by C. W. Trisef
“Hey, look,” Ret pointed out cheerfully, “it’s your dad.” Paige said nothing, refusing to even look at her father.
“How was the dance?” Mr. Coy thought he should ask.
“A total bomb!” Ana blurted out.
“Where’s your Smurf friend?” Coy asked. Ana made no reply, turning to look out the window. Ret gave Mr. Coy a sign to not press the subject.
“Right,” Coy said, agreeing with Ret who was sitting between Ana and Paige, both staring out their windows. “And I thought girls enjoyed school dances. I’ve learned something tonight.”
“Just hurry up and take us home,” Ana implored. “Mom’s in danger; she’s not answering her phone.”
Mr. Coy looked at Ret for clarification.
“Quirk ambushed us again tonight,” Ret explained. “He said Principal Stone raided our house in search of your sphere.”
“Your sphere?” Ana balked. “Just what exactly is going on here?”
“Paper or plastic?” Mr. Coy asked, grimacing playfully. “No matter—cat’s out of the bag.”
Just then they arrived at the Cooper house, which was blockaded by police vehicles. They all hurried out of the car. Ignoring the caution tape’s perimeter, Ana dashed inside the house. Paige stood by Ret.
“I’ll handle the boys in blue,” Mr. Coy told them, adjusting his belt. He strutted into the group of police officers. Ret couldn’t hear what he told them, but in a matter of minutes, they cleaned up and left the scene entirely.
Inside the house, the three of them found Ana sitting on the couch, consoling her mother, who looked terribly shaken up.
“I was in bed, reading,” she said, her lips quivering. “I heard voices—men’s voices, unfamiliar.” She was staring distraughtly into space as she recounted the event. “They thundered upstairs, headed straight for the attic. They were searching, searching for something—and didn’t find it—and got angry.” Her sniffles interrupted her narrative after every couple of words. “I ran—they caught me—two of them. They yelled at me—where is it, where is it! I told them I didn’t know.” Her tears were on the verge. “Then they searched the whole house—and did this.” She swept the room with her hand: furniture overturned, cupboards and drawers dumped out, not an inch untouched. “I don’t even know what they wanted.”
With a mixture of pity and anger in his heart, Ret glared at Mr. Coy. “We do. We know what they wanted.”
Mr. Coy returned Ret’s stare with a look of unpleasant surprise. Then he nodded in conciliatory agreement. “Yes, we do.” He pulled the piece of ancient parchment paper out from behind his suit coat. Ret’s eyes widened.
“Quick, everyone,” Mr. Coy announced, his arm shooting into the air, “to the Batcave!” Nobody moved, choosing instead to stare at him awkwardly. “I’ve always wanted to say that.”
They all climbed in the limo, en route to Coy Manor, ready for answers to their questions: Pauline, why she’d been robbed by Principal Stone; Ana, how she’d been deceived by Bubba; Paige, how to earn her father’s love; Mr. Coy, how to solve his life’s ultimate riddle; Ret, how he could possibly be the quintessential element; and Ivan, what his boss would say about tomorrow’s front page.
CHAPTER 8
THE STATUTORY STUDATORY
“Bonjour, monsieur!”
Ret’s eyes tiredly rolled open at the sound of the soft yet melodious voice of one of Coy Manor’s maids. With short, quick steps, she marched to the window and drew the curtains, unveiling the day and flooding the room with the blinding rays of the morning sun.
“Crêpes, monsieur?” the maid said timidly, extending a tray of food towards Ret. A stack of steaming crepes was surrounded by a colorful assortment of fruit fillings, with a sliced baguette on the side and a dollop of whipped cream melting atop a mug of hot cocoa.
“Oui, oui!” Ret replied, employing the little French he knew and suddenly sitting up in his bed with hungry enthusiasm. The maid obligingly set the tray across Ret’s lap and then scampered out of the room, passing a gaggle of other maids who were peeking in the doorway. When Ret saw them, they giggled and quickly dispersed.
“Glad to see you’re finally awake,” Ana remarked as she strolled into the room. Ret made no reply, too enveloped in his flavorful meal. “I take it you’re enjoying breakfast.”
“Delicious,” Ret said quickly between bites.
