by J. C. Allen
“OK, what about the servants and peasants?”
“Well, I believe they generally wore plain tunics, except the ones who tended to royalty — they were often dressed as well as a prince or princess.”
“That doesn’t help much.”
“No, I guess not. You start cooking the rice and beans and I’ll go look for those books while I’m thinking about it!”
She agreed easily and he hurried downstairs while Kaylie dug out a couple pots and started the water boiling. She was cutting up the broccoli when Rick returned with two books. He laid them on the counter and went to help her.
The rice was boiling, and Rick tossed the broccoli in the other pan. “Put those in that dish when you’re done,” he ordered.
“Um, OK, what’s it going to be?” she asked curiously.
“A broccoli-rice casserole, silly; you’ve had it before.”
“Oh! I didn’t know what was in it — all this stuff?” she pointed to the cheese, cream of mushroom soup, ham chunks, and spices. “I didn’t know you put ham in it.”
He smiled, “We make it different every time; ham is just as good as chicken!” Kaylie finished putting the broccoli in the pot. “Do I put this other stuff in here?”
He checked her progress. “No, after the broccoli cooks, drain it and pour it in this dish, then mix all the other things in. Don’t mix it too much, though, it’s nice to let it all blend itself together so some bites will have more cheese and others more ham or broccoli.”
“All of this cheese?”
“Yes.”
“OK.”
“I’m going to chop up some onions to put in the beans. I don’t know why she wanted beans with all this stuff,” he mumbled, shaking his head.
They got all the food cooking, and began preparing the veggies for a salad, then met at the counter to look at the books while they waited for the first timer to go off.
“Here,” Rick pointed to the first drawing he came across, “is a depiction of several peasant children. Some have no clothes, but here,” he pointed to the next page, “the older children are mostly in rough shirts, they appear to be about your age. This girl is wearing what looks like a grain sack cut open down the sides and tied at the waist. This boy just has on a loin cloth and this one has a loin cloth and a shorter grain sack shirt thing. In this other book, there are illustrations of several types of clothing found during that era, but there’s no way of telling who would have worn them.”
“Cool! This should help.”
“I hope. This first book also has dozens of artists’ drawings from that time of the markets and malls, which may show actual middle-class families shopping or browsing. There’s no way to deduce who is who with complete certainty, but you can make quite a clear judgment of some, like this,” he stopped at a page of a mother and daughter buying bread. They both wore dresses of cloth and had jewelry on, “is most likely upper class, see the jewelry? While this—” a picture of a mother with a girl and boy, about eight and five. All were barefoot with nothing but tattered rags for the mother, a loin cloth for the children, “is most likely lower class.”
“I’d say! They look pitiful! Where was ‘Feed the Children’ during this time?” she said sadly.
Ding! The rolls were done. Rick pulled them out, buttered the top, and turned on the heat lamp to keep them warm while Kaylie continued to study all the sketches and drawings of ancient Romans, completely rapt.
“Some of these drawings are really good, and really detailed. This one picture shows the actual coins a man used to purchase something, and in this one you can see three little kids playing with what looks like a soccer ball! Omigod, they played soccer two thousand years ago?”
Rick laughed, “Maybe. I’m sure little boys have been kicking things around for many thousands of years,” he joked.
“How would they make a soccer ball?”
He studied the picture closely, “That one looks like a ball of string. I’ve seen balls recovered from ancient sites that were over twenty thousand years old made like that. I’ve also seen some made of dried stomach sacks filled with straw or cloth. Kids have always found ways to make balls. Even leather balls were found over a thousand years ago.”
“Wait till I tell Christy, her assignment was to find out if they played sports.”
Just then the door flew open and Christy clomped in, dumping her bag by the door.
“Speak of the devil!” Rick exclaimed, “And where does that bookbag belong?”
Christy ignored the latter, but took offense to the former, “What are you guys saying about me?” she demanded.
