The 39 Clues: Rapid Fire #4: Crushed

by Riley Clifford

  UNLOCK A TOP SECRET FILE

  ABOUT THE CAHILLS’ DEADLIEST ENEMY —

  THE VESPERS!

  The seven Rapid Fire stories each contain a fragment of a code. Collect the fragments in order to assemble a complete ten-digit code.

  Go to www.the39clues.com.

  Click on “My Cards.”

  Enter the ten-digit Rapid Fire code to unlock a digital card and Top Secret Vesper file!

  The code fragment for this story is: R

  Are you ready to save the world?

  Contents

  Title Page

  Code

  Crushed

  Copyright

  Seven Months After the Clue Hunt

  Ian Kabra looked in the mirror, cleared his throat, and bared his soul.

  “Amy,” he began. And paused. “Amy. Amy, I have to — I have to tell you that . . .” He stopped, rubbed his face, and pushed his shoulders back. “Amy Cahill, I find you interesting.”

  No, it wasn’t that she was just interesting. She was . . . something.

  There were so many things wrong with her — so many things that he shouldn’t like about her. She was richer than he was these days, and yet she still acted so poor. And far too many of her clothes were made of cotton, rather than silk.

  But he found that he almost didn’t care. He looked back at the mirror. “I know it’s completely ridiculous, but I can’t keep quiet about it any longer. Your closet looks like it was put together by a blind nun, and your brother acts like a cross between a monkey and a go-kart, and you have the social skills of a rock. But I like you, Amy. Quite — quite a bit.” He paused. “So, congratulations.”

  His bedroom door swung open, and Natalie stood in the door frame. Ian jumped back from the mirror, but he couldn’t meet his sister’s eye.

  “Really?” she asked, putting her hands on her hips. “Really, Ian?”

  “What?” he asked, lifting his shoulders as if there were nothing in the world strange about giving a speech to one’s mirror before traveling internationally to declare one’s affection to a former nemesis. He scratched the back of his head. All right, it was strange. And made worse by being caught by his little sister. But he was sixteen years old, and a Kabra — shouldn’t he be better at this? Shouldn’t he know the exact words to say that would make Amy Cahill realize what he meant? That he liked her, regardless of certain extraneous factors.

  “You really think she’s going to fall for that?” asked Natalie. “You might as well not go.”

  Ian sighed. There was nothing normal about being a Kabra — from the mansion to the private jets to the private dinners with the Queen — but there seemed to be something universal about the way little sisters could be such pests.

  “I’m going, Natalie,” said Ian. “We’ve talked about this before.”

  “Fine. Go and make a fool of yourself,” Natalie said, shrugging.

  “Why don’t you go shop for a private island or something?” he snapped.

  Natalie’s eyes widened, and her mouth dropped open. “You know I can’t. Why would you say something so mean?” she gasped. She turned and fled down the hall, leaving Ian to look between the hall and the mirror.

  He was going to America. He was going to tell Amy Cahill how he felt. He hadn’t before because he thought there was no way those feelings would last. But they had. It was pathetic, he knew that. And it was entirely un-Kabra-like. Natalie’s reaction was proof enough of that. Still, there was no point in keeping the news from Amy. She’d be thrilled, and she needed some good news in her life.

  Ian left his room and wandered down the Kabra mansion’s lofty and well-decorated halls. Brilliant chandeliers hung from the ceiling, the light reflecting off of the highly polished wood floors. Masterpieces by famous relatives — Van Gogh, Picasso, Degas, and Rembrandt to name only a few — hung on the walls. Ian and Natalie had practically grown up in a museum, but rather than being intimidated by their home, they reveled in it. There was no tiptoeing around these works of art. They not only owned these things; they deserved them.

  Or at least, they had. Ian wasn’t so sure how things worked anymore.

  He found Natalie watching television in the theater. Ian joined her, sinking down into one of the plush velvet chairs. The butler was in his usual tailcoat, making popcorn in the corner.

  “Bickerduff,” said Ian, “we’ll be packing later tonight. I’m going to America in a few days.”

