The Maze of Bones (The 39 Clues #1)(16)

"Yes," Amy said. "I mean, yes, ma'am."

"You sure there's somebody home? Your guardian or whatever?"

"Nellie Gomez," Dan said. "She's our au pa -- "

His eyes widened. He looked at Amy, and he could tell she was thinking the same thing. It was so obvious even a Holt could've seen it.

"Nellie!" they said together. They got out of the police car with their cat and the jewelry box and raced up the front steps.

Nellie was just where Dan figured she'd be -- sacked out on the sofa with her earbuds in, bobbing her head to whatever weird music she was listening to while she punched text messages into her phone. A stack of cookbooks sat next to her on the couch. The top one read Exotic Mandarin Cuisine.

Dan let Saladin down to explore the apartment. Then he noticed the empty carton of Ben & Jerry's Cherry Garcia -- his Cherry Garcia -- sitting on the coffee table.

"Hey!" Dan protested. "That was mine!" Of course, Nellie didn't hear him. She kept jamming out and typing on her phone until Amy and Dan stood right over her.

Nellie frowned like she was annoyed she had to actually work. She pulled out one earbud. "Back already? Whoa -- what happened? You're all grungy."

"We need to talk," Amy said.

Nellie blinked, which was pretty cool to watch since her eyes were done in blue glitter eye shadow. She had a new nose ring shaped like a silver snake. Dan wondered why she wanted a snake curled inside her nostril.

"What do we need to talk about, kiddo?" she asked.

Amy looked like she wanted to hit Nellie with the jewelry box. Dan knew she hated it when Nellie called her kiddo, but she kept her voice polite.

"We -- we've got a deal for you. A new babysitting deal. It pays a lot of money."

Nellie pulled out her other earbud. They had her attention now. Three words always worked with Nellie: guys, food, and money.

She stood up. She was wearing her ripped British flag T-shirt, faded jeans, and pink plastic shoes. Her hair looked like a pile of wet straw -- half black, half blond.

She folded her arms and looked down at Amy. "Okay. What kind of deal?"

Dan was afraid Amy would freeze up, but she seemed to be keeping her nerves pretty well. Nellie wasn't as intimidating as some of the other au pairs they'd had.

"Urn ... it's a trip," Amy said. "You'd be our chaperone."

Nellie frowned. "Why isn't your aunt asking me about this?"

"Oh, she broke her neck," Dan blurted out.

Amy gave him a look like

Shut up!

"Broke her neck?" Nellie asked.

"It's not serious," Dan said. "Just a little break. She's, uh, going to be in the hospital for a while, though. So she figured we'd better take a trip. We talked to our Uncle Alistair. He said we'd need an adult to go with us."

That last part, at least, was true. Dan didn't know where he was going with this, but he plunged ahead. He figured if he could just keep Nellie confused, she couldn't call him a liar.

"It's this thing our family does," he said. "Kind of like a scavenger hunt. We visit a bunch of places and have fun."

"What sort of places?" Nellie asked.

"Oh, all kinds." Dan thought about the map in Grace's secret library -- all those pushpins. "That's part of the fun. We don't know all the places at the beginning. We could go all over the world."

Nellie's eyebrows shot up. "You mean, like, for free?"

Amy nodded, as if she were warming up to Dan's methods. "Yeah, it could take months! Traveling to exotic places where there's lots of ... um, food and guys. But you wouldn't need to be with us the whole time -- just for the adult stuff like buying airline tickets and checking into hotels and stuff. You'd have a lot of time on your own."

Yes, please, Dan thought. Nellie was okay, but the last thing he wanted was her following them around too closely.

"How are you going to pay for it?" Nellie said suspiciously.

Amy opened the jewelry box and dumped it on the table. The pearl bracelet, the diamond ring, and the emerald earrings glittered.

Nellie's mouth dropped open. "Oh -- my -- god. Did you steal that?"

"No!" Amy said. "It's from our grandmother! She wanted us to take this trip. She said so in her will."

Dan felt impressed. That wasn't exactly a lie, either.

Nellie stared at the jewelry. Then she picked up her phone and dialed.

Dan tensed. He had visions of Social Services -- whatever that was -- swooping in, guys with white coats and nets, maybe, taking them to a foster home.

"Hello?" Nellie said into the phone. "Yeah, Dad, listen, I've got a new job for the Cahills."

Pause.

"Yeah, it's really good money. So I can't make dinner tonight like I promised." Nellie picked up the diamond ring, but Amy snatched it away. "How long? Um ... we're traveling. So a few weeks. Maybe ... months?"

She yanked the phone away from her ear. On the other end, her dad was yelling in rapid Spanish.

"Dad!" Nellie said.

"No, claw. But the fall semester doesn't start for a month, and it's all, like, boring courses anyway.

I could just take more hours in the spring and -- "