It all started when I left the window open.

    It was June sixteenth. I opened the window because there was a nice breeze, and I hoped that my Summer Reading paper would fly out the window and I’d have an excuse not to do it. But mainly just the first reason.

    My room has pale grey walls, dark hardwood floors, and a light blue door. My bedspread was covered in doves, my favourite animal. Besides my bed, I had my desk, nightstand, drawers, and bookshelf. There was also the closet, of course, but I didn’t consider that part of my room.

    Then the dove flew in.

    It looked like a perfectly normal dove, with nothing

odd about it-except for the fact that it had just flown into my room. And the fact that it was holding a note. It dropped it on my bed.

    Dear Holly,

    Hello. My name is Almawt (pronounced al-mul-chu). Yes, I can write. No, I can not talk. Yes, I can understand spoken English. This will sound surprising, but I have turned your house into a bomb. You have one hour to stop it from going off. You might not believe me-but why take the risk?

    From,

    Almawt

Okay. That was the stupidest thing I have ever heard. Someone probably wrote the letter as a joke, and somehow got this dove to send it.

    And then another note appeared. Like, out of thin air.

    Dear Holly,

    You met Almawt? The dove? By the way- Almawt means doom in Arabic. Literally. Creepy, I know.

    Don't ask for my name. I won’t tell you-plain and simple.

    What Almawt is saying is true. If you think it is impossible to turn a house into a bomb, there are actually non-magical ways of doing it. That’s not the case here. Almawt is using magic. Don’t believe in magic? How else do you think this note appeared out of nowhere?

    To stop the bomb, you need to collect eight keys hidden around your house. I’m

sorry, but I can’t flat-out tell you where they are. Each note that I send must be read over to see if I’m saying too much. But I can tell you the first key that you need to find- the emerald one. Yes, real emeralds.

    You better hurry. There are eight keys to find.

    From,

    Nameless.

    Okay. Now things were getting crazy. What if the first dove wasn’t lying? What if Nameless was lying? What kind of code name was Nameless, anyway? But the note just appeared…

    Might as well find this green key anyway.

    But where was it?

    Dear Holly,

    Sorry. I forgot to give you your first clue. What must be broken before you can use it?

    From.

Nameless

    What must be broken before you can use it…had I heard that before? How can something whole be useless, but it’s useful broken? That just didn’t make sense.

    So I grabbed my cell phone. Maybe the answer was there.

    I typed in my PIN number, and the homescreen came up. I clicked on Google Chrome. Then a message appeared: CONNECT TO WIFI, CLICK HERE. So I clicked on it.

Sorry. No internet allowed.

    Oh yay. That’s helpful.

    So I went down to the kitchen to grab a snack. I opened the fridge, searching for the ice cream. Mom would never have to know…

    Milk. Yoghurt. Coconut milk yoghurt. Eggs.

    Eggs.

    You break up an egg to cook it.

    What must be broken before you can use it?

    Now that made sense. I opened the egg carton.

    Inside was a green jewelled key.

    So maybe this was more real than I thought. Mom would never let me stay home by myself again if I blew

up the house.

    Or maybe it was just a harmless scavenger hunt. Better than Summer Reading, in my opinion.

    Dear Holly,

    Good job! Some keys might be harder, some might be easier. Next up, you will find a sapphire key. Again, made of real sapphires. Mini forest.

    From,

    Nameless

    Mini forest? Really? What could that be?

    Broccoli? It kind of looked like a tree. I looked in the broccoli container. Nothing.

    So I began to walk around the house. Not in any potted plant. Not in Mom’s indoor herb garden. Not in

any vase.

    So I twisted the knob to go outside.

    It didn’t move.

    Then I saw the note.

    YOU CAN NOT LEAVE!

    Oh, great. So that means it wasn’t in the garden.

    I had checked every other room.

    Now time for Jessica’s room.

    Jessica was my older sister, and a sophomore in high school. She was a total neat freak, a great student, and the most popular girl at Riverside High School. She told me to never enter her room. Ever. She was probably worried that I would touch something and break it, or

put it in the wrong place. Come on-I was in seventh grade, not kindergarten!

    But Jessica was out with her boyfriend, Luke, so she would never have to know.

I opened the door.

