by Bob Bannon
Jonah shrugged, looking for a way to argue. He knew he still had a dollar and some change in his pocket, but that wasn’t going to get him far.
“It’s no big deal, dude. Seriously.” Eric said, noticing the look on Jonah’s face. “Besides, I’m just as curious as you are. If this woman knows something about your dad, you have to go check it out.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Jonah said.
“Pay me back later. When you figure it out,” Eric said.
That was more of an optimistic view than Jonah was prepared to agree to, but he shrugged and said “alright.”
They devised the rest of the plan and decided Jonah would go tomorrow, he would take the tablet and the money and walk to the bus stop on Main Street from Eric’s house.
“That’s the other thing,” Jonah interrupted. “There’s no way I can stay at your place tonight. You’re mom is expecting a phone call.”
“Oh right,” Eric said, digging in his backpack once again. He brought out a small black box with a number of yellow buttons on the top and a red button on the side. He flipped the power button and said into it “That’s what this is for.” But when he said it through the box, it came out sounding like some kind of giant insect had spoken the word. The box changed his voice into something really creepy.
Eric pushed one of the yellow buttons at the top, dropped his voice deeper and said again “I mean, that’s what this is for.” The box dropped his voice incredibly low, he sounded almost like the guy that did voice-overs for movie previews.
Jonah laughed. “That’s not going to fool your mom,” he said.
“Sure it will,” Eric said. “I mean, you can’t drop your voice that deep, but if you just talk into it normally you’ll sound like an adult.”
“Wait a minute,” Jonah said raising his hand up. “You want me to call your mom using that?”
“Well I can’t do it,” Eric explained. “Even changing my voice she’d probably recognize it. She won’t recognize your voice. She might even chalk it up to you and your dad sounding alike.”
Jonah was still unsure.
“Even if she catches on, we’ll say we were just joking around.” Eric said, pulling out a small cord from his pack. “Look, it connects right to the cell phone, so you don’t even have to worry about her hearing your real voice. Then we block my cell number and call her. You can say you’re at work and really busy.”
Jonah hadn’t even agreed when Eric picked up the notebook and began working out a script. Soon enough, it was time to make the call.
Jonah almost locked up entirely when Eric dialed the number and pressed send. Eric turned the volume all the way up so he could hear his mother’s side of the conversation. Jonah swallowed hard and took the phone and the voice changer.
“Hello?” Mrs. MacIntyre said on the other end.
“Missus MacIntyre, please,” Jonah said in his normal voice. Over the phone, a deep smooth voice said the words. He was glad he fought the instinct to lower his voice because it would have sounded much less real.
“This is her,” she said.
“This is Doctor Nickolas Havensby,” The smooth voice said.
“Oh, Doctor Havensby. It’s so nice to hear from you.” Mrs. MacIntyre said. “I didn’t get a chance to say hello last night.”
Jonah had to go off-script on that one.
“Oh, yes,” he stumbled. “Sorry about that, I had to take another call.”
Eric grimaced wildly and pointed at the script in a mad effort to tell Jonah to follow the script and only the script. Jonah shrugged back at him; there wasn’t much he could do about it.
“We like Jonah so much, he’s a very nice young man,” she said.
They hadn’t thought of this either.
“Yes, Eric seems like a fine young man too,” Jonah said off the top of his head. Then he added, “They seem like good buddies.”
“Yes,” she agreed, and then paused. She wouldn’t have put it in such a way, but she did have to agree to that. “They do, don’t they.”
Eric was almost purple now. He emphatically tapped his finger on the script three times. Jonah went right back to it.
“Well, the boys had asked if Jonah could stay over again tonight, just before I left for a meeting,” Jonah read. “I don’t mean to impose…”
“Oh, it’s no problem at all. We’re happy to have him,” Mrs. MacIntyre cut in, not letting him finish the line.
