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Kellerman pauses for a moment, pulls a small water bottle out of his pocket, and takes a swig. “And then somewhere along the line, your great-uncle began to suspect that what he had was worth a tremendous amount. Perhaps that's when he quit his job and opened his liquor store, hoping to disappear from prying eyes in the best way possible. And he succeeded all too well.”

Kellerman takes another sip of water, showing no intention of sharing it with us.

“So it was not until one of my colleagues spotted your great-uncle's obituary, detailing his name and his history, that we put two and two together. In talking with Mr. Yamada, I confirmed that indeed, he was the very person I was looking for.”

Kellerman puts his hand under the counter of the display case.

When he pulls it out, it's covered in old grime and grease. He wipes it carefully on his handkerchief.

“Which brings us,” he says with a touch of satisfaction in his voice, “to today. And so here we are.”

By now, my legs have fallen asleep, and I know that even if there is a chance of escape, I'll be useless.

“Which also brings us, Ted Gerson, to you.”

Kellerman pulls out the douk-douk and it snaps open once again, the click of the razor-sharp steel echoing in the tiny room.

To my amazement, I feel the knife slice cleanly through the plastic band on my wrists, releasing me. I stare at Kellerman, trying to figure out what has just happened.

“Feels good to be free, doesn't it?” asks Kellerman solicitously as he watches me rub my hands together and flex my fingers. “Wouldn't you like your friends to be free too?”

“Of course,” I reply as Kellerman helps me to my feet.

“Upsy-daisy!” Kellerman says in his maddeningly cheerful way. “Walk it off, now.”

I can feel tingling in my legs as the blood rushes back into them. I pace around the small room, never taking my eyes off Kellerman.

“So what do you plan on doing with me?” I finally ask.

“I think the question really is what are you going to do for me?” Kellerman replies, leaning against the display case. “It looks like I need your help. Clearly we have to get to the tiles behind this case, but it won't budge. There's got to be a solution, and I have a feeling your great-uncle thought you were just the young man to figure it out.”

I think about this. It's the only way. “Let Caleb and Isabel go and I'll help you.”

Kellerman lets out a short, unpleasant laugh. “That's not going to happen. Saying something like that might sound noble, and it might impress Miss Archer. Did it?” he asks, looking coyly at Isabel.

“I don't think he has any intention of letting us go,” she says in a quiet voice, flat and defeated.

“That's a trifle melodramatic, but you are that age,” Kellerman sighs. “No, I simply need a little, shall we say, insurance. This can work out for everyone, really. I get what I want, and you get to go home. Sounds like a good deal to me. How about you?”

I swallow and think of my options. When Kellerman says things like this, it sounds so reasonable. And if I can distract him even for a minute, is there some way to disarm him? What if I somehow manage to get the knife away from him, only to find out he also has a gun?

It's getting too hard to think. I make a decision.

“I'll do it. I can't promise you you'll find what you're looking for, but I'll try to help figure out how to solve this.”

Kellerman breaks into a huge smile. “I knew you couldn't resist a challenge.”

I bend down and look at the display case. I then hoist myself up on top of it. One of the advantages of being a little guy is that I'm light enough to perch there without breaking the thin wood countertop. It's at an angle to the wall, and from this vantage point, I can see a space.

“There's a place down there where I can fit between the wall and the case,” I announce. “Should I do it?”

“As your great-uncle would say, ‘Go for broke!' ” Kellerman answers eagerly.

As three pairs of eyes watch me, I carefully position myself over the tiny triangular opening and lower myself. I'm now wedged between the wall and the display case, but I can reach my hand down and feel under the shelving unit.

There, below the shelves of the case, is a hidden shelf, invisible from the front.

“Have you found anything?” Kellerman calls out, craning his neck.

“Not quite sure,” I lie. I feel around and grasp something cold and metal. For a brief moment I have a flash of hope. I remember Mr. Yamada's words:
“The only thing I remember seeing that he brought back from the war was a Colt .45 automatic, which he always kept behind the counter.”

But it's nothing like a gun.

It's a boxlike object with buttons. I grab it, and slowly work it over to the part of the opening where I can reach in with both hands and pull it out.

Kellerman leans forward. He looks at the thing in my hand with a mixture of curiosity and frustration.

“Just an old cash register,” he grumbles.

I place it on the counter. It is, as Kellerman has said, an electric cash register from back in the seventies, by the looks of it. I wipe off the grime and check the plug.

“This is here for a reason,” I say coolly, looking around the counter. My hands are feeling around the edge.

“I've already done that,” Kellerman says impatiently.

“Yes, but you were looking for a switch. I'm looking for something else,” I answer, carefully examining every inch of the underside of the counter with my fingers.

I stop, and smile.

