Clocks and Robbers (10 page)

Snow arrived in Moon Hollow a few nights later for the first time that winter. The Question Marks awoke the morning after the storm to the joyful news that school had been canceled. The snow itself wasn’t the problem—the town always plowed and salted the roads—but a light, dangerous layer of ice glossed the trees branches, the rooftops, the swing sets, and the sidewalks, turning the world to glass as the sun finally broke through the clouds sometime after breakfast.

The group brought sleds up the hill to Deerhof Park, which, according to Woodrow, was the best place within walking distance to catch swift speed and, if they were lucky, a few inches of flight.

In between races, Sylvester filled his friends in on the details of Hal-muh-ni’s story. She was mortified to learn that the couch was infested. She had no idea where the bugs had come from. Rosie shrugged at that news. “Nature is the biggest mystery, isn’t it?” she asked.

Sylvester’s mom was currently trying to convince her to set up a bank account, to keep her
savings safe. In the meantime, Hal-muh-ni had decided to make two big investments. She paid for the Chos’ exterminator. And she bought Sylvester a brand-new bed, so he wouldn’t have to worry about bug bites anymore.

After a couple hours of sledding, the four were winded and feeling frozen, so they started home, hoping that grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup awaited them. They dragged their sleds behind them, laughing and slipping along the now worn grooves in the snow. Ahead, past the great white gazebo, a truck was parked along the side of the road. At first, they thought it looked like a stalled-out snowplow. But as the group came closer, they noticed its front fender wasn’t rigged to clear streets. In fact, the truck was so beat-up, it looked like it shouldn’t even be on the road. The engine’s rattle was muffled by the white coating on the grass. Exhaust plumed from the tail pipe, gray smoke that disappeared within seconds in the cold air. Someone was sitting behind the wheel. He appeared to be watching them.

Even if they hadn’t just been rolling around in the snow, they all would have felt the chill that now stopped them in their tracks.

“Maybe we should cut across the backyards between here and our street,” Rosie suggested. The others agreed. Rather than proceeding toward the road, they made a sharp turn toward
the trees. Instantly the driver’s door on the truck popped open, and a large man stepped out. As he trudged toward them, his face became clear. It was Phineas Galby.

“Hold on,” he called, raising a black mittened hand above his head.

The four were about to run, but Viola suddenly had a vision of them alone in the secluded woods. If they were going to confront this man, it would be best to do it where they had a chance of being seen by passersby. Viola turned back to him and called out, “What do you want?” hoping that her tone would force him to keep his distance. It worked. The man paused, standing in knee-deep snow between them and the road. He must have sensed that coming any closer might send them scattering away.

“I want to talk,” he said. “Just to talk.”

“Fine,” said Viola. “Then maybe you’ll tell us why you’ve been following us.” It sounded like something someone would say in a mystery novel. She felt momentarily proud of herself. “It wasn’t for Sylvester’s grandmother’s money, was it?”

The man chuckled. “No. It wasn’t. Well … not at first. And not anymore.”

“Then what do you want to talk about?” said Sylvester, his voice shaking.

“Come on,” said the man, with a hint of frustration, “don’t tell me you kids don’t know.” The
four glanced at one another. Know what? “Look, you can play dumb, but the innocence game is not going to work forever. You must have it, and if you don’t have it, then at the very least, you must know where it is.”

“What is
it?”
said Woodrow.

The man threw his hands in the air. One of his large mittens flew off and landed in the snow. He didn’t seem to notice or care. “The Timekeepers’ treasure … Tell me where I can find it.”

Timekeepers’ treasure?
None of them knew what to say or do.

Finally Rosie spoke up. “We’ll never tell you anything.”

Woodrow, Sylvester, and Viola whipped their heads to look at her. “But we don’t
know
anything,” Sylvester whispered through his teeth.

“Shh,” she answered. Rosie folded her arms awkwardly across her puffy pink coat. Though it took an extreme amount of will, she didn’t budge, not even when the man stepped toward them.

