Into the Gauntlet

by Margaret Peterson Haddix

  CHAPTER 41

  For a moment nobody moved.

  Then Dan heard Sinead whisper, "Amy saved us."

  "And she destroyed the serum," Alistair said dazedly.

  "I had to," Amy defended herself. "Isabel would have killed --"

  "No, no," Alistair said, waving his hands as if trying to wave away any misunderstanding. "I'm not criticizing. You did the right thing." He stared at Isabel's body amid the broken glass, the serum trickling away. "The right thing ..." he repeated.

  "But I wanted the serum to cure my brothers," Sinead whispered, tears welling in her eyes.

  "I --" Dan began, but then he stopped because he wanted to think this through.

  Nobody seemed to hear Dan because Hamilton was talking, too. "Let's tie up the queen of evil before she comes to and starts attacking us all over again."

  Amy carefully picked up Isabel's remote control and placed it on a counter, out of the way. Dan kicked at the

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  handle of the gun. It slid across the floor and stopped only when it landed in the wreckage.

  Nobody made any effort to grab either weapon.

  That's good, isn't it? Dan thought. And everyone wanted to save Sinead's brother. At least at first. Maybe...

  His brain was too numb to think. He concentrated on helping Hamilton pull rope out of his backpack, tying it tightly around Isabel's ankles and wrists.

  "That's not good enough," Ian fretted. "She's going to come to. She'll figure out how to escape!"

  "Desperate times call for desperate measures," Alistair said. He held up a small white pill. "Something developed by our friend Irina Spasky. This will keep Isabel unconscious for several hours. And"--he raised an eyebrow significantly--"it will ensure that she forgets what happened today."

  So she won't remember how to make the serum, Dan thought, relieved.

  "That means Natalie and I will get to tell her all over again that we're disowning her," Ian said in a hard voice. "I'll rather enjoy that."

  He's serious, Dan thought. He's not going to back down.

  Dan watched Alistair bend over Isabel. He put the pill in her mouth. Then he rubbed her throat to get her to swallow, just like Dan would do with Saladin.

  Ned Starling stumbled out of the wreckage and toward his sister.

  "The pain's worse than ever, isn't it?" Sinead asked,

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  gingerly touching Ned's forehead. He winced, his face twisted in agony.

  "Sinead ..." Dan tried again.

  He stopped and looked at Amy.

  What should we do? he thought at her. Should we trust them? Should I tell?

  Amy tilted her head, a wry expression on her face, as if to say, I think everybody but Sinead already knows. They're just pretending not to.

  Dan was sick of pretending.

  "Sinead, I've got a photographic memory," he said. "I remember every word of that recipe on the vial. I couldn't hear all the ingredients, but everyone remembers their own. If we all worked together, we could mix up more of the serum and ..."

  Nobody reacted the way Dan expected.

  Hamilton didn't slap him a high five. Jonah didn't offer a fist bump. Alistair didn't put his arm around Dan's shoulders and say confidingly, "Dan, my boy, I always knew you were a lot like your uncle."

  Nobody moved at all, except that Sinead grimaced.

  "Dan, I --" she began. "I don't know. What I did trying to get the serum ... even leaving Ned's life in danger to fight for it... Maybe I don't just want it to help my brothers? Maybe ... maybe I'm a little too much like her?"

  She pointed down at Isabel's bound figure.

  Alistair grabbed a piece of paper from a counter

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  and began writing a list of his Clues. Then he thrust the paper into Dan's hand.

  "I trust you and Amy," he said. "I don't trust myself. You do whatever you need to with the serum."

  Ian took the pen from Alistair and wrote down ingredients of his own. He, too, handed the paper to Dan.

  "Natalie and I have spent our whole lives listening to our mother," Ian said. "Believing everything she ever told us ..."

  "But you stopped believing her!" Amy protested. "You changed! Or you would have helped her in here --helped her even as she killed us all!"

  "Why didn't we stop helping her before, in Korea?" Ian asked. "In Australia? South Africa? Jamaica?"

