There was nothing unusual. And tread number seventeen was identical to eighteen, sixteen, and fifteen—they were all the same.
But of course, this was just one staircase. Maybe the clue was linked to the south stairwell. Or . . . maybe he should start from the second floor and work up to the third. Or . . . maybe start at the third floor and count down sixteen steps, then go back up a step—except . . . that wouldn’t be going “up one more” . . . would it?
Hmm.
Tons of possibilities, but he had lots of time. So it probably made the most sense to just . . .
The cell phone in his front pocket made a quick double vibration—a new text. Ben got it out, and then stared at the bluish screen:
My mommy?!
The name and number of the sender was blocked. The phone vibrated again, then again, and again.
Not a text, a regular phone call. And this time the caller ID was crystal clear: EDGEPORT POLICE DEPT.
Ben panicked.
Blasting down the stairs three at a time, he slammed through the fire door, then skidded right and ran. At the causeway into the Annex, he went right again and streaked for the first exit. Bursting outside, he almost ran into Captain Oakes’s large granite tombstone, which was right in the middle of the playground. He adjusted his course and made a beeline for home, running down the middle of the lighted pathway, but ready to take off into the trees if he had to.
He still gripped the phone in his hand—12:05 now.
There was no traffic as he shot across School Street, but a car was coming at him along Walnut Street, still half a block away. He hated to waste even a moment, but what if it was a police car? He ducked into some bushes.
The car sailed past, just a white sedan. Running again, he felt Mr. Keane’s heavy key ring bouncing in the front pocket of his black hoodie. At Central Street he had to hide in the shadow of a big SUV for almost a minute, waiting for some traffic to clear.
Two houses from home, he slowed to a walk. If he didn’t approach softly, Nelson would get spooked and bark his head off.
Just outside the kitchen door, he made a little kissing sound and whispered, “Good boy, Nelson, it’s me.”
He heard a soft whine of recognition through the door, then opened it slowly and moved inside. “Stay, Nelson, stay.”
Ben shed his shoes and clothes, then pulled on the pajamas he’d left in a canvas shopping bag hanging from a hook. Sweaty and shivering, he stuffed the whole ninja outfit back into the bag.
Now for the hardest part—the barefoot trip up to his attic room. This house had been built in the 1820s. Even though it was newer than the school by almost eighty years, it hadn’t been constructed as well, and the floors were a lot creakier.
Staying close to the wall in the hallway from the kitchen, Ben stopped at the closet. He pulled the door open slowly and stuffed the bag with his clothes and the keys back behind the coats. He closed the door, then remembered—his cell phone! He opened the closet and rummaged in the bag till he found it.
Ben had made a careful study of the front stairs over the years—mostly around Christmas. The bottom step had a terrible groaning creak, so he stretched completely over it. The next three steps just chirped a little as long as he stayed close to the wall on the right. The fifth step was another groaner, and the sixth was even worse. He had to stretch over the fifth, and get to the far left on the sixth and put as much weight as possible onto the handrail . . . rwaarrk . . . it always did that, no matter what.
He stopped and held his breath—no sound from his mom’s room.
He took the next three steps close to the left wall, then stretched over the very top step, and he was in the upstairs hall. He turned left, tiptoeing and staying close to the wall.
He was beginning to breathe easier. He glanced at his cell phone—12:09.
Brrnnnngg!
The sound of the house telephone bit him like a wasp. He leaped the last four feet to the attic doorway, sprinted up the narrow stairs, and dove under his covers.
Heart fluttering, he strained to listen—his mom’s voice, then the heavy plastic handset dropping back onto its cradle.
Her bedroom door creaked opened, and when the hall light clicked on, a glow filtered up into his room.
“Ben? . . . Ben?”
“Yeah? Wh-what?” He didn’t have to do much acting to sound tired and worried.
“Oh, it’s nothing, sweetie. Just wanted to check on you. Go on back to sleep.”
“Okay. Love you, Mom.”
“I love you, too. G’night.”
Lying there in his soft bed, his heartbeats slowed. Once his breathing calmed down, he could hear the sea breeze rustling the new maple leaves outside his window. The house was quiet again, and he felt safe. But he had to face some unpleasant questions.
That text? It must have come from Lyman—who else?
But how had he gotten the police to call him—or had he faked that somehow?
He definitely had the number to Ben’s cell phone, which he could have easily copied off the emergency contact card in the nurse’s office at school. . . .
But how had the guy known he was there, at the school?
Had he been outside in the dark on the school grounds somewhere, like a cop on a stakeout? Seemed unlikely . . .
But wherever the man was, somehow he had known Ben was inside the school.
There was one logical answer: Before leaving for the long weekend, Lyman could have rigged up his own private security system—like door alarms . . . maybe he’d set up cameras, too. Which would mean Lyman might have a picture of him sneaking in, maybe even a movie. . . .
And that bit about calling his “mommy,” using his own mother against him like a weapon? That was really low . . . but very effective.
Jill.
Ben groaned silently. Maybe he didn’t really need to mention any of this. . . . No, he’d have to tell her. But she was really going to yell about it.
