“And,” continues Frank, “here’s my favor—a heads-up that Uncle is looking for you. He wants to see you right away.”
This is rotten news. But I can’t let Frank know that he’s succeeded in making me feel miserable. I mentally flip through all my available options. I choose cagey.
“Yeah, I know,” I say, as casually as I can manage. “I’m on my way to see him right now. He needs my opinion on something.”
Bull’s-eye! There’s an immediate change in Frank’s face. Mostly around the area of his eyes. Only a moment ago they were gleaming with sheer delight at my suffering. Now they’re narrowed to slits.
“Really. What does he need your opinion on?” he asks.
“Oops,” I say. “I’m not supposed to talk about it. See you later.”
I step around him and bound up the steps. Who knows? Maybe what I said is true. Maybe Uncle really does want to pick my brain; to consult with me on a matter of national importance like what color to paint the bookshelf in the lounge. But I doubt it. It’s not his style. There’s only one reason Uncle ever wants to meet with me one-on-one: to chew me out for something I did wrong.
“Four, please, Phoebe,” I say, as the elevator door closes.
“Hold your horses,” she answers. “First, did you notice what I’m wearing?”
I sigh and turn to the wall screen. Phoebe’s persona is dressed in a skin-tight lime green bodysuit and her head is covered by a helmet with the Timeless Treasures logo on it. The racing bib she’s wearing over her suit says 99.
“Bobsled?” I guess.
“Close,” she says. “Luge. I’m in training for the next Olympics.”
In my wildest dreams, I don’t see how a computer can compete in the luge event at the Olympic Games, but I keep the thought to myself.
“Well, good luck with that,” I say. “Can you please bring me to four?”
“Sure thing,” says Phoebe. “Regular speed or express?”
If I don’t answer, she’ll tell me anyway, so I say, “How fast is express?”
“Eighty-six miles an hour—the same as the top speed of the luge,” she says.
“And regular speed?” I ask.
“Slow as a tortoise,” she answers.
“Well, then,” I say, “I’ll take tortoise.”
“Wimp,” snaps Phoebe, and finally we begin to move.
As I step beyond the fake reception area, Nassim looks up from his crossword puzzle and says, “Uncle wants—”
“To see me. Yeah, I know,” I say. “Frank already told me. Any idea what it’s about?”
“No,” says Nassim, “he didn’t say.”
“What’s the temperature like?” I ask.
“Sunny, with a chance of late-afternoon violence,” Nassim answers.
“Great.” I’m definitely not looking forward to this. Nassim’s forecasts are usually reliable. My only hope is to get in and out before Uncle starts thundering.
“Caleb’s here, boss. Shall I bring him up?” Nassim says over his handheld. He nods once, says, “Okay,” and hangs up. “He’s ready for you.”
That makes one of us.
I follow Nassim past the lounge and the dorms. He holds the stairwell door open and the sound of my feet climbing the metal stairs echoes loudly. My heart is thudding, my palms are sweating and my stomach’s tied in a sailor’s knot. I wonder if this is how a prisoner on death row feels when he does that final walk.
It might not be so bad if Abbie was with me. At least I’d have someone to share my misery.
When Nassim waves me into Uncle’s office, I get a strong whiff of something that smells a bit like cedar, only sweeter.
My nose isn’t the only thing that’s surprised. I can’t believe my eyes. The place looks nothing like it used to. Gone are Uncle’s big walnut desk and the gold-trimmed Louis XVI visitor chairs. Also gone is the picnic painting that Frank lifted right out of Monet’s studio in 1867 France, which is a shame because I truly liked that painting. Instead, there’s a huge ink on silk showing a misted-over mountain with a pagoda perched halfway up.
There’s also a long, low table of polished mahogany and a huge wooden screen that goes almost all the way up to the ceiling. The screen is red with images of silver dragons and pink flowers. The two miniature stone lions near the doorway look a lot like the ones I saw in Beijing. A two-foot-long bronze sculpture of a three-legged toad rounds out the décor.
