The Name of This Book Is Secret (5 page)

Excited, they took the appropriate vials out of the case and smelled them in order. Then they looked at each other expectantly, as if they’d just cast a spell and they were waiting for a ghost or vision to appear.

Nothing happened.

They tried smelling all the scents at once, but that only served to confuse their noses further.

“I guess our noses aren’t strong enough,” said Max-Ernest.

“Or maybe it wasn’t really a coded message after all,” Cass said, putting the paper back into the box.

Max-Ernest pulled the paper back out, staring at it. “You know how it says, ‘
first
smell it’?” he asked.

“Uh huh...?”

“Well, look at all the first letters: Heliotrope. Echinacea. Licorice. Peanut butter. H—E—L—P. It spells ‘help’!”

“You’re right!” said Cass, impressed despite herself. “But you got one thing wrong.”

“What?”

“It doesn’t
spell
‘help,’ it
smells
‘help’!”

Max-Ernest laughed. Then it was his turn to be annoyed. Why was it funny when
she
made a joke?

“Hey, Max-Ernest,” said Cass suddenly.

“Yeah?”

“What if it’s real?”

“What do you mean?”

“The message. You think it’s from the magician? Look at the edge of the paper—it looks like it was in a fire. What if he really wanted help?”

Their eyes locked, the very same chill tingling both their spines.

“Well, it wouldn’t be the best way to get help, would it?” asked Max-Ernest, a little more slowly than usual. “I mean, he could have just called someone—like the police. Or the fire department. But I guess maybe if he didn’t want everyone to know. Like if it was only for a certain person—”

“Whoever it was for, we’re the ones who read it,” Cass pointed out. “That means
we
have to help him.”

“But he’s dead!”

“Not for sure...”

“That’s true,” said Max-Ernest, considering. “And, even if he is, I guess it might be good to find out—”

“Shh!” Cass put her finger to her lips, stopping him mid-sentence. “Look at Benjamin Blake—”

A pale boy with big staring eyes—Benjamin Blake—stood downwind of them, nose in the air, concentrating hard.

“You think he’s smelling the licorice or the peanut butter?” whispered Cass.

“How could you tell?” Max-Ernest whispered back.

“I don’t know—how could you tell anything about Benjamin Blake?”

Benjamin Blake was a continual source of confusion to Cass, indeed to all his classmates. If they’d included him in their ratings, they might have rated him
spaciest
or
weirdest.
But what was weirdest of all was how grown-ups fawned on him.

Benjamin had recently won a big art prize. None of the other students could believe it; judging by the artwork hanging in the school hallway, he couldn’t even draw a straight line. Nonetheless, there was a picture of him in the newspaper, and Mrs. Johnson had made an announcement over the PA as if the prize were some huge historical event. Benjamin got to paint a mural in their town’s City Hall, and he even got to go to Washington, DC, for an awards ceremony. After that, all his teachers treated him like he was a movie star or he’d been elected president.

When Benjamin realized Cass and Max-Ernest were looking at him, he blushed and mumbled something under his breath.

“What did he say?” asked Cass. “Something about a herd of buffalo?”

“I think he said he heard an oboe,” said Max-Ernest.

“You’re joking, right?”

Max-Ernest shook his head “no.”

“That’s weird. He must have been spying when we read the list. I can’t believe someone so spacey could be so nosy.”

For a second, it looked like Benjamin wanted to say something more. But when Cass slammed shut the Symphony of Smells case, he turned and walked away.

As much as they differed from each other, Cass and Max-Ernest had one thing in common: neither was a liar. This was unfortunate. As I’m sure you know from experience, lying is an important skill to have.

It is extremely important, for example, when you want to visit the site of a mysterious disappearance and possible murder, and you don’t think your parents will let you go if they know what you’re up to.

Cass decided to practice by lying about something little.

On Friday nights, her mom always brought home takeout from Thai Village, their neighborhood Thai restaurant. Thai food was Cass’s favorite; she especially liked pad thai noodles (except for the egg part) and beef satay with peanut sauce. That Friday night, as she carefully nibbled on her beef satay, Cass said, “So, I learned in Ms. Stohl’s class today why satay comes on a stick.”