  “Very good, sir,” said Bickerduff, bringing the popcorn to the two Kabras.

  Natalie threw a look at her brother that would have withered a lesser man. “Like I said, you’d better get a better speech, or I wouldn’t even bother.”

  Ian ignored her. Just because she had her opinions didn’t mean that they were correct.

  Natalie didn’t like being ignored. She snatched up the remote and jabbed at the buttons. The channels on the wall-sized screen flashed from station to station.

  “More Weetabix —”

  “Doctor!”

  “Isabel Kabra —”

  “Downton —”

  “Wait, go back,” Ian cried. Natalie flipped back to BBC1, where their mother’s face was spread across the massive screen. The Kabras leaned forward; Ian’s heart rate ticked upward, as if he were being chased.

  “Known to many as a fashionable fixture in the philanthropic and art scenes, Isabel Kabra shocked the world when she was arrested last year for the murder of Americans Hope Cahill and Arthur Trent. Now we’ve received reports that Mrs. Kabra has been released from the custody of her American prison and will be serving out her parole by heading AidWorks Wonders, a charitable organization. The conditions of Mrs. Kabra’s parole will limit her movements to Boston, the same region where she committed murder eight years ago.”

  Natalie turned the television off, and the Kabras sat quietly for a moment, letting the realization sink in: Their mother was out of jail. Ian went cold, and goose bumps popped up on his arms and neck.

  Just six months ago, there was little Ian Kabra wouldn’t do to gain an edge in the hunt for the 39 Clues: the quest for the secret that would make the finder the most powerful person in the world. The contest had taken the participants, which included Ian and Natalie and Amy and Dan Cahill, to the farthest corners of the globe and had nearly killed them all on multiple occasions.

  Isabel had wanted that ultimate power, and she’d done despicable things in her effort to find the Clues and to win. She’d murdered Amy and Dan’s parents; she’d shot Natalie, her own daughter, in the foot. She’d shot her. Ian knew his mother better than almost anyone else could, and even he had trouble believing it had actually happened. But the scar on Natalie’s foot, and the way she curled it under herself as if to protect it, didn’t lie.

  Isabel had expected the Kabras to be the first to find the Clues. She had trained Ian and Natalie since birth to be the ruthless stars of the Cahill family. And at first, Ian had enjoyed it. The Clue hunt was the ultimate test of wits and daring, and there was little Kabras liked better than proving their superiority.

  But the quest had been more heartless than even Ian had expected. With so much at stake, the competitors had started to see each other merely as obstacles, rather than real human beings. Ian and Natalie had been expected to do the same, and they’d seen a side of their mother that no one else in the world should ever have to. She’d almost turned them into killers. And while Ian wasn’t necessarily a do-gooder or a saint, he knew that he wasn’t a murderer.

  It had taken them time — growing a conscience from scratch is hard going — but even Ian and Natalie could see that no prize was worth killing for. So they had, together with their other cousins, given
their Clues to Amy and Dan Cahill. Amy and Dan were just kids themselves, but they were the only ones who could be trusted with such power. Those two Cahills didn’t have ulterior motives; they didn’t want to rule the world. Ian suspected they had only kept with the hunt to stop anyone else from winning and then using their power for evil. And to make their late grandmother proud, which was so Cahillish that Ian almost couldn’t stand it.

  Isabel had been furious with her children. She and their father had disowned them at the end of the hunt. It was a nasty business, all of it, and Ian found himself shivering at the memory. It wasn’t normal to feel this way about one’s mother. But he very much doubted that there were other mothers in the world like Isabel Kabra.

  “Sir,” said Bickerduff, interrupting Ian’s panicked thoughts. “Your luggage has been sent to your room.”

  “Why?” asked Ian.

  “For your trip to America, sir.”

