License to Thrill (12 page)

“That's right!” Dr. McDonald said, slapping his forehead. “I forgot all about it. This is the Great Divide!”

Dear reader, if you recall
The Genius Files: Mission Unstoppable
, you know the McDonalds first crossed the Continental Divide heading east through Utah. It's an imaginary boundary line that begins in Alaska and continues all the way down through South America. Now they were crossing it again, heading west.

“Rivers on the west side of this line flow into the Pacific Ocean,” Dr. McDonald reminded the others, “and the rivers on the east side of the line flow into the Atlantic Ocean.”

“That's cool,” Pep said.

“I read somewhere,” said her brother, “that when you flush a toilet in the northern hemisphere, the water swirls in the opposite direction than a toilet flushed in the southern hemisphere.”

“That's one of those urban legends,” his father told him. “It's totally not true.”

“It
sounds
like it could be true.”

“Trust me, it's not.”

“Who
cares
which direction toilet water swirls?” Pep asked. “And what does that have to do with the Continental Divide?”

Nothing, of course. But you know what, reader? Sometimes people talk about nonsense. Especially people who have been cooped up in a car for four weeks.

Clustered on the road around the Continental Divide were several “Indian Villages” selling rubber
tomahawks, purses, belts, hats, and “kachina dolls,” whatever they were.

“Pull over, Ben!” Mrs. McDonald shouted.

“Why, Bridge?” he replied, hitting the brakes.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” said Pep.

“I want to get a snack,” said Coke.

“We need to buy some T-shirts for Coke,” said Mrs. McDonald.

Reluctantly, Dr. McDonald pulled over.

Indian Market was a pretty standard souvenir shop, stuffed with bins full of cheap trinkets that most people regret buying as soon as they get home. Dr. McDonald refused to have any part of such nonsense, and he said he would wait in the car while the rest of the family wasted their time and money. Pep went inside to use the bathroom. Mrs. McDonald
checked out the T-shirts. Coke walked around looking at the knickknacks. Several employees eyed him suspiciously, as storekeepers do when teenage boys enter their place of business.

Most of the employees didn't look like Native Americans at all. But one of them did. He was an old man sitting in the corner, carving a piece of wood with a pocket knife. Next to him on a table were some painted wooden dolls, decorated with feathers and outfitted with brightly colored costumes.

“I am Hopi,” the man said to Coke. “Every year our spirits—the kachinas—come down to the villages to dance and sing. They bring rain for the harvest and give gifts to the children. We carve these dolls in the likeness of the kachinam. You want to buy one?”

“No, thank you,” Coke said politely. “But they are very beautiful.”

He started to walk away, but the old man grabbed him by the elbow.

“Wait,” he said. “There is something I need to tell you.”

Coke rolled his eyes. The last thing in the world that he needed was a kachina doll. But he didn't want to be rude to the old man.

“What?” he asked, pulling his arm away.

“Forty-nine minutes and eight seconds,” whispered
the man. “Twenty-eight minutes and forty point five seconds.”

“Huh?” Coke replied. “Excuse me?”

“Listen,” the man said, looking into Coke's eyes. “This is
very
important. Did you hear me? I said forty-nine minutes and eight seconds. Twenty-eight minutes and forty point five seconds.”

“So what?” Coke asked. “What's that supposed to mean?”

“Write it down,” said the man.

“I don't
need
to write it down,” Coke said. “Leave me alone.”

“Here, I'll write it down for you.”

Coke hurried away from the Hopi man and walked out the front door. Pep was waiting for him there.

“Who was that guy you were talking to?” she asked.

“Some old dude who lost his marbles,” Coke told her. “He kept saying the same thing over and over again. ‘Forty-nine minutes and eight seconds. Twenty-eight minutes and forty point five seconds.' The guy is probably senile or something.”

“He's not senile!” Pep said. “Can't you see? It's another cipher!”

“You gotta be kidding me,” said Coke. “Forty-nine minutes and eight seconds. Twenty-eight minutes and forty point five seconds. What could
that possibly mean?”

“It has something to do with time, obviously,” Pep said.

“Sure, but what?”

“Mom, can we borrow your laptop?” Pep asked once they were in the car and back on I-40 West.

She clicked on Google and had her brother type in “49 minutes and 8 seconds. 28 minutes and 40.5 seconds.”

The first thing that came up was a list of high scores for the computer game Halo. The next few hits were about the TV show
Glee
.

