by Gwenda Bond
The man was a bully. A bully who’d elevated himself to a high-level position, but a bully just the same. No amount of flattery would change how I saw him.
“We have what we came for.” I pushed back from the table. He’d confirmed my suspicions and given us a new lead. To try to get anything more would be pushing it. “I’m ready to go.”
“I couldn’t resist myself when they told me you wanted to visit,” Moxie continued, as if I hadn’t spoken. “After all, you put me in here, and you’re just a girl.”
I had to work hard not to grit my teeth. “I’d rather be ‘just a girl’—which is a great thing to be, by the way—than anything like you.”
Moxie shot me a smile that appeared to be in admiration. He made no move to get up, but he said, “The Contessa, I’m told she likes funding pet projects and that she’s hard to pin down. Good luck tracking her.”
“I never rely on luck,” I said.
Which was true. I couldn’t afford to. Not when mine was the worst.
“It was a pleasure meeting you, Ms. Lane,” Moxie said. He tipped an imaginary cap to Perry. “Until next time.”
“If there is one,” I said.
And I promptly thought, I hope it’s next century.
CHAPTER 13
Perry had been right about the view on the way back. Approaching Metropolis by water was our reward for going to see that gross old lion in his unwilling den.
Well, that and a name for the glam lady who’d been standing out on the street, apparently waiting for a look at me. She’d asked me if everything was okay. I’d ask her the same once we finally tracked her down.
“I take it you’re running down that lead,” Perry said. “And why do I feel like there was more going on in that conversation than I was aware of?”
“You’re a smart guy,” I said. “Pretty sure he just wanted you to think that.”
Until we had proof, I couldn’t bring Perry onto team “conspiracies are real, and so are clones, flying men, and mind control experiments—so far.” He was too good a reporter. He’d demand to see the receipts.
Which meant we had to go get them.
“I’ll have something for you soon,” I told Perry.
I fished my phone out of my bag and typed out a group text that said: Confirmation Donovan’s part of this, maybe someone else. And definitely a woman named Erica Alexandra del Portenza. She’s a Countess or Contessa or something. Devin, maybe see what you can find on her?
Perry tapped his fingers on the seat, gazing out in front of us. “All I’ll say is this,” he said. “If you think you’re right about more sightings on the way, then make sure that story’s ready ASAP. We are not getting scooped by Loose Lips. Message received?”
“Loud and clear.”
*
With nothing else to do later that night (except envision SmallvilleGuy and his parents’ car somewhere on the highway approaching the city), I spent an hour unfruitfully googling the Contessa’s name. There was nada that I could find. I hoped Devin was having better success than I was. He had ways of teasing information out of thin air and private databases, after all.
My phone buzzed with a text and I slid it over to read. Speaking of Devin, the new message was from him.
I’m not finding anything.
I sighed, and shot a message back.
Me neither. Do you think Boss Moxie made up the name?
Devin took a minute or so to respond.
It’s possible. But I’m not ready to give up yet. I was thinking about how we had to use paper records to find Moxie. You want to come with me to the Metropolis Public Library tomorrow?
I had to meet SmallvilleGuy at the ballpark in the late afternoon, so something to keep me occupied before would be nice. I didn’t want to cut the timing close, though. Is it open?
Devin shot back: Every day of the week.
I responded: Can we do it early? I have a thing tomorrow.
Sure, Devin typed back. See you there at… A few seconds passed… 10 (that’s when it opens on Sundays).
I spent a little time clicking around on Strange Skies, looking for recent posts by TheInventor. There weren’t many—instead, he was the all-seeing force in the background. I closed the tab, realizing that if he was in fact all-seeing, he might be seeing me trying to find him.
You’re being paranoid, even for you. It was true, there was no way he could know what I was looking for. He might be able to track my online activity—at least on his site—if he wanted to. But no matter what else he might see or know, he couldn’t see inside my brain.
Some small comfort there. I decided I might as well catch up on my homework and then maybe do some more locksport reading.
Mom poked her head in around bedtime, and said, “Lois Lane, doing—” She stepped over to see which textbook I had open. It was biology, thankfully, not a locksport diagram. “Bio homework on a Saturday night. I’d never have believed it.”
Well, I did go interview a mobster earlier in the day. “I am virtue personified,” I said instead.
She rolled her eyes. “Let’s not go overboard,” she said, but then she hesitated. “Everything’s all right, isn’t it? With you? I feel like I never ask.”
Where was this coming from? “Yeah, everything’s great,” I said.
If only Dad wasn’t out there hunting for the flying man and I could crack this story and bring Donovan down. Then things would be great.
Meeting SmallvilleGuy tomorrow, though—hopefully that would be great.
“Okay, well, I’m always here if you need to talk,” she said, then kissed my forehead.
Clearly I’d been acting weird. I would have to do better or my parents would be prying into my business. They might anyway, once Dad worked his way down to the bottom of the list of Strange Skies posters and found SkepticGirl1.
I’d worry about burning that bridge down when we got to it.
