Walls within Walls (17 page)

On Sunday, Eloise came upstairs without Anne requesting her, bearing a gurgling pot of chicken soup. Anne could still hardly get out of bed, except to go to the bathroom, get more water, and repetitively thank everyone for understanding her state.

CJ knew it was terrible to think this, but he felt fortunate his mother's illness was so well timed. The treasure hunters had never operated so freely and fast. For lunch, Eloise gave them baked potatoes slathered in butter. Brid knew their mother would have preferred yogurt and sprouts, but with one bite she thought she could get used to this diet.

When they were all seated, Eloise began. “The fourth poem is by Edna St. Vincent Millay.” She got a fluttery voice when she spoke about the poets, which made Brid
feel uncomfortable. She thought the poem sounded simple, like something Patrick would write. Why did it deserve to be famous?

“It's called ‘Recuerdo,'” Eloise said, “which means ‘Memory' in Spanish.” Dreamily, she began to recite:

“Children, do you know how someone who lives in the moment, someone who seems to have no cares or just takes big risks, doesn't worry about being poor?”

“I guess,” CJ said. “I mean, that used to be our dad.”

“Well, that was what Millay was like. She went and lived with no money and no job, just so she could write her poems from her heart. She was a real bohemian.”

“A what?” asked Brid.

“Someone who lives an unconventional life,” said CJ. “Either that or someone who comes from Bohemia, in the Czech Republic.”

Eloise continued, “She was so popular when I was young—she was what you called an ‘it' girl.”

“A what?” asked Brid, turning to CJ.

“A cool person, a celebrity type,” he said.

“The poem is about the ferry, so I think we owe her a visit to the ferry building,” said Eloise.

“You mean the ferry that gets you to Staten Island?” Brid asked.

“Yes, that's what she's talking about. There are a number of symbols right in that area of the map. Maybe one of them is related to this poem.”

“And Guastavino has four creations right around it,” said CJ, looking over Brid's meticulous lists. “The U.S. Custom House, the Federal Reserve Bank, the New York Stock Exchange, and the Great Hall on Ellis Island.”

“But before we go down there, are we all in agreement
that this Millay poem is about the ferry?” Eloise asked.

“I guess,” CJ said, while looking at the ferryboat symbol. “It just seems too easy.”

“Not that easy—according to Mr. Post's map, there are three symbols in the spot where the ferry runs. There is a little ferryboat, there is a life preserver, and there is what appears to be a girl jumping. See how she looks like a cheerleader or something? So what's the meaning of this poem, and which symbol do you think is correct?” Brid asked.

“I think that it's about being joyful, right?” CJ said.

“Yes, CJ, joyful,” said Eloise. “No doubt in my mind, that is the right choice.”

“Eloise, can you read it again to us?” Brid asked. “Slower this time.”

As Eloise began to read, the treasure hunters ate their potatoes, and felt just a little more joyful themselves.

Before Eloise left that evening, the Smithforks had made a grave and important decision. Time was running out for them. They were certain that when their father returned from China, the missing DigiSpy pod would no longer be a funny matter, if it ever was. Bruce Smithfork didn't have much of a temper, but things like faking his identity to get the spy pod, and then losing it in the wall—along with lying to their mom about what they were doing—that was the sort of stuff that would make him angry. But they were so far into this mess that CJ couldn't think of how to ask for help from his parents, at least not until they were closer to solving everything. They needed answers, and to get them, they needed time off from school. As they shared a bag of microwave popcorn, it was Patrick who said, “I
think what we need this week is another Saturday.”

CJ laughed. “Except we don't have one. Dad is coming home Friday night.” Without thinking, he blurted out, “Brid, we need to tell just one teeny, tiny white lie.”

“And what would that lie be?” Brid asked, tossing popcorn kernels into the air and trying to catch them in her mouth.

“We need to pretend to go to school and, um, not.”

Brid's mouth was full of popcorn, giving Pat a chance to speak. “It wouldn't be a terrible lie, and we can explain, right? I mean, after we find everything?”

CJ plowed ahead. “All we have to do is break into Dad's email account, which isn't hard, since he doesn't protect his password at home. Then we just email our teachers and the school nurse in the morning, telling them we're sick. Since we go to different schools, they'll never connect the dots. When they send back a confirmation email saying, ‘hope he feels better' or something, we just delete that before Dad gets home. He'll never know.”

“Right,” said Brid uncertainly.

“What is our other option?” CJ asked. “And Eloise, we need you to come, too. We can't figure out the clue without your help.”