    Jessica’s room had the same dark hardwood floors as my room, and the same pale grey walls, but it ended there.

    Her bed was perfectly made, with a pink duvet, white pillows, and a stuffed white cat. Yes, she had a stuffed cat, but I don’t think she sleeps with it-it was probably just for decoration.

    She also had a white desk, a dark brown nightstand

with a pale pink lamp, a white bookshelf, and a dark brown dresser. She got a walk-in closet and a bigger room because she was the older sister.

    On her bookshelf was Basil.

    Basil was a garden snake. She was sitting in her terrarium, asleep.

    Terrarium. Plants.

    Mini forest.

    I walked over to Basil. She opened her eyes.

    Next to her was a blue key.

    I assumed that garden snakes didn’t bite, so I reached my hand in and grabbed the blue key. Basil didn’t even move. Lazy snake. That was when Nameless sent her

next note.

    Dear Holly,

    Good job! You found the sapphire key. Now onto the next clue. Your sister may seem perfect, but she has secrets. I tried to make that one as easy as possible.

    From,

    Nameless.

    Secrets. Did Jessica have a diary?

    I started looking around her room. All of the books were actual books. All her closet held were tons of clothes and jewellery. Nothing in her nightstand except for a book. Drawer one of her dresser (there were three) just held other notebooks. Like, school ones. Plus there was a scrapbook. Drawer two held two purses and a pair

of earbuds. Drawer three was full of makeup.

    I opened the desk drawer.

    It was locked.

    Hey! My desk drawer didn’t lock. Spoiled.

    How would I open it?

    Then it hit me. I was literally in possession of two jewelled keys.

    I tried the blue one. Nothing.

    I tried the green one. The drawer opened.

    Inside was a wallet and a pink and grey journal. A diary.

    I picked up the diary.

    Underneath was a pink key.

    I tried the pink, blue, and green keys in the lock on the diary. Nothing. Oh, well.

    Dear Holly,

    Good job! That was the rose gold key. Sorry, but only your sister has the key to open that journal. Next up you will need to find the fourth key: the ruby key. The locked door. Window. Rose.

    From,

    Nameless

    The locked door. The door to the basement? The door to the basement had always been locked. Not that I minded. It was probably creepy down there anyway.

    I walked out of Jessica’s room to the basement door.

    The green key. Nothing.

The blue key. Nothing.

    The pink key. Nothing.

    The locked door. Window. Rose.

    I examined the window-and I saw a keyhole. Why did the window have a keyhole? Judging by the fact that the clue said rose, I tried the pink key.

    It opened.

    Inside were two pieces of paper. One read 0316. The other one read BasilNotes. Weird. They were both in Jessica’s handwriting, but I wasn’t interested in them.

    Because, sitting next to the two slips of paper, was a red key.

    I picked it up.

    Dear Holly,

    Good job! Things will get harder from here. Your next key is made from amethysts. Look in the purse.

    From,

    Nameless

    What purse? Jessica had two purses and at least four handbags. Were handbags just large purses? And I had a silver purse, gotten as a Christmas gift from Jessica. Plus, Mom had some purses and handbags too.

    I decided to check Jessica’s room first. I don’t know why, but I like going in there. Probably because it would annoy Jessica.

    When I entered her room, I saw that Basil was now

looking straight at me. Creepy.

    I first checked her closet. There were four handbags: one pink, one white, one silver, and one gold. I checked all of them. Nothing. Maybe handbags and purses were different.

    I then went over to Jessica’s dresser. I opened the second drawer. One purse was black, and the other dark blue. The black purse had nothing in it.

    The blue purse held a cell phone.

    Why didn’t Jessica bring her cell phone to her date? Did she forget it?

    The cell phone lit up when I touched it. PASSWORD, PLEASE. I typed in 0316. INCORRECT PASSWORD.

PLEASE TRY AGAIN. I typed in BasilNotes. It turned on. I decided to click on Google Drive. If there was a message, it would be there.

    Google Drive opened. So Jessica’s phone worked and mine didn’t. Just my luck.

    There was a document titled FOR HOLLY. Weird. I opened it.

    To: Hollydove@gmail.com

    From: Nameless@nomail.com

    Subject: The amethyst key

    Dear Holly,

    I know the email address for me is obviously fake, but I decided to do it that