The Mystery of the Secret Society Read online

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Chapter 1: A Strange Discovery

  Chapter 2: Two Hawks and Two Globes

  Chapter 3: Apollo’s Messenger

  Chapter 4: Island-Hopping

  Chapter 5: New Clues

  Chapter 6: A Break-In

  Chapter 7: The Secret Room

  Chapter 8: The Surprise Visitor

  Chapter 9: The Gift

  ‘The Case of the Missing Tiger’s Eye’ Excerpt

  About Harper Paris and Marcos Calo

  CHAPTER 1

  A Strange Discovery

  Ethan Briar stared wide-eyed at the creepy statue. It stared back at him in the dim light of the underground corridor.

  “Um, guys? What’s that?” Ethan asked nervously.

  His twin sister, Ella, giggled when she saw it. “I’m not sure. And is it a person or an animal?”

  “Both!” their father, Andrew Briar, spoke up. “This is Pan, one of the Greek gods. He’s part human and part goat.”

  “Isn’t he fascinating?” their mother, Josephine Briar, said excitedly. “Dr. Pappas said they’ve already dug up ten statues at this site. So far, they’re all figures from Greek mythology, like Pan.”

  The Briars had just arrived at an archaeological dig in Athens, Greece. Dr. Pappas was in charge of the site, which was more than two thousand years old! As an archaeologist, she was an expert in artwork, weapons, and other items left behind by people from the past.

  Mrs. Briar had gotten special permission for herself and Mr. Briar to help out with the excavation. She was a travel writer, and she planned to write an article about it. Mr. Briar was a history professor back home.

  “Back home” was a town called Brookeston in the United States. The Briars had been traveling around the world for many months now for Mrs. Briar’s job. The Brookeston Times had hired her to write a column called “Journeys with Jo!” It was all about the different places their family was visiting, like Italy, France, China, Kenya, India, Peru, Australia, Alaska—and now Greece!

  “Can you guys find something to do for a while? Your dad and I need to check in with Dr. Pappas and get to work,” Mrs. Briar said to the twins.

  “Why can’t we dig with you?” Ella asked.

  “Yeah. We want to see what Grandpa Harry used to do!” Ethan added. Their Grandpa Harry was a famous archaeologist.

  “Sorry, kids. This project is for adults only,” Mr. Briar told them. “Say, why don’t you go outside and find a nice, sunny place to hang out? You could do the reading for our Greek history lesson. You brought your books with you, right?”

  The twins groaned. Homework was the last thing they felt like doing today. Besides, who needed books when real history was all around them?

  Mr. and Mrs. Briar said good-bye and went off to join Dr. Pappas, who was brushing dirt from a clay figurine. Ethan and Ella began walking down the corridor. They passed a group of volunteers digging with small shovels. Everyone was wearing hard hats with headlamps, including the twins.

  “How do we get up to the ground level?” Ella asked Ethan.

  “We need to take the stairs. They’re that way,” Ethan said, pointing to the right.

  They walked on in silence. More corridors sprouted off in various directions. Electric lamps hung from wires and cast yellow pools of light. No one seemed to be working in this part of the site.

  “Maybe we went the wrong way,” Ella said anxiously.

  “Ella! Look!”

  Ethan stopped in front of a stone wall. On it was a small painted image of a hawk. Next to the hawk was an image of a globe.

  “Oh my gosh!” Ella cried out.

  Ethan searched through his pockets and pulled out his special coin. Grandpa Harry had given it to him as a going-away present.

  On one side of the coin was the exact same hawk. And on the other was the exact same globe.

  CHAPTER 2

  Two Hawks and Two Globes

  The twins stared at the paintings of the hawk and the globe. How could they be identical to the ones on Ethan’s coin?

  “We have to e-mail Grandpa Harry right away,” Ella said.

  “Definitely,” Ethan agreed.

  “Excuse me, what are you children doing here?” a voice called out from behind them.

  The twins whirled around, startled. A man with a clipboard stood there. He was tall and had black hair.

