The Atomic Weight of Secrets or The Arrival of the Mysterious Men in Black

by Eden Unger Bowditch

  For the first time, these very clever children felt quite stupid. Lucy and Wallace had been keeping a meticulous record of all manner of brilliant inventions. Wallace’s excellent penmanship and language made for clear explanations of everything. And with Lucy’s sketches, it was easy for anyone to see exactly what they had planned. No one would have the slightest problem understanding their designs. No one.

  “We’ll have to figure out a way to keep all of your notes and drawings and inventions safe.” Miss Brett had an idea of what needed to be done first.

  Ignoring all other concerns for a moment, Noah looked up at his friends, a small grin at the corners of his mouth. “Are we really the new Young Inventors Guild?”

  Miss Brett was caught off guard. She smiled. “My clever, clever, clever children. My wonderfully clever young inventors... of course you are.”

  “I think it’s safest to hide the notes from everyone—from those men in black, too. Faye does have a point, doesn’t she? We just don’t know, do we?” Jasper’s cheeks went red as Faye caught his glance. Jasper quickly looked away.

  “We did create the aeroplane to use against them,” said Noah. “It’s only fair, after all, to keep it from them.”

  “Look!” said Lucy, who had been looking forlornly out the window. They followed her finger to the distant road. They could all see a small cloud of dust moving along. Lucy took out her spyglass and handed it to Miss Brett.

  Miss Brett could see quite clearly. A large black carriage was ambling down the road, pulled by four powerful black stallions.

  “They’re coming to help,” Miss Brett told them. “See? They’re coming in response to the call.”

  “They’re coming to fetch us for the weekend, more likely,” Noah said. “This we do not need right now.”

  “What do we do?” Lucy asked.

  Miss Brett watched as the carriage came closer. Handing the spyglass back to Lucy, she made her decision. If she wanted the children to trust her, she would have to trust them. “All right,” she said, “we only have a few minutes before the carriage comes for you. Go now and collect your things. Faye, can your larger model be dismantled?”

  “It’s already taken apart.”

  “Good. Now, you must take the sections and wrap them up so—”

  “Um, we’ve already done that, Miss Brett, ma’am,” said Wallace. “They’re wrapped in blankets.”

  “Right, excellent. How about your smaller models? Well, you’ll need to pack all of your smaller models as well. Jasper, get any other drawings you might have, and Lucy, make sure you have that journal.”

  “I will, Miss Brett,” said Lucy. She seemed to stand taller with the heavy responsibility placed upon her shoulders.

  “I want you all to act calm,” Miss Brett said, “and do not discuss what has happened here.”

  “The journal,” Jasper said. Concerned about his little sister carrying the book, he added, “I’ll go fetch it.”

  “It’s mine!” Lucy called after him as he went into the house to get it. “I’m the one who gets to carry it.”

  “We have too much to carry,” said Faye. “Maybe we should hide the book here.”

  “With Reginald Roderick Kataning, the crazed birdwatcher of Dayton, on the loose?” said Noah. “We’d probably be safer handing it over to our ever-present blackbirds. At least we know they already know it exists.”

  “Yes, but with our notes in it, they might do something terrible.”

  “We need to disguise it somehow,” said Wallace. “That way, we can just carry it and not worry about trying to pack it or hide it.”

  Jasper, returning to the classroom, agreed, handing the book he carried to a very demanding Lucy.

  “Wait, just a minute,” said Miss Brett, running into the house. She was back before they really had a chance to wonder what she was doing. With her was her mother’s copy of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

  “You want me to take that, too?” asked Lucy. “Two books will be even heavier than one.”

  “No, darling,” said Miss Brett, removing the dust jacket from the Lewis Carroll book. “I want you to look like you are taking it.” And with that, she wrapped it around the journal. It was a perfect fit.

  “Goodness, Miss Brett!” Lucy said with a gasp. “Even I’ll think I’m carrying your mummy’s book.”

  “Now, about the aeroplane...” said Miss Brett.

  “The men in black most likely don’t know about the flying machine,” Noah said. “And Reginald Roderick Kattaning doesn’t know where it is. I mean, he doesn’t know we’ve got it here or where it is exactly.”

