One False Note

by Gordon Korman

  Now Nellie was missing -- caught, probably under arrest. And there was nothing Amy and Dan could do about it. Nothing but wait.

  At two a.m, they were still sitting, staring at the TV, which featured a Gilligan's Island

  episode dubbed in German. The sudden knocking was such a jolt to their frayed nerves that they almost tackled each other running to answer the door.

  "Nellie!" Amy cried. "Thank-"

  There in the hall stood Irina Spasky, a Russian Cahill cousin. Another competitor in the search for the 39 Clues, and no joke. Irina was rumored to be an ex-KGB agent, ruthless, efficient, and potentially deadly.

  She got right to the point. "Your nanny has been detained by Viennese authorities." Dan bristled. "How do you know that?"

  Irina's face contorted into the closest she ever came to a smile. "I have accompanied weapons-grade plutonium through a secret tunnel under the Berlin Wall. I believe I am capable of looking through the window of a police car. But if you do not need my help -- " Amy seized on this. "You can help Nellie? How?"

  Irina looked annoyed. "What is it your business, so long as she is returned to you?" "It's not our business at all!" Amy agreed swiftly. "Just get her out! Thank you!" "I require better thanks than just words. Shall we say the item you removed from the hotel room of our obnoxious cousin Jonah Wizard?" "No deal!" Dan barked.

  "A word of advice," Irina told Amy. "You should not let this impetuous little boy speak for you. Perhaps you should not let him speak at all. In the KGB, we found duct tape to be both effective and affordable."

  Amy hung her head. They had risked their lives to get the diary. Not to mention the fact that Irina wanting it only proved their suspicion that it was important. But they couldn't let Nellie go to jail for them. If their Russian cousin could free her, they had no choice

  but to make the deal.

  "I'll get it for you," Amy agreed sadly.

  "I'll get it," sighed Dan.

  Amy watched in surprise as her brother went to her backpack on the nightstand. But instead of taking out the Nannerl diary, he reached into his jacket pocket and produced the Jonah Wizard action figure he had taken from suite 1600. He's trying to give her the wrong thing!

  Amy struggled to contain her terror as Dan offered the toy to Irina.

  The ex-KGB agent made no move to accept it. "A child's plaything? You are not serious."

  Dan shrugged. "You asked for what we took out of Jonah's room. This is it."

  Don't try it!

  Amy wanted to scream.

  What if Irina knows what she's looking for?

  She stared imploringly at her brother.

  He didn't pick up on the message. "It only seems like an action figure," he told Irina. "Check this out." He held the toy so that the tiny hand wrapped around her little finger and pressed the button on Jonah's back to activate the kung fu grip.

  The former spy did not utter a sound, but a vein on her forehead stood out and bulged as if it were about to explode. Her eyes fell eagerly upon the website code illuminated at the back of Jonah's headband.

  "See?" asked Dan. "It's-"

  "There is no need for small talk in a business transaction." She snatched the figure from Dan and regarded it with newfound respect. "We had a similar device in the KGB," she admitted, examining her rapidly swelling pinkie. "Crude but effective. Expect your nanny shortly." And she was gone as quickly as she had appeared.

  Amy was shaking as she wheeled on her brother. "I can't believe you did that! What if Irina knew about the diary?"

  "She didn't," Dan retorted.

  "But she could have! Or the code! She might have seen the commercial about the screen saver!"

  He was serene. "I doubt Irina watches much Cartoon Network."

  "You ripped off a Russian spy! You could have gotten Nellie killed, and maybe us, too!"

  Dan was outraged. "Why are you yelling at me about what didn't happen? In case you haven't noticed, I did something good!

  We've still got the diary, and Irina is going to spring Nellie. Do you think it'll be a real prison break? Too bad we can't watch."

  Amy looked grim. "I honestly don't want to think about what a KGB agent is capable of. Whatever she can do to the Viennese police she can turn on us at any moment."

  He couldn't hold back a grin. "But right now, tonight, we got the better of her. That's something to celebrate!"

  "Who's celebrating?" came a weary voice from the doorway.

  "Nellie!" Amy bounded over and threw her arms around the au pair. She took a step

  back, frowning. "How did Irina get you out so fast? She just left five minutes ago."

