The Friendship Riddle (33 page)

The second was actually several pieces of paper, and it was a story.

In Middle Earth a motley crew assembles to save the world as we know it. Four hobbits, two men, a dwarf, an elf,
and a wizard, too. They rambled to destroy the ring in the mountains of Mordor.

Now it is your time. Dare you join this fellowship?

The rules are simple.

Twelve more clues will be hidden. One for each month. You have a month to solve each riddle. Plenty of time. On the full moon of each month, the next clue will be hidden. Seek it. Leave each where you found it for the next traveler. Where does this quest lead? What is the endgame? Follow and you shall find out. You must be wise, learned, disciplined, and above all, not a FROG.

If you agree to join this fellowship, proceed with your first clue:

My WORDS are legend.

Legends are HISTORY,

My field of study.

ONE BOOK only in your shire.

It was the story of a quest. Our quest. It took the adventurers from place to place, and in each place they needed to find a clue. Our clues.

With your strength, the book has been found, and now you must climb the hill to the Scholar's Shrine. Four travelers begin this tale: Half Elf, Troll, Halfling, and Thief. To make it to the end, you will need to build a motley crew. Find a wizard to see you through.

There were small drawings alongside the story, almost like sketches. First a small crowd of figures setting off along the path. It grew as the story went on.

You walk a long and winding path to find your next clue. Shall the Half Elf teach you his songs to pass the time? Perhaps that will draw an elf lord into your presence. The road is long, and the leaves do change color.

You have demonstrated your strength, and your intelligence; now you must go boldly into battle. Be wise with your strategy; though it may seem like a game, there is more to the story.

As I read, I held the map in my other hand, and I realized that the places on the map matched up to the clues. Our clues. Our town.

And then I realized I had missed the biggest piece of the puzzle, even though it had collapsed at my feet.

Pledge Allegiance Comics was in an old brick building with the word “Carnegie” over its door. When you stepped inside, it was alive with color. Rack upon rack of comic books, each neatly organized by publisher, genre, date. There were shelves full of action figures. Some I recognized—Superman, the Green Lantern, the Flea—others I did not.

A man stood behind a glass counter filled with what I assumed were the best of the best, the things for the real collectors. He glanced up at me when I came in but didn't say anything, just pushed his geek-chic glasses back up his nose and returned to his conversation with a teenage boy. “It's not about winning, dude,” he said.

“Then it's not a game,” the boy replied. He wore a black T-shirt with a huge dragon on it.

Here was what I had forgotten: the library hadn't always been the library. First it was the department store. Charlotte's dad had renovated it less than ten years earlier. Before that, the library was much smaller, a little brick building paid for by some wealthy steel magnate in the early 1900s. Carnegie. When the library moved out, the comic shop moved in.

For the answers you seek, look up.

I looked up, but the ceiling was covered with posters. Comic posters, movie posters, game posters overlaid one another. There was not one empty spot.

Those couldn't be the answer, because whoever put the clues down, when they did it, this was still the library.

“Can I help you?” the man asked. The teenage boy had moved on to a shelf of graphic novels. Violent-looking ones, from the covers.

I shook my head.

“Admiring my posters?” he asked. “Up there?”

“Sure,” I said. “Yeah.”

“I just noticed you were spending a lot of time staring at them. As if you thought you might find some sort of answer there.”

No way. No way, no way, no way.

“I do seek answers,” I said.

“Rider,” he said. “Out.”

“What?” the boy asked.

“We're closing early. I have some business to take care of.”

My eyes widened. What had I done?

“Dude, it's three thirty,” Rider said.

“Closing.”

“I haven't made my choice yet.”

“Dude, you come here every day. You never buy anything.”

“Maybe this was going to be my day.”

“My loss. Out.”

The boy gave me a funny look as he left the store, the bells above the door chiming like fairy bells. The man turned the sign to CLOSED but didn't, I was glad to see, lock the door.

“What do you know?” he asked me.

“What?”

“What clues have you found?”

“All of them,” I said. “Well, except for the one that was supposed to be on the History Path. That was gone.”

“Yeah.” He settled back onto the stool by his cash register. “I tried to get that one but wasn't quick enough.”

“So,” I said.

“So?” he replied.

“Do you have the answer?” I asked.

“That depends on the question.” He shook his head and laughed. “Man, I've been waiting twenty years for this. For someone else to follow the clues. To find it. Kept that post office box.”

“Bought this place,” I said.

“That was just good luck. I used to have a much smaller place—I took over an old gaming store there.”

“Wizards and Warcraft,” I said, the name of the store whose phone book ad we'd found the clue on.

“Yeah, that's right. I knew the owner, Liam, 'cause—well, he was a friend of Mr. Douglas's, my favorite teacher. And he needed some illustrations done for his advertisements, and Mr. Douglas suggested me. Then, when Liam was selling, he asked if I wanted it. It was over by the Chinese restaurant. I was hungry all the time.” He patted his belly. He didn't have much of one.

“So you did all of this?” I asked. “This was your game?”

“Mine and Harriet's. She really came up with most of it. I just made up the clues and put them around town while she was in New York.”

“Harriet?”

“She came every summer. She got us all hooked on
Doctor Who
and role-playing games. Man, she was the best dungeon master. She came up with the best campaigns. Never missed a detail.”

“Campaigns?”

“It's like the mission in a role-playing game.”

“Like a quest?”

