Free Wade and the Scorpion's Claw by Tony Abbott

some of which looked like they belonged in a hospital emergency room. There was one person in a lab coat, bending over a magnifying glass. He talked briefly with Dr. Powell, then left with the guard.
    She set down the spice box on one end of the white worktable. “Now, the tracing. May I?”
    She made a photocopy of it and trimmed the extra paper away. Her fingers trembling slightly, she placed it gently over the box. She drew in a breath. “Wow. A perfect match. This is pretty amazing, I have to tell you. See how these strands of the design on your tile continue across the other six? What I wouldn’t give to have the original.” She gave us a quizzical look. “Excuse me for a second. I need to grab a couple of reference books. Please don’t touch anything.” She hurried out of the lab, and we were alone.
    I knew I shouldn’t have moved an inch, particularly after what my dad had said about not showing the original. But something came over me with the box just sitting there. At least I had to see the tile next to it. I fished it out of my pocket and held it over the gap in the box lid.
    â€œWade . . .” Becca lifted her hand to me, then stopped. “No, go ahead. Do it.”
    Darrell and Lily crowded on either side of us, breathless. The room went absolutely silent, like a vacuum. Like the cave in my dream. Trying to still my shaking fingers, I lowered the tile until it nearly touched the box. It slid down out of my fingers and dropped into place.
    The moment I moved my hand away, the round jade tiles, all seven of them, began to turn.

CHAPTER ELEVEN
    E ach tile revolved in place as if on an invisible axis. A few went clockwise, others counterclockwise, some slowly, others more quickly, like seven dials seeking a single combination.
    â€œWade . . . Wade . . . ,” Becca whispered. I didn’t know what she meant by that, because she didn’t say anything else. I wanted to answer, “Becca . . . Becca . . .” But I just looked up at her.
    Then the box made a low grinding noise, like tumblers shifting.
    Darrell shook his head. “Good-bye to the Darrell gallery. Dude, you just busted it.”
    â€œHe didn’t bust it,” Lily hissed. Then she shot me a look. “Wade, you better not have.”
    One by one, the tiles stopped moving until only one—the slowest one, the one from Mr. Chen—was still spinning. Then it stopped, too.
    So did the grinding. What had been a random collection of jade designs just moments before was now lined up in a single sequence across the top of the box. A complete picture emerged out of the threads of jade.
    It was a scorpion.
    â€œScorpion, for Scorpio, the constellation?” asked Lily, without waiting for an answer. “And the relic! I know it’s inside the box. This is what Leathercoat is looking for. We found another relic!”
    Could we possibly have encountered a second relic so soon?
    The answer was no. Seconds after the scorpion appeared in the design, the lid sprang open on invisible hinges, probably for the first time since the seventh tile was removed. The box was empty. Oddly, however, the inside of the box was coated with a layer of dull gray metal that I thought might be lead. That was what had made it heavy. The inside of the lid, also lead, had several lines of Chinese characters engraved on it.
    Then the curator came back, toting a big pile of books.
    She stopped in her tracks when she saw the spice box. “What in the world did you do?”
    â€œWe . . . ,” I started. I took a deep breath before continuing. “We had the seventh tile, not just a tracing. I know we should have told you, and we’re sorry. We can’t really tell you how we got it, but it was given to us by a nice man who is now—”
    â€œOut of town,” Darrell said, jumping in.
    â€œDo you have any papers?” Dr. Powell asked.
    â€œLike our