Book of Knowledge

by Slater, David Michael

  “Ah, no,” said Daphna.

  “Perhaps you might do some research for us.”

  “Um, sure.” Thankfully, someone else in the room said something then, and the discussion went off in another direction.

  “Dex, what was that all about? Do you think Adem Tarik killed God?”

  “I know he did.”

  “How? What have you been doing all day?”

  “BUT IT IS TRUE! EVERY WORD!” This was Tory again, startling the twins, who’d lost the thread of the conversation.

  “Oh—well. Let’s see. All right then,” Mr. Guillermo said, taking his glasses off again. “No offense, Tory, dear—I don’t mean to pick on you—but your example is perfect. Many people believe that every word in the Bible is literally true, right? Okay. Well I dare say many of the people who believe that haven’t read it.”

  At this, the whole class seemed to turn as one to look at Tory, who turned a shade of purple.

  “I’m not talking about Tory,” Mr. Guillermo insisted. “Allow me to go on. When people actually read the Bible, they realize there are things that make it rather difficult to believe every word is true.”

  “Dexter,” Daphna whispered again, “what is wrong with you? Answer me!”

  “Like what?” someone asked.

  “Well, sometimes there are completely contradictory statements.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “If it said the walls were blue and then it said the walls were yellow—”

  “Oh, I get it.”

  “So for example—who is familiar with the story of Adam and Eve? Good. So, how were they created?”

  “Dexter, talk to me—please!”

  “God made Adam, but he got lonely so God put him to sleep and took one of his ribs out and made Eve.”

  “Good, Tory. That’s one of the stories.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There are two creation stories in the Bible. The other one simply says that God created man and woman together. So, can both be true?”

  “Dexter!”

  “What are you saying?” Tory roared. “Are you saying none of it’s true? Are you saying there were no Adam and Eve? No Garden of Eden? This is the worst class in the world!”

  “I heard there are these dudes looking for the Garden,” a boy said from the rear of the room. “They think it’s in Israel or something.”

  “Yes,” said Mr. Guillermo, ignoring Tory now. “Some people believe every word in the Bible is true—so if it says in Genesis that there was an actual Garden of Eden, then it’s got to be somewhere. We’ll look at a range of beliefs, from not a word of the Bible is true to every single word is literally true.”

  “Dexter!”

  “Shut up, Daphna! I’m trying to listen!”

  “In between those two extremes are people who believe that the major events described in the Bible are based in reality: the Garden, the Flood, certain wars, but that the actual truth of the events has been lost or altered over time. I think last year you read about how some experts think The Iliad and The Odyssey evolved from real life events, right? I think, in the case of the Garden of Eden, some people want to find it so they can learn the true story.”

  “That’s it Dexter. If you don’t tell me what happened right now, I swear I’ll—I’ll—”

  “People have been looking for it forever,” Mr. Guillermo added. “Some do think it was in the territory of ancient Israel, but some think it was located in Egypt or Iraq.”

  “I dare you to try—”

  “Others think it was actually in the mountains of Eastern Turkey, and still others—”

  “WHAT?”

  This was Dex and Daphna, shouting out together.

  Mr. Guillermo, startled by the strange double voice, dropped his smile momentarily and frowned at Daphna.

  “Did—did you say,” Daphna sputtered—Dex had gone quiet—“Did you say Eastern—Turkey?”

  “Why, yes,” Mr. Guillermo replied, once more putting his glasses on. But before he could get another word out, the final bell rang.

  CHAPTER 24

  major big news

  As the thirty plus students filed out of the room, Mr. Guillermo asked Daphna to stay behind a moment. She was mortified at the thought of being held back and “spoken to,” but he only wanted to chat.

  “You seem to have a genuine interest in all of this,” Mr. Guillermo commented. He took his glasses off and set them on his desk. “I love to see that!” he said. “And so I thought maybe, since we’ll be doing independent research projects on our own personal interests, that you might want to get a head start. Daphna, a paper about why the age of thirteen is so often chosen for rites-of-passage would be fascinating. Of course, the murder of God might be even more so! Or how about something on the search for lost religious relics? Who wouldn’t want to read that?”

