by Mr.
“Please. I’ll pay you a quarter of thirty-one million dollars.”
Jack straightened up and laughed. “Are you blackmailing me for a cup of tea? Is it okay if we grab a Coke?”
“No problem!”
Sophie walked up the stairs with Lisa, who had the sketch tucked under her arm. “Let’s wait for Tom and Jack,” she said in her room.
“Oh sure, just because I’m so great at waiting,” joked Lisa. “Patience is my middle name after all.” However, one look at her sister and she knew Sophie was in no mood for her jokes. She changed the subject. “Excited about Venice? Man, I’m so jealous!”
Sophie nodded. “Now that you mention it, I can’t wait!”
“Jack likes you,” Lisa said abruptly.
Sophie’s face turned red. “No way, get out of here. Jack’s my best friend. Just like you and Tom. They’re the boys next door!”
“Okay, whatever you think yourself,” Lisa said.
“Girls!” they heard someone call from the hallway. Jack entered the room triumphantly carrying two large mugs of tea. Tom followed him with two cans of Coke.
Sophie stared at Jack for a second. Nah. She didn’t detect anything that indicated he liked her. Jack took a sip of his Coke, sat down in the desk chair, and spun himself around like he always did when he sat there. Just like the others, he was anxious to hear her story.
“Okay, just wait till you see this. The thing is, I discovered something while you were downstairs. I was about to put the book away, but I was so curious...”
“What’s new?” Lisa laughed.
“As if I can help it? I was so curious that I started flipping through the book, searching for something that might help us. Hackett said Leonardo was really clever and knew so much... he was right, you know. I looked him up on the internet. The guy did a lot of cool stuff in his lifetime. He designed crazy airplanes and musical instruments, and made really unusual art and stuff. Whatever the reason, he was just a whole lot smarter than everyone else at the time. Strange, right?” Sophie said, looking inquisitively at her friends.
“I was really frustrated that I couldn’t read anything in the book, so I downloaded a few apps on my phone. One that scans texts, one that translates handwriting into digital text, and a language translator.” She looked at each one of them to make sure they were following her. “I already had a photo-editing app on my phone that could reverse mirror images, turn and crop them, and whatnot.”
Lisa, Jack and Tom all looked at each other and then spontaneously burst into applause.
“Wow, I knew you were smart, but this...” Tom said, stunned.
“How do you know all that? How did you know there were apps for that, and how did you know what they were called?” Jack asked, full of admiration.
“I just Googled it on my laptop, quick search, scroll, search again,” Sophie said as casually as possible, while secretly enjoying the compliments.
“Anyway, I was hoping everything would work immediately, so I tried to scan a page... the page with the drawing of my phone actually.”
Lisa had to laugh, but Jack and Tom didn’t get the joke.
Sophie grabbed the book and quickly leafed through the pages. “Here!” She lifted up the book, turned it towards them, and showed them the page she was referring to.
“No way! That really does look like your phone!” Tom said amazed.
“It’s just a random tiny sketch, but still.” Jack nodded.
Sophie turned the page over. “But then,” she took a deep breath, “I saw this page.”
Lisa, Jack and Tom’s eyes widened when they saw the picture in the book.
“That’s the thing downstairs,” Jack said.
“An orrery,” Sophie said. “It’s an old-fashioned name for a planetarium.”
“Strange that we didn’t notice it yesterday,” Lisa said, slightly annoyed.
“That’s what I thought. I only just noticed it myself, so I immediately chose this page to translate.” Sophie put the book down and grabbed her laptop.
“And this is where it gets really crazy,” Sophie whispered. “Look what’s written on the page. There’s also a bunch of calculations related to time travel. According to Leonardo it should be possible if you reach a certain speed.”
“Faster than light,” Jack added.
“Exactly. Leonardo wrote that down, too. By traveling faster than light.”
“There’s just one small problem,” Jack said, half jokingly. “No one’s ever done it,” he said, raising his eyebrows while looking at Sophie. “So, not so smart after all, our Leonardo,” Jack said, and nudged Lisa, hoping she would back him up.