  “Um . . . ,” Ethan mumbled.

  “We’re here with our parents. They’re helping Dr. Pappas with the dig,” Ella said quickly.

  “Oh! Are they archaeologists?” the man asked.

  “No. Our dad teaches history, and our mom works for a newspaper,” replied Ethan.

  Just then the coin slipped out of Ethan’s grip. He scrambled to pick it up, but the man got to it first.

  “Thanks! I’ll take that—” Ethan began.

  But the man didn’t hand it over. He turned it over in his palm. Then his gaze shifted to the paintings on the wall. His brow furrowed. He had made the connection, too: two identical hawks, two identical globes.

  “Where did you get this coin?” he asked Ethan.

  “It was a present,” said Ethan.

  The man smiled and handed Ethan the coin. “Here you go. Let’s get you back to your parents, shall we? How are you all enjoying Athens so far? Have you been to the top of Mount Lycabettus yet? You can take a funicular up—it’s like a very cool cable car. By the way, my name is Dimitrios. I’m one of the volunteers here. . . .”

  Dimitrios was acting very friendly all of a sudden. But that was good, since the twins didn’t want to get into any trouble. Their parents would not be happy to find out that they’d been wandering around the site without permission. Of course, they could always pretend they’d gotten lost. . . .

  As the three of them headed down the corridor, Ethan glanced over his shoulder to check out the hawk and the globe one last time. He touched the coin in his pocket.

  Two hawks and two globes.

  What did it mean? Ethan didn’t know, but he did know that he and Ella had to get to the bottom of this mystery!

  CHAPTER 3

  Apollo’s Messenger

  That night, the Briars had dinner at the rooftop restaurant of their hotel. The view was amazing! They could see the Acropolis of Athens, which they had visited on their first day in the city. The ancient site was on top of a hill and included many ruins. One of them was a temple called the Parthenon, which had been built for the Greek goddess Athena. Another was the open-air Theatre of Dionysus.

  Beyond the acropolis, the sky was flushed pink with sunset. The evening air was cool and smelled like jasmine blossoms. The twins dug into their moussaka. The eggplant and meat casserole was delicious. So was the spanakopita, which was a pie made of spinach and feta cheese.

  Still, they were impatient to get back to their hotel suite. They hadn’t had a chance to e-mail Grandpa Harry yet, and they wanted to do so ASAP—as soon as possible!

  “Who wants dessert?” Mr. Briar said when their plates had been cleared away. “The rizogalo is famous here. That’s Greek rice pudding!”

  “No, thank you,” said Ella.

  “No, thank you,” Ethan said, too. “Can we go back to our room? Ella and I have some, um, studying to do.”

  “Of course! It’s wonderful that you two are so interested in your schoolwork,” Mrs. Briar said.

  Ella raised her eyebrows at Ethan. He grinned and shrugged.

  Back in their suite, Mr. and Mrs. Briar drank tea and discussed their plans for the following day. The twins grabbed their father’s laptop and their homeschooling books and sat at a desk.

  Then, as sneakily as they could, they began writing an e
-mail to Grandpa Harry. Ethan did the typing.

  To: [email protected]

  From: [email protected]

  Subject: Greetings from . . . ???

  Dear Grandpa Harry,

  Guess where we are? Hint: It’s one of the oldest cities in the world. And there are a lot of temples named after gods and goddesses.

  We’re in Athens, Greece!

  Today we visited an archaeological site. This archaeologist, Dr. Pappas, is letting Mom and Dad dig with her.

  We want to ask you something super-important. At the site we found a couple of paintings on an underground wall. They’re paintings of a hawk and a globe.

  The thing is, they look EXACTLY like the ones on the coin you gave me!

  What does that mean? Where did you get the coin? What does the coin have to do with the paintings?

  There was a man named Dimitrios there, too. He’s one of Dr. Pappas’s volunteers. He saw my coin and asked me about it.

  Please write back ASAP!

