Tesla's Attic

by Neal Shusterman

  When a semi-stranger invites you inside to see her darkroom, any sensible human being would break the land speed record running in the other direction. However, with her perpetually present pocket pepper spray and a brown belt in theoretical jujitsu, Petula felt well able to protect herself should Ms. Planck turn out to be serving up local children in the beef ragout, like that lunch lady down in Phoenix.

  As they descended the stairs, Petula noted numerous framed black-and-white photos of an artistic nature.

  “So you’re a photographer, too?”

  “I dabbled,” said Ms. Planck. “But in the end it didn’t pay the bills.” Then she swung open the door of a basement to reveal that it had been converted into the darkroom of Petula’s dreams. All nature of high-end equipment, from an Omega diffusion enlarger to an Arkay print washer, filled the room. But it was all covered in dusty plastic.

  Ms. Planck sighed. “I always said I’d get back to it, but when Charlie died, I just didn’t have the heart for it anymore.”

  “Was he your husband?”

  “My Chihuahua.”

  Petula gasped. “I have a Chihuahua!”

  Ms. Planck folded her arms and leaned against the door frame. “Interesting. Do you believe that things happen for a reason, Petula?”

  “No.”

  “Well, let’s consider it happy coincidence, then,” said Ms. Planck, “that I have a darkroom that longs to be used, and you have a camera that has never even heard of digital photography.”

  Nick leaned back from his computer and held the gold pin up to the light streaming through the attic skylight. The tiny A sparkled.

  He had spent half the afternoon searching online for anything resembling it, and he had come up blank. He even scanned the face of the pin and tried a Google match. Nada.

  The A had to stand for something, and the infinity symbol was probably significant, too, but without any clues it was all just guesswork.

  “I’m not surprised you didn’t find anything,” Caitlin said when he called her, which may or may not have implied that she thought he was inept. Nick couldn’t say for sure, but he wasn’t about to use the reel-to-reel to find out. That would be far too sneaky. “All right,” said Caitlin. “Then we’ll go with plan B.”

  “I didn’t know there was a plan B.”

  “There’s always a plan B.”

  She explained there was a jeweler in town who was the expert in personal adornment.

  “I really don’t feel comfortable showing the pin to anyone else,” Nick told her.

  “Don’t worry,” Caitlin assured him. “He’s a family friend; we’ve been going to him for years. He’s the model of discretion.”

  “Whatever that means,” said Nick.

  “It means we can trust him. Anyway, I already set up an appointment. He doesn’t usually work late on Sundays, but I think he has a crush on my mother, and he keeps hoping she’ll come in one day to have her wedding ring appraised. So he made a special exception. We have a meeting with him at seven thirty tonight.”

  Caitlin liked to believe she lived for adventure, but any adventure in her life had been limited to drama she created herself. Here, however, was something real. Or surreal, as it were. Here was an event that was larger than life, and relatively speaking, in her own backyard. Now she had a real mystery that involved shady, well-dressed people, a secret symbol, and a boy who was both smart and cute. Caitlin suspected he might even evolve from cute into seriously good-looking when the rest of his face caught up with his ears and he did something about his perpetual hat-hair.

  She was resigned to the fact that there would be no such evolution for Theo. Yes, he had the good-looks part down, if you didn’t mind the extra vertebrae in his neck, but as for smarts, well, he was eternally mired smack in the middle of the bell curve. He wasn’t stupid, just woefully average—which might have been fine if he wasn’t always so pleased with himself.

  Perhaps the between-the-lines conversation played over the school loudspeakers was a blessing in disguise.

  Nick showed up on foot at seven.

  “Don’t you have a bike?”

  “Lost it in the fire.”

  “Right. Sorry. You can borrow my dad’s.” And although it was a bit big for him, he handled it well.

  They rode side by side, hogging the bike lane as they made their way to Svedberg & Sons, Fine Jewelers.

  “So how are Danny and your father dealing with what happened?”

  “They’re not,” Nick told her. “Danny’s the kind of kid who takes things as they come, and my dad—well, whenever there’s something that he can’t understand, he gets weirdly busy with stuff he does understand. When I left he was weed-whacking.”

