Excerpt from NATIONAL ARCHIVE HUNTERS 1: CAPITOL CHASE

Text copyright © 2024 by Matthew Landis

All illustrations copyright © 2024 by TGM Development Corp.

Cover and interior illustrations by Vivienne To All rights reserved

Pixel+Ink is an imprint of TGM Development Corp. www.pixelandinkbooks.com

Printed and bound in January 2024 at TK

Book design by Chelsea Hunter

[CIP block] TK

Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-64595-221-3

E-book ISBN: 978-1-64595-222-0 First Edition

To Lafayette, America’s favorite Frenchman, the Hero of Two Worlds. You seriously were a BOSS.

“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”

—William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun

Do or Die Ike

he Lincoln Memorial has eighty-seven steps from the reflecting pool at the bottom to the chamber at the top. Millions of tourists climb them every year, mostly during the stifling summer

My family runs up them every morning at 5 a.m. In the dark. is my dad’s approach to exercise. Short, concise, drilled into him by the Army. My mom uses a slightly different version: healthy

“Am I getting faster or are you getting slower?” She sprints up the steps two at a time, and then back down behind me. My mom and dad are already at the top, doing their push-ups and crunches. Their headlights flick back

“It’s not a race,” I mutter. “Just like it wasn’t yesterday, or the day before

Iris passes me again. “Literally every human on the planet, when jogging up steps with someone, would want to race.”

“I’m working out my mind.”

She snorts. “Your brain is already huge. How about some extra lung capacity for when the zombies come? I hear they’re really fast.”

I slow down to catch my breath. “Did you know that Lincoln was good at—”

“Boring. Warp speeding out of this fun wasteland.” She sprints the rest of the way up and starts her push-ups. My mom’s and dad’s headlamps are bobbing back down in the dim morning light. His is an entire foot above hers.

“You got it, bud,” my dad calls. He’s wearing gray running shorts and a gray reflector jacket that says Army . He’s been out for ten years, but is still committed to the exercise routine and gear. “See you at the monument.”

“You okay?” my mom asks.

I give her a thumbs up.

“Iris, stay with him!” she shouts before catching up with Dad.

That’s the third day in a row she’s reminded me that Iris is bigger, faster, and stronger. It doesn’t bother me, because it’s true. Also, I have none of my sister’s competitive DNA, despite sharing actual genetic material.

But it’s a strange thing to say, all of a sudden. It doesn’t make sense.

I run the last steps and drop to the push-up position. After a set of twenty, Iris kneels on my feet so I can do my sit-ups. The cold stone against my back feels good.

“I beat you in the race of life, so I guess this is my fault, ” she tells me. “I was born thirty-two minutes ahead of you, and you never got over it. You lost to the best, and decided to never race again.”

I roll my eyes. “I was trying to tell you that Lincoln was a really good wrestler. He only lost one match his whole life.”

Iris looks back over her shoulder at the enormous statue behind us. Lincoln’s sitting in his chair, gazing out over the capital. Sometimes I pretend that he’s focused on me, or past me, on Congress at the Capitol Building. “I bet I could beat him.”

“He was over six feet tall.” I finish my set and we switch places. “You’re just over five.”

“Taller than you.”

“Not the point.”

“I’m fast as lightning. I’d scurry under him.”

“He was really strong.”

“I’d fight dirty: throw sand, kick to the groin, maybe some biting.”

“You’d bite the sixteenth president of the United States?”

“This is a street fight, dude. No rules.”

I shake my head. “This conversation has left the realm of the historical.”

“Yeah, because we’re in the present. I beg you, dear brother: join us!”

We do two more sets of push-ups and sit-ups. My parents’ headlight beams are halfway to the Washington Monument, where they’ll stop to do jumping jacks. After that, we’ll loop back around and jog home along Rock Creek Trail.

I gaze back at Lincoln. “Sorry she doesn’t appreciate you.”

“He can’t hear you,” Iris yells, racing down the steps. “He’s dead!”

I wave goodbye to the former wrestling champion. “See you tomorrow.”

