Click Here to Start by Denis Markell Page A

asks me.
    “Sure. Knock yourself out.” I check my watch. Mom should be here any minute. I go over to the now-clean desk, with only the Koa wood box sitting on it.
    “1405. I guess I’ll ask my mom if she knows what it might mean.”
    “Sure,” agrees Caleb. “She knew him better than anybody.”
    “No!”
    We turn to look at Isabel. There’s a look of surprise on her face, as if she didn’t mean to sound quite so vehement.
    “Why not?” I ask.
    Isabel’s brows knit in concentration. She traces her finger over the box in my hands as she works through her thoughts. “It’s just that…I think your great-uncle wanted
you
to figure this out. On your own.”
    “Well, he’s already blown that. We’ve helped him,” Caleb says.
    “No, we haven’t,” Isabel persists. “I mean, it’s like you said. You let us guess some of the clues, but you knew the answers already, didn’t you?”
    Isabel looks at me full in the face. I’m glad I don’t have to lie to her.
    After all, I did know the clues in advance. I just don’t have to explain how. “Yeah. These things kind of jump out at you after a while, you know?”
    “No, I don’t, and neither does Caleb,” Isabel laughs. “Don’t you see? Your great-uncle knew you had some sort of gift.”
    “Well, I don’t know about that,” I begin, feeling my ears getting warm.
    “She’s right, Ted. You never have to use a walkthrough ever. That’s unreal. You just know where the clues are. It’s like some sort of spider sense,” Caleb adds, turning to Isabel. “He’s awesome.”
    Aw, shucks.
    I don’t want to hear Isabel’s reaction to that. “I just probably spend too much time playing on the computer. That’s what my mom says, anyway.”
    “Whatever. All I know is when I walked into this room, all I saw was a bunch of junk and garbage. You saw patterns and clues that I bet your mom wouldn’t have seen in a million years,” Isabel says. “Here’s what I say: wait at least until tomorrow. We’ll all think about that number and see if we can’t figure it out.”
    “We probably should take the box, right?” says Caleb anxiously. “But what about your mom?”
    “Yeah. I’m pretty sure she’s never seen it before or she would have wanted it,” I say, turning it over in my hands. “She’ll ask all sorts of questions. Better not tell her yet.”
    “Stick it in an old bag and put something on top of it,” Isabel suggests. “She’ll just figure it’s some junk you think is interesting.”
    “Good idea,” I agree. I look around and see an old shopping bag from a long-closed grocery store that presently holds an entire year’s worth of
Bass Fishing
magazines and dump them out. Isabel wads up some old newspaper and puts it on the bottom, and I place the box inside. Caleb carefully places the box with the video games on top of it.
    “This could be the most valuable thing in the whole apartment,” he says.
    I shrug and cover the top with more newspaper. I then stuff the lighter in my pocket.
    We hear the old car pulling up and my mom calling for us to come down. Her eyes crinkle as soon as she sees Isabel. “I didn’t know you were coming back! How nice! Did you find anything worth keeping?”
    “Just a few books,” Isabel says, holding out what she’s taken.
    “Books!” exclaims Mom, giving me an approving look. “You really are a
reader
!”
    Kill me now.
    “Yes. Yes, I am,” says Isabel, sounding as if my mom hasn’t said the stupidest thing possible.
    “And you’ve got something too, I see!” Mom continues, turning to me, pointing to the shopping bag. “What’s that?”
    “Some old magazines,” I lie.
    Luckily, my mom isn’t paying attention. She seems to not want to spend any more time at her uncle’s apartment than is absolutely necessary.
    The deep hum of the Archermobile can be heard from up the block, and after he parks it, Graham bounds out, as lively and well groomed as a champion golden retriever.
    “I’ll see