In the meantime, I finished up my bio homework, set my alarm for eight o’clock the next morning, and flipped off the light.
Then I turned it back on and logged into our chat app. SmallvilleGuy was supposed to let me know when they made it to town.
I lay there, still awake, when my phone got the message.
SmallvilleGuy: We’re here.
SkepticGirl1: Yay! Today’s report?
SmallvilleGuy: First, how was Boss Moxie?
I bit my lip and typed a response.
SkepticGirl1: Gross, but surprisingly helpful. Now photos please!
SmallvilleGuy: Okay okay… First we have Big Jim, the metal cowboy of Bentleyville, Pennsylvania.
And, in fact, that was exactly what the photo showed. A giant metal cowboy, with a pistol pointing up at his side and a funny mustache.
SkepticGirl1: That is in fact a giant metal cowboy. Anything else?
SmallvilleGuy: How about the World’s Largest Tooth? In Princeton, New Jersey.
I cracked up.
A photo popped onto my screen. Of a giant molar.
SkepticGirl1: And now you’re here.
SmallvilleGuy: First we stopped at a museum on Staten Island with art made mostly out of mufflers and car parts. But yes, now we’re here.
SkepticGirl1: You must be tired. I’ll let you go. And I’ll see you soon.
SmallvilleGuy: Sweetest dreams. See you tomorrow.
I smiled and held the phone to my heart and hoped impossible things I’d never say out loud. Then I sent back a short reply.
SkepticGirl1: Night.
*
The Metropolis Public Library was a massive and impressive old building not far from the courthouse downtown. I hadn’t seen it before, and so I couldn’t help taking a moment for a good awestruck gape at it.
The three stone levels were grand, covered in ornate carved sculptures, gods and godd
esses, strange creatures and gargoyles. The front was dominated by massive columns. Stone stairs led up to it and on either side of them sat two matching mythological creatures. They had the heads of eagles and the back ends of… horses? They sat, relaxed, like guardians of the place.
“Hippogriffs,” Devin said, stepping up beside me. “Their names are Sue and Aliza.”
“The hippogriffs are named Sue and Aliza? Not some grand mythological names?”
“They’re named for the sculptor’s nieces,” he said.
“And you know all this how?”
Devin put a hand to the back of his neck, a little embarrassed. “My mom brought me here a lot when I was a kid.”
I smiled. “Is this where your love for your griffin army comes from?”
“Maybe,” Devin said. “A little. Griffins and hippogriffs must be like cousins, don’t you think?”
It suddenly made all the sense in the world to me that he loved amassing his in-game creatures so much.
“Must be,” I said. “Ready to track down a mysterious Contessa?”
He laced his fingers together and pressed them out to crack his knuckles. “More than.”
It was funny that this had been his idea and that he was so into it. I’d practically tricked him into our excursion to sift through stacks of paper at the Hall of Records when we’d been after Moxie. Data was data, though, I guessed. He loved it.
“How was it seeing Moxie up close and personal?” he asked as we took the stairs up.
I mock-shuddered.
“That fun?” he asked.
“He’s a gross old bully. But he was helpful…” I said. “I still don’t understand why.”
“Yeah, me neither.”
We reached the entrance and, unlike at city hall, the security here was old school. We showed the guard the inside of our bags and breezed on into a stunning marble hallway. “Whoa,” I said.
It was impressive. I was impressed.
“You see why I love coming here?” Devin asked.
“Uh, yeah,” I said. “Most of the towns where we’ve lived, I loved the libraries, but they were small compared to this. They were like the one at school. Metropolis is officially the best.”
A swell of love for the city filled me.
“You are hilarious,” Devin said. “Let’s go up to the reference desk. We need an expert.”
The woman at the desk was poring over a ledger with some sort of fancy handheld gadget when we got there. Behind her were rows and rows of desks with reading lights, the tall ceiling ornately designed and the walls hung with massive oil paintings.
She glanced up and spotted us. She had cool glasses and wore a head scarf. A pencil poked out one side, where she’d tucked it between glasses and scarf.
“Devin!” she said and stood. She gave me an interested look as we approached. “And friend?”
“This is Lois Lane,” Devin said. “We work together at the Scoop. Lois, this is Neema, the baddest and smartest librarian in the world. Don’t make her mad.”
She patted the side of her head. “He’s not wrong,” she said.
“Good,” I said, liking her instantly. “We came because we could use some help with a story.”
Devin jumped in. “We hit a snag researching. We have a name, but can’t seem to track down anything about the person. No hits anywhere.”
“She’s an Italian countess, if that helps.” I pulled out my notepad and flipped through it to the page where Moxie had noted the name.
“You’ve checked all the online sources?” Neema asked, then shook her head. “Of course you have.” She plucked the paper from my hand. “If she has a title, we should be in luck. Italian, you say?” She was already walking.
Devin and I followed, rushing to keep up with her. She led us through a wooden door and along a corridor that proved to be a back way into an enormous room filled with stacks. The bookshelves stretched high around the edges of the room.
