The minute I entered the house through the back door, stepping into the small foyer from which our bedroom, a bathroom, the living room, and the fancy room were accessible, I was greeted with the terrifying sound of crashing glass. A lot of it. Not a cup or vase—an entire shelf or two of the stuff. Frozen in shock for a moment, I suddenly realized what must have happened and darted into the room where Great Grandma kept all her old people's stuff.

My fears were confirmed when I saw Alex, standing as stiff and straight as a telephone pole, a look of absolute mortification on his face, surrounded by an entire pile of broken glass. One quick glance told me he'd somehow pulled over a shelf of Great Grandma's breakables, of which there were many. She had so many glittery old dusty things in that room that it resembled the inside of those old music boxes, the kind that opened up to reveal a figure in front of little mirrors that reflected themselves into infinity. Originally, I hadn't thought anything in that room was worth a second glance, but I was pretty sure that Great Grandma would not share my conclusion.

Time was limited. Penny, Maisie, Grandpa, Great Grandma—any of them could be in the room at any moment, depending on who'd heard it. "Quick!" I barked at him. "Get out of there. Come on!"

"I'm so sorry!" he hissed, as if he were afraid to make more noise.

"It's not my junk. I don't care. Just get out of there. And try not to break any more of it."

The jagged glass bits clinked and tinkled as Alex attempted to move gingerly through them. Any item which might have survived the fall had no chance, though, as he crunched through the pile to get beyond it. At every little squelch, his face twisted into some new look of shame, and at each of his grimaces, I felt a twinge of glee.

When he finally made it to me, I was in a much better mood than I had been a few moments prior. "Where're our sisters?"

"They're outside. Should I—what should—I was just looking around. I had no idea—"

"I don't even care," I fiercely cut him off. I wasn't mad, but I didn't want to hear his excuses. "Where's my Great Grandma?"

He brushed some dark hair out of his eyes. "Out with my mom. They went to look at the silo. Do you think she'll be mad at me? Oh man, I'm so sorry!"

"So she's gone for a while, the girls are outside, and Grandpa's out of it. Good. Probably nobody even heard the noise except me."

Alex stared at me, not really sure what I was getting at, then said, "But we have to tell them."

I shrugged. "Says who? We just clean it up and move on. Great Grandma never even comes in here. Have you seen the dust? It's just stuff. She wouldn't notice if ten shelves of this junk went missing, let alone one."

He eyed me quizzically, and it struck me that I was helping him. I was helping him so that he wouldn't get in trouble. But even as I considered the possibility of Great Grandma and his mother yelling at him, I realized it would not make me happy. As much as I disliked Alex, there was a part of me that didn't want him to hate me. Maybe he reminded me a little of my friends back home—minus the big jerk-who-leaves-people-alone-in-the-woods-at-night part.

"All right, then," he said quietly. "Let's clean it up."

We were left with the biggest mess we'd ever seen in our lives. Broken glass and bits of ceramic were all over the floor, an entire shelf had collapsed and was probably never going to be put back up, and the thick, shaggy carpet was going to need an intensive vacuum. We honestly didn't know where to begin. For a few solid minutes the two of us just stood there, staring, trying to figure out what to do. The good news was that we'd probably have a lot of time before anyone found out. The room was a velvet-couched museum—it wasn't a place to sit and have dinner or anything, although that must have been its original purpose. Penny played in there, but I didn't think she'd tell Great Grandma either, even if she did find out.

With a monumental sigh, I knelt on the floor, making sure to avoid any shards going through my knees. Alex did the same, and we started to pick up the big chunks, laying them on the table behind us. It was slow going, and neither of us talked except for logistical purposes: "Watch out for that big one!" "Pass me that plate." "Where should we put these ones that aren't broken, after all?" My ears were perked to listen for anyone who might be in the foyer or the kitchen (the door at the far end of the room opened into there), but we had been working a good twenty minutes without any interruption before I noticed that the fallen shelf had also broken through a glass panel on the bottom of a large display case. I groaned aloud. One shelf missing could be mistaken for bad memory, but there was no way I could move or repair that display cabinet. The door that had busted was glass; short of going and having another one specially made, I didn't think there was a way to replace it.

I moved to take a closer look at the broken cabinet, and, trying not to cut myself on anything, I bent down and peered into the dark space.

"What's in there?"

I narrowed my eyes to make out a little more of its interior. "Old books . . . some china stuff . . . and something else." Maybe because it was right in front, or maybe because it seemed a little out of place, I actually pulled the thing out to give it a better look in the light. It was a leather pouch of some sort. It was big, like one of those accordion file folders, and it was tied shut with a strip off an old handkerchief. It interested me, and I realized as Alex crawled a little closer to look, too, that it interested him as well.

The folder was pretty worn out. It was fraying all around the edges, and there were lots of greasy looking spots on it. There was even a long tear down one side. But it must have been stuck in the cabinet because someone wanted to keep it, and unlike an old book, it most likely held personal information. Taking our prize to the couch, Alex and I moved aside some pillows and sat down. It smelled good—that pouch—and it felt almost soft on my hands. I was gratified when Alex didn't try to get a look at it himself, when he just waited patiently for me to see what it was all about.

"Probably full of some old receipts or boring paperwork or something," I said, although I definitely hoped for something more.

"Yeah, so go on and open it!"

We were rewarded for our curiosity when I untied it and retrieved a sheaf of old papers from its depths. They, too, looked old, all brown and crumbling around the edges. There were about twenty pages, covered in drawings of what resembled stuff like cabins, landscapes, trees . . . and some things I began to recognize: the silo on Great Grandma's farm. The pond that apparently was full of water moccasins. Luther's house? Maybe? It was a pretty bad sketch, but it looked about right.

"This looks to be someone's really rough drawings of this farm," I said, and Alex nodded, perhaps not as interested anymore. But then I noticed something that surprisingly hadn't popped out to me first—the writing on the papers was not in regular letters. It was in some sort of code writing, you know, like a lot of kids make up when they don't want others to read their stuff. Only this code looked familiar. I'd seen it somewhere . . .

"The graffiti! On the school, and on the silo! Look, Alex! That's exactly what this looks like!" It was made up of strange, swooshy-looking marks. Not cool graffiti, but some weird-looking writing that the town just hadn't been able to decode. In fact, everybody (including me) had just thought it was scribbles, not actual words, until now. My heart was jumping all over the place, beating excitedly. "Who drew this stuff? Do you think that whoever drew this did the graffiti?"

"Wait a second . . ." Alex stood up and snatched the first few papers out of my hand. In my excitement, I forgot to be annoyed, and I stood, too. "This one is of the silo," he said, confirming what I'd already guessed. "This one . . . is the front patio. And this one here," he said, turning a page and holding it up high as if he needed more light, "this one is a fort. Like, a play fort. In the woods. A secret fort."

"A secret fort? How do you get that out of that horrible drawing and those weird markings?"

"Because it says so."

I sighed. "Okay, fine. But how . . . wait, what? You can read it?"

"Sure," he said and looked over at me. "This one says, 'Plans for the fort.' See? And the arrow points to the bushes."

A familiar, uneasy feeling seeped into me. "Are you trying to be funny? Are you messing with me?"

He grinned, but it wasn't a joking grin; it was a triumphant grin. "Nope. There's a key right here, on this last page."

I looked at the paper he held out and, sure enough, there was the plain alphabet written out, with each symbol underneath it. I snatched the papers back from him, ignoring his self-satisfied air.

"You know what this means, right? This means I can decode the graffiti on the silo, and on the school!"

"And," added Alex, crossing his arms and keeping that stupid grin, "on the rock."