I catch up with Iris along the Reflecting Pool. We jog to the World War II Memorial, do a set of star jumps, and then cross the street. It’s still mostly dark, but the sky ahead is turning pink. Gravel crunches under our feet as we follow the trail toward the Washington Monument. I don’t love morning runs like Iris does, but I love that we get to run in the capital. The whole city is an enormous museum of monuments and memory, but every morning I get special access to all the exhibits.

“Mom is acting weird,” Iris says. “Tell me you’ve noticed.”

A biker races by to our left. “I think so.”

“So your big brain does register human emotions.”

“Sarcasm detected,” I say in a robot voice. “Eliminate source. Eliminate source. Eliminate source.”

Iris snorts. But she’s not wrong. I struggle to notice those sorts of things. It’s not that I can’t. I’m usually just thinking other things that matter more.

“So what do you think’s wrong with Mom?” I ask.

“Something with work. She’s been at the museum until midnight for, like, the past month.”

That makes sense. “The Americana’s fall exhibit opens tomorrow night. She’s the curator, so it’s her job to make sure everything is in order.”

“I’m aware of what our mother does for a living, thank you very much.” Iris picks up the pace, probably to catch the biker. “But it’s worse than usual. Something’s going on.”

“She’s probably double-checking each outfit,” I say, struggling to keep up. Mom spent the whole summer convincing other museums to lend her

twenty Revolutionary War-era outfits, including a George Washington uniform from Mount Vernon. Each one had to be carefully put on a special mannequin, and then placed inside a tall enclosure. I helped her come up with the exhibit name: Fashion of the Founders. “Or the guest list, ticket sales, plus all the food preparation with the caterers. There’re hundreds of details to keep straight.”

The biker disappears, and Iris slows down, thankfully. “I heard her and Dad arguing on the phone with Mr. Lane. Something about the investors not being too happy.”

Mom used to own the entire museum, but since we were little, she’s had to sell a lot of her share to raise money for improvements and exhibit expenses. Mr. Lane, the chairman of the museum board, speaks for the investors. Which means I know the cause of the argument.

“They were fighting about money,” I say.

Iris glances over at me. “How do you know that?”

“Logic. They always fight about money, and the opening night of any exhibit is probably very expensive. What did you hear?”

“They were whisper-yelling—it was hard to pick up everything—but yes, the general tone translated to There’s a money problem.”

I slow to a stop. “Iris, what did they say exactly?”

She jogs on a few steps and then walks back. “Dad was mad the board only let him hire one other security guard for the event. And then Mr. Lane said, ‘We have no choice. It’s do or die.’”

I frown. “What’s do or die?”

Iris shrugs. “I have no idea.”

My Big-Brain Brother Saves Me

Iris

Iris,” Madame Bernard hisses, staring daggers at me through her fancy, black-rimmed glasses. The large vein in her forehead pulses to the surface.

Never good! “You may find your way to the headmaster’s office at once. I will meet you there shortly.”

“Why?” I ask, a perfectly good question. One might even say genius. “Out! At once!”

Whispers ripple across our upstairs classroom—mostly third, fourth, and fifth graders. We’re sprawled across beanbag chairs, lounging on the rug, or working at tables. The K Street Academy is a Montessori School, which basically means we chuck traditional learning out the window. Want to never sit at a desk? Done. Want to learn outside? Go for it!

But apparently, you can still get sent to the headmaster’s office.

“I didn’t do it,” I protest.

“Offeece.” Madame Bernard’s accent always gets thicker when she’s mad—the Lyonnaise grouch in her coming out, she says. “Now.”

“But Madame—” “Chut!”

“Oui, Madame,” I say with a sigh of injustice.

“That was rude,” Ike whispers as I walk by his desk—always a desk for Ike. Just one of the many things that prove twins aren’t carbon copies.

“It wasn’t me,” I whisper back.

“Really?”

“Cross my heart.”

He frowns.

“You may join your sister,” Madame Bernard calls to Ike. The class gasps—especially the two Sophies, a nasty fifth grader and her little fourthgrade minion. “Anyone else?”