  "We haven't changed enough," Natalie said in a small, pained voice. "But--we're trying."

  Jonah took the pen next and began writing. He had to hunch over painfully, bracing his paper against the floor.

  "No, Jonah," Dan began. "You never actually--"

  "If I knew how to make the serum, my mother would make me tell," he said. "And my mother ... my mother's way too much like theirs." He pointed to Ian and Natalie.

  He finished writing and flashed the famous Jonah Wizard grin as he handed his paper up.

  "Besides," he said, "I'm going to be the greatest musician in the world even without the serum!"

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  Hamilton reached for the pen and paper after Jonah.

  "What?" Dan asked in astonishment. "Hamilton, you don't have to do that! We trust you! You're on our team! You--"

  "I chose the serum over Ned's life, just like everyone else," Hamilton said heavily. "Everyone except you and Amy."

  He bent his head and began writing.

  "Well, it's not like we're saints or anything," Dan said. "It's just that we didn't know anything about the serum until a few weeks ago. So we didn't have the instincts to go for it."

  "Dan, that's why Grace wanted us in the clue hunt," Amy said, sounding startled, as if she'd just figured this out. "It's why nobody told us the family history until after Grace died."

  "So you would have the right instincts," Alistair said gently. "You could win the clue hunt only by valuing human life more than the clues. Ironic, isn't it? Grace always did love irony."

  "Wait a minute --we won?" Dan asked incredulously.

  "Dude. You're holding all the clues," Hamilton said, thrusting his paper into Dan's hands. Hamilton gave Dan a pat on the back that was gentle, for a Holt. This meant that Dan pitched forward only two steps before he managed to catch his balance.

  "I'm telling my dad that you and Amy won fair and

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  square, on your own," Hamilton said. "Because --it's the truth."

  Dan was still blinking in amazement. He looked down at the lists of Clues in his hand, the ingredients that had first been assembled five hundred years earlier --and had changed human history ever since.

  What could they do to the future?

  "Hamilton, wait," Dan began, because he wanted more help. "Think about how many times you saved our lives. Think how you got me up that cliff. Think about--"

  "How my family burned down Grace's mansion," Hamilton said. "How we almost killed Alistair in South Africa. How... how it's our fault the Starlings got hurt at the Franklin Institute." He looked Sinead directly in the eye. "I'm sorry," he said.

  Sinead nodded once, which was not quite forgiveness. But maybe it was a first step.

  "And I'm sorry," Alistair said, peering at Dan and Amy. "For everything."

  "We forgive you," Amy whispered.

  Dan stared at his sister, thinking, We do?

  We need to, Amy seemed to be thinking back at him. We can't spend the rest of our lives hating people.

  Like a little kid reaching for a security blanket, Dan searched for the anger that had propelled him for much of the Clue hunt. It was still there, but fainter somehow. Lighter.

  Maybe someday it would go away completely.

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  "You did give up your clues to keep Isabel from killing us," Dan told Alistair grudgingly.

  "Yes," Alistair agreed. "But I am also too much like Isabel and Cora --and Eisenhower."

  "My dad's a great dad," Hamilton protested. "But..." He looked down at his hands. "I don't want to be just like him."

  Al
istair nodded.

  "Growing up, I saw how evil my uncle Bae was," he said. "And yet, I still tried to gain his approval. I still made his goals my own." He cleared his throat noisily. "You children are so much wiser. You're choosing a better way."

  Tears sparkled in his eyes.

  It's all true, Dan thought. We really won. All of us. Together.

  He remembered how, back in London, he'd told Amy they should win and then knock everybody else into shape. But that was the kind of plan others had tried for the past five hundred years, and it had never worked. The way Amy and Dan had won was completely different. They'd won because everybody else wanted them to.

  He couldn't wait to tell Nellie.

  "Oh --Nellie!" he cried. "We've got to rescue everyone out in the cemetery!" He began cramming the papers the others had given him into his pocket. "Everything else can wait until we do that and--"

  "And get better medical treatment for Natalie and

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  Jonah," Alistair agreed. "And ..." He looked down grimly at Isabel's unconscious form. "We need to turn her over to the authorities."

