Only Murders in the Building meets Escape from Mr. Lemoncelloās Library in this action-packed novel about a girl pulled into a mysterious treasure hunt at her new boarding school.
Ever since her mom passed away, twelve-year-old Megumi āMegā Mizuno has been spiraling. After too many low grades and cut classes, sheās been expelled from schoolāapparently, everyone else has moved past her grief and expects the same from her. Her dad secures her a spot at the prestigious Leland Chase Academy, a boarding school in the middle-of-nowhere New York, called the Last Chance Academy by its student body. If Meg canāt make it work there, sheāll be forced to live with her horrible aunt.
At first, Leland Chase seems like an average, if very strict, boarding school, though Meg tentatively warms up to her roommate and some of their classmates. Then, one night, a mysterious envelope appears under her door, inviting Meg and her roommate to participate in a scavenger hunt. The only rules: donāt get caught by faculty or staff and no cheating. The grand prize? A luxury stay at a fancy resort in California. And after learning her dad has plans to sell their family homeāwith all its memories of MomāMeg knows she has to win the competition and use the trip to convince Dad to stay.
Thanks to her mom, who taught her how to solve ciphers, Meg has a knack for puzzles she uses to get ahead in the hunt. But she quickly learns that her classmates seem to have their own sets of skills keeping them in the competition. And as they get deeper in the game, Meg and her fellow competitors realize the anonymous creator has their own agendaā¦and LCA isnāt quite what it seems.