“How about the person who actually did it?” I mumble.

“Pardon?” Madame demands.

“Nothing.”

The wooden floorboards creak—the soundtrack to our death march— as Ike and I trudge down the hallway to the top of the stairs. One major downside of going to school in a historic Washington, D.C. building: short walk to the main office.

“Seriously, Iris,” Ike says, hurrying to keep up. “It wasn’t you?”

“I didn’t do it,” I argue for the fifth time.

“Who did?”

“Maybe Sophie Number One?” I say, clomping extra hard down the steps. “She hates Madame Bernard, and she’s closer to her desk.”

“You were near Madame’s desk when I came back from the hall.”

“I was getting a pencil.”

“It looked suspicious.”

“Your honor, I plead not guilty.”

We stop in front of the headmaster’s door. Doors, actually. French doors, if you can believe it. The fancy kind that open from the middle and swing out.

“Your turn,” I say, using a hallway mirror to retie my brown ponytail. That is a trait my brother and I have in common—dark brown hair, and way too much of it. If Ike didn’t keep his short, he’d have to deal with the same national emergency I do every morning.

Ike knocks.

“Come in.”

We push open a door, then shut it behind us. The man behind the desk taps away on his computer. Tall, lanky, bald. A thick brown beard that makes him look more like a lumberjack than a principal. “Shouldn’t you two be in French?” he asks.

“Dad,” I say. “I didn’t do it.”

“I have a very long to-do list,” he replies, consulting some of the perfectly arranged papers on his desk, “and the school day is rapidly coming to a close.”

“Wasn’t me,” I insist.

“What’s your story?” Dad asks Ike, still typing.

“Collateral damage,” he answers. “But I’ve decided that Iris didn’t do it.”

“Thank you. Justice has finally arrived,” I say, giving him a side-hug.

Ike shoves me off, which is frankly a win for us both. Is he even using soap in the shower after our morning runs? Also, pretty sure he’s worn that blue T-shirt three days straight.

“Iris likes jokes,” Ike explains, “but this prank was set up to embarrass someone, which isn’t her style.”

“What exactly are we talking about?” Dad asks.

Before Ike can answer, Madame Bernard barges into the room.

“Monsieur Carter, I’ve had quite enough.” She huffs. “Quite! Enough!”

“Madame,” Dad says, finally ungluing his eyes from his screen to give her his fullest attention. “The twins were just catching me up.”

“My PowerPoint slide was originally titled Madame Bernard’s Big Vocabulary List,” she says, shoving her laptop across the desk. “I step out into the hall for a speaking assessment with Ike, and return to find my presentation tampered with.”

I sneak a peek, and struggle to hold back a snicker. Madame Bernard’s Big Bum glows on the screen.

“Very inappropriate,” Dad says, leaning on his hand, pretending to be thinking, but really trying not to laugh.

“Aside from the fact,” Madame continues, “that my body is well within the normal proportions for a French woman of my advanced age living in a country with so many fast-food restaurants—”

“Bum is a British term,” Ike says. “It was first used in 1387 to describe that part of the body in a more polite way.”

“Think that one’s backfired,” I joke. “Get it? Back fired?”

“Madame, would you like some water?” Dad asks, giving me the wide shut it eyes.

“Yes—no!” she corrects, pointing at me. “I would like her punished.”

“It wasn’t me,” I plead. “Clara and I were doing vocab flash cards. You can ask her.”

“Kids can be cruel,” Dad states. He’s so good at sticking to the big picture, never one to get lost in the emotional weeds. “I am sorry you were disrespected.”

Madame Bernard flops dramatically into the last open chair. “Certainly, I’ve heard worse. French children, you know, they are not all angels.”

“And we are thrilled,” Dad continues, rising to pass her a water bottle, “that you chose to teach here, at the K Street Academy, Washington D.C.’s finest Montessori School.”

“I needed a place of employment for my apartment application,” she explains.

“Madame, it really wasn’t me,” I repeat. “I was at your desk, yeah, but just to get a pencil.”