  Lots of love,

  Ethan (and Ella)

  PS Tomorrow is Sunday, so Mom and Dad are taking us island-hopping, whatever that is. On Monday we’ll be back at the dig again.

  “Did you know that Apollo’s messenger was the hawk?” Ella said suddenly.

  Ethan glanced up. His sister was poring over one of their homeschooling books.

  “Wasn’t Apollo the god of music or something?” asked Ethan.

  “He was the god of a bunch of things. Music, poetry, the sun, medicine, truth.” Ella set the book aside and picked up her purple notebook. The notebook had been her going-away present from Grandpa Harry. She used it to write down notes whenever she and Ethan were trying to solve a mystery. Opening the notebook to a clean page, she wrote:

  We went to an archaeological site today. We found a hawk and a globe painted on the wall. They’re the same as the ones on Ethan’s coin!

  Below that she wrote:

  In Greek mythology, Apollo was the god of music, poetry, the sun, medicine, and truth. His messenger was the hawk.

  CHAPTER 4

  Island-Hopping

  “Island-hopping” turned out to be a really fun activity. It involved traveling from island to island in a big high-speed ferry. The Aegean Sea off the coast of Athens was full of beautiful islands!

  The ferry had already stopped at two islands called Hydra and Spetses to let the passengers explore. On Hydra the Briars had gone swimming off the rocks and snacked on pastries with honey and nuts. Ethan had admired the donkeys that carried supplies up the hills. On Spetses they had gone shopping for souvenirs and eaten grilled octopus at a seaside café. Ella had loved the colorful flowers and the white buildings with red tile roofs.

  “I wonder why Grandpa Harry didn’t write back,” Ethan said to Ella as the ferry set off for their next island. Nearby, Mr. Briar was reading a book called The Art and Architecture of Ancient Greece. Mrs. Briar was jotting down notes for her article.

  The twins had checked their e-mail first thing that morning before leaving for the islands. But there had been no message from Grandpa Harry.

  “Greece is in a different time zone from Brookeston. We’re seven hours ahead. He’s probably just waking up,” Ella pointed out.

  A man walked up to where the twins were standing. He carried a newspaper under one arm. His eyes were hidden behind dark sunglasses.

  “Well, what a surprise!” the man said pleasantly.

  The twins blinked. Did they know this person?

  The man took off his sunglasses. It was Dimitrios, from yesterday!

  “Hello!” Ella said.

  “Hello!” Ethan said, too. It was odd, running into Dimitrios two days in a row.

  Dimitrios smiled. “How nice to see you children again. And did I happen to hear you mention Brookeston?”

  “Why? Have you been there?” asked Ethan.

  “I have a friend who lives in the area. Harry Robinson,” Dimitrios replied.

  “No way!” Ethan practically shouted.

  “He’s our grandfather!” Ella exclaimed.

  “Really? What a small world!” Dimitrios said, smiling. “Your grandfather and I worked on some projects together long ago. We were also fellow members of the Society of—” He hesitated.

  “The Society of what?” Ethan prompted him.

  Dimitrios shook his head. “Never mind. You children wouldn’t be interested in that. Are you here with your parents? I would enjoy meeting them.”

  The twins led Dimitrios over to Mr. and Mrs. Briar and introduced everyone. Mrs. Briar was excited to meet a friend of her father’s.

  As the three adults chatted, a thought occurred to Ella. It seemed as though they’d met a lot of Grandpa Harry’s friends on their trip around the world. Luigi and Antonio in Venice . . . Jean and Jacqueline in Paris . . . Dr. Broad in Kenya . . . Hector Ruiz in Peru . . . Deepak and Tufan in Mumbai . . . and now Dimitrios in Greece. Was it just a coincidence?

  Ella felt a sharp elbow jab her side. It was Ethan.

  “What?” she demanded.

  “Shhh.” Ethan held a finger up to his lips and pointed to the newspaper tucked under Dimitrios’s arm.

  “So?”

