He ripped open the envelope and peered inside, seeing nothing at first. He billowed it out, turning it upside down and shaking it until a little, flashy square fell out and tumbled off the bed. Tick picked it up off the floor. It was a tiny cassette tape, the kind his dad used when he made everyone talk about themselves for a tape to send to Grandma and Grandpa in Georgia. (A couple of years ago, his dad had finally switched to a video camera, but he still occasionally used the tape recorder, too.)
Nothing had been written on the tape label, but it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what M.G. intended the recipients of this clue to do. It took Tick ten minutes to dig out his dad’s little tape machine, hidden behind some socket wrenches in his dad’s infamous “junk drawer.” Tick could hardly contain himself as he went back to his room, locked the door, popped in the tape, and pushed PLAY.
He heard a few seconds of scratchy background noise, then a loud clank. Tick, pencil in hand, planned to transcribe every word into his journal, but once the message started, he could only listen, fascinated.
A man spoke, his voice quirky and heavy with a British accent. Not like Mothball’s accent; no, this man’s voice sounded much more sophisticated and tight, like the head butler at an English manor who has just realized his entire staff is stricken with the flu on the night of the big Christmas party to which hundreds of very important people are invited.
Well, one mystery had been solved: M.G. was a man.
When the short message ended, Tick laughed out loud, then rewound it to listen again. Then he quickly fast forwarded through the rest of the tape to make sure there were no other messages. On the fourth time, he wrote every single word into his journal:
Say the magic words when the day arrives, then hit the ground below you ten times, as hard as you can, with a very specific object. It’s a bit of a quandary because I can’t tell you what the object is. Let’s just say, I hope your soul is stronger than mine because there are no exceptions to this requirement. Also, the object must be the opposite of wrong but not correct.
Whew, glad to have that bit done. I really need to use the lavatory before I . . . oh, sorry, . . . meant to turn the recorder off. Where is that confounded button . . . ? Ah! There we are—
Click.
Tick hit the STOP button, shaking his head at how
crazy this M.G. guy seemed. Ever since he’d mentioned peppermint sticks and sweetened milk in the first letter, Tick had sensed a subtle sense of humor in the man, a contrast to the message of doom that seemed to be laced throughout the clues and warnings. He wondered if he’d ever get to meet M.G. He’d already begun to feel a sense of trust toward him.
Tick stared at his own handwriting, rereading the words, committing them to memory. Something in the back of his mind told him this one was simple, an itch he couldn’t quite scratch. The mystery lay in figuring out what the object must be. Once he knew that, it seemed pretty obvious what he needed to do: hit the ground ten times after saying the magic words.
Tick decided it really came down to two phrases:
Let’s just say, I hope your soul is stronger than mine
and
the object must be the opposite of wrong but not correct
Thinking, Tick flipped to a blank page in the journal to see if jotting down notes could whip up his brain functions into a frenzy. Staring at the empty lines on the page made him suddenly remember that he’d never written down the odd words Mothball had said that day by the woods when she’d been listing the things she wasn’t allowed to mention. Mad at himself for not doing it sooner, Tick squeezed his eyes shut and searched the darkness of his vision, hoping bright neon words would jump out and remind him of what she’d said. One or two did almost immediately, and after a few minutes he’d remembered four and wrote them in a list on the left side of the page.
The Master
The Barrier Wand
The Realities
The Kyoopy
There’d been another weird word that he couldn’t quite recall. Nothing else came to him, and he realized his eyes were getting droopy, his brain nice and ready for an afternoon nap. Wanting to check his e-mail—and needing some fresh, cold air to wake him up—he threw his new journal into his backpack and headed off for the library, telling Lisa he’d be back in a couple of hours.
“Tick, don’t you ever take that scarf off?” Ms. Sears asked, stopping Tick before he could make it to the library computers. He’d spent some time studying his Journal of Curious Letters, as well as finishing up the last bit of homework for the weekend, and wanted to check his e-mail account, though he’d yet to receive anything since leaving the hint phrases on the Pen Pal site.
“I guess my neck gets cold pretty easily,” he said, shrugging while he faked a shiver. Of course Ms. Sears knew about his birthmark, but he wanted to avoid a lecture on not being ashamed of who you are. “Any cool books come in lately?”
Her brow furrowed as she thought, making her entire weave of hair shift like a jittery land mass triggered by an earthquake. “There’s a new one by Savage, but I think he’s too scary for you,” she said, trying to hold back a smile.
Tick rolled his eyes. “I’ll take my chances.”
“Okay, but if you have nightmares, tell your mom that I warned you.” She smiled. “I’ll hold it up at the counter for you.”
“Thanks, Ms. Sears.” He inched toward the computers, and she got the message.
“Okay, then,” she said. “Have fun.”