The only holdover from Uncle’s old office is a small display of framed photographs on the back wall: pictures from the old days. One shows me sitting on Uncle’s lap, one pudgy hand wrapped around his neck and the other gripping a toy soldier. I must have been four or five at the time that picture was taken. Whatever happened to that toy soldier? I wonder. And whatever happened to the old Uncle?
A scraping sound brings me back to the present. Nassim is moving the wooden screen to one side, revealing a huge aquarium. My eyes detect a flash of movement. Something is definitely swimming around in there. Something big.
Uncle is turned away from me. He’s wearing a green silk hanfu tied with a red sash. There’s a huge silver dragon embroidered across the back of the robe, and his jeweled sword is tucked under the sash.
Since there aren’t any visitors’ chairs, I take a spot on the floor.
If all of this is meant to lull me into a relaxed state, it’s not working. In fact, my shaking legs are a dead giveaway. I press my hands down on my knees to keep them still.
Uncle finally turns to face me. As he does, his face breaks out into a huge smile.
“Ahh, Caleb. Zo shàng ho!” he says.
I have to admit there’s something special about hearing Chinese spoken with a Brooklyn accent. At least I’m guessing it’s Chinese. My translator doesn’t work inside Headquarters, so I have no idea what he just said.
“Good morning, Uncle,” I say.
“Not just a good morning. A great morning!” He leaps up onto the low table between us, points his sword toward a ceiling mural of swirling stars and planets and proclaims,
“The cool of bamboo invades my room;
moonlight from the fields fills the corner of the court;
dew gathers till it falls in drops;
a scattering of stars, now there, now gone.
A firefly threading the darkness makes his own light;
Birds at rest on the water call to each other;
All these lie within the shadow of the sword—
Powerless I grieve as the clear night passes.”
It seems for a moment as if he’s going to keep going, but instead he hops off the table and looks over at me with a sad smile.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” he says, dabbing at his moist eyes with his sleeve. “Doesn’t it stir the very depths of your soul?”
“It certainly does stir things up,” I say truthfully, though it’s more my stomach than my soul.
“Caleb, do you know who wrote those words?” he asks, sword slicing the air.
I feel a sweat breaking out on my forehead. I haven’t got a clue.
“You, Uncle?” I say.
He lets go with a huge belly laugh and the thing in the aquarium noses up to the glass. “No, not me … but xiè xiè—thank you for the compliment.” He hops off the table. “The name of the person who wrote those words is Tu Fu. Some say he was the greatest Chinese poet ever.”
“Very impressive,” I say.
“Yes. Greatness does impress, doesn’t it?”
“It certainly does,” I answer.
“Do you see this sword, Caleb?” he says.
How could I not? “Yes, Uncle.”
“It is an enhanced replica of the sword that belonged to Zhu Yuanzhang, the first emperor of the Ming Dynasty. Zhu rose from the ranks of peasants to become one of China’s greatest military leaders.”
Enhanced is Uncle’s way of saying “souped up.” The word around Timeless Treasures is that Uncle’s sword can do more than just slice and dice.
“Care t
o join me for some tea?” he asks, tucking the sword back under his belt and sitting down across from me.
He claps his hands twice, and Nassim appears with two teacups, pots, utensils and what looks like a wooden box with slats on top. He gently places the box down on the table, carefully arranges all the tea things on top of the box and then pours water into the cups, each of his movements slow and graceful.
My eyes flick to the aquarium. The big thing is a black turtle. No, not one. Two turtles. Swimming lazily near each other.
I glance back in time to see Nassim snag one of the cups with a pair of tongs and pour the water from it into a large ceramic container. He does the same with the other cup and then scoops tea leaves into yet another container. After that, he lifts the first container up high, tilting it until the water cascades into the container holding the tea leaves.
If this is what it takes to make a cup of tea, next time I’m ordering coffee.
