CHAPTER 11
By the time we made it back to the Lost, the boarding party of pirates was gone.
So was the leather map Dad had discovered in Rome.
“The Door was unlocked?” said Mom, staring in disbelief at our wide-open bank vault. When she was done doing that, she stared at me and Beck. Hard.
“I thought Bick was going to check the lock,” said Beck.
“I thought Beck was going to do it,” I countered.
Beck whirled around to face me. “Well, then, you should’ve asked me if I was going to check the lock!”
“You could’ve asked me, too!”
We were about to erupt into our worst Twin Tirade ever when Storm spoke up.
“Guess it’s time for me to save your twin tushies again,” she said with a sigh. “Dad?”
“Yes?” he said. He sounded distracted, probably because we desperately needed that map to find Paititi.
“Don’t worry,” said Storm. She tapped her temple. “I memorized it.”
“What?” said Dad.
“The map. It was ink on leather. Full of interesting hieroglyphs.”
“After I saw how important it was to you.”
“But how did you get into the Room?” asked Mom.
“Easy. I memorized the code Dad punched into the security system the last time he locked it.”
“Wait a second,” I said to Storm. “So you’re saying the Door wouldn’t’ve been unlocked if you hadn’t unlocked it?”
She just shrugged. “Guess not. But you should’ve checked. I can be forgetful about stuff like locking doors.”
“What?” exclaimed Beck. “You have a photographic memory!”
“True. But I use it only for important information. Otherwise, my brain would become too crowded. Now, if you guys will excuse me, I’m going to go to my cabin, where I will re-create the map. I think I’ll do it on my laptop instead of leather.”
Storm eased past the rest of us and headed up to the cabin that she shared with Beck in the ship’s bow.
Mom smiled. “We have an amazingly talented daughter, Thomas,” she said to Dad.
“Indeed we do,” said Dad.
“Bick and I could’ve chased after Merck,” said Beck.
“If we’d had our trail bikes,” I added.
“We know,” said Dad. “You two are extremely talented, too.”
“What about me?” Tommy moped. “What’s my talent? Falling head over heels in love with girls who just want to steal our treasures?”
“You have a good heart, Tommy,” said Mom.
“You’re also an amazing big brother,” said Beck.
“Totally,” I chimed in. “We never would’ve survived without Mom and Dad if we didn’t have you.”
“Yeah, well, maybe. But this is it. I’m done. No more girlfriends. Well, at least not until I go to college. Or until next month. Maybe I’ll just take a month off…”
“Sounds like a wise move, Tommy,” said Dad. He checked his dive watch. “Time is of the essence, Kidds. Whoever was on that submarine has our map and a head start.”
“They’re on their way to Paititi already!” I said, pounding my fist into my open palm.
“Perhaps,” said Dad mysteriously. “However, the map may not help them all that much if they don’t know how to decode it.”
“And we do?”
Dad tapped his satchel again.
“Is that what’s in the letter?” I asked.
“Yes, Bick. The letter is the true key to the Lost City of Gold! Without it, the map those submarine pirates stole is practically worthless.”