The Secret of the Scarlet Stone (A Gabby Girls Adventure Novel, Book One) (19 page)

Rosalinda looked at
Zora
as if she had two heads
.
“Okay, does anyone else think this is absolutely ridiculous?”

Gabrielle held out the magnifying glass impatiently
.
“Look, we don’t have time for this
,
Princess Rosalinda!”

“Fine,” Rosalinda responded heatedly as she grabbed the magnifying glass from Gabrielle and examined her pendant. She stormed over to the second chair and examined it. “No
,
” she snapped. She quickly walked over to the third chair; her face glowed as she screamed with excitement. “Incredible, I found it! The first symbol on my pendant matches the first symbol on this chair,” she exclaimed incredulously.
 

Zora
took the magnifying glass from Rosalinda and quickly examined her pendant. “Okay, since the second chair is the only one left, logic would say that it matches the first symbol on my pendant,” she declared excitedly. She quickly walked over to the second chair and examined it.

They looked at her expectantly but she shook her head with disappointment.

“Sorry
,
Gabby Girls, the first symbol on my pendant
does
not match the first symbol on this chair,” she said sadly.

They breathed
out with disappointment.

“Great! So we did all this for nothing,” Rosalinda wailed angrily.

They slowly walked away from the chairs with great disappointment.

In a last
-
ditch effort
,
Zora
stopped and examined the chair one last time. Suddenly, her face flushed with excitement. “Wait a minute. I found it! It’s the third symbol on the chair that matches the first symbol on my pendant,” she said with excitement.

They yelped and jumped up
and
down
.

Zora
squinted curiously at the chair
.
“Hmmm, wait a minute
…
there’s something wrong here
,
but I can’t put my finger on it. Why would the first symbol on my pendant match the third symbol on this chair? I mean
,
everyone else’s matched the first symbol on the chair.”
 

Jessica bit her bottom lip as she shifted from one foot to the other nervously.

“You’re right
,
Zo
, that’s so strange
.
D
o you think it means something?” Gabrielle
asked.

Rosalinda huffed out angrily, “Please
,
Gabby Girls, can we focus here? These chairs have absolutely nothing to do with the clue.”

“You’re half
-
right
,
Rosa. We are here to solve the clue but I have a sneaking feeling that these chairs and table are somehow part of it,”
Zora
said cryptically.

Gabrielle looked over at Rosalinda with reluctant agreement
.
“I don’t know about that
,
Zora
.
A
s much as I hate to admit it, I kind of agree with Rosalinda
.”
She shook her head with utter disbelief
.
“Jeez, I never thought that I would hear myself say that,” she said wryly. “
Anyhoo
, w
e don’t have much time, so I think we should focus on solving the clue
.
”
 

“Okay, I’ll go along with you for now
,
but I really think that ignoring the puzzle of the chairs and table will come back to bite us later,”
Zora
said anxiously.

“The way things are looking right about now, it definitely might come back to bite us
,
but we’ll just have to deal with that problem later on
,
okay? Let me see the clue again
,
” Gabrielle demanded.

Zora
handed
it to
Gabrielle
. “
Okay, the second part of the clue says,
‘
I
t
’
s
wide and tall from floor to ceiling and always filled with words and meaning. You
’
ll know that you have found a clue when all that binds ha
s
come unglued.
’”

She stuffed the clue into her pocket as she paced back
and
forth, mumbling to herself. Her face suddenly flushed with excitement. “I got it! I think that we should start looking in the bookshelf. It’s the only thing in this room that’s wide and tall from floor to ceiling
.
”

“Are you serious? There has to be at least a thousand books in there. It would take us forever to find a clue,” Rosalinda’s voice squeaked with panic.

“Well
,
Princess Rosalinda, do you have another idea? Because if you do, we all would love to hear it right about now,” Gabrielle
responded.

Rosalinda gave her an annoyed glare
.
“There’s no need to get all huffy about it
,
Gabi. All I’m saying is that it will take forever to look through all of these books. There has to be a better way
.
”

Zora
walked over to the largest section of the wall
.
“I agree with you
,
Gabi
.
T
he clue is somewhere in this bookshelf. And I also agree with Rosalinda that it will take forever to look through all of these books,” she said calmly. She scratched her head and looked at the enormous bookshelf. “But where do we start? There’s a gazillion books
o
n the bookshelf,” she uttered.

She quickly spun on her heels, looking at the wooden table
,
then
spun around
,
looking at the bookshelf again. Her face lit
with excitement as she stomped over to the table
.
“Okay, I just got a great idea. You see how the chairs seem to be oddly pointing to the different sections of the wall? I think that we should start there,” she said calmly.

Rosalinda gave her an annoyed glare
.
“You can’t be serious? What you’re suggesting makes absolutely no sense
.
”

With agitation,
Zora
adjusted her glasses
.
“Hear me out first
,
okay?
First
,
let’s start with everyone going back
to
the chair that matches her pendant.”

They all reluctantly walked back to the chairs and stood behind them.

Zora
adjusted her glasses as she turned around to face the bookshelf. Her legs gently pressed against the back of the chair. In a straight line, she walked from the chair towards the bookshelf, which landed her right in front of a densely packed section of the shelf. She smiled slightly
.
“Okay, so this is my section of the bookshelf. I’m going to search all of the books in this section,” she stated matter-of-factly.

Rosalinda,
Gabrielle,
and Jessica quickly turned around and walked in a straight line toward the bookshelf. They look
ed
at each other in puzzlement as they stood in front of their section of the shelf.

Zora
gave them an encouraging smile
.
“Well, I guess we better start looking. We’re bound to find something interesting,” she said.

They frantically pulled books from the bookshelf, carefully examining each one.

Gabrielle blew the thick dust off the book cradled in her hands and quickly flipped through the pages with eyebrows furrowed. “Wow! This is so weird
…
the title of this book is written in English but the pages inside have some sort of strange language written on
them,
” she exclaimed.

Absorbed in her task,
Zora
quickly flipped through the book nestled in her hand. “It’s the same with this book. The title is in English but the pages inside are written in
…
Oh! I recognize this language; it’s based on the Latin alphabet,” she muttered.

Jessica looked over
.
“Well, can you understand it?”

“Well
,
I understand some of it
,
but not all,”
Zora
said.

Rosalind snorted nastily
.
“It figures—the p
s
y
ch
ic
can’t understand what’s on the page. Classic!” she scoffed.

Gabrielle looked over at her
.
“Well, at least she’s trying to help. What have you contributed so far?
Nothing! So either help or be quiet!
I
,
for one
,
vote for being quiet
.
”

Rosalinda huffed nastily.

“Okay, from what I can tell, this is definitely a science book by all of the formulas written on the pages,”
Zora
stated.

Jessica pulled another book from the bookshelf and plopped down on the floor with exhaustion. She rubbed her eyes tiredly as she ran her fingers along the dusty front cover and marveled at the beautiful book title that was written in bright gold. Tiredly, she flipped through the pages, stopping at the last
on
e,
which revealed a loose binding.

She looked
up with excitement
.
“Uh
,
I think I found the clue,” she muttered nervously.