Well?
I wait for you to say something, but all I see is the sun, pretty much directly above, so it must be close to noon. I figure it’s been over an hour since I left, and if Davy stopped crying and Isabel stopped jumping, my parents will start turning their thoughts to me again.
I should have grabbed my phone. At least I could check in, maybe buy myself a little more time. Lukas and I never left our clues that far apart. So if the third clue is still there, it’s got to be around here somewhere.
If I could just figure out what half up, half down means.
Port Bennington isn’t rich or fancy or anything, but it’s not as small a town as you might think. There are five elementary schools, two middle schools, and one huge high school. Tourists come only to this part, though, the pretty part with the nice sidewalks and flower boxes, but in the summer there’s sure a lot of touristy activity, filled with lots of people who like boats and water.
You know I never liked the water the way you do.
The people here are in no rush to go anywhere fast, eating ice cream, holding two, three, four designer shopping bags, wearing dressy shorts and high-heel sandals and T-shirts printed with really creative slogans like PORT BENNINGTON.
I know, right?
And if you couldn’t tell the tourists by what they are wearing, Lukas always says, you can tell who the out-of-towners are by how rude and inconsiderate they are, how they walk down the sidewalk, chatting, licking their cones, pointing at things in the window displays, three and four across, so no one else can get by. Like those three, up there by the green truck.
They are walking so obnoxiously slow, too.
But, anyway, everyone has to slow down when they get about midway up the street, because good old historic Main Street is basically on a twenty-five-degree angle. And about halfway up, it starts to feel like you are climbing a mountain, which is exactly how I feel right now.
I step off to the side and try to stand in the shade, but there’s not much and it’s boiling hot out. I don’t even have a hat or sunglasses. I’m probably getting a sunburn, and my mother will be mad. Lukas would always be brown by this time of year, and he never wore sunscreen.
Never wears. Never wore.
Knowing his handwritten note is in my back pocket lets me imagine him, but just for the tiniest fraction of a second. Then I rub it away and concentrate on all the people busy with whatever people who are not busy tend to do.
Outside of Grayson’s Florists, a lady in a yellow smock is watering the planters.
A little farther down, a mother is begging her toddler to stop whining and get up off the sidewalk.
There is a family of four, about halfway up the block, trudging toward the fudge shop, and none of them look like they need any fudge.
About halfway up.
And halfway down.
Oh my God. Oh my God. That’s it.
I did it.
That’s what you meant, isn’t it?
Lukas wanted me to walk out of Vincent’s and to stay on Main Street. To head this way. Up from the pizza shop. But it’s not enough.
What did he mean by half up?
Halfway to what? Halfway to where?
You need a beginning and an ending point to know where the middle is.
I don’t know where, but I start walking, anyway. In fact, I start running, which, in this heat, is not such a good idea. I run all the way to the top of the block. Then all the way down, I start back up again. Up. Straight up.
Nobody turns to look at me, or wonder why this just-turned-thirteen-year-old kid is running up and down Main Street like she’s cross-training for the Ironman. Or just lost her mind.
My shirt is drenched. Finally I stop, lean against a cool brick wall of the Port Bennington Savings and Loan, and take the clue out of my back pocket.
I unfold it like it’s made of glass.
Half up, half down,
What’s old is now new.
Ask for her by name,
8-4-3-2.
But this whole town is old, Lukas.
That’s not going to help. And who is her?
No, if anything is going to help, it’s going to be the numbers, of course. Lukas would know that I’d understand numbers. But I don’t.
Eight thousand four hundred thirty-two?
There must be numbers around here somewhere. Addresses?
The fudge shop—where I see the family of four inside, cooling off in the air-conditioning—is at 119 Main Street. The dry cleaner’s across the street is number 120. Even on one side, odd on the other. But not anything anywhere close to eight thousand.
8-4-3-2.
Okay, so these numbers can’t have anything to do with an address. I doubt he’d want me to add them together; that would be too-easy math. But I do it, anyway.
Seventeen.
Still, it can’t be an address. The first number on this block is 100, and the numbers are going up.
Two men in ties are patting their faces with the backs of their hands at the exact same time.
A kid flies by on a bicycle, going downhill against traffic.
A rich lady, all dressed in white, is walking her so-tiny dog that looks like a rat.
And all I can do is stand here, sweating, and hope something pops out at me.
8-4-3-2.
I got nothing.
How did I go from giddy to miserable in less than fifteen minutes? My heart can’t take this. I shouldn’t have done it. This is not how it was meant to be. The riddles were never supposed to make you feel bad. They were supposed to be fun. Lukas wouldn’t have made it this hard on purpose, because he’d have been here to point me in the right direction.
I’m hot.
I’m thirsty.
I let my knees buckle, and I slide my back against the wall till I’m squatting, and holding back my tears.
I just want to go home.
“Are you all right, young lady?”
When I look up, it’s the lady with the rat dog. She seems nice, and I instantly feel bad for thinking that about her dog, even if up close, it looks even more like a rat.
I scramble to my feet and wipe at my face at the same time.
“Oh yeah. I’m fine.”
“Is there anyone you can call?”
Before I can tell her I don’t have my phone, she is holding hers out to me. It’s all blinged out with green rhinestones, but so what?