Sophie shot Jack a vicious look. “If you don’t want to hear any of this, you can just go home. Go watch a movie or something. In the meantime, we’ll be the first people in the world to discover time travel, and we’ll make sure to think of you when we’re being interviewed by journalists from all around the world, when we’re in the newspapers, on TV...”
Jack just stared at his feet. “Alright, alright, I’ll keep quiet.”
“Good, because I’m not done yet. Anyway, he said that time travel is possible as long as you achieve the right speed. And according to him it’s possible using that crazy planetarium downstairs. Now do you understand why I was so freaked out?”
“What do you mean ‘with that thing downstairs’? What does it say in the book?” asked Tom, who up to that point had sat listening with his mouth open.
Sophie continued reading. “Underneath the drawing he wrote: ‘The answer, the orrery. Use wisely the light. The seas have extraordinary powers. The future is what I see.’ I didn’t know what an orrery was, so I looked it up on my computer. It translated as planetarium and under ‘Images’ I saw a picture of the exact same thing downstairs! Get it? Leonardo says that we can use it to travel through time!” By now Sophie was standing and waving her hands in the air in an effort to emphasize her point.
Lisa jumped up from the bed and started playing air guitar in the middle of the room. Jack, Tom and Sophie stared at her in astonishment.
“What? Why are you all just sitting there staring at me? Turn on that orrilary and let’s go! I want to see a real dinosaur!”
Tom went to join her, but Jack held him back.
“Sounds great, Lisa, but we’re not going to experiment with that thing when we don’t know how it works. Your sister’s right, the thing could kill us. We could accidentally beam you to another dimension!”
Sophie agreed. “The smart thing to do is first to figure out how it works precisely. That is, unless you want to land in the middle of a battlefield during World War Two.”
Lisa stopped playing her air guitar. She slumped her shoulders in theatrical fashion, let out a deep sigh, and sat back down on the bed.
“Can you see if there’s any information on the internet about Leonardo and the orrery he invented? To see how the thing works? Lisa asked.
“I already searched, but I couldn’t find anything,” Sophie said.
“Weird,” Lisa raised an eyebrow. “Everything he’s ever invented or painted can be found on the internet, but not this?”
“That’s what I thought, until I suddenly realized...” Sophie hesitated a second before looking triumphantly at her sister. “It’s all very logical actually! Everything about Leonardo and the planetarium is in the codex! In our codex – the codex no one knows about! That’s why we can’t find out anything about it. We’re the only ones who know!”
“Scan the next page, it must say how it works, if it does work, that is,” Jack said.
Sophie opened up the book again. “That’s going to be a problem, look,” she handed the book to Jack and pointed to the frayed edges where the missing pages had been torn out.
“SOPHIE!”
“LISA!” Their mother was standing at the bottom of the stairs.
“Quick, hide the book,” Jack said.
“Mom, we’ll be down in a minute,” Lisa yelled. “Tom, can
you beam me downstairs?”
Jack and Tom had a good laugh at this and then headed for the stairs. “We’re out of here, see you tomorrow!” They waved as they disappeared around the corner.
Sophie put the book away and turned to Lisa.
“I thought you two would come downstairs, but all I saw were the boys.” Sophie’s mother was standing in the doorway.
“Your dad called this morning to say that his presentation has been moved forward to today. So he has tomorrow off. And so do I...” She gave her daughters a jubilant look.
“So you’ll both be here tomorrow after school?” Sophie asked, realizing this meant they wouldn’t be able to explore the secret room.
“It means, Sophie, that we’re leaving for Paris tomorrow!”
Lisa began jumping around the room. “Par-is! Par-is! Par-is!”
“We called the school,” their mother said. “You can take two days off, on the condition that you learn something there, too. Which is why we’re going to visit a few museums.”
“That’s great, Mom,” Sophie groaned. Her mother was already heading back downstairs again.