“There's an outlet here,” I say, reaching for the cord from the cash register. I snake it under the cabinet and, with a little wiggling and pushing, plug it in.

With a buzz, the cash register comes to life, a digital display on its ancient screen showing “0.00.” I press the No Sale button and the drawer springs open.

Kellerman, forgetting himself, rushes over to look.

“Empty,” he spits out. “Any more bright ideas?”

“This is it,” I say simply. “We just have to know how to use it.”

I type a number into the cash register and press Enter. Again the drawer opens, but nothing else happens.

“What was that?” asks Kellerman.

“I tried 1405, his hospital room number. But that was a long shot. We have to enter a number here. I'm sure of it.”

“But it could be any number,” Kellerman says, sounding less easygoing by the minute.

“If it was a seven- or ten-digit number, it would have been a phone number,” I say. “It has to be shorter. But something significant. A date, maybe.”

“Try 12741,” says Kellerman excitedly,

I nod and put the numbers in. Once more the drawer pops out, revealing itself to be still empty.

“Why 12741?” asks Caleb.

“December 7, 1941.” Kellerman shakes his head in astonishment. “The bombing of Pearl Harbor. Don't they teach you anything?”

All of a sudden, Isabel blurts out, “Try 9066.”

Where did that come from?

Kellerman rubs his chin. “Why does that number sound so familiar?”

“It was the number of the executive order Roosevelt signed sending the Japanese Americans into internment camps,” Isabel explains.

“How the heck do you know that?” Caleb asks.

“Remember I told you I read that book
Farewell to Manzanar
at school? I did a whole report on the Japanese internment camps.”

“Let me guess. You got an A, right?”

“Our school doesn't believe in grades. They think it makes kids too competitive.”

Caleb snorts.

“Guys!” I call out. “Later. What was that number again, Isabel?”

I input 9066. There's a deep
kachunk
like a lever being released, and the display case suddenly swings outward. Behind it, embedded in the back wall, is a series of three rotating wheels with numbers on them next to a small panel.

The wheels are numbered from one to ten. The panel holds a picture familiar to all of us by now. It's identical to the one on Great-Uncle Ted's lighter. The shield with the hand holding the torch—the insignia of the 442nd Regiment of the U.S. Army.

Kellerman rushes forward and pushes past me. He confidently rotates the wheels until the numbers on top read “442.”

Nothing happens. He does it again.

The panel remains shut.

Kellerman mutters to himself “Not 442? Wait! It was also the 100th Battalion!” He has remembered that the original Hawaiian unit of Japanese American soldiers was the 100th Battalion.

“1-0-0.” The panel remains stubbornly closed, mocking him.

I am turning numbers over in my head. I know Kellerman isn't going to simply sit there and try every combination of three numbers he knows.

“It's got to be something about the regiment. It has to be.” Kellerman is now pacing.

Then he lunges at the panel and stabs at it with the douk-douk, trying to pry it open.

But the panel holds firm.

I brace myself, knowing what's coming. Kellerman wheels around and faces me full on. I get the feeling he's no longer going to be someone to reason with.

“He was
your
great-uncle!” Kellerman screams. “It has to be something he thought you would know!”

Combinations of numbers whirl around in my head. As I'm desperately thinking, I scratch my knee absentmindedly. It's still prickly from sitting on the floor so long. I can only imagine what Isabel's and Caleb's legs must feel like now.

Kellerman is standing over me, chest heaving, but I barely notice him.

I scratch my knee again. I'm back in my room, puzzling through a game no one else can solve.

“What was it she said…?” the others hear me mutter.

And then, just like that, I burst out laughing.

I know. I
know.

I've had this feeling before, when I solved the fourth and hardest level of the hardest room escape game I ever played.

But this is even better.

“Okay, I've got it,” I announce.

Kellerman eyes me warily. “Just like that?”

“Just like that.” I smile. “Five four zero.”

“Five four zero…,” whispers Kellerman softly as he crosses to the panel, as if he's reciting a prayer.

He turns the wheels. Five. Four. Zero. There's a pause, and then the panel slides over to the right.

I go to join the others, crouching down as Kellerman, with trembling hands, removes a velvet drawstring bag from the hole that has been revealed in the concrete wall.

Kellerman looks inside the bag and allows himself a small smile before he carefully puts the bag on the counter.

He turns toward us, the douk-douk in his hands.

But before he can do anything more, out of nowhere, the floor begins to tremble.

I watch in fascination as the cartons all around us dance and jitter, the rumbling getting louder and louder.

Kellerman whirls around and around, trying to locate the source of the vibrations that seem to come from every side. A pipe from one of the shelves rolls onto the display case, smashing the glass. The floor is bumping and bucking, the walls of the room swaying as if the concrete were made of paper.