  Of course. He would be going to America — to the same place where his mother would be, to the same place where Amy and Dan would be. Two Cahills and two Kabras in Boston. If Amy knew that Isabel was free, she might not want to see him. But why would it matter if Isabel were free or not? Ian was still the son of the woman who murdered Amy’s parents. His stomach sank deep down inside of him. The Kabra charm was an impressive thing, but even Ian wasn’t sure it could overcome a murder conviction.

  “Bickerduff, I don’t think I’m going to go.”

  “Of course, sir,” said the butler.

  Natalie stood up from her seat and folded her arms across her chest, almost as if she were hugging herself. “You don’t suppose we’ll get our allowance back?” she asked.

  “Is that really what you’re thinking?” he asked. Though, now that she mentioned it, he really wouldn’t mind being put back into the Kabra good graces. Before the Clue hunt, Ian and Natalie had never wanted for anything, but now that they had proven to be such disappointments, they were quite impoverished. As co-winners of the Clue hunt, they’d been given a measly two million each, but he had a feeling that Natalie had been dipping into his share. Ian hadn’t been raised as a Kabra for nothing, though. He’d had the family stockbroker’s phone number memorized since childhood and he was parlaying two million into something far more respectable. Not that he was going to tell that to Natalie any time soon.

  “And what are you thinking of? How sad Amy Cahill is going to be?” asked Natalie.

  Ian paused. She would be sad to see Isabel out of jail. And she’d need someone to help her — someone more mature than her brother or that babysitter, Nellie. She’d need him to help her. If Ian found himself in trouble, he’d certainly appreciate having someone as suave and confident as himself to be there in support.

  Bickerduff appeared in the door again. “Sir, your luggage has been returned to the box room.”

  “Why?” asked Ian. “I need to pack. I’m going to America soon! Fetch it, Bickerduff; we’ll pack this evening.”

  “Very good, sir,” said Bickerduff, turning and walking out again.

  “You know she’s not going to want to see you,” said Natalie. “Our mother is the one . . .”

  “Don’t say it,” he said. But Natalie was right. His mother’s release put a kink into his plans. Maybe Amy would think he was spying for his mother or in league with her — but it wouldn’t be like that at all. Amy would know that, right? She knew what he had done — what he had given up — at the end of the Clue hunt.

  “Someone should say it,” said Natalie. She shifted in her chair. “It’s what I’m really thinking of. Sometimes, I wonder what it would be like if she hadn’t gone to jail. If she hadn’t — hadn’t set that fire.”

  “Natalie, stop. Stop that.” They shouldn’t talk about it. Talking about it made it real, highlighted the horridness of the whole thing. If they kept on as things were, they could just pretend that their parents were off chasing down some piece of art, or sailing along some string of tropical islands.

  “No, I’m just saying that sometimes I wonder. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if she’d been the kind of mother who had taken me to ballet and who had cheered at polo matches and hadn’t, maybe, been the kind that expected . . . so much. From people.”

  The Kabras fell quiet. Ian wouldn’t admit that he felt the same, sometimes. Only sometimes. A lot of the time.

  “Just sometimes I miss her. Sometimes, I wish she had been different.”

  “Then . . . ,” said Ian. “But then you wouldn’t be you.”

  “I don’t like me all the time,” said Natalie.

  “I don’t like me all the time, either,” he said. A quietness settled over the Kabras. A Kabra not liking him or herself, not thinking that all the stars had aligned to bring them to the brink of greatness, was unheard of. But, Ian thought, it was true.

  “Bickerduff!” Ian called again.

  “Yes, sir,” said the butler.

  “I’m not going,” said Ian. “Cancel my flight.”

  “Very good, sir,” said Bickerduff. The butler almost made it out of the room that time.

  “No, wait,” said Ian. He didn’t know what to think, about his mother or Natalie or himself half the time, but he knew a few things, at least. Firstly, he wanted to go to Boston. And secondly, he was a Kabra, and Kabras got what they wanted. “Bickerduff, fetch my dinner jacket.” If he was going to do this, he was going to do this right.

  Amy Cahill was living in a madhouse.

