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

by Eden Unger Bowditch

  “There are certainly excellent combinations of chemicals you could use,” Wallace said, “but the simplest thing to do is to use water.”

  Jasper looked his classmate in the eyes. “You think that’s the best idea? It’s not just the best way to get back to your individual work?”

  Wallace tried to hide his hurt. Jasper had been his confidante since the first day at Sole Manner, but the more the others worked on the flying machine, the more Wallace made himself into an outsider. He spent more hours on his polymer than ever before. At times, he found himself slipping so deep into his work, he could not even think of anything else. Only Jasper understood why—Jasper alone. But Jasper also never let him get too far away, always bringing Wallace back for advice or opinions.

  Wallace removed his glasses, wiped nonexistent specks of dust from them, and replaced them on his nose.

  “Water really is the best thing in this case, Jasper,” he said calmly, looking up. “I’m not trying to get out of working on a coolant or trying to do anything except help when asked. I... I know I’m not really a part of what you four are—”

  “You jolly well are,” Jasper countered. “There’s loads of things we’d never have gotten right without your help.”

  “It’s not the same as what you’re doing,” said Wallace. “No, don’t deny it, Jasper, Please. I know. It’s just that this polymer and... I’m running out of time, and... well...

  “I know, Wallace,” Jasper said, placing a hand on Wallace’s arm. “I know how important this is.”

  Wallace handed Jasper a sheet of paper on which he had drawn a diagram for the engine modification that allowed the water coolant system to work most efficiently. Jasper smiled. He knew Wallace was walking a fine line between two vital projects.

  The classroom was busier and quieter than usual as the children all focused on the work at hand. And there was something to the fact that they all were truly working as a team—even Wallace, Jasper reminded everyone. There was a proximity to their work that began to change the way they felt about one another. They had really begun to see themselves as a team.

  As they used their free time in the classroom that week, it did not go unnoticed that Faye used the word “we” more often than ever before. Faye had shared all the research she had collected on her favorite figures in flight (or attempted flight), sketching the details of their own calculations (or miscalculations) for her fellow classmates.

  “Imagine,” Faye said. “Any day now, man will fly over the land.”

  “And you’re going to be that man, Faye?” asked Noah with a grin.

  “Balloons fly,” said Lucy. “Hot air balloons have been around since the 1700s.”

  “Well, man will fly like a bird,” Faye said.

  “That Brazilian Frenchman, Alberto Santos-Dumont, has been flying around Paris,” Noah said. “He can steer and guide his balloons. Some say he can fly like a—”

  “Well, I mean, without hot air. Even Santos-Dumont admitted he may have solved the lighter-than-air problem, but not the heavier-than-air problem. I want to really fly.”

  “Leonardo da Vinci was working on this in the fifteenth century,” Jasper said. While developing his propeller, he had loved reading about da Vinci’s helicopter. “We’re in good company if we fail.”

  “But he was trying to create a hanging and gliding type of craft, and a sort of whirly-bird contraption,” said Faye, “not a motorized air vehicle. I already invented a better glider than that.”

  Faye had loads of information on the experiments of Sir George Cayley, William Henson and John Stringfellow, Otto Lilienthal, Octave Chanute, and Samuel Langley. She knew that Wallace, with his uncanny attention to detail, would be able to review the notes and the data from the would-be flyers and discover where they went wrong.

  “Now, Cayley, Chanute, and Lilienthal were brilliant with their gliders,” Faye said, “but Henson and Stringfellow had theories about using steam engines. I don’t think they ever got off the ground, but they believed an engine would work. Samuel Langley—”

  “He’s the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.,” said Wallace. “I wanted to meet him, but Father and I had no time.”

  “Well, his unmanned aerodrome flew over four thousand feet,” Faye said. “His engined craft flew for ninety seconds before the engine fell out.”

  “Well, that doesn’t sound promising,” said Jasper. “Let’s not follow his lead.”