“Yeah, we thought so too,” her mother yelled from the stairs. “Don’t forget to pack your suitcases tonight.”
Sophie stared at her sister. “What are you so happy about?”
“Look, there’s nothing we can do about this little trip. Better to let on we’re excited, which is how we normally react when we visit Hans! Otherwise, they might figure out we have a secret. And trust me, we’ll have plenty of time to check out the room after the weekend. Every time Dad and Mom take a few days off they end up having to work extra the week after. That means they’ll be home late. Which gives us lots of time to explore the room. And enough time to study the orrery!”
Sophie should have known that her sister would have already worked out the entire scenario. That would also explain why she reacted so enthusiastically to her mother’s announcement that they’d be leaving a day earlier. Lisa had probably been excited both about the room and Paris. If she weren’t excited about Paris, she would have been fully capable of concocting a story explaining why they couldn’t possibly go to Paris at this moment.
“Lisa, you’re really something else,” said Sophie smiling and shaking her head. She picked up her phone and swiped her thumb across the screen. “Paris is 74 degrees tomorrow. The same on Friday and even warmer at the weekend.”
“I’m going to go pack, you too?” Lisa asked. “If we do it now we might have some time tonight to look at the book together.”
“Good plan,” Sophie said.
They went to the guest room and grabbed their suitcases from one of the closets.
“Well, we won’t have to take you out for a walk tonight!” Lisa giggled at her own joke. There on a round glass table in front of them was a stuffed dog sitting on its hind legs. He stared back at them intently. In his front paws was a sign with the words I’m dead written on it.
“Ah Lisa, remember!” Sophie tried to suppress an embarrassed smile. “I’m curious as to what Hans will have up his sleeve this time! I’m open to anything, of course, as long as he doesn’t give us any more of these dead animals!” she said, nodding towards the dog. “That thing is so freaky. The dodo is the only one I really like. The rest are all a bit weird.”
After packing their bags they walked downstairs to the kitchen. Their mother put on the kettle and grabbed her phone.
“Seeing as we’re leaving tomorrow, I didn’t do any shopping for groceries. I’m going to order pizza. You guys want veggie? She had already begun dialing without waiting for an answer.
Lisa nudged her sister. “Maybe it’s a good idea to let Jack and Tom know we’re leaving tomorrow. Otherwise they might think we were all beamed off somewhere.”
“We’ll head over there after dinner,” Sophie agreed.
“It’ll be here in 25 minutes,” their mother said, as she moved towards the living room where she turned on the TV and zapped to the news.
“Come on, we’ll go over there now!” said Lisa, throwing Sophie her jacket as she headed for the door. Sophie put it on and followed her out into the garden.
They decided to walk around to the back of Jack and Tom’s house. Lisa peered through the kitchen window at the rear of the house. There was a saucepan bubbling away on the stove, but she saw no one in the kitchen.
“Hide! Quick!” Lisa told her sister.
“Why?”
“Come on, just do it, it’ll be fun!”
Sophie crawled behind a bush in the garden. Lisa bent forward, messed up her hair with her hands, and knocked on the window a few times with her knuckles. Jack appeared immediately. He opened the door wearing a surprised look on his face. Lisa stared back at him, her face full of fear, her wild curls trembling.
“Jack,” she croaked in a low voice. “Jack, get your father. Something’s happened. My parents... Sophie...”
Through the branches Sophie could see Jack’s face go stiff. He looked as if he’d seen a ghost. Sophie felt immediately sorry for him. Lisa, however, stuck diligently to her role.
“Jack, quick, I accidentally... beamed them off into space...” Lisa gasped.
Jack put his hands up to his face. He turned around and called his father. “DAD! DAD! You’ve got to come, quick!” His voice began to break. ‘TOM, come help. Lisa’s here and... they’re gone!”
Sophie heard Tom running towards them, and their father descending the stairs three steps at a time. Jack turned to look at Lisa again. For a second he thought she was crying hysterically, but then he saw that the tears on her cheeks were tears of laughter. It took a few seconds for Jack to realize what was going on. His father and Tom appeared at the door. “What’s wrong?” they asked in unison.