  “I want you to find a good place to hide everything pertaining to your invention,” said Miss Brett. “Keep the pieces apart, in separate houses, so if any piece is found, its brothers will remain hidden and the whole machine will still be safe.” Miss Brett looked each child in the eyes to be sure they understood.

  “What about saving our parents?” Faye asked. Her heart fell as she asked it.

  “Well, I don’t know how you were planning to do that,” Miss Brett said calmly, “but it certainly is not safe to do anything of the kind now. Perhaps it’s something we can talk about and work on together. But for now, there are more pressing, real, and present dangers.”

  “She’s right,” said Wallace, and his heart fell, too.

  Miss Brett put her hand on his shoulder. “I think it’s best that you keep the pieces with you and—”

  “But Miss Brett,” Lucy said, “how do we know they won’t find it at our homes? Even in pieces, the pieces are still with us.”

  “Nowhere is safe,” Wallace said. “We need to hide everything somewhere else.”

  “But we don’t know anywhere else,” Miss Brett said. “It will have to be—”

  “Cousin Katharine,” said Faye.

  After only a few seconds, they remembered Faye’s cousin. The children nodded. It was the one place they could go where no one would ever look.

  “How will we get there?” asked Wallace. “We’ll have a mighty difficult time getting past the men in black.”

  Faye smiled. “We’ll have well over nine and a half minutes, remember? During the day, the patrol is not as tight.”

  “Forget the men in black,” Noah said. “What about the nannies?”

  “We’ll figure a way around them,” Faye said, but about this she did not seem quite as confident.

  “I’m worried about Rosie,” cried Lucy. “I’m afraid to hurt her feelings again.”

  “I’m afraid of being strung up in a secret trap by the men in black,” added Noah, to no one’s delight.

  “Children.” Miss Brett could not help but worry. “Please. I don’t want you to put yourselves in harm’s way.”

  Jasper smiled. Miss Brett sounded like a mother. “We’ll be all right, Miss Brett. This is the best thing we can do.”

  Soon, the black carriage pulled up in front. The driver wore what appeared to be a black nightshirt and black night cap and larger woolly slippers—black, of course. Beneath his nightshirt, one could see his very bony knobby knees. He had a large, black, fuzzy toy bear tucked under one arm. His nightcap was pulled down low on his nose, covering what looked to be the kind of blindfold people wear when they suffer from a headache or need darkness in order to slumber deeply. He looked as if he’d be more at home in a bed than in a car. He must have been able to see through the blindfold, though, since he was, after all, driving.

  “Come along, children,” Miss Brett called in a lighthearted sing-song voice.

  The children all came skipping out of the farmhouse, imitations of smiles and careless merriment plastered on their faces. Each carried one of the bundles. All placed their bundles on the ground by the carriage and set off back inside to collect more. They were bringing the extra parts and anything else they did not have time to dismantle—wing parts, engine parts, propellers, tails, and rudders—all wrapped in blankets and carpets.

  “What is all of this?” the
driver asked, shifting his bear to the other arm, looking at the growing pile. “Again there is the work of school?”

  The children smiled and nodded. Miss Brett followed their lead and did the same.

  If the man did not believe them, he said nothing about it. He took the satchels and piled them up with the other bags onto the top of the carriage. There was quite a load when he was finished.

  Lucy hugged Miss Brett. “What about you?” Lucy asked, concern flashing in her sweet eyes.

  “I’ll be fine,” Miss Brett said unconvincingly. “Don’t you worry about me.”

  Lucy climbed into the carriage and began her ritual of waving. Miss Brett waved from the doorway as the carriage took the children away, trying not to show the horrible worry she felt not knowing how things would be when next they met.

  DECISIONS CAN BE RELATIVE

  OR

  THE RIGHT BROTHERS FOR THE JOB

  A quiet ride takes longer than a happy chatty ride. A near silent ride takes forever. Unlike most Friday and Sunday rides to and from Dayton, the children did not chatter or chat, nibble or laugh. They all sat very still and said nothing. The fact was there was an awful lot to say, but there was infinitely more to think about. What to believe? Who to trust? How to proceed? Where to go?