“A little thin for French toast, if you ask me,” Ana joked, “but still good. I see you made some new friends?” She pointed to the now-empty doorway.
“Who, the maids?” Ret asked in disbelief.
“They spent half the morning fighting over who would get to serve you breakfast!” Ana said. “Apparently Paige has told them all about you.”
“Well, I’m no Bubba,” Ret smirked.
“No,” Ana sighed, “but you two do look a lot alike.”
“How’d we get here anyway?” Ret wondered.
“You’ll find out later,” Paige answered, suddenly appearing in the doorway. “First, my dad wants everyone to report to his studatory right away.”
“What the crepe is a studatory?” Ana asked, sampling one of Ret’s fillings with her finger.
“It’s just a fancy word for the fourth floor’s study and laboratory,” Paige explained, “although my dad says he named it after himself.” They all smiled. “I’ll go and get your mom; then we can all go up together.”
As soon as they embarked for the studatory, the Coopers felt relieved to have Paige as their guide; otherwise, they most certainly would have gotten lost in the Manor and may not have been found for hours. Ret found it so easy to lose his way, partly because he never really knew where he was going but mostly due to the unending supply of intriguing things to behold.
“My goodness, Paige,” Pauline said with wonder in her voice, “how do you know where you’re going around here?”
“I have to keep up on it,” Paige replied. “Dad likes to rearrange things all the time—take out a hallway here, rearrange an entire floor there. He says it’s good for everyone—takes his mind off other things and gives the staff something to do.” She paused for a few minutes until they had all reached the next floor by climbing from tail to skull along the fossilized spine of some ancient dinosaur’s skeleton. “Except one day I came home from school and spent the rest of the afternoon trying to find my bedroom; turns out, while I was gone, Dad had it moved to the north wing, a couple floors down, and forgot to tell me.” She ducked to dodge an oncoming model plane as it whizzed overhead. “He’s very specific about where I can and can’t go—says it’s for my own safety.”
“Don’t you ever want to just sneak around and see all the cool stuff around here?” Ret asked, staring down a separate corridor where he saw a sea of miscellaneous, metallic objects suspended in midair between a series of large magnets lining the walls.
“Tried it,” Paige confessed candidly, “but I got caught. Dad’s got eyes everywhere.” She pointed to a nearby wall clock, where a tiny lens could be seen in the zero of the number ten. “Besides, most doors require some sort of authentication to unlock them anyway. For example, take the gold-plated door to the studatory.” She came to a halt in front of it, then used a jeweled ring from her finger to scratch a word on the door’s soft surface. She stepped back to let the Coopers watch her signature disappear as it was absorbed into the door, which promptly opened.
“Sure beats open sesame,” Ana whispered as Paige ushered them inside.
So far, Ret had come to find that the only thing to expect in Coy Manor was the unexpected, and the studatory was no different. Every inch of every wall in the round room was filled with every kind of book imaginable: atlases and encyclopedias, brochures and dictionaries, magazines and portfolios, manuals and textbooks, even rolls of scrolls. The floor was transparent glass, and Ret marveled as the Coys’ library extended without end above his head and below his feet. Globes of all colors and sizes roamed the room in their wheeled stands like librarians while long ladder
s tickled the spines of the books they crossed, stretching out of sight in both directions. It was quiet; it was peaceful. It was a study.
And in the center of the study sat the laboratory. As large as it was, the entire lab was encapsulated by a single bubble—thin enough for a person to pass through but dense enough to prevent any sound from escaping. Inside, Mr. Coy was a scientist hard at work, although, with so many things going on at once all under the same tent, he looked more like the ringleader of a circus. Broths bubbled and venoms veined through a maze of jugs and jars. Flasks and beakers spewed their frothy contents, emitting sparks and gases. A set of soiled slides hung for analysis near a group of microscopes. The surging currents of a pair of electric generators occasionally connected, shooting electricity through the air like lightning. Amid smoke and shrapnel, Mr. Coy lit up the scene with a blowtorch.
