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passageway’ in the church, and without a second thought, you go right in her house. She could've been an ax murderer.”
    “Oh, don't be so dramatic, Mr. Eliot,” Margaret says. “Jeez, give us a little credit. We're city girls—we've got street smarts and all that.”
    “On the other hand,” he continues, “I have to tell you: I wish to God I'd been there with you. The whole thing is positively Dickensian! The long-lost birthday card with the mysterious clue, the strange voice on the telephone, the estranged daughter who marries the foreigner, the twenty-year-old giant cat, the walls covered in masterpieces. I can't wait to hear what happens next!”
    With that, Margaret hands him his briefcase and pushes him toward the door. “I am happy to hear you say that, Mr. Eliot. Because
you
are going to help us decipher our first clue.”

In which a small piece of the past comes to
light, and we learn the shocking
family secret that William Shakespeare doesn't
want you to know!
    “I'll give you half an hour,” Mr. Eliot says as we make our way from Perkatory to the school. “Just be out of the library before Mrs. Overmeyer gets in. School librarians are
very
territorial. And no snooping around her desk or on her computer.”
    “Yes, sir, Mr. Eliot, sir!” Such mistrust!
    Margaret has already determined which years we are looking for, so we go straight to the shelf where all the old yearbooks sit, collecting dust.
    She pulls one out and blows dust off the cover. “This should be her freshman year.”
    “What are we looking for, anyway?”
    “We need to see her in her environment—see what else we can learn about her. I can't figure out this
Het Cholos orf Lanscad
thing. I looked online, but there wasnothing about it or a writer named Renidash. Here, you take her sophomore year and see what you can find.”
    I start leafing through the book at one of the library tables, its wooden top pocked with decades of student scratching and graffiti.
    “Hey, here she is, in this picture of the Drama Club,” Margaret says. “‘Caroline Chance was our Juliet.’ God, she
was
beautiful, and jeez, a freshman with the lead in
Romeo and Juliet?
Don't tell Leigh Ann, but I'm not so sure even
she's
ready for that kind of part. How about yours? Find anything?”
    “Think so.” I turn Margaret's attention to the inside back cover of the yearbook I am holding. “It says: ‘To Mrs. Overmeyer, Thanks for all the terrific book recommendations and for all your help with my Brit Lit project. Who knows, maybe together we'll make RBS popular again! Enjoy your summer in Ireland, away from our own little School for Scandal. All the best, Caroline Chance.’”
    “I'm sure Mrs. Overmeyer will remember her,” Margaret says. “It sounds like they knew each other pretty well. I wonder what RBS is.”
    “Sounds like a TV station. You know, like PBS.”
    “Hey, that's not bad, Soph. You're wrong, unfortunately, but at least you're getting into the spirit of things.”
    “Nancy Drew! Harriet! What
are you
girls doing in here!” Mr. Eliot barges through the library door, trying (and failing) to scare us with this really fake-angry voice.
    Margaret holds out the yearbook to him. “Hey, Mr. E, take a look at this.”
    He reads the inscription and grunts. “Hm. I'm not surprised that Mrs. Overmeyer knew her. She's been here forever. How long ago was this, almost twenty years? There are still a couple of other teachers who were here then, besides Mrs. Overmeyer. But seriously, how is this helpful?”
    Margaret, a tiny bit indignant at his attitude, slams the book shut. “Well, we don't know,
yet
.”
    “Okay Miss Marple, but right now you need to move it on out of here. You can talk to Mrs. Overmeyer later.”
    As Margaret and I follow him to his classroom, I ask him if he has any ideas about the reference to RBS in the yearbook.
    “Sure. Randy Bob Shakespeare. RBS. Will's younger brother. A real redneck. Specialized in plays about