Cragbridge Hall, Book One: The Inventor's Secret (13 page)

After several minutes, another conductor entered the car and moved up the aisle. Abby’s heart skipped.

“Papers and ticket,” the man said. Apparently, this would be a more thorough check. These train conductors did not take chances.

Abby’s heart pounded just watching the incident. The passenger closest to the conductor quickly produced his ticket and papers. The next passenger had them out before the man asked for them. Everyone seemed eager to prove their freedom. As the conductor moved along, he scowled and asked to see scars or birthmarks, checking each passenger against his or her description.

When the conductor approached, Frederick did not produce his papers right away like the others had. He sat calmly. Abby wondered if she could ever act so calm under pressure. She saw something change in the conductor. His brow straightened, and he spoke coolly. Maybe the sailor uniform made the difference.

“I suppose you have your free papers,” the man said.

“No, sir,” Frederick responded.

What? Of
course
he had papers. Abby had seen them a few minutes ago. Frederick continued, “I never carry my free papers to sea with me.”

The man said, “But you have something to show that you are a freeman, haven’t you?” His voice sounded less condemning than when he’d asked the others.

“Yes, sir,” Frederick answered. “I have a paper with the American eagle on it, and it will carry me around the world.” Frederick reached inside his pocket and produced his paper.

The man glanced at the paper and then moved on.

Abby exhaled. She hadn’t realized she’d been holding her breath.

“He’s good,” Derick said. “Cool under pressure.”

“Yeah,” Abby said, as she watched him situate himself again so the other man on the train couldn’t recognize him.

Derick fast-forwarded the scene, making sure Douglass traveled safely.

“But I don’t get it,” Abby admitted. “That was amazing, and I’m glad he became free, but I didn’t see any signs or clues to Grandpa’s secret.”

“Me, neither,” Derick admitted.

13

To the Office

I’d suggest we watch it again, but after as many times as we’ve seen it, I don’t think it would do any good,” Derick said, motioning to the image of Frederick Douglass riding a train to freedom.

“I know. We’ve watched it so many times, I think I almost have it memorized,” Abby said. “We’re not on the right track.”

“Are you trying to make a train joke?” Derick asked.

“No. You know what I meant.” Suddenly an image appeared in Abby’s contact lens.
Abby Cragbridge, please report to the front office. Thank you.

“Huh,” Abby said. “I just got called to the office.”

“Me, too,” Derick said. “It’s probably about missing class today.”

The two of them followed their guidance systems to the office. As soon as they stepped inside, they knew it was about something more than their missing class. The first thing they saw wasn’t the secretaries busily typing and speaking on their syncs. It wasn’t the student aides, filing digital documents and entering some sort of reminder on the bulletin screen—something about the lunch menu switching.

Instead, they saw police officers, who stood as Derick and Abby came in. One was a husky woman dressed in a navy blue uniform, hair pulled back into a tight ponytail. The other, a thin, but athletically built man, his hair buzzed short.

“Are you Abby and Derick Cragbridge?” the female officer asked. Her voice was smooth and professional. She logged onto her rings and flicked her fingers. Abby guessed she was recording their conversation.

“Yes,” Derick said. Abby nodded.

“Please come with us,” she said, and pointed toward a door along the back wall of the office. She led the way, the twins walking behind. The man with the buzz followed. When they were all inside, he closed the door.

“We have a few questions to ask you,” the man with the short hair said. Abby mentally nicknamed him Buzz.

“Have you found our grandpa and parents?” Abby asked.

The police officers looked at each other for a moment. “Where were you at 12:30 today?” the woman asked.

“We were either here, or we were at my grandfather’s house,” Derick said. “I didn’t look at the clock. Why?”

The woman typed something—maybe making a few notes. “And what were you doing at your grandfather’s house?”

“We were looking for him,” Abby responded.

“Why did you think that he was missing?” Buzz asked.

“We already told you all of this,” Derick said. “Well, not you, but some other police officers.”

The man and woman glanced at each other again. “And how did you meet up with these other officers?” the woman asked.

“I synced up with BPD,” Abby said, “and they met us at the house.”

Buzz took a step closer. “Can I sync up with you and see your log?”

