He didn’t know what they were, why he needed them, or what would happen on May sixth when he was supposed to say them, but he knew they were vital and he had to figure them out. And the first letter supposedly told him everything necessary to do just that.
Nothing came to him. He searched the sentences, the paragraphs, the words for clues. He tried rearranging letters, looked for words that were perhaps spelled vertically, sought the word “magic” to see if it lay hidden anywhere. Nothing.
He remembered the famous riddle from Lord of the Rings where the entrance to the Mines of Moria said “Speak friend, and enter.” It had literally meant for the person to speak the word “friend” in the Elven language and the doors would open. But nothing like that seemed to jump out at Tick as he sought for clues.
Figuring out the date of the special day from the first clue had been a piece of cake compared to this, and he grew frustrated. He also felt the effects of staying up all night and a sudden surge of fatigue pressed his head down to the pillow, pulled his eyelids closed.
When his mom poked her head in to wake him up for school, he begged for one more day, knowing she’d have a hard time arguing with a kid who’d been eaten alive just a few days earlier.
After his mom tucked him back into bed and patted his head like a sick three year old, Tick pondered the pledge he’d made by the fireplace the night before—to keep going, to fight the fear, to solve the puzzle. No matter what.
I’m either really, really brave or really, really stupid.
Finally, despite the light of sunrise streaming through his window, he fell asleep.
Part
2
~
The Journal
Chapter
11
~
Old and Dusty
That Friday, completely healed and caught up on the work he’d missed at school, Tick sat in his science class, trying to pay attention to Mr. Chu as he talked about the vast mysteries that still awaited discovery in the field of physics. Usually, Tick enjoyed this class more than most, but he couldn’t get his mind off the second clue, frustrated that he wasn’t able to crack the code of the first letter.
“Mr. Higginbottom?” Mr. Chu asked.
Tick’s attention whipped back to the real world, and he stared at his teacher, suddenly panicked because he had no clue why Mr. Chu had said his name. “Sorry, what was the question?”
“I didn’t ask you a question,” his teacher answered, folding his arms. “I was just wondering why you’re staring out the window like there’s a parade out there. Am I boring you?” He raised his eyebrows.
“No, I was just . . . pondering the physics of the tetherball outside.”
Several snickers broke out in the room, though Tick knew it wasn’t in appreciation for his joke. Some of the kids in his class didn’t even listen to what he said anymore; they automatically laughed at him whenever he spoke because they assumed the others would think they were cool for poking fun at the nerdy Stinkbottom with the Barf Scarf. The laughter didn’t faze Tick in the least; in his mind, those people had ceased to exist a long time ago.
“Well,” Mr. Chu said. “Maybe you’d like to come up to the board and give us a diagram of what you’re thinking about?” Tick knew the man had to give him a hard time every now and then or it would be overwhelmingly obvious that he favored the smart kid with the red-and-black scarf.
“No, sir,” Tick replied. “Haven’t figured it out yet.”
“Let me know when you do. And in the meantime, grace me with your attention.”
Tick nodded and resettled himself in his seat, looking toward the front of the classroom. Someone behind him threw a wad of paper at his head; he ignored it as it ricocheted and fell to the floor. Mr. Chu continued his lecture, but faltered a few minutes later when someone grumbled about how boring science was.
“Oh, really?” Mr. Chu asked, his tone almost sarcastic. “Don’t you realize all this stuff leads to things that are much, much more fascinating? We need to build a solid foundation so you can have a lot of fun later.”
He only received blank stares in answer.
“I mean it! Here’s an example. How many of you have heard of quantum physics?”
Along with a few others, Tick raised his hand. He’d once watched a really cool show on the Discovery Channel with his dad about the subject. Both of them had agreed afterward that quantum physics must have been something Star Trek fans invented so they’d have another topic to discuss instead of debating the average number of times Mr. Spock visited the toilet every day.
“Who’d like to take a stab and tell us what it’s about?” Mr. Chu asked.
Trying to make up for his earlier daydreaming, Tick was the only one who offered. Mr. Chu nodded toward him.
“It’s about the really, really small stuff—stuff smaller than atoms even—and they have a lot of properties that don’t seem to follow the same rules as normal physics.”
“Wow, you’re smart, SpongeBob,” someone whispered from the back. He thought it was Billy the Goat, but couldn’t be sure. Tick ignored him.
“Such as?” Mr. Chu prodded, either not hearing the smart-aleck remark or disregarding it.
“Well, I don’t remember a whole lot of the show I saw on T.V., but the thing that really seemed cool was they’ve basically proven that something can literally be in two or more places at once.”
“Very good, Tick, that’s part of it.” Mr. Chu paced back and forth in front of the students, hands clasped behind his back, trying his best to fit the mold of Very Smart Professor. “We can’t get into it very much in this class, but I think many of you will be excited to learn about it as you study more advanced classes in high school. My favorite aspect of the Q.P., as we used to call it in my peer study groups, is the fact they’ve also proven you can affect the location of an object simply by observing it. In other words, how you study it changes the outcome, which means there must be more than one outcome occurring simultaneously. Does that make sense?”
