by Paul Tobin
“You did? Which ones?”
“Vicky Ott. Kip Luppert. Marigold Tina. Ricky Zander’s older brother. Susan Heller. Jaime Huffman’s goldfish.”
“You gave an important secret formula to a goldfish?”
“Yes, I did. Well, you have to understand that the messages are written on a series of conjoined molecules. It’s not like I stuffed a sheet of paper into a goldfish bowl. I’m not crazy.”
I discreetly coughed.
Nate said, “The actual messages are smaller than the eye can see. Nobody even knows they’re carrying them. All I have to do is scan the molecules, assemble the results, make the serum, give it to Proton, and then it’s all over.”
“I like how you’re talking about forcing giant cats to take serums as if it was no big deal.”
“And I like that you’re not freaking out. I’ve never had a friend that wasn’t, well, too scared to be my friend.” He gave me a quick hug. I sighed.
“Who’s first?” I asked. “I just can’t wait to scan molecules.” It was probably the first time I’d ever spoken that particular sentence.
“Ricky Zander’s older brother works as a model right up here, at Pottlebarn Fashions, and he’s scheduled to work today.”
“He works as a model? Really?”
“Sure. Didn’t you know that? I can’t be the only one who keeps a complete dossier on all my classmates, can I?”
“Nate, I’d say you’re very probably the only one who keeps a complete dossier on all their classmates, yes.”
“Weird.”
“Not weird.”
We’d reached Pottlebarn Fashions. It was decidedly fashions for the rich. The window to the right of the door displayed mannequins in very nice suits. Very expensive suits. The price tags were all in the thousands of dollars. Do people really pay that much for a suit? For anything? I suppose they must. I’m hardly an expert on fashion, as my mother is all too willing to point out. I prefer sneakers. Capri pants. Simple shirts. Sometimes a skirt. My friend Liz says I look like a fashion model on her day off.
We went inside the store, where Nate handed me his phone, smiling. “Check this out,” he said. It had a live video feed of Proton chasing after the huge laser pointer dot in Nate’s yard. The giant cat was leaping everywhere, tearing up the yard. Bosper was barking and barking. I took off my goggles and looked again. It was only the laser dot. And poor Bosper. I put my goggles back on. The cat was back.
“Can I help you?” a clerk said. I jumped and hid Nate’s phone behind my back. Then I felt silly. He couldn’t even see the cat, anyway.
“I’m looking for a birthday present,” Nate said. The clerk smiled at us. It was the smile that adults give me when they think I’m acting childish. The clerk (who looked like a bearded scarecrow in a very nice suit) patted Nate on the shoulder.
“You should try a toy store, kid. What do you want for your birthday? A rocket ship?”
Nate said, “If I wanted a rocket ship, I’d build one. Do you know what this is?” Nate reached into his back pocket and produced a credit card. It had a symbol I’d never seen before. The card was transparent, and the symbol was a stylized elephant’s head in gold. The card had Nate’s name, a series of numbers, and the letter a, in large size.
“Oh,” the clerk said. His face went white. He stumbled a bit and grabbed on to a counter for support. “Is that … is that … ?”
“A gold elephant card?” Nate said. “Yes. It is. You’ve heard of them, then?”
“The Legendary Credit Card,” the clerk said. He didn’t just say “legendary credit card.” He said Legendary Credit
Card. I could hear the capital letters.
“What’s a gold elephant card?” I asked Nate, but he didn’t get a chance to answer.
“What can I do for you, sir?” the clerk asked, entirely gushing, pushing me aside in his eagerness to talk with Nate.
Nate said, “Something in gabardine. A classic look. Six-on-two double-breasted.” I was as lost as when he was talking about quarks and black holes.
Nate added, “And if you could bring out some models, that would be fantastic.”
“Of course! Of course!” the clerk said, clapping his hands nervously. “And, if I might say so, sir, the goggles you and your young lady are wearing are quite fetching. Absolute top-notch!”
“They help us see invisible cats,” Nate said.
