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

by Eden Unger Bowditch

  “There’s just no way Wallace completed his polymer,” said Faye, wiping the crumbs from the handkerchief she had used as her personal tablecloth for lunch. She climbed up, joining Jasper on the rock at the base of the old oak tree, and peered in the direction of the schoolhouse. The tree was huge, with broad, spreading branches that were great for climbing and shade. It had knotty, lumpy roots that served as steps, seats, or just something to lean on. This was the tree under which Miss Brett read, and under which the children played or sat or lay in the grass.

  “He would have needed twenty-seven seconds more,” said Lucy, peering through the small spyglass she had made from the hollow wooden dowel she had found in a closet in the farmhouse, and the two glass discs she had found under the classroom microscope.

  Faye held her hand out expectantly and muttered, “What a waste of time.”

  Lucy handed the spyglass over.

  “I wish he had cleaned the blackboard first, then finished the experiment,” Jasper said, almost to himself, trying to sweep a lock of darkish blonde hair from his eyes. “We all know Miss Brett would have let him finish if he’d done what she’d asked.”

  “But then she’d probably be following him right now with a bucket and a broom, ready to sweep out everything we’ve hidden in the gardening shed,” Faye said. “And then where would we be?”

  Jasper drank the last of his milk and wiped his cup before placing it back in the hamper. He took Lucy’s handkerchief, shook out the crumbs, and collected the napkins from the rest of the group, placing them in the hamper as well. Jasper handed out small apples to his schoolmates. He put two back in the hamper. He realized he might not get a chance to give one to Miss Brett.

  “It’s his own fault he didn’t do it earlier,” said Faye. “It’s going to be all his fault. If he couldn’t be part of this invention, then the least he could do is not prevent us from—”

  “Don’t blame Wallace,” Jasper said, facing Faye. “He’s doing his best, and it had to be done now, or it would have been... well, he couldn’t. The world needs that polymer as much as Wallace needs to finish it.”

  “One of you will still have to distract Miss Brett and keep her from the gardening shed.” Faye felt a twinge of remorse she did not want the others to see. This was a time to be strong—a time to get out while they could.

  “One of us?” Jasper tried to keep his voice from breaking.

  “It certainly can’t be me,” Faye said, as if this were a matter of fact. “I’ve got to make sure I get on the truck. As if we don’t all know I’m the most important. Not that you others aren’t needed. But let’s be honest.”

  When he first met Faye, Jasper was so nonplussed, so overwhelmed by her exotic and stunning beauty that he blushed whenever he looked at her. Her voice, with its delicate hint of India, had distracted him from hearing what she said. As the days passed and turned into weeks, then months, her brash rudeness and thoughtless outbursts stunned him the most. He opened his mouth, but Noah beat him to it.

  “I’d like to see your bits and pieces make it on their own, Lady Faye,” said Noah, looking at her with sly amusement. “A horse’s rear may be where the kick is, but it can’t go anywhere without its head.”

  “Are you...” Faye was fuming. “Are you calling me a horse’s bum, Mr. Gangly Oh-I’m-Afraid-Of-My-Violin Canto-Sagas? Or is that you back there following my lead?”

  “Lady Faye, you amaze me. But you certainly do have a whole heap of kick in you,” said Noah, smiling and bowing in mock reverence. “And I await your command, as do we all.”

  Faye opened her mouth to lay it on him but, realizing this would constitute a kick, backed down, taking that deep breath Miss Brett had taught her to take before saying something that would only make things worse.

  “The carriages will be coming to fetch us,” said Faye grumpily, trying to appear unflustered. “They could be here any minute, for all we know. And we have no idea when he plans to leave. He’s always unpredictable.” She pointed her thumb across the field to a gawky man sitting in a tree—a birdwatcher who, according to the sign on his vehicle, was from the Daytonic Birdwatchers’ Society. With his binoculars and his notebooks, he had been visible out there more and more over the last few weeks, but not every day and at no exact hour. Luckily, he always managed to drive off before danger came around the corner. And today, he and his Knox truck would be the children’s means of escape.