Tick nodded, fascinated, wishing they could drop the easy stuff and dig deeper into this subject. He didn’t bother to look around the room, knowing that the rest of his classmates would once again return nothing but blank stares.
“Basically,” Mr. Chu continued, “it means alternate versions of the present could exist at any moment, and that your actions, your observations, your choices can determine which of those you see. In other words, we’re living in one of maybe a million different versions of the universe. Some people call it the multiverse.” He folded his arms and shook his head slightly while staring at the floor, a small smile on his face, as if recalling a fond memory. “Nothing in all my studies has ever fascinated me as much as quantum physics.”
He paused, looking around the room, and his face drooped into a scowl of disappointment like a kid who’d just told his parents he’d seen a dragonfly, only to get back a “Who cares? Go wash your hands for dinner” in return.
“Uh . . . anyway, I guess that’s enough on that subject. The bell’s about to ring. Don’t forget your monthly research report is due tomorrow.”
Tick gathered his things and put them in his backpack, not worried about the assignment; his had been done since before the Gnat Rat attack.
Mr. Chu came up to him and put a hand on his shoulder. “Tick, you should think about studying quantum physics in more detail when you get a chance. It’s right up your alley. Pretty crazy world we live in, don’t you think?”
“Tell me about it,” Tick muttered. “Hey, Mr. Chu?”
“Yes?”
“Does your family . . . I mean . . . have you ever heard of a company called Chu Industries?”
Mr. Chu’s face wrinkled into a look of confusion. “No, never heard of it before. But there are a lot of Chus in the world. Why?”
“Oh . . . nothing. Just an ad I saw somewhere. Made me wonder if you had anything to do with it.”
“I wish. Sounds like it could’ve made me rich.”
“Yeah, maybe. Well, see ya tomorrow.” Tick swung his backpack over his shoulder and walked to his next class.
~
That night, Tick decided he needed a better way to organize the letters and clues he’d received from M.G. and Mothball, especially knowing that because of his decision not to burn the first letter, more and more would be coming.
He went down to the basement and rummaged through a couple of boxes labeled with his name and last year’s date. Every year or two, Lorena Higginbottom insisted on a full top-to-bottom cleaning of the entire house, and her number one rule was that if you hadn’t used something in more than a year, it needed to be thrown away or put into storage. These boxes were the result of last spring’s mine sweep through Tick’s closet.
He remembered he’d been given a journal for Christmas two or three years ago from his Grandma Mary. He’d vowed to write in it every day, chronicling the many adventures of the genius from Jackson Middle School, but the night he’d sat down to complete his first official entry, he hadn’t been able to think of one thing that sounded interesting. He had managed to write his name on the front cover before he’d put it aside, hoping Grandma Mary would never find out. She’d have been devastated if she knew what had happened to her gift.
But he’d never forgotten how cool his name looked on the cover, and the journal would be the perfect thing for him now. Tick’s life was no longer boring or uninteresting.
He found the journal lying beneath a stack of Hardy Boys books. Tick had read each of them several times before they’d made way for bigger and better novels. He pulled the journal out and stared at the cover. It had a marble-brown hardcover, its edges purposely worn and slightly burnt to make it look like the old record-book of an international explorer on the high seas. The pages inside were slightly yellowed for an aged appearance, lined from top to bottom, just waiting for him to record his thoughts and notes and scribbles.
It was perfect.
In the center of the front cover was a three-inch wide rectangle of burnt orange where he’d written his name a couple of years ago. Using the permanent black marker he’d brought downstairs with him, he added a few more words to the title. Finished, he held the journal up and took a prideful look:
Tick Higginbottom’s
Journal of Curious Letters
He then took out the glue from his mom’s scrapbooking case and pasted the first letter from M.G. onto the first page of the journal, centering it as best he could. He left a few blank pages for notes and calculations, then glued in the first clue, along with his solution and the ripped-out calendar with the special date of May sixth circled. Finally, he attached the second clue. He made sure everything was dry, then closed the book.
Satisfied with his efforts, and glad to have everything he needed in one portable book, he took his journal and went back upstairs.
The next day, almost as though the mysterious M.G. knew Tick was organized and ready to go, the third clue came in the mail.
Chapter
12
~
The Voice of M.G.
It was Saturday, and just as he had done a couple of weeks earlier, Tick spied on the mailbox, waiting for the mailman to show up. The day was clear and crisp, the sun almost blinding as it reflected off the snow still covering the ground. Tick sipped hot chocolate and watched countless little drops of water fall from the trees in the yard as clinging icicles dripped away the last remnants of their lives. His mom and dad had gone Christmas shopping, Lisa was upstairs playing house with Kayla, and the soft melody of Bing Crosby crooning “White Christmas” echoed through the house. Tick didn’t know if life could be any better.
The truck finally rumbled up to his house around noon, and Tick didn’t bother looking to see if there was any sign of a yellow envelope. He had his boots and coat on and was out the door before the mailman had even left for the next house. By the time the truck drove off, Tick had already pulled out the stack of letters.
