The Perilous Journey (18 page)

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Sticky said in a miserable tone. “Here?”

Constance seemed shaken up. “I probably just saw him and didn’t realize it, right?”

“I’m sure that’s what happened, Constance,” said Reynie, trying to sound calm. “And lucky for us it did. He would have spotted us for sure. He’s patrolling the wall.”

“Patrolling it?” Kate said.

“That’s what it looks like,” said Reynie, peeking around the corner again. “He’s just pacing back and forth, like he’s waiting for something.”

“Or some
one,
” Constance said.

“I knew it was too good to be true,” Sticky said, taking out his polishing cloth. “And here I’d thought this part, at least, was going to be easy.”

Kate’s face darkened. “Reynie, if Jackson’s here…”

“Then Jillson’s probably here, too. I know.”

If Jackson was dangerous alone, he was doubly dangerous with Jillson, his constant companion. The children had never determined if the two Executives were brother and sister, boyfriend and girlfriend, or simply partners in crime. They didn’t even know them by any names other than Jackson and Jillson — which could have been first names, last names, or nicknames. But none of this mattered. What mattered was that Jackson stood between them and their mission, and that Jillson, no doubt, was lurking nearby.

“Constance,” Reynie said, “do you have a feeling about Jillson?”

“Oh, yes, I hate her,” Constance said. “Don’t you?”

“I meant a feeling about whether or not she’s
here.
”

“Oh. No. No, I would have told you if I had, wouldn’t I? But that doesn’t mean she isn’t here. Maybe she’s just on the other side of the castle.”

“Or maybe something terrible happened to her,” Kate suggested hopefully. “She always tied her ponytail with wire, remember? Maybe she got struck by lightning!”

“I’ll never understand how you can joke at times like these,” said Sticky, anxiously looking around.

“Who said I was joking?” said Kate. “Anyway, if she shows up, we can deal with it, can’t we? I’m sure I can handle her by myself — Jillson
or
Jackson, either one. With the three of you —” she glanced at Constance “— well, the two and a half of you to handle the other one, we can probably win if it comes to a fight. At the very least we’ll give them a run for their money.”

“It can’t come to that, Kate,” said Reynie. “I don’t know why Jackson’s here, but if he sees us he’ll report it to Mr. Curtain, and that will wreck everything. We can’t afford for him even to
suspect
that we’re here — not without putting Mr. Benedict and Number Two in greater danger.”

“So what do we do?” asked Constance. “How are we supposed to dig? How do we even find
where
to dig?”

Reynie quickly returned to the letter. He felt sure that Mr. Benedict had provided an answer if only he knew how to find it. A lot of the directions seemed unimportant or unhelpful, so perhaps they were meant as distractions — like the extra words in the bottom corners of the journal pages. And what was this business about going
down
for their hint, then
up
to where the clues led them? Mr. Benedict had written the clues at the bottom of the page, and they did lead uphill to the castle, but why say it like that? For that matter, why did he say “hint” first — as if there were only one — and then “clues,” which implied
more
than one? Did Mr. Benedict mean to suggest a difference between “hint” and “clues”? Why would he do that?

Sticky was growing more anxious by the second. It was well and good for Kate to conjecture about “handling” Jackson and Jillson — she was so quick she probably wouldn’t get handled in return. But he wasn’t Kate. He would almost certainly get handled, and just thinking about it was enough to make him sweat. “Reynie?” he prompted. “We need to hurry!”

“I know,” Reynie said, still poring over the letter. “That’s what’s troubling me. I don’t think Mr. Benedict meant for us to spend hours searching for our next clue. He expected us to be able to go straight to it — and to recover it quickly, without getting caught. The secret has to be in the letter. It has to be!”

“So find it,” snipped Constance. “Come on, Reynie, do your thing. Where do we dig?”

Reynie stared at the letter, desperately willing the answer to come to him — and suddenly it did. He started and looked up. “I don’t think we do.”

Constance scowled. “We don’t dig? But Captain Noland said —”

“I don’t care what Captain Noland said,” Reynie interrupted, with a sharpness that surprised all of them. “I’ll bet we just have to scrape off some putty and paint. That’s why we need a tool. Kate can use her Army knife for that.”

The others stared at him.

