Chapter 7
Looks Like You're Going To See Your Penguins
I woke up feeling like there was a ton of bricks on top of me. Don't get me wrong. It was a comfortable ton of bricks. But nonetheless, I couldn't breath.
When I opened my eyes, I found the reason of my lack of oxygen...in the form of my handsome boyfriend.
Max was laid out on top of my body, which was not the position we'd fallen asleep in. Most of the time, I'd wake up with him holding me to his chest. But no, not this time. His head was on my chest and one of his arms around my waist while the other was cushioning my head. I was betting both of his arms were asleep since he had me laying on them for possibly the entire night.
His light snore was quite adorable as I watched him sleep. His face was tilted toward me so I could see his eyes jumping behind his lids. Hopefully he was having a good dream...and that dream was one about me.
I reached up, brushing my hand over his soft, dark hair and down his cheek. He shifted slightly, only to pull me closer to him before settling on me again.
He stayed like that for another half hour or so. By then, I was used to his weight on top of me. I knew when he was starting to wake up, though, because his heartbeat was quickening. He shifted on me and leaned his head up more to kiss the side of my neck, his eyes still closed.
"You awake?" Max asked, his voice husky from sleep.
"Yeah," I said, smiling, even though he could see. "I have been for a while."
"Mm," he mumbled into the crook of my neck.
Max's arms tightened on me and he slid up so his face closer to mine. I couldn't help it when I started laughing. His face was still pressed against my neck and I could feel it when he started smiling. He moved his arm from around my waist and slowly trailed his hand over my stomach and then up under my shirt.
And I knew exactly what he was going to do.
"Don't you dare," I said, pulling the hair at the nape of his neck warningly.
Leaning his face back, he looked down at me innocently, his hand still on my bare stomach. "What?"
My eyes narrowed. Sure, he looked incredibly adorable with his hair sticking up every which way. But behind that innocent smile was a plan. An evil plan.
"You know exactly what," I said, trying to push him off of me. "You're going to start tickling me. But maybe you realize that my leg is in a great position to aim a kick at something important."
Max's hand almost immediately stopped and he wrapped his arm around my waist again, pulling me up against him. I laughed as he lifted me up toward him and planted a kiss on my lips.
"I guess I have to stop. I want children one day, so I won't chance it."
I laughed, kissing him again. "That's what I thought. Now, get off of me."
He didn't have time to move before the door to our room burst open and two figures appeared in the doorway, their hands covering their eyes as they walked in.
"Are you two decent? I know it was probably a fun night, but you could at least put some clothes on when there are guests," Ben said, his grin broad on his face.
My cheeks immediately flamed as Max laughed and rolled off of me. I sat up, adjusting my shirt just as both Ben and Drew opened their eyes. The two of them were still in their pajamas and looked like they had both just woken up also.
"Ha! We knew something freaky was going on in here!" Drew said, pointing to me. "You dirty birds."
Max just laughed as both of them made themselves comfortable at the foot of our bed. I moved back, pulling the covers up around my waist.
"What are you guys doing? Usually you sleep for half the day when we don't have something going on," I said as Max settled himself beside me and leaned against the pillow. His fingers were trailing up and down my back. Didn't he realize that I had trouble thinking straight whenever he did something like that?
"Well, we really couldn't since we do have something going on," Drew said.
"Speaking of Sophie, since that's who you're obviously referring to, is she up yet?" Max asked
Ben shrugged, seeming like he really didn't care. "Don't know. We heard something going on downstairs, so maybe she's robbing you guys blind and making off with that book of hers."
I rolled my eyes at his words...but was now a little suspicious as to what they'd been hearing downstairs.
"Should we go down then?" I asked, looking at the two of them and then back at Max.
Max, who was still running his fingers up and down my back, shrugged and smiled slightly. "Whatever you want to do, love."
Ben started coughing then and it sounded like he was saying 'whipped' at the same time. Drew was laughing and all I wanted to do was lean forward and smack Ben upside the head. Max beat me to it, though.
"Come on," I said, pushing the covers off of me and swinging my legs over the side of the bed so I could stand up. "Lets go see what's going on downstairs then." I looked over at Max and his bare chest as he looked at me with a smile. "And put on a shirt."
"Why?" he asked, running a hand down his chest. "Wanting all this for yourself?"
I couldn't help but grin as I rolled my eyes. "Exactly."
I went downstairs before the boys were even out of the bed. I could tell what Ben had been talking about with the banging, though it really wasn't that bad. It just sounded like someone was cooking something. And when I got a whiff of something that made my mouth start water to water, I followed my nose until I got to the kitchen.
