Cragbridge Hall, Book One: The Inventor's Secret (14 page)

“I don’t get it,” Abby said, sitting down and putting her head in her hands.

Derick looked at his watch. “We’ve already missed dinner, and we’ve only got a few minutes to get back to our dorms before curfew. We can use the Bridges there, but we’ll have to split up.”

Abby nodded.

“Let’s see what we can do on our own tonight, then meet right here an hour before breakfast,” Derick said.

The two walked along the pathway. Abby thought about their insane day. Her parents and her grandfather were missing, and she’d learned that there was some sort of great secret she needed to find. She wanted to collapse and cry.

“Sleep on it,” Derick said, and turned toward the boys’ dorm.

Abby stopped cold, only now realizing that she still had nowhere to sleep.

15

Roommate

Abby walked back to her dorm, figuring she’d have to sleep in the linen closet. At least that way, no one would yell at her. She had a lot to think about. But when she came up the elevator chute, there was a crowd of girls in the hall.

“There she is,” a girl whispered as Abby approached.

“I’m not changing rooms for her,” another added.

“Alright, alright,” a voice at the front of the room said. “We need to resolve a certain problem before you can go to bed.” Abby had heard the voice before—articulate and confident—but couldn’t quite place it. “Is Abby Cragbridge here?”

Couldn’t the day just end? Couldn’t she just sleep with the linens and disappear? Abby raised her hand and started passing through the crowd of girls. She was only halfway through when she recognized the voice—Ms. Entrese.

“Hello, dear,” Ms. Entrese said. She turned to the crowd of girls. “I don’t think there is a more tactful way to say this. I believe everyone is aware that Abby was kicked out of her dorm room last night. Jacqueline refused to sleep in the same room with her when she discovered that Abby was admitted to this institution largely on the reputation of her grandfather.”

The words stung. It hurt for Jacqueline to kick her out because she’d gotten accepted because of her grandfather, but to hear a teacher state it just as matter-of-factly as she would facts for an upcoming test, cut deep. If Abby hadn’t had much bigger things on her mind, she might have broken down.

“I’ve arranged,” Ms. Entrese continued, “for someone to take Abby’s place in Jacqueline’s room, but what we need to discuss is whether anyone of you would voluntarily take Abby into your room.”

Abby went from depressed to embarrassed. She couldn’t have felt more awkward. Was she on auction? The only thing worse than Ms. Entrese’s words was the silence that followed. No one moved. Abby looked at the girls, but they all avoided her gaze—except for Jacqueline, who looked her in the eyes, beaming.

“I will,” a voice came from the back, breaking the silence. “Sorry, I would have spoken up earlier, but I was in the bathroom. You know you just can’t wait about some things. And, by the way, I don’t know about you girls, but Jacqueline pulled me aside and tried to convince me not to room with Abby. Though she was really friendly and even kind of persuasive, I mean, she offered me a new wardrobe, and she’s got some really cute stuff—especially this pink V- neck that kind of gathers on the sides. But despite the cuteness, I just don’t feel good about that. Don’t you think that’s low?”

Abby didn’t need to see her face. She knew who it was.

“I like Abby,” Carol continued. “I think she’s fun to talk to. Well, maybe I do most of the talking. That’s what my mom tells me all the time, but my mom talks a lot too. I mean I probably get it from her, but anyway, Abby is great. Plus her twin brother is hot. I mean like lava-burning-into-gas-in-the-center-of-the-sun hot. So you know, this might lead to a friendship or something more. You know, good friendships. Good networking.”

Relief swept over Abby. Someone had stood up for her. And she’d finally have a place to sleep.

Then again, the way Carol talked, maybe Abby wouldn’t get much sleep. Abby didn’t care, though she couldn’t help but wonder if Carol’s former roommate was relieved.

“Alright, alright,” Ms. Entrese said. “Bless you for taking in this poor thing. We may have to shift around a few more room assignments to make this happen, but we’ll get it done. You’ll only have an extra half hour to get your things moved, then into bed.”

• • •

“So, what happened?” Carol asked, helping Abby carry one of her suitcases. “I’ve been worried about you all day. I haven’t been this worried since I lost my rings at a party, and the boy who was throwing it—Garrett Shaw—I think he was kind of into me, and I had to go back over to his house to look for them, but I was worried he thought I left them there on purpose just to have an excuse to see him again. And he’s nice, but you know ... I wasn’t interested. So anyway, what did you find out?”

It felt wonderful for Abby to have someone ask about her, to wonder about her. The whole day felt like a huge load Abby had carried by herself ever since she’d said goodnight to Derick, but somehow the burden seemed a little lighter. But how should she answer Carol’s question? Carol didn’t know about the clue or the note, but she knew about the locket.

“Oh, I had to check up on my grandpa,” Abby said, purposely being vague.

“Next time, let me know, because I’d love to meet him. I’m not becoming your friend just so I can meet him—that would be extremely shallow, like when this girl named Stephanie was really nice to me, until I brought her on set for
Halvishem’s Eve.
Turned out, she just wanted to get in front of the director. After she met him and got an audition for another web series he was doing, she never talked to me again. At least, when I tried talking to her again, she said I talk too much, and that I was annoying, which isn’t the first time I’ve heard it. And I don’t think it’s entirely true—at least not all the time. Anyway, that’s not why I’m friends with you.”

