Click Here to Start (6 page)

When it comes to the Alloys! Caleb takes everything very seriously.

At some point in every story, of course, they realize that they can't defeat the villain individually, so they combine their powers to create a super superhero, Alloy, who kicks the butt of whichever villain they ripped off from Marvel Comics that month. The whole series lasted about six issues and then disappeared. So why did Caleb want issue #1 so badly?

When his parents split, his dad gave him his comics collection from when
he
was a kid, and it had all the Amazing Adventure issues except #1. So now Caleb haunts eBay, comic-book stores, every corner of the Internet. I know it sounds stupid, but I think in some way he believes that if he finds that issue and completes the set, somehow his life will get back to the way it was, and his dad will come to his senses, stop acting so weird, leave Gina, and go back to his mom.

Mom says I psychoanalyze people too much.

I think the likelihood of Caleb's dad coming back is probably the same as the likelihood of Caleb's finding a copy of a comic that wasn't all that good to begin with, a comic that no one in his right mind would want to save. But of course I would never tell Caleb that. If he wants to look for it, why not let him?

So I say, “Hey, you never know. Knock yourself out.”

Meanwhile, I know that I have to do something about the Isabel situation. And believe me, it is a situation. If my mom and dad find out that I insulted the daughter of my dad's boss and hurt her feelings, I'll never hear the end of it.

What's needed is a peace offering.

I look around the room, and it hits me like a thunderbolt. Sometimes I'm so smart I surprise myself.

“Wow, Caleb,” I say loudly. “Look at
all those old books
in that
bookshelf
over there.”

A head peeks around the doorframe. I smile and gesture to a large bookshelf against a wall. Isabel stares at it, transfixed.

I see the look in her eyes. “You know, if you want any books, help yourself. I don't think they're valuable or anything, but—”

Isabel has already jumped over a carton of old bags of rice and is peering at the titles excitedly. “Thanks, this is awesome. I just love looking at old collections of books. They tell you so much about a person.”

Crisis averted.

“It looks like your great-uncle was into World War Two,” Isabel observes as she wipes some dust off a couple of the volumes.

“Yeah, he served in the war, apparently. My dad said something when we were heading to the reading of the will, how he was a war hero. It's kind of weird, though….” I let my voice trail off.

Caleb looks up. “What's weird?”

“My mom said he never wanted to talk about the war. He always seemed to act like he wanted to forget it. So—”

“Why does he have so many books about something he wanted to forget?” Isabel finishes my thought. “That is kind of funny. But they don't look like they've been opened in years.”

“So why didn't he just throw them out?” I wonder.

“Take a look around,” Caleb laughs. “Does it look like he ever threw
anything
out?”

He's right. If the apartment resembles anything, it looks like a setting for some crazy escape-the-room game, what with all the random junk piled up all over the place.

I'm happily surprised that for the next half hour or so, Isabel helps me separate things into piles while Caleb searches in vain for his ever-elusive Amazing Adventure #1. We even find a couple of old matchbooks with
TED'S WINE & SPIRITS
on them. If we don't find anything else, maybe Mr. Yamada would like those. Most of the stuff, especially the clothes and the old coffeemakers and things from the liquor store, we'll send to Goodwill.

Out the window, there's the sound of a car pulling into the driveway. Just from the hum of the well-tuned engine, I can tell it's Isabel's dad.

Isabel gets up and brushes some nonexistent dirt off her jeans. “I guess that's my father.”

Caleb drops his twentieth stack of magazines. “Well, that's good. I don't know about you guys, but I need a break.”

I stand up and wipe the sweat and grime off my face with my shirt. Then I remember that Isabel is right there, and that it's probably not the smoothest thing I've ever done.

I look over at Caleb, with his drenched hair and sweat-stained T-shirt, then back at Isabel.

There isn't even a hint of sweat. I'm telling you, this is
weird.

I'm not sure how to leave things, but I manage to say, “Umm…well, thanks for helping out. It was a real…help….”

“Hey! Maybe you could come by tomorrow?” Caleb adds, sounding like he means it.

Isabel looks out the window at her dad. She keeps looking as she replies, “I don't think so. We're kind of busy, you know, unpacking at the house and stuff.”

I try to find some way of keeping the conversation going. “So…if we find anything, we'll tell you in the fall when we see you at school, okay?”

Isabel turns away.

“Maybe.”

“What? So you're going to pretend you don't know us once school starts?” Caleb snorts.

“Caleb! Chill out!” I say a little more sharply than I mean to.