“DAD!” Paige yelled, trying to get his attention. “DAD!” Mr. Coy remained undistracted behind his welding mask. “You know, he still hasn’t apologized for last night,” Paige informed Ana as she walked to the outer edge of the lab. She reached inside the bubble, picked up a thick washer from the table, and hurled it in her father’s direction. The washer collided with Mr. Coy’s metal mask, knocking him over and many other things with him. Disorder engulfed the lab as chemicals spilled, instruments fell, and solutions exploded. Paige walked back to join the Coopers, who watched the disastrous tumult in shocked silence.
When Mr. Coy at last rose from the wreckage, his knees momentarily gave way at the realization that his guests were present. He turned his back to them just long enough to freshen up. He tucked in halfway the splattered shirt of his tuxedo; then, moistening his hand in whatever substance was oozing down the desk at his side, he slicked back his hair. Turning sharply on his heels, he carefully stepped out of the lab and into the study.
“Welcome to my—studatory,” Mr. Coy greeted them as he struck several poses like some kind of muscleman.
“Mr. Coy, you don’t look so hot,” Ret commented.
“Yes, well, I’m not as young as I used to be,” Coy admitted, abandoning his futile flexing.
“No, I mean, you look terrible,” Ret reaffirmed. “Did you get any sleep last night?”
“Not a wink, my boy—not a wink!”
Ret believed him. Still outfitted in last night’s tux, Mr. Coy’s bowtie was dangling from his neck, and large chunks of his hair were sticking out in random directions. His bloodshot eyes drooped in fatigue, and his face had long since seen its five o’clock shadow. Stains and splotches besmirched his suit, whose cuffs looked a bit singed.
“While the rest of you were snoozing,” Mr. Coy said with a hint of condescension, “I spent the entire night perusing—this!” He slammed a ragged piece of parchment paper on a table near his listeners. Paige picked it up for a closer look.
“In all my years of experience and study in linguistics and translation,” Coy continued, “never have I encountered such a bewildering bunch of foreign characters. The letters fly the flag of all the world’s major languages yet pledge allegiance to none of them.” Paige passed the parchment on to Ana.
“Fortunately,” said Coy, “I am hardly a novice when it comes to radiocarbon dating, and my preliminary test results suggest that the artifact is somewhere between five and 500,000 years old.”
“Um, Mr. Coy, I’m no scientist,” Ana admitted, “but that doesn’t sound very—”
“—Exactly!” Coy asserted. “Which is why, after consulting every reference and exhausting every resource, I was stunned by what I saw rising in the smoke of my burned midnight oil.” With voice mysteriously subdued, Mr. Coy clawed at the air to portray his search amid metaphorical smoke. A few moments transpired with his listeners on edge to learn of his conclusion.
“What?” Ana asked urgently. “What did you discover?”
“Nothing!” Coy shrieked. “Not a thing!” And, dejectedly, he slumped onto the sofa.
“Sir, if I may ask,” Pauline said politely, “where exactly did you get this?” She received the parchment from Ana as it continued to be passed down the line like a baton.
“I stole it from Stone’s office,” Coy said unabashed.
“You robbed our principal?” Paige asked indignantly.
“It was Ret’s idea,” Coy fibbed.
“It was not!” Ret interjected.
“So that’s why he invaded my house!” Pauline jumped to conclusions. “You knew about this all along, didn’t you, Mr. Coy? What are you, some kind of spy?”
Ivan had scarcely set foot in the studatory to deliver refreshments when, upon hearing someone accused of being a spy, he promptly departed, the memory of last night’s accusation still fresh in his mind.
“You’re not telling us something,” Pauline persisted, handing the parchment to Ret so she could plant both of her hands on her hips. “You know more than you’re letting on.”
“Ma’am, if that’s your way of complimenting my superior intellect,” Coy said calmly, “then I am flattered indeed.”
“Good grief,” Pauline complained. “Thank you for your hospitality,” she said, facing Paige, “but I feel we have worn out our welcome. Come, Ret and Ana; let’s head for home.”
“Hold on,” Ret petitioned, his eyes glued to the paper now that it was finally his turn to examine it. “You really can’t read this, Mr. Coy?”
Mr. Coy stared at Ret in disgust. “Well what a lovely family,” he said cheerily. “After Polly knocks ‘em to the floor, Boy Wonder kicks ‘em while they’re down. And how about the girl—what’s she do? Spray mace in their eyes?”