  "Nobody got me out," Nellie replied. "They just let me go. They think I'm a deranged Jonah Wizard fan. Apparently, the hotel's full of them. A couple of idiots actually jumped off the front balcony. Can you picture that?" "In Technicolor," Amy said bitterly.

  "That low-down KGB reject!" Dan fumed. "I can't believe she cheated me right when I was in the middle of cheating her!"

  "Anyway, it's been a long night." Nellie yawned. "Those get-a-lifers at the hotel wouldn't part with their precious maid's uniform, so the cops had to drag me over there to hunt down my clothes from that cart -- which was back in the basement with fifty others. Then I didn't want to lead them to you, so I had them drop me off at the Hotel Wiener. I've been walking ever since. But don't worry -- it only rained for the last half mile." She toweled her hair off with her sleeve. "Is it just me, or does it smell like fish in here?"

  "We got the diary," Amy told her excitedly. "Let's get some sleep, and we can look at it tomorrow morning. We know the Holts, Irina, and Jonah are just a heartbeat away from us. We've got to move fast if we're going to stay ahead." When Jonah Wizard and his father returned flushed with victory from the DVD launch party, they found a team of maintenance people sweeping glass fragments from the marble floor of their suite.

  Both ran to stand directly beneath the chandelier where they had hidden Nannerl's diary. The dark shape was no longer there. A few strands of crystals hung broken. "You promised Jonah extra security!" Mr. Wizard raged at the hotel manager, who had gotten out of bed to apologize to this very important guest.

  "We believe it was harmless, mein Herr," the manager soothed. "A lovesick girl. Your talented son has this effect on the young ladies, yes?"

  The Wizards didn't believe a word of it. It was no mere fan who had broken into the suite and stolen Nannerl Mozart's diary. This could only be the work of one of their 39 Clues competitors. A Cahill inside job.

  "Yo, man." The TV star addressed the hotel manager directly. "How about you describe

  this stalker chick who loves me so much she broke into my crib."

  The manager held up a mug shot from the Vienna police department.

  The famous face creased into a frown. When you kicked back with Hollywood A-listers

  and the giga-celebrity crowd, it was tough to recognize your average nobody off the

  street. Yet the woman in the picture looked sort of familiar. Why did Jonah know that

  person?

  Then he noticed the nose ring. It was the Cahill kids' nursemaid -- Nancy or Netta, something like that.

  So Amy and Dan had made it to Vienna, too. Worse, they'd turned out to be a step ahead of him. Jonah Wizard didn't like to be second best at anything. Not in the TV ratings, not on the pop charts, and definitely not in the contest.

  When you're on top, you've got the confidence. The confidence gives you the attitude. And the attitude is what keeps you on top.

  A twinge of misgiving vibrated in the deepest, darkest recess of his mind. Yeah, he was number one across the board, dominating just about every category of the entertainment industry. And he deserved that success. He'd earned it. Sweat and hard work, man. Talent. That Wizard mojo.

  But it doesn't hurt when your mom is Cora Wizard, with mucho connections in every field of the arts

  The megastar grimaced.

  This was why he could never let his
guard down! One little setback, and he was already starting to doubt himself.

  If you lose -- even once -- it becomes a habit. And before you know it, you're a loser. He couldn't allow the Cahill kids to get the better of him.

  Luckily, he knew something about the diary that Amy and Dan still had to find out.

  CHAPTER 7

  Diaries were not Dan's thing -- not even when they were in English and written by people he cared about. He kept his distance, trying to interest Saladin in a tin of tuna fish, while Nellie and Amy huddled over the leather-bound journal. Nellie was translating Maria Anna Mozart's flowery, old-fashioned script. "Anything good?" he called to them.

  "It's a tragedy," Amy replied. "Nannerl was one of the greatest musicians of her time. And yet very few people have even heard of her. She was a great genius -- every bit as brilliant as her brother. But in those days, girls were just supposed to get married, and cook, and clean, and have babies."

  Dan looked disinterested. "I never heard of her brother, either -- not until this contest. I mean, I've heard of Baby Mozart -- you know, the video -- "

  Nellie scowled in his direction. "You'd still recognize a lot of his music. We're talking about some of the most famous melodies of all time. Even 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star' -- the music to that was written by Mozart."

