Fear Itself Read online

  Thanks for being kind to my husband.

  Sincerely,

  Margaret Keane

  The key ring weighed a lot. Ben’s head was spinning—so many different locks, all over the school, and every one would open at his command!

  Except only a few of the keys were labeled. He pictured himself needing to unlock a door in a hurry, trying key after key after key. A noisy, time-consuming process . . . not to mention illegal.

  He sat down to open his laptop, but then stopped, still holding the heavy keys in both hands. Because he’d been all set to tell Jill about this—something exciting, something positive, something possibly very useful . . . but dangerous, too. And what if Lyman figured out who had them? That could get very messy in about a minute. And if he told Jill right now, could just knowing about the keys make trouble for her? But he knew she’d want to know, no matter what . . . probably get even madder about everything if he didn’t tell her instantly . . . like right this second.

  He yawned. Too tired to make a decision. Too tired to think. The keys could wait till tomorrow. Then he would tell her. Tomorrow.

  He dropped the keys into his desk drawer and opened his laptop. There was an e-mail from Jill, a short one:

  Nothing online about Vining. Have to check the town library.—J

  Ben was relieved. He couldn’t deal with new information. Not tonight. This day was over.

  He got ready for bed, then walked all the way downstairs to the kitchen for a quick drink of milk. Then he went to the family room to kiss his mom good night, and went to the other end of the couch and gave Nelson a good scratching behind his ears. He went up to the second-floor bathroom to brush his teeth, then walked all the way back up to his room. He shoved his book bag onto the floor and dropped into bed, exhausted.

  Instantly he fell asleep—almost. At the last drowsy second, he opened his eyes and tapped the ON button of his alarm clock.

  As he did, the big red digital numbers stared him in the face.

  It was ten thirty p.m.—five bells.

  Ben shut his eyes and imagined he was Jack London, lying in his hammock on that ship, bound for Japan. His watch was over, and far above, cutting through the sounds of the creaking hull and the sloshing waves, the ship’s bell rang .

  ding,ding . . . ding,ding . . . ding

  CHAPTER 7

  Perfect Timing

  Ben’s best moment on Tuesday was right before school, when he told Jill about Mr. Keane’s keys.

  Her eyes went wide and round. “His whole huge key ring? No way!”

  Talking about it, they both agreed that the keys were probably almost useless. But just imagining the possibilities had gotten them laughing, which seemed to snap Jill out of her bad mood—at least temporarily. It had felt like a major victory to Ben.

  But the rest of Tuesday? Completely awful and rotten.

  To begin with, the whole day was like slogging uphill into an avalanche of schoolwork—tests, quizzes, reports, new reading assignments— something extra or new in every single class, even art. It was as if all the teachers had suddenly realized that in a few short weeks all the sixth graders would be gone forever, so they’d decided to pile on the work now while they still had the chance.

  But worse than that, there was Lyman.

  All day Ben and Jill had seen him everywhere. It seemed certain now that he was adjusting his janitorial work to match up with their daily schedules. At every turn, there he was, pretending to be busy, but watching, always glancing the other way at the last second. It was perfectly clear he was keeping tabs on both of them.

  He had visited both of their homerooms—to check the sink in the art room, and to change a lightbulb just above Jill’s head in Mrs. Hinman’s room.

  Between first and second periods he was sweeping the hall at the south stairwell on the ground floor, right where Ben and Jill always passed each other. And when they were taking a quiz together during their third-period math class, Lyman stopped in to oil the pencil sharpener—as if it needed it.

  He had practically stared at them during lunch in the cafeteria, and when they’d finished eating and gone to the library again, he stopped in to adjust the air register by the east alcove, ten feet from where they were sitting .

  And it was the same sort of routine on Wednesday, all morning and right through lunch period. The man was everywhere—as though he’d completely memorized both of their schedules. It had them both constantly on edge, and it ruined their plans for more searching around the school.