Sure enough, someone was there alright. Sophie.
She was dressed just like I was - in her pajamas with a sweater over it - but probably looked a lot better than I did at the moment. Her hair was up in a ponytail and the sleeves of her sweater were rolled up as she flipped something over in a pan on the stove.
Apparently she'd felt me looking at her or probably just heard me come in because she turned around then and looked at me. A nervous smile was playing on her lips when she saw me standing there.
"Hi," she said. "Um, since no one was up, I thought I'd made breakfast for everyone. I...I hope that's okay. I'll clean it up when we're finished, though. Promise."
I just stood there and looked at her. Unfortunately, I was having a difficult time finding it in me to hate her, especially since she was making breakfast.
But if she poisoned it with something and killed me, I was totally going to come back and haunt her for the rest of her life.
"Thank you," I said, finally taking a few steps toward her. "And we'll get the guys to clean up afterward. You don't have to do it."
Sophie visibly relaxed, her shoulders dropping in relief. "Good," she said with a slight laugh.
Now I was really having a hard time hating her. She didn't seem like she was trying to sabotage anything. She actually was acting like she was trying to get me to like her, maybe even be friends.
I'll admit, though...she was growing on me. You wouldn't catch me saying that out loud, though.
"Do you need any help with anything?" I asked, walking up beside her.
She shook her head, pushing a blond strand of hair behind her ear and flipping the last of the pancakes she'd made on a plate beside the stove. "No, I think everything is finished," she said, and then glanced at me. "I'm sorry I had to ravage through your kitchen. I tried not to make a mess."
I smiled slightly, shaking my head. "It's fine. Max usually does the same thing whenever he cooks, only he destroys the place. There's usually something on every space on the counter. At least you didn't see it a few days ago."
Sophie smiled slightly, though there was something about it that kind of made me think she was upset about something. "Let me guess. That food fight that Ben and Drew were talking about?"
"Um, yeah," I said. I couldn't help it when my blush spread across my cheeks. She knew what had happened with that food fight by what Ben and Drew told her.
Sophie sighed from beside me and I looked over at see her with that same expression.
"What?" I asked. Was she going to say that she hated me for having Max when she didn't? If that was so, she was so going to...
"Max is so different with you than he was with me," she said.
Well, that totally caught me off guard.
"I...what do you mean?" I asked.
Sophie was just about to say something when we started hearing the boys as they made their way toward the kitchen. Like always, they were being incredibly loud, even for it being the morning. But when they came through the kitchen door and saw me and Sophie standing beside each other, watching their craziness as they came in, the three of them stopped dead in their tracks.
"What?" I asked.
"It's just..." Drew started, looking between me and Sophie. "We thought you h-"
"Well, breakfast is ready," I said quickly before he could finish that sentence. Couldn't have her hearing that now, could we? "And once we're finished you guys get to clean the kitchen."
Sophie started laughing from beside me as the three of them groaned. They'd get over it, though.
After breakfast, the guys did indeed clean up everything while Sophie and I sat on the bar stools behind the counter and watched. But once they were finished and my kitchen was spotless again, we all headed back up to our rooms so we could get ready for the day.
About an hour and a half later, we were heading to Dad and Brielle's house. Sophie was sitting in between Ben and Drew again in the backseat while Max and I were up front. She was holding onto the book of hers that apparently had the clue inside, trying to ignore Ben and Drew, who were asking he if they could just take a peek.
When Max pulled up into the driveway, Brielle was already standing by the front door with Addy in her arms. They were both bundled up to shield away the cold. I wasn't surprised, though, since I'd called her before we left our house to tell them we were coming over.
Addy was being as cute as ever when she saw me walking up the sidewalk. She started giggling and blowing spit bubbles when I got to her and Brielle.
"Well, hello there, my beautiful baby sister," I said, smiling at her as I took her from Brielle. Lifting her up, I kissed both of her cheeks before I spotted Max come up beside me. He smiled down at her and she started giggling even more and chewed on her fists.
"Hey, Addy," he said, running a hand over her dark hair.
"Well, I'm glad all of you survived the night," Brielle said, laughing. "Hopefully your house did, too?"
I laughed, nodding. "Yeah, it did."
"And if it didn't, I'm sure Callie would have had us rebuild it," Ben said, rolling his eyes. "I think we're going to be her housekeepers whenever we stay there!"
"Of course, you are. You're not staying at my house for free."
