Iced!: The 2007 Journal of Nick Fitzmorgan (6 page)

“Could that be it?” Maura looked doubtful.

“The skull that the man gave me led us to the safe, so maybe what he said will open it.” Without waiting for her to respond,
I rushed across the room. “Wonefas nepo!” I shouted.

There wasn’t even time for me to get my hopes up—BUZZ!

We had one more chance. Slow down, Nick, and think! I told myself.

I entered the words “Wonefas nepo” into my universal translator on my handheld PC, and it came up with nothing. Was I on the
wrong track? Did I have the whole thing backward?

That’s it! I had the whole phrase backward!

I reversed the order of the phrase, letter for letter, and spoke with confidence: “Open safe now!”

There was a soothing BINS! and the door to the safe popped open.

THERE WAS A MESSAGE IN THE SAFE!

For a second, I wondered why my dad
hadn’t creaked a more complicated code to open the safe—like something he might have learned from my Uncle Zeke. Then the
answer came to me: My dad couldn’t make the code too tricky or I might not have been able to crack it.

But I had!

I mentally patted myself on the back and reached eagerly into the safe, pulling out a scrap of paper. It was the only thing
in the safe, and it had a message written in my dad’s handwriting.

I showed the note to Maura. Now that we had the safe open, it was okay to talk in a normal voice.

“The words are obvious,” I said. “Dad is congratulating me on getting into the safe.”

“But what about the numbers?” Maura wondered. “What do they mean?”

“Are they a date like 12/25?” I mused. “Is he talking about Christmas?”

Maura offered, “Maybe it’s a chapter and verse of something. …”

I shook my head. None of the stuff we were guessing sounded right.

“Could it be a time?”

I quickly scanned the office, searching for a clock. I didn’t see one anywhere. But I did notice something else about the
room. I slapped my forehead in frustration.

“What?” Maura asked.

“I should have seen this ages ago!” I handed her the photo I’d taken of the office a few hours ago.

“I still don’t see it. …” Her eyes went wide as she understood. “Oh! Of course!”

I climbed up on a chair and looked down at the mess on the office floor. This time I really studied it. Yes, I was right.
It was not just a random group of objects.

I said, “The mess was very deliberately laid out in the shape of a clock!”

I grabbed a yardstick for the minute hand and a large book for the hour hand. I placed them on the shape of the clock face
on the floor, so that the time read 12:25.

I wondered, “Does this mean he was kidnapped at 12.25?”

Maura shook her head. “How would he have time to set up a clock if he was being kidnapped?”

“You’re right,” I agreed. “Maybe the words on his note aren’t as obvious as I thought.”

I took another look at the note. I reread the line “Give yourself a big hand!”

“A big hand … big hand … BIG HAND! That’s it!” I cried. “My dad is talking about the big hand of the clock. He wants me to
go where the big hand is pointing.”

I followed its direction to a poster that leaned against the wall. It was a picture of Mount Everest.

Just as I was reaching for the poster, my computer chimed, telling me it had identified the face I had reconstructed.

Maura and I rushed over and looked at the screen. One name flashed there: GEORGE MALLORY.

“George Mallory?” Maura asked. “The mountain climber?”

“That’s the only George Mallory I know.”

It was very strange. Mallory had died on Mount Everest more than 80 years ago. He had hoped to be the first person to ever
climb the world’s highest mountain. And he may have succeeded. The only thing people know is that Mallory died at some point
during the climb. No one is sure if it was before or after he made it to the top.

The man who got credit for being the first to person to summit Mount Everest is Sir Edmund Hillary. And he made his successful
climb in 1953, nearly thirty years after Mallory died on the mountain.

It was one of the biggest mysteries in the past hundred years. Did Mallory make it to the top of Everest or not? Was he actually
the first one there—and not Hillary?

An even bigger mystery in my mind was: Why did someone throw a replica of Mallory’s skull in my hands and then run off?

Maura and I stared at the flashing name on my screen for a moment longer. Then I went back to the poster of Mount Everest.

“Let’s get a better look at this under the desk light,” I said, lifting the poster up away from the wall. As I was placing
it on the desk, my fingers brushed against something on the back.

I flipped the poster over and carefully set it facedown on the desk. There was a large envelope taped to the back.

“And the clues keep on coming,” I said under my breath. I slowly pulled the envelope free and opened it.

Inside was a piece of paper. Maura looked over my shoulder as I held it under the desk light to get a better look.

“That’s a copy of a page from a climbing diary,” Maura said.

“And look,” I added, pointing to the name on the page. “The diary belonged to George Mallory. It’s a list of the things he
took with him on an expedition.”

I told her about the screenplay my dad was writing, and how it was about explorers from the past. “My dad likes to really
feel the objects as he writes about them,” I told her. “He says it helps with his descriptions. So he gathers together the
stuff he needs.”

We went to the side of my dad’s desk, and I showed Maura the large cardboard box where he’d been storing stuff for his script.
Maura read the items on the list and checked them off when I found them in the box.

“Gloves,” she called out.

I dug around for a second and found them. “Check.”

“Oxygen tank.”

More rooting around and I plucked out the tank. “Check.”

Everything was in the box until Maura came to the last item on the list. “Kodak Vest Pocket camera,” she read aloud.

I did some more digging in the box, but this time I came up empty–handed. The camera wasn’t there.

The camera!

Suddenly, the lyrics in that goofy song my dad had recorded on the MP3 player made sense. I told Maura how my dad used the
words “shutter,” “bug,” and “develop” in his song.

“Everything has been leading up to that,” I said, thinking out loud. “The key must lie with the camera.”

Maura looked doubtful. “The camera shouldn’t be here, Nick. It was never found.”

“That’s right!” I agreed. “It was lost somewhere toward the top of Mount Everest. If Mallory climbed to the summit, he might
have taken a picture of himself there. In other words, the film in the camera might show whether Mallory was the first person
to make it to the top of Everest It could solve the Mallory mystery once and for all.”

As I spoke, I realized what I’d have to do to find my dad. But how would I ever reach my destination, which was halfway around
the world?

Aha! I looked at Maura.

She held up a hand. “I know what you’re going to say. And it’s crazy.”

“You were here when we put the clues together. I think my dad has been kidnapped because of that camera, and I think he’s
telling me that he’s with the camera or heading toward it. He left the clues because he wants me to come and help him.” I
could see that Maura wasn’t buying this. Trying to sound as commanding as possible, I said, “Judge Pinkerton told you to take
me to my father.”

“Yes, she did, Nick,” she replied with a cocked eyebrow. “But I don’t think she ever dreamed that meant taking you to another
hemisphere. Do you?”