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

by Eden Unger Bowditch

  “Wallace was the real hero,” said Faye.

  “You were all heroes,” said Miss Brett.

  Wallace said nothing as he continued to untie the ropes.

  The ropes, once unknotted, fell away easily, and once Miss Brett was off the floor, the students and their teacher all clambered to tie up Reginald Roderick Kattaning before he came to.

  “For such a skinny man, he sure is hard to move,” Noah said as the six of them dragged Reginald Roderick Kattaning’s unconscious bulk across the kitchen floor.

  “Let’s put him in the telephone room,” Miss Brett said. “It’s the only room that can be locked from the outside.”

  Folding their gangly burden, they managed to get Reginald Roderick Kattaning into the tiny room, shutting the door just before they heard a low groan. Miss Brett turned the lock and put the key back on the shelf where she kept it.

  “He’s likely to wake up any minute,” said Miss Brett. Then she turned to look at her five charges and gathered all of them into her arms. “I was so worried.”

  “We were worried about you,” said Lucy, wiping her eyes.

  “Worried about me? I was fine,” she said, a bit too quickly. “Well, I was all right until last night. When he didn’t come back Friday evening, I thought he had gone for good. I tried to reconnect the telephone wires.”

  That explained why they had been so badly twisted when Jasper went to reattach them.

  “Saturday, for most of the day, I tidied the kitchen and cleaned the house,” Miss Brett said. “I wanted to alert the people in charge of all this that we might have trouble, but they should already have known. I told them on Friday, before Reginald Roderick Kattaning cut the telephone wires.”

  “We never saw any of those men in black hanging around our houses,” Faye said. “If they were supposed to be helping us or protecting us or keeping an eye on things, they never checked on us.”

  “They gave us Rosie,” said Lucy, “and Rosie could lift a horse if she wanted, all on her own, I bet.”

  “They never even came for us,” Wallace told Miss Brett.

  “They probably wanted to keep you from coming back here, in case our unwanted visitor returned,” Miss Brett said.

  “Well, I... it does seem... Well, you might be right,” said Faye. “It seems like they may have wanted to protect us. Perhaps.”

  “But what about you?” asked Lucy, mortified, tugging at Miss Brett’s sleeve. “Didn’t they want to protect you?”

  “Well...” Miss Brett considered her words carefully. “I don’t think they didn’t care about me. I’m sure they were planning something,” Miss Brett said. “Saturday night, as I was sitting at the kitchen table here, I heard all manner of noises coming from the classroom. When I went to look, Reginald Roderick Kattaning grabbed me and tied me up with that rope.” She rubbed her wrists and stretched her neck.

  “You spent the night sitting in that chair?” Faye asked.

  “Yes, and my neck is quite stiff.” Miss Brett rubbed her own shoulders. “He just ranted and raved at me until, well, until I fell asleep. When I woke this morning, he was still pacing and grumbling and screaming about some thing. ‘The THING!’ he kept shouting. It must have been the aeroplane,” she said. “My goodness, he was at it all night.”

  The children looked at one another—all except Lucy, who instead looked out the open window. In the distance, she could see a cloud of dust along the road. She pulled out her spyglass to get a better look. Everyone stopped talking.

  “What is it, Lucy?” asked Noah.

  “It looks like a big black automobile. No, two. No, wait—there are at least six motorcars coming down the road,” she said, counting clouds of dust.

  “Well, it’s probably the directors or whoever those men in black are,” said Miss Brett, straightening her skirt. “Thank goodness. Now we can turn over that awful Reginald Roderick Kattaning and find out what all of this means. And I want to ask what that gibberish meant that they were saying over the telephone.”

  “Gibberish?” said Wallace.

  “Yes, they said something like ‘crowbar roback’ or ‘gomart lotack’ or—”

  “Komar Romak?” said Lucy.

  Everyone looked at her.

  “Yes,” said Miss Brett excitedly, “that’s what they kept shouting. What on earth does that mean?”

  “And how do you know about it?” asked Jasper.

