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

by Eden Unger Bowditch

  Suddenly, Jasper and Lucy walked out the front door in their nightshirts, swaying just a bit as if stumbling out of sleep.

  “Rosie?” Jasper called.

  Rosie turned. “Oh, saints preserve me!” she cried, waddling quickly to embrace them. “Where were you? I went to tuck you in just around midnight and you were gone. Not in your beds. I... I got so worried, my darlings.”

  “Well, Lucy sometimes sleepwalks, and I went after her, and we both fell asleep in the... study.”

  “Oh, my babies,” said Rosie. With her arms around them, she walked them back into the house. Turning very slightly, Jasper motioned to the others. As soon as the door closed behind Rosie and the Modests, Faye, Noah, and Wallace ran back to their houses.

  The next morning after breakfast, Jasper and Lucy wandered out to the meadow. They could see Wallace through his kitchen window, and he could see them. He waved, and out he came moments later. The three of them walked over to Noah’s, just as Faye came out her back door. They all sat on the grass in a circle, under the willow tree at the very center of the meadow. Lucy picked some wildflowers and put them in her apron pocket.

  “Why are you always picking flowers, Lucy?” asked Wallace.

  “I’m pressing them,” she said, twirling another flower between her fingers.

  “Where are you pressing them?” asked Jasper.

  “Does that really matter right now?” asked Faye. “Last night was—”

  “Horrid,” said Lucy with a little shiver.

  “I think we made a mistake,” said Wallace. “I don’t think our nannies are working to fool us. They care. They... they really do.”

  “Don’t argue, Faye,” Noah said.

  “I agree,” said Faye.

  “You... you do?” Noah was taken aback.

  “I agree. I agree that the nannies care about us. Camelia comes in at night when she thinks I’m asleep and... and she kisses my forehead. She makes all my favorite foods and she sings to herself. It’s... it’s sweet. It’s kindness. I... I realize that now.”

  “Rosie sings, too,” said Lucy. “Old Irish songs we don’t know.”

  “But I still say the men in black are evil,” said Faye. “You heard that one last night. ‘They cannot escape, must be captured.’”

  “He didn’t say that,” Lucy said. “He said, “Must keep them. No run away.’”

  “That’s the same thing, isn’t it?”

  “No, it isn’t,” Wallace said. “You can regard what he said as concern, and not the words of a prison guard.”

  “Well, you can’t be sure, can you?” said Faye.

  “I want to have a real afternoon,” said Noah. “I want to bowl and play and not worry about what miserable crazy thing we may or may not be facing. I don’t want to have to think that I can’t trust anyone in the whole world. I want to be able to trust and believe that some folks are really okay. Can we just have a little break from being terrified? Can we just enjoy the beautiful afternoon? In the houses we call home right now, with the nannies who care for us, with the friends we are?”

  Faye opened her mouth but found she couldn’t say anything. Friends? Was it true?

  “Want to look at an idea I have?” Noah finally said after a moment of awkward silence.

  “For what?” asked Jasper.

  “Well, I’d been toying with the idea of using a petrol mixture for combustion in this new engine. In theory, it can generate over ten horsepower.”

  “What about the pump problem you said you were having?” asked Wallace.

  “Well, I’m not using a fuel pump with this design,” said Noah, and that was enough to send them all to Noah’s house to see what he was doing in his laboratory.

  SOMETHING RINGS A BELL FOR JASPER

  OR

  FATE FLIES OFF THE HANDLE

  That Saturday evening, all the children were served shepherd’s pie for supper outside. Rosie smothered the top with butter so the potatoes she placed there were crisp. On the side were roasted parsnips with leek soup and bread she had made that morning.

  Noah had gotten his wish for a real weekend, or at least a real Saturday. They spent some time looking through his engine designs, then discussed Faye’s problem with her glider’s loft, and they spent several hours playing in the meadow. Somehow, the games, the inventions, and the play felt more real, more authentic, than before. (Wallace was the winner at bowling.)

  Later, Myrtle brought out a phonograph and Rosie put on a recording of some very festive Irish songs. The lot of them followed her lead and learned a few steps to the jigs she showed them. The four nannies seemed to know some jigs in common.