“Come here,” Kaylie urged. “We found an ancient Roman drawing with kids in the background playing soccer!”
“Oh, cool, I need that!” she claimed as she studied the picture. “Did you find your answer yet, Kay?”
“Well, sorta, but it’s not definite…” Kaylie showed her many of the pictures and the girls marveled over the attire of the age while Rick went back to preparing food.
“I just broke the state record in the high jump!” Anna squealed as she burst through the door, shocking Rick, who nearly dropped the casserole dish.
“High jump?” Rick puzzled out loud. “I thought you did the long jump. Am I that out of touch now?”
Jessie chimed in, “She did — she even jumped higher than Coach Simmons!”
“Wow, I didn’t even know you could high jump. I’ve failed as a father to you,” as he grabbed his chest in mock horror.
“No, silly, I didn’t know I could either. The coach just asked me to try it for tomorrow because the other girls can get first and second in the long jump against that team, but nobody could beat their girl in the high jump. I tried and jumped way over her best on my first try. So the coach raised the bar and showed me how to do it right and I kept going higher and higher until he made me stop!”
“Awesome, honey!”
“When are we eating? Can’t we talk about all this over dinner? It smells sooooo good in here,” groaned Jessica, rubbing her stomach.
“Where’s Alex? Anyone know? She’s usually home by now,” Rick asked, getting nothing but shrugs in reply. “Well, OK, I guess we’ll just have to start without her. Kay, set the table. Christy, Anna, Jess, take your stuff to your rooms. If she’s not here soon, I’m calling her coach.”
The girls pitched in and they soon had the table set. Just as everyone started to sit down, the garage door slammed and seconds later Alex charged through the kitchen door, rushing toward the dinner table while trying to unzip her backpack.
“You have got to see this!” she blurted, still fumbling with the zipper.
Rick closed the distance and stopped her cold in her tracks, taking the bag from her. “Sit down, calm down, and eat, Alex. Then tell us about it,” he scolded.
“But you have to see it!” she protested, groping at the bag unsuccessfully.
“SIT!”
Alex puffed out her lip, but reluctantly sat down.
“Now,” Rick said as he calmly opened the backpack, “what is it that we have to see?”
“You’ll know when you see it, Dad,” Alex was still angry but more in control, with her arms firmly crossed over her chest and her lip still sticking way out.
He found it immediately.
“What’s this — uh — holy—! It’s so… light… but so… hard, so… weird!” He began examining it more closely, turning it over in his hands. “These symbols, I’ve seen many of them, but some—” He kept turning it over in utter fascination. The others gathered and stared too.
Except Jessica, who sat at the table, ready to eat. “Put down your little toy, Daddy. Isn’t it time to eat?” she said, uninterested in the cube, but intently eyeing the grub.
“Yes, yes, of course. Girls, let’s eat.”
“What about the box?” Alex demanded.
“We’ll set it in the center of the table, so we can look at it, but nobody touches it, OK?”
They all agreed,
sat down, and started passing food. Alex explained how she stumbled onto the object, garnering complete attention from everyone except Jessica, and told about cleaning it, about chipping the floor, the rattle inside, the strange properties of it. All the girls took turns speculating, fantasizing and theorizing as to the origins and contents of it.
“It’s some kind of Japanese puzzle box,” Kaylie proclaimed. “I’ve read about how the Japanese used boxes like this to conceal secrets, hide keys or codes or…”
“This is no puzzle box, this is a solid piece of metal,” Alex interrupted.
“No! They were so finely crafted by samurai sword makers or something that they appeared to have no seams. But if you applied just the right pressure on the right places it would slide apart or something. And look, those are definitely Japanese symbols!”
“No, not all of them,” Rick corrected. “Some of those may be Japanese, but some are Chinese, Greek, Cyrillic, alphabetic, numeric, even Roman numerals and hieroglyphics.” He picked up the cube and rotated it to show her. “And I see some that I have no clue what they are! I see what looks like some mathematical formulas... I wonder what’s with the spiral on one side?”
