“C—”
“Wait.” I held up my hand. “I don’t want to know.”
He stepped onto the swinging bridge. “Come on.”
Holding on to the ropes that encased the bridge, Quirk began making his way across. As he did, I studied the engineering of the clearly unstable structure. Wood planks served as stepping pieces, positioned about an inch apart. Rope wound the ends of the wood and knotted into the thick twine of the netted walls and handrails. The bridge appeared wide enough for only one person at a time.
I’d feel a lot better if something on the swinging structure resembled steel. Or concrete. Or something else equally stable. No wonder we’d had balancing lessons in PT.
Roughly halfway across, Quirk glanced back at me. “Come on,” he yelled.
“I’m going to wait until you get across.” One person’s weight was enough for this spindly thing.
I heard him mumble, “Chicken,” and narrowed my eyes. I’d show him chicken.
Feeling a surge of courage, I grabbed on to the handholds and stepped onto the first wood plank. My confidence quickly dwindled as the bridge swung slightly. I swallowed again, closed my eyes, and told myself not to look down.
That was like trying to tell me not to peek at Chapling’s new subelesup code.
I knew I would look down, so I opened my eyes to go ahead and get it over with, and my heart stopped.
This canyon, or whatever it was called, disappeared into nothingness, just like before when I’d been on Diablo crossing the ledge. Tightening my grip on the ropes, I felt my body make the bridge shake again and tried to loosen my muscles, but couldn’t.
I stared as daylight filtered down into the canyon, becoming darker and darker with the depth, until only blackness colored the area.
“Stop holding your breath,” the professor yelled.
I realized then I wasn’t breathing and gulped in some air. With stiff, unbending muscles, I commanded my legs to move and dragged first my right boot and then my left back off the wood and onto the ground. I glanced up to see that Quirk had made it all the way across. I thought he was supposed to be klutzy.
“Are you kidding me?” the professor yelled.
I lifted my right fist, and for the first time in my life, I flipped somebody off.
He barked a laugh in response.
It made me want to flip him off again, double time.
Taking a breath, I stared hard at the bridge and a ghost of a memory floated through my mind. I saw four-year-old me holding my mom’s hand. We stood on a rope-and-wood bridge that stretched about twenty feet between two pieces of land. A river bubbled ten feet below us.
My mother and I wore coats, gloves, and scarves, and my dad stood on the bridge, too, facing us. Laughing, he shifted his body weight and made the bridge swing. My mom laughed, too, and tried to tell him to stop but couldn’t get the words out between her giggles. I squealed and squeezed my mom’s hand and squealed some more.
“You coming or what?” Professor Quirk yelled, snapping me from the memory.
I felt a smile curving my lips and breathed a content sigh. Holding on to that memory, I stepped back onto the swinging bridge and walked all the way across. I didn’t look down once and instead recalled the rest of that afternoon with my parents. My family had hiked through the woods, picnicked on a big flat rock, drove the winding mountainous road to the top, and stood looking out over a valley with colorful autumn trees.
“Wasn’t so bad, was it?” Quirk asked, as I stepped off the other side of the bridge. “I saw you smiling.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Optical illusion.”
“Truth is, first time I did it I was scared out of mind.”
“Thanks for telling me that after I made it across.”
Quirk shot me a not-so-innocent smile. “We’re almost there.” He led me back into the jungle and around the biggest rock I’d ever seen.
Stopping around the back side of this boulder, he pointed to a dark opening in a hill covered by a thick green vine. “The cave.” Leaning down, Quirk stepped into the darkness of the opening. “Let’s do this.”
[10]
ducking down, I followed the professor into the dark cave.
Quirk flipped on a flashlight. He swept the beam along the walls and ceiling, illuminating a tunnel that stretched in front of us. “This goes for fifty feet and then it opens up into the room we’ll be working from.”
“Fifty feet? Now’s probably not a good time to tell you I’m a little bit claustrophobic.”
“No. Not really. However,” he sighed, “I am as well. More than a little.”
“Well, you’ve been here a week,” I tried to reason. “Surely you’ve gotten used to it.”
“Yeah. Not so much.”
It occurred to me then. “What the heck did you specialize in glyphs for if you’re claustrophobic? Hello? Cave drawings are generally found in caves.”
Quirk turned to me. “You can stop talking any time now.”
I motioned him forward. “Lead the way.”