“Quite nice,” the clerk said, entirely unfazed. “Shall we head into the viewing room?”
We did head into the viewing room, where we sat on a couch that was as soft as a rabbit’s belly. A waiter (yes, a waiter in a clothes store!) brought us some bite-size cucumber sandwiches and then stared at us and stared at us until I wondered if we were supposed to tip him. Nate, however, seemed entirely at ease.
“Just water will do,” he said. “Noncarbonated, if you will.” At this, the waiter heaved a sigh of relief and went off, returning shortly with glasses of water served in tall cocktail glasses. Nate whispered to me, “It’s customary to serve champagne during these viewings, but we’re too young. The waiter didn’t know what to do. Decorum and all that.”
“Decorum and all that,” I agreed.
Soon, one by one, a parade of suits strode past us, posing, and I have to tell you that the land of luxurious men’s fashions is crackingly boring. The clerk would gleefully explain the wonders of each suit, talking about the fabric, the sewing, the craft, and so on and so forth, but I’d spent the morning being menaced by a giant cat, meaning that looking at suits was a pale and distant second in terms of excitement. I knew we were looking for Ricky’s brother, but couldn’t they hurry it up already?
One by one, Nate turned each suit down. He would say, “Hmm. No,” and then the clerk would say, “Of course not!” and herd the model out while complimenting Nate’s fine taste in fashion and apologizing for even presenting such an abomination as that suit, this suit, or the other suit.
Finally, Nate perked up when it was Ricky’s brother’s turn to pose. “Hmm, this suit,” Nate said, interested for the first time.
“Ahh-hahh!” said the clerk.
Nate stood and walked around Ricky’s brother, nodding, considering, and I had no idea at all what he was doing, but I was growing more comfortable with that, as I was beginning to understand that Nathan Bannister would always be a mystery to me.
“Yes,” Nate finally said. “I think this will do. Three of them, then. One cut for evening. Another for yachting. A third for the casual day.”
“Ahh, the good life,” the clerk said. “And in a good suit.”
“I’ll have Father’s measurements sent around,” Nate said. He reached back into his pocket and produced that credit card again. The clerk went giddy.
“Shall I mention the cost?” the clerk asked, which I thought was very strange. Of course you mention the cost! How would anyone know if they could afford something if they don’t know what it costs?”
“Mention the cost?” Nate said, clearly insulted. Apparently, I was wrong.
“My apologies, sir!” the clerk said in hasty fashion. “Some people want to know.” His voice went lower and in a conspiratorial tone he said, “Other people.” Then he and Nate laughed heartily.
And Nate accidentally dropped his credit card.
The clerk gasped as if he was afraid it would shatter.
“I’ll get that for you, sir,” Ricky’s brother said. While he bent down to retrieve the credit card, Nate took out a strange and curious device from his pocket. It looked like a small slingshot, but instead of a rubber band it had arcs of electricity. Nate touched it to the back of Ricky’s brother’s neck. Nothing happened. Nothing that I could tell, at least. The model didn’t even react. But Nate was clearly satisfied, tucking the bizarre slingshot back out of view. The model straightened, holding the credit card out to Nate. His hands were shivering.
“T-this is a gold elly-a-phant c-card,” he said. He was having trouble speaking.
“Yes,” Nate sai
d, supremely unconcerned. He took the card from the model and handed it to the clerk, who drooled a bit. His knees even trembled.
The clerk left through a curtained doorway. The model excused himself and departed. Nate and I were only alone for a few seconds, as two musicians entered the room and, without so much as a “Hello, how’s your day?” they started playing. One had a strange-looking guitar and the other a violin. They played very softly, as if afraid they would frighten us.
Oblivious to the music, Nate scribbled some equations on his hand. I had no idea what he was doing or what would happen next. But Nate did. I’m not sure exactly why I was trusting a boy I’d just met, one who had created a giant rampaging cat and who’d given a secret message to a goldfish, but …
I felt good when he was around.
I asked Nate, “What’s a gold elephant credit card?”