Brielle just laughed again and nodded toward the front doors. "Come on and lets get inside before we freeze."
We headed inside, taking off our coats and shoes before we even stepped off the run that was spread out at the front door inside. I still had Addy in my arms as we walked into the living room where Dad was sitting on the couch and watching something on the flat screen. When he saw us, he smiled and stood up.
"I was wondering when you guys were going to get here," he said, giving me a hug while being careful of not squishing Addy. "So are we going to take a look at this cipher? I've been itching to get my hands on it."
Sophie, who had been standing beside Brielle, looked at him with a smile, holding up the book. "I'm wanting to figure it out also," she said, laughing. "I have been for years now."
Dad smiled at her as she held out the book for him. When he took it in his hands, he ran his hand over the cover before looking over at Max. "Max, if you'd please get my laptop from the kitchen, we'll go into the dining room and see what we can do about this cipher."
Max smiled at him. "Of course."
We all followed Dad down the hallway and into the dining room, prepared to make camp at the table if it took us a while to decode. Max came in a few moments later with Dad's laptop in his grasp. After passing it to him, he sat down in the chair on my other side. We were across from Dad just as he opened the front cover and we all leaned forward, trying to see what was on the pages.
"The first couple are just of what my father had heard around the Embassy before he found the cipher," Sophie said. She leaned forward and flipped through a few of the pages before stopping at one. "There. That's where he gives what the cipher was, plus a little backstory, though it's the one that I've already told you."
"And the rest of it?" Dad asked, looking up at her.
"It's all whatever information he could find on Fraternitatem Tempus."
He nodded and pulled the book closer to him so he could see the cipher, which made the rest of us have to lean over the table to get a look at it.
"Is this the cipher?" Dad asked, looking up at Sophie.
She nodded. "My father's been trying to decode it since he got it. He's tried everything he could, but nothing makes sense when he finishes. He was trying something different when I left to come here, but I don't think it worked for him either."
Brielle shook her head as she looked down at the numbers and then copied them down onto a sheet of paper that Dad had on the table when we got in here. She wrote them big enough for us to be able to see them on the other side of the table.
It was just numbers, looking like they held no meaning, even though we know they did: 65156266.
"I'm trying to think of all of the ciphers dealing with numbers, but there must be dozens," Brielle said. "There are random number ciphers, the Polybius square, though those typically pair numbers..."
I kept my eyes on the numbers, going through the few ciphers that I knew dealt with numbers. They weren't making any sense, though, just like Sophie's dad found out. But then, just like most of the time when I was trying to figure out something in my head, I had a stroke of genius.
Well, maybe it was a little more obvious than i thought since it seemed like Max got the same idea at the same time.
"What if its not a cipher at all?" he said, looking up at Dad. "Latitude and longitude. What about that? Yes, there are four different possibilities of where it could send us, but it probably put us at ideal places for all four. Only one has to be logical."
Dad was nodding before Max even finished and Brielle started writing down the four possibilities for the numbers. Her pen started scratching across the paper as she tried to write as fast as she could.
65.15 N 62.66 E
-65.15 S 62.66 E
65.15 N -62.66 W
-65.15 S -62.66 W
After she finished them, Dad turned to his computer and started plugging in the coordinates. It took him a few moments, but then he angled the screen so that we'd all be able to see it.
"Well, we can cross off the middle two since they put us directly in water," he said. "I highly doubt that there would be a clue of this importance at the bottom of the ocean."
"You never know," I said, remembering all of the other clues we'd found in water. But he was right about this one. This treasure was a secret government coverup that we were one of the lucky few to know about.
"As for the first, I don't think it would be hidden in mountains of Russia," Dad continued. "But as for the last, I'm thinking it would be a perfect spot. It's not really well traveled and no one would be able to stumble upon it by accident either."
"What is it?" Max asked.
Dad turned the computer toward him for a moment before he turned it back toward us. He'd made the map on the screen bigger, showing us the exact location on of the points was.
And right where that point was, Dad had typed the name just above it.
Antarctica.
***I told you guys that I'd have them go to Antarctica! And now they are! Yay!!!1
Sorry for the wait, but I've kind of been lazy when it comes to writing. Plus I've been working and going to school, which isn't a very good combination with writing either. :)
But hey! I uploaded! And it's a longer chapter! :D
And I want to make it to 30 votes and 12 comments. We got the comments. But as for the votes...not so much. :( We can do it this time, though, can't we?!?
Comment, Vote, and Like!!!1