In our crouched stance, we hobbled down the tunnel. I flicked my gaze from wall, to ceiling, to floor, keeping an eye out for bugs, bats, or anything else suspicious. “I thought caves were supposed to be dirty. I don’t see any bugs or slimy things.”
“This is a dry cave. There’s been no water intrusion. If my research holds true, this is the first time that this cave has seen climate since it was sealed shut a century ago. Plus, I swept it out.”
“You swept it out?”
“I don’t like an unclean working environment.”
“A little OCD, are we?”
Quirk shrugged. “A little.” He got down on his hands and knees.
“What are you doing?”
He swept the flashlight down the length of the ceiling showing where it dropped dramatically toward the floor. “We crawl the rest of the way.”
Great. I slid my laptop around my body to rest on my back and became one with the floor. We crawled down the clean, freshly swept tunnel on our bellies. I found myself appreciating Professor Quirk’s obsessive cleaning habits.
“It’s amazing that Jaaci fearlessly entered this cave to live out her father’s dying wish to retrieve the Mother Nature vase. Can you imagine?”
Quirk didn’t respond to my comment. “Professor Quirk?”
His shaky breathing echoed back to me. I lifted my head and stared at his boots as he belly-crawled in front of me. “Professor Quirk?”
“K-keep talking.”
Oh boy, the last thing I needed was a wigged-out professor. I racked my brain for something to talk about and came up empty. Of all the times for me to come up empty. And then it occurred to me, “Uh-huh, look who’s scared now, Mr. I-Made-It-Across-the-Bridge.”
He stopped moving. “Are you making fun of me?”
I smiled. “Yes, I am.”
Quirk started moving again. “I’ve decided I don’t like you anymore.”
His teasing tone made me smile even bigger. “So I was thinking, it’s kind of weird to call you ‘Professor,’ don’t ya think? Professor sounds like a title someone older should have. Someone bald and pudgy. How about I just call you Quirk? Although, whoever came up with Quirk for your cover could have done a better job. I mean, really, Quirk? Come on.”
“Quirk’s fine.”
“Good. Quirk, it is.”
A few seconds went by, and I heard his breathing pick up and thought he might be getting a little nervous again. “Um, tell me where you’re from.”
“S-Seattle.”
“Seattle, huh? I hear there’s lots of rain there.”
He didn’t answer.
“So, um, you said the IPNC recruited you and paid for your college. How’d they find you?”
“High school test scores.”
“Ah, yes, the ole test scores. Do you think you’ll stay with the IPNC or transfer to another branch?”
“Don’t know.”
I searched my brain for another
question and all I came up with was, “What’s your favorite color?”
On and on I talked, asking him ridiculous questions, while we slowly crawled our way down the tunnel. It seemed like it took forever. And I had to admit, I did quite the bang-up job of mindlessly chattering and keeping Quirk’s brain preoccupied. Well, to me it wasn’t mindless chatter. I very thoroughly explained the filament of a nonsuffixion NFD syntagma.
Sometime later Quirk slid from the tunnel. “We’re here,” he breathed.
I crawled out after him, feeling just as relieved as he sounded.
“Listen,” he said as he turned around and touched my arm. “Thanks for your help back there.”
I shrugged. “No biggie.”
“And I now know more about NFD syn-whatever than I ever thought possible.”
I smiled. “Glad to help.”
He returned my smile, but didn’t make another comment. Quiet seconds ticked by as we stared into each other’s shadowed faces. Slowly, his smile faded, and his eyes dropped to my lips. In that moment I knew things had shifted between us, and my stomach started uncontrollably whirling.
I looked away.
“Do you, um, have a boyfriend?”
Still not looking at him, I slowly nodded as my heart raced around in my chest. I didn’t think my voice would come out even if I tried.
“Lucky guy.”
I smiled, an image of David coming to my mind.
Clearing his throat, Quirk shifted onto his feet and away from me, and I glanced up. I couldn’t help but compare him to David.
Quirk was the kind of guy who would understand my brain, kind of like Chapling did. My mentor and I connected on a whole other level. It would be that way with Quirk. I adored David, but that was the one thing missing. Sometimes I felt like he really just didn’t “get” me. He thought I was more cute, adorable. He thought smart chicks were cool.
I closed my eyes to clear my head. Why was I even comparing Quirk to David? David was great.
“This room is fifteen feet in diameter,” Quirk said, interrupting my thoughts.