  Tory, Dex almost said, standing behind his sister.

  “Actually,” Daphna ventured, “I’m kind of interested in this whole Garden of Eden thing—about where people think it is.”

  “Really!” Mr. Guillermo said. He searched for his glasses among the files and papers on the desk. It took a few seconds before he had them. “Well,” he said, putting them on, “that’s fascinating too, of course.”

  “I’m especially interested in Turkey,” Daphna said.

  “Great!” said Mr. Guillermo. “Wonderful!”

  “Would you know anything about—” Daphna said, “I mean, does anyone believe that there were books in the Garden of Eden? Maybe a lot of books?”

  “I’ve never heard anything like that before,” Mr. Guillermo replied, “but what a neat idea! By the way, Daphna, are you feeling all right? Your voice, in class, it sounded a bit—What’s that?”

  “Let’s just forget all about my behavior in class today, okay? I’m really a very attentive student.”

  “Let’s just forget all about your behavior in class today, okay? You’re really a very attentive student.”

  Dex and Daphna walked out of school together, which was a first.

  “Dex,” Daphna blurted as soon as her brother reappeared, “this stuff about the Garden of Eden—remember what Tarik told the kids they were doing? Making Heaven on Earth! Wasn’t the Garden of Eden basically Heaven on Earth?”

  “Yeah,” Dex agreed. “But he said that wasn’t exactly it. We got that from Ruby and Rash, right? The Garden of Eden—that’s Paradise, which is another word for Heaven, isn’t it? Maybe that’s what he really told the kids. Maybe he really wants Paradise on earth. Maybe he’s been searching for it all this time.”

  “But what did he need to train all those kids for? Why does he want us to learn the First Tongue? And we think he has dyslexia, right—or whatever you have—when it comes to Words of Power?? How does that fit in? And Dex, everything seems like it happened right there. It’s like he’s always known where it was. And what kind of Paradise do you get with murder?”

  “I don’t know,” Dex admitted. “Maybe he knows it’s near there, but he won’t actually know unless something happens, something he needs the First Tongue for, which would explain why he needs help.”

  “We need to figure it out Dex!” Daphna insisted. “We’ve got to do some serious—Ah—Hi—”

  The twins hadn’t noticed that a group of kids walking nearby had approached while they were talking. The kids, several of whom were Pops, or former Pops, seemed to want to chat. Daphna, reveling at the sight of such snobs hanging out with “regular” kids, tried to engage in small talk with everyone, but she couldn’t concentrate very well on the job. Dex didn’t try at all. Small talk was not his forte. Finally, the twins turned toward their own street and found themselves alone.

  “Outstanding work, Daphna,” Dex sneered. “If you can’t join ’em, beat ’em—is that it?”

  “Look Dexter,” Daphna retorted, “I found a Word that let’s me—I don’t know how to put it actually—it let’s me—”

  “Bend wills.”


  “Exactly! So what’s wrong with getting practice and making school a nicer place at the same time? It doesn’t matter what we do anyway, Dexter. I keep telling you. We’re all—”

  “I know, I know,” Dex interrupted, “we’re going to live trillions of lives. I know.”

  “Fine,” said Daphna. “My point is that I need to get really good before—Wait a second, how did you know, anyway? Their eyes?”

  “I can do it, too.”

  “You’re kidding!” Daphna looked genuinely excited by this news, which made Dexter feel suddenly much less hostile.

  “That’s great!” she added. “Dex, the two of us, if we get really good, we can take care of Adem Tarik and get Latty home and start living a normal life again! I feel like I’m really pretty good right—Wait! The cops! That’s why you said we don’t have to worry about them. What did you do?”

  “Richards found me,” Dex explained. “It’s all taken care of. Antin and his gang, too. I’ve got the rest of the money in my backpack.”