“It's not that,” Isabel falters. “It's just that…well…my old school back east is holding a space for me. I haven't decided yet whether I want to stay here with my father and go to a new school or stay with my friend's family and go back to St. Anselm's.”

Whew.

“Okay…well, good luck with that,” I say. Lame.

“Thanks. It was a lot of fun meeting you two.”

“Hey, I know! Maybe we can keep up on Instagram?” Caleb throws out as Isabel heads for the door.

“Oh, I'm not on Instagram, but thanks for asking,” Isabel says, putting the last nail in the coffin. There's a deep, rich beep from the car below (even the car horn sounds expensive), and with a little wave, Isabel Archer is gone.

Of course, tonight at dinner, the last thing I want to do is talk about Isabel, so that's the
only
thing my mom and dad seemed interested in.

As soon as we sit down, Mom clasps her hands and stares at me, trying far too hard not to smile.

“So…that Isabel girl seemed nice,” she throws out.

I say a silent prayer of thanks that Lila isn't here. My life would be a living hell with my big sister hearing that I spent the day with a girl.

Dad starts. “Since her name is Isabel Archer, of course I asked if she was intelligent and excited!”

“Artie,” my mom laughs.

That's it.

“Can someone please explain this reference to the moron at the table?” I ask. “I thought that Graham guy was going to deck you when you said that, but he just laughed.”

“It's from
The Portrait of a Lady
by Henry James,” says Dad. “Isabel Archer is the name of the main character. And when she's first introduced in the story, and gazes out onto the lawn in this English estate, she's described as ‘intelligent and excited.' ”

Naturally, my mom feels compelled to add, “If you had been paying attention during the last twelve years, you would know that your father always makes his students discuss that phrase when he teaches the book.”

Dad, good old Dad, tries to change the subject. “So tell us! Did you find anything? Any treasures?”

“Nope. We mostly made lists of what was there. Like five huge bags of rice stacked up in a corner. Who keeps things like that?”

“Your great-uncle,” sighs my mom, helping herself to the last of the salad.

“Actually, a lot of people who grew up poor tend to keep things. They're so afraid it will all be taken away at some point,” Dad says, and takes a sip of lemonade. “But your great-uncle seemed to take that to extremes.”

“So what time do you want me to drop you off tomorrow? Did you set a time with Caleb and Isa—”

“Actually,” I say as I clear the dishes off the table, “there is no ‘and.' Isabel's not coming back. As a matter of fact, she probably isn't even going to go to school here. She said they're keeping a place for her at her old school in New York, and she'll live with some family friends.”

“That's too bad,” Mom says, frowning in disappointment. “But I guess she needs to do what's right for her.”

I deposit the dishes in the sink and head for the stairs. “Yeah. So is it okay if I go upstairs and lie down? I'm kind of tired.”

“Of course, darling,” my mom calls after me. “Get some rest!”

When I get to my room, instead of hopping on the bed, I fall into my desk chair and turn on my laptop.

An escape game or two is just what I need right now. At least
they
always make sense in the end, no matter how strange or mysterious they seem when you first start them.

Life isn't so neat. Caleb's dad isn't going to magically become a good guy again, and Isabel isn't going to stick around and go to some junky old public school in the middle of boring old San Fernando Valley when she could be living in New York City and going to some cool private school.

And what do I care, anyway?

The familiar browser window opens, my doorway to an hour or two of riddles that have solutions, in a world where treasure is
always
behind the last door.

I navigate to one of my favorite pages, looking for something new to play. Blinking in the corner, with a Click Here button beckoning me, is a game I've never heard of before.

“Time to play
The Game of Ted
!” the colorful graphics proclaim.

To tell the truth, I'm not that surprised to see a game with my name on it.

I've played
Dead Ted,
about a zombie;
Ted or Alive,
about a chase after a master criminal; even
Teddy or Not
(my least favorite), a dating game for girls, for which I got endless grief at school.

I click on the button and a welcome screen appears as the game loads in. It says in bright curling letters: “Solve the Mystery! Solve the Puzzles! Find the Treasure!”

As the bar reaches 100%, I click on the Start button and see with a jolt of pleasure that it's an escape game.

An escape game with my name on it! Awesome.

The first room opens, and—

It's an apartment.

Crammed with boxes.

I move my mouse and notice my hand trembling slightly.

It can't be.

Yet there it is. In the corner, stacked up under a sheet, are bags of rice. And when I click over into another part of the room, the screen reveals a shelf of World War II books.

I rub my eyes. This can't be happening.

The game is clearly set in my great-uncle's apartment.

