“Um, sure,” he said. “That’d be great . . . except, first I’ve really got to find those missing maps.”
“Dude, I’m totally gonna help you with that—it’ll be like we’re private detectives—The Case of the Missing Maps. And we’re gonna nail the crooks who snagged ’em—like, wham!”
Alton didn’t know what to say. Did he really want to team up with a kid he barely knew, a guy with a language disorder? Still, some help wouldn’t be bad—and Quint was clearly much smarter than Alton had thought he was.
“Um . . . sure,” he said. “That might be good. But right now? I’ve got to ride home before it gets any darker.”
When they got downstairs, Quint’s dad heard them at the door. “So long, Alton,” he called from the kitchen.
And Quint’s mom added, “It was nice to meet you—hope you can come visit again.”
“Thanks,” he called back. “It was nice to meet you, too.”
Quint’s sister was still on the couch, and her eyes never left the TV.
They went outside, and Alton picked up his bike off the lawn.
“Hey, you know what?” said Quint. “First you should make a map of everywhere you took your maps—a maps map, get it?” Then he said, “Here,” and handed Alton a slip of paper. “That’s my cell number so we can text.”
“Right,” Alton said. He felt too embarrassed to tell Quint that his phone didn’t have a text plan.
He put the railroad spike and the slip of paper in his jacket pocket, then pulled on his helmet and turned on his bike lights.
Quint said, “Listen, I’m glad you came over—even though you thought I jacked your maps.”
“Yeah,” Alton said, “sorry about that.” And then he remembered something. “This is going to sound really strange, but you’re not a quintuplet, right?”
“What?! Course not.”
Alton grinned. “I promised my sister I’d ask.”
Quint laughed. “Little kids are wicked cool!”
Alton said, “Well, see you tomorrow . . . and thanks again for the spike.”
“Don’t mention it. Later, dude.”
“Later,” said Alton.
Coasting down the driveway, Alton realized he’d just replied with the slangiest thing he’d ever said.
And actually, it felt kind of . . . normal.
CHAPTER EIGHT
CONTACT
One question stomped around inside Alton’s head all Tuesday night, and it was still there pacing back and forth when he woke up on Wednesday morning: If Quint didn’t take his folder . . . then who did? And how was Alton even going to know where to start looking for the answer?
It turned out that the answer came looking for him.
As he put away his backpack and gym shoes before homeroom, Alton spotted a plain white envelope lying on the top shelf of his cubby. The envelope wasn’t sealed, and when he lifted the flap and looked inside, his heart almost stopped. It was a bunch of cut-out letters pasted onto a slip of white paper:
Alton slapped the envelope shut and pressed it between his palms. His heart began thumping and his mouth felt dry.
He glanced around—no one was looking at him.
Standing there next to his cubby, he tried to think, tried to process the message, tried to grasp what it meant. And then he realized he’d better try to breathe.
He sucked in a quick breath, then peeked at the message again. Right away he saw it wasn’t really cut-out letters—it was a computer typeface that was made to look that way.
There were three parts to the message: a question, a threat, and a promise.
Alton looked at the clock—four minutes until the bell. He stuffed the envelope into his back pocket and hurried into the hall, scanning the faces to his left and right—no Quint.
He went to Mr. Troy’s doorway, spotted Quint, then walked right into the room. Trying to seem casual, he went up to a group of guys, nodded at everyone, and said, “Hey, Quint, you know that . . . project? Um, can we talk about it for a second?”
“Ab-so-tively.”
Alton said, “I mean . . . over in Miss Wheeling’s room?”
Quint nodded. “No prob.” Then to the other guys he said, “Later.”
When they were in the hall, Alton said, “Look at this, but do not react, okay? Just look.”
He took out the envelope and lifted the flap so Quint could see inside. Quint’s eyes popped open wide, and Alton quickly jammed the envelope back into his pocket.
“Whoa! Like . . . whoa!” Quint whispered, “You know what that is, right? It’s a ransom note, like . . . totally!”