  “At night?”

  “Exactly.”

  They made their way into the business district, where elegant, newly restored shops nestled beside original businesses that hadn’t changed a window display in recorded history. There was a fabric store that sold hideous remnants from the seventies, and a shoe store that had a sun-faded poster for Hush Puppies, whatever those were. Even in daylight those older stores could feel creepy, or at the very least depressing—but on a Sunday night, void of any foot traffic, those dark plate-glass windows were bleakly foreboding.

  Caitlin coasted to a stop in front of Svedberg’s jewelry store, with Nick right behind her. The shop was as dark as all the others.

  “Are you sure he’s here?” Nick asked. “Maybe he forgot.”

  Caitlin got off of her bike and tried the door, fully expecting it to be locked—but it opened when she pulled on it. A warm breath of air pulsed out from inside. A bell above the door jingled, uproariously loud in the silence, and Caitlin flinched. Nick snickered at that, and she gave him a dirty look. No doubt if he had been the one opening the door, he would have flinched, too.

  She should have remembered the bell from her childhood—although it had been many, many years since she’d been here. Her father, always in a panic, used to take her to pick out a last-minute Valentine’s Day gift for her mother. Then Caitlin would go again, when her mother returned the gift and picked out something she actually liked. It was a secret known only to Caitlin, her mother, and Mr. Svedberg, so she felt an odd sort of camaraderie with the man. Co-conspirators in a secret intrigue of jewels.

  “Come, come,” said a voice from the back. “Is that you, Miss Westfield? Come, come!”

  There was a faint light from the rear of the shop, creating long, tiny shadows of rings, necklaces, and bracelets in the jewelry cases. There was not enough light to make them sparkle, though. There, in the very back, as always, sat a tired fiftyish man in his little workspace. He looked exactly the same as he always had to Caitlin—maybe only a little dustier. His eyes were a bit too small for his face, which he tried to compensate for by opening them wide whenever he spoke. It gave the impression that he was always astonished to find himself in a conversation.

  “Hello, Mr. Svedberg. I can’t thank you enough for taking the time to meet us like this.”

  He looked up and smiled with more warmth, it seemed, than the place allowed.

  “This can’t be right,” he said. “Last I recall, young Miss Westfield was just so high, clinging to her mommy’s pant leg with ice-cream-sticky fingers.” And he winked. He always winked at her. Further proof of their jewelry conspiracy. The wink made her look away awkwardly, as it had all those years ago. “How is your mother?”

  “She’s good,” Caitlin said, making a mental note that he didn’t ask about her father.

  Then Svedberg turned to Nick. “And this must be the young man you told me about.”

  “Nick Slate. A friend.” Nick offered his hand to shake.

  “Well, Nick Slate, a friend, it’s very chivalrous of you to escort a young lady on a dark night.”

  “It’s not so dark,” said Caitlin, already tired of the small talk. She and Nick sat down on stools beside the workstation. With Nick sitting beside her, she imagined they looked like a nervous you
ng couple about to choose an engagement ring, which made her irritated at Nick even though it wasn’t his fault.

  The old jeweler looked silently back and forth between them. Caitlin began to worry that there was some protocol to such private transactions, and she was blowing it.

  “So…” she said.

  “So,” Svedberg answered, “you mentioned some jewelry you wanted appraised, yes?”

  Nick reached into his pocket. “It’s a pin. I have it right here.” He had wrapped it in a tissue, and Caitlin rolled her eyes. You don’t bring a jeweler something precious wrapped in a tissue. He should have at least located a velvet pouch somewhere. Surely his mother’s jewelry collection would have one.…Then, all at once, she remembered Nick had lost his mother. She wanted to apologize, even though she hadn’t actually said anything.

  Nick held the pin but didn’t extend it toward Svedberg yet. He looked to Caitlin. “You sure about this?”

  Caitlin turned to Svedberg. “My friend needs reassurance that this consultation will remain strictly confidential,” she said.