  "People stay in prison for a long time for attempted murder, don't they?" Amy asked anxiously. "All those explosives she set off..."

  "Oh, she's not just going to be charged with attempted murder," Alistair said. "I'm going to do something I was afraid to do seven years ago. I'm going to testify that Isabel murdered your parents."

  "So that means ..." Amy began.

  Alistair almost smiled.

  "Isabel," he said, "will be in prison for the rest of her life."

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  CHAPTER 42

  Ned Starling led the way out through the secret passage he'd seen Isabel use. It was a slow process, since Jonah, Natalie, and Isabel had to be carried. Then Ian had to go out first, to dismiss the henchmen Isabel had left guarding the cemetery.

  "Mum wants you off this island --now!" he barked, and that did the trick.

  When the rest of the group emerged, everyone in the cemetery cheered.

  "Amy and Dan --you survived!" Nellie screamed. "My kiddos!"

  "And ours!" Uncle Fiske yelled, just a beat behind her. Then he looked sheepishly at Mr. McIntyre. "Well, they are," he said.

  "I can't see -- are Sinead and Ned there? Are Sinead and Ned there?" Ted hollered. Someone must have told 2 him yes, because then he exploded, "This is even better than finding a new digit in pi!"

  "Hammy! Hammy! Hammy!" the Holts cheered in unison.

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  "Jonah? You're hurt?" Broderick strained against the ropes binding him.

  "Fo sho," Jonah said, making a pained effort to grin from his sling. "But wait till you hear the songs I'm going to write from this experience."

  Alistair and Sinead insisted that, before anyone else could step into the cemetery, they had to defuse the explosives Isabel had laid.

  "Quite right," the helicopter pilot said approvingly. "That's the safest way."

  Hamilton stood on the beach, shouting across to his family, telling everything that had happened.

  Or --almost everything.

  "So, Amy and Dan won in the end, but then Amy had to destroy the prize to protect us all," Hamilton said. "And, Dad, I know you're going to be mad that I didn't win everything for Team Holt but..."

  He waited, but Eisenhower didn't start screaming the way Hamilton expected. Eisenhower opened his mouth, winced, swallowed hard, then tried again.

  "Winning isn't everything," Eisenhower said faintly. "Sometimes, just knowing your family's safe and healthy and alive is even better."

  "Did Vince Lombardi say that?" Reagan asked. "Or Shakespeare?"

  "No," Eisenhower said. "I did."

  * * *

  Once everyone was untied, Amy and Nellie hugged like

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  they hadn't seen each other in a million years. Dan didn't want to get involved with that, not when he really wanted to talk to Uncle Fiske and Mr. McIntyre.

  Later, Dan thought. After everyone else leaves...

  Frustrated, he wandered toward the Starlings.

  Ted was reaching out to touch his sister's face.

  "I heard what Hamilton said about the serum being destroyed," Ted was saying. "Don't worry, Sinead. It doesn't matter. Ned and I will be fine anyhow."

  "Oh, but--" Sinead began.

  "No, listen," Ted said. "While I was tied up here with everyone else, I started thinking about those experimental surgeries they offered Ned and me. I came up with a few new things to suggest to the doctors, so it's not so risky. Reagan Holt even drew the diagrams for me." He pulled a sheaf of papers out of his jacket pocket and held them out to her. "Look."

  "But we can--" Dan began, leaning in toward the Starlings.

  Sinead looked up from the diagrams and shook her head warningly.

  "Ted's way is better," she said. "If the surgeries work, this helps lots of people, not just Ned and Ted. And there won't be the same ... side effects and complications. I mean, I saw Isabel Kabra in action, and she only had part of the serum."

  "I guess," Dan said. He was suddenly even more aware of the papers he'd tucked into his own pockets. How could paper feel so heavy?

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  Jonah almost passed out while the others lifted him into the helicopter. He tried to relax as they settled him into the backseat, but then he stiffened again.