Phineas reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. Wearing a look of consternation, he quickly unfolded the ratty, crumbling white leaf. He held it up and shook it at them. “My grandfather was a member of the Timekeepers. This page is proof—his membership agreement. I found it with his things after he passed away.” The paper fluttered in the icy
breeze. “When I was your age, he told me secret stories—tales he made me promise never to share with anyone. He explained that he and his friends had hidden away a priceless treasure. He said that when the last of the Timekeepers was gone, the treasure would belong to the town. But when the final member of the club died, something must have gone wrong. As far as I can tell, the town never learned of what it was meant to inherit. I’ve traveled here to Moon Hollow at least once a year since then, looking for clues about what my grandfather’s friends left behind. I was beginning to lose hope … until you four discovered the clues in the clocks. I’ve been following you ever since. I thought the cash in that old couch might have been the secret, that you kids had discovered the treasure and kept it for yourselves. But now I realize I was wrong.” He clenched his bare fist. “You must know where the real treasure is, and you still refuse to show it to the rightful heir.”

Even after this flood of information, Viola managed to speak up. “But you’re not the heir. You said it yourself: The Timekeepers meant for their treasure to go to the town. Not in your pocket.”

The man looked like he’d been caught stealing candy. “What’s the town going to do with it? Buy some more
clocks?”

“Excuse me, sir,” said Woodrow, “but I don’t believe that’s really your decision.”

The man closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Tell you what. You show me where the treasure is, and I’ll split it with you. You can keep ten percent. Deal?”

“Deal.”

Woodrow, Sylvester, and Viola once again stared at Rosie in shock. She whispered so only they could hear. “He won’t leave us alone unless we agree.” She turned back to the man and called to him, “But not today.”

“Why not?” said the man.

“The treasure is … too difficult to get to,” Rosie said, her resolve beginning to crack. She hadn’t planned this part out.

Viola took over. “We’ll meet you at the library on Monday afternoon. Three o’clock. You’ll get everything that’s coming to you. We promise.”

By the time they reached Viola’s front yard, each of them was out of breath. They all collapsed into the snow near the porch steps. They were enthralled and frightened, surprised and shocked, enchanted and nauseated. They had escaped their villain. But now they had to answer to him. They had no idea what to do.

“Why did you tell him to come back?” Sylvester asked Viola, sitting on the steps.

“It didn’t matter what I told him.” Viola sat beside him. “Do you really think he’s just going to let us go about our business and not watch to see what we’re up to? He’s been keeping an eye on us for weeks, and we didn’t even notice until recently. He’ll show up at three o’clock on Monday, but that doesn’t mean he won’t show up before that.”

“So, what are we going to do?” asked Woodrow, perched nearby on his sled in the snow-covered lawn. He rubbed at his red ears. “We don’t know anything about this dude.”

“He seemed sort of nuts,” Sylvester said.

“You think?” said Rosie, brushing flakes from her coat. She froze, suddenly struck by an idea. “You guys?” The others looked at her, waiting for her to continue. “There is a
treasure
here in Moon Hollow!” Rosie said. “How cool is that?”

“And you think we should actually try and find it?” Sylvester replied, unsure.

“Phineas, or whatever his name is, has been looking for it for years with no luck,” said Woodrow.

Viola shrugged, a smirk spreading across her lips. “Yeah, but he’s not a member of the Question Marks Mystery Club, is he?”

“So, where do we start?” said Rosie.

“We’ve already been all over town,” said Sylvester.

“Where haven’t we looked yet?” Woodrow asked.

Viola thought about that. “Maybe that doesn’t matter.” When her friends looked at her funny, she continued, “We didn’t know there was a treasure until today. It’s possible we’ve missed a clue or two in a few of the places we’ve already explored.”

After a few seconds, all four said, “The library!”