“I know!”
Quint looked over his shoulder. “The dude who sent that could be scoping us out right now! Or . . . it might be a dudette! So, like, what’re you gonna do?”
Alton shrugged. “Not much I can do. I think I just have to wait. Until the kidnapper makes a demand.”
“Kidnapper?” Quint shook his head. “Nuh-uh, no way, dude. What we’ve got here is a mapnapper!”
“Right,” Alton said, and he smiled, even though he didn’t feel like it.
Quint looked around again. “So, here’s a brain wave—ready? You shouldn’t show me anything you get from the mapnapper, not so anybody could see you showing it to me—get it? Then I can be a secret watcher. Someone’ll be watching you, and I’ll be watching for the watcher. Cool, huh?”
“Good idea,” Alton said. “But . . . what about working on the railroads project?”
“We can totally still do that—which gives me another idea!” Quint looked around, and then in a voice about six times louder than it needed to be, he said, “So, that’ll be cool, Alton. And we can talk to Mr. Troy about this railroad stuff during social studies. And we can work on it some more at lunch, okay?”
Quint was a terrible actor, but Alton played along.
He nodded, and in a voice almost as loud as Quint’s, he said, “Yeah, I’ve got some ideas for getting all the information organized.”
Alton was a bad actor too.
Their scene needed an ending, so Quint said, “This’ll be great—see you later . . . dude.”
“Right . . . so long.”
Alton went back to Miss Wheeling’s homeroom feeling kind of dumb.
But he hoped their dopey little scene in the hall had worked anyway. It might be good if Quint could be a secret watcher.
He went to his cubby again to get his things for first and second periods—and he looked on the top shelf. No envelope.
Sitting down at his desk, he felt awkward and self-conscious, sort of the way he felt at his own birthday parties. Because whoever had his maps was probably watching him. At this very moment, he was the center of someone’s attention, like a bug under a microscope . . . or sort of like the kids and teachers he had watched when he was gathering information for some of those maps in his folder—except none of them had been aware that someone was studying them. Which made it completely different from this . . . or at least mostly different . . . right? He wasn’t sure.
The one thing he was sure about? He would be getting another message from this mapnapper. And he hoped it would happen soon.
It did.
CHAPTER NINE
HOW THIS WORKS
It was second period, and Alton was sitting in Mr. Troy’s room. He was supposed to be reading a story to get ready for a comprehension exercise, but instead he was using a scrap of paper to sketch a map of where his maps had been—which was one of Quint’s ideas. And he was racking his memory to be sure he got the order right.
When Mrs. Lomax had kicked them out of the library on Monday, he’d grabbed everything, and then he and Quint had walked directly outside to the playground—but they’d only stayed there about three minutes. And then he’d gone to his homeroom to drop off his book bag and get his gym shoes. And that was it.
So . . . who could have known that he’d had that folder of maps in his backpack, which he had put in his cubby? It had to have been someone who wa
s in the library. Maybe someone . . . And then he remembered. Of course! That group of girls, the one sitting a couple tables away! The girls were right there—and when Quint started laughing like a hyena, they’d all turned and stared at him!
But Alton couldn’t remember any names—or even their faces, not clearly.
He made a note to ask Quint about that during third-period math. . . . No, he’d have to wait until lunchtime and maybe pass him a note about it. Because they couldn’t give anybody hints that they were working together on this.
He glanced at the clock and saw that he’d better hurry up and read the assigned story. He folded his sketch and tucked it into his reading book—and that was when he noticed it.
Just half an inch was sticking out of the pages near the back of the book, but there was no mistaking what it was: a white envelope!
Alton didn’t gasp, but his breathing got fast and shallow. He wanted to look all around the room, to study every kid’s face until he spotted the telltale smile or twitch or glance that would give the mapnapper away.
But he didn’t do that.
He laid his reading book flat on the desk and slowly pulled the envelope toward him, out from between the pages. It was the same normal business-size envelope, and again, the flap wasn’t sealed.