  “It was written on the envelope Reginald Roderick Kattaning had in class. I saw it when he dropped it. It just said ‘Komar Romak’ and nothing else.”

  “What does it mean?” asked Miss Brett.

  “I don’t know,” said Lucy. “I only saw it written on the envelope.”

  “Is it a place?” said Wallace.

  “It could be something in another language,” said Miss Brett.

  “Or a code word,” said Jasper.

  “They’re coming!” Faye exclaimed, pointing out the window. “The nannies must have turned us in.”

  “Don’t be silly. They’d never turn us in,” Noah said, “unless they thought they were helping us.”

  Six motorcars drove up the long road to the farmhouse, followed by several now familiar black carriages.

  They all hurried toward the door. Miss Brett stopped only to check that the lock on the telephone room was secure.

  Miss Brett and the children stood on the front steps of the schoolhouse and waited as the large black motorcars came to a halt in front of them. Each motorcar contained four of the men in black, all of whom emerged at once, like a river of black seeping through every car door.

  Miss Brett and the children recognized many of the men, although not all. There was the man in a lady’s bonnet and the man in the inner tube. There was the man in the black nightie and the man with the black beret. There was the man in the black fur coat and the man with the wooly jumper, as well as the man in the lady’s floral hat.

  “That’s the man who was jumping on Mummy’s bed,” Lucy whispered to Jasper, pointing to the man in the velvet hat.

  There were several men in black bowler hats and long coats and three in top hats. To her surprise, Faye saw the man in the turban.

  The man in the black fur coat walked up to Miss Brett. “Where is he?” he asked in a deep, accented voice.

  “Reginald Roderick Kattaning?” she asked.

  “Who?” the fur man asked.

  “Reginald Roderick Kattaning? The man who was here?”

  “Yes,” the fur man answered gruffly, “the man who was here.”

  “We’ve locked him in the telephone room,” she said, stepping aside.

  “Locked him?” the fur man asked in surprise.

  “Yes,” said Miss Brett defensively. “He had me tied to a chair all night and was very rough with the children. We had to protect ourselves.”

  “He is locked?” the fur man asked again. Then, with a grunt, he pushed past Miss Brett. “We shall see,” he said.

  Miss Brett and the children followed the fur man to the telephone room door.

  “Open, please,” the fur man said.

  Miss Brett took the key from her apron pocket and unlocked the door.

  The room was totally empty. A pile of rope sat in a heap on the floor. Lucy pointed at something beside it, which looked very much like a small caterpillar. Upon closer inspection, however, it was half of a brown moustache.

  “But... but... I... I...” Miss Brett stammered. “Children, you saw... you were there... we all... he was—”

  “Yes, we all saw,” said Faye, reaching for Miss Brett’s hand, giving it a gentle squeeze.

  “How is this possible?” said Wallace. “We haven’t had the door out of sight for a minute.”

  Miss Brett looked up. About nine feet up on the wall was a tiny window.

  “Not even Lucy could fit through that,” said Jasper. “Even if she could reach it.”

  “This is impossible,” said Noah, shaking his head.

  “Komar Romak,” said the man
in the black swimsuit who had come to see.

  “Komar Romak,” said the fur man.

  “Komar Romak?” asked the bonnet-wearing man.

  “Komar Romak,” said the man with the black inner tube, looking up at the impossibly small window.

  “Komar Romak?” said Miss Brett. “What on earth is Komar Romak?”

  “What Komar Romak is not,” said the man in the bonnet.

  “What it is not what?” asked Noah.

  “Not what,” said the bonnet-wearing man.

  “What is not what?” said Jasper, now utterly baffled.

  “It,” said the fur man.

  “What?” the children asked at once.

  “Not it,” said the inner tube man.

  “I am asking what Komar Romak is,” Miss Brett said, calmly and slowly. “Does it mean something in another language? What is it?”

  “Not it,” said the fur man, rather more emphatically than before, looking at the other men in black, clearly as frustrated as the children and Miss Brett.

