searching for the telescope’s operating manual on the desk, he’d accidentally moved the mouse on his father’s computer. The screen saver flickered away and an email message popped up. Without wanting to, Wade noticed the sender’s name.
Heinrich Vogel.
“No kidding?” Wade whispered. “Uncle Henry?”
“No. The name is Darrell,” said Darrell from the platform. “I thought being my stepbrother for three years you would know that.”
“No. Dad got an email from Uncle Henry. We were just talking about him. You know he’s not really my uncle, right? He was Dad’s college teacher in Germany. I haven’t seen him since I was seven.”
Darrell hopped down the stairs and peered over Wade’s shoulder. “Emails are private. Don’t read it. What does it say?”
Wade tried not to read it, but his eyes strayed.
Lca guygas eamizub zb.
Bluysna luynaedab odxx sio wands.
Juilatl lca Hyndblaub xanytq.
Rdse lca loaxma uaxdtb.
Qiz yua lca xybl.
Darrell frowned. “Does Dad read German? Or is that Russian?”
“Neither. It’s got to be some kind of code.”
“Code. Wait, is our dad a spy? He’s a spy, isn’t he? Of course he’s a spy, he never told me he was, which is exactly what a spy would do. I knew it. It’s that beard. No one really knows what he looks like under there.”
“Darrell, no.”
“He’s probably a double agent. That’s the best kind. No one’s a single agent anymore. Or, no, a triple agent. That’s even better. Wait, what is a triple agent—”
The door squeaked open. “So there you are!”
Wade shot up from the desk the moment his father entered the observatory. “Nothing!” he said.
Roald Kaplan had run track in high school, had been a champion long-distance runner in college, and still ran the occasional marathon. He was trim and tall and handsome behind sunglasses and a dark, close-cut beard. “Sara’s safely off on her flight to Bolivia. Thanks for hanging out here, while we did our last-minute zipping around. What are you guys up to?”
“Well,” Darrell piped in, “I found gum.”
“And I …,” Wade said, “… didn’t?”
Darrell cleared his throat. “Wade’s odd behavior means he’s worried. Which, I know, is not breaking news, but he found something bizarro on your computer …”
Wade pointed at the computer screen. “Dad, I’m sorry, but it was an accident that I saw the screen at all. I know I shouldn’t have read the email, but I saw it, and … what’s going on? It’s from Uncle Henry, but it looks like code.”
Dr. Kaplan paused for a long moment. His smile faded away. He leaned over Wade and tapped the keyboard. The email printed out on a nearby printer. Then he deleted the message and shut the computer off.
“Not here. Not now.”
“Can you at least tell us why Uncle Henry’s writing to you in code?” Wade asked when they got into the car. “Is he in trouble? Or in danger? Dad, are we in danger?”
“You worry too much,” said Dr. Kaplan, unconvincingly.
“Is Uncle Henry a spy?” asked Darrell. “Because if he’s a spy, that’s huge. A spy in the family would actually be terrific and awesomely cool. As you probably already know, I would make a perfect spy—”
“Boys, please,” Dr. Kaplan said, weaving through campus traffic and onto the streets. “I’m sure Uncle Henry is just fine, and I’m almost positive it’s some kind of joke message. In any case, it won’t make sense to you—or even to me—until we get home. There are a couple pieces of the puzzle I need to figure it out. Until then …”
Puzzle? Wade didn’t know what to say. He sat quietly looking out the window for the next twenty minutes as they drove from campus into the hills west of Austin.
Darrell did not sit quietly. “I think I have it. Uncle Henry is a professor in Germany, but he’s secretly doing spy stuff. He’s a master cryptographer, and he’s trying to recruit you to be a spy too. Dad, if you can’t do it, I’ll do it. Sure. I know professors make a good cover. They pretend to sit in their offices all sleepy over their books and stuff while secretly they’re running all kinds of spy missions. But middle school kids are even better. No one would ever suspect us. Wade, you could be a spy, too. Of course, you’d do the desk stuff while I go around the world with my band as a cover. Not that the Simpletones would be a cover band. We’d play all original stuff. They call that being in the field. I’d be a field agent. Agent being the technical term for ‘spy’ …”
Darrell hadn’t stopped talking, but as he was often forced to do when his stepbrother thrashed on guitar, Wade had to tune him out to be able to think.
Ever since Uncle Henry had given him the antique celestial map on his seventh birthday, Wade had been a fanatic about star maps and charts and the courses and routes of celestial bodies. He’d stayed up every night for weeks studying the map by moonlight and flashlight. Of course, he learned most things from his father, a brilliant astronomer, but it was probably Uncle Henry’s star map that stole his deeper imagination. The chart was old and strange and mysterious, and in his mind Wade associated all those qualities with the stars themselves. Between his father and Uncle Henry, Wade learned to love the night sky more than anything.
When they finally turned into the driveway of a sprawling home overlooking a shallow valley, Darrell practically exploded in the backseat. “Uncle Henry is a spy! Someone’s casing our house!”
As Dr. Kaplan slowed the car, a shape darted along the side garden and disappeared under the roof that hung over the front door.
Wade stiffened. “Dad, tear out of here—”
“Yoo-hoo!”
A girl in shorts and a stylishly slashed T-shirt strolled out from under the overhang to the car, wheeling an orange suitcase behind her.
It was Lily Kaplan, Wade’s first cousin, his father’s niece. “Surprise, people!”
“Lily? This is a surprise,” said Dr. Kaplan, rolling down the window.
“Like, what are you even doing here?” Darrell asked.
“Like, nice to even see you, too,” Lily said, snapping a picture of Darrell on her cell phone. “Oh, I’m posting that face.” Her thumbs flew over the phone while she talked.
“I’m