  "You can only guess what Nannerl might have contributed if she'd been allowed to develop her talents," Amy added.

  "I don't care about music," countered Dan. "Did she contribute clues?" Amy shook her head. "There are no notes scribbled in the margins or anything like that."

  "There's a letter from her brother pasted in here," Nellie supplied, "but it seems like he's talking about the time he quit his job. He said he wanted to use his contract as toilet paper."

  "Really?" Dan was suddenly interested. "Mozart said that? Show me!" "It's in German, dweeb," his sister told him. "They have a word for toilet paper, too." "Yeah, but I didn't think a fancy guy like Mozart would know it." "Hold it!" Amy's voice was full of alarm. She turned the next leaf, peering intently at the spine of the notebook. "There are pages missing here! At least two. Look!" The three examined the diary closely. Amy was right. The thief had been extra careful to disguise his crime -- the missing material had been cut out with a very sharp blade. The excision was almost unnoticeable. "Do you think Jonah did it?" Dan breathed.

  "I doubt it," Amy replied. "Why would he bother to hide the diary in the chandelier if he'd already taken the important parts out of it?"

  "To throw us off the trail of the real stuff?" Dan suggested.

  "Maybe, but remember -- this book is over two hundred years old. Those pages could have been removed any time between then and now. For all we know, Nannerl cut them out herself because she spilled ink on them."

  "No offense, you guys," Nellie put in, "but I've been around your family long enough to know this has Cahill written all over it. I've never seen such a bunch of backstabbers in my life."

  "She's right," Dan said glumly. "Every time we think we're making progress on the thirty-nine clues, someone turns out to be a step ahead of us." "Calm down," Amy told him. "The real clue isn't the diary; it's the music. And we're the only ones who have that. Let's take it down to the lobby. I saw a piano there." They made a charming picture -- the American girl at the piano and her younger brother at her side. It would have been nit-picking to notice that the sheet music was written on the back of a Eurail napkin, and that the girl played falteringly. "Good old Aunt Beatrice," Amy murmured to Dan. "She cut off my piano lessons so she could pinch a few more pennies."

  Aunt Beatrice was their grandmother's sister and their legal guardian. It was thanks to Aunt

  Beatrice that Amy and Dan were now fugitives from Social Services in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

  "Play the new stuff," Dan suggested. "The part that isn't in the real song. Maybe a trapdoor will open, or we'll call up the Cahill genie or something." She tried it, a light, airy melody, very different from the heavier classical piece around it. Suddenly, there was a woman standing beside the piano, lifting her voice in song. The lyrics were German, but it was obvious that the tune was familiar and brought the lady pleasure.

  "You know this song!" Amy exclaimed. "Is it by Mozart?"

  "Nein -- not Mozart. It is an old Austrian folk song called 'Der Ort, wo ich geboren war.'

  This means in your language 'The Place Where I Was Born.' Thank you for playing it, my dear. I haven't heard it for many years."

  Amy grabbed Dan and hauled him to the privacy of a small alcove with a fireplace.

  "That's it! That's the clue!" "What? Some old song?"

  "It was a message between Mozart and Ben Franklin!" Dan was bug-eyed. "Okay, but what does it say?"

  "It says 'come to the place where I was born.' Mozart was born in the town of Salzburg, in the Austrian Alps. And that's where we have to go."

  The rental car was an old Fiat that squeaked in every joint and didn't like going up Alps but didn't mind coasting down the other side of them. Part of this might have been Nellie's fault. She'd never driven a stick shift before. "That's just great for a trip into the mountains," Dan complained. "Hey -- you want to get behind the wheel?" Nellie demanded, insulted. And Dan said yes so readily that she was sorry she'd asked.

  Saladin spent the entire three-hour drive carsick. But luckily, since the cat wasn't eating anything, he also had nothing to throw up.

  The trip would have been roomier and much more pleasant on the train. But their encounter with the Holts on the ride from Paris had soured them on travel by rail. On a public train, they were too easy to spot. They could be more anonymous in a car. With the latest lead in their hands and theirs only, surely all the other teams would be gunning for them.

