The Secret of the Scarlet Stone (A Gabby Girls Adventure Novel, Book One) (24 page)

“In your dreams,” Gabrielle shouted back.

“Come on
,
Gabby Girls, we have a long way to go. Let’s keep it friendly,”
Zora
said tiredly as she spun on her heels and walk
ed
away down the passageway.

Gabrielle rolled her eyes at Rosalinda then stomped off after
Zora
, with Jessica following
.

Rosalinda fumed as she
stood
tapp
ing
her foot angrily. She
propped
her hands on her hips a
nd
stared defiantly as Jessica, Gabrielle
,
and
Zora
quickly disappeared into the darkness of the passageway.

Ruthless gusts of cold air swept down the pathway
,
blowing her shiny dark hair briskly around her face. Startled, she looked around fearfully as if expecting to see someone standing behind her.
 

“Oh
,
stop it
,
Rosalinda
;
you’re getting as paranoid as those crazy Gabby Girls,” she mumbled under her breath. Coolly, she smoothed down her hair
.
“Well, I might as well follow them. Goodness knows they would be lost without me
t
here to help them,” she said pompously as the she stomped down the passageway after them.

*
 
*
 
*

Tiredly, they walked down the dusty passageway with seemingly no end in sight. Jessica stopped in mid-stride and huffed
and
puffed wearily. She started to sit down but Gabrielle tugged on her arm, stopping her in her tracks.

“Oh
,
no
,
you don’t
.
T
here will be no stopping. Remember, we have to get out of here,” Gabrielle said uneasily.

“But
,
Gabi, I’m just so tired. Really, I just can’t go on,” Jessica wailed dramatically.

“Oh
,
yes
,
you can,” Gabrielle said loudly as she dragged a very tired Jessica behind her.

They continued to walk for a few minutes more before they finally reached the end of the passageway only to find a colossal wall blocking their path out.

“Great! It’s a dead end. Are we ever going to get out of here?” Rosalinda wailed.

Zora
adjusted her glasses as she approached the huge wall covered with large gold tiles.

Jessica tiredly plopped down on the dusty ground
.
“Finally, I can rest.”

Rosalinda looked at her with utter disgust
.
“How can you sit on that filthy ground?”

“I-I’m sorry but I’m really tired,” Jessica stuttered.

Gabrielle slowly walked beside the wall
,
examining the tiles curiously. Her gaze eagerly moved from raised tile to raised tile. As if in some sort of trance, she slowly reached out to touch it.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you. It could be another trap,”
Zora
said quickly.

Gabrielle pulled her hand away
.
“
Zo
, these symbols look so very familiar. What are they?”

Zora
adjusted her glasses
.
“Roman numerals
…
but the numerals seem to
be
 
jumbled
. S
ee
,
this tile has
‘five’
written on it but
the
one right next to it has a
‘ten
.
’
”

“Jess, why don’t you keep yourself awake by reading the clue to us again,” Gabrielle said teasingly.

Zora
quickly handed the clue over to Jessica
, who read:

First step on blue then step on green, reverse it back and count two three. At the wall you multiply, ten times two then add a five
.

 
Zora’s
forehead crinkled with concentration as she examined each tile with her magnifying glass
.
“Jess, can you read the last sentence again
…
and this time real slow?”

“
‘A
t the wall you multiply, ten times two then add a five,
’
” Jessica mumbled.

Gabrielle paced back
and
forth across the dirt floor in deep concentration
.
“Hmm…so obviously we’re at the wall,” she mumbled. “Okay, so let
’
s take this slowly. Ten times two is
twenty
then if you add five that
’
s
twenty-five
.
D
oes everyone agree with the answer?”

They all nodded.

“Okay, so what’s next?” Rosalinda asked impatiently.

“Well, I think that we should look for a tile with
twenty-five
,”
Zora
said.

“Which is?” Rosalinda asked with annoyance.

“XXV,”
Zora
stated matter-of-factly.

They scrambled to different sections of the wall, quickly examining each tile.

Jessica’s face flushed bright
red with excitement
.
“I think I found it
. L
ook
…
XXV
.
”

T
hey all gathered around her.

“Okay
,
so we found
twenty-five. W
hat do we do now? Just stand around and look at it?” Rosalinda
asked.
 

Gabrielle gave Rosalinda an irritated gla
nc
e
.
“Ugh, I
’
m really so tired of your snotty attitude, so here’s the deal
:
you
’
re either going to help us solve the clue or whine like a baby
.
W
hich one is it?”
   

Zora
adjusted her glasses with agitation
.
“Okay
,
okay
,
Gabby Girls, let
’
s not fight. Jess, read the clue again
;
maybe we
’
re missing something.”

Jessica re
peated,
“
At the wall you multiply, ten times two then add a five.
”

“Okay
,
we’re at tile
twenty-five
,”
Zora
mumbled distractedly.
“
Hmmm
,
I think the tiles are buttons
.
”
S
he pointed
.
“See how the surface of this tile is raised? Jess, since you found the tile, I think you should do the honors of pushing tile
twenty-five
in
.
”

Jessica gulped nervously as she hesitantly pressed her palm against the tile.
The tile gave way slightly
,
revealing a gap between
itself and
the wall.

“Come on
,
Jess, use some muscle and push harder,” Gabrielle demanded excitedly.

Jessica gritted her teeth as she pushed the tile harder. The harder she pushed, the deeper her hand went into the gap of the wall. Encouraged, she pushed harder, huffing
and
puffing all the while. With her last push, her arm was buried deep into the wall, well past her elbow.

They jumped excitedly and a huge smile spread across Jessica’s face. But her smile quickly disappeared when the passageway erupted with a loud bang
,
causing the wall to vibrate ferociously. Jessica’s eyes filled with sheer terror as she quickly tried to jerk her arm out of the wall.

“G-Gabby Girls, something has my arm. I can
’
t pull it out of the wall,”
she
stuttered. She pulled and jerked her arm but it
still
did not budge.

“Relax
,
Jessica
,
and stop jerking your arm
;
you
’
ll hurt yourself,” Gabrielle said impatiently. “We must have done something wrong. Rosalinda
,
read the last sentence again.”

Rosalinda’s hands trembled as she reached for the clue that
had
fallen to the ground. She cleared her throat. “At the wall you multiply, ten times two then add a five
.
”

Zora’s
face flushed with excitement
.
“You
’
re right—we did do something wrong. Read the last
part
again.”

“Ten times two then add a five
,
” Rosalinda read.