The Key to Finding Jack by Ewa Jozefkowicz (best classic books to read TXT) 📕

The

Key to

Finding

Jack

Also by Ewa Jozefkowicz

The Mystery of the Colour Thief

Girl 38: Finding a Friend

The

Key to

Finding

Jack

Ewa Jozefkowicz

AN IMPRINT OF HEAD OF ZEUS

www.headofzeus.com

First published in the UK by Zephyr, an imprint of Head of Zeus, in 2020

Text copyright © Ewa Jozefkowicz, 2020

The moral right of Ewa Jozefkowicz to be identified as the author and Katy Riddell to be identified as the artist of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN (HB): 9781789543568

ISBN (E): 9781789543506

Cover illustration by Katy Riddell

Author photo by Ruta Zukaite

Head of Zeus Ltd

First Floor East

5–8 Hardwick Street

London EC1R 4RG

WWW.HEADOFZEUS.COM

Contents

Also by Ewa Jozefkowicz

Title Page

Copyright

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Acknowledgements

Coming in Spring 2021

The Cooking Club Detectives

Out now in Paperback

The Mystery of the Colour Thief

Girl 38: Finding a Friend

About the Author

About Zephyr

One

‘So listen to this one. You have a treasure chest that you want to send me in the post. Each of us has our own padlock with a key, but you don’t have the key to my padlock and I don’t have the key to yours. How can you send me the treasure chest and make sure nobody else can open it?’

We were sitting on Jack’s bed, staring out through the skylight. I was supposed to be in my own room fast asleep, but I’d sneaked up the stairs as I did so often.

Being six years older than me, Jack stayed up until whatever time he wanted, and he was hardly ever asleep when I crept in.

That night I could already hear the familiar engine roar. I knew without checking the clock that it was the 10.15 p.m. flight to New York. Right on cue, the flashing dot appeared in the black square of Jack’s skylight. I liked to imagine all the people sitting in the plane waiting to reach their destination. I even made up stories about them. The old lady going to visit her businessman son, who’d recently started working in Manhattan. A newly married couple off on their honeymoon – drinking champagne and kissing. And, in the row in front of them, a family with loads of kids coming home after spending a few weeks in London over the summer holidays. The stewardesses were a bit annoyed because the kids kept getting out of their seats and running up and down the aisle, colliding with the food and drinks trolleys.

I tried to focus my mind on Jack’s riddle.

‘Easy. I would send you the key in a separate envelope. Only you and I would know what it’s for,’ I declared triumphantly.

‘Nah. Come on, Flick, you can do better than that. It could easily be intercepted.’

I racked my brain.

‘Oh, I don’t know. Crack the padlock open with a hammer?’ I asked, although I knew it was the wrong answer.

‘You have to be subtler than that. If it’s possible to force it open, anyone could. Think harder, sergeant.’

We had a joke from when we were little that Jack was a detective doing lots of undercover work, and I was his main contact in the police force. He’d explained that this role was much more important than being his assistant (which I always wanted to be), because it meant heading up the detective operations in the field. ‘The difference is that all your work is legal. Some of what I do is undercover and shady. Together we make a great team though.’

The roles were perfect, because I loved to follow rules and Jack hated them. One of his absolute favourite things was to make people laugh. He often got away with his practical jokes, and when he didn’t, he got detentions. Quite a lot of them. That made Dad really cross, especially now, as Jack was supposed to be concentrating on his work and getting into uni. Then Mum would be cross because Dad was cross, and normally Mum was on Jack’s side. Dad said she was over-protective of him. But Jack was also cleverer than anyone I knew and could solve the hardest puzzles and mysteries in seconds.

‘Remember that working out a riddle might take a few steps. Let me start you off. You have your own padlock with a key. You send me the chest with your locked padlock attached. I receive it, but instead of trying to open the chest, I add my padlock to it, also locked. Then I send it back to you. Is it beginning to make sense? You’d be receiving the same chest but this time with two padlocks.’

‘Of course! I unlock my padlock and send the chest back to you with only your padlock attached, and you can unlock it and get the treasure!’

He held up his hand for a high five. Jack was like that – helping me towards the answer but making me feel I’d got there myself.

He passed me his box of chocolate frogs and I sucked on one happily, even though I’d brushed my teeth. At first the mix of minty toothpaste and chocolate was disgusting, but I knew that after about thirty seconds my mouth would be filled with caramelly wonder.

Each time I cracked one of Jack’s puzzles I immediately felt sleepy and he had to pinch me to send me back to my own room. But that night I was determined to stay awake for as long as possible, because it would be the last time in