Sitting right on top was a crumpled yellow envelope with the same messy handwriting, postmarked from South Africa. Other than a strange lump in one corner, the rest of the envelope was flimsy and flat. Intrigued, a shiver of excitement rattling his nerves, Tick sprinted back to the house and up to his room in no time, where the Journal of Curious Letters lay resting on his bed.
He ripped open the envelope and peered inside, seeing nothing at first. He billowed it out, turning it upside down and shaking it until a little, flashy square fell out and tumbled off the bed. Tick picked it up off the floor. It was a tiny cassette tape, the kind his dad used when he made everyone talk about themselves for a tape to send to Grandma and Grandpa in Georgia. (A couple of years ago, his dad had finally switched to a video camera, but he still occasionally used the tape recorder, too.)
Nothing had been written on the tape label, but it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what M.G. intended the recipients of this clue to do. It took Tick ten minutes to dig out his dad’s little tape machine, hidden behind some socket wrenches in his dad’s infamous “junk drawer.” Tick could hardly contain himself as he went back to his room, locked the door, popped in the tape, and pushed PLAY.
He heard a few seconds of scratchy background noise, then a loud clank. Tick, pencil in hand, planned to transcribe every word into his journal, but once the message started, he could only listen, fascinated.
A man spoke, his voice quirky and heavy with a British accent. Not like Mothball’s accent; no, this man’s voice sounded much more sophisticated and tight, like the head butler at an English manor who has just realized his entire staff is stricken with the flu on the night of the big Christmas party to which hundreds of very important people are invited.
Well, one mystery had been solved: M.G. was a man.
When the short message ended, Tick laughed out loud, then rewound it to listen again. Then he quickly fast forwarded through the rest of the tape to make sure there were no other messages. On the fourth time, he wrote every single word into his journal:
Say the magic words when the day arrives, then hit the ground below you ten times, as hard as you can, with a very specific object. It’s a bit of a quandary because I can’t tell you what the object is. Let’s just say, I hope your soul is stronger than mine because there are no exceptions to this requirement. Also, the object must be the opposite of wrong but not correct.
Whew, glad to have that bit done. I really need to use the lavatory before I . . . oh, sorry, . . . meant to turn the recorder off. Where is that confounded button . . . ? Ah! There we are—
Click.
Tick hit the STOP button, shaking his head at how
crazy this M.G. guy seemed. Ever since he’d mentioned peppermint sticks and sweetened milk in the first letter, Tick had sensed a subtle sense of humor in the man, a contrast to the message of doom that seemed to be laced throughout the clues and warnings. He wondered if he’d ever get to meet M.G. He’d already begun to feel a sense of trust toward him.
Tick stared at his own handwriting, rereading the words, committing them to memory. Something in the back of his mind told him this one was simple, an itch he couldn’t quite scratch. The mystery lay in figuring out what the object must be. Once he knew that, it seemed pretty obvious what he needed to do: hit the ground ten times after saying the magic words.
Tick decided it really came down to two phrases:
Let’s just say, I hope your soul is stronger than mine
and
the object must be the opposite of wrong but not correct
Thinking, Tick flipped to a blank page in the journal to see if jotting down notes could whip up his brain functions into a frenzy. Staring at the empty lines on the page made him suddenly remember that he’d never written down the odd words Mothball had said that day by the woods when she’d been listing the things she wasn’t allowed to mention. Mad at himself for not doing it sooner, Tick squeezed his eyes shut and searched the darkness of his vision, hoping bright neon words would j
ump out and remind him of what she’d said. One or two did almost immediately, and after a few minutes he’d remembered four and wrote them in a list on the left side of the page.
The Master
The Barrier Wand
The Realities
The Kyoopy
There’d been another weird word that he couldn’t quite recall. Nothing else came to him, and he realized his eyes were getting droopy, his brain nice and ready for an afternoon nap. Wanting to check his e-mail—and needing some fresh, cold air to wake him up—he threw his new journal into his backpack and headed off for the library, telling Lisa he’d be back in a couple of hours.
~
“Tick, don’t you ever take that scarf off?” Ms. Sears asked, stopping Tick before he could make it to the library computers. He’d spent some time studying his Journal of Curious Letters, as well as finishing up the last bit of homework for the weekend, and wanted to check his e-mail account, though he’d yet to receive anything since leaving the hint phrases on the Pen Pal site.
“I guess my neck gets cold pretty easily,” he said, shrugging while he faked a shiver. Of course Ms. Sears knew about his birthmark, but he wanted to avoid a lecture on not being ashamed of who you are. “Any cool books come in lately?”
Her brow furrowed as she thought, making her entire weave of hair shift like a jittery land mass triggered by an earthquake. “There’s a new one by Savage, but I think he’s too scary for you,” she said, trying to hold back a smile.
Tick rolled his eyes. “I’ll take my chances.”
“Okay, but if you have nightmares, tell your mom that I warned you.” She smiled. “I’ll hold it up at the counter for you.”
The Journal of Curious Letters Page 7