Loading snacks from the Harts’ kitchen into Viola’s bag, the group tied their scarves tight and made their way into town. Despite the school closing, the library remained open, though it was nearly deserted. Rosie ran through the Clintock Gallery to tell her mom that the four of them were there. The others headed to the computer desks to come up with a plan. But when Rosie
met them a few minutes later, she wore a look of surprise.

“What’s wrong?” asked Sylvester.

“You mean,
What’s right?”
said Rosie, smiling. “Follow me, you guys.” She led the other three back to the main lobby, to the wall behind the security desk. The golden relief-sculptures glimmered in the icy sunlight that streamed through the large windows at the library’s entrance. Rosie nodded at the brass marker bolted to the wall. Tarnished text indicated the title of the work:
Thirteen Capsules of Endurance.
It was dated 1936.

“On my way to say hi to my mom just now, the portraits in the Clintock Gallery caught my eye. Specifically, one name leaped out at me. I knew I’d read it somewhere else. Passing back through the lobby, I paused here, remembering why the name was familiar.” Rosie pointed at the marker again, this time to the name of the artist, a woman named Pauline Emmett.

“The artist of these sculptures was a member of the Timekeepers?” asked Woodrow.

“So it would appear,” said Rosie.

“Bingo!” said Sylvester.

Viola leaned close to the marker. Below Pauline’s name was a note about the work from the artist herself. “Guys, take a look at this.” The rest of them read silently along with Viola.

Thireen Capsules of Endurance
is te culmination of nearly eight yars of mapping, planning, and hoping for pledges rom friends. These imges repesent the struggles and triuphs that our citizns have experienced since the incorporation of Moon Hollow in the year of nineteen hundred two. I created this work to help us remember what is missing and what we need to find. May the capsules lead us foward to our future.

Sylvester scoffed. “Pauline really needed to use spell-check before sending her letters off to be printed.”

“Um … They didn’t have computers back then,” said Woodrow.

“That’s no excuse,” said Sylvester. “Or at least it wouldn’t be in Mr. Glenn’s English class.”

“True,” said Rosie. “The misspellings are so odd. How did they get engraved here?”

“They
are
odd.” Viola chuckled. “Just plain odd … and what does that usually mean?”

“You think this marker is a clue?” Sylvester said.

“Don’t you?” said Viola.

“It must be,” said Rosie. “Like the portraits in the gallery were a clue.”

“She made these sculptures to help us
remember what is missing,”
said Woodrow in a low voice. “Look, she says so right there. If this is
another code, I think Pauline is telling us how to figure it out.
So, what is missing from the message?”

“Letters,” said Rosie. “Obviously.”

“Exactly,” said Woodrow. “Which ones?” The group looked at the message on the marker again.

“Hold on,” said Viola, pulling her trusty notebook and pen from her bag. She wrote down the first sentence, circling the misspelled words.

“Thirteen. The. Years. From,” Viola said.

“Do you think it’s some kind of word scramble?” asked Rosie. “The years from thirteen? From the thirteen years?” she tried.

Viola shook her head. Then, she recited the missing letters. “T was missing from
thirteen. H
was missing from
the. E
from
years. F
from … well,
from.”

“Oh,” said Rosie. “I see.
T. H. E. F.”

“Thef?” said Sylvester. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing yet,” said Woodrow. “Keep going, Viola.”

“The A from
images,”
she said. “Represent.
Triumphs. Citizens
.…”

“And the
R
in
forward,”
finished Sylvester.

“That gives us A.
R. M. E. R,”
Viola said. She glanced at her friends.

“I don’t get it,” said Sylvester. “Thef? Armer?”

“Put it together, silly,” said Rosie.

“Oh!” said Sylvester. “The farmer!” He crinkled his brow. “Wait … Who is the farmer?”

Viola simply pointed up. It took the group a few seconds, but eventually they all caught on. The farmer was one of the “thirteen capsules,” the golden relief-sculpture on the wall just over their heads. He wore stiff overalls and a look of hopeful determination as he seemed to stare out from the wall toward the windows at the front of the library. He held his small scythe out away from his body as if pointing at another image — a calf. The calf stretched his head back from the scythe, gazing at the wide-winged eagle near the ceiling.