“I’m sorry, sir,” Ret apologized, “I didn’t mean to insult you; it’s just—”
“Well that makes one of you,” Mr. Coy sneered, rolling his eyes at Pauline.
“—It’s just that these letters look familiar,” Ret explained. Everyone fell silent for a few moments.
“Can you read them?” Paige wondered.
“Yeah,” Ret replied, gaining confidence the more he stared at the characters. “It says:
What now is six, must be one;
Earth’s imbalance to be undone.
Fill the Oracle, pure elements reunite,
Cure the world; one line has the rite.
“Poetry—yuck!” Ana whined with disdain.
“Did I miss something?” Pauline asked, feeling left out.
“Read it again,” Mr. Coy bellowed from the couch. Ret obeyed.
What now is six, must be one;
Earth’s imbalance to be undone.
Fill the Oracle, pure elements reunite,
Cure the world; one line has the rite.
“How can you read that?” Paige questioned admiringly.
“I don’t know,” Ret said, perplexed but pleased. “It’s strange; they’re not really words, like reading a book or something.” He spoke his thoughts slowly to give him time to contemplate. “They’re more like—like notes. Yeah, it’s like when you read music—how something that’s written on paper can be translated into something that’s played on strings or blown through reeds. That’s the best way I can think to describe it.”
“Never mind the description, boy,” Coy insisted, rising to his feet in haste. “What does it mean? Could it be referring to your scars?”
“Now wait just a minute,” Pauline declared with fury in her words. Mr. Coy raised his hand to his face to rub his forehead in frustration, then slunk back on the couch. “What in the world is going on here? Are you all part of this scheme, hmm?” She pierced each person with her fiery gaze. “And what about me, huh? What about your own mother? Do you just expect me to defend myself against armed bandits, breaking into my own home, while the rest of you go gallivanting off to do who knows what?” Ret’s heart felt sick; Ana’s head hung low. “I am very disappointed,” Mrs. Cooper mourned, “very disappointed.”
“You kids ought to be ashamed of yourselves,” Mr. Coy added.
“And you,” Pauline turned to rail on the
other adult in the room.
Mr. Coy held up his hand to stop his impending chastisement. “Allow me to explain.” He reached into his suit. “Ret—catch.” He lobbed the sphere towards Ret.
This time when Ret received the sphere from Mr. Coy, he instinctively caught it by clasping both hands around it, so completely that the small object was almost totally covered by his hands and hidden from everyone’s view. No sooner was it in his possession than he sensed some force pushing his hands apart. He did not resist as the sphere aligned its scars with the corresponding ones on Ret’s palms, as it had done once before, but then gradually began to open for the first time. With a single hinge on its base, the sphere spread apart into six equal wedges, like a peeled and sectioned orange. Ret had another strange sensation, feeling as though each individual wedge was empty. “Weird,” he thought as the sphere continued to hover within his palms with astonishing beauty, its transparency causing it to shine and glow.
“Well that’s new,” Coy observed with fascination.
The spectacle was enough to cause Pauline to faint, fortunately falling into the arms of Ana and Paige. Noticing her passing out, Mr. Coy sighed with relief, “Thank goodness.”
Ret continued to stare at the unlatched sphere in awe. He again was bathed in clarity as the sensation from his connection with the sphere overcame him. “Fill the Oracle,” he involuntarily repeated from the message on the parchment. “Fill the Oracle.”
“Quite right,” Coy interrupted, “and with six pure elements, correct?”
“Yes,” Ret agreed, shaken from his trance. “I think this ball is the Oracle, and we need to fill it.”
“So where do we find these pure elements?” Ana chimed in.
“You like math, don’t you?” Mr. Coy asked. “What we know, plus any and all leads, multiplied by an unknown amount of hours, equals adventure!”
“Awesome!” Ret rejoiced. “When do we leave?”
Meanwhile, the efforts of Ana and Paige to revive Pauline had not been in vain. Though dazed, Mrs. Cooper regained consciousness. As she bounced back, Mr. Coy shuddered and gasped, “Back from the dead.” The thought of Mrs. Cooper tagging along seemed unbearable.