The Friendship Riddle (35 page)

Everyone came to see me in the state bee. Well, not Charlotte, of course, but Eliot did, and Coco, Lena, Adam, Dev, and Lucas, who had to sit all the way in the back because he couldn't help but whisper the spellings of all the words. I got out in the fourth round. Adam called it the Curse of Coco, but he and I are already starting to get ready for next year.

As for Coco, he got into the program at Harvard. We all
wrote his recommendation together and called it “Everything Wonderful about Coco (A Necessarily Incomplete List).” Ms. Lawson said it was an exemplary essay, to which Lucas had replied, “Well, of course.”

I finished
The Riddled Cottage
. Taryn and Lord Charlesmoore made their way through the Forest of Westbegotten and completed the quest. It certainly wasn't my favorite of her books, but it ended up okay. There was a dragon, and a dragon always makes a book a little better.

I took all the clues and put them back where they started, as best as I could. The town council made a temporary library in a strip mall just outside of the downtown area. Some of the books were gone, so I jammed the clues into the bookshelves, above where the book would have been. When the new library is done, I'll move them again. Dr. Dawes almost caught me putting the one back in the supply closet. I brought tape with me and taped the phone booth clue back into the book. Getting the clue back into the clock tower was the hardest. I tried three times to sneak back in, but ended up asking the town clerk if I could take a picture for a photography class. Luckily she didn't point out that there were no photography classes at Frontenac Consolidated Middle School.

I wrapped
The Riddled Cottage
in brown paper and tied it with twine. Then I stuck the golden envelope under the twine, like a present. I didn't bring it back to Pledge Allegiance Comics, though.

Instead, I hid it.

When I went to the post office to put the clue back in the post office box, I mailed two packages. The first I sent to Harriet Wexler, care of her publisher in New York City.

Dear Ms. Wexler,

Charlak Rapshidir, also known as Lord Charlesmoore, seeks the presence of your company. At the very least, he would enjoy a missive from your Isle of Solitude. He remains steadfast in Promise.

Sincerely,

A loyal reader, riddle solver, quest follower, and Member of the Allegiance

I put the twenty-sided die and the pewter figurine in the package, and hoped the publisher would not think it was from a deranged fan.

The second package was for Charlie.

The clue you gave is the clue you must seek.

The tale you will find is not for the meek.

Written for you, the troll and the lord,

A story is riches no man can afford.

Upstairs, downstairs, round and round.

Fish history in this town.

When you cannot climb the stair,

Under granite, find me there.

I put a print of the picture of the second fellowship in the padded envelope. I figured he could hang it up on his wall alongside the first photograph. We looked goofier. Lucas hung on the fence, and Adam scowled. Dev had his arm around Coco. Lena made a fish face. Me, I stood just like Harriet Wexler with one arm across my torso, cradling my other elbow. Her hint of a smile seemed waspish at first, but I knew what she was really feeling: what it means to find the spot where you belong.

Mom asked me again about why it was so quiet after a snow. I hadn't found out for sure. I finally got onto the army snow site, which was full of charts and graphs about acoustic waves. I thought maybe Mr. Douglas could explain it to me once I got to high school. I got the general gist, though. Because there's so much airspace between the snowflakes, the sound waves push down into them, and that lessens the sound energy. I like that phrase, “sound energy.” Ms. Lawson would like it, too: the power of our words when we speak them aloud.

Anyway, I suppose all that is true. It is the army, after all. But I'd like to think the snow is quiet at first because it's remembering. It's thinking of its days before in a crystal lake or a muddy puddle or on top of a mountain, of being settled before melting and babbling through a creek down the hillside. When we finally finished with the classification system, we started learning about earth science. Mr. Sneed taught us how rain falls down and fills our lakes and streams
and such. The water evaporates and goes up into the clouds. When the clouds are full and the atmospheric conditions are right, it rains again—or snows. The rain bears the traces of everything the water encountered on its journey, just like the whale's earwax. So maybe the snow is just taking a moment to reflect on where it's been before it settles down to the business of crunching under well-tread boots, crashing off schoolhouse roofs, and drifting down from heavy boughs.

It's the type of story that Charlotte would have drawn for me once, each snowflake with its own landscape of memories. Lucas wouldn't like it. He'd say that I was mixing science with fantasy, fact with fiction. He'd probably be right. But I know this: the weekend after my birthday, my moms and I went outside and we built the most amazing snow fort you've ever seen. We made hot chocolate and sat in our fort huddled together to drink it. Mum shoved eight marshmallows into her mouth, but one popped out, so we called it seven and a half—still greater than Adam. I poured a few drops of the hot chocolate onto the snow, then buried it deep. Wherever this snow went next—melted into the ground, floated back up to the sky—it would remember. Just like our footprints left their trace as we marched up to the fire tower, ready to be picked up and dropped off somewhere else. The snow would remember. And so will I.

