The Journal of Curious Letters Page 19

  “The magic words.”

  Tick nodded. “The magic words. At this rate, Paul will be the only one of the three of us who gets to . . . do whatever it is that’s gonna happen.”

  His dad scratched his chin, doing his best Sherlock Holmes impression. “Son, it can’t be that hard. I mean, all the other clues have been challenging and fun, but not really hard, you know what I mean?”

  “Maybe this is Master George’s last way of weeding out those who aren’t willing to stick with it. Maybe I’m one of those last schmoes who ends up losing. The seventh clue said most people would fail.”

  “Listen to me,” his dad said, unusually serious. “I don’t care what happens, and I don’t care who this Master George fancy lad from England is. You’re not a schmoe, and you never will be. You hear me?”

  “Yeah, but . . .” Tick’s eyes suddenly teared up and his heart seemed to swell and grow warm, like his veins had brought in steaming hot soup instead of the usual blood. It hit him then that he was worried—no, scared—that he wasn’t going to solve the riddle of the magic words. He’d analyzed the first letter from M.G. more times than he could count, and nothing had come to him.

  His dad got up and knelt next to his son, pulling him into his arms. “I love you, kid. You mean more to me than you can ever know, and that’s all that matters to me.”

  “Dad, no offense, but . . . I mean, I really appreciate all your help.” He pulled back from the hug and looked at his dad. “I want this so bad. I know it sounds dumb, but I want this. I’ve never really done anything important before, and Master George said I might be able to save peoples’ lives.”

  “Then by golly we’ll figure it out, okay? Give me that jour—”

  His words cut off when a thunderclap of broken glass shattered the silence, followed by the tinkle of falling shards and a loud thump on the floor. Dad fell onto his back with a yelp and Tick’s hand went to his chest, clutching his shirt like an old woman shocked by the spectacle of kids skateboarding in a church parking lot.

  Someone had wrapped a note around a rock and then thrown it through the window.

  While his dad went for the rock, Tick ran to the window to see if he could get a look at who had thrown it. He just caught a glimpse of a figure leaving the front yard and disappearing into the thicker trees of the neighboring woods.

  A very short, very fat, figure.

  ~

  Snickering, Rutger waddled along on his short legs through the dark trees and back to the main road. The thrill of throwing the rock had been a great boon to his spirits, and he had enjoyed every second of it. Now he just had to get away before Tick caught him.

  As he thought about it more while escaping, he realized that breaking one of the Higginbottoms’ windows maybe hadn’t been the smartest thing to do, or the nicest. But it sure was funny.

  He crossed the road and entered the forest on the other side, trying to remember the best way back to the old abandoned graveyard. He could’ve stuck to the road for a while longer, but he was worried he’d be caught. As he paused behind an enormous bush—it had to be big to hide him—he heard Tick’s voice from a distance.

  “Did you really have to break my window, Rutger!” the kid yelled.

  Rutger laughed, then set off again, feeling his way in the darkness.

  ~

  Tick and his dad walked up and down the road a few times, trying to spot the eccentric little man, but he was nowhere in sight, the darkness too deep. A slight breeze picked up, making Tick shiver.

  “I can’t believe he broke my window,” he said, but then he laughed.

  “You think it’s funny, huh?” Dad said.

  “Actually . . . yeah. That guy’s crazy.”

  “Well, young man,” Dad said in his best attempt at a stern voice, “maybe you won’t laugh so much when I tell you it’s coming out of your allowance. Come on, let’s go see what the note said.”

  ~

  Tick picked up the rock, which was about the size of his fist, and carefully pulled the pieces of tape off the white cardstock that had been wrapped around the hard, cold surface. When he finally got it off safe and sound, he turned it over to see that it was the next clue—number eleven—from Master George.

  “Read it, read it,” his dad urged.

  Tick read it out loud as he devoured each word with his eyes.

  Given that the day is almost here, I will issue a final warning. If you succeed in this current endeavor, your life will be forever altered, becoming dangerous and frightful. If you do not, very bad things will happen to people you may never meet or know. The choice to continue is yours.

  “Dang it,” Tick said.

  “What?”

  “I was hoping he’d give us another hint on how to come up with the magic words. This isn’t a clue.” Tick waved the paper in the air, then dropped it on the desk next to his journal. “It’s just a warning. No different from the stuff he said in the very first letter.”

  “But remember,” his dad pointed out, “he said everything you receive is a clue.”

  “Yeah, well right now I’m kind of sick of it.” Tick flopped onto his bed and rolled over toward the wall.

  After a long pause, his dad spoke quietly. “Sleep on it, Professor. You’ll feel better in the morning, I promise.”

  The floor creaked as his dad walked toward the hallway; then the light went off and he heard the soft thump of his dad gently closing the door.

  Despite the tornado of thoughts churning inside his mind, Tick fell asleep.

  ~

  Tick knows he’s dreaming, but it’s still creepy.

  He’s in the forest, moonlight breaking the darkness just enough to make the trees look like twisted old trolls, their limbs reaching out to grab him, choke him.

