At last, after discussing chairs, the chuppah, and glassware and not discussing family-heirloom rings or distantly related spies, Mom and Dave clomped out of their bedroom.
Joon whispered, “Let’s go.”
“Not yet,” Rachel whispered back.
She listened as two sets of footsteps thumped down the stairs. She’d never realized how loudly they both walked. Very convenient for us spies, she thought. “Okay, now.”
Together, they lowered the attic ladder slowly. Softly, Joon hummed his own version of spy movie music. Rachel hummed in sort of harmony.
The ladder squeaked.
They stopped and listened.
No one came back upstairs, so they started lowering it again. As soon as it touched the carpet, Rachel whispered, “Go!”
Joon slid down the ladder, followed by Rachel. Together they pushed the ladder back up into the ceiling. The hatch closed with a click. Glancing at the stairs, Rachel scooted into Mom and Dave’s bedroom. Once Joon was inside too, she shut the door.
“Look quickly,” Rachel whispered. “And carefully. We should try not to leave fingerprints.” She wished she had spy gloves. Ooh, maybe her winter gloves would work. “Hey, Joon, do you think we need—”
“Gloves?” Joon reached into his backpack and pulled a pair of plastic gloves out of a first aid kid. He tossed her one and kept one for himself. “I don’t think your mom is really going to dust for fingerprints, though.”
Okay, he was probably right, but still . . . Rachel had learned how to dust for fingerprints from a YouTube video. You just needed baby powder, a makeup brush, and sticky tape. She pulled on the glove. “Also, we should make sure we put everything back where we find it.” That was just basic spy craft.
Joon checked the bedside table, while Rachel searched the dresser. Mom had a Jenga-like stack of tiny jewelry-store boxes instead of a proper jewelry box. One at a time, Rachel opened them: a pair of bird-shaped earrings, a pair of silver hoop earrings, a beaded bracelet. A few boxes held only extra coins. One had a token from Chuck E. Cheese.
“Ew,” Joon said from across the room.
“What?” she whispered back.
“I think I found your baby teeth.” He shut the bedside table drawer.
“Yuck, gross.”
“Also, kind of cool,” Joon said. “Do you think my parents saved my teeth? What other weird things do parents save?”
“Remember we’re looking for the ring,” Rachel said.
“And for more random body parts.”
She shot him a look and then returned to the dresser. If the ring wasn’t in any of these boxes . . . She opened the top drawer. Mom kept her nicest jewelry hidden, Rachel knew. She had discovered the hiding spot in fourth grade while looking for the perfect sock to use as a puppet. She’d dressed the puppet in a fancy necklace, and Mom had not been happy. Since then, Rachel hadn’t dared go near the drawers—it hadn’t seemed worth the risk of getting grounded or being stuck with a zillion chores—but it was a likely place for Mom to put a special ring, and Rachel really wanted to see it. Beneath a wad of socks, Rachel found more jewelry store boxes: one with pearl earrings, another with gold hoops, and then . . . Aha! she thought as she pulled out an unfamiliar black velvet box.
Inside was a blackish-grayish-silverish ring that Rachel had never seen before. The ring was a simple band that looked like one of the washers Mom used to fix the kitchen sink. Rachel could see why Mom had said “Huh.”
This has to be it, Rachel thought.
She took it out of the box, carried the ring to the window, and twisted it in the light. “Hey, Joon, I think I found it.” She rubbed it, trying to clean it. “Do you think it has a hidden . . . I don’t know . . . spy thing?”
Joon joined her. “Like maybe it shoots lasers?”
“Probably doesn’t shoot lasers,” Rachel said. “But it could have a secret tool, like a lockpick or a screwdriver. That’s what I’d put in a spy’s ring.”
She gave Joon back the glove in exchange for a fresh tissue and scrubbed at the ring. Still blackish gray. No secret tool, switch, or button. She couldn’t read whatever date Dave had said was on it, though she could tell there was some kind of writing on the inside of the band. She spat on the silver, then rubbed until the tissue frayed.
“I don’t think that’s working,” Joon said.
“Mom said baking soda and vinegar would clean it.” She was sure they had both in the kitchen. Probably in the cabinet with the flour. But if she brought the ring without permission to the kitchen and Mom or Dave noticed . . . “Technically, it’s not stealing it if it’s mine, right? And, really, we’re only borrowing it. We’ll put it back as soon as we’re done with it.” Rachel returned the ring to its box and stuffed it into her pocket. Mom had said she’d clean it later, which most likely meant she wouldn’t look at it for weeks. “She can’t ground me if she never notices.”
“Absolutely true,” Joon agreed.
Rachel nodded as she trotted toward the bedroom door.
“Of course, as soon as your mom sees it, she’ll know someone cleaned it.”
Rachel stuck her head out the bedroom door. Looked right. Looked left. No sign of Mom or Dave. She hummed their spy theme music again. “She’ll never suspect me. I’ve never cleaned anything voluntarily in my life.”
Joon laughed.
“Besides, you said you wanted something to do.”