“This time,” she replies. “But you and the Sophies, always smirking when I say Daniel’s name like Danielle. That is the French way. I cannot help it.”

My stomach churns. She’s got me there.

“I’m sorry. That is mean,” I admit. “I won’t do it anymore.”

“How many slides had their titles changed?” Ike asks. He’s sitting perfectly still. Only his eyes move, darting back and forth.

My Big-Brain Brother has entered his mental octagon!

And he’s onto something.

“More than a few,” Dad says, squinting at the presentation. “All of them appearing to follow a similar . . . theme.”

“How many exactly?”

“Twenty.”

“And each slide has a unique set of vocab words and images,” Ike murmurs, leaning over the desk and scrolling through the presentation. “Meaning, they couldn’t be duplicated. Whoever did this had to go through each slide and paste in that new title.”

And then I see it—in my own head, my own way: the classroom in 3D. A line from A to B—my table to Madame’s desk, and every obstacle and student in between.

“Let’s say it’s fifteen steps from Iris’s beanbag to Madame’s desk,” Ike outlines. “Twenty-five if she walked around the third graders.”

“You are telling me a math problem?” Madame asks.

“Physics,” Ike explains, hopping up and getting a piece of paper from Dad’s printer. “It’s not really my expertise, though. Iris will show you better.”

I sketch the room—photographic memory has so many uses!

While I’m drawing, Ike continues making the case to Madame and Dad. “Iris is fast. The fastest soccer player in the greater Washington Metro ten-and-under travel league. Boys and girls.”

“But even I can’t beat physics,” I add, circling the solved equation. “Speed is distance over time. There’s no way I could’ve covered twenty-one feet to your desk with just eighteen seconds to change twenty slides.”

Ike and I high-five.

“Mon dieu,” Madame whimpers.

“Iris makes a solid case for her innocence,” Dad says, looking straight at Ike, “Any suggestions on how we can resolve this?”

“Let’s go, Icarus,” I encourage. “Use that big brain to find us some more justice.”

His eyes start bouncing again, nerd mode engaged. This is his version of sprinting toward the goal, one-on-one with the goalie, and I love watching him do it. He never misses!

After a moment, he leans forward and grabs Madame’s laptop. “May I?”

“Bien sur.”

“PowerPoint saves versions of all projects in a special folder,” Ike explains, clicking through files and opening a bunch of presentations. Madame and I peer over his shoulder to watch. “Here we go. Your titles were changed today at . . . twelve thirty-two p.m.”

“That’s lunch,” I say.

“Lunch?” Madame replies. “No, impossible. I was working with two students today during lunch.”

“Who?” Dad asks.

“Simon and George.”

“Bingo.” I bounce in my chair. “Those two are proven pranksters. Remember the wet-seat caper last year? They kept up that ploy for weeks before they were caught.”

“And they both lived in London,” Ike adds. “Home country of the word bum.”

“True,” Dad says, nodding along. “But circumstantial. Anything rock solid?”

Ike taps a finger against the keyboard, thinking. “Madame, did you leave your computer unattended?”

“I . . . stepped out to take a phone call,” she confesses. “It was my son, back in Lyon. You know, the time difference is so hard to work around. I told the boys to eat while I was gone.”

“But instead, they did a little editing to your presentation.” I frown. “Probably should shorten the lock-screen time on faculty laptops, Dad.”

“Emailing faculty today,” he says, jotting down a note.

“Check your call log,” Ike instructs Madame. “I’d bet you were talking to your son at twelve thirty-two.”

Madame pulls her phone out, and does as instructed. Her eyes go wide, and she drops her head with a dramatic sigh. “Oui.”

“Case closed,” Dad says, giving Ike the same grin he gives me when I walk off the field after a great game. “I think I’ll go have a chat with those two.”

“Sorry, again,” I tell Madame. “For the mean stuff.”

She stands up and smooths out her dress, back to her normal self.

“Forgiveness is a key component of education. Thank you both for your help.”

She collects her laptop and strides out of the office.

“In Simon’s and George’s defense,” Ike says, “her butt his rather large.”

I snort. Classic Ike.