From the start, Jill had said they should never underestimate Lyman. He was a trained professional, a serious corporate spy with a big budget and access to all kinds of gadgets and equipment.
Well, he thought, we’ve got a budget too.
It was true. Ben had met Tom Benton at Mr. Keane’s funeral. He’d been the janitor at Oakes School before Mr. Keane. Tom was retired, and Ben had helped him to recover a rusty tackle box loaded with rare old coins—enough to buy all the antispying equipment they would ever need. Tom was now the official treasurer for the Keepers of the School.
He smiled as he remembered what Jill had said when he’d called and told her about the coins: “Great—maybe we can hire a spy to spy on Lyman!”
Clearly, the Keepers needed something to help level the battlefield.
A level battlefield.
Ben liked that thought. It was an idea he could get to sleep on.
He stretched and yawned.
Yes, Mr. Lyman, you are clever and experienced, and you won tonight’s battle. But this new phase of our little war? It’s only just beginning.
CHAPTER 3
Day Off
Ben stood with his mouth open, staring. He looked quickly from his dad’s face to his mom’s, then back to the beach just north of the marina.
“Really?” he gasped. “I mean, really?”
His mom and dad each nodded again, both of them beaming.
Ben sped off across the wooden planks of the pier. At the very edge he stopped and ran back and hugged his mom, then his dad.
“Thanks! This is just . . . just incredible!”
He took off again, this time leaping from the pier down onto the beach. He sprinted the last twenty yards, and there, sitting on its two-wheeled dolly just above the high-water mark, was a sailboat, his sailboat.
He did a quick scan of the hull. Not new, but it was in great shape—fiberglass, with no dings, no patches, no cracks. The tiller and centerboard were made of black epoxy—nice equipment, clean and sharp. He dropped onto the sand beside the ding
hy and looked up at the underside—the white gel coat was bright and smooth. And back topside again, the long blue canvas gear bag was very clean . . . too clean.
His folks had walked over, and he looked up and pointed at the gear bag. “Is that . . .”
“Yup,” said his dad. “Brand-new. I located the hull and the dolly, and your mom picked out the mast and boom and sprit—plus a racing sail. First-class gear for a first-class sailor.”
Ben had to gulp back his emotions. The boat was amazing—his own Optimist! But that wasn’t what brought a lump to his throat. It was because his parents had teamed up to get it. They’d been separated for more than two months now, but they’d done this together. For him.
“Really, this is too much!”
His dad shook his head. “It’s way overdue.”
“Absolutely!” his mom said. “Think of it as a combined birthday and Christmas present for a wonderful son.”
“And maybe next year’s birthday and Christmas too,” his dad added.
“So, can I take her out?” Ben asked. “Like, today?”
“Sure,” said his dad, “but you’ve got a couple chores to do first.”
Ben hugged his mom. “Thanks again, Mom. This is great, the best ever.”
“You’re welcome, sweetheart. I’ve got to go now, but I’ll be in touch during the week, all right? If you want to stop over some day after school, just let me know.”
He nodded. “I will.”
But Ben didn’t actually know if he was allowed to do that, stop over after school. His parents had worked out a deal about where he lived, and he shifted places every other week. This was his week to live with Dad at the marina on the family’s sailboat . . . or was it just Dad’s sailboat now?
She smiled at Ben, nodded awkwardly at his dad, then turned and walked across the sand toward the wooden steps by the parking lot.
She’d drive home to their house now . . . or was it just her house now?
Every Saturday he had to say good-bye to his mom or his dad. It always hurt, and nothing could make it stop. Not even a new sailboat.
Ben looked at his dad. “So, it’s okay to just leave the boat here awhile?”
“I told Kevin I was sure you’d want to take it out this afternoon. He’s keeping an eye on it, and I got you a space in the storage shed over there. It’s fifteen dollars a month, which is a really good deal. I’ll pay the rent for June, but then it’ll be up to you, okay?”
“Sure, that’s great, Dad. Thanks.”
The sailboat had been a complete surprise . . . although it had seemed sort of odd when his mom got out of the car and walked onto the pier with him. She usually just dropped him at the gate near the marina’s security shed.
“Come on, let’s get your stuff out to the boat.” His dad vaulted up onto the pier, then reached down and gave Ben a hand up. “There’s not much in the way of chores today, just polishing some brightwork on deck. Did you have lunch before you left home?”
Ben heard the tiny pause before his dad said the word “home.”
“Yup.”
“Then you could be out on the water pretty quick, if you look alive. I’ll get your bags.”
“It’s okay, I’ll get ’em,” Ben said.
“Good. See you onboard.”
Ben walked to where he’d dropped his things. He pulled on his backpack and then hoisted his green canvas duffel bag. It was loaded with a week’s worth of clean clothes, and after ten steps he wished he’d let his dad help. But he’d tossed Mr. Keane’s keys into the top of the bag at the last second, and if his dad spotted them or even heard them jangling around, it might lead to difficult questions.