As Nassim hands Uncle his cup, I sneak another look at the aquarium. The turtles are snapping at each other. And not little love bites, either. They’re really going at it.
“Did you know, Caleb, that the Chinese have been enjoying making tea in this way for thousands of years?” says Uncle.
“That’s a long time,” I say.
“We can learn a lot from the Chinese, you know,” he continues. “Wouldn’t you agree that the Great Friendship is the single greatest historical event of this century?”
I nod and sip my tea. Personally, I’d rank the Great Friendship in second place behind McDonald’s first hamburger sale on the moon, but I’m not about to openly disagree with Uncle. I glance behind me. Nassim has left the office. It’s just me and Uncle now. He’s leading up to something, I’m sure of it. I try hard not to stare at a particularly long vein in his forehead that twitches slightly every time he speaks.
“Do you know how it is that the Great Friendship came about?” Uncle asks, and there goes that vein again.
“Umm. Not really,” I say. It’s true. World politics is not my strong suit. I don’t listen to the news much, and the only news I ever read online is the sports section.
“I will tell you, then,” he says. “It came about as a result of the two greatest powers in the world realizing they had a need that only the other could satisfy.”
“I see, Uncle,” I say, but the only thing I really see is the smackdown going on in the aquarium.
“Think about this,” he says. “There is one universal need, one common longing of all people, that neither of the two greatest powers can satisfy. It is society’s endless appetite for nostalgia. The need for a small piece of the past to claim as one’s own.
“That is where Timeless Treasures comes in,” Uncle continues. “We alone can satisfy that need. But that is not all. With the success of the Great Friendship, the potential market for our services has expanded exponentially. There are five billion people living in China, Caleb. If only one percent of one percent of all of those people decided to avail themselves of our services, that would translate into half a million new customers!”
Half a million. That’s a big number. Even if Abbie and I and the other time snatchers quadrupled the number of missions we’re doing each week, there’s still no way we’d be able to keep up with that kind of demand.
“We must seize the moment. With change comes great opportunity! The time is ripe for the growth and expansion of Timeless Treasures! The time is ripe to increase the number of time snatchers from five to one hundred!”
Uncle’s eyes are gleaming. He really believes what he’s saying. My mouth goes dry. I don’t like the sound of this. More time snatchers means more collections like the one Frank invited me to go on, more innocent children being kidnapped.
“A project this large cannot be accomplished by one man alone, Caleb,” he says, his forehead vein twitching like crazy. “Generals will be needed to make the dream a reality.”
My hands begin to shake. I feel a strong urge to get up and leave. But I can’t go anywhere until the meeting is over.
“Very soon,” Uncle says, “I will be assembling the team that will lead Timeless Treasures into the next phase of its development. And, Caleb …”
“Yes, Uncle?” I say, my voice trembling.
“I’ll be monitoring you and Frank very closely over the next little while,” he says, smiling. “So far, this month you are leading him in completed snatches by a score of nineteen to sixteen. But if you look at the relative complexity of your snatches versus his, I would say that he is in the lead.”
I grind my teeth. I should have guessed he’d be hauling out the numbers and comparing my totals with Frank’s. But it’s not just that. Uncle’s expert at twisting the results to whatever he wants them to show.
“Do you know why Frank is doing so well?” he asks.
Yes—because he’s been poaching my snatches, I want to say. But if I mention that, Uncle will either not believe me or twist things around so that it’s my fault somehow. So instead I say, “No, Uncle.”
“I’ll tell you why,” answers Uncle. “It’s because he has an extra quality about him that none of my other time snatchers seem to have, including, I’m afraid, you, Caleb.”
I feel myself getting very warm. Please let this meeting be over soon.
“Frank has what I call, a ‘zeal for the steal,’” Uncle continues. “He is enthusiastic about every single mission. He is singularly focused on the snatch and doesn’t let the clutter of everyday life interfere.”
“I’m not Frank, Uncle,” I say, and as soon as the words are out, I regret saying them. Not because they aren’t true, but because I didn’t try to hide my dislike of Frank when I said them.
