The Maze of Bones (The 39 Clues) Chapter 2 Summary

How It All Goes Down

  • Dan and Amy Cahill are riding with their great-aunt Beatrice to their grandmother Grace's funeral. Sad day.
  • Aunt Beatrice is all keyed up because Amy keeps reading in the car. You know, because reading is so disruptive.
  • Believing the kids to be too spoiled, Aunt Beatrice threatens to fire their au pair, Nellie, when they get back to Boston.
  • As Beatrice continues driving terribly to the funeral, Amy and Dan bicker in the backseat.
  • There's a huge crowd at the family cemetery—around 400 people or so. Cahills from all over the world. (To meet the important ones, head over to our "Characters" tab. We'll solemnly wait here in our mourning attire.)
  • Their cousins, the Holts, bully Dan by picking him up and dropping him on his head. We have to wonder if these meatheads were dropped on their heads as babies. 
  • After the funeral, William McIntyre informs the mourners that a select few have been invited to the will reading. Those lucky heirs have golden invitations in their funeral programs. It's like William McIntyre is Willy Wonka, giving out golden tickets, of death.
  • Amy and Dan get a golden ticket, of course, and go to the will reading.
  • A video of Grace plays in which she tells everyone that they have a choice: a million dollars or a clue to a game that will take them around the world and might "make [them] the most powerful, influential human beings on the planet" (2.107). They have five minutes to make their decision. Tick tick tick.