Free Book Scavenger by Jennifer Chambliss Bertman

“The Rivalry of Poe and Griswold.”
    â€œThey knew each other?” James asked. “I thought Poe was … dead. Like, a long time ago.”
    â€œI did, too.” Emily clicked the link, and the two leaned toward the screen and began reading. “Oh, it’s about a Rufus Griswold. Different first name.” According to the article, Rufus Griswold and Edgar Allan Poe were both East Coast writers in the mid-1800s who were familiar with each other but didn’t get along. After Edgar Allan Poe died, Rufus Griswold published a mean-spirited obituary about Poe. It began, Edgar Allan Poe is dead. He died in Baltimore the day before yesterday. This announcement will startle many, but few will be grieved by it. And then, to the surprise of a lot of people, he became Poe’s literary executor, which meant he had access to all of Poe’s papers. He later published a biography about Poe that was full of lies and attacked his character.
    â€œHe must be related to Garrison Griswold, right?” James asked. “I mean, what are the chances their last name is just a coincidence?”
    â€œThey must be,” Emily said. “I don’t understand what that means, though. Why hide a Poe book for his game when his ancestor hated the guy?”
    â€œMaybe Mr. Griswold feels badly about it,” James suggested. “Maybe choosing Poe is his way of making amends.”
    â€œThat’s possible.” Emily scrolled down the web page. “Or maybe he simply likes Poe and doesn’t care what this Rufus guy felt about him. But I’m not sure how knowing any of this tells us how to play Mr. Griswold’s game.” Emily studied the book on her lap, as if the beetle on the cover might start talking and give them the answer.
    â€œWell…” James twisted his computer chair back and forth as he thought. “Maybe the question to ask is, Why The Gold-Bug ? We read ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’ last year at Halloween. I’ve never heard of The Gold-Bug before yesterday. So why not use the more popular story? Or any other story of his? There’s got to be a reason why he chose this particular one.”
    Emily flipped through The Gold-Bug again, sorting through what she knew about Mr. Griswold and his games, and the little she knew about Poe.
    â€œThis story is about a treasure hunt. A man finds a gold-bug and a piece of parchment, and then he discovers that when he heats the parchment a cipher appears. He cracks the cipher and it leads him and two friends to buried treasure. So … maybe Mr. Griswold is planning something like that.”
    James’s eyes widened. “And the hidden words are part of a message that leads to buried treasure. Do you think that’s it?”
    Emily’s mouth crooked up in a half smile. “After he organized the life-sized Mastermind tournament at Crissy Field last winter, people kept asking Mr. Griswold what game he had planned next. He said he had something in the works, something major. A secret message that leads to buried treasure sounds pretty major to me.”
    *   *   *
    Emily returned to her apartment later that morning, still trying to wrap her head around her big discovery. She couldn’t believe she’d found Mr. Griswold’s next game. Ever since she joined Book Scavenger years ago and read all the stories shared on the forums about his San Francisco games, she’d hoped that somehow she’d get to participate in one in person. And now she had not only stumbled across his game, but it was also entirely possible she and James were the only people who knew about it so far.
    As excited as she was that she’d found Mr. Griswold’s game, and her hunch that it would be a treasure hunt like in The Gold-Bug story, she still didn’t know what to do with the hidden words. Puzzling over everything she’d just learned, Emily walked into their kitchen to find her mom