Journal of Secrets Did you ever notice the keyhole on the belly of the unicorn? Seth asked. He was lying on the floor beside the fanciful rocking horse, hands laced behind his head.
Kendra looked up from her painting. She had asked Lena to create a paint-by-numbers to help her endure her incarceration. Kendra had wanted to paint the pavilions around the pond, and Lena had quickly sketched a scene with startling accuracy, as if the housekeeper had the place memorized. Seth declined to have another canvas prepped.
Stuck in the attic or not, he was sick of painting.
Keyhole?
Weren't you looking for keyholes?
Kendra got off her stool and crouched beside her brother. Sure enough, there was a tiny keyhole on the underside of the unicorn. She retrieved her keys from the nightstand drawer. The third key Grandpa Sorenson had given her did the trick. A small hatch swung open. Out fell several rose-shaped chocolates wrapped in gold foil, identical to the one she had found in the miniature armoire.
What are those? Seth asked.
Soap, Kendra said.
Kendra reached up into the hatch and felt around inside the hollow rocking horse. She found a few more rosebud chocolates and a tiny golden key like the one from the armoire. The second key to the locked journal!
They look like candy, Seth said, snatching one of the ten chocolates.
Have one. They're perfumed. You'll smell pretty.
He unwrapped it. Funny color for soap. Smells a lot like chocolate. He popped the whole thing in his mouth.
His eyebrows shot up. Holy cow, this is good!
Since you found the keyhole, how about we split them fifty-fifty. She was a little worried he would eat all of them otherwise.
Sounds fair, he said, grabbing four more.
Kendra placed her five chocolates in the nightstand drawer and retrieved the locked book. As she expected, the second gold key unlocked another clasp. Where could the third one be?
She slapped her forehead. The first two had been hidden inside things the other keys had opened. The other one must be in the jewelry box!
Opening the jewelry box, she rummaged through the compartments of glittering pendants, brooches, and rings.
Sure enough, disguised on a charm bracelet, she found a tiny golden key matching the other two.
Kendra eagerly crossed the room and inserted the key into the final lock on the journal of Secrets. The final clasp unlatched and she opened the book. The first page was blank. So was the second. She thumbed quickly through the pages. The whole book was blank. Just an empty journal.
Was Grandpa Sorenson trying to encourage her to keep a diary?
But the whole game with the keys had been so sneaky.
Maybe there was a trick to this as well. A hidden message.
Disappearing ink or something. What was the trick with disappearing ink? Spray it with lemon juice and hold it up to a light? Something like that. And there was another trick where you rubbed gently with a pencil and a message appeared. Or maybe something even more devious.
Kendra surveyed the journal more carefully, hunting for clues. She held a few pages up against the window to see if the light would betray hidden watermarks or other mysterious evidence.
What are you doing? Seth asked. He had only one chocolate rosebud left. She would need to hide her chocolates someplace more secure than the nightstand drawer.
She held up a final page. The light revealed nothing.
Practicing for my audition at the insane asylum.
I bet you'll win first prize, he teased.
Unless they see your face, she retorted.
Seth went over and scooped some kernels for Goldilocks. She laid another egg. He opened the cage to retrieve it and stroked her soft feathers.
Kendra plopped down on the bed, leafing through the last pages. Suddenly she stopped. There was writing on one of the final pages. Not really hidden, just tucked away in an unlikely spot. Three words written near the binding, toward the bottom of an otherwise empty page.
Drink the milk.
Folding the corner, she flipped through the remaining pages. Then she skimmed the rest of the pages from the start to make sure she had missed no similar messages.
There were no other cryptic clues.
Drink the milk.
Maybe soaking a page in milk would make words appear. She could soak one in the tins of milk Dale left out.
Or that could be the milk the message was talking about! A challenge to drink unprocessed cow's milk-what purpose could that serve? To give her diarrhea? Dale had made a special point of warning her not to drink the milk.
Of course, he had acted sort of peculiar about it. He could be hiding something.
Drink the milk.
All the hassle of finding holes for the keys Grandpa Sorenson gave her, in order to uncover extra keys that fit a locked journal, for that odd message? Was she missing something, or overanalyzing? The hunt might have simply been meant to occupy her time.
Do you think Mom and Dad would let us get a pet chicken? Seth asked, holding the hen.
Probably right after they get us a pet buffalo.
Why don't you ever hold Goldilocks? She's really good.
Holding a live chicken sounds disgusting.
Better than holding a dead one.
I'm fine just petting her.
You're missing out. Seth held the hen up to his face.
You're a good chicken, aren't you, Goldilocks? The hen clucked softly.
She's going to peck your eyes out, Kendra warned.
No way, she's tame.
Popping one of the rosebud chocolates in her mouth, Kendra replaced the Journal of Secrets in the nightstand drawer and returned to her painting. She scowled. Between the gazebos, pond, and swans, the picture required more than thirty shades of white, gray, and silver. Using the sample hues Lena had given her, she prepared her next color.
The sun was bright the next day. There was no evidence that it had ever rained or that it would ever rain again. Hummingbirds, butterflies, and bumblebees had returned to the yard. Lena gardened in the back beneath a large sun hat.
Kendra sat in the shade on the back porch. No longer a prisoner in the attic, she felt better able to enjoy the fine weather. She wondered if the diverse butterflies she saw in the yard were among the species Grandpa Sorenson had imported. How did you keep a butterfly from leaving your property? The milk, perhaps?
She passed the time with a game she had found on a shelf in the attic-a triangular board with fifteen holes and fourteen pegs. The object was to jump pegs like checkers until you had only one left, which sounded simple at first.
The problem was that in the process of jumping, certain pegs ended up stranded, unable to jump or be jumped. The number of pegs you left stranded on the board determined your score.
Her best effort so far was three, which the directions labeled typical. Leaving two was good. One was genius.