Like Ruth, I've realized that I need to rely on others to help me get the work done. I owe a debt of gratitude to my own motley crew.

I first came to love spelling bees while working at Berwick Academy. Janet Miller was the driving force behind the bees at BA, with assistance from Lisa Wagner and Rosemary Zurawel. The spellers of the school inspired me with their knowledge, dedication, and memory tricks.

The Scripps Spelling Bee is the national spelling bee, and its website has a wealth of information for spellers both secret and known (
www.spellingbee.com
). Merriam-Webster partners with Scripps to provide study help in the form of their Spell It! website (
www.myspellit.com
). The site provides word lists, games, and more for students interested in participating in a bee—and for writers who want to write about them. Poring over this website not only increased my vocabulary but also helped me to choose the words for the
chapter titles and the words the kids study in the book. The Scripps Spelling Bee uses the Webster's Third New International Dictionary as both the source of words and the final authority of their spelling. In this book the definitions for “trajectory,” “ninja,” “inane,” “gusset,” “banzai,” “vendetta,” “keelhaul,” “mizzle,” “pachyderm,” “shrieval,” and “perfidy” come from the Merriam-Webster online dictionary. These definitions are used by permission from
Merriam-Webster's Collegiate® Dictionary, 11th Edition
© 2014 by Merriam-Webster, Inc. (
www.Merriam-Webster.com
).

To better understand the world of role-playing games, I got feedback from Jeff Weir, Matt Frazer, and Lisa Shaw Frazer. The librarians at the Kennebunk Free Library put me in touch with Robert and Storm Madore, who spent an afternoon explaining the ins and outs of Dungeons & Dragons to me. If I misrepresented the games in any way, the fault is mine.

I have had the good fortune of having Bloomsbury Children's Books with me on my last three quests—er, books. They are the best team a writer could hope to work with. Cindy Loh, Beth Eller, Cristina Gilbert, Erica Barmash, Lizzy Mason, and Linette Kim are not only top-notch at their jobs, they are a lot of fun to be around. Also, they like sweets, which is key on any good quest. Thank you to Erin McGuire for the front jacket illustration, Nicole Gastonguay for the book design, Andrea Tsurumi for the interior and back jacket illustrations, and Patricia McHugh and Regina Castillo for
copyediting and finding all the mistakes I never seem to see. Mary Kate Castellani, editor extraordinaire, made sure the journey didn't go off course, and helped me to see my own vision and goals more clearly. I am forever grateful to both Mary Kate and my agent, Sara Crowe, for their unwavering faith and willingness to see where the story goes next.

Finally, writing would simply not be possible without my family and friends: the Frazers, the Blakemores, the Weirs, the Faronis, and the whole Pikcilingis crowd (a motley crew if there ever was one). Special thanks to Eileen Frazer, Joseph Frazer, Susan Tananbaum, and Ed and Audrey Blakemore.

My dear husband, Nathan—I'd kiss you even if you were a troll, because I always see the prince beneath. Thank you for always standing by me, and for helping me to raise our own little elfin army. Jack and Matilda, you are the stars that light my way.

The Water Castle

The Spy Catchers of Maple Hill

Text copyright © 2015 by Megan Frazer Blakemore
Interior illustrations copyright © 2015 by Andrea Tsurumi

All rights reserved.
You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce, or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. For information address Bloomsbury USA, 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018.

First published in the United States of America in May 2015
by Bloomsbury Children's Books
This electronic edition published in May 2015
www.bloomsbury.com

Bloomsbury is a registered trademark of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to
Permissions, Bloomsbury Children's Books, 1385 Broadway, New York, New York 10018

The spelling bee definitions are used by permission from
Merriam-Webster's Collegiate® Dictionary, 11th Edition ©
2014 by Merriam-Webster, Inc. (
www.Merriam-Webster.com
).

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Blakemore, Megan Frazer.
The friendship riddle / by Megan Frazer Blakemore.
pages   cm
Summary: When her former best friend gets popular and leaves her behind, sixth-grader Ruth prefers to be alone, studying for the school spelling bee, until she finds a riddle in an old book.
[1. Friendship—Fiction. 2. Riddles—Fiction. 3. Spelling bees—Fiction. 4. Middle schools—Fiction. 5. Schools—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.B574Fr 2015   [Fic]—dc23   2014030036

eISBN: 978-1-61963-631-6

To find out more about our authors and books visit
www.bloomsbury.com
. Here you will find extracts, author interviews, details of forthcoming events and the option to sign up for our
newsletters
.