“You left out a part,” said Kate. “What are we scraping putty and paint from?”

Reynie handed her the letter. “Mr. Benedict says to go down for the clue. He doesn’t mean go down to the bottom of the page — he only wrote the hints down there as a distraction. He wanted to make it seem like he was just being playful: Go
down
for this, go
up
for that. But take a closer look. Go down the hints — read the first letter of each line.”

Kate did as Reynie said. Her eyes widened. Constance and Sticky crowded against her to see what she had seen. And there was the answer, plain as day.

I can’t believe you didn’t see that sooner,” said Constance with an incredulous snort. “It’s perfectly obvious!”

“Next time you might trouble to look at it yourself,” said Reynie, trying hard not to snap.

Kate glanced around the corner of the castle wall. “It’s the nearest one. The other cannons all have cork or pine trees within two meters.” (She could speak with perfect certainty given her talent for gauging distances.) Pulling out her spyglass, Kate popped off the kaleidoscope lens and took a closer look at the cannon.

“See anything unusual?” Reynie asked.

“Not yet.”

“Maybe it’s down inside the barrel,” said Sticky.

“No, I think I see something now. Yes, that’s it! There’s a slightly darker area near the base of the cannon…” Kate lowered the spyglass and grinned. “It’s rectangular.”

“Like an envelope,” Reynie said.

Kate nodded. “I think you were right. A little putty and paint and he was able to hide the envelope in plain sight.” She put away the spyglass and took out her Army knife. “I can get it and be back here in fifteen seconds.”

“Shouldn’t we do something to distract Jackson?” Sticky asked.

“Too risky,” said Kate. She slipped her bucket from her belt and set it down, then began untying her ponytail. “Too many people around, too little time. Jillson could show up any second. I’ll just need to go when he’s facing the other direction.”

“I agree with Kate,” said Reynie. “But listen, if he
does
look your way —”

“I’m one step ahead of you, pal.” Kate shook her head vigorously, then ran her fingers through her hair, teasing it up and forward, until it stuck out on all sides and almost completely obscured her face. “Sticky, can I borrow your glasses?”

Sticky cringed, but of course he couldn’t refuse. “Be careful with them, will you?”

“When am I ever not careful?” Kate said. She balanced the spectacles low on her nose so she could see over the rims. “How do I look?”

Sticky squinted. “Blurry.”

“Weird,” said Constance.

“Perfect,” said Reynie with an approving nod.

Kate untied one of her shoes and peeked around the corner again. “He’s still pacing. Same number of steps in both directions. Looks left, looks right, looks left again. I do like
that
about Jackson. He’s predictable. Okay, I’m off!”

Reynie took Kate’s place at the corner and watched her go. She walked quickly, but not so quickly as to draw attention to herself, and she even managed to appear slightly bowlegged. For a spur-of-the-moment disguise, it was pretty good. A wild-haired, bow-legged girl with an untied shoe, wire-rimmed spectacles — and no red bucket. If Reynie hadn’t known better he might not have recognized her himself. He glanced toward Jackson, who was still walking in the other direction. So far, so good.

Kate swerved around a family that was approaching the cannon to take pictures, pretended to notice her untied shoelace, and knelt by the cannon’s base to tie it — which she did with one hand. In the other hand Reynie saw her knife glint. There was no time to marvel at Kate’s dexterity, though, for she was every bit as quick as she was dexterous. Already she had scraped the envelope free, tied her shoe, and was rising again, shoving the envelope and knife into her pocket with a triumphant smile. Then she hesitated. The mother in the family was speaking to her, holding out a camera, stepping in front of her. She wanted Kate to take the family’s picture together.

“Oh no,” Reynie said.

“What’s happening?” Constance hissed.

“Get ready to run,” Reynie said. He heard the other two suck in their breath.

Kate was shaking her head, feigning incomprehension. The mother had grabbed her arm, trying to make herself understood. Finally, with an apologetic smile and an artful twist of her arm, Kate got away. But it was a costly delay. Reynie knew it, and from the expression on Kate’s face, she knew it too. She was walking purposefully, but she couldn’t risk running. Reynie looked to see if Jackson had noticed her.

Jackson hadn’t. But Jillson had.