“Okay,” Abby said, as she bent down to pull her last case into their room. It was three times as heavy as the others.

“Let me help,” Carol said and grabbed the handle. She grunted with her first pull. “What the Valhalla is in this thing, rocks?” She struggled to pull the last case into the room.

“Books,” Abby said.

“Really?” Carol asked. “Like
real
books? You do know that you can read billions of them just by using your rings, right?”

“Yeah,” Abby said, “It’s just that my grandpa ...” Abby didn’t finish her thought. Something suddenly made sense. “Remember the first clue,” she whispered to herself. “‘In books we often begin a journey to find freedom.’”

“What the heck? Are you like woozy in the brain?” Carol asked. “Because there was this one time that I met this insane—”

“No,” Abby interrupted. “I have to figure out something, and I think it has to do with the books my grandfather gave me.” Abby blinked away a few tears. She was surprised she had any left.

“Okay,” Carol said. “Just don’t go crazy on me, or I’m going to seriously reconsider being roommates. I mean, crazy people are okay, even entertaining, in their little crazy-
people hospitals, and sometimes on public transportation, but I don’t want to room with one.”

“I’m not crazy,” Abby said. “My grandpa trusted me to figure something out, and I think it has to do with the books he gave me. It’s the only way I can think of that he could possibly control where we’d look for clues.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Carol said.

The first clue was about a book that he gave Derick, so maybe the rest of it is in actual books too, ones Grandpa gave them.
Books
—plural—lead to freedom. It would make sense. If Grandpa knew he was going to give them clues, he could put them in books he knew they would have. And that way, he would know that if someone intercepted his messages, they wouldn’t be able to figure out the entire thing. Abby opened her case and found her copy of
To Kill a Mockingbird.
She handed it to Carol. “Would you mind looking through this for ... anything unusual?”

“Okay.” Carol grabbed the book. “You realize that this is strange. I thought you were going to prove that you
weren’t
crazy.”

Abby didn’t say anything, so Carol leafed through the pages.

“Boo Radley is a weird name,” Carol said, pointing at a page. “But I kind of like it. Maybe I should name one of my kids Boo Radley.” Carol looked up from the book. “Ichabod Crane is also a fun name to say. Oh, and ...”

Abby pulled out a copy of a biography on George Washington. “I’ll take this one.”

“Do you have any idea what I might be looking for?” Carol asked.

“I’m not sure ...” Abby said. She looked at the words carefully. “If Grandpa really wanted us to catch something, he’d have to give us a hint. These books are
filled
with information.”

Both of them thumbed through the pages for several minutes.

“Huh. That’s strange,” Carol said. “The
a
in this sentence is circled.” She pointed to a specific spot on the page. “Is that what I’m supposed to find?”

“Maybe,” Abby said, “but what kind of a clue is a circled
a?
”

“It doesn’t tell us much, does it?” Carol said. “The whole sentence says, ‘
Most people are when you really see them.
’ And the
a
in
are
is circled. It’s on the very last page. I think someone is saying that most people are really nice, even though they misunderstand and do really hurtful things.”

“Sounds like something Grandpa would like,” Abby said. “Look through again; see if there are any other circled letters.”

A minute later, Abby cried out, “Found one!” She pointed to a page. “Check this out!” she said, and pointed to an
l
with a box drawn around it. “But that one has a box, not a circle,” Carol said. “What does it mean?”

Abby didn’t answer, but she began unloading her books. For the next hour, the two of them leafed through them all, looking for any letter that had been marked. Some had boxes, some circles, some were underlined, and some had been double underlined. They made a chart of each of the letters and how they were highlighted.

Had these markings always been there? They must have been. Abby hadn’t read all of these books, but had she just glossed over the markings in the others? They did seem familiar. Maybe she had seen them, but had been lost enough in the story she hadn’t really noticed them.

“Is it a scrambled message?” Carol asked.

“Just like Derick and I used to play. That was what he meant by ‘Jonathan Code and Kimberly Spy,’” Abby said. “The way Grandpa marked the letters could mean that they’re separate words. But then, what would D, E, R, and C spell?”

“Cerd. Ercd. Recd,” Carol tried.

“Those aren’t words,” Abby said. “Maybe Red C.”

“But that’s two words. Why would they be circled like that?”

Abby thought about it. “And the boxed ones don’t spell anything either. Lah? Ahl? Hal?

“Hal? Who do we know named Hal? It doesn’t exactly sound mysterious. There was a guy named Hal back home who owned the QuickPit. They had really good slushies! Oh, I’m really hungry all of a sudden.”

The two logged onto their rings and looked for anyone with any connection to Grandpa named Hal. They couldn’t find anyone who had a close relationship. There were a couple of bloggers posting pictures and talking about Grandpa’s work, but that was it.

“Even if we find a connection,” Abby said, “the other letters don’t make any sense. The double underlined column has only one letter.”

Carol proposed that maybe the way Grandpa marked them in the books didn’t matter, and that the message was just one long, scrambled phrase, but they couldn’t unscramble it, nor could any of the net applications they accessed.

Finally, both girls fell asleep on the floor, surrounded by open books.

16

The Debate

Derick sat in the Bridge in his dorm. He stared at the armoire behind the young Frederick Douglass. No way was he going to sleep. He couldn’t forget about the paper in his grandfather’s handwriting they’d found on top of the armoire. How was it possible? There seemed to be absolutely no explanation for it.