  “Of course,” said the jeweler. Now he seemed almost greedy to see what Nick held.

  Nick unwrapped the pin and placed it on the felt workstation, where it glistened under Svedberg’s lamp.

  If Caitlin had expected any kind of reaction from Mr. Svedberg, she was disappointed. He simply picked up the pin and looked at it through an enormous magnifying lens.

  “Hmm…” the jeweler said thoughtfully, touching the pin lightly with his fingertip. “Most likely gold, very fine quality; I’d guess twenty-four karat. The workmanship on the pin, too, is very fine, the insignia molded, not stamped.” He sighed, and felt the pin in his palm. “But it’s very light, I’m afraid. So even if the gold is pure, it would not be worth very much.”

  “Do you recognize the symbol on it?” Caitlin asked. “Maybe it has more value as an objet d’art than its weight would suggest.”

  As the jeweler studied the front of the pin, Nick mouthed the words Objet d’art? at her. Caitlin studiously ignored him.

  “It’s a V letterform with traditional stems,” the jeweler murmured, “bisected by a figure eight. There’s something familiar about it.…”

  “Turn it over,” Nick prompted. “It’s an A, not a V. And isn’t a sideways figure eight the infinity symbol?”

  Svedberg turned the pin right side up, and the moment he did, his eyes—already wide—peeled a bit farther, and he suddenly stopped talking. Caitlin imagined that all the watches in the glass cases stopped as well.

  “What is it?” Nick asked.

  A brief hesitation, then Svedberg shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “Indigestion. My doctor says I should stay away from spicy foods, but I do love the occasional jalapeño.”

  Then he stood and handed Nick back the pin. “I wish I could be of more help. Best of luck to you, though.”

  “But wait,” Nick said, and he looked to Caitlin as if the jeweler’s sudden shift in demeanor was her fault, then back to Svedberg. “You said it seemed familiar.…”

  “I was mistaken,” Svedberg said quickly. “One sees so many designs in this business, one symbol is bound to be confused with another.”

  But Caitlin could sense unspoken volumes. The question was, how to extract whatever information Svedberg was hiding. When the answer came, it was far easier than she imagined and far too devious for comfort—but this was one case where Caitlin concluded that the end justified the means.

  “My mother will be so disappointed,” she said.

  At that, Svedberg perked up. “Don’t tell me this is your mother’s!”

  “Well, it was a gift.”

  “From whom?”

  “That’s the thing, she’s not entirely sure. It arrived anonymously.”

  Then Svedberg looked suspiciously at Nick. “So if it’s your mother’s, why did he have it?”

  “Are you kidding me?” said Nick, not even missing a beat. “Look at how tight her jeans are. You can’t get anything in those pockets.”

  “That’s right,” said Caitlin, smiling through the sting. “So I asked Nick to hold it, considering his clothes are so ill-fitting.” She smiled sweetly at Mr. Svedberg. “It would mean a lot to my mother if she knew just what it was—then maybe we could figure out who sent it.”

  Svedberg looked at the two of them, and Caitlin could sense his resolve to stay silent had begun to crumble. Just one more nudge…

  “She always speaks of you so fondly—that’s why I came to you…because I thought you’d be kind enough to help her.”

  That did it. Svedberg put his hand on a glass jewelry case as if to keep himself steady. “I don’t suppose you’ve heard of”—his voice dropped to a whisper—“the Accelerati?”

  Caitlin looked at Nick, who only shrugged.

  “Suffice it to say that whoever sent this to your mother is not to be trifled with. Bring her here tomorrow night, and I’ll tell her what I know.”

  “Bring her here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Am I being unclear?”

  Caitlin’s head was already reeling at the thought of having to involve her mother in this, but Nick rose to fill the void.

  “Thank you, Mr. Svedberg,” he said, shaking the man’s hand. “I’m sure Mrs. Westfield will be grateful for your help.”

  And they left, the jingling bells announcing their exit to anyone who might be nearby.

  History is filled with a sordid assortment of secret societies, each dedicated to either the betterment or the destruction of humanity. Regardless of their aim, however, all secret societies have one thing in common. They all have a stupid pin. Or a stupid hat. Or a ridiculously stupid handshake.

