“Find the flower that holds the power,” Matt read from the poem. “Does that mean that the key to the gate is hidden in one of these flowers?”

“But there are way too many flowers here,” Miguel said, looking with uncertainty down the long length of the iron gate, which was completely covered and surrounded with bright flowers of all different kinds.

“It really is an impressive variety,” Kylie said, looking over the spread. “Just from here I can see roses, violets, daisies, and jasmine. There even might be some poppies.”

“Whoa.” Miguel was impressed. “How do you know how to identify all these different types of flowers?”

“My mom is . . . a little bit of a gardener,” Kylie answered with a laugh. “And by ‘a little bit of a gardener,’ what I really mean is ‘she enters the flower show at the county fair every year and always wins the blue ribbon.’”

“Awesome,” Matt said, and Miguel nodded. “Still, though, how are we supposed to check each and every flower on this gate? It’s like Miguel said, there are too many. It’d take us hours!”

“Not if we organize the search a little bit,” Kylie said, ignoring the flowers now to take a look at the entire length of the gate. “If each of us searches a section, we’ll cover the entire gate in thirty-three percent of the time it would have taken if we’d stuck together to check.”

“Thirty-three percent of the time sounds great to me,” Miguel said. “Which third do you want to do?”

“I’ll do the first third,” Kylie said, walking down the left side of the gate and standing in a spot a third of the way down. “I’ll search from the start of the gate to here. Miguel, you search from here to where Matt will begin. Matt, go stand a third of the way from the very end.”

Matt shuffled over until he was standing in front of the spot where Kylie had directed him. Using sticks from the ground, each of them carved a line in the dirt to mark the places where each third began.

After that, it was a matter of patience. Everybody worked silently, using their eyes and their hands to thoroughly search each and every flower bud, some of them soft and delicate, others thick and waxy, most of them dotted with beautiful ladybugs that ate any stray aphids hungrily. Matt was mesmerized by the bright, vivid color of the flowers and the beautiful fragrance that filled his nose.

“There have been worse games to play,” he called over to Kylie and Miguel, who laughed in agreement.