Eloise had her head down as she attempted to wriggle Carron into her pajamas. “Agreed, children, but I do feel a bit sneaky about you skipping school.”

“But it's only for one day,” CJ pleaded.

Eloise was silent for a moment. “I suppose missing one day of school wouldn't be terrible. And Patrick?”

“It's too risky,” CJ said, with regret in his voice. “I don't think you can come, Pat. If we are both sick from the same school at the same time, the nurse is going to catch on.”

Pat hung his head. “You make me do all the hard stuff, and then you leave me out of the fun. Thanks a lot.” He ran out of the room, slamming his heavy mahogany bedroom door so that nobody could see his tears.

“He'll get over it,” CJ said. He sighed, then continued, “So, Brid, when Maricel drops you at school, wait in the lobby without shaking the headmistress's hand. Make sure she doesn't see you. I'll meet you and Eloise at the Eighty-sixth Street subway station at 8:07
AM
. Got it?”

Both Eloise and Brid nodded.

“So, until tomorrow?” Eloise said.

“Tomorrow,” they replied.

 

The next morning at 8:07
AM
, CJ, Brid, and Eloise boarded the number four train, heading south toward the Bowling Green station. There had been only one snafu. As CJ ran to the subway station, looking up worriedly at the gray sky, a big black car with tinted windows pulled over. One of the back windows lowered, and Brent's head popped out.

“Hey! You're going the wrong way. Want a ride to
school?” CJ saw that the manny was driving. He gave CJ a peace sign.

“Um, no, I forgot something and I have to go home to get it,” CJ lied.

Brent's face fell, and he said, “Dude, you are so going the wrong way either for your house or for school. It's okay to skip school, but don't lie to me, okay?”

CJ felt badly. “Yeah, man, sorry. I just have something I need to do today.”

“Understood. Have fun,” Brent said, and something in his tone made CJ feel like he really did understand.

“Yeah, sorry about lying. I just can't get caught, you know?”

“Not a problem, but you don't lie to your friends, okay?” Brent smiled.

“Got it,” CJ said, feeling weirdly happy that Brent had called him a friend. He was certain his secret was safe with Brent.

The last station before Bowling Green was Wall Street. The train practically emptied, with people rushing off as soon as the brakes stopped squealing and the doors opened. It was like watching horses getting let out of a race gate.

“Those are all the people who buy and sell Dad's stock on the stock exchange,” CJ said to Brid.

“Yeah, well, good thing they don't know we lost his DigiSpy pod, or his stock would go down today,” she
joked, but neither of them laughed. Meanwhile, Brid summoned the courage to ask Eloise something that had been bothering her.

“Eloise, what do you do during the day while we're in school?” Brid asked. As soon as she asked the question, she felt badly.

“You see, most of my childhood friends are no longer alive, or have moved away,” said Eloise. “I haven't felt like part of the living world these last years. I go out and walk around, but it's hard when you feel the best times of your life have happened already.”

Brid stood back, unable to think of a reply.

“But do you want to know something else?” Eloise said. “Lately, I don't feel that way,” and she squeezed Brid's hand very firmly.

The train's brakes screeched loudly, and Brid was glad not to have to speak. A conductor's voice came over the intercom. “Last stop in Manhattan. Get off de train if you don wan Brookleeen.”

“Guess this is our stop,” said CJ, who wanted no part of the heavy conversation that Brid and Eloise had begun. They were all standing when the doors slammed back, and the warmer air of the platform hit their faces.

Eloise snapped into work mode. “Okay, I have realized we can solve two poems today. The Millay poem is about the ferry, and then we need to tackle the immigration
poem, which means Ellis Island, but there are several map symbols on Ellis Island. We're lucky they're both in the same area.”

They continued up the stairs to the street level, where the autumn sun hit them squarely in the eyes. The street was bustling with office workers with briefcases and trench coats, and the air was filled with the clicking noise of shoes traveling quickly on pavement. Then they saw the figure of a small boy running toward them, seeming oddly out of place, and yet familiar. It was Patrick.

Pat came running up to them, his cheeks bright red.
“Wasssssup?”
he said, laughing. “You thought you could get rid of me! I'm the one whose idea it was to skip school, so nah-nah-nah, here I am!”

“How did you beat us down here?” Brid wanted to know.

“I just crawled under the turnstile at the Ninety-sixth Street subway station and zoomed down,” he said proudly.

“Patrick!” CJ was livid. “We're going to get caught now! Don't you think Saint James's will call Mom to see where you are? Didn't the headmaster see you go into the school?”