“Okay,” said Sylvester. “What are we supposed to do now?” He turned toward the direction of the farmer’s gaze, facing the plaza and clock outside the library’s front door. “Maybe this farmer dude is trying to tell us where we need to go next. Outside?”

“I think you’re onto something,” said Woodrow. “Except he doesn’t want us to go outside … or at least the artist, Pauline, didn’t. Check out the marker on the wall again. She says:
May the capsules lead us forward to our future.
If those are instructions, what is she telling us to do?”

“Maybe the symbols on the wall are a map,” said Rosie.

“Really?” said Sylvester, stepping back to get a better view of the whole picture.

Rosie went on. “Pauline must want us to start at the farmer. But what comes after that?”

“The farmer’s scythe is pointing at the calf,” said Viola. “And what’s the calf looking at?”

“The eagle!” said Sylvester. “And the eagle’s gazing at the salmon in the kneeling woman’s hands.”

“And the salmon came from the stream … and on and on,” said Woodrow, moving along the wall from left to right, as the images brought him closer to the opposite side of the room. “Symbol by symbol. And we come to ‘capsule’ number twelve.” He pointed up at a great golden sun that hovered near the left side of the wall. “What’s the sun shining on?”

“The sundial,” said Rosie. “The thirteenth capsule. That’s where the trail stops.”

“Ha,” Sylvester chuckled, “another clock.”

“There must be a clue here,” said Viola, standing underneath the sundial symbol. “Look closely. Do you guys see anything that might help us?”

“Yes!” said Woodrow. “Check it out.” Poking from the top of the sundial’s little spire was a familiar sight: a shiny acorn.”

“Wow,” said Rosie. They all considered this new development in silence for a moment. “Knowing what we know about the acorn symbols we’ve found around town, what do you guys think this sundial is trying to tell us?”

“This ‘clock’ has got to be an address,” said Sylvester. “The acorn represents Oakwood Avenue. Pauline Emmett is pointing us to another location.”

“But Oakwood is a long street,” said Viola. “It runs down by the train tracks and then up into the hills. Where are we supposed to look?”

“Remember, the numbers the clocks got stuck on turned out to be street numbers,” said Rosie.

“So,” said Woodrow, “what time is this sundial stuck at?”

“It looks like it’s pointing at four o’clock,” said Viola. “Number four … Oakwood Avenue?”

After a quick map search on the Internet, the kids learned that 4 Oakwood Avenue was the Moon Hollow Museum, where Rosie’s father worked. Rosie shook her head. “Well, at least we know we’ll be able to get inside, even if the place is closed for the weather.”

“But how are we going to know what to look for once we get there?” said Sylvester, bundling himself up before stepping outside into the cold.

“Same way we always do,” said Viola. “By paying attention to the things other people ignore.”

“I think we should also pay attention to anyone who might be following us,” said Woodrow. “Especially anyone driving a beat-up pickup truck.”

The hike to the museum would usually have taken about twenty minutes, but the group was
slowed down by the now melting snow and ice. No one appeared to be following them, but they couldn’t be sure. The day had clouded over and light seemed to be fading.

The four found the front door of the museum locked. “Shoot,” said Sylvester. “What do we do now?”

Rosie pursed her lips. “I might get in trouble for this …,” she said, then waved at the group to follow her around the side of the building. After passing a few windows, she stopped. In the window directly above them, a light glowed, casting a soft white box on the snow at their feet. “My dad’s office.” Rosie bent down and picked up some powder. She packed it loosely between her gloved fingers. Then, sighing nervously, she tossed the snowball at the glass. Seconds later, Mr. Smithers’s face appeared, peering out at them. Rosie waved. Her father looked confused, but quickly motioned for them to go back around to the front of the building.

A few minutes later, they stood in the darkened museum lobby. “What are you kids doing here?” asked Rosie’s father. “I know you’re off from school, but we’ve closed early this afternoon.”