  Though they had managed what no one else in history had managed to do, they realized they still might be very wrong about many things—things they believed with all their hearts. Even Faye, the champion of the cause of rescuing their parents, was suddenly faced with the possibility that their parents didn’t want to be rescued and, in fact, wanted the children to stay away.

  When the carriage finally turned onto Maple after going around the block twice, all of the children got out at once. Jasper climbed up and tossed all of the luggage off. Everyone grabbed their bags and ran to their respective homes. The driver exited the carriage, stood for a moment, and put his thumb in his mouth. He switched his teddy bear to the other arm before climbing back in and driving away.

  “Well, look at you,” said Rosie when Jasper and Lucy came running in. “You look all in a state.”

  “We’re just, um, excited to be home,” said Jasper, taking Lucy by the hand.

  “And what is all of this?” Rosie asked, reaching out for the clumsy satchels that Jasper and Lucy were carrying.

  “Oh, don’t worry,” said Jasper, stepping back out of Rosie’s reach. Dashing past her, he shouted, “It’s just a project—just a fun thing, really!”

  Rosie looked down at Lucy, who also hugged her satchel tightly.

  “Yes, it’s loads of fun,” Lucy said, running off after her brother.

  “But the two of you, you need some eating. What about food? I’ve made—”

  “We’re not hungry!” Jasper lied, but then added, “But we will be.”

  Jasper and Lucy ran up to their rooms and dropped off their bags. Looking around for a place to put their satchels, they opted to shove the lot under their beds.

  “That’s as good a place as any,” said Jasper, pulling the edge of his quilt down so the satchel was completely hidden.

  “I really think it’s just awful keeping all these things from Rosie,” said Lucy, “and from Miss Brett and... It makes me feel like a naughty girl.”

  “Well, you’re not a naughty girl. None of us is naughty. And we’re not telling lies either. Not really,” he said. He stopped rushing for a moment and looked Lucy in the eyes. A sneaky smile spreading across his face, he said, “It is terribly exciting, isn’t it, Lucy? I mean, it’s exciting as well as dangerous, amazing, historic, and brilliant, and, of course, terrifying, and horridly worrying. Still, all said, it is frightfully thrilling, isn’t it?”

  Lucy smiled. “Yes,” she said in earnest. “Frightfully.”

  When Jasper and Lucy emerged from the house, Wallace and Faye were already there in the meadow, standing next to each other, looking down at Noah. Noah sat on the grass, staring down into his lap. He looked up for a moment, then back down again.

  In his hand he held a stack of cards, tied together with a pale blue ribbon that Noah seemed not yet to have untied.

  “What’s wrong, Noah?” said Lucy. Noah looked up at her and then back down again. There was no funny joke or silly response. He just stared at the bundle of cards.

  “What have you got there, in that ribbon?” Lucy asked. She loved ribbons.

  “Postcards,” said Noah. His voice cracked mid-word.

  “Where did you find them?” asked Jasper.

  “They’re mine,” said Noah in a very weak voice.

  “Where did you find them? They look lovely with that ribbon,” said Lucy.

  “They just arrived.”

  “And they were sent here?” said Jasper. “To your house?”

  Noah turned over the stack of postcards. The bottom card did not have an address. It simply said, “Noah Canto-Sagas.” “No, just to me, just my name,” said Noah. “And they came like this, all together in this bundle with this ribbon.”

  “Just your ruddy name?” Faye grabbed the bundle. “What are you? The King of England?” But there it was, his name and no address, yet the stack of postcards had made it to Noah anyway.

  “Why didn’t you open the package, Noah?” Jasper said.

  “I just...” But he didn’t really know why he hadn’t opened the bundle of postcards. His whole life had been made up of postcards, and whenever he received them, he would immediately run to the postman and read his mother’s words, drinking up everything she said. “Okay...” said Noah. He untied the ribbon.

  “Where has she been this time?” asked Jasper as Noah perused the first postcard.

