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Saving the Statue of Liberty: Saint Michael the Archangel Academy, Mission 2

By Andrea Jo Rodgers

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CHAPTER 1

John Jenkins stared at the ceiling fan as it twirled around and around. Maybe I should try counting sheep again. After spending the last two days helping Team Liberty save Mount Rushmore from a trio of mischievous teens, thirteen-year-old John Jenkins was too excited to close his eyes. He still couldn’t believe he’d been chosen to be a student at St. Michael the Archangel Academy, a secret school for children with extraordinary talents.

The most unlikely of heroes, John found out on his first day that the academy picked him by mistake. Students must have a special gift or skill to attend St. Michael’s. The school invited him to join Team Liberty when someone made a “clerical error.” Mr. Nate Jorgenson, the Team Liberty supervisor, wanted to send him home on the spot. Fortunately, his new friends, Annabelle Johnson, Raphael Perez, and Shaniqua Forrester convinced Mr. Jorgenson to let him stay on probation. That meant one wrong move on his part, and they’d toss him out of the academy like wilted lettuce on a soggy hamburger bun.

John squirmed in his bed, rolling first to one side, then the other, and finally onto his stomach. Well, technically, it wasn’t his bed. It was his great-aunt Martha’s guest bed. John’s parents planned to leave on a humanitarian/archeological summer trip to Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania in the morning. When he video-chatted with his mom and dad earlier that evening, they’d reminded him he’d be spending the entire summer on his aunt’s cattle ranch in South Dakota.

Giving up on sleep, he decided to trek down the brick path that connected Aunt Martha’s ranch house to her garage. As John silently opened the kitchen door, his aunt’s miniature long-haired dachshund, Custer, barked twice and wagged his tail.

“Okay, you can keep me company, buddy.” John missed his own dog, a jet-black Belgian sheepdog named Ranger. His parents said Ranger couldn’t fly with him to South Dakota, so they sent him and John’s four-year-old brother, Wyatt, to his grandparents’ house in Maryland. He paused a second and pulled out his cell phone.

HI, GRANDMA. HOW’S RANGER? he texted.

She replied almost immediately. HE’S FINE. HE MISSES YOU, OF COURSE, AND SO DOES WYATT. HAVE FUN WITH YOUR AUNT MARTHA. SENDING LOTS OF LOVE AND HUGS.

Cool antiques filled Aunt Martha’s garage, like a shiny black horse carriage and colorful oil paintings. When John explored it a few days earlier, he’d found a neat old oak rolltop desk with all sorts of compartments. Now he plopped down in its matching wooden chair and started examining the desk’s nooks and crannies. Clouds of dust wafted up into the air, and he let out several large trumpetlike sneezes. One of the sneezes rattled a small door on the right side of the desk. John tried to pull it open, but to his dismay, it wouldn’t budge.

He marveled at all the open slots on the left side of the desk. Hoping someone may have left an old letter or keepsake behind, he searched each cubbyhole. In the very back of the last one, he discovered something small and hard with an irregular shape. A key. I wonder what it’s for.

He spotted a small locked compartment, then brushed away a cobweb, placed the key into the keyhole, and eased the door. He reached inside and pulled out a small brown leather book. The upper corner of the worn and fragile cover curled up, so he tried to smooth it back down. He also fished out some loose-leaf paper, yellow from age, and an old-fashioned fountain pen.

John opened the book and turned to the first page, where someone had neatly written “Property of George Jenkins.” He searched his memory. Do I have a relative named George Jenkins? Mom or Dad never mentioned him.
John flipped through what appeared to be journal entries of varying lengths and returned to the first page.

June 15, 1897
What a day. I thank the good Lord that Mama, Papa, and I are alive. We arrived yesterday evening at Ellis Island—my very first day in America. We could barely contain our excitement after our long journey. Inspectors asked many questions, and the doctor checked us for disease. Thank goodness, we are all healthy.

Next they brought us to a large building. I heard one man call it the “detention pen.” Papa said we would spend the night there and go to New York City in the morning. They brought the women to the third floor and the men to the lower floor. Since we are a family, they led us to the L-shaped part of the building.

