Into the Gauntlet

by Margaret Peterson Haddix

  "Let's just go plan our strategy," he said, in case any of the others could hear him.

  Amy flashed him a baffled look.

  He winked at her.

  Now Amy seemed completely confused. Dan looked around quickly to make sure no one was watching, then pulled her behind the stage curtain.

  "Dan, what are you doing?" Amy asked. "We've got to stay and fight--"

  Dan whispered in her ear, "No, we don't. I kept part of the paper!"

  Amy jerked away, stared at him, and then pulled Dan deeper into the backstage area, farther from

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  the other relatives. They ducked into a dimly lit room marked props. Amy locked the door behind them.

  "We should be safe here," she whispered. "Now, tell me --what do you mean?"

  "When Ned and Ted tied me to the balcony, I made sure I had both hands behind my back," Dan said. "I knew they wouldn't let me keep the paper, so I started tearing pieces off and stuffing them in my pockets."

  "Dan--maybe that was a priceless document!" Amy protested. "Maybe it was an original page written by Shakespeare!"

  "And maybe I got enough of it that we can figure out the next lead!" Dan countered.

  Amy stopped arguing.

  Dan began pulling shreds of paper out of his pocket.

  "Well, it's not an original written by Shakespeare -- unless he used a typewriter," Dan said, smoothing out the first one.

  Amy seemed to relax a little.

  "Shouldn't we wait and look at this outside?" Dan asked.

  "No --we've got to see if you have enough or if we'll need to go back and fight," Amy said. It was so obvious that she was trying to be brave, battling the instinct to run. The swords and armor lining the wall cast scary shadows across her face.

  Dan quickly began assembling scraps.

  When they'd put everything they could together, Dan's piece of the page read:

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  A SONNET IN THE STYLE OF SHAKESPEARE

  You seek a Clue? Be ye his kin? Or else

  A friend ... best-known Madrigal

  ... upon Avon, there

  For this great man we sing was b ... here.

  "I tore off pieces from the top and the bottom both," Dan said apologetically. "Because I started thinking about how, with a lead, usually the stuff at the bottom is the most important, and since I'd never looked at the paper, I didn't really know which way was up." He touched the solitary "b" in the last line. "Sorry I didn't get the whole word there. You probably could have solved it then."

  "I can solve it anyway!" Amy said. She beamed at him.

  "You can?" Dan asked.

  "Because guess where William Shakespeare was born?" Amy asked.

  "I don't know, but I bet you're going to tell me," Dan said.

  "Stratford-upon-Avon, there," Amy said, touching the words as she spoke them.

  "So you think that one missing word in the last line is born," Dan said. Something like dread began to creep over him. "Oh, no, don't tell me--"

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  "That's right, even though it was five hundred years ago, the house where Shakespeare was born is still there," Amy said. "And we're going to go see it!"

  * * *

  Alistair Oh hobbled into the Tate Modern museum of art. Alistair was no fan of modern art--in his opinion, it was proof that the Janus branch of the Cahills had gone insane. But the museum was practically next door to the Globe Theatre, and right now it was a good place to hide. Nobody would expect him to come here.

  Alistair tried to walk with his usual dignity, but that was difficult when the pocket of his cream-colored jacket flapped loose and he had blood caked on his cheek from the all-out family battle at the Globe. And --was that mud in his hair?

  All that, and he still hadn't emerged with even one scrap of the paper.

  I'm too old for this, he thought, even though his uncle, Bae Oh, was much older and still every bit as obsessed with the Clue hunt as Alistair.

  Alistair ducked into a dark, empty alcove, which turned out to be a tiny screening room.

  Lunacy, Alistair thought. People nowadays think video is art?

  He eased himself down onto a bench and thought longingly of the museum his branch, the Ekats, had proudly maintained at their stronghold in Egypt. He'd always hoped that his own genius inventions would

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  one day hold a place of honor there, amazing all visitors. But he'd been so focused on finding Clues over the years that all he'd ever really invented was the microwavable burrito. And, like so much else, many Ekat treasures from the museum had been stolen or destroyed during the Clue hunt.