  The one good thing about it? Jill stopped acting bored. Ben was glad about that—nothing like an attack to get a crew working together. And that’s why they did some planning before and after fifth-period social studies. It was time to fight fire with fire.

  After school, they walked out the back playground door of the Annex with their jackets and their book bags, right under Lyman’s nose. Once outside, they waved to each other and headed for home, Jill going east toward the harbor walk, Ben going west toward School Street.

  About five minutes later, they each circled back to school separately. They slipped in the side door on the north side of the old building, using their hall passes to get past the teachers who were still on bus duty. They met up in the library and ducked into the alcove on the north wall, the spot least visible from the entrance.

  It worked. They were completely hidden and totally Lyman-free.

  Five minutes later Ben had gotten A Man of the Sea, A School for the Ages—the same book that had almost gotten him in trouble Monday morning—from the reserve shelf. They had the large center page of the old book unfolded on the table so they could study the school construction drawings again.

  Jill pointed at the upper right-hand corner. “See that drawing of the granite benches outside in the school yard? Do you think the captain would have hidden anything outside? Because all that land is really part of the school, right?”

  Before he could answer, Ben heard a noise and looked to his left.

  There was Lyman, twenty feet away, emptying a trash basket in the library workroom. He slowly glanced over at them through the glass, a little smile playing at the corners of his mouth. He knew that they’d tried to trick him. And now he knew that they knew it hadn’t worked. Score one for the bad guy.

  “This is creepy,” Jill whispered with a shudder. “I feel like he’s stalking us.”

  “That’s because he is,” said Ben. “And he wants us to know it.”

  Lyman finished emptying the trash, then slowly pushed the rolling trash cart out the doorway into the hall. He was gone, but they knew he’d be back.

  “You know what he’s doing, tracking us like this?” said Ben. “He’s saying, ‘I’m the Keeper of this school—me, Lyman.’”

  “Yes.” Jill nodded. “And so far, it’s working. He’s winning, big-time.”

  Ben felt discouraged too, but he couldn’t let Jill know that. If she thought he was losing his nerve, she’d be even more tempted to bail out. And Ben didn’t even want to think about what that would mean. They had to stop being scared of Lyman.

  “Listen, Jill, I know the guy’s a creep, but he’s not winning, not even a little bit. And we can’t let Lyman get into our heads. He’s just trying to spook us. I mean, we know that he doesn’t have any of the clues we do—so he’s flying blind. He can’t really control what we do or what we discover. And . . . you know why he’s watching us? Because that’s all he can do. And we can use that. I know it feels rotten, the way he’s always around. But it’s only a mind game. We’ve got to remember that we’re actually in charge here. And then we can beat him. He thinks we’re scared little kids. So what? We’re not. We can beat this guy.”

  “But it’s not just Lyman,” said Jill. “He’s only the part of the problem we bump into every day. The real problem is so much bigger. It’s like there are thousands of people, a whole army, and they all want to tear this place down. And we have to fight all of them.”

  “Yes . . . ,” Ben sai
d slowly, “but really, it doesn’t matter how big the army is—we just have to deal with the enemies at the very front. There’s this story called ‘Horatius at the Bridge’ in a book my dad got when he was a kid. It’s about this soldier in ancient Rome when this huge attacking army was trying to capture the city. Horatius’s part of the Roman army got trapped on the wrong side of the Tiber River, and they needed to retreat back to Rome across this narrow bridge. His soldiers panicked and tried to crush their way onto the bridge, and some enemy soldiers joined the crowd and tried to get across too. But when Horatius got to the bridge, instead of running across it, he pulled out his sword and turned around and started fighting the enemies, and that inspired two other soldiers to join him. These three guys let their own men retreat across the bridge, but they killed the invaders. And because the bridge was narrow, it didn’t matter how big the enemy army was—only the first two or three men could fight at a time, and Horatius and his friends kept killing whoever got close. When all the good guys got across safely, they began to rip out the bridge behind Horatius, and the two other soldiers with him ran and jumped across the gap. But Horatius stayed and kept fighting until the whole bridge was destroyed and the city was safe. It’s a true story.”

