The Forbidden Stone. Tony Abbott

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 supposed to be on vacation with my parents in Paris right now,” she said. “That’s in France. One of my school friends was even coming with me. We were going to shop. Well, I was going to shop. Big-time. But then Mom got the flu. Also big-time. Then Dad had to fly to Seattle for work. So good-bye France, and that’s why he called you, Uncle Roald, and … wait. You did talk to my dad? He said he was going to call you.”

      Dr. Kaplan frowned. “I …” He fished out his cell phone and tapped it several times. “It must have run out of battery. I’m so sorry I didn’t get his message.”

      Lily clucked her tongue. “No one should ever let his battery run down. I never let my battery run down. Your phone is like your brain. More important, even. Anyway, my dad dropped us here for the week and—ta-da!—here we are.”

      Something sparked in Wade’s head. “Us? We? Here we are?”

      Lily turned and made a little wave toward the house. “Becca came with me. Wade, you remember Becca, right?”

       Of course he did.

       Becca Moore.

      The instant Becca walked out of the shade of the overhang, Wade stood up like a soldier at attention. He couldn’t stop himself. It was instinctive and weird. He knew it was. But more than being weird, it hurt, because Wade was still in the car. You don’t stand up in cars. Even convertibles, which his dad’s car was not. As Wade jammed his head into the ceiling, he knew it must look epically dumb.

      Guys didn’t stand up for just anyone.

      But then, Becca Moore was not just anyone. She was … interesting. His brain wouldn’t let him go any further than that.

       Interesting.

      Becca was born in Massachusetts and had moved to Austin when she was eight. She was tall and fair and had long brown, almost black hair tied in a loose ponytail. Wade was a little afraid of her because she was so smart, but she didn’t broadcast it and was almost as quiet as he was, which was another cool thing about her. As she walked over to the car, she was wearing a faded red 2012 Austin Teen Book Festival T-shirt, slim blue jean leggings, and mouse-gray ballet flats so soft they made no more sound than if she were barefoot.

       Interesting.

      Dr. Kaplan got out of the car and hugged both girls. “Well, we’re glad to have you visit. Come on in!”

      Darrell couldn’t stop laughing as Wade unfolded himself from the car and limped to the front door.

      No sooner had they all piled inside than Lily spun around. “Pose!” She snapped another picture with her phone. “So awesome. Wade with his eyes closed. Darrell looking like … Darrell.” Then she found a seat in the living room, tugged a sleek tablet computer from her bag, and instantly began to type on its touch-screen keyboard. She looked up. “I’m writing a travel blog. But you knew that, right?”

      No one knew that. If Wade had realized he would end up on the internet, he might have combed his hair that morning. Or washed it.

      Lily grinned as she typed. “Vacation Day One. The Big Disappointment. A week with my cousins Wade and Darrell. I can barely bring my fingers to type these words …”

      Darrell frowned. “Ha. And also, ha.”

      Tearing his eyes away from Becca, who sat quietly on the couch next to Lily, Wade watched his father move distractedly around the living room. The coded email from Uncle Henry was obviously on his mind. Of course it was. Code? What did code even mean, except keeping a secret from someone? Who would Uncle Henry and his dad need to keep secrets from?

      When the snappy conversation between Lily and Darrell finally paused, he spoke up. “Dad, the email?”

      “I need your celestial map,” his father said, as if he’d been waiting for a lull, too. “The star chart Uncle Henry gave you when you were seven.”

      Wade blinked. “Really? Why?”

      “You’ll see,” his father said.

      

      In the quiet of his room, Wade slid open the top drawer of his desk. He removed the leather folder as he had the night before. The map, so precious and so rare, would now, suddenly, be the center of everyone’s attention. But why did Dad want the chart? Puzzling over this, he brought it into the dining room, where he found them all sitting around the table.

      His father pulled out a chair for him. “Wade, open the map, please …”

      He unzipped the folder and opened it flat, revealing the thick sheet of parchment creased over itself twice. He saw, as he hadn’t in the darkness of his room the night before, faint, penciled letters on the backside, reading, Happy Birth-day, Wade. Carefully, he unfolded the parchment on the table and spread it out faceup.

      Becca leaned over it, her eyes glowing. “Wade, this is so gorgeous. Wow …”

      “Thanks,”