“Sure,” Abby said, turning on her rings. In a moment, she checked the list of her previous syncs with the officers watching. “Here it is,” she said, highlighting an entry.

“The time matches up,” Buzz said, reading the log from the side. “Sync up with the BPD again, would you?”

Abby obeyed, and a moment later, viewed a man with short, spiky hair. “BPD,” the man said. “How can I help you?”

“Hello, Dave,” Buzz said. “We’re just asking someone here a quick question.” He turned to Abby. “Was this the man who you spoke to?”

“No,” Abby said. “It was a woman.”

The husky woman officer made a few additional notes with her fingers. “Would you describe her and the other officers you met at your grandfather’s house?” she asked.

“No offense,” Derick said, “But these seem to be really weird questions. Shouldn’t we be focusing on our missing parents and grandpa?”

Buzz lifted a hand. “We’ll need to know all about that in a moment, but first please describe these people you spoke with at your grandfather’s house.”

“I don’t understand,” Abby said.

The woman exhaled slowly. “They weren’t police officers. Whoever they were, they put up an elaborate façade to fool you. We didn’t hear from you at all. Our guess is that someone intercepted the call because they were expecting it. They must have some pretty state-of-the-art gear to do that. We didn’t hear about your grandfather’s disappearance until a neighbor called it in. They just wanted to know why the police—who apparently weren’t police—had been there.”

Abby’s mind was swimming. Who had she spoken to?

Buzz stepped in. “We’ve studied the public satellite footage of your grandfather’s house, and we were able to identify you, but not the officers. They were all very good at keeping their heads covered and never looking up.”

“Then who was the big guy with thick eyebrows and a flat nose that took my locket?” Abby asked. “He wore the same kind of uniform as the rest. He promised they’d find my family. He said they’d keep the whole thing quiet, and I wasn’t going to hear about it on the news. Who were they?”

“That is a very good question,” Buzz said.

“And you’re definitely going to hear about this on the news,” the woman added.

14

The Armoire

I can’t believe this!” Derick said, walking slowly down the hall to nowhere in particular. “This thing just keeps getting bigger and bigger. Grandpa’s secret has to be a pretty big deal if someone has kidnapped him and our parents, and pretended to be police officers.”

“They wanted our lockets,” Abby said, following her brother. “And I gave mine to them.” She knew she had made a mistake.

Derick didn’t speak for a moment. “It’s over now,” he finally said. “With the info we just gave the police, they’ll nail them.”

Abby wanted to believe him. She wanted to think that all they’d have to do was hold tight and everything would work out, but something inside her knew it wasn’t true.

“No,” she said. “We can’t depend on them at all. Remember how Grandpa said that no police or government was going to solve this? We have to do it. Now that they have my locket, I think we need to move faster. They’ll be trying to find the secret too.”

“It’s like a race,” Derick said.

“And if Grandpa’s right, the stakes are pretty high.”

“But we have no idea what to do next.”

Abby logged onto her rings and began a search.

“What are you looking for?” Derick asked.

“I’m not sure, but I thought it wouldn’t hurt to look for references about Frederick Douglass and freedom.” She searched the results for a minute. “But there are tons of hits. He wrote a lot of antislavery stuff and gave lots of speeches.”

“Wait a second,” Derick said, his eyes going wide. “Let’s go back to the Bridge.” He changed direction and walked quickly. Abby was only two steps behind. “I just remembered something. I think Frederick Douglass once talked about a different kind of freedom—one that had to do with books.”

“Books? That would certainly fit Grandpa’s clue, but I still don’t get it,” Abby confessed.

They arrived at a Bridge lab, opened the metal door, and stepped inside. Derick searched through the Bridge’s logged events. “I feel dumb for not remembering it before. Watch this.” With a quick flick of the finger, he started another scene.

A woman sat writing on a small chalkboard, with a black boy standing a few feet away. She turned the board around to reveal the word
ant.
The black boy struggled but eventually sounded the word out. They repeated the process over and over with words
sun,
fall,
work,
and the hardest:
plant.

“That’s Mrs. Auld,” Derick said. “And the boy is Frederick. This was years before he became free. Mrs. Auld and her husband took on Frederick mostly to play with their boy.”