  When it came to secret societies, the Accelerati were at the pinnacle of the pyramid. Their interest in Nick Slate was no small thing, and if Nick knew what grand events now revolved around him, he might have run to the farthest side of the globe. But in this instance, ignorance was his greatest asset.

  Nick hurried up to his room the second he got home, and he tried to do a Web search of Accelerati—but the moment he hit enter, his computer crashed. He rebooted, tried again on a different search engine, and his computer crashed again. And again. He wondered if Caitlin had a similar problem, but he didn’t want to call her, because she was miffed by his comment about her jeans.

  “I had to come up with something!” Nick had told her. “And it worked, didn’t it?”

  Nevertheless, any affront to Caitlin’s fashion sense, no matter the motivation, destined him for the doghouse. At least until morning.

  It was maddening, because Nick had no one else he could discuss this with. He couldn’t talk to Mitch about it—Mitch already had enough on his mind after the fateful visit to his father. And although Vince was aware that something was up, he didn’t exactly engender a warm feeling of trust.

  There was always Petula. But hadn’t Nick suffered enough already?

  On Monday morning, as Nick was leaving for school, Vince showed up at his door with a baseball bat.

  “For you,” he said.

  “Very funny.” Nick figured he had heard from Caitlin, or maybe Mitch, about Danny’s involvement in the falling-star incident.

  “I don’t do funny,” Vince said. “This came from your garage sale.”

  Nick hadn’t even remembered it. “How did you find it?”

  “There is a dark underworld of mailbox smashers,” Vince told him, “and baseball bats suffer high casualties in the enterprise. The smashers are always looking for cheap ones. Once I remembered that there was a bat in your garage sale, I knew exactly where to look for it.”

  Nick took it from Vince gingerly, as if it were made of glass. “It doesn’t look damaged.”

  “Smashing only happens on alternate Tuesdays, so we were lucky,” Vince said. “You owe me fifteen bucks.”

  Nick was more than happy to pay up. He returned the object to a corner of his attic, satisfied that, fo
r once, all was well.

  At school, however, all was not well with Mitch. Nick noticed that he was uncharacteristically silent in class, and during lunch, he didn’t finish anyone’s sentences. Nor did he have loud conversations, or inject himself into anyone else’s business. He just sat, ate, cleaned up after himself, and quietly observed the world around him. When Nick had finished his own lunch, he went over to Mitch.

  “Hey,” he offered tentatively.

  “Hey.”

  “So you left it at home?”

  They both knew what Nick was referring to.

  “It’s not like I need the thing to survive.” Then Mitch added, “I don’t even miss it.”

  Although Nick could tell that he did. “It’s good you don’t have it,” he told him. “It proves you control it, and not the other way around.”

  That actually made Mitch smile. “Yeah, that’s true, isn’t it? I mean…the thing is what it is…but I am what I am, with or without it.” Then he got a little somber again. “So…who am I again?”

  Nick shrugged. “A half-Hispanic, half-Irish kid with a French-sounding last name.”

  “Right,” said Mitch ruefully. “Even my name doesn’t know who I am.”

  Nick hadn’t intended to make Mitch feel worse. “I’ll tell you what. When we find Tesla’s identity-crisis can opener, you can be the first to use it.”

  “Nah,” said Mitch with a reluctant grin. “It’ll probably open up a can of worms.”

  But Nick knew the can of worms was already open. And those worms were rapidly evolving into cobras.

  After school, Nick invited Mitch to join the second excursion to Svedberg’s. It thrilled Nick that Caitlin balked slightly at the idea of Mitch coming along—it meant that she preferred quality time with Nick alone, but he felt that Mitch deserved and needed to be included.

  “So let me get this straight,” Mitch said as they sat on a bus heading downtown. “You found a pin that belongs to a secret society, and some jeweler who’s in love with Caitlin’s mom is gonna tell you all about it?”

  “Well,” said Caitlin, “he agreed to tell my mother.”