  “Dex, that’s great! That’s really, really great.” Daphna was being totally sincere, Dex could tell.

  “Let’s hurry up then,” she urged. “We’re almost home. We need to do some research. Let’s surf the web for something about books in the Gar—” Daphna stopped short, having rounded into view of their house. There was an Anne & Anthony Show news van sitting in their driveway. Instinctively, the twins reversed course and hurried back out of sight.

  “What’s this all about?” Daphna asked. Then her jaw clenched. “You didn’t do something to call attention to yourself, did you?”

  “No!” Dexter snapped. “I have no idea what it’s about! Maybe they’re wondering why our school got turned into Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood today!”

  “It really doesn’t matter what it’s about,” Daphna conceded. “We just need to go over there and make them leave and forget all about us. Then no one will bother us for as long as we want. We’ll practice until we’re experts, and then we’ll nail Adem Tarik before he knows what hit him.”

  “Yeah, I agree,” Dex said, “but I want to know what’s up. Don’t you?”

  “Well, let’s just go over there and make them tell us. I’m sure I can do it, no problem.”

  “I can, too.”

  Daphna nodded, ignoring the challenge in her brother’s tone. The twins moved toward the house again, but stopped when they noticed the other car parked in front.

  “It’s Evelyn,” Daphna said.

  “Oh,” Dex said, “no big deal. We’ll get rid of her, too.” He stepped forward, but stopped when Daphna didn’t follow. “What?”

  “I guess I’d just feel badly about—bending Evelyn again—I mean, after all she’s done for us.”

  “Okay,” Dex agreed. She had done a lot. “You be Dad again, and I’ll be invisible. We’ll find out what she’s scheming and try to get rid of her the regular way. If anything goes wrong, I’ll freeze everyone so we can talk about another plan.”

  “You better mean that this time,” Daphna warned.

  “Yeah, yeah, I promise.”

  It was agreed. Dex vanished and fell in behind Daphna, who was already Milton Wax. When they opened the door to their house, Evelyn and two men stood up from the couch. A third remained sitting, talking on a cell phone. A TV camera was on the floor.

  “Milton!” cried Evelyn, exactly the way she had the last time she’d been there, “I’m—I’m so sorry to be in here without you. I was also bringing over a casserole—it’s in the fridge. The door wasn’t locked so I figured you’d be right back. I—Oh, I hope you don’t mind. We’ve only been here for a few minutes.”

  “What’s going on?” Daphna asked, thinking they really had to pay better attention to locking the door.

  “Please don’t be mad, Milton,” said Evelyn. “It’s just that, I was thinking, you’ve been through so much, you and the kids, and how courageous you’ve all been, and, well, I was being interviewed at the Home about everything that happened there, and I suddenly thought you would make a much better story! I thought, if the kids got excited about it, it might help them deal with everything. You know, make them feel recognized for getting through it all. They deserve some attention! Oh, this is Emil. He’s a reporter, or an intern actually. That’s James, his boss. And this is Edwin, the camera man.”

  “Hello,” Daphna offered to the room at large. She was too surprised by all of this to think of an appropriate way to respond. This was really nice of Evelyn.

  Of course the idea of being on TV was enticing, but it was out of the question. For one thing, Milton would never want that kind of attention, and besides, there was way too much going on. Edwin shook Daphna’s hand while all of this ran through her head. Emil smiled. James nodded slightly from the couch as he listened to his phone.

  “I don’t know about this,” Daphna said, trying to respond the way her father would, at least when he was their father. “It really wasn’t such a big deal.”

  “Not from what Ms. Idun here tells me,” Emil replied. “Your kids—twins, right?—survived a grisly multiple murder scenario in the woods, then fended off a knife attack by a renegade gang of juvenile delinquents in their own house? And then you went chasing after them just after an assault? Sounds like a big deal to me. Are the kids coming home from school soon? This is pure human interest, and local, too. Ann & Anthony’s viewers will eat it up!”

