. . .

A letter arrives. Jane opens the mailbox. She takes out the letter. She reads it. She reads it again. She reads it a third time.

Then she folds it back up and she tucks it into her pocket.

In the back yard of the house on Doom Lane there is a great tree. In that tree there is a tree-house. Before that tree-house there is a sign. It is carved into the wood, richly and carefully made, with painted red letters against burnt-black wood:

“Tom’s Secret Treehouse — Invisible to Girls!”

Jane chews on her lip for a while. Then she shrugs. She climbs up the ladder. She joins the rest of the Doom Team.

Tom is dumbstruck.

“Jane,” Tom says. “How — what —”

“I used my sense of smell and hearing to deduce its location,” Jane proposes.

“. . . I guess you can come in, then,” Tom admits.

“It’s a good thing, too,” Jane says. “I have an important letter — from Uncle Bertram!”

Tom sees the letter. He grabs for it. Jane grabs it first and holds it against her chest.

“It is addressed to me,” Jane says.

“But how?”

Jane displays it with a flourish. “Using letters!”

“. . . I think you meant to say, ‘but why?’” Linus, who will be Mr. Enemy, suggests.

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