And the question that had kept Theo up the whole night before: Who could have sent Theresa Morningstarr’s letter in the first place?
Now Theo sat hunched with Tess and Jaime at Bug’s Burgers, the Loco Burger in front of him untouched. Tessa’s rubbing of the etching from the bottom of the Tredwells’ servants’ heating stove lay in the middle of the table:
When coming here from Watertown,
Soon after ent’ring Cambridge ground,
You spy the grand & pleasant seat,
Possess’d by Washinton the great.
Keeping her voice low so that no one else at the restaurant would hear them, Tess pointed at the top of the etching. “Watertown, Cambridge, that’s all about the Boston area, where the first battles of the Revolutionary War were fought.” She took a bite of her burger. Loco Burgers tasted a lot like chicken and toasted sunflower seeds, both nutty and crunchy, but Theo was too hyped up to eat. He was a little surprised Tess was eating; sometimes she claimed she felt bad for the bugs.
“Do you think the next clue is in Boston?” Jaime asked. “I don’t think my grandmother is going to let me go all the way to Boston.”
“Congress met in New York before they established Washington, DC, as the capital.”
“Narrows things down,” said Jaime.
Tess said, “What about this, the word spy? The Morningstarrs hid the other clues in plain sight. Spies are hidden in plain sight, right? So maybe this verse refers to one of Washington’s spies?”
“Dope that Washington had spies,” Jaime said.
Tess wiped her lips with a napkin. “A whole ring. It was called . . . um . . . what was it called, Theo?”
“The Culper Ring,” Theo said.
Jaime took out his phone and typed in the name. With a French fry, Theo traced the Bug’s Burgers logo on his soda cup. The logo was a grinning locust in a top hat and tap shoes. If this locust knew it was going to be ground into a burger, Theo didn’t think it would feel much like dancing.
“Okay, here it is,” said Jaime. “Under the leadership of Benjamin Tallmadge, the Culper Ring provided valuable information to General Washington, such as information that the British planned to counterfeit American dollars and that a high-ranking American officer—later revealed to be American Major General Benedict Arnold—had been plotting with the British to surrender the vitally important American fort at West Point.”
Theo said, “Benedict Arnold used secret writing. Could be referring to him. But I don’t think Arnold spent a lot of time in New York City. And he ended up in London.”
“And if we can’t get to Boston, we absolutely can’t get to London,” said Jaime.
“Right,” Theo said. He didn’t mention the fact that if any of the clues required them to travel outside New York City, they probably weren’t going to be the ones to solve them.
Tess chewed, swallowed. “So, is the verse referring to Benjamin Tallmadge? Or someone else?”
Jaime said, “I’d say Washington, even with the jacked-up spelling.”
“Spelling didn’t become standardized till the late eighteenth century,” Theo said.
“Thank you, Robot Theo,” Tess said. “But maybe that means this was not written by the Morningstarrs in 1855, but by someone else a lot earlier.”
Jaime typed the verse into his phone.
“I wish Mom had gotten us cell phones for our birthday,” Tess grumbled. “Every other thirteen-year-old has one.”
“Did you guys have one of those blowout bar mitzvahs?” Jaime said. “Like with dancers and a DJ and everyone dancing the hora and stuff?”
Theo said, “Oh no. Just a small ceremony. We don’t like big parties.”
“Our parents don’t have that kind of money, anyway,” Tess said. “And we don’t have that many friends. I mean . . . .um . . .” Tess’s face flared red. “What did you do for your thirteenth birthday party?”
“Haven’t had one yet. I turn thirteen in September. I got this phone when I turned twelve,” Jaime said, grinning. “Benefits of having a dad who feels guilty about taking a job overseas.” He held up the phone. “We should have done this search first. The verse on the stove was written by Nathan Hale around 1776.”
Theo nibbled on the fry. “Hale was a part of the Culper Ring.”
“He was seen wandering around New York City taking notes whenever he passed a British barracks. He was caught by the redcoats and hanged,” Jaime said.
“I didn’t say he was a very good spy,” said Theo.
“There were other spies who got away. Cato, an enslaved man who worked for a dude named Hercules Mulligan. Cato was questioned, but nothing was ever proven.”
“He was a good spy,” said Tess.
“And it looks like there were some lady spies, too. Anna Strong. And another lady who was never identified. People still call her by code number: 355.”
“She was a very good spy,” said Tess.
“The number 355 could mean something,” Theo said. “Or maybe 355 was a woman the Morningstarrs knew?”
Tess frowned at her burger, mumbled, “I feel bad for the bugs.” She gave the rest of it to Nine, who swallowed it in one bite. “Researching this could take forever. I wish we could ask Grandpa.”
“Well, we can’t,” Theo said. “We’ll have to keep reading.”
Tess bit her lip. “You know who else might know about the spies of George Washington.”
“We can’t risk it,” said Theo, knowing immediately who she was talking about. “If they knew we’d found something they’d start investigating, and if they start investigating, then everyone will start investigating. Even Slant.”
“We’ll have to see them sometime.”
Theo dropped the fry to his tray. “We should go to the library, find what else they have on the Culper Ring, and—”
“We don’t have time for that, Theo. Not when our home is on the line. Not when there are people around who already know all this stuff.”
“Which people?” said Jaime.
Theo watched a mechanical snail make its lazy way across a window, leaving a sparkling rainbow on the glass in its wake. How could he tell his sister that one or two small discoveries didn’t mean that they’d be the ones to solve the Cipher? How could he tell his sister that, even now, he wasn’t sure that the Cipher had a solution? And that Grandpa had never been?
“But we’ll have to be careful,” Tess was saying. “Really careful. We can’t let on we’ve found something. They’ll be all over us. In a nice way, but still. We could pretend that one of us has a summer project about Revolutionary spies or something.”
“Careful around who?” Jaime asked again.
Tess had already made up her mind. She grabbed the rubbing, folded it neatly. She handed it back to Jaime. “Don’t show this to anyone.”
“I wouldn’t. But are you guys going to tell me who we’re talking about?”
“My grandpa Ben’s old friends.”
Jaime finished his burger, crumpled the wrapper into a ball. “I’m guessing you’re not talking about his pals at the bingo hall or the bowling alley.”