  “Really?” said Jill. “And Horatius got killed?”

  “Nope. He got hit by a spear, and at the last second he turned and dove into the river. He swam all the way across with his armor and all his weapons, and he survived. His wounds were so bad that he couldn’t stay in the army. But he was a hero, and the citizens of Rome gave him his own land, and even made a bronze statue to honor him.”

  Jill was quiet a moment.

  “And now it’s you and me,” she said. “At the bridge.”

  “That’s right,” said Ben. “We don’t have to defeat a whole army all at once. If we fight smart and we don’t panic, we’ll be good. So . . . Lyman’s not here, and we’ve got some time. How about we look at your notes from Monday and Tuesday?”

  Jill nodded and pulled out the slim three-ring binder where she had begun filing everything .

  They looked at the first page together in silence. It was the text from the copper plate, and at the bottom Jill had traced the outline of the big key. Ben nodded when he was done reading, and Jill flipped the page.

  The second sheet had the clue for the first safeguard written across the top, with two columns underneath: possible bells listed on the left, possible places to sit listed on the right.

  The next page had three photos, printed out from an e-mail Ben had sent to Jill on Tuesday night: the bell from HMS Safeguard, the plaque about the sea battle, and the plaque showing the bell patterns. And at the bottom of this page, Jill had taped the index card Ben had used to sketch the different times of day when five bells were rung aboard a ship.

  And that was it. Only three pages. No conclusions. No findings.

  “Well, Horatius,” Jill said, “you have to admit things look pretty bad.” She flopped back against the cushions that lined the alcove bench. “We have nothing, we know nothing, and there are hundreds of places, thousands of places around this building where things could be hidden. It’s hopeless.”

  Ben didn’t know what to say. He kept staring at the third page of the notebook. He could feel Jill’s discouragement again. Even worse, he felt the same way. He glanced up cautiously, expecting to see defeat in her face.

  What he saw was curiosity.

  She was looking at a spot on the wall of the alcove, about two feet above his head.

  “That is the biggest pocket watch I have ever seen.”

  Ben twisted around to see what she was staring at. She was right. He got to his knees on the bench for a closer look.

  The thing was made of silver, but it sure wasn’t a pocket watch. It was huge, more than five inches across. It was inside a case made of beveled glass and dark wood, which was fastened onto the wall with four metal bolts. Below the timepiece, a small brass plate was tacked to the wood of the case.

  THIS LONGITUDE CLOCK BELONGED TO CAPTAIN REYNOLD HARDCASTLE, AND WAS TAKEN FROM HIS SHIP IN BARCLAY BAY AS A PRIZE OF BATTLE.

  Ben sat back down. “It’s just a chronometer.”

  “Okay . . . ,” Jill said. Then, two seconds later, “I give up. What’s a chronometer?”

  “A really accurate clock used on a ship for figuring out longitude, which is east/west location. If you know where you were when you started sailing, and you know how long you’ve been sailing, then you can figure out your longitude. Except it’s more complicated than that.”

  “Ah, yes—of course,” said Jill with mock respect. “I keep forgetting that you are the Wizard of the Waves, the ultimate sailor boy.”

  Ben ignored the sarcasm.

  Then she leaned forward and squinted. “Notice anything strange about that thing?” She seemed excited, but Ben was pretty sure she was setting up a joke, getting ready to tease him again. He didn’t take the bait.

  “Nope.”

  “The hands are pointing down—six thirty!” She tapped the clock drawings Ben had made on the index card. “Five bells!”

  Ben scrambled back to his knees.

  The hands were showing six thirty, and even the second hand was pointing straight down. And up close, Ben saw an inscription in a thin, curlicue script along the bottom edge of the clock:

  A gift for my loyal friend, Reynold Hardcastle, Captain, HMS Safeguard

  Five bells on a clock from the Safeguard—and the hands were pointing straight down . . . at a bench!