  “So look at the top of it!”

  Ella peered more closely.

  The newspaper had some doodle marks in fine black pen.

  The doodles were of a hawk and a globe!

  CHAPTER 5

  New Clues

  “Why did Dimitrios draw a hawk and a globe on his newspaper?” Ethan wondered out loud.

  “I’m not sure. He’s kind of a mystery,” Ella said.

  It was Monday morning, and the twins were hanging out at Dr. Pappas’s site. They sat on a grassy hill that overlooked downtown Athens. Some volunteers were working nearby, cleaning chunks of marble with toothbrushes. Dimitrios wasn’t among them. Mr. and Mrs. Briar were down below, helping with a newly uncovered statue.

  Most of the site was underground. Mr. Briar had explained that it had probably been a sculptor’s studio in 500 or 600 BC—that meant more than twenty-five hundred years ago! Over time it had fallen into ruins and had been gradually buried under layers of dirt and dust. Fortunately, some of the sculptor’s statues had survived.

  “We could figure everything out if Grandpa Harry would just write back. We’ve sent him three e-mails . . . and he hasn’t answered any of them!” Ethan said with a sigh.

  Last night, the twins had written Grandpa Harry a second e-mail telling him about running into Dimitrios on the boat. And early this morning, they had written him a third one asking him if he was okay. It really wasn’t like him to be so silent, and they were starting to get worried.

  Around noon, Ella suggested that they go down below to ask their parents about lunch plans. She and Ethan put on their hard hats, clicked on their headlamps, and proceeded down the narrow stairs.

  The sunshine outside was quickly snuffed out by the dusty darkness below. At the bottom of the stairs, Ethan grabbed Ella’s arm. “Could we take a super-fast look at . . . you know? Before we go find Mom and Dad?”

  Ella glanced right and left. No one was around. “A super-super-fast look. I don’t want to get into trouble.”

  “Me neither,” agreed Ethan.

  The twins went down the corridor. After a few minutes, they reached the wall with the hawk and globe paintings.

  Ethan leaned forward to get a closer look. He craned his neck this way and that so that his headlamp shone directly on the images.

  Then he noticed something he hadn’t noticed before. There was a long, thin crack in the stone wall.

  He touched the crack lightly. Ella touched it, too. They walked slowly down the corridor, tracing the crack with their hands.

  Then the crack stopped—and there was nothing more.

  Suddenly, voices rose nearby. People were coming!

  The twins clicked off their headlamps and flattened themselves against the wall. The voices grew louder. Two men were having an argume
nt, in Greek. They kept repeating one word over and over. It sounded like: sim-yo-ma-tario.

  After a moment, the voices faded away. As soon as the coast was clear, the twins got out of there—fast!

  CHAPTER 6

  A Break-In

  On Tuesday the Briars had breakfast at an outdoor café near the archaeological site. Mr. and Mrs. Briar were due at the site at nine a.m.

  While they ate, Ella updated her purple notebook:

  We found a crack in the wall near the hawk and globe paintings. We heard two men arguing.

  They kept saying this word. We looked it up: Simeiomatario. It means “notebook” in Greek.

  Mrs. Briar’s cell phone rang. She picked it up and spoke to the person on the other end. Her expression grew serious.

  “What’s wrong, Jo?” Mr. Briar asked after she had hung up.

  “That was Dr. Pappas. She’s closing the site for the day. Apparently, in the middle of the night, someone saw a couple of guys trying to break in,” Mrs. Briar explained.

  Mr. Briar set his coffee cup down. “Did they take anything?”

  Mrs. Briar shook her head. “No. But she wants to shut down the dig until the police can investigate.”

  The twins stared at each other. An attempted break-in? Was this yet another mystery?

  Mrs. Briar peered at her watch. “I guess I’ll go over to the art museum. I need to do some research for my article anyway.”

  “The kids and I could squeeze in an extra math lesson while you’re working, Jo. Fun with fractions!” Mr. Briar said cheerfully.