  “Every true Celtic lass learns to jig,” said Rosie, catching her breath from laughter and dance. By the end of supper, everyone was ready for bed.

  “See you in the morning, then,” Jasper said as they headed to their homes.

  “See you in the morning, Jasper,” said Faye, a smile touching the corners of her mouth.

  Jasper again felt that hot flush in his cheeks. He turned and quickly headed home, Lucy racing to catch up.

  As Jasper and Lucy lay in their beds that night, they listened to Rosie humming and clucking as she turned off the lights in the house and pattered to bed. Though Jasper was tired, he found sleep slow in coming. He thought about how much this day had changed the way he felt about their captivity. Faye was still furious at her parents, whether they were to blame or not, and Faye wanted them all to rise to her passion, to feel her fears and her anger. But Jasper felt calmer and more settled than he had in all the weeks he and Lucy had been in Ohio. Jasper took a deep breath and sighed as sleep finally came upon him.

  And then it happened. It happened out of nowhere. Jasper sat up in his bed, his heart pounding. What was it? The ringing, the noise—and then he knew.

  It was the bell. The bell he and Lucy had set weeks before when they wanted to know if their parents had come home. The bell was ringing!

  Jasper looked at his watch. It was 3:07 in the morning and the bell was ringing. Fumbling, Jasper unhooked the wire. He sat there for a moment, his senses sharpening, the ringing still echoing in his ears.

  He listened, straining to hear anything. He slipped out of bed and went to Lucy’s room. She was sleeping. He decided not to wake her. Could it simply be Rosie in his parents’ room? Might she have closed the door? At 3:07 in the morning? Jasper could hear Rosie’s snores from the nursery and knew that she, too, was asleep.

  Jasper tiptoed into the hall. He could definitely hear something, and it was coming from his parents’ room. Quickly, he slipped back into the nursery and went to Lucy’s room. Very carefully and quietly, he reached under her bed. First, he found the green book. Lucy had tied a ribbon around it. Reaching further back, he found what he had been looking for—the mirror contraption Lucy had created.

  Taking it, Jasper tiptoed back down the hall and listened for a moment at the door. He then bent down and pushed the mirror into the space between the door and the floor. From there, he could see that there were two men in the room. One was the man with the top hat and velvet waistcoat. The other seemed to be wearing long black robes and a pointed cap. They spoke very softly in a mixture of English and something else.

  Jasper could hear some words, but they made no sense. They sounded like “gurnal,” “periklu,” “romak,” “gadim,” and “verit,” but the men were facing away from the door, so the sounds were indistinct. Still, Jasper heard bits and pieces that he could understand.

  “Must make fear... capture...”

  “Hunt down... keep hidden...”

  “Truth... terror... kidnap...”

  And then, as the top-hatted man moved aside, he saw that the men were looking into his mother’s drawer—the drawer from which the green book had been taken.

  Scrambling to his feet, Jasper pulled back the mirror and ran to his bed. Covering his head with his blanket, he tried to catch his breath. Were those men plotting something? With every thump of his pounding
heart, Jasper felt less and less certain that everything was going to be all right. These men had said “kidnap” and “hunt down”—words undoubtedly meant for them. Or for their parents.

  Jasper sat in terror, clutching the mirror, begging for the sun to come up faster than it was willing.

  “I’m telling you, I know what I saw and I know what I heard.” Jasper could not keep the fear from his voice, but glancing at Lucy gave him strength. It was for her that he had to be strong. No one was going to hurt her.

  It was Sunday afternoon, and the five children were on their way back to Miss Brett in a big, single, black motorcar. Jasper had waited until they were moving along to tell them—until the noise of the road kept their voices from the driver. Jasper filled them in on what he saw the night before, but also on what he and Lucy had seen the night the man in the velvet top hat had bounced on their parents’ bed and found the book among their mother’s nightclothes.

  “Why didn’t you tell me, Jasper?!” cried Lucy. “Why did you let me sleep through the danger?”

  “It wasn’t danger then,” said Jasper. “It’s just... I think Faye’s right. She’s been right all along.”

  “Jasper, come on. This is not how you felt before,” Noah said.