  Miss Brett took a deep breath, and was about to start again when Lucy asked, “Who is Komar Romak?”

  “Yes,” said the bonnet-wearing man. “Yes, who.”

  “All right,” said Miss Brett, addressing the fur man, “who, pray tell, is Komar Romak?”

  All of the men in black standing near the doorway looked up in unison, pointing to the window above.

  “Him?” Miss Brett pointed up. “Reginald Roderick Kattaning?”

  “No,” said the man in the black nightie, “Komar Romak.”

  “Who is he?” asked Noah.

  “We cannot say,” said the nightie man.

  “We mustn’t,” said the fur man. Miss Brett could see fear in his eyes.

  “Is he really so very bad?” asked Jasper.

  “So very bad,” said the inner tube man, adjusting his inner tube as one might adjust a collar growing too tight under pressure, “and what is not alone.” The inner tube squeaked like a duck as the man shifted under the immediate gaze of his comrades.

  “What is not alone?” asked Wallace.

  “No!” shouted several men in black.

  “But what can we—”

  Miss Brett was cut off immediately by the bonnet-wearer, putting a finger to his lips. “We must go now,” he said. The fur man picked up the telephone and spoke in whispered tones, inaudible to Miss Brett and the children.

  “Everything must go now,” said a bowler hat-wearing man. “Now, we go now.”

  Miss Brett and the children scrambled to collect their things. Within minutes, the children were all in a large car, once again headed somewhere. Miss Brett was in the car right behind. The children thought they must be going home, at least to one home or another. But they had been wrong before.

  THE YOUNG INVENTORS ON THE MOVE

  OR

  THE FIRST CAR AND WHAT THEY FOUND THERE

  The children had taken many a roundabout route to their Dayton, Ohio homes. But the roundabout route they took that Sunday was, without question, totally different. They first drove the entire perimeter of the city. Then they drove through the city, and back out. They inched farther and farther from their neighborhood.

  “We’re not going home, are we?” Lucy asked her brother, hoping for an answer she knew she would not get.

  Jasper pulled her close. He had nothing to say. No one in the back of the car was in the mood to talk.

  Lucy turned around to wave at Miss Brett’s car behind them, and she continued to wave as the car followed them through several twists and turns. As they cut through town, though, Miss Brett’s car turned left while their own car continued straight. Lucy waved frantically, as if this would bring her back.

  “Is Miss Brett going somewhere else?” Faye asked the driver.

  Either he chose not to answer the question or the large, fuzzy black earmuffs he wore made it impossible for him to hear. So the five children, once again knowing not at all what was in store for them, could do nothing but watch as Miss Brett’s car disappeared around the corner.

  Lucy, unsure if Miss Brett saw her wave, tried to stifle a whimper. Jasper hugged his sister and handed her a handkerchief when the tears came down.

  Resting in the back of the car as it motored bumpily along was not easy, but they were all tired and worried and tired of worrying. After what seemed like hours, they dozed off.

  “It’s getting late,” said Faye, who was the first to wake. She looked at the last remnants of light in the waning sky. She guessed it was long past supper.

  As the rest of them, awakened by Faye, stretched and wiped the sleep from their eyes, Noah, yawning, asked, “Are we anywhere yet?”

  Looking out the window, none of the children recognized where they were.

  Except Lucy. “This is the way to the train station,” she said.

  The view, though, was of a street that looked just like any street—until the car took a sharp left, and then another left, and then a right. There, in front of them, was the train station. The car stopped behind three other black cars.

  “Out,” said the driver. He spoke very loudly. Jasper assumed this was because he could not hear himself with those fuzzy black earmuffs covering his ears.

  All of the children piled out of the car. They looked around to see if Miss Brett was anywhere to be seen. She was not.

  “Do you know where—” Faye began, but she was cut off with the swish of an arm in front of her nose. The driver pointed to the train yard.

  “But is Miss Brett—” Lucy tried to ask, but the driver again swished and pointed.

