The library was completely silent. The six remaining campers were sprawled out on chairs and couches trying to figure out the final clue. Unfortunately, they had been trying for a while and were getting nowhere.
“Five out of six is not bad,” Mitchie reasoned. “In fact, I think it’s pretty impressive. We don’t need to find all of them.”
“We are not giving up,” Caitlyn said. “We have come too far to quit. You need your prize, too, just like the rest of us.”
“The far is not the problem,” said Mitchie. “It’s the long that has me worried. As in ‘we’ve taken too long and are running out of time.’”
“Shhh,” Colby said. “We’re trying to think.”
Mitchie appreciated their determination, but she didn’t see any solution on the horizon.
“I mean, my mom has been here all summer, but your parents will be arriving soon and they’re expecting a show,” she reminded everyone.
Her words fell on deaf ears. No one was listening. She flashed pleading eyes at Shane and Caitlyn, but they both shook her off. Finally, she turned to Tess.
“Reason with them, Tess,” Mitchie begged. “You’re a pro. You understand that the show must go on. I mean, aren’t you just dying to use Aretha Franklin’s microphone?”
“I am,” Tess said as she looked Mitchie in the eye, “but I’m not going near that stage until we find your piece of rock-and-roll history. And that’s that.”
Such a strong, selfless statement coming from Tess totally caught Mitchie by surprise. She had always considered Tess completely selfish. She was beginning to realize that she had misjudged her.
“You’re serious?”
“Absolutely!” Tess said.
To Mitchie this meant more than anything they might find. This meant that Tess was a true friend.
“All right, then,” Mitchie said, reinvigorated. “Let’s go over the clues one more time.” First she read the poem:
“The secret of the new-wave sound
Is out there waiting to be found.
Follow the groups ’cause it’s a fact
This clue has no solo act.”
When she finished reading it, she looked around the room to see if anyone had miraculously come up with something this time around. No such luck.
“And here are the names,” she said as she read the other clue aloud.
“ ‘Phil, Tony, Mike BY Jack, Eric, Ginger AND Anthony, John, Michael, Chad. Belinda, Jane, Charlotte, Kathy, Gina, OUT Jim, John, Ray, Robby. Neal, Ross, Jonathan, Steve, TO Renaldo, Abdul, Lawrence, Levi NEAR Don, Glenn, Don, Bernie, Randy, Timothy, Joe, NEST. WHERE Phillip, Larry, Johnny, Ralph, Al, Maurice, Verdine, Andrew MEET. LOOK UNDER James, Tommy, Todd, Lawrence, Ricky, Dennis.’ ”
The silence returned, and Mitchie was about to take another pass at convincing them to quit.
“Think about all the clues Brown gave us,” Caitlyn said. “They were multilayered. We must be missing something.”
“He told us we should stay in character,” Colby reminded them. “Maybe you need to solve it in character.”
“How am I supposed to do that?” Mitchie asked.
“I don’t know.”
Mitchie tried to psych herself up. “Okay, how would the Go-Go’s solve this?” she asked. “What would Linda Carlisle do.”
“It’s not Linda,” Shane said, reminding her of the conversation that morning with her mom. “It’s Belinda.”
“That’s right, I always mess that one up,” Mitchie said. “What would Belinda Carlisle do?”
“Who’s Belinda Carlisle?” Colby asked.
Mitchie struck her new-wave pose and twirled her hair around her finger. “Belinda is the lead singer of the Go-Go’s.”
“Belinda is also one of the names on the list,” Colby said as he picked up the paper. He stabbed it with his finger. “It’s right here, next to Jane, Charlotte, Kathy, and Gina.”
“Unbelievable,” Tess said, totally frustrated that she hadn’t thought of this earlier. “When were the Go-Go’s at the top?” she asked Mitchie.
“Early to mid-eighties.”
Tess got up and walked over to the magazine rack. It contained old issues Brown had collected over the years. She pulled out a Rolling Stone from 1984. The Go-Go’s were on the cover. She flipped through the magazine until she found the article about them and read the caption under their picture.
“Belinda, Jane, Charlotte, Kathy, and Gina. Those are the first names of the women in the band.” She held the magazine up for them to see. Then she pointed at the clue. “These are all names of band members.”
“ ‘Follow the groups ’cause it’s a fact,’ ” Lorraine read from the poem. “ ‘This clue has no solo act.’ ”
Using the books and magazines in the library, the six of them went about the somewhat slow process of finding bands that corresponded with the people on the list. As they did, Mitchie replaced the names of the people with the names of the bands.
When they were finished the clue read:
“Genesis by Cream and Red Hot Chili Peppers. Go-Go out The Doors. Journey to Four Tops near Eagles nest. Where Earth, Wind and Fire meet. Look under Styx.”
“It’s like a treasure map,” Mitchie said. “If we follow the band names, they’ll tell us where to go.”
They broke the directions down step by step.
“The first one is: ‘Genesis by Cream and Red Hot Chili Peppers,’” Tess said.
“Genesis means beginning,” Shane said. “So the beginning is somewhere where there is cream and red hot chili peppers.”
