Strong Like the Sea, стр. 25

“It’s full of lemon juice.” I pass the cork to Jack.

He sniffs it, frowns, and hands it back. “But why?”

“Because it’s not the end. There’s more; another clue to find something else.” I wedge the cork into place again. I don’t know what lemon juice has to do with the golden ratio or nautilus shells or anything, but if Mom left it for me, then she thinks I should know—but I don’t.

I sigh. “How many more are there?”

Dad sits up. “Your Mom took weeks to set this up. Would you really want it over already?”

I shrug. Dad’s been better since we did the schedule on the calendar together, but the pressure is still there to finish on time—or else. Something important will get messed up if I don’t finish on time. And every day I don’t finish is one day closer to disappointing everyone. Maybe I don’t want a challenge. Maybe I want to ride my bike to Sam’s store to get Spam musubi and crack seed and li hing strawberry belts like Jack does.

Dad waits for a proper answer, but I groan, pulling my sun hat down over my face, the brim pressing the bridge of my glasses hard against my nose. Did people working at Bletchley Park ever get tired of figuring things out?

“Alexis. Look at me.” Dad uses his teacher voice, but I can’t see him past the yellow fabric of my sun hat, and since I can’t see him, I can almost pretend I can’t hear him either.

The chair creaks and his fingers lift the brim of my hat. “What’s wrong?”

Jack shifts restlessly beside me, and I almost groan again. I wanted this clue to be the end, but it’s not. Again. I know I’m supposed to have patience and persevere—and I will. But, it’s hard without Mom, and the clues aren’t done, and I think about her all the time . . .

I take a breath. I’m supposed to shatter codes—not myself. Mom would be stronger than this. “Sorry. I’m just tired. We ran around the field a bunch for PE and Lowen almost tripped me—he says it was an accident, but I don’t know—and then we took the bus here right after school.” I sigh.

“Maybe you better turn in early tonight so tomorrow goes better.” Dad turns his computer off and stands, but when Jack and I get up and head for the door, Dad calls after me. “Don’t forget your paper.”

My paper? The only paper I had was blank. I pluck the crumpled sheet off the desk and turn it over to check again, but both sides are empty of words. A clean page.

I stare at the paper. Why would Dad want me to take a blank paper with me? Blank paper wrapped around a fancy vial of lemon juice? Unless . . . I suck a breath and spread the paper out on the desk as flat as I can.

“I can only think of one reason Mom would give me lemon juice and a blank paper.” I smooth the sheet, paying close attention to texture, but other than creases, it seems normal—so far. Flipping it over, I smooth the other side. “Only one way to find out.”

“Wait, find out what?” Jack reaches for the paper, but I pull it back and eye Dad’s desk lamp—a real old one with a base shaped like a scuba diver frozen mid-swim over a reef. I bet the light bulb is almost as old as the lamp, which is perfect.

“Hold on, Jack. Can you take the lampshade off?”

“No prob.” He unscrews the top, lifts it off, and sets it aside. “You supposed to do something with the lemon stuff?”

Silent in his chair, Dad waits, the slight bounce of his chair the only crack in his careful mask.

“No. I think it’s already been done.” Paper in hand, I glance at Dad and Jack. It would be so much better to try this alone. I know what I’m supposed to do, I think. But I can’t be sure. And in about five seconds, either we’ll see something really cool . . . or we won’t, and I’ll look really, really dumb.

I lift my chin. “Here we go.” Carefully, I hold Mom’s white paper an inch away from the light bulb and wait, letting the light warm the paper.

Like a marshmallow being roasted over a campfire, brown lines appear and spread in toasted swirls as I move the paper across the bulb. The darker the lines, the brighter the paper seems as words appear one by one across the page. Written in lemon juice, the invisible message transforms into charred curves penned in Mom’s perfect, elegant scrawl.

When the last curl ends, I lay the paper on the desk and read.

In the place where we met, a sea turtle holds the key.

“So, not the end,” Jack says.

“Nope.” I turn the words over in my head. In the place where we met. It could mean what it says, or not. “Now I gotta figure it out.”

Dad doesn’t have a scuba lesson today, so he gives us a ride home—and that more than anything tells me that I found all there was to find at his school. Otherwise he’d have said something like he did with the paper.

As we pass Mālaekahana campground, my mind drifts, my thumb tracing the swirl of the nautilus shell. The radio murmurs local news stories: how the storm caused erosion and collapsed a section of highway by the North Shore that’s closed for repair; authorities were called in to protect a monk seal basking on a popular beach when tourists swarmed in for photo ops; meteorologists warn of a super typhoon forming off the sea of Japan, but Hawaii is not forecasted to be in the direct path of any major storm. They report other stuff too, but my thoughts are filled with the riddle. In the place where we met, a sea turtle holds the key.

By now, I’ve repeated