One False Note - 39 Clues 02 (13 page)

art museum down there."

"Search us if you don't believe it," Dan added.

"As if we hadn't already done that," Natalie said in bored exasperation. "You've lost weight, Amy. I don't think this contest is good for your health." Amy ignored the barb. "So you know we're telling the truth."

"The two of you make me sick," Ian spat. "You look l
ike you crawled out of a sewer -
"

"We did
crawl out of a sewer!" Dan returned defensively.

"It wouldn't exactly have been a great loss if you hadn't wormed your way out of that tunnel explosion in Salzburg." "That was you!" Amy accused.

Ian snorted. "You think it was hard to fool Alistair into thinking he was our ally? We should have given the old stick insect a bigger bomb. Then we'd be rid of the lot of you."

Natalie sighed. "Forget it, Ian. They have nothing. Captain!" she called sharply. A burly sailor appeared in the companionway. "Yes, miss?" "These stowaways need to be put off the ship."

"We didn't stow away!" Dan protested. "You sunk our boat and pulled us out of the
canal!"

"Good point," Ian agreed. "Return them to the canal. Roughly, please."

The captain's expression was impassive as he dragged the Cahills topside. He had an

iron grip that reminded Dan of his dealings with the Holt family.

Night had fallen, and the lights of Venice surrounded them. They were on the Grand

Canal, twenty feet offshore, moving slowly.

"Come on, mister," Dan wheedled. "Give us a break."

The man betrayed no emotion. "I have my orders." And with a single heave, Dan was

up and over the rail. He tucked in his knees and hit the water with a cannon-ball splash.

Seconds later, Amy struck the surface a few feet away, flailing and gasping.

Neither had been conscious during the wreck of the launch, so they did not remember

the feel of the water. It was freezing cold and jump-started both hearts to jackhammer

speed. Fueled by adrenaline, they struggled to the edge and scrambled up the seawall.

Dan shook himself like a wet dog. "Okay, let's get our diary pages."

"We can't." Amy hugged herself to control her shivering. "We're not going to find the

thirty-nine clues if we both have hypothermia. We need Nellie and dry clothes."

Dan glared resentfully at the retreating yacht in the distance. "A grenade launcher

would be nice, too."

"Never mind the Cobras. The way to get back at them is to win."

"I'm with you there," Dan told her. "But where do we look for Nellie? That music shop

feels like a hundred years ago."

"Doesn't matter," Amy said with confidence. "She's loyal. She won't leave without us. Disco Volante it was called. Hope the water-taxi drivers have heard of it." Dan reached into his soggy pocket. "Hope the water-taxi drivers don't mind wet euros." Never before had Nellie Gomez been so worried.

She slumped on the wooden bench, squinting into the dim light of the streetlamp in front of Disco Volante. The clerk she had run ragged had closed up and gone home an hour ago, never noticing that she was still there, casing the place. Where were Amy and Dan? How could two kids go into a music store and never come
out? "Mrrp,"
was Saladin's comment from her lap.

"That's easy for you to say," Nellie quavered. "You're not in charge of those two maniacs."

It was coming up on four hours now -- four hours to ruminate on one simple dilemma: When was it time to call the police?

They had never discussed it because it had always been unthinkable. Police meant

discovery, which
sooner or later would land the kids in the custody of Massachusetts Social Services.

They'd be out of the contest for good. But now it was starting to look as if police meant

rescue, which meant saving their lives, regardless of where they ended up.

"Wait here," she told Saladin, as if the cat had a choice. Even Nellie wasn't sure what
she was planning to do. Heave a brick through the window, probably, and storm the
place. Now she could be arrested in two European cities instead of just one.

As she approached the store, two shadowy figures rounded the corner. She ducked into
a doorway, spying on the newcomers as they approached Disco Volante, trudging

slowly, wearily. A male and a female, not quite adult size --

When she recognized Amy and Dan, she raced over and swept them into her arms.

"You guys -- thank God! I was just about to -- yuck, why are you all wet?"

"It's a really long story," Amy said wearily. "We've got to get into dry clothes, and then

we need to pick something up."

"We'll explain on the way," Dan promised.

They found an alcove that offered a measure of privacy. Amy and Dan were already so deeply chilled that changing clothes in open air was pure agony. But they felt their circulation resuming as they struggled into dry things. Next came the hard part --
locating the Church of Santa Luca on foot rather than via the canal system. They wandered for a while before finding a shuttered tourist kiosk with a city map.

"Amazing," marveled Amy as they plotted their course through streets and over bridges. "The founders of Venice took a collection of rocks and turned it into one of the world's great cities."

"I'll be more in the mood for town history when we've got those Nannerl pages in our hands," announced Dan.

Navigating the narrow serpentine streets made them feel like rats in a maze. Several times they could see where they wanted to go but were unable to get there because a canal was in the way. Add to that the fact that the Venice skyline had dozens of domes and steeples, and they were searching in the dark. After more than an hour, they plodded up beside a small stone church. "This is it," said Dan. "See? There's the bridge in back."

The night was quiet -- just the distant noise of motor-boats. Leaving Nellie and Saladin on the front steps of the church, they scampered behind the building to the canal. Amy pointed. "Look!"

An ancient stone staircase led to the water. They rushed down and froze.

There was the dock underneath the bridge. The
Royal Saladin
was nowhere to be found.

CHAPTER 1
8

Amy's vacuum-cleaner wheeze threatened to suck her brother in. "Okay," she told herself. "Don't panic -- "

"Why not?" he asked bitterly. "If there ever was a time to panic, this is it! What happened to the boat?"