  “But it’s proof that it can be done,” said Faye. “Look at these sketches. I believe that the shape of the wings is one of the most important things to consider. They need to be cambered—”

  “What?” said Wallace.

  “Cambered. Curved like a bird’s wing. Then the air currents will be able to lift the craft. Think about how the wind can carry things much heavier than air. The wind gets beneath the thing and it planes on the air. It would be an aeroplane. We have to make it so the wind will get beneath the wings and the motor will propel—”

  “Wait,” said Wallace. “Did you say propel?”

  Faye nodded, a gleam in her eye. “I did indeed. Jasper has created the best darned propeller this world has ever seen.” She looked at Jasper. He looked back and, as he held her gaze, a moment passed between them—a moment that passed so very quickly and silently that no one else even noticed. But Jasper would remember it in times to come. He had seen something there, and Faye had let him see it. In a subtle but profound way, that changed everything.

  Thursday night, after supper, Miss Brett began to read aloud the last chapter of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. It had been ages since they had last heard the story—Miss Brett had put Alice aside some time back, holding off on the final chapter. It was something she had done in childhood, too. She had not wanted the story to come to an end.

  All the children were on the edge of their seats, listening with every ounce of their bodies, looking forward to the conclusion. Miss Brett took her time, savoring the book, reading only small sections, leaving the children time to think.

  “Remember,” she said, “there is often much sense in the nonsense we find.”

  The sounds of sleeping children filled the house, and Miss Brett, sleepy herself, took her candle and, as she did every night, walked over to each child and placed a kiss upon each forehead.

  “Goodnight, sweet angels,” she said to Lucy and Faye, who, sleepy as they were, were still slightly awake.

  “I remember when Miss Brett first told us about Alice,” Lucy whispered as Miss Brett’s candlelight faded from the room. She squirmed with pleasure at the memory.

  “You remember everything, Lucy,” said Faye, feeling the weight of sleep bearing down upon her.

  “Oh, I’d so love to have a friend who was mad,” said Lucy.

  “No, you wouldn’t,” Faye said. She was getting a bit grumpy. “And the story isn’t real.”

  “Oh, come now, Faye,” Lucy said, curling up right next to her. “You loved it as much as me.”

  Faye felt the warmth of Lucy’s breath on her arm and the little girl’s hand in her own, and she didn’t know why this made her cry. But she was glad the lights were out so Lucy couldn’t see her tears. Crying in silence until her mind began to work again, Faye thought to herself how much like Alice she felt. Falling down the rabbit hole could not have been loonier than her life was now.

  Alice, when asked by the Caterpillar to explain herself, had said she couldn’t because she wasn’t herself anymore. This had struck home with Faye. She found she still cared so very much for the other children, who said they were her friends, though at times she had been terrible to them. And now, they were planning some crazy escape—by flying over the farm? With a new invention? In search of their parents? Who were kidnapped by men dressed like bunnies and ducks and ladies in bonnets? Could anyone believe such nonsense?

  But, strange as it was, there was sense in the plan.

  Faye softened. “So... right, well, yes,” she whispered. “I d
id. And all the rhymes and poems and lullabies, too. Remember piggy toes?”

  But Lucy was long asleep. Faye kissed Lucy’s head and felt the heaviness of sleep come down.

  TELEPHONIC REASONING

  OR

  WALLACE’S SPECIAL SECRET

  After the kitchen was clean and everyone was asleep, Miss Brett relaxed in her rocking chair. The children certainly saw themselves in the stories she read them. They were, in so many ways, on some crazy adventure with nonsensical characters who offered no answer to the mysteries at hand.

  And Miss Brett was not much different from them. She had always expected to live out her teaching years in a small, single-room schoolhouse somewhere out in the country, or perhaps at a small neighborhood school where she would teach many children, and then their children, and then theirs. She had expected to settle down in a small house or apartment with window boxes full of geraniums and at least three cats, to start. But she’d been intrigued when Mr. Bell had suggested she call at a downtown office about that “special opportunity.” She could never have imagined just how “special” the situation actually was.

