Free The School for the Insanely Gifted by Dan Elish

pigeons. The animal leaped back to the ground, sprinted for the woods, but then stopped on a dime, a few feet from where Cynthia was about to start digging.
    â€œYou won’t find any nuts down there,” she said.
    By that point, the squirrel was scraping at the ground with its front paws. Harkin got down on one knee.
    â€œMaybe the little dude sees something we don’t?”
    Daphna took a step toward the squirrel. When her shadow crossed its path, it looked her up and down, then sprinted up the closer of the two trees. Without wasting a moment, Daphna dropped to her hands and knees and scraped away dirt at the squirrel’s spot. She quickly uncovered what appeared to be the top of some sort of box. Cynthia and Harkin joined in, tossing away handfuls of leaves, sticks, and muddy dirt. In less than a minute they had dug out a wooden box, a foot across and close to six inches deep. Wide-eyed, Daphna looked at her friends.
    â€œIt’s my mother’s old letter box.”
    â€œGo ahead,” Cynthia said. “Open it!”
    Daphna glanced up to make sure no one was snooping. In the distance, a mother was pushing a stroller toward a playground. In the other direction, through the trees, she could hear a group of boys playing soccer.
    â€œCoast is clear,” Harkin said. “Go for it.”
    The top pulled off more easily than Daphna expected. Lying at the bottom of the box was a single sheet of yellowed paper with neat typeset print across the page. Daphna held it up to the light.
    â€œIt’s a page from a published book,” she said.
    But it was more than that. Across the typeset lines was a pair of musical staves—one bass, one treble clef—filled with a series of large notes, almost as if they had been written by a child.
    â€œI didn’t know your mom wrote music,” Harkin said.
    â€œShe didn’t,” Daphna said with a laugh.
    â€œWhat are you saying?” Harkin asked.
    â€œI thought this handwriting looked familiar,” Daphna said. “My mom copied my first sonata, ‘The Sad Sandbox.’”
    Her friends looked more closely.
    â€œWhy would she hide a copy out here?” Cynthia said.
    â€œAnd why copy it over a novel?” Harkin asked. “Here, lemme see something.”
    He took the paper. Though Daphna’s piece was printed in dark ink, the text underneath was still readable. Harkin read:
    â€œâ€˜Kilimanjaro is a snow covered mountain 19,710 feet high, and it is said to be the highest mountain in Africa. Its western summit is called the Masai “Ngàje Ngài,” the House of God.’
    â€œLet’s see what my search engine, Get Thunked, has to say.”
    Harkin typed the passage into his wristwatch computer.
    â€œThat’s the opening passage from ‘The Snows of Kilimanjaro,’ by Ernest Hemingway,” Harkin said.
    â€œWhat do you think?” Cynthia asked, turning to Daphna. “That your mom went to Kilimanjaro?”
    â€œCould be,” she said.
    She took the music back from Harkin and examined the first line.
    â€œWhat are you thinking?” Cynthia asked.
    Daphna pointed at the first three notes in the G clef.
    â€œSee those?” she asked Cynthia.
    Her friend held the music up to her glasses. “Yeah, they’re quarter notes.”
    â€œNot their length,” Daphna said. “Their pitch.”
    Cynthia looked again. “Three Bs.” She frowned. “So what?”
    Harkin got it. “B. B. B,” he whispered. “Billy B. Brilliant.”
    â€œDo you really think that’s why she picked this piece?” Cynthia asked. “The three Bs?”
    Daphna nodded. “Mom knew I’d eventually look for a clue in the notes. It has to be.”
    â€œSo now we’re getting somewhere,” Harkin said, standing up to his full height. “If we put it all together, your mom went to Kilimanjaro to find Billy B.