Rosie glanced over her shoulder, thinking of that pickup truck she and her friends all hoped had left town. She wished she could tell her father everything that had happened that morning, but she didn’t want to betray her friends and
the decision they’d made together. They
had
to find the treasure, if only to protect it from Phineas Galby, and they couldn’t risk their parents pulling them off the case.

Maybe instead of telling him everything, she decided, she could tell him part of it. “We need your help.”

“Here it is,” said Mr. Smithers. “Pauline Emmett.” He’d led them to a small painting in a secluded corner of the museum, a room dedicated to the works of local artists. Nestled in a wide, ornately carved wooden frame, Ms. Emmett’s artwork hung on the big white wall. Opposite, a large window overlooked the Hudson River. Outside, huge chunks of ice had broken up on the water and were floating downstream in alternating mosaic tiles of dark and light. The view itself was a work of art. “What was so important about this painting that you had to walk all the way out here today?” Mr. Smithers asked.

“I told you,” said Rosie. “We’re working on a case. Top secret.” She glanced at the others. “We’ll let you know later. Promise.”

Mr. Smithers squinted and shook his head. He considered the painting for a second before turning away. “If you insist, darling daughter. Just don’t touch anything!”

They all approached the Emmett watercolor, a dreamy, almost foggy view of the same river that
was directly behind them. “I’m confused,” said Sylvester. “Is she saying that the treasure is in the river?”

“I doubt it,” said Viola. “All the clues have been very specific until now. Maybe there’s some sort of code in the image.”

The group spent a few minutes thinking about the shapes of the mountains in the distance, the curve of the river itself. Maybe there were letters hidden in the composition, another secret message of sorts. But they noticed nothing except the purposefully atmospheric nature of the image.

“Do you guys think that maybe this painting is the treasure?” said Rosie. “Could it be that simple?”

“That’s possible,” said Sylvester. “But why would the Timekeepers go to all this trouble just to display their secret ‘treasure’ on the wall of a museum? It doesn’t add up.”

“You’re right,” said Woodrow. “It doesn’t. But I think right now, we’re looking a little bit too closely to see the answer.”

“What do you mean?” said Viola. Woodrow took a step backward, away from the wall, and motioned his friends to follow. “We’re staring right at the clue, and the painting is not it.”

Sylvester bristled. “There’s nothing else on this wall. What else should we be looking at?”

“There’s more here than just a painting.” Woodrow smiled.
“Viola? Rosie? Do you guys see what I see?”

“The frame!” Viola cried. “Look. There. In the top left and bottom right corners. Carvings of maple leaves.”

“That’s it,” said Rosie. Several tree branches were carved into the frame. Three small leaves decorated the branch at the top. Four were at the bottom. “Our next clue. Maple Avenue!”

“But again,” said Sylvester with a smirk, “I ask … where?”

“Darn it,” Viola said. “There’s definitely no clock in this painting. So how are we supposed to figure out the address this time?”

“The clue wasn’t in the painting,” said Woodrow. “It was in the frame.”

“So the address must be in the frame too,” said Rosie. She stared intently at the wood.

“Yup,” said Woodrow. “It’s right in front of us.
Don’t you see it?”

“Oh,” said Sylvester, “you’re right. Three maple leaves at the top. Four at the bottom. The address must be number thirty-four. So clever.”

“We were just there!” said Viola.

“Sort of,” Rosie replied. “The library’s at number fifty-five, remember. Thirty-four must be a little farther down the street.”

“Near the bank where Bill works,” said Woodrow. He squinted as an idea came to him. “Huh … I think I have an idea of where we need to go next.”

“Where?” said the rest of the group.

Woodrow smiled. “You’ll see,” he teased.

By the time the Question Marks made it back to Mr. Smithers’s office, he was packing up to leave for the day. “I can drive you back into town,” he said. “But you have to promise me you won’t be getting into trouble.”