“Try forty-nine point zero eight,” Pep suggested.

Coke tried it. “49.08” turned out to be part of the Texas penal code. Apparently, there are severe penalties if you kill somebody while driving drunk in Texas.

“It doesn't mean
anything
,” Coke muttered. “That old guy was just senile, like I said.”

“It means
something
,” Pep insisted. “The ciphers always tie together somehow. We just have to figure out how.”

She added the new entry into her notepad . . .

CIPHER #1: MAY 28, 1937, VOLKSWAGEN IS FOUNDED
CIPHER #2: 49:08. 28:40.5

Mrs. McDonald showed Coke some new T-shirts she had bought for him, and they had a brief argument over whether or not they were cool enough to wear in public. Soon they were driving through the town of Gallup, New Mexico, which is nicknamed “Indian Capital of the World” because three tribes call the surrounding area their home.

“Hey, it says here that a movie was filmed in Gallup,” said Mrs. McDonald. “Maybe we should stop and look around.”

“What movie?” asked Dr. McDonald.

“Natural Born Killers
.
”

“Keep driving!” the twins shouted.

The family rode in silence for the next twenty miles until they came to this. . . .

“W
oo hoo!” Coke hooted as the Ferrari crossed the border. “The Grand Canyon State, baby!”

Outside, Arizona didn't look all that different from New Mexico. Mesas—or were they plateaus?—lined both sides of the road. A truck stop called Speedy's was quickly followed by the Tee Pee Trading Post and a line of other souvenir shops hawking cheap jewelry and moccasins. But even so, just crossing another state line made everyone feel like they were just a little bit closer to home.

“How much farther do we have to go, Mom?” Pep
called from the backseat.

Mrs. McDonald looked it up on her laptop.

“Nine hundred and fifty-eight miles,” she reported.

“A hop, skip, and a jump,” said Dr. McDonald as he continued on I-40 West.

Mrs. McDonald dropped her New Mexico guidebook in the trash and opened a new one—
Arizona Arisin'
. She flipped through the introduction. . . .

“Let's see . . . soaring mountains . . . red-walled canyons . . . vast deserts . . . ,” she mumbled. “Hey, did you guys know that Arizona has more mountains than Switzerland and more golf courses than Scotland?”

“I suppose you're going to tell us about all the oddball museums and weird stuff there is to see here, huh, Mom?” asked Coke.

“Well, the official state neckwear is the bolo tie,” Mrs. McDonald said. “In fact, there's a bolo tie museum close to Phoenix.”

“Please say we don't have to go there,” Pep begged from the backseat.
“Please?”

“You guys are no fun,” said Mrs. McDonald. “Hey, you want to go to London Bridge?”

“Isn't London Bridge in
London
?” asked Coke.

Actually, it is and it isn't. There are several London Bridges. But one of them was sinking into the Thames
River so England put it up for sale in 1967. An American bought it, and he had all 10,246 bricks shipped to Lake Havasu, Arizona, to be reassembled there.

“London Bridge is on the other side of the state, five hours from here,” said Mrs. McDonald.

“I'm not driving five hours to see a
bridge
,” said Dr. McDonald. “I want to see
natural
beauty. I want to see the Grand Canyon, the red sandstone at Sedona, Monument Valley . . .”

Forty minutes after crossing the state line, they were still arguing about what to see in Arizona. That's when they came to this sign. . . .

Dr. McDonald pulled into the parking lot at the visitors' center. It was at least a hundred degrees outside, and Mrs. McDonald made sure everyone
had a bottle of water and was covered by sunglasses, hats, and sunscreen. A park ranger was just starting a short walking tour, so the McDonalds rushed to catch up.

The Petrified Forest isn't a “forest” in the common use of the word. It's more of a rock garden, with spectacular colors. That's why part of the Petrified Forest is called the Painted Desert.

“I don't get it,” Pep said to the ranger. “If this is a forest, where are the trees?”

“We get that question all the time,” said the ranger, a tall man with blond hair. “Usually when a tree falls, it decays over time. But these trees fell into rivers and were buried in water, minerals, and volcanic ash. So they remained intact and became fossilized. That is, they turned to stone. Some of them are two hundred and twenty-five million years old.”

Mrs. McDonald took some notes for
Amazing but True.
After a short walk, the ranger stopped and knelt down to point out a flat rock that had a picture of an eye carved into it.