“The kitchen,” Lorraine and Caitlyn blurted out at the same time.
“This might just work,” Mitchie said, getting more excited.
They all trooped to the kitchen once more.
“What’s next?” Shane asked.
“ ‘Go-Go out the Doors,’ ” Mitchie said.
“Okay,” Shane said. He smiled. “Out the doors we go.”
The six of them walked out the double doors that led toward the lake. When they were outside, Mitchie read the next step.
“ ‘Journey to Four Tops near Eagles nest.’ ”
They thought about it for a moment and looked around the camp.
“There,” Shane said, pointing across the lake. “The picnic pavilion has four tops, like a sand castle.”
“And it’s right by that eagle’s nest,” Colby added, pointing to a small island in the middle of the lake. “We’ve got to go there.”
It was getting late, and their families were due to arrive at any moment. But the group didn’t care. They were on a mission. Together they hurried down to the dock, hopped into a pair of canoes, and started paddling. They were on an actual treasure hunt, and it was thrilling.
“Can you believe this?” Mitchie exclaimed, paddling as fast as she could.
“No, I can’t,” Shane answered from his spot in the back.
Mitchie smiled at where the day had brought them. It felt right to be out on the water one last time with Shane. She had so many fond memories of taking canoe rides with him. But this ride was like no other.
They were all panting and short of breath by the time they had reached the island and pulled the canoes up onto the shore.
“What’s the next clue?” Tess asked excitedly.
“ ‘Where Earth, Wind and Fire meet. Look under Styx.’ ”
Mitchie figured this one out.
The camp was old, and years ago there had been a caretaker’s cabin on the island. The cabin was gone, but its brick chimney was still standing. Brown had taken them there for bonfires a few times over the summer.
“The chimney,” Mitchie said. “That’s where Earth, Wind and Fire meet.”
The others nodded and smiled. They were getting really close. They hiked down the trail to the chimney.
“Now ‘look under Styx,’ ” Mitchie said, reading the last step in the directions.
Next to the chimney was a pile of kindling sticks that Brown used when he started the bonfires. Mitchie kneeled down and pushed the sticks aside.
“What’s under there?” Caitlyn asked.
“I don’t know,” Mitchie said. “I only see bricks.”
“Bricks?”
Mitchie looked at them for a moment and noticed something. There was writing on the side of each brick.
“The bricks have names on them,” she said.
“Names of bands?” asked Lorraine.
“Singers?” said Colby.
“No,” Mitchie replied. “Each brick has one of our names on it.”
This caught them all by surprise.
“I think that means they’re for us. We better dig them up and bring them back to camp,” Caitlyn said.
Shane slumped and let out a groan. “This is what the shovel was for. Too bad I left it back on Brown’s porch.”
Mitchie laughed, and they started digging the bricks out with their hands.
“We better hurry up,” she said. “It’s almost time for the concert to start.”
By the time they had dug up the bricks and paddled back across the lake, the parents had already arrived. Shane’s family couldn’t make it, but he had a good substitute. His bandmates, Nate and Jason, had arrived in their tour bus. The band would be heading out to play a few end-of-summer gigs, but Nate and Jason hadn’t wanted Shane to miss out on this last event. They would leave right after.
Caitlyn beamed when she saw the family RV in the dirt parking lot. “They made it,” she exclaimed happily.
Mitchie’s father had arrived unexpectedly to surprise her. He greeted her with a huge hug. Then she introduced him to her friends.
Brown and Dee were giving a quick tour to Lorraine’s parents, and Connie was giving Colby’s father a container of Apple Brown Betty for the road.
“Trust me,” she said. “This will come in handy if Colby gets cranky on the trip home.”
“Look who finally showed up,” Brown said when the six of them reached the theater. “Are we going to be able to squeeze this show in?”
“Definitely,” Mitchie said. “But first, will you explain the bricks.”
Brown nodded. “Those bricks used to be part of a wall at the Fillmore. That was the premiere concert venue in San Francisco. Every act played the Fillmore. All the people we’ve talked about today—any classic rock band you can think of—played the Fillmore.
“And during all those concerts, their music echoed off the walls. Off these bricks. Think of the incredible music that these six bricks have absorbed.”
Mitchie got goosebumps and looked in wonder at the object in her hand.
“But how are we supposed to use them?” Shane asked.
“Tonight, during the show,” Brown said. “We’re going to line them up on the stage. That means your music is going to bounce off the same bricks. Your sounds are going to blend in with the sounds of all those amazing groups. And when you go home, you’re each going to take one of the bricks with you.”
“Wow!” Mitchie said. “That is so amazing.” True, she didn’t have a unique piece of history to perform with tonight like the others, but this was more meaningful. This she would cherish forever.
“Of course, that will only happen if you all get onstage and perform,” Brown added.
“Okay, okay. We’re going.”
Just then a limousine pulled up. The back door opened and T. J. Tyler sprang out. She was all alone. There was no entourage. There were no photographers. There was just Tess’s mother.
“Did I miss it?” T. J. asked. “Am I too late?”
“No,” Tess said, beaming. “You’re right on time.”