  Miss Brett had said that, yes, she would be interested. Mr. Bell took her hand and held it tight, a subtle spark of excitement in his voice. She adored him, and she considered him, as much as anyone had ever been, her mentor.

  “I think you are the one, my dear Astraea Brett,” he had said in his odd accent. She had wondered at times if he was Welsh, but there was something of an eastern European roll to some of his words. At times, the accent almost seemed to come from Arabia.

  Mr. Bell’s wizened face had broken into a grin, and then he nodded, mumbling to himself. He had always been a bit unusual. Mr. Bell seemed to be age itself, crooked and shrunken, but energetic beyond compare, flitting around the campus of the teaching college, gliding down its halls. His black cloak and scarf, along with his almost silent movement, sometimes made him appear to be a giant bat as he rushed from classroom to classroom. Miss Brett thought he had an unusual grace, like a man who had once been a dancer. He always wore a black felt cap that seemed to have been made in the early part of the last century. It seemed to slip right down to the bridge of his nose, sitting upon his great black spectacles. In the years she knew him, she could not remember clearly whether or not she had ever actually seen his eyes, but she supposed she must have, at one time or another.

  While Mr. Bell’s ways were odd, and many of the other students found him queer, Miss Brett had had few champions in her life, and she knew in her heart that she had one in Mr. Bell. She believed in him as he believed in her. During her two years at the teaching college, they had become quite close. Miss Brett remembered telling him how she had lost her parents to pneumonia when she was fourteen and that she had been alone in the world since then. He had been so kind to her. And he had asked if she truly had no family—no family at all. He had showed such understanding, nodding and thoughtful, when she had answered, “Yes.”

  Miss Brett had unpacked her things that morning before the children came. In her sunny room was lovely floral wallpaper, a single medium-sized bed, a desk and bureau, and a big comfy chair covered in soft red velvet. If it were to rain, or if the chores were done early, she would invite all the children into her room and read to them from this chair. She quite liked the room—it was cheery, and she saw it as something of a sanctuary.

  She thought about being there, and Mr. Bell, and why she was chosen. A shiver ran down her spine and she shook it off. Mr. Bell would never lead her into something he didn’t feel she could handle.

  She placed her handbag on the bed and walked down the hall to look around.

  With the driver looking over her shoulder, she took a peek into every room. The two other bedrooms were set for the children. She found there was also a tiny room on the other side by the back door. That room contained only one thing: a telephone, which was, to Miss Brett’s astonishment, an almost glowing shade of red—the only telephones she had previously seen were black. In fact, Miss Brett had only used a telephone three or four times in her life. She found them fascinating and very modern.

  “The telephone is not for use,” the muscular driver had told her. “If you pick it up, we will know.”

  “Well, I won’t use it, then,” she said. “I hadn’t planned to, so I won’t.”

  “Unless,” the man said.

  “Unless what?” she asked.

  “Unless,” the man repeated. He then walked out of the house, leaving Miss Brett to answer the question for herself.

  Miss Brett closed the door to the telephone room and left it closed, turning the small key already in the lock. What “unless” would ever require a telephone call?

  Now, sitting in the rocking chair, Miss Brett opened Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and began rereading the last chapter. As she read, she could hear rhythmic breathing coming from the bedrooms.

  Poring over the last paragraph, when Alice’s sister contemplates Alice’s adventure and how she will one day grow up, her breath caught as she thought of these children who would also grow up one day. She closed the book. She smiled. Miss Brett knew that the children were asleep.

  All, that is, but one. But that was expected.

  “Miss Brett...” Wallace stood tentatively in the doorway to the boys’ room.

  “Of course, Wallace,” she said gently. She patted her lap and opened her arms.

  Wallace climbed up onto the chair, into her arms, and curled up onto her lap. She rocked the chair, humming softly and caressing his head until he was asleep.

