The Case That Time Forgot by Tracy Barrett

‘hsswh’! And remember, it talks about a timekeeper. That can’t be a coincidence!”
    â€œYou’re right,” he conceded. They thought for a moment.
    â€œWho’s the greatest timekeeper?” Xena asked. “Thoth, god of time?”
    Xander shook his head. “If this is a key to where the amulet’s been hidden, then it’s not a who. It’s a
what
. A safe place—”
    â€œWait a second. Let’s think like Sherlock. Examine the evidence, not what we think we’re looking for. The amulet’s first hiding place, the water clock, was a timekeeper, so the greatest timekeeper could be a bigger clock. ‘Greatest’ can mean ‘biggest’ too, not just ‘best.’”
    â€œI know!” Xander jumped up. “Big Ben!” The clock in the tall tower at Westminster Palace was once the biggest clock in the world and was still one of the most famous.
    â€œBig Ben’s the bell, not the clock,” Xena reminded him.
    â€œDuh! But you know what I mean. The clock in the tower where the bell is.”
    â€œAll right. But what about ‘year’ and ‘thirty’? Maybe Karim’s grandfather was wrong and the amulet works once every thirty years instead of every fifty!”
    â€œWhy would Amin say that in code? Anyone who was looking for the amulet would already know how it worked and wouldn’t care if it was every thirty years or every fifty. I think this is telling someone where to find it, not what it is.”
    â€œWait!” Xena counted again. “What if ‘sun-god’ is one word instead of two? Then we get ‘nine’ instead of ‘year.’ Big Ben at nine-thirty?”
    Their eyes met over the pages of the book. At last they were getting somewhere!

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
    T hey still didn’t know exactly what they were looking for. They were pretty sure that they had to go to Big Ben and do something at 9:30, but what? And 9:30 in the morning or night?
    I hope it’s 9:30 in the morning, Xander thought. There’s no way Mom and Dad would let us go there so late. Just as he thought that, Xena’s cell phone rang.
Oh, please let it not be Mom and Dad!
Xander thought as hard as he could, but it was no use.
    â€œHi, Mom.” Xena rolled her eyes at him as she spoke. “Yes, I know. But it’s not that late! And we have a case that—but, Mom—but—” She frowned and kicked the ground while their mother’s voice came through the phone. “Okay. Be right back.”
    â€œLet me guess,” Xander said. “Dinner, homework, it’s getting dark—right?”
    Xena nodded. “You left out ‘You two should know better!’”
    â€œMaybe Sherlock Holmes didn’t have a computer and GPS,” Xander said as they headed for the flat. “But at least he didn’t have a
curfew
!”
    Xena managed to get most of her homework out of the way before dinner and went online to investigate a trip to Big Ben. She found the nearest Tube stop and then tried to find out what hours the big clock-tower was open. Her “Oh,
no
!” made Xander look up.
    â€œWhat?” he asked, and his heart sank as he saw her face.
    â€œWe can’t get in.” She pointed at the screen. “You can only go up inside the tower if your MP gets permission for you.”
    â€œWhat’s an MP?”
    â€œMember of Parliament, like your member of Congress. Only we’re not British, so we don’t even
have
an MP.”
    Xander read the text on the Web site. “What makes it worse,” he said, “is that people
used
to be able to get inside. That means that Amin could have gone in there and left something. It has to be something inside. If it was outside, people would have noticed it by now.”
    They sat in discouraged silence for a moment, and then something occurred to Xena.She turned to the keyboard and typed rapidly for a