It's just as I see a stack of cartons falling directly on top of Kellerman that the lights go out.

I can remember my first earthquake. I must have been five years old, and my parents carried me out of my bed. It seemed like some kind of hilarious game to me, the whole family huddled together in a doorway.

But since then, even the smallest earthquakes have been terrifying. You never really get used to the feeling of the Earth shifting under your feet, giving way, the seconds passing like hours.

In the darkness, I feel the swaying stop, and the room settles into a strange sort of quietness.

To my immense relief, I hear a voice squeak, “What the heck was
that
?”

And then Caleb's slightly calmer voice: “I think, Isabel, you've just survived your first California earthquake.”

I call, “You guys all right?”

“I think so.” Isabel's voice has regained some of its usual coolness, though there's still a totally understandable edge of panic.

“Yeah, but…” Caleb doesn't need to finish the sentence. We all saw the boxes fall on the man we knew as Kellerman, heard a strangled scream escaping, and then nothing.

I get to my feet. I almost fall back as I realize the floor has shifted to a crazy angle, like some sort of fun-house room. I reach down and realize that a small cylindrical object is rolling around at my feet. It's Kellerman's flashlight.

I switch it on and play the beam around the room. First, I see the very welcome sight of two pale but unhurt faces, followed by debris of every kind that has fallen into the center of the tipping room. I then move the light over to the gate.

Great
. It's completely blocked. The display case has rammed into it, making a huge dent in the center. It'll be impossible to raise that thing, even if the stuff around it is removed.

Finally, gritting my teeth, I focus the flashlight on the boxes that have toppled onto Kellerman. What I can see of him is still, and the hand holding the knife is thankfully clear of the debris.

I carefully make my way over to him.

Cringing, I gingerly touch the hand and pull the knife from its grasp.

Fighting nausea, I go back to Isabel and Caleb and quickly cut them free from the plastic cords.

Caleb looks with distaste at the pile in the corner and asks, “Is he…?”

“I don't know,” I admit.

Isabel is rubbing her wrists and stomping her feet to get the feeling back in them. “We've got to check.”

“Fine,” says Caleb. “Ted, you have the flashlight. Go ahead.”

“Hey, you want the flashlight, tough guy, you can have it,” I say.

“My feet are still all tingly,” Caleb whines.

“Look, I went over there to the get the knife. Now it's your turn.”

We look at each other in the beam of the flashlight.

“Rock paper scissors?” suggests Caleb.

“Okay,” I agree.

Isabel grabs the flashlight. “You two are pathetic.” She goes over and pulls the boxes off Kellerman. “They're not even all that heavy. It's weird.”

Well, she
does
come from New York City.

She kneels over the figure sprawled on the floor.

“He's still breathing,” she announces. “Would one of you big babies come over here and help?”

Caleb and I scramble over as Isabel reaches into Kellerman's jacket pocket and pulls out a handful of the hated zip ties. She holds them up gleefully.

We go about our merry task quickly. I pull his arms behind his back, and Isabel puts two zip ties around his wrists and pulls tight while Caleb does the same with his ankles.

“There,” Caleb says, wiping his hands on his pants. “He's not going anywhere.”

Isabel looks around. “Neither are we, by the looks of it.” She turns to me with a worried expression. “How bad do you think it was?”

I wander around the unit, the others following close by. “Well, we're nowhere near the epicenter, or this whole building would have come down, probably. So we can be grateful for that. But who knows what kind of damage is out there? For all we know, this area might have been hit pretty bad.”

There's a low moaning from the corner.

I smile with satisfaction as Kellerman struggles against his bonds and slowly realizes the situation he's in. Then he spits out a series of words that are about as nasty as anyone can say. He curses me, Isabel and Caleb, Great-Uncle Ted, his bad luck, and the greater Los Angeles area.

Yes, no more Fudgie the Whale. Fudgie has left the building. His vocabulary now seems to consist entirely of words for body parts and bodily functions—words my parents would ground me for a week for using.

Isabel calmly goes over to him and kneels down until she's at his eye level.

She punches him as hard as she can.

“OWWWW!” protests Kellerman.

Caleb winces. “She really is surprisingly strong for a twelve-year-old.”

“Tell me about it,” I say.

Isabel looks at Kellerman with contempt. “He doesn't deserve good manners.”

Brrrrrr.
There's a rattling sound as broken glasses and bottles vibrate against the hard floor. Isabel's eyes widen.

“Aftershocks,” Kellerman says grimly. “They can be just as bad as the original quake.”

“That one wasn't too bad,” I say as it subsides.

“Look, you kids need me,” Kellerman continues. “Your only chance of getting out of here is by moving those boxes and somehow prying that gate up. You've got my knife. You're not strong enough to do it alone. Admit it.”

