Brown laid six manila envelopes on the table, one for each of them. He wished everyone luck and left with Dee and Connie.
The campers didn’t hesitate. They grabbed their envelopes and set out, determined to solve their mysteries and unearth a piece of rock-and-roll history.
Caitlyn, who loved puzzles, was so excited that she started to giggle. She found a spot at a picnic table and set her envelope down in front of her. CAITLYN—HIP-HOP was written in marker across the front.
Brown had given her hip-hop because she wanted to be a producer and so much of a rap song’s success depended on its producer. He told her hip-hop was one of the first musical styles completely created in America since jazz, and he challenged her to be inventive in her research.
He got her listening to some early rappers, and she liked the way they took parts of existing songs, such as a drumbeat or a guitar riff, and turned them into something new. It was the kind of thing she liked to do when she was playing around with her instruments.
She opened the envelope and pulled out two pieces of paper. The first was a poem entitled “Recipe for Rap.”
A rap producer is a special fixer,
An artist who controls the mixer
To blend the parts and make them cook
And bake a sound that’s off the hook.
Caitlyn smiled as she read the poem. Brown was nothing if not creative. She read it again and giggled.
Then she pulled out the other piece of paper. It was sheet music filled in with musical notes. Across the top of it, Brown had written the word produce. Caitlyn nodded. She obviously needed to produce a recording of the music. But when she looked at the sheet again, she crinkled up her nose in confusion. The music wasn’t really music at all. It was just practice scales.
“You want me to produce scales?” she said aloud as if Brown were there with her.
She turned over the paper to make sure there were no other clues written on the back. There weren’t. She quickly realized this was not going to be as easy as she had first thought. She reread the poem once more and thought about it. As far as she could figure, she was supposed to produce a recording of scales. Maybe add a hip-hop beat to it or something. Hopefully, if she did that she might figure out what the clue actually meant.
It wasn’t much of a plan, but at least it was something. And she was glad she had an excuse to go to the recording studio. It was her favorite place at camp. It’s where she liked to experiment with different techniques and where she and Mitchie had come up with some great songs.
When she got to the studio, she found Colby digging around in one of the closets.
“Find your treasure yet?” Caitlyn asked.
“Just getting a guitar,” he said as he pulled out a case and set it on the table. “We stored a couple of acoustics in here last night.”
“Let me guess,” Caitlyn said with a smile. “Brown gave you a piece of music?”
Colby held the sheet music up in the air. “How’d you know?”
“I got some, too,” she said, holding hers up. “Only mine’s not really music. They’re just scales.”
“Hmmm,” Colby said with a nod. “I don’t know what mine is. Brown very helpfully crossed out the name of the song. Hopefully, I’ll recognize it when I play it.”
Colby placed the sheet music on a stand and started to play it on his guitar.
“That’s so familiar,” he said, missing a few notes as he warmed up, but quickly getting the hang of it.
“Keep playing,” Caitlyn said. “I know that song. It’s on the tip of my tongue.”
Colby nodded and kept playing.
Finally, it came to Caitlyn. She laughed. A lot. “That is so like Brown.”
“What?” Colby asked, still not able to identify it. “What song is it?”
“Keep going,” she replied.“I’ll sing it for you.”
Colby kept playing, and when he reached the chorus, Caitlyn sang along. It was the classic U2 song, “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.”
Colby stopped playing and shook his head. “Very funny, Brown.” Then he started laughing. “Well, I guess I’ll just have to keep looking until I find what I’m looking for. I just don’t know where to begin.”
“Did he give you a poem?” Caitlyn asked.
Colby nodded. “Oh, yeah. It was really helpful, too,” he said sarcastically. Pulling a sheet of paper out of his envelope, he read “The Edge of Music” to Caitlyn.
“Alt rockers and grunge musicians
Are just like old-time magicians
With tricks so hard to believe
Like the one hidden up Paul David
Hewson’s sleeve.”
Caitlyn thought about it for a moment and then shook her head. “I got nothing.”
Colby laughed. “Welcome to the club. Because that’s what I’ve got, too.”