“Let’s file that one under Thoughts you don’t share out loud,” Dad orders. “Back to class, you two.”

“Roger that,” I say.

“Oh—one more thing,” he adds. “Mom said don’t bike home. She’s swinging by after school to take you somewhere.”

He’s not looking at us as he delivers the message. Typical misdirection.

“Shouldn’t she be at the museum?” Ike asks. “Tomorrow is opening night.”

“Good point,” I say, adding another bullet to my Mom is acting weird list. I give Ike the crooked eye. See what I’m talking about? He nods.

“Apparently the exhibits are good to go,” Dad says, making a note and doing his very best to act like he’s in the dark.

“Dad, where is she taking us?” I ask.

“Something top secret. Can’t get into the details. I believe she called it a mission.”

The Secret Mission

Idon’t think you understand,” I say without looking up from my book. We’re out front, waiting on a bench. Cars roar by on K Street before slowing at the Washington Circle roundabout a block away. I already unlocked our bikes so we’re ready for whatever my mom is planning.

“Oh, I understand.” Iris is lying on her back, one arm flung over her eyes to block the sun. “I understand perfectly. I just don’t think it’s that interesting.”

“If you understood it, you would find it interesting.”

She yawns. “Explain it again.”

I lay the biography of Ulysses S. Grant on the bench and pick up a loose cobblestone. I’m sweating because September in D.C. is the exact same as August: hot and humid. “We’re eight blocks from the White House.”

“Correct.”

“Diaries, letters, and newspapers confirm that President Grant regularly walked the capital streets for exercise during his two terms in office.”

“Don’t you mean General Grant?”

“No.”

“Uh, he was a general.”

“Who became president. You get called the title of your highest office achieved.”

“Pretty sure winning the Civil War beats living in the White House.”

“That’s a debate for another time.”

Iris stretches. “So General-slash-President loved to power walk. Got it.”

“Up to five miles a day. No one ever recorded his exact route, but it’s very possible that he walked by this exact spot.”

“Okay.”

I hold up the cobblestone. “He might have walked on this rock.”

Iris squints at it. “Yeah, but there’s an even bigger chance that a hundred dogs have peed on that rock.”

“This whole street is an historical artifact,” I continue like I didn’t hear her. “We’re living in a real-world museum.”

She sits up and starts pointing. “And that piece of dog poop—and that one—they should all be preserved!”

“You obviously don’t get it.”

She stands up and puts her hands on my shoulders. “Dude, this is what I’m talking about. You’re living in the past instead of the here and now.”

“This cobblestone is here and now.”

“True, but nobody cares about Grant. Especially not his exercise route.”

“He also loved racing his carriage around the capital. He got three speeding tickets and was arrested once, which makes him the only president to ever be arrested while in office.”

“Nobody cares about that, either.”

“Because they’re dumb.”

Iris sighs. “First: can’t call people dumb. Second: unless you want to keep eating lunch alone in the gazebo, you should talk about things that other people care about.”

“I’m not alone. Grant is there with me.”

Iris looks over her shoulder at two boys sitting on the front stoop, Simon and George. The pranksters. “I was thinking about someone in the present, preferably with a pulse.”

“I don’t need a lot of friends.”

“A lot? No. But one would be nice.”

“You’re my friend. Mom’s my friend.”

Simon and George walk past us, snickering at something.

Iris groans. “Please don’t say ‘Mom’s my friend’ within earshot of people ever again.”

“I don’t care what they think.”

She pulls a tennis ball out of her bag. “I do . . . so do it for me, okay?”

Iris waits until the boys clear the crosswalk, then takes two steps and throws the ball in a perfect arc, hitting George on the head. The ball ricochets to the right and smacks Simon in the face. They look around, but Iris is already lying back down on the bench.

I frown down at her. “You don’t pretend to be bad at sports, so why should I act like I’m not smart? Why shouldn’t I care about dead presidents, which are way more important than Minecraft?”

“You don’t have to stop being a super nerd. Just try to act like a mere mortal sometimes. You can be sort of a lot to handle.”