  “She was in Moscow, singing for the Czar and his family,” said Noah, looking at the first one. He flipped to the next. “Then in Prague, and then somewhere in Austria.” He flipped to the next. “Then she took a royal coach to the south of France...” He flipped again. “... and was riding gondolas along the waterways of Venice with Princess Elena of Montenegro earlier that month. ‘Oh, silly me, Lennie has been the Queen of Italy for three years now since she married that teeny-tiny Victor Emmanuel’... and then the Duchy of Liechtenstein, where Prince Johann II and apparently the entire population came to hear her in the park.” A smile spread over his face. “And apparently Fifi ran away and the entire population, including all members of the police force, searched the country until they found her.”

  “Oh, read one to us, please, Noah! Please!” said Lucy, desperate to hear a mother’s words, even if they weren’t those of her own mother.

  “He might not want to,” Jasper said.

  “Very well,” said Noah, clearing his throat. “‘Darling Noah,’” he read, speaking in a high, breathy voice that everyone assumed, correctly, to sound like his mother’s, “‘I am off to Bohemia for a most deliciously romantic engagement. Remember, I sang at the affair when the Archduke Franz Ferdinand married the Countess Sophie Chotek von Chotkowa und Wogninon? That was on the first of July three years ago. I shall never forget it. It caused a terrible stir, inasmuch as they are very much in love, and the emperor was quite livid. Sophie, you see, is from old Bohemian nobility, but not as exalted as the Hapsburgs, so she had to endure a terrible social strain in order to marry the man she loves. And the archduke would not have survived a long bout with the dreaded consumption had it not been for the ministrations, in secret of course, of his adoring Sophie. And now I shall sing for them again! It is a secret from Sophie, who knows not a thing. I will descend upon the affair from a hot air balloon! How fabulously novelesque! Long live romance! Yours ever so—Mother.’”

  “Goodness, so much traveling,” Lucy said, looking at the picture of the palace on the postcard Noah handed her.

  “And that’s just what she wrote on that one card,” said Noah, with decidedly less enthusiasm than Lucy. He flipped to another. “‘... and such a lovely visit with the five sisters of Greiz. Emma’s wedding was a lovely affair, and I was asked to sing a cappella...’” He handed
the card to Faye, flipping to the next.

  “Is she really gone so often?” said Faye.

  “Yes, she is,” said Noah. “In her own way, she’s missing in action, I suppose.”

  “Um, I don’t want Daisy to worry, and I’m a bit hungry and...” Wallace looked a bit anxious. He swallowed hard and quickly added, “Daisy made hot-crossed buns and apple tarts. I just don’t want her worrying.”

  “We should eat,” said Noah, who knew very well that hungry was not the only thing Wallace was feeling. Noah suddenly felt foolish and selfish for complaining about his mother. At least he had a mother. And whatever complaints Noah had about his mother, her postcards were at least a reminder that she was somewhere. “Sorry, Wallace, I mean, because you’re hungry. I should have—”

  “I am,” Wallace said defensively. “I haven’t eaten since Miss Brett’s breakfast.”

  “Wait!” Faye grabbed Wallace’s arm. “Noah, this card was sent in August and it’s already October. What are the dates of the other postcards?”

  Noah flipped through. “August 17, September 1... Here’s one about presenting a bouquet at the opening of the Constantinople-Baghdad Railway in Ankara. That was September 5.”

  “So someone has been holding these cards,” Faye said with great suspicion. “Someone prevented these from being mailed—or, at least, prevented them from being delivered.”

  “You mean someone is keeping Noah’s mummy, too?” asked Lucy.

  “Well, they know she’s trying to contact Noah,” said Faye, determination in her voice. “These postcards are proof that your mother doesn’t know. She doesn’t suspect foul play.”

  “But if they don’t want me to know, or her to know where we are,” Noah said, “why do I have these now?”

  “And how did he get them?” asked Lucy.

  Faye was about to give an answer when she realized she didn’t have one. “He received them, but someone had held them,” said Faye. “He received them, even though his mum never put his address on the card. That doesn’t make any sense.”