His laugh died, and she wished she could take the words back. Specifically, he’d said he wanted something to do that didn’t remind him of the Move, and now she’d reminded him. Quickly, she said, “They could still find a house nearby. Or an apartment.” Just because they hadn’t yet didn’t mean that it wouldn’t happen. They still had a few weeks before the lease ran out.
“I just wish there was something I could do that would—” Suddenly, his eyes widened. He grabbed her arm.
And Rachel heard it too: footsteps on the stairs!
In or out? Hide or don’t hide?
She didn’t think they’d be quick enough to dart under the bed or into a closet. Making the decision, Rachel stepped out into the hallway and pulled Joon with her.
Mom appeared at the top of the stairs carrying a laundry basket on her hip.
“Hey, Mom,” Rachel said as casually as she could. She strode down the hall, hoping they looked as if they were coming from Rachel’s room. “Going to get some snacks with Joon.”
“Oh, Joon, hi! I didn’t realize you were here,” Mom said. “I thought you two were at your house. There are pretzels in the cabinet and cheese sticks in the fridge.”
“Thanks, Ms. Abrams,” Joon said politely.
As soon as Mom turned away, they scampered downstairs and were giggling by the time they reached the kitchen. That was close! But also, success! Mom hadn’t even known the two of them were here. Our spy skills are improving, Rachel thought. Serves her right for not telling me about the wedding sooner.
Making the fib into truth, Joon beelined for the jar of pretzels, while Rachel went for the baking soda and vinegar. She’d gotten a peek into the laundry basket, and she judged they had at least ten minutes before Mom finished folding all the T-shirts and pairing all the socks.
“That’s baking powder,” Joon said around a mouthful of pretzels.
Rachel put back the baking powder and grabbed a box labeled baking soda. “How much?”
“No idea.”
She found a bowl and dumped a mound of baking soda in it. After nestling the ring in the center of the snowy hill, she uncapped the vinegar, and then she hesitated. What if she was doing it wrong? This was Dave’s family heirloom and her future present. What if she damaged Anna Smith Strong’s ring?
“What’s wrong?” Joon asked. Bits of pretzel sprayed from his lips. “Why aren’t you pouring?”
No time for second thoughts. They had, at best, a couple of hours before Joon’s parents called him back for more sorting and cleaning and packing. Preparing for the Move had been taking up more and more of Joon’s time, and it was only going to get worse. His mom had plastered a calendar on the fridge with a schedule of what needed to be done by when. It was a lot. Joon needs this, Rachel told herself. He’d wanted something that would distract him, and this was perfect. Plus she really, really wanted to see what a spy ring looked like. She poured the vinegar into the bowl of baking soda.
It fizzed.
It foamed.
And then it swelled up into a balloon of bubbles.
She skipped backward as the froth overflowed the bowl. It fizzed over the counter and spilled onto the floor, volcano-like. Rachel yelped and then shot a look toward the stairs.
No Mom. Yet.
Feeling as if a clock were ticking down, Rachel grabbed a roll of paper towels, and they both mopped up the overflow.
After the volcano spill was cleaned up, Rachel fished the ring out of the bowl, rinsed it off, and wiped it with a paper towel. Some of the blackish-gray splotches rubbed off, and silver shone through. Leaving it in the bowl for longer probably would have made it cleaner, she thought, but hopefully this would be enough.
“It is silver,” Joon said. “Ooh, do you think it’s part of the Strong family’s lost treasure?”
The so-called lost treasure was a local legend. The story went that during the Revolutionary War, when British officers decided to occupy Anna Smith Strong’s house, she sneaked out all the family silver and hid it—it was supposedly never found. Dave had told Rachel that he’d spent every summer searching for it as a kid, but no luck.
“Can’t be,” Rachel said. “If it were, then it wouldn’t be lost.”
Besides, the ring was cool enough without being part of some hidden treasure. Lifting it up toward the light, she imagined she heard a drumroll as she tilted the ring to see inside the band.
As Dave had promised, there was a date in it: “August 16, 1713,” except the numbers were awkwardly spaced so that it read more like: “August 1 6, 17 13.”
Huh, she thought. She guessed the engraver hadn’t been very good at his job. Or maybe it was difficult to etch numbers into silver. It couldn’t have been done by machine back then.
“I was kind of hoping it would say July 4, 1776,” Joon said. “How can this ring have belonged to one of George Washington’s spies if the date is off by sixty years? Unless it’s Anna’s birthday, not America’s. Okay, that would make a lot more sense. Never mind.”
“Nancy,” she corrected absently. She doubted it was Nancy’s birthday. Dave had said the date didn’t match any dates associated with Anna Smith Strong. Maybe it was an important date for another reason? Rachel studied the ring. As she twisted it, she saw more markings, very faint—letters, also on the inside of the band. “Wait, there’s more.”
“Let me see.” Joon squinted at it. “F? Is that an F?”
“Yeah, I think that’s an F.” She tilted it again, so the thin grooves caught the sunlight through the kitchen window. Silver flashed. She read the words:
Find me.