“Exactly.” He scratched his head. “Harriet always hated going back. ‘You all are living one story up here, and I'm living my story down there, and then I jump into yours like
time travel.' That's what she said. She wanted our stories to stay tied together, so she had this idea for a scavenger hunt that went through the whole year. She'd send clues and I'd make the cards and hide them and people would find them, and it all ended that June, when she came back.”

“The cards are beautiful,” I told him.

“Thanks.” He grinned. “We talked about making our own game, Harriet and me. She would develop the story lines, and I would make the cards. It never happened, of course.” He made a noise that was like a laugh, but also like a sigh. He turned around and took a small framed photograph off the wall. “Here,” he said. “We called ourselves the Allegiance.”

It was a group of teenagers, all boys except for one girl with hair dyed black and just a hint of a smile. The boys all had long hair—at least chin length. One wore a Pink Floyd T-shirt, and another wore a trench coat. “That one's me,” he said, pointing to a short boy with a scruffy-looking beard that hardly covered up a nasty patch of acne. “You can see why I was always the troll.” He laughed. “Harriet, she was always half elf, half human, descended from knights.”

“Taryn Greenbottom,” I murmured.

“That's right!” he said. “How'd you know that?”

Taryn Greenbottom. Harriet Wexler.

“That's Harriet Wexler,” I said. It wasn't a question. I knew.

“Yes!” he said, still enthusiastic but confused. Then he slapped the counter. “You must have read her books!”

“One or two of them,” I said.

He laughed again. “I always knew she'd be a writer. I don't know why she writes for kids. No offense. Her stories are fantastic, though, aren't they?”

I nodded. In the photograph, Harriet Wexler had one arm hanging down; the other reached across her body to hold it at the elbow. Her fingernails were painted black, and her dark hair had a streak of purple in it.

Harriet Wexler. Harriet Wexler had been a summer person.

“I sent her a letter once, but she never wrote back. Guess she forgot all about us folks back in Promise.”

“What was your name?” I asked.

“It's Charlie,” he said.

“No. Your troll name,” I told him.

“Charlak Rapshidir,” he said. But I already knew that.

“I don't think she forgot about you at all.” I zipped my winter coat up. “I have to go.”

“Wait!” he said. “Don't you want your final clue?”

He pressed a button on his old cash register, and with a clang and a click, the drawer popped open. He lifted the plastic cash tray and pulled something out from underneath.

One golden envelope.

“I want a birthday party, after all,” I said.

We were all sitting down together for dinner at home, which we hadn't done in ages. After the bee, we'd gone out to eat. Mum had made corned beef and cabbage, which is the only thing she knows how to make. Since she's Irish, everyone expects her to make it, even though they don't actually eat it in Ireland. But she learned how to make it. That and soda bread, which actually is Irish.

“A party?” Mom asked.

I chewed my salty corned beef and swallowed before saying, “Yes. A party. On Saturday. With boys.”

Mom coughed, but Mum grinned. “Well, this is a pleasant turn of events!”

“Saturday is three days from now. We can't get the room at the hospital.”

“I don't want to invite the whole class. Just five people. Lena, Coco, Adam, Dev, and Lucas.”

“Brilliant!” Mum said.

“We need to get marshmallows,” I said.

“For hot chocolate?” Mom asked.

“Sure. But also for a game.”

“Chubby Bunnies!” Mum said, clapping her hands together.

“It's awfully late for sending out invitations,” Mom said.

“My friends won't be busy.”

I knew they were free because just like me, they were probably always free. And if they had some family obligation, they'd just have to get out of it. We were going to the final destination. We were going to finish this quest.

I made the invitations on the computer. I used the font that looked like wizards and dragons and stuff.

Mum took me to school on Thursday, so I was early. I didn't have anywhere else to go, so I went into homeroom. Ms. Broadcheck was at her desk. Her shoes were off and her feet were balanced on the desk. “Ruth!” she said when I walked in. “Sorry. I wasn't expecting you. You're early.”

“So are you,” I said. “And you're always late.”

She rubbed her ankles. “You noticed.”

Everyone noticed. But I didn't say so.

She moved on to rubbing her feet. She was wearing the dress with the high belt again. “I suppose I can stop that ruse now. I was running out of excuses.”

“What do you mean?”

She dropped her feet onto the floor. “You know your mum asked me to look out for you, right?”

“Sure. That's why I'm in this homeroom.”

“Sometimes watching out, well, sometimes it just makes problems worse, you know? I wanted to give you a chance to sort things out on your own.” Then she made a funny face and put her hand over her mouth like she was going to throw up.

“Are you sick?” I asked, taking a step back. I didn't do well with vomit. In second grade Charlotte threw up on the bus on a field trip. We were sitting together, of course, and some of it got on me. I cried the whole rest of the bus ride, even when the teacher wiped it off me with baby wipes. Mom had to come pick me up.

Ms. Broadcheck laughed. “Only in the morning.”

I took another step back. Whatever Ms. Broadcheck had, I didn't want to catch it.

“I'm pregnant, Ruth,” she said. “I thought you knew.”

“Oh.”

“Anyway. If I kept stepping in, telling kids to be nice to you, telling you where to go and who to be with, you never would have found Lena—because let me tell you, I did not see that friendship coming—or that gaggle of boys.”

“So you pretended to be late?”

“Well, I was actually late a lot of the time. I mean, I gave myself some extra time in the morning. You know, the timing worked out quite well. It gave me time to yak before I came into school.”