“Oh,” Jonah said searching for words in his head, “Well, thank you. I’m sure they’ll have fun. Thank you, Missus MacIntyre.” He shrugged at Eric again.
“It’s Wendy,” she corrected.
“Wendy, of course,” Jonah put the script down, he was just going to have to wing it the rest of the way. “Call me Nickolas,” Jonah said, and shrugged again at Eric with wide eyes.
Eric put his head in his hands and scratched at his hair in frustration.
“Nickolas?” she asked. “I was thinking of taking Eric for a haircut tomorrow. I could certainly take both boys before I send Jonah home.” She didn’t want to imply that Jonah really needed one.
Jonah knew he already planned the Clapton trip, but he couldn’t tell Mrs. MacIntyre that. He couldn’t think of anything to say. Why wouldn’t he have any money? What would he and his father be doing on a Sunday afternoon? He had to say something quick.
“Well, I’ve already left for a late meeting,” Jonah said, at least that was in the script. “I haven’t seen the boys for hours and I didn’t leave any money…”
“Nonsense,” she said with a slight giggle. “I can get the haircuts. That’s no problem. I’ll make you a deal. I’ll get this one and you can take the boys to the movies sometime.”
Jonah was glaring at Eric. Any advice here would be more than welcomed, none was forthcoming. “Sounds like you have a deal,” Jonah said rather weakly into the phone.
“Perfect!” She exclaimed.
Eric threw his hands up in the air in surrender and the aggravated gesture continued all the way back until he was lying on the floor defeated.
“Is there any homework or anything that Jonah needs to get done?” She asked.
This they had gone over. They thought it would make him sound much more parental if he brought up homework.
“Yes,” Jonah said. “He has a paper due on the Tyrannosaurus Rex, actually. Two pages to be exact.” Jonah had already done this assignment last year and he still visited the pages he used as research from time to time. Two pages would be easy.
“Great,” she said, “I’ll get them to do some work tonight then.”
Eric sat up immediately and looked at the phone as if it was something he’d never seen before. She was flat out crazy if she thought he was doing any homework on a Saturday.
“Are there any numbers where I can reach you?” She asked.
“Um,” Jonah started. “Sorry, Missus MacIntyre. I really do have to run.” There was no lie that could cover this up. “Jonah has all my numbers. Sorry, something’s just come up. Nice talking to you.” And with that he pushed End and dropped the phone and the voice changer onto the electric blanket like they were on fire.
“Dude!” Eric said quietly.
“There is no way we could have written how that was going to go,” Jonah said.
“But I think it worked. I mean, she did say you could stay,” Eric said.
“True. She probably thinks my dad’s some kind of crazy, rude monster though.”
“Or a zombie,” Eric added.
Jonah looked at him for a minute and then punched him hard in the shoulder.
“Ow!” Eric yelled, rubbing his arm. But then he cracked himself up.
Jonah stood up and walked out the door and down the steps.
“Hey, if we’re getting haircuts tomorrow, what are you going to do about Clapton?” Eric asked, following him.
“I guess I can wait until Monday,” Jonah said.
“You’d be closer to the bus stop from here anyway,” Eric
agreed.
They spent some time walking around the old machinery trying to make out what each machine was. Eric envisioned an entire shoe factory, and explained how conveyor belts would run from machine to machine and what each would do to the shoe. Jonah could see that, but was almost sure it had something to do with logging. He could see where one machine might have logs fed into it and a plank of wood could come out the other side. He was almost certain another machine was a mulcher.
Jonah went upstairs and grabbed the loaf of bread. They took turns making little balls of bread and then tossing them towards Grouchy’s nest. They made a game out of it and decided it would be one point for actually landing in the nest, but two points if you didn’t have to ricochet off the back wall. The game went on, until Grouchy popped up with a mean hiss and came bounding out of his den.
It had the desired effect. Both boys yelled and ran up the stairs, slamming the door behind them laughing at each other.
