by Laura Ruby
“Not as weird as you think.”
CHAPTER TEN
Theo
Brooklyn was only a half hour away, but it might as well have been another country. The streets around the place were packed with tattooed girls in denim shorts over tights, and boys who dressed like farmers from 1825. Beards were long and lush, mustaches wide and waxed.
A skinny brown guy in striped pants and roller skates twirled around Theo twice. “Dope ’fro,” he said, then skated off into the crowd.
The 2nd City Reliquary itself was a storefront in the neighborhood of Williamsburg, a tiny place packed with all sorts of odds and ends. Old Underway tokens, soda bottles, maps, posters, baseball cards, miniature Liberty Statues, a display of porcelain unicorns, and a very old shovel labeled VERY OLD SHOVEL.
“This is a museum?” said Jaime. “Kind of looks like my great-aunt Sylvia’s house.”
A man stepped out from behind the counter. He had long curly hair that matched a bushy curly beard. He wore a SpongeBob SquarePants T-shirt and shiny running pants with flip-flops.
“Welcome to the Reliquary, my dudes and Ms. Dude. You looking for something in particular?”
“Just visiting,” Tess said.
“We like visitors who are just visiting. Especially cat visitors who are just visiting,” the man said, when Nine sniffed at his feet and then nudged his knee with her nose. “Hey there, cat friend.”
“She must like you,” Jaime said.
“Thus, I am truly blessed,” the man said. “So let me point out some stuff to you and your kitty, here. We’ve got lots of cool stuff. Some Liberty Statues over there. Baseball cards back there. Old Underway maps. Some different pieces of rock and schist from all around the city, some of them we think date back to the time when the Underway was first excavated. Ridiculous, right?” He was grinning, so Theo assumed he meant ridiculous as in “awesome” as opposed to ridiculous as in “ridiculous,” because what was ridiculous about schist?
“Ridiculous,” said Theo.
“Obvi,” the man said. “Oh, and the Community Collection on display is an array of animal bones.”
Tess’s head snapped up. Nine stopped sniffing.
The clerk held up both hands. “No animals were harmed to make the collection! All the bones were found on hiking trails and in barns and parks and attics and the like. City bones, the bones of history! You should check it out for yourselves, young ones.”
“Why would you want to display a bunch of mouse bones?” Tess said.
“Maybe because there’s beauty even in things we associate with endings,” the man said, “Or maybe the point of the collection is that there is no end, not to us, not to anything. Anyway, feel free to take a look around.” The clerk went back behind the counter and starting flipping through a comic book.
Before Tess could ask all the questions clearly piling up in her head, Theo and Jaime steered her toward the VERY OLD SHOVEL.
“We don’t have time for you to ask the four thousand questions you want to ask,” Theo said before Tess could open her mouth. “We have to find the puzzle and figure out the next clue.”
“Let’s split up,” Jaime suggested. “This place isn’t that big but we can cover it quicker that way.”
So they did. Tess and Nine went to explore the back of the museum, Jaime stayed in front by the door, and Theo wandered the maze of shelves and display cases in the middle. It didn’t take long for Theo to find what he was looking for. On a rickety metal shelf in the center of the Reliquary sat the puzzle in Ada’s drawing. A dirty, tarnished thing. The tag on it said VERY OLD PUZZLE.
Theo glanced around, but no one was watching. He picked up the puzzle. At one point, the puzzle must have had different-colored stones set into the smaller cubes, but many of the stones were missing now. If their challenge was to solve the puzzle, how would that even work? Do they collect all stones of the same color on a side like a Rubik’s cube? Form some sort of other pattern? That would be difficult. Maybe impossible. It could take days, weeks, months. They might never work it out.
And then another thing occurred to him, knotting up his gut: He couldn’t take months or weeks or even days standing in this museum, trying to solve this puzzle.
He would have to steal it.
With one hand, he yanked at his own bushy hair, trying to pull himself back to himself. His mother was a detective. A burglary detective. He couldn’t steal this puzzle.
He had to steal this puzzle.
How was he going to steal this puzzle?