  It had been their special secret ever since his arrival. Wallace had been so fearful. He hated himself for needing to be held like a baby. He was desperate for the others not to know. He wanted to be strong and fearless and powerful like his dad, but he wasn’t.

  But Miss Brett understood. The little boy’s feeling of loss had made him especially fragile. A warm lap and loving arms was something she could provide. He needed a mother’s love.

  Looking down at the sleeping boy in her lap, she thought of that baby bird Lucy had held in her hands. Miss Brett looked at this sweet, sad little boy, and she wanted, more than anything, enough time to add joy to the story of Wallace Banneker.

  A BRAIN FOR DR. BANNEKER

  OR

  WALLACE FINDS HIS FEET

  Wallace Banneker knew about the past. He came from a long line of American inventors, scientists, and mathematicians. It was said that if past and present Bannekers stood in a line of their own, hand in hand, they would represent some of the world’s greatest scientific minds in history. His parents would both have stood in that line. Both were been brilliant scientists, and both had exposed their young son to the magic of science from the day he was born.

  Wallace’s earliest memory was seeing a human brain in a vat. That was when he was three years old. The brain belonged to his great-great-great-grandfather, Benjamin Banneker I. Wallace’s father, Ben Banneker IV, kept it on a shelf.

  “That brain changed America,” Dr. Banneker would say. “In fact, it changed the world.”

  Wallace knew all about his great-great-great-grandfather, the first famous Benjamin Banneker. He knew the man had been born in America, in Maryland, in November of the year 1731. He knew that Benjamin Banneker I’s own grandfather had been a slave. That grandfather (Wallace’s great-great-great-great-great grandfather) was named Banneka, and he had married Molly Welsh, a brilliant, brave, and beautiful European lady who freed him from slavery. Their daughter, Mary, was Benjamin’s mother. Wallace knew, too, that Banneka had come originally from a tribe of astronomers in Africa before he was sold into slavery.

  Like Wallace, Benjamin I didn’t go to school. Instead, he was taught at home by Molly, or at the home of their Quaker neighbors. Wallace also knew something about the Quakers: They were believers in racial equality and abolition of slavery, and were pleased to help such a clever young man, no matter the color of his skin.

  Wallace knew lots of stories about
his great-great-great grandfather. He knew that everyone who ever met Benjamin Banneker believed the man to be brilliant. Wallace’s favorite story was the one about the clock. When Benjamin Banneker was twenty-one, he took apart a neighbor’s clock, drew sketches of all the parts, and put the clock back together perfectly. He then built a clock of his own out of wood, following the sketches of his neighbor’s clock. This wooden clock worked perfectly, and it ran perfectly for more than fifty years. It probably ran longer than the neighbor’s original.

  Benjamin Banneker I did all sorts of amazing things, and so did every other Banneker descendant, all the way to Wallace. In fact, the line stretched back to before Benjamin I, to before Banneka and Molly, and into the distant past, when Wallace’s ancestors, including great astronomers from the African tribe of Dogon and European scientists (in France, for example, with the Société Scientifique) originated some fabulous discoveries and inventions. The only thing Wallace knew about these, though, was that, if they really existed, they were so important they were all kept secret.

  Wallace had heard bits and pieces about the secret inventions and magical creations. The stories supposedly went back to ancient lands and mystic leaders. They told of legendary mysteries, and the stories always seemed rather jumbled and confusing. When he was small, Wallace, wanting to document all of these bits and pieces, asked his father to tell him more, but his father didn’t know, either.

  Truthfully, Wallace found the mysterious magic and legends a tad mystical for his taste. He liked the tangible. Magic was not anything one could ever really do. It wasn’t real—it had no order to it. For Wallace, it was so much less interesting than science, which one could do if one knew how. Wallace knew enough about the Bannekers, and he was proud to be a part of such a family. With documentation bestowed upon his great-great-great-grandfather, he was no longer compelled to dig any deeper into legends.