  Treasures destroyed, hopes destroyed, lives destroyed... does it ever end? he wondered, as images flickered and died on the wall before him.

  The juxtaposition of three words -- hopes, lives, destroyed -- brought a flash to his mind of the lively, charming Hope Cahill, murdered years ago. Amy looked more and more like her every time he saw her.

  I didn't kill Hope, Alistair thought reflexively, as he'd been thinking for the past seven years. This time there was an echo to the thought: I'm still to blame....

  Alistair closed his eyes, trying to shut out the pain.

  When he opened them again, he was surrounded.

  "You owe us!" a surly voice snarled.

  Creditors, Alistair thought. It was inevitable, with all the millions he'd wasted on the Clue hunt.

  Alistair blinked, and the people jostling against him turned out to be three teenagers who'd traded their Elizabethan-ninja costumes for jeans and T-shirts: Sinead, Ned, and Ted Starling.

  "I beg your pardon?" he asked, with politeness they didn't deserve.

  "You're an Ekat, we're Ekats--you owe us some help

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  with the clue hunt," Sinead said. "Uncle Alistair."

  That one word -- uncle-- made him wince. He could so clearly remember how he'd said that word to Bae Oh when he was a teenager ... before he knew that Bae Oh had had Alistair's father killed over Clues.

  And he could remember how Amy and Dan had said that word early on in the Clue hunt.

  Back when they trusted him.

  Alistair shook his head, trying to clear it, trying to focus on the kids standing around him, not the ones who'd vanished again.

  "How did you know I was here?" Alistair asked.

  "Simple," one of the boys--Ned? -- said. "Except for the Kabra mansion, it was about the least likely place in London for you to go. So we looked here first."

  Alistair had heard family gossip that Ned had earned a PhD at age ten but still couldn't tie his shoes or talk sensibly about anything but quantum physics. Alistair didn't really feel up to discussing quantum physics right now, so he turned away from Ned.

  "See, we know how you think," Sinead purred. "We're just like you."

  I hope not, Alistair thought sadly.

  "I thought you said you were completely caught up in the clue hunt," Alistair said. "Maybe even ahead."

  "Of course that's what we told them," Ted said. "Our enemies."

  "But with you, our fellow Ekat, it's like we're on the same team," Sinead said ingratiatingly. She picked a

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  little mud out of Alistair's hair. "I'm sure if you share everything you've learned so far, we'll know lots more than anyone else."

  She smiled, showing entirely too many teeth.

  A lifetime of work, searching for clues, Alistair thought. My life's work, really. And they want me to just give it away?

  "No," Alistair said.

  Sinead recoiled.

  "What--are you going to help those brats, Amy and Dan, instead?" she accused. "We know you've been helping them all along. How else would they have solved anything?"

  "Integrity," Alistair said softly. "Courage. Intelligence. Daring. Hard work."

  Sinead snorted.

  "Yeah, right. Them?" she asked. "Before this clue hunt, they weren't even brave enough to cross the street alone. You expect me to believe they've gone all a
round the world on their own?"

  "They've ... grown up," Alistair said, and was surprised that the words brought a pang to his heart. I could have been there for them all along, he thought. But I mostly wasn't.

  Sinead seemed to remember she was trying to sweet-talk Alistair.

  "Well, anyhow," she said. "This isn't about them. It's about us. The brilliant Ekats. Our parents always told us you were the smartest one of all."

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  She gazed at him, a worshipful expression -- clearly fake --plastered across her face. She even batted her eyelashes a little. She was trying so hard.

  Like Alistair had always tried so hard.

  And done so much wrong.

  "Foolish," Alistair murmured. "I've been so foolish."

  "But--the microwavable burrito!" Sinead said. "You invented that! You made millions!"

  "Listen," Alistair said. "I'll share some of the wisdom I've earned over the years."

  All three teenagers leaned close.