Holding the envelope close to his stomach, he lifted the flap and peeked:
Alton felt his face heating up. This wasn’t just a case of kidnapped maps anymore—no, this person was saying, Do what I say, or else! This was blackmail!
And there was more—on a second slip of paper:
What?
Wear different shirts? Starting today?! Unbelievable!
There was a lost-and-found bin in Mr. Ludlow’s office . . . so if he just slopped a bunch of water down the front of his New York City Subway T-shirt, he was sure the gym teacher would let him pick out something else to wear.
But that wasn’t the real problem.
The real problem was that there were at least ten other maps in his folder! And if this was the first order, there was no telling what might come later on.
But what can I do?
Alton did the only thing he could do: He gritted his teeth and kept thinking.
But as he began his reading assignment, he made a promise to himself: I will figure out who’s doing this, and once I’ve got all my maps back? There’s going to be payback!
CHAPTER TEN
ESCALATION
Quint answered instantly: “Kelley, Jaclyn, Catherine, and Elena.”
Alton stared at him. Then he said, “You’re one hundred percent sure that those are the girls who were in the library at lunchtime on Monday?”
Quint raised one eyebrow and smiled. “I always notice the girls, dude . . . because they always notice me.”
They were whispering to each other. It was seventh period, and Mr. Troy had given them permission to work on the railroads project at the back of his room for the last ten minutes of class.
Alton decided not to comment on Quint’s statement about girls.
“Okay . . . ,” he said. “So, any opinions about these girls you noticed? Do you think one of them could be sending me the notes?”
Quint shrugged. “I know their names, dude—it’s not like we talk much or anything. But they’re totally the ones who saw me laughing, and they must have seen you put your stuff away. So, yeah, it’s possible—I mean, who else could it be?”
Alton kept pressing for an answer. “But if you had to pick one who might try something like this, which one would it be?”
“Hmm—whoever’s doing this is kinda smart . . . so it’s prolly not gonna be Jaclyn. And she would have to be pretty tough, so that cuts out Kelley. And it has to be someone with a sense of humor, too. So if it’s really one of those four girls, it’d have to be Elena—yeah, Elena . . . totally.”
Alton nodded slowly. “Funny, tough, and smart . . . I can see that. I got paired up with Elena to do a report on Russia when we were in fourth grade. She made me do all the work, and she made fun of how hard I worked on my map—and then she told me how to make it better.”
Quint smiled. “Yup, that’s what she’s like.”
Alton wasn’t smiling. “Elena . . . that makes sense—because on one of my maps? I kind of made fun of how she likes to wear strong perfume.”
Nodding wisely, Quint said, “Yeah, that’d prolly be enough to set her off. Last year, over at the high school? Some guy made fun of my sister’s shoes. Let’s just say that the dude wished he hadn’t. For about a month.” Then he added, “Of course, all four girls could be in on this together, and Elena’s just the mastermind.”
They were quiet for a second, then Quint said, “But really, would it even matter if we knew for sure it was Elena—or all of them? Somebody has your maps, and unless you follow these stupid orders, that somebody is gonna drop the bomb. But, c’mon, like, how bad could that be? Why not just call the bluff and let all the maps go public? There’s a little boom-boom action, and then it’s over. Simple. It’s just a bunch of maps, right?”
The look of severe pain on Alton’s face stopped Quint cold.
“So . . . what am missing here, dude?” he whispered.
Alton chose his words carefully. “Um . . . those maps? If they got passed around without any explanation at all? Some people would get . . . upset—like Elena did, except probably worse. Really offended. Maybe furious. And it might be a lot of people.” Alton paused. “Maybe even you.”
“Me? I’m on your maps somewhere? Cool! Tell me!”
“You know what a Venn diagram is?” Alton asked.
“Ab-so-tively . . . a buncha circles, right? And they overlap. Like, each circle represents a set, and where they overlap, it means they have shared elements.”
