He looked up, half-expecting the psychedelic cat from the cover to be watching him from a branch. The park was quiet, save for the distant sound of a lawnmower. He looked at the key, then back at the magazine. On the very last page, in the "Letters to the Editor" section, a small, bolded line at the bottom read: “The lock is in the hollow of the old oak at the center of the world.”
Leo’s heart hammered. He flipped back to page 14—a slapstick comic about a detective named Inspector Piff. He looked closely. Behind the final panel, where the Inspector was slipping on a banana peel, there was a faint, raised outline. Using his fingernail, Leo carefully peeled back the edge of the paper. Hidden in the binding was a tiny, silver key.
He handed over his crumpled quarters and raced to the park, collapsing under the shade of a massive oak tree. As he flipped through the pages, the scent of cheap ink and nostalgia filled his senses. Issue No. 46 was a legendary one; it contained the first-ever appearance of "Barnaby the Bumbling Barbarian" and a controversial fold-out map of a fictional city made entirely of musical instruments. Piff Magazine No 46 1973
Leo looked at the trunk of the tree he was leaning against. High up, where the main branches split, was a knot that looked suspiciously like a keyhole.
“To whoever finds this: The secret is on page 14, behind the comic strip. Don’t let the cat see you looking.” He looked up, half-expecting the psychedelic cat from
The humid air of July 1973 hung heavy over the newsstand, but for ten-year-old Leo, the only thing that mattered was the glossy, slightly bent cover of .
The cover featured a psychedelic, hand-drawn illustration of a cat wearing aviator sunglasses, lounging on a slice of pepperoni pizza that was floating through a nebula. It was absurd, it was colorful, and it was exactly what Leo needed to escape another long summer in the suburbs. On the very last page, in the "Letters
Halfway through the magazine, Leo found something that wasn't listed in the table of contents. Tucked between a satirical ad for "X-Ray Specs" and a DIY guide for building a birdhouse out of popsicle sticks was a handwritten note on a yellowed scrap of paper.