He nodded, then sat down at a computer as soon as she walked away. His mind still spun, the clues of M.G. bouncing around his brain like renegade alphabet soup. He knew several things for sure, and he also knew what he still needed to figure out. For some reason, on May sixth he needed to close his eyes, say some magic words that he didn’t know, and hit the ground ten times with an object still left to be determined. Piece of cake.
After logging into his e-mail Web site, he hesitated a second before hitting the INBOX button. He’d checked his e-mail almost every day for weeks, and he was always disappointed to find nothing there. But what are the odds? he thought. Who knew if anyone else out there had received anything, much less went searching the Internet for others. But Tick felt like he’d explode if he didn’t find someone with whom to swap ideas and thoughts.
He clicked the mouse.
The INBOX page only took a couple of seconds to load and a subject line written all in capital letters caught his eye the instant it appeared. His breath caught in his throat. He stood up in excitement, his chair tipping backward to the ground with a ringing metallic clang. He noticed a few scowls from the other library patrons as he righted the chair and sat down, the skin of his face on fire. Once settled, he looked at the screen again, hoping his eyes hadn’t been lying to his brain.
But there it was, in black capital letters, bold against the white background:
From: SOFIA PACINI
Subject: MESSAGES FROM M.G.
Chapter
13
Talking to Sofia
As he opened the e-mail, Tick’s heart pounded so much he felt like he was trying to breathe underwater. He could hardly believe it; to receive an e-mail from another person experiencing the same mysteries as he was would validate everything once and for all—even more than meeting Mothball or being attacked by the Gnat Rat.
Forcing his eyes to slow down and take in each word, Tick read the e-mail.
Dear Atticus Higginbottom,
I’ll write to you in English, since I know you must be a typical American who can only speak Americanese, and my English is, well, brilliant. My name is Sofia Pacini and I live in the pretty Alps in the country of Italy. Do you know where Italy is? Probably not. You’re too busy studying the Big Mac and the Spider-Man and not world geography. Maybe you can learn from Sofia and be smart. I’m just teasing you, so please don’t cry. :)
I saw your post on the Pen Pal Web site and almost swallowed my shoe. No, I didn’t have a shoe in my mouth, it just sounds like something a funny Americanese boy would say.
Tick paused, trying to hold in a laugh since he’d already embarrassed himself enough in front of the library crowd. But this Italian girl . . . was she for real? He continued reading.
I got a letter from a person named M.G. in November. You too? At first I laughed and thought it was my friend Tony, but the letter came from Alaska, so I don’t know. Then more came, and I met a really tall lady called Mothball. Did you meet her? She’s like a walking tree with clothes, but I like her.
So what do you think? Is this for real? What will happen on the day? Did you figure everything out? Find anyone else? Write me back.
Your new friend,
Sofia
P.S. You have a weird name, btw.
Tick hated when the e-mail ended, wishing she’d written him pages and pages of what she thought and felt and if she’d figured out the magic words or anything else. He clicked the REPLY TO SENDER button.
Dear Sofia,
He paused, wondering what in the world he should write to her. The chilling thought hit him that maybe he shouldn’t trust her. Maybe she was on the side of whoever or whatever had sent the Tingle Wraith and Gnat Rat. Maybe she was a spy, ready to feed him information leading him away from the solution, not toward it.
That’s just a chance I’ll have to take, he thought. Shrugging the worry away, he began typing his message.
I know I have a weird name. Everyone calls me Tick, so you can, too.
Sounds like we’re in the same boat. I’ve received three clues now, one of them on a tape. How about you? I met Mothball, too. She gave me the second clue. Maybe we can help each other?
He almost started telling her the things he’d figured out and which ones had him stumped, but decided to wait to see if she would write him back. One more e-mail from her ought to help him know for sure if she was okay. After thinking for a minute, he finished his letter.
I wonder how many others like us are out there. I hope someone else writes me. Let me know if anyone writes to you, OK?
Have you seen anything like a ghost made out of smoke that turns into a grandpa face? What about a Gnat Rat? That thing put me in the hospital, but I’m OK now. How old are you? I’m thirteen, and I live in Washington, though you already know that because I guess you saw my Pen Pal account.
You’re from Italy? That’s way awesome. I wish we could meet and talk face to face about this stuff. I’m keeping all my notes in a book called Tick Higginbottom’s Journal of Curious Letters. Pretty cool, huh?
Talk to you later,
Tick
He clicked SEND, knowing Sofia probably wouldn’t read the e-mail until tomorrow because it was already past bedtime in Italy. His initial excitement tempered by the thought that he wouldn’t hear back from Sofia for at least a day, he logged off the computer and grabbed his backpack.
On his way out, Ms. Sears reminded him of the book she had held for him and he checked it out just to be nice. With everything going on in his life, reading a new book suddenly seemed dull in comparison. Tick shook his head; he never would’ve thought he’d say that.
The book tucked safely in his backpack next to his journal, Tick exited the library and headed home.
Halfway there, he figured out the answer to the third clue.