  Why had she never realized this before? The signs had been there — the running in the halls, the abundance of junk food, the crazy brother. But it was only at that moment, armed with a trash bag, that she realized just how far they had fallen. Anthropologists could come study her living room to learn about what the world would look like after the demise of modern civilization.

  “Dan!” she yelled. “Why are your dirty socks in a bag of chips?!”

  “They aren’t!” Dan hollered back, running into the room. He had a plastic lightsaber in one hand and a dustpan in the other.

  “Dan, I’m holding the proof in my hands right now,” Amy said. She pulled the crumpled socks out of the chip bag, holding them between her forefinger and thumb. Boys were so gross.

  “That’s not a bag of chips,” Dan said, poking at the bag of Doritos with his lightsaber. “That’s an empty bag of chips.”

  “It’s still gross,” she said.

  Just then, Atticus came running into the room. He held a mop and had a bath towel knotted around his neck. Amy was glad to have Atticus visiting — he was Dan’s friend, and Dan needed all the friends he could get. He’d been so changed after the Clue hunt, like he didn’t know what to do with himself anymore. Having Atticus around gave him someone to entertain, someone to be himself around. Plus, Atticus was a genius, which made him incredibly interesting to talk to.

  Still, there was a line. She could be pleased that Dan had a friend. She could be equally displeased at dirty socks in bags of chips.

  “Calceum amissum dabo ultionem meam!” Atticus roared, coming at Dan with the mop.

  “No way, dude!” yelled Dan, leaping backward and lifting his dustpan like a shield.

  “Dan,” said Amy, shaking her trash bag at him. “Are you going to help at all?”

  “Why are you cleaning in the first place?” Dan asked.

  “Because we have company coming,” she said. “I’m throwing out this bottle rocket.”

  “No, wait!” Dan said, reaching for it. “It hasn’t been set off yet. Don’t waste it, Amy. And we don’t have company coming — we have Ian Kabra coming. And I know you want to totally impress him and take him to the movies and stare dreamily into his eyes —”

  “I do not,” Amy said, too quickly.

  “Oh, Ian,” Dan said, pressing his lightsaber to his chest and batting his eyes. “Tell me again about your shiny, shiny shoes.”

  “You’re such a dweeb,” said Amy, pitching the empty bag of chips into the trash bag.

  Something about the
scene in her living room struck her as strange — and then she realized why: It felt normal. Entirely normal. Right then, she was just a big sister, yelling at her little brother because he was a mess. Was this how the rest of the girls at school spent their time? When Amy had signed herself and Dan up for the Clue hunt, she hadn’t known how much her life would change. Before, she had just been a normal eighth grader with an annoying kid brother. But since the Clue hunt began, her life had been full of foreign countries and near-death experiences — being lost in the catacombs in Paris, flying to the top of Mount Everest, surviving that final gauntlet.

  And now, at sixteen, she found herself wealthier than she knew any person in the world could be, and in possession of the key to the Cahill family’s ultimate power. Her life was, to be blunt about it, insane.

  Ian’s visit was just another example of that insanity. He was rich and cultured and . . . ridiculous in a charming, interesting way. He wasn’t like any of the other boys at Amy’s school.

  Like a magnet, the thought of school zapped Amy’s thoughts toward one boy in particular. On the list of boys that Amy wanted to clean her living room for, Evan Tolliver was right at the top. The thought of him made her ears go hot, which probably meant they were bright pink, too. It was a strange thing, to be excited about one boy coming to visit while blushing over another.

  “Ego regis spatium exterum cedo!”

  “Not if I have anything to say about it, dastardly fiend!”

  “Don’t jump onto the ceiling fan!” Amy yelled.

  Honestly, what was the point of being the leader of the most powerful family in the world if you couldn’t even get your little brother to behave like a human being?

  Dinnertime at the Kabra mansion had never been a particularly cozy affair. It was hard to have a family dinner when the table was as long as a swimming pool and the water glasses were made of real crystal.

  Still, the night before Ian flew to visit the Cahills was the stoniest he could remember. Natalie sat silent and icy. Every clink of her fork against the china reverberated through the room like a gong.