A week went by with Tick, Sofia, and Paul e-mailing each other almost every day. They talked about their lives, their families, their schools. Though Tick had never met Paul and had met Sofia only once, he felt like they’d all become great friends.

Tick and Sofia used every ounce of persuasive skills they possessed to convince Paul to tell them the magic words. On more than one occasion, Sofia even threatened bodily harm, never mind that she lived on another continent. But Paul stubbornly refused, not budging an inch. Finally, the other two gave up and reluctantly admitted he was right, anyway. Better to follow the rules in this whole mess than risk jeopardizing their chances of achieving the goal all together.

The goal. What was the goal? Yeah, they pretty much knew that on the special day they had to perform a silly ritual in a certain place—probably to show their ability to follow instructions and obey orders as much as to show they could solve the riddles of the clues. But then what would happen?

Tick felt strongly that if they did everything correctly, they would travel to another place. Somehow Mothball and Rutger were doing it. Somehow Master George was traipsing about the world to all kinds of strange places, mailing letters. Tick always felt a surge of excitement when he considered the possibilities of what may happen on the special day, only to have it come crashing down when he remembered he hadn’t figured out the magic words.

After dinner one night, Tick sat at his desk, his Journal of Curious Letters open before him, while his dad lounged on the bed with his hands clasped behind his head. Tick had told him everything, but his dad hadn’t been much help, falling back on his normal Dad capacity of offering encouragement and rally cries. Tick suspected his dad knew more than he let on, but that he felt much like Paul did—it was up to Tick to solve the puzzle.

“Go through your list again,” his dad said. “Everything we know needs to happen on May sixth.”

Tick groaned. “Dad, we’ve gone over this a million times.”

“Then once more won’t hurt. Come on, give it to me.”

Tick flipped to the page where he’d accumulated his conclusions. “Okay, on May sixth, I need to be in a cemetery—any cemetery—with no one else there but all the dead people.”

“That excludes me, unfortunately.” His dad let out an exaggerated sigh. “I still don’t know if I’m going to let you do this.”

“Dad, it’ll be fine. It’s probably a good thing you won’t be there, anyway—I’m sure I’ll be abducted by aliens or something.”

“Whoa, now that’s a dream come true.”