The Mystery of Locked Rooms by Lindsay Currie

Author:Lindsay Currie
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

AND SOMETHING YOU KNOW

Hannah and I crowd around West as he inserts the key into the lock on the small door. Tossing a nervous look back at us, he unlocks it and pulls the door open.

Another brick wall.

“Well, that’s just great,” West says. “The only obvious exit in here, and it’s not real.”

He sinks further back on his haunches, clearly exasperated.

“I’m really starting to dislike the triplets,” Hannah says, plucking the gum from her mouth. “Because this is mean.”

With that, she reaches out and sticks her newest piece of chewed-up gum on the bricks. I make a gagging face. Even though I agree with her that the triplets’ funhouse isn’t all that fun, it’s a disgusting thing to do.

“Hey,” she says, holding her palm in front of the door like she’s warming it by a fire. “Do you guys feel that? That air?”

West and I stick our own hands out. Sure enough, there’s a breeze.

“It’s coming from the door!” I say excitedly. “You know what this means, right?”

Instead of answering, West starts knocking on the bricks. They don’t sound dull like real bricks would; they sound hollow.

“They’re not real!” West and I shout in unison.

I search the edges of the fake bricks to see if there’s something I can pull on. An edge, a corner, anything. When I get my thumb and index finger around one of them, I don’t waste any time in pulling.

Rather than just that brick coming out, the whole panel of fake bricks pulls off the doorway. It’s light, nothing more than textured plastic painted brown and red. Musty air flies out, peppering us with dust and bits of cobwebs. The wall and ceiling are rounded and made of something that looks like hardened clay. Stairs lead up into the pitch black.

A tunnel!

“Pretty sure it’s your turn to go first,” I say to Hannah, nudging her forward. “Plus, you’re the one who figured this out. Wanna lead the way?”

“Absolutely!” Grinning, Hannah snags a lantern from the floor and holds it out in front of her. She hunches down to step through the small door, then grunts.

“Oof, it’s tight in here. And there’s something written on the wall.” She stops a few steps up and turns sideways to cast her light over the painted letters. “The path you last chose led you astray. Choose wrong again, and blue skies will turn gray. There is one direction forward, one way you must go. Through locked rooms is a victory and something you know.”

Hannah stops reading.

I’m so excited I’m quivering. “Does that say what I think it does? I mean, it sounds like a hint about the treasure, doesn’t it?”

I replay the words in my head. And something you know. West said that the triplets talked about the hidden treasure when they were getting ready to open the house, before one of them died. Could that be what the riddle is talking about? Did they expect everyone who entered the funhouse to know about the treasure? I imagine it sitting in the final room waiting for us.

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