I look around the small room. It's pretty bad, with the toppled display case and the boxes everywhere. We could move everything out of the way without Kellerman, but it might take hours.

Sensing my unease, Kellerman presses his case. “Ted, you're a smart kid. We have no way of knowing how structurally sound this place is. The next aftershock, even a small one, could bring the whole ceiling down on us.”

Caleb feels along the walls. He turns to me, a worried look on his face. “He's right, Ted. We've got to get out of here, and—”

“And what?” Isabel protests. “We're supposed to trust him? As soon as you let him up, he's going to do whatever it takes to leave here alone.”

There is another tremor. The look in Kellerman's eyes goes from an easy calm to an edge of panic.

“Ted, you've got a choice. You let me help you, or we all could very easily die.”

“Shut up!” I close my eyes and try to think.

The words on my great-uncle's pad call out to me.
Keep looking for the answers!

I turn to Kellerman. “You were so determined to find out what my great-uncle's last words were. Well, he did say something. The one word he said, with one of his last breaths, was ‘Promise.' He was making me promise to never give up. I made that promise. And I can't break it.”

I turn my back on the man trussed in the corner. “Isabel, can I have the flashlight?”

Isabel tosses it to me, and I run the beam around the room one more time.

Maybe there's something I've missed. I look up, and I can feel the smile spread across my face.

“So? You're letting me go, right?” whines Kellerman, trying to catch my eye.

“Just be quiet and let me work this out,” I order. I hand the flashlight to Caleb. “Keep this light on me, okay?”

There is one area of the floor that has stayed perfectly flat, right in the center of the room. I slowly take two of the cartons that fell and carefully place them next to each other. I then clear away the broken bottles with my foot and stack two more cartons on top of the first two.

Caleb and Isabel watch me, fascinated.

“Caleb, what's the first thing I say to you whenever you're stuck?”

“You mean like in a game?” Caleb asks.

“No, when your zipper's stuck. Of course in a game,” I sigh, and move three more cartons next to the pile I've started. “Whenever you call me as soon as you run out of ideas…”

“Ohh…right.” Caleb thinks, and his hand moves the light up. He follows the light and says something that sounds like “Huh!”

“You don't think…” His face is set in disbelief.

“Only one way to find out,” I say. I move two more boxes onto the floor, making a pattern of three-two-one, piles of three, two, and one boxes in a row.

Caleb hands the flashlight to Isabel and joins me in arranging the boxes.

“You're wasting time!” whimpers Kellerman.

As we continue to move the boxes around, Caleb turns to Isabel.

“When you play an escape game, you have to look everywhere for clues. The one place people always forget to look is the ceiling. Ted always has to remind me to check there.”

Isabel moves the beam of light onto the ceiling, where a pattern of boxes has clearly been drawn in chalk. If you didn't know any better, you'd think it was simply a decorative design, or something drawn by a bored workman.

Caleb and I have finished. We exchange looks.

“You're missing two boxes, aren't you?” Isabel asks anxiously.

I take the flashlight and look up at the ceiling. If it
is
a pattern, Isabel is correct. We're two boxes short.

Kellerman struggles against his bonds. “What did you think you could accomplish with that? You didn't seriously think that piling up a bunch of boxes was going to do anything, did you?”

Ignoring Kellerman, I rack my brain. I go through every strategy I've ever played, every solution that seemed impossible but turned out to be right there if you knew where to look. I make an inventory of the room's contents once more.

And then my eyes settle on the cardboard signs leaning against the wall.

“Isabel, point the light over there,” I say.

I carefully make my way over to the signs and, to my satisfaction, see that they're scored.

They aren't signs at all. They're flattened boxes. Two of them.

I hand one to Caleb and take one myself. Quickly, we fold the boxes and assemble them. Then we put them in the right place in the pattern.

Nothing happens.

“I told you!” Kellerman laughs. “Now why don't you be smart about this and cut these things off me.”

I reach down and find some of the bottles that have rolled out of a box and put them into one of the empty cartons. I then put a pipe that has fallen off one of the shelves into the other. There's a grinding noise.

“We need just a little more weight,” I tell Caleb.

Caleb looks around and disappears out of the circle of light. There's a cry of delight and he reappears. “How about these?” he asks, indicating the stack in his arms.

“Uncle Peter's comic books!” I laugh. “So Great-Uncle Ted didn't throw them out!”

What happens next is even more amazing.

I gently lower the comics into the boxes, half in one and half in the other. There's an earsplitting grinding sound as the floor begins to shift again, magically leveling itself, while the display case pulls away from the gate.

We watch in fascination as the gate automatically, slowly, rises to reveal…

The world outside. The beautiful, real world. Untouched.