“Yeah, because I have all of American history on my mind. It’s a heavy burden.”

Iris thrusts a finger at me. “This is literally what I’m talking about.”

Ding ding. Mom slows her bike coming to a stop next to us. “Who’s ready for a secret mission?”

“Why aren’t you at work?” I ask.

“I’m not not at work, because I’m not really here. I’m on a secret mission.”

“Mom, where are we going?” Iris asks.

“Keep up and you’ll see,” Mom says, as she turns her bike and speeds away toward Washington Circle.

“See?” Iris slings her backpack on. “She’s being weird.”

We pedal after her through the roundabout and drift right onto Pennsylvania Avenue. Biking in D.C. can be dangerous, so my parents have three rules for us: 1) helmet, 2) bike lane (if there is one), and 3) Iris. My sister’s spatial awareness seems superhuman. I’ve lost count ofhow many times she’s ordered me to swerve, brake, or speed up to avoid a near crash. Also, her GPS mind keeps us from ever having to ever use Google Maps (not that our “dumb” phones could even support it).

My mom picks up a bike lane north of the White House, and we ride it past Lafayette Square until it rejoins Pennsylvania. The wide avenue and

enormous Greek-style buildings on either side never get old to me. Why don’t more people want to live here? I wish George Washington got to see more than just the blueprints for the capital named after him.

“I swear,” Iris shouts back to me, “if you tell me that this all used to be a giant swamp, I will make an appointment with your bike and a double-decker tour bus.”

It did used to be a swamp, by the way.

A mile or so later, Mom exits the bike lane. We walk our bikes across a wide plaza and stop in front of a large building with thirty-foot high Corinthian columns. The whole structure is made from light-gray marble. The only way in is a single bronze door on ground level.

“The National Archives,” I say, unclipping my helmet.

Mom shakes her head. “That’s around front. This is the National Archives Research Center entrance.”

Iris glances around. “If Nicolas Cage jumps out of those bushes, I’m going to freak out.”

We lock our bikes to a nearby rack. My mom redoes her ponytail, then brushes dirt off her jeans.

“What’s the secret mission?” I ask.

She narrows her eyes. “Employment.”

“Y-you’re making us get jobs?” Iris sputters. “We’re only ten. Is that even legal?”

“I would like a job here,” I counter. “I’d love to look at the Declaration of Independence every day.”

“No, not you.” Mom explains. “Me! I got a job here.”

My brain fires, trying to piece it together.

“But you have a job,” Iris eventually says. “You run the Americana.”

Which means that job could be in jeopardy.

Mom puts an arm around each of us. “The museum’s cutting back my hours after the fall exhibit opens tomorrow night—trying to save some money. I won’t bore you with the details. So, I thought, what better way to spend my extra time than with the U.S.’s official records?”

Iris glances at me as we walk toward the door, and I nod. She just admitted the museum has money problems.

“I’m glad you found another job,” I say, “but does it pay enough?”

“Oh, it’s just part-time. An old college friend works here. She got me an interview, and voilà. You’re looking at the new administrative assistant of the digital media department.”

“I’m already dying of boredom,” Iris says. “Also, that’s sort of insulting. You curate one of the oldest, coolest museums in D.C. You’re going to work here? As a secretary?”

Mom swivels to face us. “Do you know what’s in this building?”

I start listing the archive’s treasures on my fingers. “The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and—”

“Boring stuff that no one cares about,” Iris interrupts.

My mom turns to the building and lifts an arm. “Our nation’s recorded past is housed here—thousands of documents, images, and artifacts. Working here in any capacity would be an honor.” She marches forward and waves for us to follow. I completely agree with everything she’s saying, but I can tell she’s trying to sell us on the idea.

I lean toward Iris. “She’s obviously lying.”

“Yup.” A double-decker bus stops at the light. Tourists pull out their phones and take pictures. “Could the museum fire her?”

“I don’t think so. It’s her museum.” Or it’s partly hers.

Iris chews on her lip. “Let’s play along.”

“Destiny waits for no one, children,” my mom calls to us. “Let’s go!”