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“A sum of money,” he said, his voice dropping lower, “a rather substantial sum, has been put aside to fund an undertaking…or I should say,
seven
undertakings.”

Seven
undertakings? There are seven aunts and uncles, including Webb's stepdad, who wasn't here. The twins' dad had died a long time ago.

But there was something about the way he said it. He'd raised his eyebrows and emphasized the word. But why would Grandpa fund some sort of mysterious project for
each
of his daughters and sons-in-law? Wouldn't it be better to do it by family—the four families? Why would Dad, for example, take on one thing and Mom another? It didn't make much sense. And what could these
undertakings
(which sounded like something funeral directors did) possibly be? Something strange was going on; Grandpa had something up his sleeve. I looked around at my cousins. There were six of
us
, not seven—five Canucks and a Yankee.

“This is without a doubt one of the most unusual clauses that I have ever been asked to put in a will.” The lawyer shook his head and smiled.

Now he had my
full
attention.

But then he said he couldn't share the details with everyone. It seemed like a polite way of telling the grandchildren that secrets were going to be kept from us. There was an eruption of protest. The lawyer tried to silence everyone by continuing to speak. But what he had to say didn't help at all.

“Some people will have to leave the room prior to the undertakings being read.”

One cousin, good old Steve, snorted and began to make a bigger fuss. That was when the rest of my cousins—Webb, Spencer, Bunny (I know, it's a lame name, but he's a weirdo and he likes it, and I might too, if my name was
Bernard
) and even the holier-than-the-rest-of-us DJ—started complaining more too. At first there were just a few comments; then things got louder and all hell broke loose. They really gave it to the lawyer about “not going anywhere.” The parents didn't help. As they tried to calm their kids, they muttered a few things about this not making sense.

But not
my
parents: Mom and Dad were the only ones who didn't offer any sort of protest. They were often the best-behaved people in any room, and usually the best-looking too. It really ticked me off.

I wished I was as relaxed as them. My stomach was churning. Something about this had begun to worry me,
really
worry me. I looked at the lawyer and saw his eyes twinkling. I had a distinct feeling that this wasn't what it seemed. Our grandfather was pulling strings—again—and we were all about to be surprised, big-time.

“I need to have everyone
except
the six grandsons,” said the lawyer with a pause and a barely detectable smile, “leave the room.”

TWO

SECRETS

Once all the parents were out of the room, a miracle happened. The lawyer directed our attention to a
TV
in a cabinet, pressed a button on a remote control, and suddenly Grandpa was alive again. He looked out at us from a television screen, saying that he loved us and telling us that life was a journey. When he talked about our grandmother, Vera, tears came to his eyes. She was an amazing lady (of course) who had died long before any of us were born. He had raised his four accomplished daughters on his own. As he talked, he was funny and crusty and brilliant (of course) and I missed him like crazy. I also wanted to yell at him, tell him he was wrong about me. His ever-present black beret was on his head, making him look more worldly than any man his age had a right to be. It said that he knew Europe like the back of his hand, had been everywhere else too, done everything, and looked down upon the planet from above—the Picasso of adventure.

Then he said something weird. He mentioned his “wonderful, incredible”grandsons. But that wasn't what was so strange. It was what he said after that. He called us his “
seven
blessings.”

I looked around at the five other guys. DJ raised his hands at me to indicate that he didn't know what Grandpa was on about; Steve made a little circle in the air with his hand, right near his head, as if to say the great David McLean had lost it. The others just sat there with puzzled expressions.

I started thinking:
seven
grandsons,
seven
undertakings. Almost the moment I thought that, Grandpa confirmed that the undertakings were for us. My eyes snapped up to meet his. Every one of my cousins leaned forward in their comfy leather chairs.

“In the possession of my lawyer are some envelopes…” Grandpa continued.

I didn't hear much else. My mind was racing.

When his image vanished, we sat there in silence.

Then the lawyer dropped a final bomb on us. He told us that Grandpa had had a brief relationship with a woman long after his wife died, and recently discovered that he had another daughter, who had a son. There were indeed
seven
grandsons.

As we tried to take that in, we were handed our undertakings, seven assignments. Some of the envelopes were bigger and thicker than others, but each had nothing but our names on the front. It was as if we were CIA operatives. I glanced around at the other guys again. Most of them seemed pretty calm, more curious than concerned.

But not me.

I knew what was
really
happening. David McLean was testing us from beyond the grave, each and every one of his boys, his mighty grandsons. This had the smell of a competition. And if we were going to be tested, I
had
to do well.
Very
well.
Better
than well.

I had to win.

THREE

TESTS

As we drove home to Buffalo that night, it was quiet in the
SUV
. Mom was at the wheel, going top speed as usual, and Dad was fast asleep in the passenger seat. Or at least, he seemed to be. She appeared preoccupied, as if she were contemplating her next big real-estate deal. One of the top ten realtors in New York State last year—that was Victoria McLean Murphy. But I knew they were acting. I doubted he was really asleep or that she was thinking about anything other than the four items on my lap, all from one of the biggest packages my grandfather had left for any of us—three large manila envelopes and one small white one.

I didn't blame Mom and Dad. Who wouldn't have been curious? Grandpa had such a sense of drama. All the parents had been called back into the lawyer's office after we'd seen the video. Things had been explained to them. But not everything. And they knew it.

It was me who broke the silence in the car. It was nice to have held it for so long, controlling things, in charge of my parents for once.