  “Forget it,” growled a gruff voice from the couch. Everyone turned. It was James, putting his phone away. He sighed with world-weariness and got up from the couch.

  “Is something wrong?” Emil asked.

  “I’d say something’s wrong. I’d say something is very wrong,” James snarled. “Valuable time has been wasted. Professionals have been prevented from performing important services to the community.”

  “I—I don’t understand,” Evelyn stuttered.

  “I just got off the phone with an Officer Madden.”

  “Yes? He was here with another fellow, Officer Richards. Did I mention that?”

  “You did mention that, and I spoke with him, too.”

  “And you say something is wrong?”

  James sighed again. “Neither one of them knows anything about you or some gang of kids breaking in here.”

  “But—that’s impossible!” Evelyn protested, tossing her long arms up. “There must be some sort of confusion! Am I going crazy? Tell them Milton!”

  Before Daphna could decide how to handle this new development, James laid into Evelyn.

  “Tell me if this sounds like confusion,” he demanded. “They know about this thing in the woods—that’s old news—but they didn’t pick up a kid named ‘Eyeballs’; they have no confiscated money; and they don’t have any other kids in custody on charges even remotely close to what you’ve made up.

  “Listen lady,” he said, cruelly, “we are very busy people. We don’t appreciate being used to help you land a husband, and it will be over my dead body that we’ll broadcast your fantasies to the entire city. Now, if you’ll excuse us, we’ll be going.”

  “But—!” Evelyn pleaded.

  James strode angrily toward the door, but halfway there, he froze with one foot still off the floor. Emil was frozen too, though he seemed to have been that way since the moment his boss went off. Edwin had just picked up the TV camera and now stood motionless with its strap slung over a shoulder.

  Daphna was relieved, though slightly perturbed that her brother seemed to enjoy waiting until the very last second before stepping in. It occurred to her that she could’ve just used her Word to handle things, but it didn’t matter now.

  “What was that all about?” she asked when her brother reappeared.

  Dex explained what he’d done to Antin and his gang and told her about the rest of his day as well. Daphna was impressed.

  “Well,” he said, “at least we know this wasn’t anything to worry about. So now we just make them forget all about this little visit and go on their merry way. Too ba
d Picker’s not here. He’d have been in his Paradise.”

  Daphna thought a moment about Picker, that poor little man whose brief contact with Rash’s Ledger had led to his death. All he’d wanted was to be famous, or maybe just for everyone to know who he was, or maybe just a little respect as a person.

  “Daphna,” Dex said. “Let’s get—”

  The phone rang.

  “Latty!” Daphna cried.

  “Don’t get it,” Dex said. “Let’s finish this first.”

  “Did I change the message last time?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “She might get worried.”

  “Daphna, we’ll change it later,” Dex insisted. But he could see his sister had her mind made up. Frustrated, he scanned the room. It was true that everyone looked pretty firmly frozen. “Oh, all right,” Dexter said. “We ought to talk to Latty at least once. Tell her not to do anything dangerous because we’ll be able to take care of Adem Tarik ourselves soon.”

  Daphna nodded and stepped quickly past three human statues to the phone. She didn’t realize it had stopped ringing until she heard the signal for voicemail.

  “Missed it!” she complained. Daphna tapped in the code and listened to the message. It was brief, but alarming. “Dex!” she said after putting it down.

  “What?”

  “All those books,” Daphna said, “thousands of them—the ones he had trucked to the mountains—he’s carrying them into some caves, by himself. He’s just going in and out all day long talking to himself.”

  “What’s he saying?”

  “That he’s not a bad man, over and over.”

  “Still? He’s still saying that?”

  “Yeah, and something about getting back to the original plan.”

  “The original plan? We still don’t know what that is!”

  “I know. And there was another little earthquake. Maybe he’ll get killed and none of this will matter. But—” Daphna didn’t finish her thought, which was, No—he’s still our father.