How was he going to steal anything?
What if this wasn’t the only thing they had to steal?
He thought about the relics and the artifacts in the other museums, not just in New York City, but around the world. So many of those artifacts were stolen, too—from graves, from houses of worship. Did it matter that this was just a lost and damaged old puzzle? Did it matter that someone had already stolen it long ago? Did it matter that, now, they were trying to do something good?
He felt the way he imagined Tess felt all the time, mind spinning with question after question, enough questions to make a person sick. And sure enough, as if she were able to sense his spinning mind, Nine came charging around the corner, dragging Tess behind her.
Nine nibbled at his fingers. Tess whispered, “You found it.”
“Yeah,” he said.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s damaged. It will be hard to solve.”
“Not impossible, though,” she said.
“Maybe impossible.”
“Not.”
“Even if we can solve it, it will take forever.”
Tess thought a moment. “We’re going to have to borrow it.”
“You mean steal it.”
“No, I mean borrow it. We’ll take it home, solve it, figure out the next clue, and then bring it back.”
“But what if they figure out it’s missing? What if they have a camera in here and they’re taping us right now?”
“I don’t see a camera in here,” Tess said.
“Hidden cameras,” Theo said.
“This doesn’t look like the kind of place where they have hidden cameras.”
“I don’t want to steal stuff,” Theo said. “It’s not right.”
“I know,” said Tess. “But we won’t keep it. We’ll return it.”
“What if we have to keep it? What if—”
“Hey, I thought I was the one with all the questions.”
“I guess not,” Theo said, tugging on his lip.
“You’re doing that lip thing again,” Tess said.
Theo let go just as Jaime appeared. Nine rubbed against Jaime’s knees.
“How are you at diversions?” Theo asked Jaime.
“I could pretend to have a tantrum in the middle of the store,” Jaime said. “I could keep yelling for the manager.”
Tess laughed. “Subtle.”
“The guy at the counter was reading a comic book. I’m sure I can distract him for a while.” Jaime’s big brown eyes narrowed. “You guys are not going to get yourselves arrested, are you?”
“Obvi,” Tess said.
Jaime went to the front counter and said, “Hey. Is that Batman number ninety-two?”
“Yeah,” said the counterman. “An oldie but a goodie.”
“I have that one! Has Ace the Bat-Hound, right?”
While Jaime and the counterman talked about Batmen and Bat-Hounds, Tess pretended to examine the exhibits all around the puzzle. Theo stood behind her, blocking her from view so that she could slip the puzzle into her bag. When Theo glanced at the front of the store, Jaime and the counterman were still communing happily over comics.
“Did you hear about Len Wein?”
“Tragedy,” said the man, shaking his head.
“He helped create Storm,” Jaime said.
“Wolverine, too.”
“He’s cool but Storm is cooler.”
“Cooler, I get it,” the man said.
Theo tugged at his lip as Tess shifted around some of the exhibits on the shelf so that it wouldn’t appear as if anything was missing.
“Done,” whispered Tess.
His nerves balled up in his stomach like bad takeout. “The Cipher was a lot more fun when we didn’t have to solve it.”
Jaime’s nerves must have gotten to him, too, because he ended his conversation and walked back to where Tess and Theo were whispering. “We ready?”
“As we’re ever going to be,” said Theo.
“Mrrow,” chirped Nine.
On their way out, they thanked the man for his help.
“No problem, young ones,” he said. “Come back anytime!”
They slipped out the door, all of them breathing a sigh of relief when they weren’t followed. They had just reached end of the street when a woman whipped around the corner and slammed right into Tess. Before Tess could say anything, the woman started to scream.
“It bit me!” she shrieked. “Help!”
“What?” said Tess. “She didn’t—” And then she took a step back—they all did—because the woman looked so familiar. She had icy-blond hair and wore a red dress and matching shoes.
The woman held up her arm, which was suddenly dripping with blood. “Look at this!”
Tess’s face went pale. “My cat didn’t do that. She didn’t touch you!”
“That is no cat!”
“Of course she’s a cat.”