“Jodie said it’s from some alien space ship!” Alex said, giggling.
“The truth is out there!” Christy intoned, following up with spooky noises.
Jessica rolled her eyes, “Oh, please! Someone toss me a roll. ET phoned home already! I saw the movie; now let’s just eat.”
Christy picked up a roll and started to throw it at her. Rick raised a hand and she decided it would be best to pass it in a more civilized manner.
“I think…” Alex started, and then paused in deep thought as they stared at her. “You know how CDs or computer chips would look to someone a hundred years ago? Like something alien?”
“Or hasn’t been invented yet,” Jessica added.
“Don’t be stupid,” Christy snorted. “Think about it. You dug it up; it had soil encrusted on it; it could have been dated by that. We should go to the rec center and see if we can find a piece of rock that was stuck to it. But, this thing is obviously from the past, so it could be proof of Atlantis or some other ancient race rumored to have existed.”
Kaylie perked up, “I read several books about the Mayans who existed over a thousand years ago and were advanced in mathematics and astronomy and rumored to know how to do space travel. There were writings about ‘strange metals’ that they used. They supposedly lived in Central America, but some evidence suggested they lived as far north as Canada!”
“You may be on to something there, Kay,” Rick acknowledged. “I know some people who deal with Mayan studies — Abby has done several digs of old Mayan ruins, maybe we can get her to check it out.”
Kaylie smiled proudly.
“Oh yeah, you would agree with her, Dad,” Alex protested. “Just because you both sit and read and talk about those history books and stuff together all the time. Why don’t you just kick me out and adopt her!”
“Jealous?” Anna asked sarcastically.
“Drama Queen,” Jessica added.
Alex threw half a roll at Jessica, hitting her plate and scattering casserole all over the table and into the floor.
“Alexandra Williamson!” Rick shouted, “Get up and clean that mess up right now!”
Alex sheepishly crawled from her seat and picked up the roll, carried it into the kitchen and slammed it into the trash, protesting and mumbling the whole way. She snagged a paper towel and came back to clean up the rest.
“That’s better, Alex. Kaylie may be right, or may be wrong. You may be right, any of us could be right, or we could all be way wrong. I actually know experts on this sort of thing and it sounds like a viable possibility. We know experts on other cultures and languages too. If you know any experts from the future, please, let me know and we’ll contact them.’’
“Or aliens!” Jessica giggled.
“You’re an alien!” Alex yelled back.
“Enough!” Rick commanded, standing up as Jessica cocked an arm back, loaded with a very messy piece of chicken. He picked up the cube, tossing it back and forth a few times while he gave her his best parental disapproving glare. She slowly put the chicken back down.
“Girls, I’m going to call my friend. Now you can be good or I’ll bonk you on the head with this… sounds like as good a use as any for it. Anna, get the video camera for me; she’s going to want to see it — pictures probably won’t do it justice!”
“OK,” Anna jumped up from the table.
“The rest of you get clean-up duty. Alex and Kaylie can put up the leftovers; Chris and Jess — dishes. I’ll be downstairs. Don’t let me hear another harsh word or any food flying,” he said sternly.
The girls grumbled and nodded. Satisfied they would be compliant, he headed down the stairs.
As Rick came down the stairs, the basement came into view. To the right was Rick’s make-shift study, complete with four bookshelves from floor to ceiling, a big long desk with drawers in the middle and on both ends. Two computers, two chairs, a huge mass of papers, pop cans, and other unclassified clutter completed the scene. The far wall contained the bathroom and laundry, with a hot-tub between the two smaller rooms. A two-foot round pillar in the middle was the only obstruction in the fifty by thirty room. The entire left side of the room was taken up by a huge crescent-shaped 25-foot couch facing a nine by twelve-foot TV mounted in the wall, with flanking stereo equipment and speakers. A huge oval coffee table fit perfectly in the arc formed by the couch. To one side stood a fully stocked fridge and bar with four stools. The girls called it ‘the theater.’ Rick called it ‘heaven.’