  “The blackguard,” mumbled Faye, helping Lucy out of the car.

  The children walked slowly toward the train. As they got closer, wondering what direction to take, a man in a large black conical hat and dark oval glasses appeared, pointing in the direction of the outbound trains. Another man with a black eyepatch over one eye and a dark monocle over the other, wearing a black sea captain’s jacket and cap, followed several yards after him, pointing toward Platform Seventeen. There, they found just one train, of a shiny green and gold color, that appeared as if someone had just polished it, engine to caboose.

  “It’s beautiful,” said Lucy. And it was. There were four long cars, all sparkling green with gold trim. The windows reflected like mirrors so the children could not see inside. A man in a black conductor’s suit, a black conductor’s hat, and dark spectacles looked at his shiny black conductor’s watch. He pointed to the last car, and the children gingerly stepped up and aboard.

  The inside was even more beautiful. The aisle of the last car was carpeted in beautiful floral patterns, and the walls were papered in deep green and gold. The doors were made of maple, and stained a deep reddish brown. Instead of compartments, there was a lounge and a cozy salon, with thick soft chairs and ornately crafted tables. Toward the middle of the car, the aisle led into a large room with a tall glass dome ceiling. It was like no observation room any of them had ever seen.

  “You can see the sky,” said Noah. The glass was perfectly clear—it was like looking out of a giant bubble. A stairway led up to a thin balcony that went around the perimeter of the dome. The children walked up and wandered around the circle of glass. They could see everything.

  “Look at all the people rushing around down there,” said Noah, pointing down. It felt as if they were two stories up.

  “A train can’t be this tall,” insisted Faye. But it was, or seemed to be.

  “Look at the sky,” said Lucy, pointing up. She waved, but no one outside seemed to see her. “It must reflect like the glass of the windows. No one can see in, but we can see out.”

  “It’s like we’re invisible,” said Jasper, watching as everyone rushed back and forth along the platform.

  “It must be beautiful looking out of there when the train is moving,” Faye said. “I’ll bet it feels like... like—”

  “Like you’re flying?” said Noah.

  Faye blushed.

  �
��Come on,” said Jasper, descending the stairs. “Let’s see what else is here.”

  They left the dome room, moving toward the front of the train, through a set of stained glass doors that led to the third car. They found themselves in another aisle, this one lined with paintings in between the windows. The windows were on one side, and on the other was a row of big wooden doors. Assuming these must be the compartments, Lucy turned the knob on the first one. It wasn’t locked.

  “Go ahead, Lucy,” said Noah, “Open the door.”

  The fact that the room was empty of people was a surprise to no one. What was a surprise, though, was that it was nothing like any cabin in any train the children had ever seen. The cabin was furnished like a fabulously luxurious bedroom. In the middle were a large four-poster bed with a lace canopy and two small beds that closely resembled the large one.

  “Look,” said Jasper, walking across the room. He picked up the small glass jug of water that sat on the bedside table. “That reminds me of Mummy.”

  Lucy walked over and held her brother’s hand.

  “Where is everyone?” asked Lucy, concern creeping into her voice. “Why have they left us here alone?” Jasper kissed the top of her head.

  The children opened the next door. It, too, was beautifully furnished, with two identical and very beautiful beds right next to one another. The whole room was filled with bouquets of flowers.

  “That makes me think of my mother,” said Noah with a sigh. “Someone is always sending her flowers.”

  The next room had beautiful Asian art and a satin spread over a large bed in the center of the room. A smaller day bed covered in red and orange silk pillows stood against the wall. The room smelled of sandalwood and jasmine incense. Faye was reminded of her own room back in New Delhi.

  In the fourth room, Wallace saw the glass slides mounted on the wall between the two beds and thought of his father.

  The last room was smaller, with one bed in it, covered with a soft peach-colored cotton quilt. The window had lace curtains.

  The room smelled of lavender, but was empty of life. There were no people to be found anywhere.

  “What do we do?” asked Lucy as they reached the end of the car.