The Secret Cellar Read online

  Also by Michael D. Beil

  The Red Blazer Girls

  The Red Blazer Girls: The Vanishing Violin

  The Red Blazer Girls: The Mistaken Masterpiece

  Summer at Forsaken Lake

  THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2012 by Michael D. Beil

  Cover art and interior illustrations copyright © 2012 by Daniel Baxter

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  Visit us on the Web! randomhouse.com/kids

  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at RHTeachersLibrarians.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Beil, Michael D.

  The Red Blazer Girls : the secret cellar / by Michael D. Beil.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: When Sophie finds a secret message in the antique fountain pen she bought for her father, she and her friends become involved in a treasure hunt devised by the pen’s previous owner, whose house is full of puzzles that protect a hidden treasure.

  eISBN: 978-0-375-89790-0

  [1. Mystery and detective stories. 2. Puzzles—Fiction. 3. Buried treasure—

  Fiction. 4. Eccentrics and eccentricities—Fiction. 5. Christmas—Fiction.

  6. Catholic schools—Fiction. 7. Schools—Fiction.] I. Title. II. Title: Secret cellar.

  PZ7.B38823495Red 2012

  [Fic]—dc23

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

  What’s this? Another secret message?

  v3.1

  For the Dominican Sisters of S V F

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  One does not argue with Fate, the Red Blazer Girls Code, or Andrew Jackson

  I’m peeking through an opening in the threadbare velvet curtain that leads into the tiny storefront parlor of Madame Zurandot, who, according to the flashing neon sign in the window, is both PSYCHIC! and CLAIRVOYANT! Two of my fellow wearers-of-the-red-blazer, Rebecca Chen and Leigh Ann Jaimes, look over my shoulders and nudge me inside.

  “I can’t believe we’re doing this. Maybe it’s not such a good—” I say as four hands give me a final push. A combination of smells, none of them particularly pleasant, greets me: vanilla incense, mothballs, and, somewhere in the distance, slow-cooking cabbage. Before me is a small round table that looks exactly as I had imagined it would. Seriously, Madame Zurandot has a crystal ball.

  “Can I help you?” a voice asks from behind another curtain.

  Gulp.

  • • •

  Ten minutes earlier, the three of us had been enjoying a chilly December Saturday in Manhattan, doing a little Christmas shopping and dreaming of the long school vacation, just two weeks away. On most Saturdays, Leigh Ann (the beautiful, graceful one) had dance class and Becca (talented, artistic) had art lessons, but they were both on break until January. Only Margaret Wrobel (genius, absolute best friend in the world) had plans; besides being the smartest person I know, she’s also a future violin superstar and takes lessons from my mom every Saturday, rain or shine, vacation or no vacation.

  I spotted it first, a microsecond before Rebecca but enough to beat her to it. Lying there on the sidewalk in front of Madame Zurandot’s, folded neatly in fourths, was a twenty-dollar bill!

  “Well, hello, Mr. Jackson,” I said, unfolding it and holding it up to make sure it was the genuine article.

  “Sophie St. Pierre, you are the luckiest person I know,” said Leigh Ann. “I don’t think I’ve ever found a quarter.”

  “What should we do with it?” I asked. “I mean, it’s found money. We have to spend it.”

  “You could buy lunch,” Rebecca suggested. “I’m getting hungry.”

  Leigh Ann shook her head. “No, you should spend it on something for yourself. Or for Raf.”

  Raf—as in Rafael Arocho—is my boyfriend-who-I’m-not-allowed-to-call-a-boyfriend-until-I’m-sixteen.

  “No, no, no,” protested Rebecca. “Absolutely not. The rules in this situation are clear: if you find money when you’re with other Red Blazer Girls, the money must be shared.”

  “What rules?” Leigh Ann asked. “You’re making that up.”

  “Actually, she’s right,” I admitted. “And it’s even my rule. Last summer, before you started hanging out with us, I found a five in the park one day—”

  “What! You found a five, and now a twenty! That is so not fair,” said Leigh Ann.

  I shrugged. “I can’t help it. It just … happens. But I told Margaret and Becca that it was only right to share. The Red Blazer Girls Code, I guess.”

  “I have an idea,” said Becca, pointing at the sign in Madame Zurandot’s window. “First visit, twenty dollars. It’s fate. We have to do it.”

  “A psychic? Are you crazy?” I said.

  “What, you don’t believe in them?” Becca asked.

  “I, uh, no. Yeah, no. I mean, I’m not sure. Margaret says it’s a bunch of hooey.”

  “Oh, jeez. I should have known,” Becca scoffed. “So what if Miss Scientific Method doesn’t believe. How often do you have a chance like this? Even Margaret would have to admit that having twenty bucks just drop out of the sky the exact moment that you’re standing in front of a sign that says FIRST CONSULTATION $20 is just … I mean, what are the odds?”

  I had to admit, she had something there.

  “Okay, but we don’t tell Margaret. She’d be so disappointed.”

  “You have a serious problem,” said Becca.

  I didn’t disagree.