  Lucy felt sorry for the birdwatcher. Not only was he clumsy but, from the view through her spyglass, which Faye had returned to her, he had apparently shaved off half his moustache.

  But then she saw something else.

  “Oh, no!” shouted Lucy, pointing in the other direction. “Look at the road!”

  It took but a second look to see what Lucy saw. The trail of dust winding through the fields, headed in their direction, was from the one road that led out of the farm and to the city. The dust was the familiar warning that they were coming. Every Friday afternoon, the carriages (and twice, motorcars) came, as if riding a great serpent of dust.

  It was the men in black, coming for them. The men in black, the strangely sinister men who haunted their lives.

  The men who took their parents away.

  “I say we go now,” said Faye.

  “What?” said Jasper.

  “They’ll be here any minute!” Faye said. “It’s too big of a risk. We can’t wait any longer!”

  “You mean leave Wallace behind?!” Jasper cried in disbelief, numb from the lash of Faye’s tongue. Abandon Wallace? Never.

  But, as he turned, hurt and angry by the very sight of Faye, Jasper also saw the trail of dust. They all knew the men in black were coming for them.

  And soon it would be too late.

  A MODEST PROPOSAL

  OR

  HOW LUCY CAME TO BITE HER NAILS

  Only a few months ago—before the men in black, before Dayton, Ohio, and before their secret invention—life had been so very different for Lucy and Jasper. Indeed, it had been somewhat normal. Considering that both their parents were important scientists and nothing was normal about that, life was normal.

  The Modest family lived in a comfortable house in a comfortable neighborhood on the west side of London. Lucy and Jasper ate their breakfast together every morning. They had supper with their parents, when their parents, Drs. Isabelle and Tobias Modest, were in town. And had the time. And chose to join their children for a meal. Their mother and father were frightfully busy. But they assured their children that their work was helping to make the world a better place and, therefore, their children were (almost) always in their thoughts during the long hours... days... weeks that Isabelle and Tobias Modest were away. Jasper and Lucy knew they were loved because their parents had told them. How this love worked, however, was rarely shown.

  Approximately one Sunday per month, the whole Modest family would spend time together, as a family. They would sit together quietly in the salon, reading to themselves from their scientific journals. Or perhaps they would listen to recorded lectures on the phonograph. They would even take the occasional walk in the park, on weekends when both parents were in town. And they had the time. And they chose to spend that time walking in the park. Often, this meant that their parents would walk together, deep in conversation, and Jasper and Lucy would follow behind.

  Sometimes, Jasper would bring a small boat he’d built, with a little propeller—he was very keen on designing propellers. He’d place the boat in the pond and let it run. Or sometimes, he would make a helicopter and let it whirl, the string-triggered propeller keeping it aloft. Jasper had designed a slow release that still allowed a strong twirl. He also designed a reverse-pull mechanism so that the propeller could maintain power for a very long time.

  During their walks in the park, Jasper saw other families walking together. The other families often held hands or flew kites or walked dogs. And these families did these things, all of these things, together—mothers, fathers, children, dogs
. Other families had a slightly different concept of together, he noticed. But still, walking in the park was surely a normal thing for a family to do, and it was something the Modest family did as well. This made them somewhat normal. Somehow, this was important to Jasper. He liked to think his family participated in things that other families did.

  Jasper’s sandy blonde hair was like his father’s, and Lucy’s thick dark hair was like her mother’s. Both children had freckles on their noses that didn’t seem to come from anyone in particular. Their house was nice. Jasper and Lucy had comfortable rooms, wholesome food and, most important, each other. On the whole, home life did not present any hardships.

  School life was a different story, though. Clever as the Modest children were, no teacher had ever cared much for either one. Yes, at a very young age, Jasper had discovered that teachers—at least all teachers Jasper had encountered—were not terribly keen on being shown how to do things by undersized little boys. He also learned that teasing, cruel pranks, and bullying were part of everyday life, in the classroom and out.

