Figure out the gay icon—the giant between streets, Harvey Milk.
Locate the key to a cipher—Harvey’s “btwn streets” birthday party flyer.
Solve the decoded message—
“TREASURE ISLAND BUILDER READS ARCHITECTURE 723.”
Find the treasure.
So what the heck are we now doing with a random necklace and a treasure map?
“There’s something else in the box,” Gabriel says. “I think it’s a clue.”
“Another clue?” Sunny groans. “I don’t even care if I sound like Patrick Gates anymore. This is ridiculous.”
I let Cam hold on to the map as I pull out a final piece of paper, which isn’t rolled and tied neatly but folded into quarters and pressed into the bottom of the box.
The paper is just as brittle as the drawing. I pry it open and smooth it out as best I can into the center of our circle.
“Are you kidding me?” Sunny cries as she sees what’s on it.
The page is filled with random, nonsensical words. I study it a moment, then sit back on my haunches and turn to Cam. “What’s the key?”
He looks up from the map. “Huh?”
I gesture to the note. “It’s a substitution cipher, just like you said it would be. So, what’s the key?”
Cam bites one corner of his lower lip. I see him chewing over his next thought, trying to disguise his worry. It’s like he’s in the tree behind Portals of the Past again, and I’m standing on the ground, staring up at him. If he gives this away, we don’t need him anymore. We can go back to racing him to the end. He could lose everything.
“You promised,” I remind him.
He blinks out of the trance and clears his throat.
“Harvey,” he says quietly. “ ‘Harvey’ is the key.”
Julia pulls out her notebook. “How do you do a substitution cipher?” she asks me.
“Here.”
I hold out my hand for the pen and turn to a fresh page in her notebook, then write out the alphabet over the top row. Underneath, I write the word “HARVEY,” followed by the rest of the alphabet—minus all the letters in the key word.
“Now you write the message again,” I tell Julia. “But you replace everyAwith anH, everyBwith anA, everyCwith anR…”
“I get it,” Julia says, pulling the notebook back. She flips back and forth between the pages, decoding the message letter by letter until we’re left with a poem:
Congratulations! You have found
The San Francisco Bonus Round
For of my treasures, far and wide
My home imbues the deepest pride
No added ciphers, codes to break
Ground yourself for what’s at stake
Read the map, find the point
