Tick rubbed his eyes, then kept reading. “I need to be dressed warmly, and at nine o’clock on the nose I need to say the magic words, with my eyes closed, then stomp on the ground with my right foot ten times—all while keeping both of my hands in my pockets.”

“Is that it?”

“That’s it.”

His dad rolled into a sitting position on the bed with a loud grunt. “All that’s pretty easy, don’t you think?”

“Well . . . yeah, except for one tiny thing.”

“The magic words.”

Tick nodded. “The magic words. At this rate, Paul will be the only one of the three of us who gets to . . . do whatever it is that’s gonna happen.”

His dad scratched his chin, doing his best Sherlock Holmes impression. “Son, it can’t be that hard. I mean, all the other clues have been challenging and fun, but not really hard, you know what I mean?”

“Maybe this is Master George’s last way of weeding out those who aren’t willing to stick with it. Maybe I’m one of those last schmoes who ends up losing. The seventh clue said most people would fail.”

“Listen to me,” his dad said, unusually serious. “I don’t care what happens, and I don’t care who this Master George fancy lad from England is. You’re not a schmoe, and you never will be. You hear me?”

“Yeah, but . . .” Tick’s eyes suddenly teared up and his heart seemed to swell and grow warm, like his veins had brought in steaming hot soup instead of the usual blood. It hit him then that he was worried—no, scared—that he wasn’t going to solve the riddle of the magic words. He’d analyzed the first letter from M.G. more times than he could count, and nothing had come to him.

His dad got up and knelt next to his son, pulling him into his arms. “I love you, kid. You mean more to me than you can ever know, and that’s all that matters to me.”

“Dad, no offense, but . . . I mean, I really appreciate all your help.” He pulled back from the hug and looked at his dad. “I want this so bad. I know it sounds dumb, but I want this. I’ve never really done anything important before, and Master George said I might be able to save peoples’ lives.”

“Then by golly we’ll figure it out, okay? Give me that jour—”

His words cut off when a thunderclap of broken glass shattered the silence, followed by the tinkle of falling shards and a loud thump on the floor. Dad fell onto his back with a yelp and Tick’s hand went to his chest, clutching his shirt like an old woman shocked by the spectacle of kids skateboarding in a church parking lot.

Someone had wrapped a note around a rock and then thrown it through the window.