“Oh. Uhh. Nothing.” His cheeks reddened from embarrassment.
“C’mon, spill. I’m a founding member of the Get Chased by a Giant Cat Club, so you’re not allowed to keep secrets from me. What’s a gold elephant card?”
“A rare credit card,” Nate said. “Only really, uhh, that is, you have to … only rich people have them.”
“How rich?”
“This music is nice, right?”
“How can you be as smart as you are and not know when you’re beaten? How rich? Tell me.”
“Really rich. Like, mega-rich.”
“Colossally and cosmically super-rich?” I asked. Nate thought about it. Nodded.
“So, how many of these cards are there? Fifty thousand? Twenty thousand?”
“Three.”
“Three thousand? Worldwide? That is rare.”
“No. Three. Just three.”
“Nate!” I said. I took a few breaths. “Are you telling me you’re like … one of the three richest people in the world?” I was shrieking, because I couldn’t believe it, but I was also hissing, because I didn’t want the musicians to overhear us.
Nate was silent.
I poked him.
I said, “Nate. Seriously. You’re one of the three richest people in the world?”
He said, “Well. Umm. I’m … one of them. Yes.”
I just looked at him, trying to think of what to say, wondering how many other secrets Nathan Bannister was holding back. It was going to be … interesting getting to know him. And I suppose it didn’t matter much that he’d avoided telling me he was one of the richest people on earth. We all have our secrets, and it’s not like I was going to tell him about the songs I make up in the shower or the songs I make up in my bedroom or the songs that Liz and I sang on top of Polt Middle before we were very sternly warned not to sneak up there anymore, and only did it four more times afterward. So far.
“And, here we are, sir!” the clerk said, striding back into the room and reluctantly returning Nate’s credit card. “Is there anything else I can help you with? Anything at all?”
“That will be all, for now,” Nate said. We turned to go.
The clerk said, “A note of interest, sir. I’ve just had a chat with the manager, and we’ve decided to branch out into the field of goggles. Goggles with red lenses. We’re ever so inspired by the ones you and your charming friend are wearing. We envision an entire product line!”
“How interesting,” Nate said. “I think you can count on seeing me again.”
The clerk beamed. He smiled. He let out a joyful sigh, and his fingers were trembling as he held the curtains aside so that Nate and I could leave.
“So, we found Ricky Zander’s older brother,” I said, once we were on the sidewalk. “That slingshot thing, what did that do?”
“Decoded the molecule. Here.”
Nate showed me a readout on his phone. It was a long series of numbers and letters and a few symbols that looked like squiggles or ink blots. I was disappointed. Secret messages are supposed to be interesting and mysterious, like, “The raven burps when dogs eat macaroni,” or “The caped man’s smile is five snakes long.” But, no, it was just a bunch of random characters.
“So, what now?” I asked.
“We locate Susan Heller next and retrieve her part of the formula. I sent her … never mind.”
“You sent her something? What?”
“Nothing. A shoe catalog. I mean, an invitation to a party. No, I’m not having a party. I never have parties. You’ll know I’m lying. I shouldn’t have said that. I should think of something else. Something believable.”
“Uh, Nate?” I reminded him. “Standing right here.” He was obviously talking to himself. Fidgeting. Biting his lip and twirling his fingers. There was a single bead of sweat on his forehead, and there hadn’t been any sweat at all when Proton the giant cat was chasing after us, even though the cat was nearly almost as big as an elephant. Nate took off his goggles, blinked, put them back on, and said, “Need to think. Need to think. Hmm. Not-math is hard. Oh! I’ve got it!” He turned to me and said, “I sent her some homework assignments. She has me look over them to make sure she’s doing them correctly.”
I just looked at him.
He looked at me. His fingers continued to twitch.
Finally, Nate said, “Oh. Was some of my internal dialogue … external?” There were red tinges at the sides of his face, as if a blush were in the starting block, ready to surge forward at a moment’s notice.