When they decided to go back to Eric’s Jonah unplugged the electric blanket and put on his backpack after adding the walkie-talkie and putting the ten dollars in the front zippered pocket. He stuffed the tablet in the back of his pants. Eric dropped the voice changer in his pack and zipped it.
When the room looked just as it did before they came in, they left and went outside. Grouchy had returned to his nest and was snacking on one of the bread balls, but he was now vigilantly watching the two as they made their way toward the window.
Once outside, Jonah made the move to tuck his pack away inside the little door when Eric said “you might as well bring your stuff. It’ll be safer at my place.”
He was right about that. Jonah was just moving on habit and hadn’t considered the option. He shrugged and put the pack back on.
They picked up their bikes and rode off into the afternoon light.
When they got back to Eric’s place, Mrs. MacIntyre was waiting, watching a news program. Both boys dropped their packs by the front door.
“Hello?” Mrs. MacIntryre called from the family room. The boys appeared in the doorway as if summoned.
“Hi, Mrs. MacIntryre,” Jonah said politely.
“What’s up, mom?” Eric said.
“Oh, Jonah,” she started. “I had such a nice talk with your father this afternoon. He seems nice.”
Neither boy could stand to look at the other, so they just stared straight at her.
“Thank you,” Jonah said quietly, almost like it was a question.
“ Now, I know you have some homework...” she said.
“A paper on dinosaurs,” he responded. “It’s not long though.”
“I know.” She said, and then pointed at both of them. “But you’ll both have to buckle down and get some work done. Did you bring any books with you?”
“I research stuff mainly on the internet. I don’t really have any books for it,” Jonah explained.
“Okay, then you can use Eric’s computer upstairs,” she said.
“Mom,” Eric almost whined. “Can’t we do it tomorrow. It’s Saturday.”
“What do you have?” She asked Eric.
“Just some Science and some English. It will take me, like, an hour. Tops,” he said in the same whine.
“Alright,” She said. “But one hour tomorrow. And no complaints.” She pointed at both of them.
Eric practically jumped up and down with delight. Jonah wondered how often Eric used what he considered to be an exceptionally effective whine.
“Thanks, Mom!” Eric yelled, and then punched Jonah in the arm.
“Hey!” Jonah yelled, but Eric was already dashing for the stairs, so Jonah ran after him.
There was at least forty-five minutes of ‘Kat Skratch’ before Eric’s mother called him downstairs to ‘kindly remove’ the two backpacks from the front hall.
Jonah got on Eric’s computer to check the boards and see if there were any new game tips. It didn’t seem like that many people had made it to level nineteen where they were.
He looked up the two sites on dinosaurs that he had referenced to write his first paper about T-Rex. There were pages and pages of information, so he felt like it wouldn’t take him any time at all to do another. He minimized the two pages to look at them later just Eric came back.
“What have you got in this thing anyway?” Eric said, dropping both bags on the bed.
Jonah unzipped the bag and sat on the floor. He hauled out his second outfit and his basketball shorts and dropped everything in a heap next to him. He took out the water bottle and his spoon. Then he showed Eric the knife he found at the caves.
“Don’t let my mom see that, “Eric said. “She’ll flip.”
“You know you can wash stuff here any time you want,” he said, referencing the pile of clothes.
“Really?” Jonah asked.
“Sure.” Eric replied. “My mom says everyone should learn how to do laundry. I guess she has a point.”
“Okay. Cool.” Jonah said.
Eric got up and rummaged through his over-stuffed closet and tossed out the sleeping bag and the clothes Jonah wore last night.
“You can wear the stuff you wore last night and then we can just wash everything again,” Eric suggested. “I’ll wash some stuff too. She’ll be less suspicious if she thinks I’m doing laundry.” Then he hauled out an overflowing laundry basket from the closet.
Jonah went and changed into the sweats he wore the night before, and then remembered the one thing he kept in his pocket at all times. He removed the green gem and looked at it dangling from the silver chain. He guessed Eric knew everything else. It was probably time to tell him about the gem.