There was no mistaking Jillson. Six feet tall, greasy brown ponytail, arms like jackhammers. She had just come around the far corner of the castle, and as she approached Jackson, she was pointing in Kate’s direction. Her expression was not one of outright recognition, but it was clearly suspicious. Jackson turned to look just before Kate rounded the corner. Whether or not he recognized her Reynie couldn’t say — he had to withdraw quickly to avoid being spotted himself.

“Did he notice me?” asked Kate.

“Jillson did,” Reynie said. “We need to go.”

“Jillson?” Sticky cried.

Kate snatched the shovel from Reynie. “Move it, then! Give Constance a ride. I’ll meet you outside the gate.”

There was no time to argue or ask questions, nor even for Sticky to retrieve his spectacles. With Constance riding on Reynie’s back and Sticky, squinting, following close behind, the three of them hurried down the winding path through the thicket, once again startling peafowl from under the shrubs. Across the plaza, down the steps, and toward the gate they ran, and as they ran Reynie looked back to see that Kate had herded several of the peafowl together and was shooing them around the corner of the castle. Even from this distance he could hear a young woman’s angry cry of surprise — that would be Jillson — followed by a great clucking, cooing commotion.

Kate, meanwhile, was tossing the shovel like a spear into the middle of the thicket. Reynie glanced ahead at the gate — almost there — and when he glanced back, Kate was disappearing around the castle’s farthest corner. Jackson and Jillson came around the other corner just as Reynie darted out through the gate.

“I don’t think they saw us,” said Constance, who also had been looking back, “but what if they ask around? A lot of people saw us running to the gate.” Indeed, some people were looking at them even now. A few were glancing about as if they wondered where the children’s parents were.

“I can’t imagine either of them speaks Portuguese,” said Sticky. “We’ll have to hope they don’t find someone who speaks English. Maybe they won’t even think to ask. They aren’t very clever, you know.”

As if to prove Sticky’s point, a thwacking sound came from the direction of the thicket, followed by a loud oath. Jackson had stumbled upon the shovel Kate had put there for that very purpose. It sounded as if he’d stepped on the blade, causing the handle to fly up and strike him. The thought would have been amusing were Jackson’s angry grumbling not growing louder and more distinct by the moment.

“Clever or not, they’re coming this way,” said Reynie, staring anxiously at the gate. “We need to get out of here. But Kate —”

“What about me?”

Everyone jumped and turned to see Kate grinning at them.

“Where did you come from?” Constance asked.

“I went over the far wall,” said Kate. She handed Sticky his spectacles. “Listen, I heard them talking. They weren’t sure who I was, but they’re coming out to look around. Here, Reynie, you’d better let me carry Constance.”

The children took off, hurrying away from the castle. Down, down along the twisting cobbled street, weaving through pedestrians, crossing tiled plazas, down and down to where the street grew still more narrow and began to branch off into other streets and alleyways. They had come into the fishery district. The children stopped to catch their breath and get their bearings. Around them the odor of fish mingled with the more delicate scent of flowering bougainvillea, which draped the old stone walls. Locals and tourists brushed shoulders passing up and down the narrow street, and crowded in the doorways of little shops.

Reynie and Sticky were panting and clutching their sides. Sticky had dropped to one knee and was mopping his brow with his shirt.

“You guys are in awful shape,” observed Constance from her perch on Kate’s back.

Kate was looking back up the way they’d come. The spyglass was of no use; the streets were too winding to allow her to see more than a block in any direction. But at least Jackson and Jillson weren’t right behind them, which they all had half-feared.

“We don’t even know where we’re going yet,” Reynie gasped. “We need to read the clue.”

They moved into an alley, huddling together behind a stall in which rows of huge fish were stacked like logs. They would not be easily seen from the street. The fish vendor — a burly man wielding a cleaver — glanced at them, saw that they were only children, and returned to his task of lopping off fish heads. Kate slit the envelope open with her Army knife. Inside was a note and a key.

She glanced at the note. “I can’t make heads or tails of this,” she said, handing the note to Sticky and directing her attention to the key. It was an ordinary metal key, smallish, with the number 37 engraved upon it. Kate took out her farm keys to compare with it, thinking she might deduce what sort of thing it unlocked. She suspected a cabinet, or no, a locker — this key was much like the one for the grain locker in the barn, and lockers, after all, were usually numbered.