  “Well, it is now.”

  “It’s been almost a month and no one’s been attacked or hurt,” said Noah. “Are you sure Mistress Faye’s fears aren’t catching up to you?”

  “What is this book you said the other fellow took out and kissed?” asked Faye.

  “It’s just an old shell of a book—an old book binding, actually,” said Jasper. “It was used to press flowers, as far as we can tell.”

  “Maybe it belonged to a queen or a prince?” said Wallace.

  “It would have if it had been in my mother’s drawer” Noah said. “Now, if Faye can find something evil in that—”

  “Noah, you are a fool in so many ways,” Faye said. “Have you not noticed that we haven’t heard from our parents at all? And hunted? Kidnapped? Doesn’t that sound familiar? If our parents were really fine, why haven’t they contacted us? They could have sent a letter.”

  Leaning forward, Lucy slid open the driver’s window and shouted to the driver “Why don’t our parents write us?”

  The driver turned around as Jasper pulled Lucy back and shut the window. “What are you doing?!” Jasper said gruffly, hiding his fear behind a scolding.

  Lucy looked up into her brother’s eyes. “I... I... you shouted at me.”

  “I didn’t shout, Lucy, but I don’t want them knowing we know something’s amiss,” said Jasper.

  “But I always ask,” Lucy said in her defense. “I keep asking where our parents are in case someone has an answer.”

  Jasper opened his mouth to argue, but felt the sting of truth in the power and innocent wisdom in Lucy’s approach. Ask until someone has an answer. Jasper hugged Lucy.

  “What do you suggest?” asked Faye, uncomfortable watching the embrace.

  “I don’t know, but we’ve got to think of a way to get to our parents,” said Jasper. “We absolutely must.”

  They could see the orchard across the green field as they arrived at Sole Manner Farm.

  “Promise me we’ll work on a plan,” said Jasper as the carriage came to a stop in front of the schoolhouse.

  “Of course we will,” said Faye. “I’ve been telling you all along that we’ve been prisoners. I’m the one who said it from the beginning.”

  Just then, a loud thump hit the carriage window. Lucy, her nose pushed against the glass, looked down and cried.

  “Oh, sweet wee little thing!” she said, climbing out of the carriage. She bent down and scooped up a tiny little bird in her hands. The children climbed out of the carriage to see. It was ruffled and scruffy and very, very small.

  Miss Brett came out of the schoolhouse door.

  “Welcome home, my sweet angels,” she said, beaming. “I have just put some—”

  “Miss Brett, it’s a baby!” cried Lucy, bringing the bird to Miss Brett.

  Miss Brett took it from Lucy and they all went inside. Miss Brett brought the tiny thing over to her desk.

  It was not a baby bird, but it was very young. Fortunately, it was not strong enough to have been going very fast. It didn’t look terribly injured. It was mostly just stunned.

  “That may have been his very first flight,” Miss Brett said. “I think he will be all right.”

  “It could have broken its neck,” Faye said. “It happens because they see a reflection of the outside and don’t know they’re flying into glass.”

  “Well, it doesn’t look like anything is broken,” said Miss Brett.

  “Oh, can we keep him?” asked Lucy. “He can sleep with us, can’t he, Faye?”

  “I’m sorry, Lucy,” Miss Brett said gently, “but he needs to be free. He’s a wild creature and needs to be in the wild.”

  “But he doesn’t look like he can fly,” said Lucy.

  “I think he’s just a bit dazed,” Miss Brett said. She looked at Lucy, who seemed so very determined to play nursemaid. “I do think he needs a little care, however. Lucy, why don’t you make a soft bed for him—a place where he can rest and regain his strength?”

  “I will, Miss Brett,” said Lucy, “I will, I will.” Turning to the bird, she said, “Don’t worry, Samson. We’ll take good care of you.” Lucy ran around collecting soft cloth, making a little bed for the bird.

  “Wonderful,” said Miss Brett. “Then we’ll put the little fellow in Lucy’s hospital bed and let him rest. We’ll open a window and place the bed in the frame. That way, as soon as he is able, he can take to the skies and escape.”

  Faye gasped.

