Yeah, he can be tough.”
The phone rang, and Charlie answered. Emily inched toward the path of her teacher, eager to spy on him and see if and when he found the hidden Tom Sawyer, but Charlie called her name, prompting her to spin around like she’d been caught.
“It’s Hollister,” he said, shaking the cordless phone. “He wants you to check the decoration boxes to see if we have a paper dragon for the window display.”
Hollister’s voice came through the receiver, and Charlie tilted his head, his eyes on the flickering bulb above the local authors section. Charlie recited to Emily, “He says we had one, but it might have gotten damaged and then thrown out. He can’t remember. He can pick up another one by his pharmacy, but doesn’t want to buy it if it would be a duplicate.” To Hollister on the phone, Charlie said, “Okay, she’ll look. We’ll call you back if we don’t have one.”
Emily looked toward the aisle Mr. Quisling had disappeared down. “Can’t you check, Charlie? I was in the middle of doing something else.”
“I’m in the middle of something, too.” Charlie nodded to his laptop. “You’re already working on the window display.”
Emily sighed and took a route past Mr. Quisling on her way, so she could at least get a peek at what he was doing. He was browsing the poetry section, so she guessed he was checking to see if there was a collection by Bret Harte. She hoped it would take her teacher a while to realize their clue, Did you leave your Harte in San Francisco? led to the tote bag featuring an illustration of the writer and his quote, “The only sure thing about luck is that it will change.”
The Unbreakable Code Page 12