  Leaves and snow swirl around his body like fairies on too much pixie dust. A huge tree looms at his back. Tick watches the leaves spinning in the air, mesmerized.

  He jumps to catch one, and some unseen force holds him in the air . . .

  And then the leaves turn into letters.

  One by one the letters pass in front of Tick, glowing briefly, teasing him with their riddles, reminding him that he can’t solve the biggest one of all. The first letter.

  The first letter.

  The first letter . . .

  Chapter

  33

  ~

  The Final Clue

  The last yellow envelope from Master George came on the third of May, only three days before the Big Day. Tick came home from school on a warm and rainy afternoon to find it on his pillow, addressed to him and postmarked from Brisbane, Spain.

  Until then, he’d been in a foul mood, with good reason.

  Two days earlier, Sofia had announced she was pretty sure she’d solved the riddle of the magic words. Positive, in fact. Tick knew he should be happy for her, but instead felt jealous and angry. Especially since he knew she couldn’t tell him; in his mind it was like Paul and Sofia had this secret about Tick and kept giggling about it behind his back.

  With each passing day May sixth grew closer and closer and Tick became more dejected, moping around like an old man searching for his lost soul in an Edgar Allan Poe story. He just didn’t get it—he was smart. He’d always thought he was way smarter than anyone his own age, and many who were older. Yet for some reason he couldn’t figure out those stupid magic words! Paul and Sofia did it, why couldn’t he?

  As Tick opened the last letter, hoping against hope it somehow held the final link to the magic words, he thought again about how odd it was that Master George traveled around the world to mail his messages. And how Mothball and Rutger got around the world so quickly. It had to be something magical, and Tick sure hoped he’d find out all about it in three days.

  He pulled out the white cardstock. The last clue. Scared to death he’d finish it and be no better off than before, he almost reluctantly read its words:

  Everything you need to determine the magic words is in the first letter.
Quit struggling so much and read them, won’t you? Listen to the words of Master George—they’ve been there all along! This is the last clue. I shall never see or speak to you again. Unless I do. Good-bye, and may the Realities have mercy on you.

  Tick slumped down on his bed, groaning out loud. It seemed like the last few clues had been a complete . . .

  Wait a minute.

  He sat back up and put the paper in his lap, reading through the clue again. Had Master George made a mistake while typing it? The second sentence made no sense.

  Quit struggling so much and read them, won’t you?

  Read them? Why would he say them when referring to the first letter he’d sent out? There’d been only one piece of paper in that original envelope, so why would he use the plural word them when telling Tick to read it? The first letter . . .

  Tick stopped. He felt like the Earth had stopped spinning and the air had frozen around him in an invisible block of ice; his mind and spirit seemed to step out of his body and turn around to look at him, not believing he could’ve missed something so obvious.

  The first letter.

  He grabbed his journal, ripping it open to find the clue that had first revealed he needed to discover magic words to say on May sixth. It had been the second clue, telling him that at the appointed time, he would need to say the words with his eyes closed. Master George couldn’t tell him what the words were, but the last sentence told him how he could figure it out himself:

  Examine the first letter carefully and you will work them out.

  Old M.G. had been purposefully tricky with his language to throw his readers off the trail. When Tick read that clue the first time, his mind had immediately interpreted it as referring to the very first letter he’d received in the mail from Master George. And once that had been set in his mind, he’d never even considered the possibility of a different meaning. But what the mysterious man really meant was something entirely different.

  The first letter.

  Not the first envelope. Not the first paper. Not the first message.

  The first letter.

  M.G. meant that Tick needed to literally examine the first letter of something. And only one possibility made sense. Even though some of the Twelve Clues had not seemed like clues at all, Master George had been very clear.

  Everything is a clue.

  His blood racing through his veins like he’d just done windsprints, setting his heart into a thumpity-thump that he could feel and hear in his ears, Tick went through his Journal of Curious Letters page by page, clue by clue. He kept a finger on the last page of the dusty old book, flipping back there after seeing each of the twelve riddles in turn, jotting down a letter then going back again.

  One by one, Tick wrote down the first letter of each clue, twelve letters in all. When he finished, he sat back and stared at the result, wanting to laugh and cry and scream at the same time.

  M A S T E R G E O R G E

  Chapter

  34

  ~

  The Miracle of Screaming

  Tick took his journal downstairs with him, eager to e-mail Sofia and Paul and let them know he’d finally—finally—figured it out. He placed his precious book on the desk and quickly logged in and sent off the messages, his excitement building by the second. He couldn’t wait until his dad got home from work so he could tell him, too.

  It’s all in place now, he thought. Just three days and it’s really going to happen!

  Of course, he didn’t know what “it” was, but that was beside the point.

  Tick stood up from the computer desk and stretched, suddenly happier than he’d been in weeks. He felt stupid for all the jealous feelings he’d had toward his new friends and the whole thing in general; he’d acted like a little baby, at least within his own mind.

  But that was all in the past, now. Three days.

  So bottled up with energy he could hardly stand it, he decided to run over to the library and hang out like he didn’t have a care in the world. Maybe he’d check out a book and read it as a reward. He’d probably have just enough time to finish it before the Big Day came. He told his mom he’d be back in time for dinner and headed out the door.

