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8 His plan had been to pry it open and study how its spring
mechanism worked. But as he dug through the box looking for
something to use as a prying tool, he came upon an old jack-in-
the-box and had a sudden inspiration. Mrs. Genevieve had seen no
way to open the watch from the outside, but what if something
made it open up from the inside? What if it was like the jack-in-
the-box, which opened unpredictably when you turned its crank?

9 Maybe there was something valuable inside the watchcase, and
the only way to get to it was to set the watch to a certain time and
then wind it up—rather like the combination lock on a safe. Why
not? The more Reuben thought about it, the more convinced he felt

he was right. He jammed the cardboard box into the closet and sat
down on his bed.
10 Taking a breath to steady himself—his heart was racing now—
Reuben eased the watch’s winding key back up into its setting
position and turned the hour hand from one o’ clock to two o’ clock.
He pushed the key all the way in again and wound the watch.
Then, tense with expectation, he pulled the key back up to allow
the spring to unwind. Nothing happened. He held the watch to
his ear and confirmed that it was ticking. Perhaps the secret
mechanism would be triggered at some unpredictable point
during the unwinding.

11 And so Reuben stared at the watch in his hand, waiting. A
minute passed, then two. He found himself growing more and
more excited. He couldn’t tear his eyes away. He hated even to blink
for fear he’d miss something, and he began to feel jittery and hot.
The purpose of a jack-in-the-box, after all, is to fill you with
mounting anticipation, the tension increasing second by second as
you wait for that startling moment when the hidden figure pops
up—and Reuben was waiting for something far more dramatic
than a little clown puppet. By the time ten minutes had passed, the
tension had grown almost unbearable. After fifteen he felt ready to
collapse. And indeed, when the watch stopped ticking, he sank
back onto the bed with an exhausted and disappointed sigh.

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