They heard the sound of a door opening and closing. A large man with dark hair and a receding hairline entered the room. The hair on the sides of his head was matted with sweat, and he rubbed his eyes with one hand. He looked like he was about to speak to his wife, but then he watched as young Frederick learned small words.

It only took a moment before he interrupted her. “You do not teach him,” the man said, his voice shrill and commanding. Derick and Abby both winced at the man’s tone.

“Why not dear?” Mrs. Auld asked. “He is doing quite well.”

“It is foolish—even wrong—to teach a slave to read,” the man said. “The only thing a slave needs to know is to obey his master—to do as he is told. Learning would spoil the best slave in the world. He would be no good to me, and no good to himself. He’d become discontented and unhappy.”

Abby took in the man’s speech, analyzing as he went. “That’s terrible,” she said. “How could he think slaves are better off not knowing how to read?”

“I don’t know,” Derick said, pausing the scene. “But Douglass didn’t see education that way. Reading changed his life. Frederick believed that keeping him from learning was how they kept him a slave. He thought if he could learn to read, then he would be free—free to learn and experience other things outside of slavery. Mr. Auld made him even more determined.”

“But how would he learn?” Abby asked, gesturing toward the image of young Frederick. “It doesn’t look like Mrs. Auld was able to teach him anymore.”

“He grabbed sections of newspapers to read. He tricked people into spelling words for him. He was resourceful. It took years, but he learned.”

The whole thing felt like something Grandpa would want them to think about—one of his preachy lessons. “‘Freedom in books,’” Abby said. “I think it fits.”

“And there’s an armoire,” Derick said, pointing to a large hickory cabinet behind Mrs. Auld. He walked over to it in the paused scene. Grandpa said that they should check the top of an armoire. “Come on over, and I’ll give you a boost. Check the top.”

Derick lifted Abby up the best he could. She stood on his clasped hands, and steadied herself by grabbing the back of his head. It was awkward; he wouldn’t be able to hold her for long. On top of the ghost of an armoire was nothing but a piece of paper.

Something was written on the paper—a sentence or two. After reading only the first few words, Abby gasped; the note was in her grandfather’s handwriting.

How?

“It’s a message from Grandpa,” Abby blurted out and quickly read it aloud. “
Remember the first clue. And remember how you used to play Jonathan Code and Kimberly Spy.”

“What?” Derick asked.

“Put me down,” Abby instructed, tapping Derick on the shoulder. He lowered her, and Abby stepped to the ground. “Grandpa wrote it. It’s definitely his handwriting, but somehow it’s on the armoire.”

“But how?”

“I don’t know,” Abby said.

Derick reached for the armoire, but his hand passed right through it. Same with the table and the painting on the wall. “This doesn’t make any sense.”

“I know,” Abby agreed. “Plus, I wasn’t expecting him to refer to our old games.” Growing up, she and Derick used to try to sneak past Grandpa without him noticing. They planted old smart phones to record conversations, and left each other secret messages that they had to piece together. She once cut up a bunch of letters from a newspaper, and Derick had to put them in the right order—back when one newspaper was actually printed on paper to try to bring back the old days. “Our spy names were terrible.”

“Kimberly Spy is a terrible name,” Derick agreed, “but Jonathan Code is ... I was going to say
awesome
, but it’s really just as bad.”

“Alright, Jonathan Code,” Abby said. “Get to work on this one.”

“Let’s see,” Derick said. “He told us to remember the first clue—‘In books we often begin a journey to find freedom.’ But then the second part of the clue has to do with the two of us pretending to be spies. What do they have to do with each other?”

“I don’t know,” Abby admitted. “Do you think there’s some sort of code we’re supposed to put together from this scene with Frederick Douglass?”

“I don’t know,” Derick said. “It couldn’t hurt to check.”

The twins spent the next twenty minutes scanning the scene again and again. Of course, they started with the armoire. Then they reread the note countless times and looked for any clues in the note, but they couldn’t find anything. They looked through the rest of the armoire, which held several vases and decorative cups, but nothing to give them any hints. They watched the scene three more times just to be sure. Abby typed notes about everything they thought might be some sort of a message—the words Frederick Douglass repeated, the headlines on the one-page paper near the chair in the living room, even the names of Frederick and the Aulds. As they left, they were filled with information, but felt no closer to solving the clue.