“That is exactly my point,” continues Uncle. “You are not Frank. But to succeed, Caleb, to meet the high expectations that I have of you, you must become more like Frank.”
I’d rather die than be more like Frank … which, come to think of it, Uncle could easily arrange.
“Think about what I am saying to you,” continues Uncle. “I am telling you these things so that you can improve yourself. So that you can be the time snatcher that I have always thought, and still think, you can be. Am I making myself understood?”
“Yes, Uncle.”
“Wonderful,” he says and stands up. “Now, before you go, I’d like to show you my most recent acquisition.”
He strolls across the room and runs his fingers lovingly over the aquarium’s glass wall. Then he opens a small hatch on top, saunters back and sits down cross-legged behind the low table. My stomach clenches. Uncle’s not the forgetful type. If he leaves a door or in this case a hatch open, you can bet there’s a good reason for it.
“Very impressive,” I say.
“In China, the turtle is a symbol of long life and happiness,” says Uncle. “It is said that when a turtle reaches the age of one thousand years, it is able to speak just like you and I.”
Maybe, but judging by the way those two in the aquarium are going at it, I’d be surprised if either of them make it past the next ten minutes, let alone the next thousand years.
“Let me share a little secret with you,” Uncle continues. “I didn’t purchase Shu Fang and Ting Ting for good luck. I bought them because I find them very entertaining. Especially when they’ve been denied nourishment. In that regard, I would venture to say that they’re not unlike humans. Do you know what happens when the human soul is denied nourishment?”
“Uh … no, Uncle. I don’t know,” I say.
“When one’s soul is deprived of nourishment, it withers,” he says. “Withers and crumbles into nothingness.”
I watch as Uncle’s fingers tiptoe across the table and scuttle up the side of a glass jar. They linger at the top for a second and then dip down inside.
“Jelly bean?” he asks.
It seems like an innocent question, but there are no innocent questions in Uncle’s universe. Everything is said or done for a reason.
I have a sudden u
rge to bolt. To get out of here before … before what? I run a hand through my hair and try to get ahold of myself. Got to stay calm. My eyes search out the photo of Uncle and me from the time before, when things were good. I’m out of luck: Uncle’s blocking my view.
Just as I say “Yes,” Uncle moves his hand as if to flip the jelly bean to me. But instead, he tosses it toward the tank. Before he can say anything, I’m up and lunging for the aquarium.
“Get it!” he shrieks and jumps up.
The bean makes the tiniest of splashes as it enters the water.
I plunge my left hand and arm into the tank. Shu Fang and Ting Ting immediately stop their snapping and make a beeline for my body parts.
My fingers thrash through the frigid water. On my second sweep, they brush against something small and hard. The jelly bean! Just a bit farther. I reach out some more and … it squirts away!
I lurch forward again ignoring my aching shoulder. There! Got it!
A searing pain rips into my wrist. Turtle jaws have found me. I want to scream, but not in front of Uncle. I bite down hard on my bottom lip to stifle the yell.
I try to yank my arm out, but Uncle has an iron grip on my forearm, holding it down. Tears stream from my eyes.
“Please … let go.” I want to sound strong, but it comes out as a whimper.
“You have let me down, Caleb,” says Uncle. “I am deeply disappointed. Of all my time thieves, you have a special place in my heart. You were the very first one I adopted. My firstborn, you might say.”
Firstborn, but not first-loved. Frank’s got that spot all locked up.
“Frank mentioned to me that you have been short-tempered with him lately. That trivial things seem to upset you and that you are taking it out on him and the other time snatchers,” Uncle continues, keeping his grip firm. “This simply will not do. I need all of you to be getting along. Especially when we are on the cusp of the next great chapter in the history of Timeless Treasures. Don’t you agree?”
The turtles’ jaws continue to tear at my exposed flesh. The pain is excruciating. I feel as if I’m about to pass out.
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