Spiderweb for Two - A Melendy Maze by Elizabeth Enright Page A

You can be one, too; Melendy and Melendy, Counterspies. We’ll have it on the door like that. We’ll have to wear disguises all the time: beards for you and all kinds of queer-shaped mustaches, and I will dye my hair a different color every week and learn to speak with an accent.”
    Oliver did not think highly of this flight of fancy. He ignored it.
    â€œBrother, I’m hungry,” he said. “Hunting clues makes you awful hungry.”
    They pushed through the wet tangle, soaked to the knees, to where their bicycles lay beside the road. The melted hoarfrost flashed from every blade and stem; the old tree dropped an apple and a handful of leaves.
    â€œI wouldn’t mind being buried here,” said Randy. “Right out in the country with cows and birds around and lots of space.”
    â€œBetter than that big stone furniture store in Braxton,” Oliver agreed. “It’s kind of nice here, kind of cozy.”
    Their bikes flew like the wind, down the hills, around the curves. From every house came hot, sharp smells of bacon and coffee and toast. Randy and Oliver, hungry as wolves and happy as larks, sang at the tops of their lungs all the way home.
    Their house smelled of breakfast, too. It was a welcome sight, always: square, broad, comfortable, with its mansard roof and little cupola set like a cap on the very top. They loved that house, all of them. It still lay in the early-morning shadow of the hill behind it. The spruce trees were grave ornaments, and the iron deer on the front lawn seemed animals transfixed; all was silent and motionless. But in the next second the kitchen door burst open and the dogs, Isaac and John Doe, shot out, wild with the delight of morning; barking and whirling and skidding and stopping short to sniff. When they saw Oliver and Randy they came careening toward them with their ears flying and their eyes rolling. “Why didn’t you take us with you?” they demanded, in barks, and Cuffy in the doorway said, “My lands! Where was you? I was just going up to wake you!”
    â€œWell, we took a spin to the old graveyard back of the Meeker place,” said Oliver.
    â€œNot again? ” This time Cuffy looked really concerned. “Not another cemetery.”
    Randy let her bike fall with a crash to the ground; she went up to Cuffy and gave her a good big squeeze around the middle.
    â€œIt’s the last one, Cuffy darling. No more cemeteries for us. Could I have two fried eggs this morning?”
    â€œCould I have three?” said Oliver.

CHAPTER IV
    The Emperor’s Abode
    Well done! Now leave the sleeping acre to its peace.
    Â Â Â Â  The sun is risen; let it light the road.
    Â Â Â Â  Named for an emperor, in my abode,
    The fourth imprisoned clue awaits release:
    Â Â Â Â  Beneath, the hours tell their names and go.
    Â Â Â Â  Above, a voice was silenced long ago.
    â€œWho do we know that’s got an emperor’s name?” said Oliver. “I can’t remember any emperors.”
    â€œThere isn’t anyone I know of that’s named Nero,” said Randy. “Nero’s the only one I can think of at the moment. No, wait, Napoleon was an emperor.”
    â€œWell, who do you know that’s named Napoleon, for Pete’s sake?” inquired Oliver rather sensibly.
    They were on their way home from school, riding their bicycles through the golden October haze.
    â€œAnd there were hundreds of emperors,” said Randy thoughtfully. “Goodness, there were emperors in Rome and China and Austria and France even—why, when you think of it, the emperors in history are a dime a dozen.”
    â€œAren’t there any left?” Oliver seemed a little sad. An emperor sounded like a splendid being: proud, dazzling, more than mortal, with rays of light around him like the petals of a sunflower.
    â€œNo, no more. A few kings, only, and some queens. Nowadays most countries are