“I kept my hat pulled low when I went in, and then I went right out the kindergarten side door. They think I'm sick. You're not the only one who can write an email,” Patrick retorted. “Nobody will call home.”

“What sort of email did you write, Patrick?”

“It said,” and Patrick put on a high, squeaky voice, “‘Dear Nurse Boylan, I am sorry to say that now both boys seem to have that stomach bug. They are puking everywhere, and they won't be at school. From Patrick's father.'”

“You did not,” said Brid. “You really wrote
puking
and
Patrick's father
?”

“Yeah, so what?”

“Because grown-ups don't use words like
puking
, and besides, Dad would have written
Bruce Smithfork
, not
Patrick's father
. You complete nimrod.”

The Smithforks walked toward the ferry building, arguing, oblivious to the people around them.

“We are so busted! That was the stupidest email in the world! I bet all your
B
s and
D
s were in the wrong places!” Brid yelled.

“How come you're always leaving me behind?” Pat retorted.

“Because you're a baby!” CJ shouted.

Eloise had simply stopped walking. When the children realized she wasn't with them, they turned to see her standing, looking tiny, in front of the enormous ferry building. She was frozen like a statue, motionless.

Brid came running up to her. “Eloise? Is something wrong?”

“If that isn't a sign, I don't know what is.” Eloise was pointing to enormous printed words high on the wall,
inside the ferry building, large enough to read through the huge glass front.

Brid gasped as she looked up at the elaborate script written on the wall of the building:

“But, this wouldn't have been here when your dad was alive, right?”

“No, it's just a coincidence, but to me it's a sign. Clearly, the joyful girl is the correct symbol for the fourth clue, because right now I feel like that joyful girl myself. I forgot how much my dad liked to take me here.”

“Yeah, maybe we should give away apples and pears and all of our money except our subway fares.” CJ grinned, his anger at Patrick momentarily forgotten. “But to who?”

“Let's walk over and get our Ellis Island tickets so we can solve poem number five, don't you think?”

A half hour later, as they boarded the boat for Ellis Island, Eloise pulled out the fifth poem.

“We've read that one in school, especially the part about huddled masses,” CJ said as they pulled up at the dock.

“Yeah, masses of what?” Patrick asked.

“Masses of people, new immigrants, came through this island every day back in the old days. Five thousand immigrants were processed every day in the new building.”

“What new building?”

“I guess this is the new building,” said CJ. “The original Ellis Island building burned to the ground just five
years after it opened. So the new building had to be totally fireproof.”

“There was only one man for that job,” Pat said, smiling.

“That's right. Rafael Guastavino built part of the new building—this one—which opened in 1900.”

Brid was reading a brochure. “Do you know that forty percent of all Americans have relatives who came through here?”

“Yes, and I remember when the government tried to stem the flow of people to this country,” Eloise said thoughtfully. “The rules changed to become more selective of the immigrants we accepted. Immigrants had to pass a literacy test. That happened when I was a girl.”

“A literacy test?” Brid was interested.

“They had to be able to read and write in their native language to gain entrance to this country.”

“I hate tests,” said Patrick. “What happened if you didn't pass?”

“You got sent back to whichever country you came from.”

“So what about that poem, about giving me your tired and poor and yearning to breathe free?” CJ asked.

“That poem was written in the late eighteen hundreds, but by the nineteen twenties we weren't so welcoming anymore.”

“Eloise,” Brid said as she unfolded a copy of the map,
“look at your father's symbols, the ones near Ellis Island. There is a suitcase.”

“Too obvious.”

“There is a torch.”

“That could be for with the Statue of Liberty, or the fire that happened here. Too vague.”

“And there are some lips,” CJ noted.

“Yes, strange, isn't it? None of them feel right to me. I'm not sure what message my father was trying to convey.”

Brid crossed the Great Hall and returned with several pamphlets. “We're taking a tour in five minutes,” she said.

“Tour? We don't have time for a tour,” CJ complained.

“The tour is free today for students and seniors, and that's what we are,” she said. “Besides, we're missing something here.”

They crossed the hall to join their tour group, finding out that because of the dreary weather, the Smithforks and Eloise would be the only members aside from a middle-aged couple from Ireland.

“Haven't ye any school?” the Irish lady asked Brid.

“We are working on a school project, and this is our grandmother,” Brid said.

“Listen up, people,” said a lanky, twenty-something tour guide wearing a green Parks Department uniform.
“As I take you on the complete step-by-step immigrant's experience of Ellis Island, we will go from the disembarkation point here in the Main Building, where an immigrant was temporarily separated from his bags and family, to the Kissing Post, where everyone was reunited.”