Into the Gauntlet by Margaret Peterson Haddix

Author:Margaret Peterson Haddix
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780545060509
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 1010-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Curled, Amy thought. A spiral. Like...

"I still don't get it," Dan said. "I can remember the letters from the ribbon. I'm even pretty sure I got the wacko spacing right, all the gaps between the letters. But I can't figure out what any of it means."

"Wrap the cloth around the pole," Amy said. "Because back in Shakespeare's time, English villages always had these huge midsummer parties where girls would dance and wrap ribbons around a maypole in particular patterns. The midsummer

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festival would have been a big deal in Stratford, something Shakespeare probably missed when he moved to London. Something that reminded him of home."

Home, Amy thought. That's what this clue is about. It's calling Cahills back home. Like in the hint we got in London: "Everything can come full circle."

"One of Shakespeare's plays is called A Midsummer Night's Dream," Nellie said as she jerked the steering wheel left and right. "It's kind of bizarre, with--"

"Stop it!" Dan yelled. "Both of you --stop trying to tell me stuff!"

"I just thought it might help you solve that," Nellie said, sounding offended.

"But I already have," Dan said, holding up the pole. "It's numbers, after all. Just spelled out as words!"

Amy hung over the front seat so she could see. Dan had lined up the edges of the strip of cloth with the words spiraling around the pole: Madrigal Stronghold * Cahill Ancestral Home * Madrigal Stronghold * Cahill Ancestral Home...

With the strip of cloth wrapped all the way around the pole, the nonsensical list of letters did indeed spell out words on one side.

'"Fifty-three oN Six oW'?" Amy said. "What's that mean? Oh--"

"That's not 'oN' and 'oW,'" Nellie said, glancing toward the pole. "That's--"

"Degrees north," Dan said.

"And degrees west," Amy said.

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"Latitude and longitude," Nellie finished.

They'd all figured it out at the same time. The ribbon gave them the precise coordinates of the Madrigal stronghold.

Nellie yanked the portable GPS unit off the dashboard and tossed it back to Amy.

"Good thing I sprang for the deluxe rental package, now that you both know we're spending Madrigal money," Nellie said as Amy punched in the coordinates. "Where to?"

Amy stared at the glowing screen.

"Somewhere that might take a lot more Madrigal money," Amy muttered. She shifted to dialing Nellie's cell phone. "Hello, Mr. McIntyre? We need to rent a helicopter."

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CHAPTER 18

Fiske paced while Mr. McIntyre talked on the phone.

"Amy and Dan know where they need to go," Mr. McIntyre reported, his hand cupped over the phone. "They're in a hurry. They want to rent a helicopter."

"But we haven't heard from our man at the church about how things went there?" Fiske asked.

Mr. McIntyre shook his head and went back to talking on the phone. "Do you feel that you and the other teams have reached a proper, ah, rapprochement?" he asked. "You believe that your actions in Stratford--and from this point forward -- will lead to the achievement of all our goals?"

Fiske could always tell when Mr. McIntyre was nervous. He started sounding more and more like a lawyer.

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