  "When you near the end of your life ... when you're a lonely old man ... you start realizing what your accomplishments are really worth," he said. "The most brilliant clue I ever deciphered, the millions I earned --even the microwavable burrito itself-- sometimes I think I'd be willing to trade all of it for a single hug from someone who truly loves me."

  Sinead, Ted, and Ned froze for a moment. Then Sinead bounced up and rather gingerly put her arms around Alistair's shoulders.

  "Oh, we love you, Uncle Alistair!" she said.

  Alistair pulled away.

  "No, you don't," he said.

  Alistair pushed the bench back and stood up. His legs were stiff and sore, but he wanted so much to be able to make a dignified exit. He started walking away.

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  "Wait!" Ned cried. Alistair kept walking.

  "There's something else you might want to know," Sinead called after him. "We stole Bae Oh's clues!"

  Alistair hesitated for a moment. And then, slowly, he turned back around.

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  CHAPTER 8

  "AHHHHH!" Nellie screamed.

  "AHHHHH!" Dan screamed from his place beside her in the front seat of the car.

  "What is wrong with you two?" Amy asked from the backseat. She looked up from the pile of Shakespeare books she'd settled in with as soon as they'd pulled out of the rental-car lot toward Stratford.

  "I forgot I'd have to drive on the wrong side of the road again!" Nellie said. "I mean, it's the right side for them --er, the left side, that's where they drive --but--"

  "DO YOU SEE THAT CAR?" Dan screamed.

  It seemed to be in their lane.

  "Swerve right?" Nellie muttered. "No --left. Right? Left? AHHHH!"

  At the last minute, she jerked the steering wheel to the left. She pulled off into the grass and sat there, shaking, while cars whizzed by them.

  "I'm not sure I can do this," she said.

  "What?" Amy said in amazement. "Nellie --you

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  already drove on the wrong side of the road before when we were in South Africa."

  "You were awesome there, zigzagging all over the place!" Dan said. "Nellie, you're the best driver."

  This was true only if you defined best as most dangerous. Which Dan probably did.

  "Yeah, usually I am," Nellie agreed. She wiped her hand across her forehead. Her fingertips came away sweaty. "But I don't know, it's weird. It's, like, this is all real now. Back in South Africa, I kind of felt like I was just driving in a video game. But now--now I know what the clue hunt is for, and how much it matters. It's like, whoa, responsibility."

  "If you'd crashed us into another car in South Africa --or anywhere else --you would have been responsible for killing us," Dan said. "Even when you didn't know what the clue hunt was about."

  "Thanks. That makes me feel so much better," Nellie said sarcastically. She rubbed the snake nose ring she'd insisted on repairing before they left Jamaica.

  She made no move to pull back onto the road.

  Amy remembered how shaken Nellie had looked when they met up with her after sneaking out the back of the Globe.

  Does Nellie think this is all impossible now? Amy wondered. Is it just hitting her a day late?

  "We can't let Isabel win, remember?" Amy reminded her. "Not Isabel... or Eisenhower ... or Cora ... or Alistair..."

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  It was no accident that Amy named people who'd been there the night her parents died.

  Nellie clutched the steering wheel.

  "You're right," she said, resolutely setting her jaw. "I have to do this. Just--don't watch, okay? It makes me nervous."

  "I'll be reading," Amy said quickly.

  "This is what long-life computer batteries are for," Dan said, opening his laptop.

  Amy even stacked books next to Saladin's cat carrier so he wouldn't watch, either.

  At first Amy was very aware of the car's motion. But then she lost herself reading about Shakespeare. She loved the man. In his writing he could be so funny, so wise, so ... human.

  And it was so clear that he was a Madrigal.

  He hadn't been born rich and famous. The experts weren't even sure his parents knew how to read and write. His father had had money problems when William was a teenager, and so experts thought William had probably dropped out of school. He definitely hadn't been able to go to university. When he'd started out writing plays in London, some of the other writers had made fun of him for being uneducated.

  He was like Dan and me, Amy thought. An underdog.

