The 39 Clues [Cahills vs. Vespers] 05 - Trust No One by Linda Sue Park

call,” Jake said.
    “Why not?” Dan demanded. “Why can’t he have a say in this?”
    “Yeah, and quit calling me that!” Atticus said.
    “Look, it’s my responsibility —”
    “STOP IT! STOP STOP STOP!”
    All three boys stared at Amy in shock. In the sudden silence, she could hear herself breathing. Gasping.
    “Think,” she whispered to herself. “Think think think . . .”
    But there was no room in her head for anything except fear, and she didn’t notice the worried glances exchanged by the boys.
    After a few moments, Dan spoke carefully. “Amy,” he said. “I agree with Jake — that it’s riskier to send the two of them back than it is to stay together. Besides, it won’t be for very long. I mean, the deadline — we’ll all be going back soon, one way or the other.”
    Somebody else making the decision.
On the one hand, it was exactly what Amy wanted at that moment. On the other, it felt terrible — weak, indecisive, and unworthy of the trust Grace had bestowed on her.
    Just this once, Grace.
    “Okay,” she mumbled.
    The sense of relief that the four of them would be staying together lasted about half a second. Then the dread returned.
    Um, dois, três . . .

    Dan insisted that he felt fine and wanted to leave the hospital. The doctor on call refused to sign the release form, saying that the patient needed to stay overnight for observation.
    After the doctor was gone, Dan looked at the others. “I can’t stay overnight,” he said. “We don’t have time for that.”
    A noisy discussion ensued, which boiled down to Dan vs. Amy with the Rosenblooms refereeing. When the nurse came in, they all fell silent, but then Amy asked her a few questions, and the nurse assured her that the overnight stay was just a precaution. She took Dan’s pulse and temperature.
    “You are healthy as
um cavalo —
horse,” she said cheerfully. “The young ones, they bounce quick, very good!” She left the room again.
    More fuel for Dan’s side of the argument. Finally, Atticus looked up curare poisoning online and found enough information to convince Amy — and himself, Dan thought — that it would be okay for Dan to leave the hospital.
    Amy may not be happy about it, but she knows we have to do this,
Dan thought as he hopped out of bed and got dressed.
    The foursome had no choice but to sneak away when the nurse’s back was turned. They caught a taxi outside the hospital.
    “I hope she doesn’t get in trouble for this,” Dan said, meaning the nurse. “She was really nice.”
    Dan’s left arm still seemed a little fuzzy, but otherwise he felt great. He wished Amy would stop fussing over him. She had made him zip his jacket all the way up to his chin. Like that made any difference, except to make him look totally uncool. At the same time, he knew she
needed
to fuss over him, so he tried to keep the sighs and eye-rolls to a minimum.
    “Now, where were we?” he asked.
    Their mission seemed a lifetime away, but they had to click back into search mode. “The folio,” Atticus said. “We were going to search underneath the walkway, remember?”
    “Any climbing stuff, you’re out of the picture,” Amy said to Dan. “And don’t even try to talk me out of it.”
    “Rope, harnesses, some carabiner clips,” Jake said. “A sporting-goods store would be our best bet. Second best, a hardware store.”
    “Anyone know how to say
carabiner clips
in Portuguese?” Dan asked. “Didn’t think so.”
    He booted up his laptop. “I’ll find an online translator,” he said. “Then maybe the driver can help us.”
    One of the Voynich images was now his home page. It was Folio 75 — the “plumbing picture.” He clicked on the browser icon, and the screen filled with the image of basins overflowing with water and naked women.
    Next to him, the driver glanced over. “Ah,” he said with a grin.
“Mabu, sim?”
    Dan looked at him blankly. The driver pointed to the image on the screen.
    “Isto é Mabu,”
he