  A young woman—twenty at most, and dressed in jeans and a Lady Gaga T-shirt—appears from behind the curtain. Not at all what I’m expecting from a psychic. But then, maybe she knew that, and changed into those clothes just to catch me off guard. Pret-ty darn clever, these psychics.

  “Hi,” I say. “I, er, we were wondering if we could, you know, get a, um, reading. But if you’re not … ready, we can come back later.”

  “Oh, yer lookin’ for ma,” she says, laughing. “She’s the psychic. Have a seat. I’ll get her for ya.” She goes back through the curtain. “Ma! Ya got cust-a-muz!”

  My eyes dart nervously from Becca to Leigh Ann to the ominous-looking crystal ball as we wait for Madame Zurandot.

  “You should go first, Becca,” I say. “It was your idea.”r />
  “Yeah, but you found the money,” she says. “And I don’t think she’s going to tell all our fortunes for twenty bucks.”

  The curtain parts again and, following a dramatic pause, Madame Zurandot glides into the room as if she’s on roller skates. (She’s wearing a peasant skirt that drags on the floor, so, for all I know, she might actually be wearing skates.)

  Without a word, she takes my fingers into her own cold, chapped hands and stares straight into my eyes for a full ten seconds without blinking. Then she closes her eyes and says, in an accent that I can’t place, “I see a black dog running across an open field. You are trapped in a small room. And an old man with a cane, a man who is not who you thought he was, stands before a blue door with the number nine on it. And I see romance.… But wait! I see an enemy who becomes a friend, and a friend who becomes an enemy.”

  Okay, I’ll admit it: I am freaking out as she finally breaks away from me and roughly grabs Leigh Ann’s hands.

  “Someone you love—someone who is far, far away—is waving to you from a boat. You are kneeling on a cold stone floor in the dark, searching for something that has been hidden away for many years. A girl in a red coat hands you a message.… I see the letters, but I’m afraid I cannot read the words; it is in a language I do not understand.”

  Rebecca’s turn. Madame Zurandot takes her hands into her own and squeezes so hard that Becca opens her eyes wide. “You are standing alone in the midst of great beauty—a museum, perhaps. There is a single window on one wall, and when you look through it, you see a dead man, facedown at his desk, his pen still in his hand.”

  She drops Becca’s hands and slumps down into a chair, her eyes closed and palms flat on the table.

  The three of us stand there for a long time, waiting for her to say or do something. It’s getting awkward, and just as I’m about to clear my throat to remind her that we’re still in the room, she suddenly blurts out, “Others seek the same treasure you do, and though your quest may become dangerous, you must not give up. Be careful who you trust.”

  She opens her eyes and looks up at us, her face expressionless. “And that is all I see.”

  “Ummm … yeah,” Becca says. “About those things you saw. Are those all things from the past? Or are they things that haven’t happened yet?”

  One corner of Madame Zurandot’s mouth turns up into a half smile. “That is a question I cannot answer. Perhaps you will find more money on the sidewalk another day and you will return.”

  I feel my mouth fall wide open. “Wait. How did you—”

  “Duh. She’s psychic,” says Becca, earning herself a slug in the arm.

  “Look to the stars,” adds Madame Zurandot mysteriously. “The answers are in the stars.”

  • • •

  “So, do you still think it’s a bunch of hooey?” Becca asks as we start back uptown. “She totally nailed it. The dog, the man with the cane, looking for something under a stone floor—it’s like she knows everything we’ve done for the past three months. She’s like Galadriel.”

  Leigh Ann and I share a look, our faces blank. “Who?”

  Becca, who is obsessed with The Lord of the Rings, shakes her head sadly at us. “Remember? She’s the one who makes Frodo look into her mirror, which is really just a big bowl of water, but it’s where he sees the future. Except it might not be the future if he can destroy the ring. Jeez, do you guys pay attention at all?”

  “It was kind of creepy,” Leigh Ann admits. “That thing she said about someone I love waving at me from a boat? My dad just emailed me a picture of himself in Cleveland, and guess where he was standing. On a boat. Some guy he knows recently bought it.”

  “Wh-what about the dead guy she saw? Facedown at his desk, his creepy, twisted fingers still gripping his pen. That definitely hasn’t happened yet,” I note. “Has it? Or this blue door with the number nine on it.”

  Becca grins mischievously. “Maybe, maybe not. I would tell you, but Madame Z. said not to trust anybody. So, where to next? I’m really hungry.”

  Leigh Ann throws her arm around my shoulders. “Hey, Soph, is your dad home today? Why don’t we just go there for lunch? Maybe he could make us some of those croque-sandwichy-things again. That way we can save some money … and then, see, you could buy him an even nicer Christmas present. We would be helping him, in a way.”

  My dad is French, and the chef in a downtown restaurant—the kind of place grown-ups go for birthdays and anniversaries—and from Leigh Ann’s first bite of his fabulous, Frenchified version of mac ’n’ cheese, she has been trying to figure out a way to have my parents adopt her.

  “Sorry, he’s out at some winery on the North Fork. A couple of his friends from when he was a kid just started working there.”