  Jasper was always prepared to run at a moment’s notice. He was good at running and found many opportunities to practice. When he tried to explain the physics of a marble in motion, all while making an excellent shot, he had been pelted with marbles by the boys in his class. The boys hadn’t a clue what he was talking about and hated him for it. Jasper had been forced by a very large and nasty girl to eat an earthworm he’d brought to class to show how the creature could turn and fertilize the soil. The girl did not understand a word he had said, except, finally, “fertilize.” When a group of older boys tried to get him to drink mercury after he’d explained it was the only metal that retained its liquid form at room temperature, his teacher did nothing.

  Jasper had gotten into trouble when three boys in his class had chased him up a tree and then smashed a Chinese puzzle box he had opened. The teacher had been quite upset with the boys, but also with Jasper. All four of them were given detention. The boys were in trouble for breaking the Chinese puzzle box, which belonged to the teacher. Jasper was in trouble for opening it.

  The teacher, as it happens, had brought the box to show the students a puzzle that could not be done. The lot of them had ruined the lesson, and were to write lines to the effect that they would not ruin lessons in the future. Jasper’s ability to run came in handy that day as he raced around the classroom, deftly weaving around desks, avoiding chalk pelted at him by the three other boys.

  Jasper got extra lines for running in the classroom.

  At twelve years old, Jasper may very well have been small for his age, and may not have been able to lift a school desk above his head or pull the door out by its hinges, but he could run faster than anyone.

  Lucy was rather petite herself. She wore her hair long, and she had the most enormous brown eyes. She had a sweet round face and a crooked smile and delicate hands that were often busy creating something rather fabulous.

  And Lucy had a magical memory. She could remember anything and everything.

  But the fact that she was cute, and sweet, and a very good listener, and brilliant, plainly did not help her at school. She found that memorizing great swaths of text did not impress her teachers. Making clever things with her hands only made her classmates resent her. Pointing out that Napoleon became emperor in 1804 and not 1408 made her teacher furious, especially because the mistake was in the book itself and the book belonged to the teacher. A glare that shot daggers was her reward for informing her teacher, who was trying to translate from the French, that mouton meant sheep, not banana. And when Lucy showed her teacher the correct way to say “Kalamata,” while also explaining that it was not a species of tree frog but both an olive and a city in Greece, she earned herself time in the corner for her trouble, after being made to write lines such as “I will not be an ugly horrid little know-it-all,” or “Lucy Modest is not modest.”

  At the very least, Lucy’s cleverness made her teacher and her classmates uncomfortable. Once, a particularly nasty teacher stopped the whole class and said, to growls from the students, “If you’re so clever, why don’t you teach? The whole class is going to listen to Lucy. Oh, dear, she’ll have to stand on a chair because she’s too small for anyone to see. Oh, but that is against the rules, standing on chairs. Because of Lucy, the whole class is going to write ‘I will not stand on chairs,’ so you can thank her for that, class. And Lucy, you had better start remembering that you’re the child and I am the teacher. If you’re so clever, how come you didn’t figure that out, missy?” Tears had fallen on Lucy’s paper as she wrote, “I will not stand on chairs.”

  Eventually, teachers took to making her sit in the back of the room, and ignoring her when she raised her hand in class. It was easier for them and much less disruptive. One teacher went so far as to make Lucy sit in a corner and wear a gag over her mouth (which prevented the little girl from chewing on her charm bracelet, which she did when she was excited, anxious, or unhappy). The teacher made her don a dunce cap as well. Sometimes (and this, too, prevented the little girl from chewing her bracelet), the teacher would tie Lucy’s hands together to prevent any “unrequested and unwanted creativity” that might originate in that corner. On Lucy’s chair, the teacher placed a placard that read, “I am Lucy and I am not as clever as I think.” The other students found this quite entertaining. They thoroughly enjoyed anything that brought Lucy down a notch or two.

  But in general, they, like the teachers, usually ignored her—the exception being when they had something unfriendly to say.