  Ben felt like he’d been hit by lightning. He turned and locked eyes with Jill across the table, just for one thrilling second.

  She grinned. “Time to sit down!”

  “Quick,” he said, “spread your jacket across the back of that chair—no, let it hang down close to the floor . . . good.” He arranged things as he talked. “And then this chair goes right beside it, and—hand me your backpack, will you? That goes on the floor right there . . . and that should hide me. In case someone looks this way. Or if Lyman comes back.”

  He dropped his backpack onto the floor, glanced around quickly, then slid forward and disappeared under the table. Reaching across to his book bag, he unzipped the outer pocket and found his flashlight.

  The section of the bench directly below the clock was about three feet wide, and he scooched around on his back until he could look straight up at the bottom of the seat.

  He turned on the flashlight and played the beam across the wooden slats. Nothing obvious. Just three darkened oak boards, two of them wide and one narrow, running side to side.

  He adjusted the light into a tight, focused shaft.

  “How’s it look up there?” he whispered.

  “All clear,” Jill whispered back. “Spot anything yet?”

  “Mostly a lot of chewed gum.”

  “Gross!”

  And it was. Ben was nose to nose with at least twenty wads of the stuff—pink, green, gray, white, mostly along the front edge. But he tried to look past all that and forced himself to concentrate on the wood. If something was there, he was going to find it.

  Starting along the wall at the rear of the bench, he moved the light beam slowly and methodically, back and forth, back and forth. It took more than a minute for his inspection to reach the front edge of the bench. He was being careful—and it paid off.

  Right where the bench frame joined one of the supporting legs, he saw tiny dots on the front slat. He reached up and brushed away some cobwebs. Could that be . . . ? No. But he angled his flashlight so the beam hit the wood from a different angle. And there it was . . . a familiar pattern.

  The five little dots had been pushed into the hard oak by something sharp, maybe the point of an awl—five bells!

  Excited now, he scanned the front slat near the leg on the opposite side, brushed aside the spiderwebs, and . . . more dots, the same grouping, five bells. And just below those dots, it looked like someone had drilled a neat little hole into the frame of the bench.


  Ben aimed his light at the opposite side again—nothing. But he reached up anyway and used his sleeve to brush off the rest of the dust and cobwebs. And there it was, a second hole, same size, same location just below the dots! No way was that a coincidence. . . .

  “Jill! I need something thin and round—got anything made of metal?”

  “Like what?” she asked.

  “I don’t know—maybe a small nail?”

  “I think I left my handy bag of nails at home today.”

  More sarcasm. But Ben saw her leaning down, heard her rummaging around in her backpack.

  “Um . . . how about a ballpoint pen?”

  “Too thick,” he whispered. “Do you have any paper clips?”

  “Um . . . yeah, I’ve got two, a big one and a little one.”

  “Great! Toss ’em here—thanks.”

  Ben held the flashlight with his teeth and quickly bent each clip so a stiff piece of wire stuck out straight.

  Holding a clip in each hand, he fitted the ends into the holes and pushed.

  No give at all. He pushed harder and felt a little movement, then . . . click. The front edge of the slat dropped onto his fingers.

  “Ow!” He nearly lost his grip on the paper clips.

  “Shhh,” Jill hissed. “What happened?”

  “Pinched my fingers—this board . . . Hey, wait a second! There’s something in there!”

  Ben wriggled out from under the bench, yanked both paper clips free, and pulled the front edge of the slat the rest of the way down.

  Jill kicked his leg. “Lyman! He’s at the doorway, walking over to the front desk!”

  “Quick,” Ben said, “give me your notebook!”

  She slipped it under the table, and he grabbed it.

  “Hurry!” she said. “He’s going into the workroom again!”

  There was another sharp click, and a second later Ben was sitting on the bench across the table from her, a pencil in his hand, eyes on the papers in front of him, looking almost bored.