Without a hitch in her step or even slowing, she snagged a tall ladder against one of the shelves and steered it over. Then she began to climb.
I was wide-eyed when I turned to Devin. “I think I want to be her best friend.”
He nodded. He’d seen this prowess at work before. “I know what you mean.”
“Aha!” We heard an exclamation above us.
Neema started back down to us, a volume held under one of her arms. When she got back down to the bottom, she leapt off the ladder and revealed the cover of an obviously old leather-bound book. The Great Families of Rome (Antiquity to 1948).
“Some things,” Neema said, as she went to a table and placed the book on it, “never make it into the digital space. Or, at least, they haven’t yet.”
She held the paper with the Contessa’s name on it above the book, and then squinted and flipped to the last few pages. An index arranged by year from oldest to newest, I realized.
“Hmmm,” she said, in an unpromising way, as she scanned the columns looking for the name.
Devin and I exchanged a look. “What is it?” I asked.
“A lot of the old titles faded away around this period, when they stopped being anything but courtesy titles. I was sure it’d be in here,” she said. “We’ll just go back further.”
We weren’t doing much of anything except watching her flip through the book, but I stayed quiet. Another negative grunt, and she went back another section of pages. This went on until she was near the middle of the book.
What were the odds we would need to go back so far? The disappointment of a dead end began to build.
“Here it is,” she said, placing her finger on the page. “I know you were losing hope, but I’m amazing.”
“No kidding,” I said.
Devin and I leaned over to see the line she indicated. There was the name, in Latin, then translated to Erica Alexandra. The deal-sealer was the title. Named Contessa of Portenza.
“No count listed,” Neema said. “And no family tree or record of the lineage related to the title beyond this. She must have done someone important a big favor. It’s possible she was from a family with older ties, but once the Italian nobility started there were prohibitions on how far back you could claim.” Her forehead wrinkled. “Why are you guys doing a story on someone who was around in the 1600s?”
“That’s a good question. You think she’s using a fake name?” I asked Devin.
“That seems the likeliest option,” he said. “Or maybe the family hid their tracks and chose that name because they dig it?”
“Do you know anything else about this woman?” Neema asked, closing the book and handing me the paper.
“We think she’s a business investor,” I said. “We can guess that she tries not to leave much of a paper trail.”
Neema tapped her lip, thinking. Then she said, “I have a possibility—it’ll take a lot of wading through, but we do have some business journal collections in Periodicals, things that never got digitized.”
My hopes sank. I checked my phone—I wasn’t in danger of being late to the baseball game yet, but I would be if this took much longer. And I needed time to be nervous and agonize over what to wear. “That sounds time-consuming.”
“Oh, right,” Devin said. “Your thing. Why don’t you go on and I can stay and wade through the journals?”
“Seriously? You don’t mind?” This really was a transformation.
He had that embarrassed air again. “It’s like a treasure hunt. If the Contessa’s mentioned anywhere, I’ll find it.”
Neema beamed at him. “I’ll show you where to get started. Bye, Lois—nice to meet you.”
So I left, wondering how in the world this story just kept getting weirder. There had to be a development that would help us understand what was going on at some point, didn’t there?
“Good luck,” I told
Devin. “I think we need it.”
CHAPTER 14
The time I had allotted for getting ready was spent bouncing around the house like a big ball of nerves. Which I was.
SmallvilleGuy was here. In Metropolis. And in a little while, I’d be meeting him.
In person.
Every time before this that I thought I’d die of impatience—or worry—was a false alarm. This had to be it, the big one. The fit of impatient worry that killed me.
Finding it impossible to be still, I headed downstairs to grab a soda. Mom was in the living room grading a batch of short essays when I came down. She’d been there the last time I made the trip too. “Lois,” she said, “you seem at loose ends—you want to catch a movie this afternoon? Lucy said she was in.”
“Oh,” I said, about-facing to, um, face her. “I can’t. I have plans.”
She raised her eyebrows.
“I’m going to a baseball game,” I said, trying not to seem like I was hiding anything or like it was a big deal. “A favor to a friend.”
“Which team?” she asked.
“The Monarchs.” I was unable to keep the hint of a smile off my lips.
She gave me an odd look and said, “Have fun. Maybe the sports gene your dad was so disappointed you were born without will kick in after all.”
“Don’t hold your breath.”
She went back to the paper she was marking up. “I won’t.”
I hadn’t lied to her, not really. What I’d said was mostly true.
Just… it was a very big deal. And this wasn’t just any friend.
I took my soda upstairs and got dressed for the game. I checked my phone for the time. I knew I needed to leave in the next fifteen minutes, if not sooner.
Instead of hurrying, I set my phone on the sink and stood in my bathroom in front of the mirror. I tugged nervously at the hem of the T-shirt I’d ordered shortly after I lost the bet (but had been too chicken to take the promised selfie in). It was dark navy, with the words Metropolis Monarchs in big, light-blue letters outlined in white. A little baseball man pointing his finger and wearing a crown was at the far end, and I assumed he was the mascot.