“They were, in a way,” said Flo. “Martha Washington embroidered her own cushions.”
“Cushions!” Jaime said. “I like cushions.” Tess gave him a look. So, he wasn’t a very good spy, either.
“He has to do a diorama,” Tess said.
“I was reading something about a famous chair that George once used,” said Jaime.
Tess’s eyes widened, and then Theo’s eyes widened. Flo didn’t notice anyone’s eyes. She said, “Most of their belongings are at Mount Vernon in Virginia. There are pictures all over the web.”
“Nothing around New York?” said Jaime.
“Well, there’s his inaugural chair,” said Flo. “But that’s not all that interesting in terms of decorative arts. But interesting enough because of the story behind it.”
Tess casually inspected the cookie tray, picked up an almond biscotto. “What story?”
“Oh, just that nobody bothered to save or preserve the chair until the 1830s, when a US marshal saw it and figured out what it was.”
“Huh,” said Tess. Jaime was amazed that someone as nervous and about-to-explode-any-minute as Tess could also lie so smoothly. “So we could see the chair?”
“Sure,” said Flo. “At the New-York Historical Society. But really, the best pieces are at Mount Vernon.”
“Cool,” Jaime said, “We’ll definitely look at the web.”
Flo said, “You should see Mount Vernon in person. It’s not far by train. Ask your grandfather to take you!”
Imogen elbowed Flo. Flo said, “What?—Oh! I meant your parents. Your parents can take you.”
Tess put the cookie back on the tray. “Right.”
One minute they were in the Old York Puzzler and Cipherist Society’s Archives, chatting about George Washington’s furniture, and the next minute Tess Biedermann was stomping out of the archives, up the twisting staircase, out through the double doors, and onto the street, where she stomped some more.
“Tess, slow down,” said Theo, which was exactly what she’d said to him when they were in the archives and Theo was lost in his cryptographic history–spewing trance. They did that a lot; said the same things to each other. Funny that neither of them listened.
“Tess!”
“What if we can’t solve it?” Tess hissed. “What if we lose our home and have to live in a houseboat? What if there’s a freak storm and we’re carried out to sea? What if there are sharks? What if the sharks jump into the boat?”
Theo said, “If sharks jump into the boat, Nine will eat the sharks.”
Jaime added, “And if Nine doesn’t take care of them, you will.”
“Yeah?” Tess said. “With what?”
“The power of your rage?”
“Oh,” she said. They passed Croton Fountain, listening to the shhhhhh sound the water made. Shhhh, there are no sharks here. Shhhh, this will all work out okay.
This will all work out okay was what Jaime’s father had said when he took the assignment in Sudan. And Jaime had stomped, too. He had stomped for weeks and weeks.
On the inside, he was still stomping.
Jaime cleared his throat. “About the riddle. I think George Washington’s seat means a literal seat and not the seat of government.”
“Right,” said Theo. “Good thinking. We should probably go find that chair.”
Tess had finally slowed to a walk. “It’s getting late. We have to be back for dinner. Tomorrow?”
Jaime nodded. He wouldn’t ask about the twins’ grandfather, though he could picture the man so clearly, drifting through the hallways of 354 W. 73rd, a pencil tucked behind his ear and a book tucked under his arm, so lost in his own thoughts that he might not even hear you when you said hello.
It was as if everyone was a Cipher. You could look for keys and clues, but you might never figure them out.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Tess
They decided to walk to the nearest Underway station and take the train back uptown, but when the train came, there were only two seats left in the car. Since Tess was too antsy to sit, she let Theo and Jaime have them while she dangled from one of the overhead straps and held Nine’s leash. As the train stopped and started, stopped and started, Jaime sketched in his sketchbook. Theo occupied himself by thinking deep thoughts, and Tess imagined wrecking balls crashing through stone, several generations of families stuffed in cars and in houseboats, cat-eating sharks, and shark-eating cats. She wondered what Jaime was drawing—maybe another girl superhero with a bandolier of sledgehammers, a boy in a red cape or in a suit of iron, a man who looked like Jaime’s dad erecting sun castles in a Sudanese desert.
Or maybe he wasn’t drawing superheroes at all. Maybe he was drawing the archives and the heroes there, the ones who had been trying to solve the Cipher forever. Tess felt a little twinge of guilt that they were keeping the new clues from Uncle Edgar and Imogen and Flo and everyone else at the society. But Theo had been right. If the Cipherists started investigating, the whole city would soon get wind of it, including Slant and his minions. Slant could hire his own cipherists, an army of cipherists. And if Slant solved the Cipher first, if he took the most valuable treasure known to man for himself, who knows how much power he’d have? He could buy all of New York City. He could buy all of the world.
The doors of the Underway car opened and a thousand or maybe a million people flooded in, surrounding Tess and Nine so that she could no longer see Theo or Jaime, or even the ever-present, ever-watchful Guildman in his box. A random elbow nudged her in the ribs, and she had to keep her face angled to the right in order to keep her nose out of someone else’s all-too-fragrant armpit. Nine huddled against her leg.
At her feet, the caterpillar was maneuvering between people, scrubbing the floor. It reached Tess, suddenly stopped. Which was weird. The caterpillar never stopped for anything or anyone.
“Hey, could you stop nuzzling my pit, please?” the skinny guy next to her said, so pale he was almost gray. He was in his early twenties and was sporting floppy hair, a ratty T-shirt, and what her dad called an Artisanal Hipster Mustache.
“I am not nuzzling your pit,” Tess said. Nine growled. The caterpillar rose up on its back legs, swaying like a snake. Tess could have sworn the thing was looking at her. But she didn’t think it had eyes. It had pincers, though, and the pincers were clicking.
“Why is it doing that?” said Mustache, also watching the caterpillar. “I’ve never seen it do that before.”
An Asian woman with a purple Mohawk seated nearby said, “It’s looking at you.”
“It’s not looking at me,” the man said. “It’s looking at her.” He jerked his mustache at Tess.
“Why would it be looking at her? She’s just a kid.” The woman’s eyes narrowed as she examined the man. “What did you do?”
“I’m just standing here.”
“You must have done something. Did you kick it?”
“No,” said the man. “Why would I do that?”
The woman raised a brow. “Why would you walk around with that stupid thing on your face?”
“Is that supposed to be funny?”