“Yes. You were trying to think of something believable, which means … let’s see, you’re hiding something. So, she’s the one you sent the love letter to, isn’t she?” I crossed my arms in front of me, much like Mom stands when she’s caught Dad doing something wrong.
“Susan and I are on … some … yearbook thing together?” Nate said. It was a lousy try.
I said, “Gosh, I hope my internal dialogue doesn’t spill out. But, what if it does? Then Nate will know I’m thinking about clobbering him. And also that it’s none of my business who he sends love letters to. Why would I care? All I care about is stopping a giant cat. Also, Nate is an idiot.”
I paused meaningfully.
Nate said, “I don’t think I’ve ever been called an idiot before!” He was beaming. He reached out, grabbed me, and gave me a hug.
“I feel great!” he said. He was positively glowing now.
“Um, Nate. Being called an idiot is bad.”
“Oh, no no no,” Nate said, waggling a finger at me. “It’s fantastic. Because, if you’re an idiot, that means you have a lot to learn!”
“Uh, okay.”
“And learning is fun!”
“Uh, okay.”
Nate looked at me, smiled, stared into my eyes, and said, “Delphine Cooper. You are an idiot!”
“What!” Now he was calling me a name? Me? I tried very hard to control my temper. I had to close my eyes. I had to repeat a few words in my head. Good girls are not supposed to punch boys. Good girls are not supposed to punch boys. Good girls are hardly ever supposed to punch boys.
“I meant that as a compliment,” Nate said.
I said, “I can’t hear you. My eyes are closed.”
“That doesn’t make sense, Delphine.”
“Mom says girls don’t need to make sense.”
“Yeah,” Nate said. “Dad says the same thing. A lot.” I opened my eyes and peeked at what Nate was doing. He was holding some sort of device. It looked like a handheld computer game, but there were only streams of numbers on the display. I peeked my eyes open a bit more.
“Can you actually read that?” I asked. The numbers were going by so fast and they were just … numbers.
“Sure!” Nate said, as if anybody should be able to understand the quickly changing display. “They’re numbers! But … something’s wrong.” He frowned.
“Wrong?”
“Susan always goes shopping on Saturdays, but something has changed. Some outside influence is intruding. I’d thought we could just find her at the mall, but she’s at an airfield.” He held up the device to show me. It did not have a pi
cture of Susan Heller at an airfield. It also did not have a text message saying, “Susan Heller is at an airfield.” It was just a string of numbers. I nodded as if they meant something to me.
Nate said, “This can’t be a coincidence. The probability of Susan shopping on Saturdays is in the upper ninety-ninth percentile.” He showed me the device again. It was a huge sprawl of numbers running around, enthusiastically being numbers. I shook my head in a knowing fashion, rather than pointing out that my odds of understanding what he was showing me were in the lower first percentile.
“So,” Nate said. “This means there’s a near certainty that some outside force is trying to keep Susan away from us, just when we need her. Somebody is trying to stop us.”
“Stop us?”
He showed me the numbers again. They were still numbers. They might well have been different numbers. Who knows? There seemed to be a lot of nines. Was that significant?
“Lot of nines, there,” I said.
“Good catch,” Nate said. “It’s very significant. It means someone is working against us. It means … today just became more interesting.”
I looked around at the people walking by on the sidewalk, all these strangers moving around us. I was thinking about murderous giant cats and how someone, somewhere out there, possibly someone very near, was apparently on the side of the cat, or at least not on our side.
Nate had said that was interesting.
I guess that’s one definition.
After we left the Very Expensive Men’s Fashion Store, we only walked about ten feet before Nate suddenly stopped. We were talking about dogs, and about how they were once wolves, tens of thousands of years ago, and about what they might be tens of thousands of years in the future. I was arguing that they would be robots, because everything will be robots in the future. Nate was just starting to debate my unshakeable premise, but then he stopped. Just … stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. And he stopped with that gasp you see in horror movies. Because of this, I was expecting to see an assassin in a hockey mask, or a demon crawling up from the sewers, or something more interesting than what Nate was actually looking at.