“Oh, it’s nothing,” Lisa said between fits of laughter. “I just stopped by to say that we’re off to Paris tomorrow instead of the day after. I said ‘We’re going away’ and Jack suddenly began yelling.
“Jack?” his father said. “Are you pulling our legs?”
“Uh... not really... Lisa...” Jack was speechless.
“Paris, sounds lovely. I hope you have a great time,” Jack’s father said perplexed and walked back inside.
Sophie had witnessed the entire scene, and out of pure astonishment had remained hiding in the bushes. She had struggled to stifle her laughter, but at the same time she felt very sorry for Jack, who was still dazed and speechless when Sophie re-emerged from behind the bushes.
“Oh, I’m really sorry Jack. I didn’t know Lisa was going to...”
Jack stared at the sisters, grimaced, and shook his head. “Unbelievable, you’re a little witch. I really thought you had made everyone disappear with that thing! I thought something terrible had happened. I got the fright of my life... I really believed you!”
Laughing his head off, Tom gave Lisa a big bear hug and said, “Hil-ari-ous! I’m never going to forget this. Jack actually lost for words for once. Brilliant!”
“Lisa, I’m going to get you back for this! Maybe tomorrow, maybe the day after, maybe next month, maybe next year. But trust me, you’re going to pay,” Jack couldn’t suppress a smile, however. “Holy moly, you really had me.”
Sophie stepped forward and stood next to Lisa.
“Okay, back to reality. The reason we came is that our plans have changed. We’re leaving for Paris early tomorrow morning. That means no secret room for a few days.”
“No!” Tom said.
“You can’t be serious?” added his brother.
“Sorry, but we can’t do anything about it. Fortunately, it’s only for a few days. I’ll scan a few more pages this evening and send them to you, Jack. Then you guys can see if you can decipher anything else,” Sophie said. “And listen, we’ll be back on Sunday. If you work quickly and tell us what you discovered on Monday, we might be able to find out on Monday afternoon if that thing actually works.”
“I’ll email you tonight before nine,” Sophie told Jack
.
Lisa tugged on Tom’s arm. “Come with me,” she said, nodding towards the garden.
While Sophie was talking to Jack at the kitchen door, Lisa walked into the garden. Intrigued, Tom followed her. Suddenly Lisa turned around and pushed her hand into the pocket of Tom’s jeans. She lifted a finger to her lips before Tom could react. “Shh! The key to the back door. The alarm code is written on a sticker on the key.”
Tom gave her a puzzled look.
“Just in case you guys need to look at the book or go into the room. This way you can get inside when we’re gone.”
“But... you’re crazy, we’re not going to break into your house?” stammered Tom.
“It’s not really breaking in,” Lisa said. “Look. You might not need the key at all. But imagine if you and Jack decide you need more information. This way you can get it, okay?”
She heard a scooter pull into the street. “Oh shoot, we’ve got to go. That’s the pizza guy. The book is in Sophie’s desk drawer and... well, you already know how to get into the secret room. Oh, and one more thing, please don’t break anything. Seriously Tom. If you break something, then I’m playing dumb!” She looked at him with all the seriousness she could muster.
“Relax, Lisa, we don’t even know if we’ll need to get into the house. Okay?”
One corner of Lisa’s mouth curled into a little smile. Mission accomplished. She knew that in the next day or two Tom wouldn’t be able to contain his curiosity. There was no doubt he’d go and investigate.
“Sure, I know. And if you don’t need to, no problem, okay?”
“If who doesn’t need what?” Sophie had turned around and was walking towards her sister and Tom.
“It’s nothing, Tom was just thinking of going to the library tomorrow to check out some books on that Leonardo guy, but I said it might be better to wait until we get back.”
To Lisa, this wasn’t lying, technically speaking, because her father’s study was more or less a library. She couldn’t help it if her sister interpreted it differently and was probably thinking that Tom was considering going to the public library.