"Aw, Dan," she moaned, "why'd you have to hide the Nannerl pages on something that can pick up and sail away?"

Dan bristled. Anguish, disappointment, and frustration mingled in his stomach, a roiling, toxic brew. "I didn't have a lot of choice, Little Miss Perfect! I was on a motor launch with half the Janus branch chasing me! And what help was I getting from my dear sister?

'Oh
you can't drive a boat!' Th
at's all I ever hear from you -
you can't; we
shouldn't;
it's

impossible!
I saved our butts back there!"

"This isn't about butts," Amy pointed out. "It's about clues, and that means the diary pages."

"Which the
Cobras
would have taken off us if I hadn't stashed them on the Royal Saladin!

" Dan shot back. "You think I'm a stupid baby who's too immature to understand what's at stake! Well, you're
the one who doesn't get it! A
contest; a search
-- who's better at that kind of stuff, you or me?"

She scowled at him. "We're not talking about strafing the neighborhood with bottle rockets -- "

"You're treating me like a kid again!" he exploded. "Okay I like bottle rockets! And water balloons! And cherry bombs! I lick batteries! I experiment!

"You're a regular Madame Curie."

"At least I
try
things," he persisted. "It's better than sitting around biting your nails, wondering,

Should I or shouldn't I?"

His sister sighed miserably. "Fine. I'm sorry. It still doesn't answer the million-dollar question: What happens now?"

He shrugged. He wasn't ready to accept her apology, but there was nothing to be gained by continuing the argument. "We wait. What else can we do? The boat moored here once. Maybe it'll come back."

She spoke the words he'd been dreading -- the awful possibility that haunted him. "What if before was a one-time thing? What if we've lost those pages forever?" Dan had no answer. All at once, the breakneck pace of it caught up with him. Five
hours in the Fiat, tailing the limo, Disco Volante, the Janus stronghold, the canal chase, the Cobras. And now this.

He could have flopped down on the stone walkway and slept for a year. It was a crushing exhaustion that sucked the strength out of every single cell in his body. He felt old at eleven. Amy must have sensed this, because she put a supportive arm around his shoulders as they headed back to the church to update Nellie on the latest twist. "We could be waiting a long time," Amy told her. "Maybe you should find a hotel and get a few hours' sleep."

"If you two think I'm leaving you alone for another minute today, then you've been drinking the canal water," the au pair said severely. "Go and wait. I'll be here."

"Mrrp,"
Saladin added drowsily.

Good old Nellie. The show of support lightened the mood slightly. The thought of someone who would look out for them -- someone older, even if only by a handful of years -- seemed almost
parental.

It was a mere pen-light in a vast void. Yet Amy and Dan Cahill had seen nothing in that darkness for a very long time.

But as they settled in behind the church to wait, the grim reality began to press down on them. If they could not recover the papers encased in the vinyl seat cushion of the Royal Saladin,

they were at a complete dead end.

They had staked everything on this quest. Washing out would leave them as nothing more than fugitives from Massachusetts Social Services. Homeless orphans, with no past and no future, stranded half a world away from anyone or
anything familiar.

The minutes passed like months, as if time itself had been slowed by the black-hole gravity of their situation. They hugged themselves against the clammy dampness of night, chilled further by fear and uncertainty.

Amy took in the lights of Venice, gleaming off the water. "Weird, huh? That so many bad things can happen in such a beautiful place."

Dan was not on her wavelength. "Maybe we should steal another boat. Then at least we can cruise the canals. The Royal Saladin
must be somewhere." He looked at her intensely. "Giving up is not an option."

"Then how would we know the Royal Saladin
won't come back a minute after we leave? Here we are and here we stay."

For Dan, it was extra-special torture. Doing something
-- even the wrong thing -- was easier to take than sitting around. The first hour was misery. The second was actual physical pain. By the third, they were numb, sunk deep in despair as the city sounds and motorboat noise diminished, leaving only lapping water and distant accordion music.

They had always known that their quest was a long shot. But neither had expected defeat to take this form -- an unfortunate choice stashing a few vital pieces of paper in a hiding place that got up and left.

Both sat forward on the stone path. W
as the music getting louder?

The lilting melody swelled, and a boat sailed around the bend of the canal, lit up like a Christmas tree. The open stern was packed with revelers, dancing and celebrating wildly.

Amy and Dan felt like celebrating themselves. It was the Royal Saladin.

Dan looked on from the shadows. "A party?"

"Not a party," Amy managed. "A wedding!

The bride and groom embraced by the wheelhouse, while flower girls showered them with rose petals. Laughter rang out. Champagne toasts soared. There must have been fifteen people squeezed onto the small craft, including the accordion player, who was balanced precariously on a dive platform.

Dan was intent on the seat pad, where he knew the Nannerl pages were hidden. "Five thousand boats in Venice, and I had to pick the one from the tunnel of love! What are we going to do? This brouhaha could last all night."

"I don't think so. See?"

Two tuxedo-clad men were clumsily attempting to tie the Royal Saladin
to the bridge dock. It took several tries, and the father of the bride very nearly tumbled over the rail into the canal. Finally, though, they got the craft moored, and the wedding party began to come ashore.

Amy and Dan ducked behind a half wall as the guests climbed the stairs to the Church of Santa Luca. The best man brought up the rear. Before leaving the
Royal Saladin,
he seized the bench cushion as his "partner," dancing onto the dock to the accompaniment of the accordionist.