“I'm sure you are wondering exactly what happened in there.”

“Pardon me, dear?” asked Mom.

“Did you say something, buddy?”

Nice try, guys. “I'll tell you.”

“No need,” Mom said.

“No, it's okay,” I said.

“Well, if you insist.”

“I do.”

“You don't need to explain everything.” Dad smiled.

“I won't.”

“What do you mean, you won't?” asked Mom, a little sternly.

“Because I can't; that's part of the deal. You need to know some things, and I can't tell you others.”

I looked down at the envelopes. The larger ones were numbered one to three. I'd sliced open the first the minute we'd gotten into the car. There was a long letter inside. I'd read the first two pages but then stopped. It was almost too much to take in. At the beginning, my grandfather had written that I could share some of its contents, just those first pages, with my parents. I'd noticed Mom eyeing me in the rearview mirror a couple of times while I'd been reading, glancing away when I'd looked up at her; and Dad had even cocked an eye in the mirror, pretending that he was turning in his sleep. I'd never known him to snooze in the car before.

“Well, what
can
you share with us, Master Murphy?” I'm sure he was annoyed that Grandpa had told me to withhold information from him and Mom.

“Well, you know about the seventh grandson.”

“Yes, dear,” said Mom. “Your grandfather told us a while ago.”

“He gave us all tasks.”

Dad kept looking out the window, as if he were only mildly interested. “Are those the undertakings that the lawyer was talking about?”

“What do you mean by tasks?” asked Mom.

“Well, they're adventures, assignments, tests—however you want to put it—for all seven grandsons.”

“I don't get it,” said Dad.

“Grandpa said there were things he hadn't accomplished, if you can believe it, things he wanted to do during his life, but never did. Things left undone.”

“That
is
hard to believe,” said Mom.

“So?” asked Dad, turning around and looking at me.

“We—my cousins and I—are going to do them for him. Or at least try to.”

There was just the sound of the car moving along the highway for a few seconds.

“I hope these aren't dangerous things,” said Mom.

“You're both supposed to go with me.”

“And help you do what?” asked Dad.

“You don't help me. You just go with me.”

“Okay,” said Mom. “Would it be too much to ask
where
we are going? How long will the drive be?”

“To France.”

“France?” they both sputtered.

“This summer, to a place called Marseille.”

“The
l
s are silent, dear. You should know that.”

Mom had made me take private French lessons once a week from the time I was about seven. It was her way of keeping me Canadian, or so she said. Not that she was even remotely bilingual herself. She hadn't even been any good at ordering lunch in Montreal when we visited the French-Canadian province of Quebec last year. I didn't listen much to the woman who taught me. It wasted my free time. And there weren't any marks to be had either.

“Okay, Mar-say,” I said with my best French accent.

“That's on the southern coast,” said Dad. “Your grandfather flew reconnaissance missions in that area in the Second World War.”

Like I hadn't been told that a million times, right from the lips of the war hero himself! Iceland, East Africa, France, the tales were endless. Not that I hated hearing them: they were actually pretty wicked, but I could have done with fewer renditions, despite the fact that they came in useful whenever I wanted Vanessa to give me a moment of her time. She really had no interest in talking to
me
. (Not that most sophomore girls talked much to sophomore boys anyway, unless you were somehow supercool.) She'd only listen to me if she heard me talking about Grandpa's time in France or Dad's exploits in the Gulf War. “It's so romantic,” she said once. “They're like heroes from another time.” She was a very proud American and often wore jeans that had a stars-and-stripes patch sewn on just above her butt. Her dad had been in the National Guard and had about fifty
Support
Our Troops
,
America First!
and
Peace Through Superior
Firepower
decals on their car. He was an executive of some sort who worked for the Republican Party in our district. I remember the day Dad showed up at school in his United Airlines pilot's uniform. Vanessa came right over to talk to us and stayed for a while. And the time Grandpa dropped by to pick me up after class, she immediately asked to be introduced to him. “So,
you
are David McLean,” she said, her voice rising a little. “I've heard so much about you!” Of course, he regaled her with some pretty dramatic tales. He had a way with the ladies, right to the end. She told me later that he didn't look a day over sixty.

It didn't hurt that Grandpa had actually done his flying for the US Air Force during the Second World War, drawn there because he had some American business connections, signed up a little late and liked the sort of firepower and advanced technology we had in our planes. (David McLean always liked to go as fast as he could.) He'd had a grandfather who was a US citizen, which he said helped him get in, but in those days just about anyone who wanted to enlist was apparently welcome. Vanessa thought it was awfully moving that a Canadian would fight under the US flag and then “be so brave!” Little did she know that he wasn't the biggest fan of “you Yanks,” as he liked to call us.

My girlfriend, Shirley, who is in tenth grade too but pretty down-to-earth and cool with dating a guy in her year, didn't fawn over Dad or Grandpa at all. Shirley was nice and polite every time I had her over to our place. She was great, and I really liked her. She was an excellent friend and quite good-looking, but she didn't light up a room like Vanessa. If the Big V had been in my house or in my bedroom like Shirley's been a couple of times, my place would have been glowing. I had kissed Shirley, more than once and with some feeling, with Mom and Dad just down the hall. It was pretty good. But sometimes I imagined it with Vanessa, and man, that just sent me over the moon. If that ever happened, even once, or even almost once, I would have tried to commit it to memory—
exactly
how she smelled, how she felt, how she looked in my room at that moment.