Assume every agent is a double agent.
— Rule Number 21 from Rules for a Successful Life as an Undercover Secret Agent
I figured I had at least thirty minutes, probably a bit more, if only because Silverton was fifteen minutes away from anything. Fortunately, I had the Rules as a guide. In this case, Rule Number 16: Always have a Plan B. And a Plan C. A Plan D would be good too.
Today I had a long list of plans. One: Open the red suitcase. Two: Open the Spoon’s humming file cabinet. Three: Contact the Agency to tell them to get here now. Four: Decode the topological map and the blueprint. Five: Share all intel with Sheriff Baker to see if she’d listen to me again.
First things first — the red suitcase. I made sure the basement door was firmly shut behind me. As I peered around, I had the same uncomfortable feeling I was being watched. Keep calm, Sunflower. Inspector Montgomery knew about my parents’ weird travels, but he couldn’t possibly know they were Cleaners, could he? The only thing I knew for certain was that Montgomery wanted the red suitcase.
A floorboard creaked from above. Startled, I froze. I waited for a minute, but no other sound came. It’s just an old house, Sunflower. Wooden floors make sounds.
I moved the pile of giant plastic containers until I got to my parents’ hidden stash. With the lantern turned on, I examined the combination lock. Even though I was no expert, I could clearly see that the lock looked modern and the suitcase was old. Really old. Antique, my parents would say. The leather handle flaked a little when I touched it.
My parents must have installed the new lock. They never used the same numbers, such as birthdays, that could be easily guessed. Instead, their system for making up codes was to use the telephone touch pad, but base it on the object in question. Since this was the red suitcase and a six-digit lock, I used the first three letters of each word to make the six-digit code. Red suitcase = red sui = 733784.
I rotated the digits on the lock and tried that combination. Nothing.
I remembered Dad had mentioned he’d also flip the numbers once in a while, so I tried them in reverse: 487337. Click. The lock opened, and I exhaled in relief.
It wasn’t a suitcase after all. It was a silverware case from Monticello, Virginia, according to the stamp on the red velvet lining. On one side were sixteen soup spoons. Nothing fancy, except that the handles were gold. I picked one up. It felt pretty heavy, which meant that they might be real gold, not just plated. The initials TJ were inscribed on the back.
These were the gold-handled spoons Montgomery had questioned me about.
The spoons and the red suitcase were connected the whole time! I sat back on my heels as I tried to recall everything I’d heard about them. If Frank knew about the red suitcase from when he was young, that would mean his parents (my grandparents) did too. Montgomery had also tied the gold-handled TJ spoons to the suitcase. How did he know about it? I wondered. And how much did my parents know?
On the other side of the silverware case were several ancient letters. The paper was yellow and brittle. Barely breathing, I opened the top letter and could hardly read the fancy script. I made out a few words and phrases: “Martha is well,” “my opinion,” “our government must,” and “I am concerned with Britain’s navy.”
Monticello? TJ? Martha? Concerns about Britain’s navy?
Oh! I swallowed my victory yell. I had been right. So very, very right.
These spoons must have belonged to Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States and the guy who actually wrote the Declaration of Independence. This was serious history we had hidden in our basement, next to inflatable reindeer and beach buckets.
At first I couldn’t believe my parents hadn’t told me about this, but then doubt crept in. What if it wasn’t my parents who had hidden this suitcase here? What if it had been Aunt Gertie? She was in and out of our house all the time. The Spoon was a perfect transfer place for stolen goods, especially when my parents were out on a mission and I was in school.
Aunt Gertie had a motive too. Frank had stolen her money and left her alone to raise their baby sister. Had she been picking up spy tips from Mom and Dad? What if Aunt Gertie was a criminal like her parents had been? What if the inspector was who he said he was? The unpleasant realization that Montgomery could be telling the truth hit me with great force.
Get it together, Sunflower! It was possible, but not probable. I shook my head. Aunt Gertie was neither a thief nor a smuggler. There had to be a reasonable explanation for why we had valuable American antiques hidden in our basement.
The spoons were no doubt very valuable. I wasn’t sure about the letters, but I guessed they had historical value, if nothing else.
I carefully put Thomas Jefferson’s gold-handled spoons and letters back where I found them, making sure to spin the digits on the lock.
Questions about my parents, Aunt Gertie, and the red suitcase swirled in my head, but I’d never find out the answers by just sitting around. As I restacked the containers, a creak sounded. Then another. Footsteps.
Friend or foe?
Tiptoeing up the stairs, I pressed my ear to the basement door. The footsteps were coming from the kitchen.
“Mabel,” said a very familiar voice. “Are you here?”
I pushed the basement door open. Stanley jumped and let out a sharp, “Oh!”
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Trying to help you.”
“How did you get here?”
“When you didn’t get on the bus this morning, I called my mom and told her I wasn’t feeling well. She let the bus driver drop me off back at home.”
He took out the topographic map with no markings and then the same one with markings. “I found the spot, not even five miles from here. It’s almost all dense forest, except for this.” He pointed to a landmark. “Tim Chamberlain’s old warehouse.”
“That’s where Aunt Gertie thought we were going when Montgomery was eavesdropping on Saturday,” I said. “What could be there?”
“It’s supposed to be empty,” Stanley said.
Tim Chamberlain, who had died just two years before, was famous in Silverton as a wilderness guide. He used to lead hikes on the mountains, and he flew helicopters, which he kept in the huge old warehouse. In his will, he stipulated that the land and the warehouse be sold for one dollar to the National Forest Service.
“We’ll go there later today,” I said. “Do you have your camera?”
“Always. I stopped at home to get everything we might need.” Stanley patted his backpack. “But you should look at these again.” He pulled photos out of his bag and spread them on the kitchen table. They were from our monthly hikes.
I glanced over the sets — trees with snow, trees with green leaves, evergreen trees surrounded by trees with autumn leaves. “Wait,” I said. Something besides the seasonal changes was different in them. “The bat houses move around every month.”
“I know. That can’t be authorized,” he said. “Bats need to hibernate, and it would throw off their senses to move them this late in the year. We have to tell the park rangers.”
“Stanley, I don’t think those black boxes are bat houses.”
“Why not?”
“Bat houses don’t need antennas, do they?” I said, pointing to the tall rod sticking out of the top of each one.
“No,” Stanley said.
“Could they be some kind of signaling device? Maybe that’s how Montgomery managed to walk off the path without getting lost.” I turned to Stanley. “I need to see one of those black boxes up close.”
“Let’s go now,” he said.
“Hang on, I need to get something from my room first, and then we’ll stop at the Spoon for a minute,” I said. If my gut was right, the small key I had found in the basement would open the Spoon’s humming file cabinet.
My dash upstairs took fourteen seconds. It was another four seconds as I sped past my parents’ bedroom and the bathroom. But I stopped short in the hallway. My door was closed and I knew that I’d left it open when Victoria and I had gone downstairs that morning.
That tingly feeling of unease set in as I twisted the knob and pushed the door open. The room was dark. I clicked on the overhead light. The curtains had been drawn shut. As I walked over to my desk to retrieve the key, that strange feeling of being watched crept up my back. I turned.
Inspector Montgomery stood in the corner, wearing the oddest-looking green goggles and holding a wall-penetrating radar gun just like my mother’s. “Well, isn’t this uncomfortable?” he said.