  Lucy’s classmates had devised ugly little rhymes in her honor, such as, “Lucy Modest thinks she’s the cleverest / but she’s the shortest and makes us the boredest.” Fortunately, Lucy had the decency and foresight not to correct their grammar. Sometimes, the other children were less clever but more to the point: “Lucy Modest stinks.”

  Lucy usually obliged with tears and a swift departure.

  Lonely as life was at times, Jasper and Lucy had each other. And they had their parents, too. Often. Or, at least, occasionally. The Modest family, on the whole, had no extraordinary problems. They never quarreled or bickered. It was the way their family worked. No family was perfect, Jasper reminded himself. Most families had mums who were home for them when they returned from school. Most children had mums waiting, open-armed, with warm biscuits and loving kisses. Jasper would have liked his mum or dad to be there when he and Lucy got home. But he also knew that his parents worked long hours or traveled a great deal for work. Parents worked because they had to. It was necessary. They did it for their children.

  Everything changed with the arrival of those men. Those men in big black hats and long black coats and matching black boots, wearing dark spectacles that hid their eyes, speaking in whispered tones with strange and indistinct foreign accents. They seemed to move as one, all seven of them, as they came knocking on the door.

  Almost as if the men were expected, the Drs. Modest opened the door. The strange men lined stone steps like so many footmen and stood in total silence. Then, the doors of the coaches opened and two more men in black descended. They walked past their comrades and into the Modest home. Isabelle and Tobias Modest did not stop them—they did not, in fact, react in any way—but Jasper and Lucy certainly did, hiding on the landing at the top of the stairs.

  The two men in black who had invaded their home were, without a doubt, the most bizarre men the children had ever seen in their entire lives. There would have been something funny about the whole thing, too, if it all didn’t feel so sinister.

  The first man was not remarkable in build, nor was he remarkable in stature. He was average, you might say. He was totally average in every way, except for the fact that he was wearing a black satin fully-ruffed ballerina tutu around his middle and had a large black Mexican sombrero pulled down to his nose. He wore a long black silk scarf wrapped several times around his neck and up above his mouth, so all you could see were the dark glasses perched at t
he end of his nose, upon which the sombrero rested.

  The other man was taller, and was dressed simply in a black furry suit that covered his hands and feet. His face was bearded and, upon his head, he wore large fuzzy bear ears that matched his suit.

  The two men disappeared into the locked study with Jasper and Lucy’s parents. The adults all spoke so softly that Jasper and Lucy could not hear what they were saying, even when the children placed teacups against the study door to listen.

  After hours of mysterious discussion, the strange men in black left without a word. Jasper and Lucy saw the concern on their parents’ faces, but the children were afraid to ask why. Lucy sat on the hearth rug, chewing on her bracelet as she watched her parents whisper back and forth, standing in the doorway long after the men had gone.

  Nothing was said at supper. After eating barely a bite, Isabelle and Tobias Modest left the dining room table. Jasper and Lucy continued to pick at their own plates in silence. They really didn’t fancy eating, either.

  That night, Jasper and Lucy were left to their own evening preparations when it was time to go to bed. They undressed and put on their nightclothes slowly, in hopes someone would come to talk. But no one did. Although they both lay awake for hours, no one came to tuck them in or say goodnight, or offer any words of comfort or explanation.

  The next morning, the children found the cupboards in the nursery empty and those in their bedrooms bare. A set of clothes had been laid out for each of them. Jasper and Lucy dressed in silence and gingerly descended the stairs.

  Instead of their normal breakfast on the table, Jasper and Lucy found their parents waiting by a large black carriage at the end of the drive, filled with steamer trunks containing what looked to be all of their clothes and other possessions. In the night, while they slept, the effects of the Modest children had been packed away. And still, Jasper and Lucy hadn’t a clue as to why. The children tried to get their parents’ attention, but muffled whispers and deep incomprehensible looks passed between the adults, so there was never a chance to ask.