  “I vote for pizza,” Becca says.

  “Big surprise there,” I snort.

  “It’s the perfect food,” she replies. “Bread, vegetables, dairy—”

  “Yeah, yeah. Heard it before. Fine. Can we at least go to Luciano’s? Their slices are better than our usual places. They’re almost as good as Trantonno’s.”

  “And the guys who work there are cuter,” Leigh Ann notes.

  “Really? I hadn’t noticed,” I lie.

  That, of course, doesn’t get past Becca. “You are such a liar, Sophie. When we were in there last week, you couldn’t take your eyes off that kid with the bright blue eyes. The one who gave you the free garlic knots.”

  I fight off the biological urge to blush. “You’re crazy. He’s like sixteen years old!”

  “And besides, she has Raf,” says Leigh Ann. She pauses, smiling mischievously at Becca. “And Nate.”

  Becca gives her a high five. “Nice one, L.A.”

  I’d better explain about Nate, because it’s not what you’re thinking. In the Red Blazer Girls Detective Agency’s last case, in between getting my nose broken by Livvy Klack and solving the mystery of the Mistaken Masterpiece, I was Nate Etan’s dog-sitter. Yes, that Nate Etan—and, yes, I still have his private cell phone number and email address. (And, no, you can’t have them.) While it is true that my spending all that time with a big movie star did make the previously mentioned Raf just a teensy bit jealous, that’s all in the past, and Raf and I are just fine now, thank you very much. The boy with those remarkable, sparkling-blue eyes at Luciano’s? Hey, I was just being friendly. New York is, after all, the friendliest city in the world.

  Back in my neighborhood, the East Nineties, Margaret meets us at the pizza shop, where, sadly, Blue Eyes has the day off. Becca and Leigh Ann are determined to tell her about our Madame Zurandot experience, even though I beg them not to. I’m outvoted, though, so all I can do is listen, cringing at every cheesy detail, and wait for Margaret to scold us for wasting twenty bucks on a psychic.

  But the new and improved, open-minded Margaret just listens and laughs. “I’m sorry I missed that,” she says, and I think she even means it.

  “So, wait a second,” I say. “You believe in psychics?”

  “I never said that. I just wish I’d been there to see the looks on your faces when she said all that stuff.”

  “But what about what she said?” Leigh Ann asks.

  Margaret shrugs. “It’s interesting, but it still doesn’t make me believe that she’s really psychic. There’s always another explanation. She could have recognized you guys from one of the stories in the paper about us. Or it could all just be a coincidence.”

  From the pizza shop, we walk down to Eighty-First Street, where there’s a used-book store that Margaret wants to check out. With Christmas just around the corner, we decided to pool our money to buy a small present for our English teacher, Mr. Eliot. After all, this whole Red Blazer Girls thing got started in his classroom the day I saw Elizabeth Harriman’s face in the church window, and even Becca (who is certain that he doesn’t like her) has to admit that he’s been a huge help to us. Since he’s kind of—no, he’s seriously—obsessed with Charles Dickens, we’re looking for
an old copy of one of Dickens’s books, something a little more interesting than your basic paperback.

  Before I tell you about the bookstore, however, there’s something I have to confess: I absolutely love Manhattan in December. A few days after Thanksgiving, tens of thousands of pine trees miraculously spring up from the sidewalks overnight, courtesy of an army of French-Canadian Christmas tree farmers. I will go blocks out of my way to walk through the “forests,” slowing down to fill my lungs with air that, for a change, isn’t half carbon monoxide. For a few precious weeks, New York actually smells wonderful. (Now there’s something you don’t hear every day.)

  The bookstore is so tiny that we’re almost past it when we see the sign painted on the door:

  STURM & DRANG BOOKS

  RARE EDITIONS BOUGHT AND SOLD

  MARCUS KLINGER, PROPRIETOR

  One of those old-fashioned bells jangles when we go inside. The shop is maybe ten or twelve feet wide, and it is crammed—floor to ceiling, front to back—with old books, giving it that distinctive dusty-old-book smell, which is, to me, right up there with the scent of the pine forests along Second Avenue.

  Standing on the third step of an antique brass and wood ladder is a middle-aged man, mostly bald, peering at us over a pair of reading glasses. Because he’s up so high, it’s hard to tell just how tall he is, but he seems to be well over six feet, with long, birdlike arms and legs.

  “May I help you?” he asks, shelving the book he was reading. Not exactly friendly (which is what I expect of a bookstore owner), but not obviously hostile, either.

  Leigh Ann, Becca, and I are suddenly struck mute, and look to Margaret to take charge, which she acknowledges with a sad shake of her head.

  “Hi, yes, I hope so,” she says. “We’re looking for a gift for our English teacher. He’s a huge fan of Charles Dickens, so we were hoping to find a nice old copy of Great Expectations or maybe A Tale of Two Cities. But we’re open to other ideas if you don’t have either of those.”

  The man climbs down from the ladder without a word and moves to an eye-level shelf in the center stack, from which he removes a single book.