Now I'm actually shaking. This is much too weird. I get up from my desk, thinking hard. Caleb certainly could have drawn it—he can draw anything. But he knows nothing about game design. Besides, making these things take days…weeks, even.

For a second I consider Isabel. She's smart enough, that's for sure. But she seems to hate computers. Is it all an act?

Unlikely. It doesn't matter anyway. I've never played an escape game that I couldn't beat.

I just need to approach it like any other game: as a set of problems to be solved. So what if it looks like my great-uncle's apartment? It's just another game, and I'm going to beat it.

I hold my breath and press the Start button.

As I'm clicking around the screen, the view changes angles, as if I'm walking through the actual apartment.

I think back to all the rooms I've visited in the games I've played. The bedrooms, living rooms, garages, laboratories I've been trapped in—even a mummy's crypt in one corny game I played once when I was bored.

I click under the rice bags and a coin appears and lands in my inventory. I keep clicking away, finding more and more clues, when a thought strikes me.

What if this isn't just a game?

What if these clues are actually
in
the apartment?

I push my chair back so violently it tips over, and I end up on the floor in a heap. The crash is loud enough to attract attention, and I hear footsteps coming up the stairs.

“Ted? Are you okay?” Mom's voice. Concerned.

“Yeah, Mom!” I yell, a little too loudly and cheerfully. “Must have slipped!”

“Are you sure?” Her footsteps are outside the door now. She pauses as she turns the knob.

I lunge for the keyboard and minimize the window just as she opens the door. She peers in to find me sprawled across the chair, scrambling to my feet.

“Teddy, you're exhausted. I
told
your father it was too much work for three kids! I'm going online and finding people who clean out houses.”

“Don't! Mom, please! I want to do this!”

Mom leans her head to one side and holds my face in her hands. I know it's stupid, but I kind of love when she does this.

“Ted Gerson. Since when are you so into lifting boxes and cleaning up filthy old apartments? You don't even pick up your underwear.”

She's right. I have to think of something convincing.

“It's not that girl, is it?” Mom says, smiling.

Oh, for crying out loud.

“Would you just drop that! She's not even coming back, remember?”

“So what's the appeal of cleaning out all the junk of some relative you barely knew?”

I sit on the bed. My laptop glows behind my mom, beckoning me.

“The thing is…he left that stuff to me. I just know there's more there than it seems.”

Mom sits down next to me and rests her head on my shoulder.

“Teddy…I knew him as well as anyone. He was a wonderful man, but a little strange. He probably thought all those old newspapers and things
were
a treasure of some kind.”

“Maybe so, but Caleb agrees with me. There might be stuff we could put on eBay or something. I could save up for college.”

“Okay. Just promise me you won't work too hard.”

“It's kind of nice, Mom. I didn't know him, but I'm getting to know him after he's gone, through his stuff. We'll just poke around a little more and see if anything's there.”

“I'll make you a deal,” Mom says, rising and going to the door. “You have till the end of the week. Then I call Goodwill and they can cart whatever they want away. Sound fair?”

“Perfect.” I give her what I hope looks like an “I love you so much, my understanding mother” smile while she leaves the room, and wait until I hear the click of the door and her footsteps heading downstairs before opening the screen again.

Still there.

I look over my inventory list.

I start putting the pieces where I know they have to go, and just like other games, one set of clues leads to others, and I know I'll be able to solve this in a matter of seconds.

And then something happens.

Or rather, it doesn't.

I
know
I have to put the books in a bookcase in a certain sequence. But no matter how many ways I try it, no matter how many times I put them in, nothing happens.

I've played enough of these games to know exactly what to do.

But somehow, it isn't working.

I look at the clock. It's two in the morning. I've been playing the game for five hours! It feels like minutes. And I still haven't solved it.

My eyes keep drifting to the corner of the screen where the yellow button marked Walkthrough taunts me.

Just press me,
it coos.
All your questions will be answered.

It's a point of pride. Ted Gerson has never, in hundreds of these games, had to use a walkthrough.

I know I'm missing something. But as the minutes tick by, I start to make the grim realization that to learn what I need to know, history has to be made.

Gritting my teeth, I press the Walkthrough button.

The screen changes, and there it is: a numbered set of steps, taking me through the game.

I skip over most of the steps, which are (as I knew they would be) exactly what I've already done, and stop when I get to the bookshelf. In the walkthrough, it's full of books. But in
my
game, there's a space in the shelf.

There was a book here in the walkthrough. With a green cover.

A glitch? The one and only time I give in and use a walkthrough, and the freaking thing doesn't even work?

I don't finish the walkthrough. No point. I close the laptop in disgust.