All eleven of us crammed into the closed fondue restaurant after dark. The place smelled like regret and melted gruyere. Marv unrolled a piece of paper with a big flourish. It was a placemat. "Behold," he said, "the layout of Fromagerie Sublime." Lola squinted at it. "Marv, that's a kids' maze. There's a cartoon mouse in the corner." Marv folded his arms. "The mouse knows where the safe is."

Lola grabbed the placemat anyway. "Fine. If the mouse leads to the safe, we follow the mouse." She traced the crayon path to a doodle of a cheese wheel. "That's the vault. Probably. Marv, you're up front. Everyone else, try not to knock anything over."

Halfway down the maze, the placemat tore clean in half. Marv held up the two pieces, horrified. "The map. The map is dead." Priya snatched the bigger half. "It's a placemat, Marv, not a treasure scroll. We can still read most of it. Keep moving."