Walking out onto the floating pier, he replayed last night’s adventure at the school. If he’d gotten caught, there certainly would not have been a happy here’s-your-new-boat scene on the beach today . . . still, he wished he’d had time to look in the south stairwell . . . and weren’t there some other stairways too? He tried to remember the drawings in that book at the school library, the one about the construction of the school . . . no, couldn’t recall.
As he turned onto the narrow catwalk alongside the Tempus Fugit, he pushed all that out of his mind. Today he was not going to be Benjamin Pratt, Keeper of the School. It was Memorial Day weekend, and the sun was shining.
Today he was just a very happy kid whose mom and dad had teamed up and given him his very own sailboat.
He deserved a day off, and the ocean was waiting.
CHAPTER 4
Rough Water
It was nearly eighty degrees, only a few high clouds, and a steady ten-knot breeze from the southwest—perfect conditions to take his Optimist out for the first time. Ben waved to his dad, who was watching from the deck of the Tempus Fugit halfway out on the pier.
He waded out about thirty feet, keeping both hands on the gunwale while he watched the sail and the waves. He was waiting for the right moment to shove off and hop aboard. The water was cold, but he hardly noticed.
“Hey, Ben! Ahoy there!”
Rats!
It was Jill. They had planned to meet here at his dad’s on Saturday afternoon, and he’d completely forgotten.
“Hey, hi, Jill.”
Ben pulled the bow of the boat around into the wind and let the sail flap.
He thought he’d hidden his disappointment, but Jill got the whole picture in half a second. As he began walking the boat back toward the beach, she held up her hand.
“It’s okay. I tried calling first, but your phone was off.”
“Oh, right—sorry.”
He’d left his phone off on purpose so he wouldn’t have to tell her about last night. Also, he didn’t like the feeling that Lyman could call or text anytime he wanted.
“Listen,” she said. “I’ll come back later, maybe around three?”
That sounded great—she lived only a few blocks away. But as she turned and started walking across the beach, Ben had another thought.
“Hey,” he called, “you should come out with me. This is my new boat—my folks just got it for me. Really, come out sailing.”
“Now?” She made a face. “No, I’m—I don’t have the right clothes or anything. Some other time, okay?”
“Look, just run out to the boat and ask my dad for some gear. There’s tons of stuff that’ll fit you. It’ll only take a couple minutes.”
Jill began backing away. “But the boat’s so . . . small. It’s made for one person, right?”
“Yeah, when you’re racing. But if it’s just for fun, two kids’ll fit fine. C’mon, it’s a perfect day. You’ll like it.”
“I really don’t think . . .”
“Unless it’s too scary for you . . . ’cause I don’t want you to feel worried or anything.” Ben grinned and shrugged.
Jill glared at him.
“Wait there.”
She stalked over to the pier, climbed up, and then trotted out to the sailboat. Ben saw her talk to his dad, then he went below and she followed.
The Tempus Fugit was a thirty-four-foot yawl that his dad had bought before he got married. These days it took a lot of work to keep the boat seaworthy.
Still, the family had taken it on some pretty long voyages the past few summers—all the way to Nova Scotia one year. Back when there was a family . . .
Ben hated that last thought, but he couldn’t help it. Stuff like that kept popping into his head.
He held the bow of the Optimist and looked north along the shore. His eye stopped on Oakes School, the largest building on Edgeport’s waterfront. All he wanted to do was take his new boat for a simple little spin around the bay and stop thinking about that place for an hour or so. But Jill showing up brought everything rushing back, all the problems they’d been dealing with over the past nine days.
Tall Ships Ahoy!—that would be the name of the new theme park. If the school was torn down.
Ben understood much better now how the situation had gotten to this point, and how the Glennley
Group’s lawyers had weaseled their way past Captain Oakes’s will. It was really very simple—one word: money. They had spent over thirty-five million dollars up front, and then promised millions and millions more in the future—tons of local jobs, increased tourism, more tax income—lots of money.
Not that he had anything against money . . . without money, would he have his new sailboat? No, it wasn’t the money itself. It was how the money was used. Because something good and useful was going to be destroyed here. Real history was being swept away, replaced by fake history—plus noise, plus pollution, plus loads of other changes.
Ben also felt like he was starting to understand Captain Oakes. With all the care he’d put into the place, he must have felt that the school was the most important accomplishment of his whole life. Ben could see why the man had wanted to make sure the school stayed put, way off into the future. It was something he intended to give to everyone in the whole town. Yes, first it was a school, but it was also just a beautiful, unspoiled stretch of shoreline. People came and fished, even had weekend picnics on the school grounds. It was free for everyone.
The Glennley Group was going to put up fences. They were going to push a big concrete pier out into the harbor, then load it up with a giant Ferris wheel and all sorts of other rides and attractions.
Ben shook his head. It was hard not to feel discouraged. They were up against huge odds.
And Lyman? He was their biggest problem, especially now. Because he knew that they were hunting for things at the school—and he knew that they knew that he knew.
If only there was some way to . . .
“So where do I sit in this tub?”
Ben snapped his eyes back to the beach, and there was Jill, hands on her hips. She was wearing a set of his old waterproofs, a faded Red Sox cap, and a bright orange life vest.