“Who’s Paul David Hewson?” she asked.
“I wish I knew,” he replied. “And more importantly, I wish I knew where his sleeve was.”
Caitlyn mulled this over for a moment and then had an idea. She snapped her fingers and pointed. “I bet it’s in wardrobe!”
Colby slapped the table. “Why didn’t I think of that? It makes so much sense.”
In a flash, Colby bolted out of the recording studio and headed for the wardrobe cabin. “Good luck,” he called cheerfully over his shoulder.
“Thanks,” Caitlyn said. “You, too.”
In his mad dash across the camp, Colby slipped twice, plopped into the middle of a mud puddle, and almost ran into a tree. He didn’t recognize Paul David Hewson’s name, but he figured there was a good chance it might be written on one of the outfits in the Wardrobe Studio.
He burst into the cabin and was about to start looking through the shirts when a stern voice stopped him in his tracks.
“Stop right there!”
He turned and saw Lorraine sitting at a table.
“You do not come into this cabin without wiping off your shoes.”
He looked down and realized that his right shoe was still caked with mud from his puddle encounter.
“Sorry,” he said sheepishly as he went outside and wiped his shoes on the welcome mat.
He stepped back in and one at a time showed her the soles of both shoes.
“Better,” she said. “Now what do you want?”
“Paul David Hewson’s sleeve,” he said. “It’s my clue.”
Lorraine cocked her head to one side as she mentally went through the wardrobe inventory. “We don’t have it,” she finally said, shaking her head.
His shoulders drooped a little bit. “What do you mean?”
“I mean I’ve been organizing this wardrobe all summer. Nothing in here belongs to anyone with the name Paul David Hewson.”
“Can I check?” he asked, “just to be sure.”
“Let me see your hands,” she joked.
He held them up, and they were spotless.
“Okay,” she said with a smile. “Have fun.”
“So what are you doing here?” he asked as he began searching the first rack of clothes. “Is this where your clue led you?”
“My clue isn’t really much of a clue,” she said as she held up a pillowcase that made a loud, clinking noise. “It’s more of a chore.”
“What’s in there?” Colby asked.
“Keys,” she told him. “Lots and lots of keys.”
She held the pillowcase open and poured the keys out on the table.
“Did Brown give you a poem?” Colby asked.
“Yes, he did,” she answered, pushing a stray strand of red hair out of her eyes. She held up a piece of paper. The poem was called “A Glam-Rock Costume for Lorraine.”
“Nice title,” he said.
She started reading it:
“Queen and ELTON knew how to dress
When they wanted to impress.
And you can, too, if you please—
Just solve the riddle of these KEYS.”
Colby laughed. “Brown really got into the whole mysterious-poetry thing, didn’t he?”
“Apparently,” she said. “So I’ve been lugging this pillowcase around and trying each and every key in any lock I can find. Right now I’m trying this file cabinet.”
“Have you had any luck so far?”
“Of course not,” she said with a laugh. “It’s frustrating, but it is kind of fun.”
“Especially when you consider that we might actually get to perform with a piece of rock-and-roll history,” he added. “That would be too cool.”
For a moment they stopped and looked at each other. Camp Rock had exceeded their wildest expectations, and this was the icing on the cake.
“Can you believe any of this?” Lorraine asked.
“No,” Colby said. “It’s beyond incredible.”
“Incredible,” she repeated.
As much as she wanted to stop and just enjoy the moment, she had a mystery to solve. One by one, Lorraine started trying the keys in the locked file cabinet. Most didn’t fit at all, although a couple slid in. None, however, unlocked the cabinet.
Meanwhile, Colby went through the racks and racks of clothing. And, like Lorraine, he looked for a sign that he was on the right track. Every costume had a tag on it, and he checked the front and back of each one looking for anything about Paul David Hewson.
Without even realizing it, he had started singing the song from the recording studio. It was the old U2 song, and pretty soon Lorraine started singing along with him. They both liked the song, but more importantly they both could relate to what it was saying—they were still no closer to finding what they were looking for.