  "Dad!" he screamed. "The vandalism charges from the Globe --will somebody try to arrest me when we get to the hospital?"

  "Oh, no," Broderick said. "I almost forgot --all the accusations were dropped. Miss Pluderbottom recanted."

  "Yo! Miss 'I tell nothing but the truth' Pluderbottom lied?" Jonah asked, astounded. "For me?"

  "No," Broderick said. "She didn't lie. She said the truth changed. She went to the authorities and said she'd discovered you were a nice young man who would never intentionally damage anything connected to the Bard."

  The truth changed, Jonah thought. And--I changed. I found my true self.

  "Miss Pluderbottom's my homie," Jonah murmured drowsily. They were taking off now, the helicopter rising into the sky. "I think I'll ask her to help me stage a hip-hop version of Romeo and Juliet. It can be a crossover hit. Wanna help, too? I can't be a teen sensation forever, you know. Gotta start plotting the next step, the next phase ..."

  "Whatever you want," Broderick said.

  They flew higher, into clouds. Jonah's mind was getting cloudy, too. Maybe he started dreaming again.

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  Or maybe he really did hear his father say, over the thumping of the helicopter blades, "And we'll tell your mother whatever you want about the serum, too."

  * * *

  Sinead took off in her aircraft with Alistair and a still-unconscious Isabel. This left the Starling boys to go to the hospital with Ian and Natalie in Jonah's yacht.

  "You know how to steer a yacht?" Mr. McIntyre asked Ian worriedly.

  "I was born knowing how to steer a yacht," Ian said. Then a stricken look came over his face. "But--do you suppose Jonah prepaid the full amount for renting this? Once my dad hears what Natalie and I did, he'll cancel our credit cards."

  "You mean we're ... we're poor now?" Natalie gasped.

  "Penniless," Ian said grimly.

  "Actually," Mr. McIntyre said, "I should have mentioned this before the others left. Grace had an addendum to her will regarding everyone who made it through the gauntlet. There were eight of you --you will all receive double the amount you turned down to get the first clue."

  "It was a million dollars originally," Ian said. "So Natalie and I each get two million dollars? I suppose we could live on that."

  Natalie beamed.

  "That is such a relief!" she said. "Being poor wasn't

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  quite as bad as I thought it would be, but still--"

  "You were only poor for about two seconds!" Dan protested, rolling his eyes.

  "Dan --the two million dollars apiece --that would be for us, too," Amy said dazedl
y.

  Oh, yeah, Dan thought. Two million apiece. Four million total...

  He couldn't take it in. Not while he had papers rustling in his pocket that contained a priceless secret.

  Ian, Natalie, Ned, and Ted left. The Holts screamed when they heard Hamilton had won two million dollars. Then they began shrieking that that meant they could go to some world-famous soccer game that was going to be played in Ireland in just an hour. They left, too, though Hamilton kept hanging out the window of their boat holding his hand to his ear, fingers outstretched, signaling, Call me. Let me know what happens.

  "I've still got your back!" was the last thing he shouted out to them.

  And then only Madrigals were left on the island.

  Dan marched right up to Uncle Fiske and Mr. McIntyre.

  "Now what?" he asked. "What did Grace want us to get the serum for?"

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  CHAPTER 43

  "I --I beg your pardon?" Mr. McIntyre stammered.

  "Dan, Amy, please tell us --do you have the serum formula? And do you know all the ingredients?" Fiske begged. "I think so, because I could kind of tell you were only pretending to be disappointed when the others were here, but--"

  Amy decided she had to put the poor man out of his misery.

  "Yes," she said. She told the two men and Nellie the parts of the story that Hamilton had left out.

  "So you accomplished everything we asked of you," Fiske marveled.

  We did? Amy thought. But--

  "We didn't reunite with Isabel," she pointed out. "Or Cora Wizard. Or--"

  "But you reconciled with their children," Mr. McIntyre said. "And Alistair and the Starlings. Representatives from every branch. You didn't honestly think we expected you to make every single Cahill descendant get along perfectly, did you?"