  Halfway to the library, the sun finally breaking through the storm clouds that had hung over the world all day, he realized he’d left his journal sitting on the computer desk back home and wondered if he should go back and put it away. No, I won’t be gone that long. As he ran on, he hoped he didn’t look as ridiculously happy as he felt.

  ~

  Kayla noticed the ugly old book sitting on the computer desk, wondering where it had come from. It looked like something from her favorite Disney cartoon. Maybe it was a book of pirate treasure maps! She was a very young girl, but she knew one thing for certain.

  Pirate treasure maps equal fun.

  She looked around to make sure no one was around, then grabbed the book from the desk, pulling it down onto her lap as she sat on the floor. Words were written in a little box in the center of the cover, but she recognized the first one right away.

  Tick.

  Uh-oh, she thought. He doesn’t like me to mess with his things.

  Well, just a peek couldn’t hurt, could it?

  She opened the book up and flipped through the pages, seeing lots of pieces of paper that had been glued to the ones already there. No pirate maps though. Maybe this was an art project her brother had been putting together as a surprise for her, though it wasn’t very pretty. All it had were a bunch of words that looked funny.

  Kayla quickly grew bored, sad the book didn’t have anything to do with pirates. She was flipping through it one last time when one of the pieces of paper slipped into the air like it had been shot out of a cannon and dropped to the floor in front of her. She picked it up and saw that this one had more words than any of the others—a lot more.

  The glue must’ve cracked, letting the boring old paper escape.

  Well, Kayla thought, now I’m in a pickle. Her mom wouldn’t let her use glue without a grown-up around and if she asked for help, her mom might be mad that she’d broken Tick’s book. Plus, she couldn’t remember exactly where the piece of paper had been inside the book.

  Maybe, just maybe, Tick wouldn’t notice it was missing since so many other papers were glued throughout. And if she just stuck it somewhere or threw it away, he might find it and then he’d know for sure she’d been messing with his stuff.

  Kayla put the book back on the desk, then clutched the loose paper in her hands. With devious eyes, she looked over at the fireplace, focusing on the little knob that started up the gas and flame.

  It’d been awhile since she’d had fun with fire . . .

  ~

  Tick walked down the road of his neighborhood, holding the nice, thick book he’d checked out at the library. The sun slowly fell toward the horizon, the first glowing fingers of twilight creeping through the trees. Tomorrow was Saturday and after months and months of thinking and solving and worrying and running, he couldn’t wait to spend a couple of days relaxing.

  On instinct, he checked the mailbox when he got to his house, even though he already knew his mom had gotten it earlier—hence the twelfth clue. Tick couldn’t help but hope absolutely nothing else happened until Monday night, the Big Day. He needed a break from all the stress.

  Easy to say when you have it all figured out, he thought. He’d sure not enjoyed the three-month-long “break” he’d had after Christmas.

  He walked down the driveway toward his front door.

  ~

  Kayla knew she didn’t have much time. The warm fire licked the air with an almost silent whooshing sound, reminding her of how much she loved watching things burn. Now that it was mostly warm outside, they never had the flames going, and if her mom walked in, there’d be a certain favorite doll that would get locked away for a whole week. She needed to hurry.

  She threw the stupid piece of paper into the flames.

  A wave of ugly black stuff, rimmed wi
th a fiery line of glowing orange, traveled across the paper from both of the short sides as the whole thing slowly curled up into a ball. A little line of smoke escaped into the room, and in a few seconds, all that remained was a crispy sheet of ash.

  “Kayla, what are you doing!”

  She jumped at her brother’s voice, letting out a little shriek as she turned around to see him standing right behind her. Without meaning to, her eyes immediately looked over at the book sitting on the computer desk.

  Tick followed her gaze, then practically leaped over to grab the book. He flipped it open, his eyes showing he already knew what had happened. His face reddened, his hands began to shake. He almost dropped the book. Then a tear fell out of his right eye. Kayla didn’t understand; why would such a dumb old—

  Tick’s shout, full of rage, cut off her thoughts. “Bad girl, Kayla! You’re a very bad, bad, naughty, stupid, naughty girl!” Then he ran out of the room and out the front door, slamming it closed behind him.

  Kayla bawled.

  ~

  Tick ran.

  Clutching the journal in both arms, he didn’t know where he was going, or how long it would last, but all he could do was run, his loosened scarf flapping in the wind. His heart wanted to explode out of his chest, panic and anger and disappointment crushing his feelings like someone had injected a full-sized elephant into his bloodstream. It hurt, and tears flowed down his face as he pounded the pavement with his clumsy feet. He fell twice, only to get up and keep running.

  How could Kayla have done something so stupid! Everything had just fallen into place, everything was perfect. But now the message had been sent. Tick didn’t know how, but he knew it had been sent.

  Burn the letter, stop the madness.

  Tick had been cut off. Even though he’d figured out all the clues, and was ready to perform the silly ritual in three days—he’d been cut off. Somehow Master George would know the first letter had been burned, which meant he’d think Tick had given up and was out of the game.