  Then there'd been Shakespeare's Lost Years, the time when he'd seemed to vanish from the historical record.

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  Obviously he was off doing Madrigal business, Amy thought. Searching for clues, maybe negotiating with Lucians and Ekats, secretly keeping the balance of power between the branches.

  She and Dan had been in the Clue hunt for so long, it was like they barely had to glance at something to see the Cahill fingerprints all over history.

  "Oh, man!" Dan burst out from the front seat. "How could this dude be one of us? William Shakespeare -- a Madrigal? No way!"

  Once again, Dan's mind was running in a totally different direction from Amy's.

  "Are you kidding?" Amy shrieked. The car swerved, then corrected itself. Amy looked sheepishly at Nellie. "Sorry, Nellie. Didn't mean to distract you."

  "S'okay," Nellie said, staring fixedly at the road before them. "You can talk now that I'm on the highway. It's much easier. No cars coming straight at me."

  Amy turned her attention back to Dan.

  "Let me guess," she said. "You think Shakespeare should have been a Janus because his writing was great art. Or --you're jealous that Madrigals don't have kung fu artists or mountain climbers or sword fighters as their famous 'dude,' like some of the other branches. Pretty much everybody says Shakespeare was the greatest writer ever. Isn't that enough for you?"

  "Oh, come on," Dan said. "He did all his work with a quill pen."

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  Amy could feel her head getting ready to explode.

  "But," Dan went on, "I agree that Shakespeare was a great writer."

  Everything Amy had planned to yell at him fizzled.

  "You ... you do?" she managed to say.

  "Oh, yeah," Dan said. "Didn't you see that list of Shakespeare insult stickers back at the Globe gift shop? That made me curious, so I've been checking out some things online. This dude really knew how to insult people. 'You muddy conger'? 'Thy tongue outvenoms all the worms of Nile'? 'Thou art a boil, a plague-sore, an embossed carbuncle'? I'm so going to use these the next time I see Isabel Kabra! Or the Starlings!"

  "So you think Shakespeare was great just because of his insults," Amy said faintly.

  "Oh, that, and-- did you know he couldn't spell?" Dan pointed to something on his computer screen. "There are six copies left of his signature, and none of them are spelled the same way. He's the greatest writer in history, and he couldn't even spell his own name!"

/>   "There wasn't standardized spelling in his time," Amy said defensively. "Nobody spelled things the same way all the time. It was really confusing."

  Dan chuckled.

  "Yeah, but if Shakespeare were alive today, I bet he'd be wearing this great T-shirt I saw once: 'Bad Spellers of the World --Untie!'" he said.

  Amy rolled her eyes.

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  "You're losing me," she said. "Are you saying you don't think Shakespeare could have been a Madrigal because he didn't spell well enough?"

  "No," Dan said impatiently. "I'm saying he was too great to be a Madrigal."

  Amy felt her face go blank.

  "Totally lost now," she said. "Not even on the same continent with whatever it is you're trying to say."

  "Listen," Dan said. "Think about what the man in black--er, Great-uncle Fiske -- told us back in Jamaica. The original Cahill dude, Gideon, invented some amazing serum that was supposed to make him great at everything. Four of his kids got some part of the serum, and when they took it, it even changed their DNA. So everyone on Katherine's side was smarter than normal people, and Thomas's side was stronger and more athletic, and--"

  "Yeah, yeah, I know this part," Amy interrupted. "Jane's family got the artistic, creative gene. Luke's family got strategy and leadership. Leading to the Ekats, Tomas, Janus, and Lucians we know and love today." She made a face. "What's that got to do with Shakespeare? If he's a Madrigal, he wasn't part of any of those branches."

  "Right," Dan said. "Our ancestor, Madeleine, came along after the serum was gone and the family broke up. So Madeleine never took any serum. And neither did her kids or their kids. Her branch--our branch -- we're not enhanced."

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  Amy felt a little pang -- her own brother had just admitted they were completely ordinary. Talentless. Dull. Everything she'd always suspected about herself.