“That is some kind of monster! Oh my Lord, that’s a machine, isn’t it?” the woman yelled.
“No!” said Tess.
“It is! It’s a machine!” the woman wailed. “Some kind of malfunctioning machine! Help! Won’t someone help me?” But she didn’t look scared, and she didn’t back up. Her dark eyes gleamed with something that appeared to Theo to be . . . amusement?
She was enjoying this, whoever she was.
People in the street stopped to stare. Jaime grabbed Tess’s arm, and Theo grabbed the other.
“Put your heads down,” Jaime muttered. “Don’t run.”
“But—” Tess began, but Jaime cut her off.
“Walk to the train. Pretend you can’t hear her, that she isn’t talking about you at all.”
They walked, behind them a rising torrent of murmurs along with the shrieking of the woman. One man’s voice rumbled, “Is that blood?”
Once they hit the stairs to the Underway, they walked faster, hopping the nearest train. They sat in a row, stiff and nervous, Tess muttering, “Nine didn’t even get near that woman. She bumped into me. And why would she say Nine is a machine? Why would she lie like that?”
Nine nudged her fingers, and Tess buried her face in the cat’s fur. Theo studied the passengers one by one. None of them seemed to be watching them; all of them seemed to be watching them.
“We’re okay,” Jaime said.
“I want to know who that woman is,” Theo said, keeping his voice low. “She must be following us.”
Jaime shook his head. “It was a different woman. The one at the library was taller and had light eyes. This one was shorter and had brown eyes.”
“There are two of them?” said Tess. “A team? But whose team?”
“I don’t know,” Jaime said grimly. He pulled out his sketchbook and quickly drew the woman holding up her arm and shrieking while a cold glee made her eyes glint.
Theo shivered at the drawing. “That’s almost too good.”
They were quiet the rest of the ride to Aunt Esther’s house, as if they were afraid that any more talking would somehow summon another person shrieking like a banshee. When they finally made it through Aunt Esther’s front door, Tess closed it and leaned upon it.
“Whew,” she said. “That was really close.”
Jaime said, “We need to lie low for a while.”
“The cube will keep us busy enough,” Theo said.
Aunt Esther appeared in the doorway to the kitchen. “What will keep you busy enough?”
“Helping you with dinner, Ms. Esther,” said Jaime.
Aunt Esther beamed. “You are always such a gentleman, Mr. Jaime. I was thinking of putting together a lasagna.”
“That’s convenient, because I love lasagna,” Jaime said.
“Then you’ll have to stay and eat with us. Why don’t you call your grandmother and ask her.”
Theo wondered what it must be like, to have a gift for people, to say the kinds of things they wanted to hear without ever sounding fake, because you didn’t need to fake things. Theo didn’t fake things, either, but people didn’t always seem to like him for it. Most of the time he didn’t mind, but once in a while, he did.
But he was grateful to Jaime for distracting the counterman from their thievery, distracting Aunt Esther from their conversation, and distracting Tess from her run-in with the banshee. They spent the next two hours in the kitchen with Aunt Esther, helping to chop onions and tomatoes, boiling noodles, layering a giant lasagna into a giant pan. Nine helped by eating the cheese that they accidentally dropped to the floor. And after they had put the lasagna into the oven, Lance helped by serving everyone cookies and milk in the living room. (“Dessert first,” Aunt Esther said. “Dessert always,” said Tess.)
They were in such a good mood, the weirdness of the day pushed to the backs of their minds, that Theo was unprepared for the sudden appearance of his mother, who was supposed to be home much later. When she came into the living room, she didn’t smile, she didn’t say hello, she didn’t comment on the cookie crumbs or the scent of tomato sauce in the air. She put her hands in her pockets and said, “Who wants to tell me what happened today?”
Immediately, Theo thought of the puzzle, how they had stolen it. He opened his mouth, but couldn’t think of a thing.
“You have something you want to say, Theo?”
“I—” he began. But then didn’t know how to finish. Even Jaime seemed at a loss for words, his usual grace erased at the sight of Mrs. Biedermann’s stern expression.