I was so excited, it took a long time to fall asleep. Then, at about half past midnight, a security guard yelled, “Fire! You must evacuate immediately.”

I could smell the acrid smoke and could hear the crackling of flames.

The family next to us became very upset. The woman did not want to leave, and her three small children cried.

“The fire is spreading quickly. We must get out right now,” the guard urged them.
Papa picked up the woman’s two little boys, and I lifted her young daughter into my arms. Mama took the mother firmly by her arm and led her to follow the guard into the hallway and down the stairs to safety. When we stepped outside, we could see that all the buildings would soon be lost in the terrible blaze.

The guard led us down a path towards a ferryboat called the John G. Carlisle, the newest Ellis Island boat.

“Get on board,” the guard said. “The boat will bring you safely to the Battery.”

Papa explained that the Battery meant New York City.

Just as we climbed on board, people began shouting. A woman became so frantic that she threw her baby into the burning grass. A deckhand rescued the infant.

John paused. Is that Aunt Martha calling me? Carefully he placed the journal back in the desk cubby where he’d found it.

A couple of birthdays ago, John’s mother gave him a brown leather-bound journal to write down special events in his life. He made it a point to call it a journal and not a diary.

John’s journal remained mostly blank because not that many exciting things happened to him (not counting the past few days). He did write about the time his pet frog, Will, got loose, and his mom found him in her bed that night. (She was not happy.) He also wrote about the day last summer when he caught the perfect wave while surfing. It seemed as if the ride went on forever yet ended so soon.

John eyed the old loose-leaf paper and decided to delay going to bed. Instead, he began jotting down everything that had happened to him the past several days. He wrote about getting chosen for St. Michael’s by mistake, meeting his new friends from Team Liberty, and racing to find clues and solve puzzles to prevent the Maleficus Academy’s Team Mischief from exploding a paint bomb on Mount Rushmore.

John folded the loose-leaf paper and placed it in his pocket. Mr. Jorgenson, his instructor at the academy, had told him to be back at school by nine o’clock sharp. He really needed some sleep.

John picked Custer up and rushed along the dark path into the kitchen, where he found Aunt Martha slicing a watermelon.

“I thought you were asleep.” John’s stomach growled when he spotted the scrumptious fruit. He eyed it longingly and inched toward the counter.

“There’s nothing like cool watermelon on a warm summer night.” She passed him a large wedge. “I heard you step out, so I waited up for you. Did you get to speak to your parents earlier?”

“Thanks.” John chomped into the watermelon before answering his aunt’s question. “Yes, I spoke with them a few hours ago. Mom said they’ll be leaving for Africa very early tomorrow morning. She won’t be able to call again before that, but she said she’d send lots of texts before they board the flight.”

John fought off a wave of homesickness. It’s not like I could go home anyway. No one else is there. Why do they have to go so far away? But he knew the answer. Archeology meant as much to his father as drinking a cold glass of water does to a hiker in a hot, dry dessert.

John plopped down at the table. He’d missed a group text from his best friends, Chloe Armstrong and Jackson Miller. WE’RE PLANNING TO GO SWIMMING TOMORROW. WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO?

John fought off another pang of homesickness. He’d love to go swimming with his friends. He could practically feel the warm rays of sun on his shoulders as he envisioned diving into the pool with them.

Watermelon juice dribbled down his chin, and he wiped it with the back of his hand. A few drops landed on his phone, so he brushed them off with a napkin. He knew much of what went on at St. Michael’s Academy was top secret. He wasn’t sure exactly what he could write about it and what he couldn’t. He hadn’t even told them about yesterday’s adventure yet. Maybe he could ask Team Liberty what they told their friends about their work.

I’M GOING TO MY INTERNSHIP, he finally texted.

John fought back a yawn. “Good night, Aunt Martha.”

He hugged her tightly before heading upstairs to bed. Custer followed at his heels, so John lifted him onto his bed. Custer licked his hand and burrowed under the covers. If I want to be ready to take on Team Mischief in the morning, I need to get some sleep.

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