… so why isn’t it on this map?”
“It’s not a barn,” Lucinda said, leaning on him to examine the picture. “Don’t you remember? They told us.” She chewed her lip. “It’s a… what is it? Oh yeah, a grain silo. But since most of the animals here don’t eat grain, Uncle Gideon doesn’t use it.”
“So has it been here all along?” He looked at the empty spot on the survey. “Then it should be here on this map. But it isn’t, so maybe they built it since then-well, that’s just weird. No one would build a silo just to keep it empty…” He trailed off. “Oh, man. Lucinda-silo! S-I-L-O!”
“So? What’s so… ” It sank in. “Oh my God. But the message in the mirror said ‘OLIS.’ ”
“Yeah! That’s SILO backward!”
Tyler laughed, still amazed how it had all come out. “I’d bet all my allowance for the rest of my life that something in that mirror is trying to send us a message-and the message is ‘Check the silo.’ ”
It was all Lucinda could do to keep him from going at once to explore the place. He felt like a child being sent to bed early when she reminded him about the black squirrel, but he had to admit she had put her finger on a problem. For a moment he considered sending Lucinda to explore the mystery in his place, but she refused before he could even suggest it.
“Forget it-I’m not going in some crazy haunted silo,” she said very firmly. “If you want to get killed by ghosts or collapsing farm machinery or… or something, then you do it.”
That night Tyler lay awake for hours, unable to fall asleep, trying to imagine a way to thwart the spy squirrel. It came to him in the long, quiet hour just after midnight-something he had seen in a shed at the back of the house. He fell asleep at last and dreamed of buildings and people made of paper, all threatened by a spreading fire.
All the next day Tyler could hardly concentrate on anything, his mind so full of what he was going to do that Ragnar and even shy Haneb wound up shouting at him to be careful. He thought he would go crazy waiting for it to get dark enough for him to get started, but after finishing the day’s chores he came back to his room and collapsed on the bed. The room was stuffy with afternoon heat and he promptly fell asleep. He woke up to Lucinda’s knock on the door.
“Did you change your mind?” she asked when he stumbled over to let her in.
“No,” he said, suddenly panicked that he might have missed his chance. “What time is it?” The light coming through his window was tinged with the shadows of approaching evening. “Shoot!”
He grabbed his sweatshirt, then went through the pockets to make sure he had not only his flashlight but extra batteries.
“Did you put that thing out for me?” he asked.
Lucinda was watching him with arms crossed. “Yes, I did.”
“Right where I said?”
“The oak tree at the edge of the garden right where you said, yes.” She shook her head. “Tyler, I don’t think this is a good idea
…”
“You never think anything is a good idea unless it includes watching television or talking on the phone,” he said.
“That’s really mean, Tyler. And it’s not true, either. Who went into the library for you and saw the message and found you that map?”
“Okay, I’m sorry. You’re right. But we have, like, two or three weeks left before we go home. What if Uncle Gideon never tells us anything? What if he never asks us back? In, like, another year we’ll be wondering whether this even happened.”
“That doesn’t seem very likely.”
“Whatever. I’m going. If you still want to help me, go downstairs and make sure nobody comes looking for me.” He shouldered his backpack and let himself out, hoping he looked at least a bit more like Indiana Jones than like some snot-nosed little kid running away from home to go live under the picnic table.
The dark shape made the branches tremble as it hopped along above his head. Tyler did his best not to look at it-not that he wanted to, anyway. The squirrel was just plain creepy at the best of times. But now he had a bigger reason to look away.
That’s right, you ugly old devil squirrel. You just keep following me.
He stopped beneath the oak tree, dropped his backpack on the ground, and pretended to be tying his shoes while he felt along the trunk for the long handle of the fruit-picker. Perfect-there it was. Lucinda had left it leaning just where he wanted. He crouched, whistling tunelessly, and waited.
After a few moments he heard the scuttle and spring of the squirrel leaping from a nearby tree to the oak. Tyler kept tying and retying his shoe, waiting until the squirrel, as it usually did, moved to a lower branch. The thing was practically fearless. Well, this time he’d give it something to think about.
The leaves rustled just above him and he looked up slowly. There it was, two limbs up, about four or five feet out of Tyler’s reach even if he jumped. But he wasn’t going to jump. Instead he wrapped his hand around the fruit-picker’s handle and got onto his knees as though he was about to stand up. The squirrel stopped moving, waiting to see if he was going to throw a rock as he had on so many other occasions.
He heaved up the fruit-picker like a giant butterfly net and whacked the basket over the squirrel just as it was about to leap to a higher branch. It squealed, the first time he’d ever heard it make a sound, a ghastly, high- pitched rasp like something being burned alive. It was so horrible that Tyler almost let go of the handle. The thing struggled hard, scrabbling against the thick, strong fabric of the basket. It was all he could do to find the wooden peg bouncing around on the end of the rope, but at last he grabbed it and it pulled the basket shut. The squirrel was still struggling like a mad thing inside it, but for the moment it was caught, snorting and screeching in muffled rage. Tyler considered just bashing the basket against the tree over and over until he killed the thing, but had a sudden fear that he might only release it instead. Judging by the noises it was making, if it got out now it would want to do a lot more than just follow him.
He left the fruit-picker propped against the branch, the rope tied as tightly around the handle as he could manage, to keep the basket closed. Tyler ran off toward the front of the house and the rest of the farm.
I did it! He felt like he could jump over the tall, turreted farmhouse. So what do you think of that, Squirrely?
Not much, judging by the furious sounds from the tree behind him. Not much at all.
It was only a few hundred yards from the house to the silo, if that was what the building really was, but as the lights of the windows faded behind him he felt like he was scuttling across the dead surface of the moon. When he thought he was out of sight of the most likely observers-people tended to cluster at the kitchen end of the house-Tyler switched on his flashlight. The ground was bumpy and uneven, covered with dry grass, and he made as much noise as he dared. He’d seen a rattlesnake once up by the unicorn pasture. He didn’t want to step on one of those in the dark.
The moon was behind the silo so he didn’t even see it until he was close enough to realize that a big black something was blocking the stars. Staring up at the weird shape of it-it really did look like a haunted house-Tyler had some serious second thoughts about the whole thing.
Come on, stupid, he told himself. Don’t be such a wuss. He knew he’d never manage to trap the squirrel again the same way-in fact, he was wondering if he’d ever be able to go outside the house at all with an angry devil squirrel after him. This was probably his one chance.
He had walked past the tall old building enough times to know it had a door on the side perpendicular to the house. He crept around the silo, shining his flashlight and shuffling his feet loudly to warn away any snakes (or extra-large spiders). He found the door and began to look for a handle, but instead the weathered wood just dropped away under his hand with a quiet squeak as it swung open. Not even latched. Tyler swallowed and took a step into the silo, his flashlight held before him like a laser pistol.
It was big inside-that was the first thing he noticed-a big, empty space with a ceiling so far above his head the flashlight beam couldn’t reach it. It was also absolutely and completely empty.
Tyler was standing on a little platform at the top of a flight of wooden steps that led down to the floor, which was about twenty feet below ground level. He swept the flashlight around and down to the floor. Nothing. Not even rats, which he had been thinking about in a slightly worried way. He made his way down the creaking stairs and onto the bottom of the silo. Not just empty, but extremely clean-if anyone had ever stored grain here,