“Exactly,” Alton said, reminding himself again that Quint was really smart. “Well, I made a popularity map of the cafeteria during sixth-grade lunch, and I used Venn diagrams. Except the Venn circles aren’t just made with lines—I made the circles using words. And you? You’re in the very center circle, which is where the most popular kids are. And the circle around you and your friends is made up of words like cool, fantastic, so popular, top dogs, check us out, we are wonderful, look at us, dream on, we love ourselves, cute AND handsome, howdy, losers—stuff like that.”
Quint made a face. “Kinda harsh, dude.” He looked at Alton. “So . . . that’s what you think I’m like?”
Alton shook his head. “No, definitely not . . . I mean, not anymore. But I used to, just a few days ago. Because me? My name is in a circle way out on the edge with a bunch of other geeky kids, and the circle around our names is made up of words like, not really, just barely here, pretty much invisible, never mind, just watching, don’t mind us, who would even notice . . . Things like that. And from way out there, it’s all guesswork about the popular kids. Because your circle and my circle? They never cross—they don’t even come close.”
“Whoa! That is deep, dude . . . deep.” Quint thought some more, then said, “But I gotta say, you’ve got some stuff wrong . . . seriously. I mean, I prolly look like I’m popular and everything, but, like, it’s not like I’m actually pals with those kids. We just hang out at school . . . and talk and laugh and stuff. From across the room it looks like I belong in that circle, but all I really am is a visitor.” He held up his hand, and his eyes got wide. “Wait—this is a major brain wave! Maybe all those maps of yours really need to get out there! To make kids think. Like, maybe it’s your mission, dude—like . . . Karma . . . or something. To make kids think about stuff like this! Blast all those maps out there, and let ’er rip!”
Alton shook his head. “Trust me, that would not be good.”
“How come?”
So Alton took a deep breath. And then he told Quint about the which-kids-like-and-hate-which-other-kids maps; and about the divorced-parents map; and about the which-teachers-yell-and-frown-most map; and about the how-many-times-does-the-principal-say-“um” map; and about the
sixth-graders’-heights map; and about the which-tests-get-cheated-on-most map. And also about the trips-to-the-bathroom-compared-with-cafeteria-menus map; and about the twenty-nine-smells-around-the-school map. And, of course, “Miss Wheeling’s Brain.”
When Alton stopped describing the maps, Quint looked a little stunned. “I get what you mean. If all that got loose at once, it might be pretty rough.”
“I know,” said Alton. “I know. Because it’s like I was making up map cartoons, just messing around. I wasn’t going to show them to anyone. And I shouldn’t have shown any to you.”
“So . . . how come you did?”
Before Alton could reply, Quint said, “Ohhh—I get it! You pegged me as popular and cool and amazingly wonderful . . . instead of me actually being a half-popular, semi-nerdy collector of dinosaur dolls and railroad spikes. . . . Is that about right?”
Alton smiled sheepishly. “Exactly. Guilty as charged. And now I’m paying for my crime.”
Quint grinned. “Well, on the bright side? That is a seriously excellent shirt you have on!”
Alton acted like he was going to slug Quint on the arm, but he pulled back. The shirt Mr. Ludlow had taken out of the gym’s lost-and-found bin was a fluorescent green sweatshirt with its sleeves cut off right up to the armpits.
Alton shook his head. “I have never owned anything this color in my life—except maybe a piece of gum.”
“I bet the mapnapper’s getting a big laugh about it!”
Alton said, “Hey—you know what? Guess who I spotted pointing at this shirt and laughing, right after gym.”
Quint shrugged. “Who?”
“Elena!”
“No way!”
“Shh!” Alton glanced around, and Mr. Troy was frowning at them. “Look, we need to actually do some work on your railroad stuff—and we’ve only got five minutes left. Did you bring that map you started?”
“Yup.” Quint pulled a clipboard out of his backpack. “It’s right . . . whoa!”