Eric had changed into sweats also and sorted a small pile of clothes out of the laundry basket. Jonah added his clothes to the pile. “I don’t know what to do with the sweaters,” Jonah said.
“My mom just ran it through the dryer with a fabric softener sheet,” Eric remembered. “We’ll just do the same thing again.”
The gem was hanging from Jonah’s hand. “What’s that?” Eric asked.
“Just more of the puzzle, I guess.” Jonah said quietly. “I mean, if you really want to know.” He’d already told Eric so much that seemed overwhelming even for Jonah.
“Shoot,” Eric said, checking the hallway and closing the door. He sat in the desk chair.
Jonah told him everything. How the gem was his father’s ‘life’s work’, and how his father had tried to freeze it and burn it, and how his father asked him several times to hold it and concentrate on it and look at it. He told Eric how he had seen his father try and cut it with several different instruments over the years and it didn’t even chip. He said his father looked at it under a microscope on several occasions and that he knew his father had made many, many notes that he kept in his lab.
He told Eric how nothing had ever happened with the green gem, at least as far as Jonah knew. He’d never seen anything different about it until the night he lost his father. He told him how it lit up that night. How it glowed bright and fierce. Then he told him how it lit up a second time at the old store he hid in. In short, the thing started glowing at the most inopportune moments of his life. He explained that he didn’t even see the point of having it, but he didn’t want to just toss it away because it had been important to his father, and up until he had read about his father’s theft, he had wondered if the green gem had something to do with the ‘Dangerous Men’.
“Can I see it?” Eric asked.
Jonah handed it over.
Eric looked at it, seemingly weighed it in his hand; held it out in front of him dangling by the silver chain; held it up and looked through it. “You could probably cut glass with the points on the end,” he finally said, then added “We could freeze it. I mean, we don’t have a lab, but we could put it in the freezer and see if anything happens. Maybe throw it in the microwave” He was clearly energized by the idea of a project.
“It’s on a metal chain,” Jonah pointed out. “You can’t put metal in the
microwave.” He took the gem back and dropped it in his backpack. “I think we should just leave it alone. You think your mom will flip out over that knife, wait until she sees the stupid thing light up. And it probably would, just to irritate me.” He added.
“Boys, what do you want on your pizza?” Mrs. MacIntyre called from downstairs.
“Oh thank God,” Eric said. “I’m starving.”
Dinner was pepperoni and sausage pizza, although there was a short debate over the menu when the boys couldn’t decide on either topping or, possibly, they should consider a third choice. Mrs. MacIntyre halted the conversation when she said they could have both. She ordered a small second pizza with spinach and goat cheese for herself.
They ate in the breakfast nook in the kitchen. Mrs. MacIntyre asked Eric about school. She seemed overly concerned with gym class, not one of Eric’s better subjects, apparently.
The boys dutifully helped clean up and washed the dishes. Then Eric ran upstairs and came back with the armload of laundry. Mrs. MacIntyre glanced at him sideways with one eyebrow raised.
“What?” Eric asked. “It’s stuff I want to wear tomorrow.”
“Alright,” She said, to a person she obviously wasn’t used to seeing. Then she went into the TV room with her newspaper.
Eric showed Jonah how to operate the washing machine and then threw both sweaters into the dryer on the air setting. Neither was sure if heat would shrink the sweaters.
They joined Eric’s mother in the family room and the conversation turned to deciding on what movie to watch. Eric and Jonah settled on something called “Night Park”, a PG-13 horror movie about a haunted amusement park. Mrs. MacIntyre made it about fifteen minutes in, and then decided she’d rather read her paper in the living room. For the rest of the evening, she had to endure a few more jolts when the boys screamed in fear every so often and then belted out laughing at each other.
They paused the movie only once, to make popcorn and change the laundry over. Jonah had to admit, the sweaters did smell better after being in the dryer.
