“Right,” I say.
I crane my neck and see the westbound Judah train approaching. I can catch the next bus to the Legion of Honor. From there, all I have to do is walk the golf course until I see the same hill from the photo. Golf flag at the top. Boulder to the left. I could have the coordinates within an hour. I could have my application to the Park Department in before dark.
I watch the train until it’s right about to pull up to the stop across the street. I’m closer to it than Cam is. I’m not faster than him, but I am closer. And at this point, the one thing I’ve learned from Cam’s tactics is that the only surefire way to get ahead is to take whatever shortcuts you can get.
I sigh and make the most disappointedtsksound I can manage.
“Thanks for ruining this entire thing,” I say.
I shuffle down the rest of the walkway until I’m out of his sight, then immediately sprint down the block and catch the train just before it leaves. I hop inside and sit down, then take my phone out to click open the permit application from the Park website.
I may not have Cam on my side anymore. Or Sunny. Or Gabriel. Or Julia. But I still have this hunt. And I am not letting it go for anything.
I am going to find that treasure first.
Chapter Thirty-Four
In the summer before ninth grade, Cam’s mom scooped me for a family trip to the Santa Cruz boardwalk. Somehow Cam convinced me to ride the Whirlpool of Death, a roller coaster that makes three full-circle loops.
“We’re going to get stuck,” I had told him as we strapped ourselves in. “The power’s going to shut off at the worst possible moment, and we’re going to be trapped on this thing while we’re upside down.”
But Cam said that wasn’t possible because of something called kinetic energy. Apparently, roller coasters are designed to move through those loops with or without power. They only need power to get up the steepest hills. The rest is just physics.
When I ran away from Cam and hopped the Judah train, I figured the treasure hunt had the same kind of thing.Kinetic energy.That betraying the yearbook crew and racing ahead of Cam would be totally fine, because as soon as I found thetreasure, everything would be okay. I could deal with all the consequences of my admittedly questionable actions while holding on to an actual piece of hidden San Francisco history.
I didn’t think I would get stuck in the middle of a loop on the way.
It turns out, applying for a dig permit from the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department doesnothave kinetic energy. It has the opposite of kinetic energy. While I’ve waited for my dig to get approved over the last two weeks, I’ve had to watch Gabriel, Julia, and Sunny avoid me at every turn in the hallways. I’ve had to trade silent death glares with Cam while we’ve both been abnormally tight-lipped with each other. I thought I knew what it was like to be a loner before. I thought I had been mostly on my own since Cam left me. But that wasn’t true. I didn’t realize I had made new real friends until those new friends also disappeared. This really is what it’s like to be stuck while completely upside down.
I check my watch again for the Recreation and Park ranger to finally lead me on the Nature Safety course and let me dig my hole. I’m waiting directly outside the Legion of Honor museum. I’ve visited the museum—or more so the golf course surrounding it—almost every day since submitting my application. Luckily, the place I want to dig is totally open, totally undisturbed. Aside from a random pile of sticks I found during one of the visits, there hasn’t been a single sign of anyone else dropping in. I guess the permit requirement must have scared Cam off entirely.
Finally, a small vehicle comes rumbling over the hill. It lookslike the byproduct of a pickup truck and a golf cart mating in the wild. A woman with long braided hair steps out of the minitruck/golf cart. She’s holding a clipboard with two thick manuals stacked on top. She hands one of the manuals to me.
She looks around. “Waiting on one more.”
“No we’re not,” I say. “I don’t have a partner. It’s just me.”
Only then does it occur to me that she didn’t say it as a question.
“Sorry!” someone yells.
I turn just in time to see Cam running up the last of the path. He’s carrying a full-sized shovel over his head. “Bus was late.”
I stare at him. “No. Absolutely not.”
He stops and looks back at me. “What are you doing here?”
“My permit application was accepted.”
He shakes his head. “Uh, no.Mypermit application was accepted.”
The Park official eyes us back and forth. She lifts the other hefty manual and hands it to Cam.
“Actually, you two are lucky you both submitted an application. We don’t usually accept any alterations to our parks. But with multiple requests, the department was concerned about managing unauthorized digs. So they’ve agreed on the condition of a single alteration.”
Cam and I stand there stupidly.
“Excuse me,” I say.“A single alteration?”