Using the flashlight, he walked away from me. I watched as he paced the perimeter of the circular room, leaning down to turn on battery-operated lanterns. Section by section the room began to glow, and simultaneously my jaw dropped.
Cave drawings covered every inch of the walls, ceiling, and floor. Row after row of engraved symbols. Column after column of etched images. Every intricate carving looked to be about the same size. There wasn’t an untouched part of the room. It was breathtaking. “No wonder you love this so much,” I said in awe.
With the room glowing now, Quirk stood in the center, making a slow circle as he took everything in. “I’ve been here a week, and I still get the shivers every time I look at it.”
I rubbed my hands up and down my arms, sort of feeling those shivers, too. Like we were on sacred ground or something.
Laughing, Quirk looked at me. “It’s amazing to think someone stood here in AD 1100 and did this.” He pointed to the ceiling. “Look at the intricacy of the animals there.” He pointed to the floor. “And this row . . . I can’t get over it.” He turned another circle. “This room is ancient code, and you and I are going to break it. We’re going to make history!”
I smiled at his excitement, even though I really didn’t feel it. Whoever created and hid this room obviously never wanted it to be found. I felt like I might be messing with the gods or something.
“Know where the vase was?” Quirk asked.
“No.”
He crossed the room to where a small rock ledge protruded from the wall. “It was sitting right here, as peaceful as you please.”
“Hmmm . . .” Quirk continued studying the circular room, and I realized he was zoning out.
Ready to try my new program, I unzipped my laptop case. “Well, let’s get busy.”
“Did you know that many carvings are considered sacred?” Quirk asked, clearly not having heard what I’d said.
“Yes, actually, I do.” I pulled my laptop out. “I’m ready when you are.”
“The writings began about five thousand years ago. The first ones were written in three languages: Greek, demotic, and hieroglyphic. A French Egyptologist recognized the word Ptolemy, which was encased in a cartouche, and was able to match it up to the Greek spelling.” Quirk put a finger in the air. “Ptolemy, by the way, was a ruler of Egypt.”
“Mmm-hmmm.” I plugged a battery into the power jack, and turned on my laptop. “Now just show me where your drawings are and—”
“Some hieroglyphs stand for words, others sounds, and yet others syllables. Depending on which way the graphics point determines how you read them. Left to right or right to left. They can also be read up and down.” He tapped his fingers together. “Just remember when you’re deciphering, the hieroglyphs match up to sounds, not letters.”
I resisted the urge to tell him that I already knew all this. I had to know it in order to create my translation program. “Um, can we just—”
“Egyptians focused on consonant sounds, not vowels.” He tapped his forehead. “Although there were determinatives that you could tack onto the end to give a hint to its meaning.”
“Quirk?”
“Oh.” He put that finger in the air again. “There’re all different kinds of symbols. You can use birds, arms, legs, leaves, worms, squiggly lines, bowls, lions, squares . . . but I’ve been rattling on about Egypt. Now, Mayan drawings are even more exciting . . .”
My eyes glassed over. I imagined this was what other people felt like when I got off on one of my computer tangents. “Quirk?”
“. . . the pictorial intricacy and calligraphic style of Mayan glyphs are, in my opinion, like no other . . .”
With a sigh, I dug out two lollipops from my laptop case. I unwrapped both, put one in my mouth, crossed the room to Quirk, and stuck the other in his mouth. He fell quiet. Like a baby, he sucked the lollipop, still studying the room.
“Now if you would please give me your drawings, I can get them scanned and start deciphering this code.”
Pulling the lollipop from his mouth, he looked at me. “This is really good. What is this, raspberry?”
I nodded. “The sketches?”
“Oh, yes. I left my portfolio in here yesterday.” It sat propped against the wall. He opened it and handed me a stack of wax paper. “Be careful. Those are originals.”
Propping myself up against the wall, I laid the stack beside me and took my ultra-thin, extremely cool, portable wand scanner from my laptop case. Page by page I input the images into my program while Quirk stood with his back to me, sketching parts of the room he hadn’t gotten to yet.
We worked for hours, stopping only once to change batteries in the lanterns and eat meat jerky he’d brought. I didn’t ask what kind of meat. I didn’t want to know.
By my estimation, he’d managed to sketch half the room in the week he’d been here. Which meant it would take him another whole week to sketch the rest, right in time with the length of the mission. Hopefully, my program wouldn’t need all the glyphs to decode the message.
Native Tongue Page 16