  Despite the uneven ride, the scenery was spectacular. The autobahn wound through the Austrian Alps like a ribbon twisting among the feet of giants. Soon their necks ached from craning out the windows, gazing up at dizzying snowcapped peaks.

  "Now this is more like it," Nellie approved. "I came on this trip to see the world, not the inside of a Vienna police station."

  Even Dan was impressed by the soaring mountains. "I'll bet if you roll a snowball off the top, by the time it gets to the bottom, it could knock out a whole town!" Shortly after two, they reached Salzburg -- a small city of gleaming spires, baroque architecture, and picturesque gardens nestled in green hills. "It's beautiful!" breathed Nellie.

  "It's bigger than I expected," Amy put in ruefully. "We have no idea what we're looking for, or even where to start."

  Nellie shrugged. "Seems pretty straightforward. The song is 'The Place Where I Was

  Born.' We'll get a guidebook and find the actual house where Mozart grew up." The moaning from Dan was even louder and more pitiful than Saladin's constant complaining. "Oh, no you don't. You're not dragging me to another Mozart house. Not when I haven't even recovered from the last one!"

  "Grow up," Amy said sharply. "We're not tourists. We go where the clues are."

  "How come the clues are never in the local laser tag place?" Dan whined. He sat up suddenly.

  "Look out!"

  A pedestrian rushed into the road right in front of the Fiat. Nellie stomped on the brake with all her might.

  The wheels locked, and the car skidded to a halt mere inches from mowing down the elderly jaywalker.

  Nellie was almost berserk. "Moron!" She brought her arm forward to deliver a blast on the horn.

  Amy grabbed her wrist. "Don't!" she hissed, trying to duck behind the dash. "Look who

  that is!"

  CHAPTER 8

  Three pairs of eyes focused on the tall, straight-backed Asian man hurrying across the

  street, tapping along with his diamond-tipped walking stick.

  Alistair Oh, their Korean cousin, yet another competitor in the contest.

  "So much for us being ahead of the other teams," Dan observed.

  "He's probably not here for the clear mountain air," Nell
ie agreed.

  They watched as Uncle Alistair loped across the street and boarded a bus parked at the

  opposite curb.

  "Follow him," Amy said suddenly. "Let's see where he's going."

  Nellie made a highly illegal right turn from the left lane and fell into line behind the bus.

  She waved gaily at the Salzburg drivers who were cursing and honking.

  "You know," mused Dan, "if we want to find out where he's going, why can't we just

  ask the guy? Don't we still have an alliance with him from Paris?"

  "Remember what Mr. McIntyre said," Amy countered. "Trust no one." "Maybe so. But Uncle Alistair sure saved our butts in the Catacombs." Amy was unimpressed. "Only because he had to help us to stop the Kabras. If there's one thing we ought to know by now, it's that Cahills have been fighting each other for centuries. He'd do anything to distract us from the thirty-nine clues."

  They followed the bus as it rattled over the Staatsbrucke -- the bridge at the center of

  town. Passengers got on, but no one got off. The streets were crowded with cars and

  taxis, and throngs of sightseers were everywhere. A high school group stepped out in

  front of the Fiat, and the bus roared around a corner and out of view.

  "Don't lose them," Dan said urgently.

  At last, the road cleared, and the Fiat lurched off, Nellie shifting awkwardly. They jounced down a few narrow streets, but there was no sign of the bus. Amy pointed. "There!"

  The bus had left the grid of downtown streets and was roaring around the side of a hill. In a screech of gears, they set off in pursuit, picking up speed as the Fiat rounded the bend. They were so focused on the chase that they raced right past the stopped bus, which was disgorging passengers at an ancient stone gate.

  Amy peered at the collection of very old buildings topped with steeples and crosses. "A church?"

  Dan looked miserable. "Like Mozart wasn't boring enough."

  "The last church we were in wasn't boring," Amy reminded him. "We both nearly got

  killed."

  Nellie made a U-turn and pulled up a discreet distance behind the bus. "St. Peter's Archabbey," she translated, squinting at the wrought-iron sign. They could see Alistair's tall figure starting up the sloped path through the gate. Nellie frowned. "Do you think your clue could be in there?"