When Anna came downstairs he instructed her to film the entire cube, one side at a time, from every possible angle. She set up the equipment as he fired up his message software and attempted to contact ‘AncientBabe.’
He typed, “Ya there? Got something that may blow your mind. :)”
He turned to watch his niece videotape the cube for a few minutes, until a reply popped up, “Tickets for two to the Caymans?”
“I wish! It would have to be for five, though. Whatcha doing?”
“Not much. Reading. You?”
“Would you happen to be reading about Mayan artifacts?”
“Nope. Romance novel.”
“Ugh! You got a video link available?”
“Yes. What’s going on; you must really miss me!”
The other girls came bounding down the stairs and gathered around. Anna finished taping and handed the video camera to Rick, who quickly plugged it into the computer and transferred the video. He started to send it to Abby as she popped up on his screen.
“Wow, she looks pretty today!” Kaylie said.
“Well, thank you!’ Abby replied. Kaylie apparently didn’t realize she could see and hear both ways and it startled her. “And you look very pretty too. I haven’t seen you girls in almost a year; you’ve grown quite a bit!” She glanced down at the screen momentarily and back up, “What are you sending me?”
“This…” He stuck out his hand and Anna handed him the cube. He held it up for her to see. “Alex found it, I’m sending a more complete and hi-res video of it.”
“Interesting. What is it?”
“We were hoping you might help us figure that out. Oddest thing I ever saw. Alex dug it out of a creek bank. It had clay rock formed on it, so it may have been there a while. It’s super light and seems indestructible, not even scratchable,” he explained.
“Hmmm… Light? Like aluminum?”
“No, more like… popcorn!”
“Sounds like you need a geologist, metallurgist, or… something. What can I help you with?”
“Well, Kaylie recalled reading about the Mayan possessing some sort of strange—”
“Strange metals, yes, but all of that and most of the other lore has never been proven. Not a single artifact has been discovered to confirm any of that or any evidence of space travel. But it is written
about by countless ‘observers.’ There’s really nothing solid to compare it to except descriptions, and by the descriptions, they could have been talking about silver, platinum, titanium… the list goes on and on. The biggest problem is they basically vanished, or at least abandoned their temples and cities. Their people still exist, but have nothing to show of their great former empire. They apparently took all these strange materials with them when they disappeared, only leaving writings about such things, along with incredible scientific and mathematical discoveries, some of which we still don’t fully understand. For example: they somehow mapped the entire galaxy with more detail than we had up until about 1999.”
“There’s some very strange math on it, too, Abby, as well as tons of writing and symbols.”
The video finished loading and beeped. “Hold on a sec, while I watch this, dear,” she said and the screen went blank.
“She called you dear!” teased Christy.
“Is she your girlfriend?” asked Kaylie.
“That is none of your busin—” Rick started to complain, but the screen lit back up with Abby’s image.
“Rick?”
“Thanks, Abby,” Rick said sarcastically instead of answering her.
“What?” she asked, confused.
“Nothing, just try not to call me dear in front of five curious, nosy girls again, OK?” Rick told her as he attempted to wipe the blush off of his face unsuccessfully. “So what did you find so quickly?”
“It’s definitely not Mayan, dear.”
The girls all snickered and poked at him playfully.
“What makes you say that, honeypie?” Rick played back.
She laughed. “Well, sweetheart, did you notice the writing on it?”
“Uh, yeah. That’s sort of like what we wanted you to decipher…”
She rolled her eyes, “There are symbols, letters, characters and numbers that were all developed way after the Mayan civilization disappeared!” she informed him tersely.
“Oh. I should have realized that,” he admitted sheepishly.