Mrs. Biedermann pulled out her own phone, punched a few buttons. Then she turned it around so they could see. “Maybe this video will jog your memories? It’s all over the internet.”
On the phone they saw the woman shrieking, waving around her bloody arm. And they saw themselves, all four of them, Nine seeming larger than ever.
Tess leaned forward, “Mom, that woman bumped into me. Nine never touched her. She wouldn’t bite anyone like that. The woman was lying.”
Their mother sighed, put the phone back in her pocket. “Why would she lie?”
“I don’t know!” Tess said.
There was a sharp rap on the door. Mrs. Biedermann yelled, “Come in,” and a pale, doughy man stepped inside.
“My new partner, Detective Clarkson,” Mrs. Biedermann said, gesturing at the man.
Tess stared. They all did. Because the pale, doughy man was one of the officers who had discovered the three of them climbing down from an abandoned Underway track last month, a man who knew who Tess and Theo’s mother was but agreed not to tell her so they wouldn’t get in trouble (and so he wouldn’t have to do extra paperwork).
If he remembered them now, and Theo was sure he did, he didn’t show it. Clarkson simply nodded, his face as grave as Mrs. Biedermann’s.
“They’re here, Detective,” he said.
“Who’s here?” said Tess,
“Listen, sweetheart,” said Mrs. Biedermann. “I believe you. I do. But the woman in the video filed charges.”
“Nine didn’t do anything, Mom,” Theo said.
Jaime agreed. “She didn’t, Mrs. Biedermann. Really.”
“Be that as it may, I have to take Nine.” When Tess’s jaw dropped open in shock, she said, “Just for a little while, just until we get this straightened out.”
“No!” Tess said, grabbing Nine around the neck, hugging her. “No! It’s not fair. That woman was lying!”
“What were you doing in Brooklyn?” their mother asked.
“What does that matter?” Theo said, his tone sharper than he’d intended. His mother just stared at him, and so did Clarkson. “We were at a museum. That woman bumped into Tess. We didn’t do anything. Nine didn’t do anything. She faked that bite. I don’t know why, but she did.”
At this, Clarkson’s face softened. “I talked to that woman and her story was full of applesauce.” His eyes cut to Theo’s mom and he added, “In my opinion.”
“I know. But because you’re my kids, and because I got you that license for Nine, I can’t show any favoritism. I have to go by the book.”
Aunt Esther, who had been quiet during this whole exchange, said, “Whose book, Miriam?”
“You know what I mean.”
“I’m not sure I do,” said Aunt Esther. “You know that Nine wouldn’t hurt a fly. And the children told you what they were doing. That woman must have some sort of agenda. Perhaps she’s trying to get to you.”
“Why would this woman want to get to me?”
“I don’t know, Miriam. You should ask her about that.”
“I will,” Theo’s mom said. “And the sooner I figure it out, the sooner we’ll get Nine back. But right now, the city pound is going to have to take her. They’re here right now.”
At this, Tess started to cry. Next to Theo, Jaime squeezed the couch cushions so hard his knuckles went white. Theo’s whole body itched, as if his skin were coming loose.
His mother crouched in front of Tess. “It’s going to be okay. I’ve talked to the guys at the pound; they’ll look after her, they’ll make sure she’s cared for.”
“I can’t,” said Tess, “I can’t.” Maybe she meant she couldn’t bear to see Nine go or she couldn’t live without Nine even for a little while or she couldn’t stand something so unfair or all of it.
But his mom took hold of Nine’s harness, setting her mouth at the sound of Tess’s cries. Nine hunched, trying and failing to make herself smaller. She emitted a confused “Mrrow?”
Aunt Esther stood. “Don’t do this, Miriam.”
“I have to,” said Theo’s mom. But she didn’t meet anyone’s eyes as she led Nine from the living room and out the door.
Clarkson lingered one moment more. “I know this whole thing seems corn nuts, but your mom is really smart. She’s going to figure out what the butterscotch that woman is about, and get your kitty back banana split, don’t you worry.”