  “Are you all right, Faye?” asked Miss Brett.

  “I... I... Yes, I’m quite all right, sorry, thank you.” But Faye was clearly distracted, and the others watched her carefully.

  “Oh, Samson will be fine. He jolly well will. I know it,” said Lucy.

  “Oh, um, yes, lovely,” said Faye, grabbing Jasper’s arm and pulling him aside as the others looked at the bird. “We’ve got to talk.”

  “Miss Brett is right, Faye,” said Jasper, putting his hand on Faye’s shoulder. “The bird will be fine, really. Don’t—”

  “I’m not worried about the bird, you idiot,” growled Faye. “We’ve got to talk with the others.”

  “Barking mad,” was all Noah had to say.

  “I’m telling you, it’s our only hope,” Faye said as she and Noah turned the jump rope for Lucy. Miss Brett had become more and more insistent that the children take exercise. She was a firm believer in walks and play as an important part of keeping the person healthy. She had taught them about cricket and baseball and tennis. She had shown them how to play kings corners, which she had learned from her mother, and she’d shown them how to jump rope and play kick the can. But now, while Miss Bret prepared supper, Faye used the afternoon exercise to tell the others her idea.

  “It’s madness! We have no wings,” said Noah. “Now, if we could tie a note to little Samson’s toe—”

  “Oh, shut up.” Faye tossed the rope down and Lucy stopped jumping. Then the little girl picked up the shorter rope and jumped on her own, singing the elements of the periodic table.

  “I think we need to listen to Faye,” said Jasper, cautiously. “I know what I saw the other night and it was real. Those men are blackguards in every sense of the word.”

  “Fine,” Noah said, sitting down and leaning against the tree. “What’s the plan for our flight to the moon?”

  “You can be such a dreadful bore, Noah,” growled Faye. “Only you’re a fool if you don’t think we can do it.”

  “Do what, exactly?” asked Wallace.

  “Rescue our parents by using our invention—the invention we’ve all been dreaming of, the invention we’ve all been working on, piece by piece. Now it has an immediate purpose.”

  She met a sea of faces whose expressions ranged from disbeli
ef to total lack of comprehension.

  “The aeroplane! The flying ship! My wings, Jasper’s propeller, Lucy’s tail... Noah’s engine!”

  “An aeroplane?” Noah laughed. “What makes you think we can build something that flies when generations of men before us haven’t managed to do it? What makes you think that five children in the middle of America can do what has never been done anywhere before?”

  “Because we are always doing what has never been done before,” Faye said simply.

  Noah put his hand to his chin to think for a moment. “Fair enough,” he said. “I’m in.”

  “Oh, me... too!” said Lucy, still jumping rope. “I’ve been... thinking... about... the tail.”

  “Yes,” said Jasper, “Lucy thought about it back when we were making the flying whirligigs. She said with a proper tail, we’d be able to fly forward and not just propel up.”

  Wallace looked down. He couldn’t look them in the eyes. “I’m sorry, I... It looks like I’m the one who hasn’t given you anything.”

  “Well, you’re a chemist, and we don’t need a—”

  “We need more than your chemical expertise, Wallace,” Jasper said, throwing Faye a dangerous look. “You’re the most organized and critical-minded. We’ll all do it.”

  Suddenly, it felt real. Suddenly, it felt possible. Their invention could be both an achievement as incredible as any in history, and the most outrageous, and possibly the only workable, plan of rescue. Both goals seemed real and within their grasp.

  “All right, colleagues,” Noah said with a bow. “Let’s get to it.”

  ALL PLANS UP IN THE AIR

  OR

  FAYE FINDS A SOFT SPOT

  The glider Faye had was most aerodynamic, even before she combined forces with the other children to create a powered flight. Jasper’s propeller work was stellar and better than anything Wallace had ever seen in that field. Even Lucy, six-year-old Lucy, had developed a tail design that rivaled that of the eagle.

  Wallace, meanwhile, was spending more and more time alone at the classroom’s chemistry table. One day, Jasper, who had been studying the problem of overheated engines and was sure of a cooling method that would work with very few adjustments to Noah’s overall design, found Wallace there and asked for his advice.