“Cass, I thought we had an agreement about your backpack,” said Cass’s mother, who either hadn’t heard what Cass had said or was ignoring it. “You notice I haven’t said anything about that new hole in the left knee of your jean.”

The agreement was that if Cass stopped wearing her backpack inside the house, Cass’s mother would stop bugging her about the condition of her clothing. Normally, Cass would have pointed out that by saying she wasn’t saying anything about the hole her mother was saying something about it anyway. However, tonight Cass had a lie to tell, so she didn’t argue.

Instead, Cass put her backpack on the floor and tried again. “So you know why satay comes on a stick?”

“No, I don’t,” said her mother. “Why?”

“Because they don’t have plates in Thailand,” said Cass.

This wasn’t true. In fact, they do have plates in Thailand. Moreover, Ms. Stohl hadn’t even discussed Thailand that day.

Although insignificant, it was the first lie Cass had ever told her mother and she could feel her heart pounding in her chest—and her blood rushing to her ears.

Her mother didn’t seem to notice. “Really? They must have some plates,” she said. “What about pad thai?”

“Well, they have bowls. And big plates for serving things,” Cass added, in case her lie was too extreme. “But no regular plates.”

“Well, I guess we better take your plate away then,” her mother joked. “And you can eat off the table. You might like that.”

“Ha-ha. Very funny, Mel,” said Cass, relieved that her mother seemed ready to believe her without asking any more questions. (Cass’s mother was named Melanie, but everybody called her Mel—even Cass when she wanted to make a point or just wanted to sound adult.)

Since her practice lie had gone so well, Cass decided to go ahead and try the real one. She started by telling her mother the truth, because she figured if half of what she said was true then she was only half lying.
^*

“I have to go over to Max-Ernest’s house tomorrow,” she said. “He’s this guy from school. You never heard me talk about him before because he’s in Mr. Golding’s, not Ms. Stohl’s. Also he’s kind of hyper.”

That much was true. Then came the lying part. “We have to do this science project,” she said quickly. “It’s like one of those make your own volcano experiments, but you have to build the mountain part first. Everybody is matched up with somebody from the other class and we’re supposed to collaborate on it.”

Cass could tell her mother was only half listening. “Tomorrow?” she asked.

“It’s due on Monday.”

“Oh, well, if you’re going to be gone, maybe I’ll go to yoga. I can take you on the way.”

“He lives really close. I can walk.”

“You don’t have to. I can take you.”

The conversation wasn’t going the way it was supposed to go. If her mother took her, her mother would want to meet Max-Ernest’s parents and discuss what their kids were going to do for the day. Cass’s plan would be foiled.

“Cass, your ears are turning red—are you upset about something?”

“No, well, I don’t know—”

It was time to take out what are called “the big guns”—those special arguments you hold in reserve for emergencies. Cass screwed up her nerve and began:

“It’s just—remember you said you were going to stop being so overprotective? You said it was only because you felt bad that you had to work so much of the time, and you couldn’t always be there yourself, and that was why you wanted people to be watching me all the time, but you agreed it wasn’t fair that I should feel like I was in jail just because you were working? And now it’s like I’m a prisoner again! And it’s not even when you’re working....Besides, I’ll take Sebastian and he’ll protect me. I already asked Larry and Wayne and they said I could have him on Saturday.”

“That blind old dog? Who’s going to protect
him
?”

“He can see—he just does it with his nose. He’s a Seeing-Nose Dog, remember?”

“OK, OK, if you really want to walk you can walk. Just...be careful, okay? No disasters!”

And that was that. Cass felt a twinge of guilt at deceiving her mother and employing emotional black-mail to boot, but she managed to stifle it quickly. All in all, her first experience with lying had gone pretty smoothly—even if her ears had almost given her away.

For Max-Ernest, lying proved more difficult. Although the part that his parents didn’t believe happened to be the truth.

“You have a new friend?” his mother asked.

“Since when do girls talk to you?” asked his father.

They weren’t trying to be as mean as they sounded. It was just that they were so surprised; Max-Ernest had never had a friend before.

The only thing that convinced them the situation had changed was the appearance of Cass herself.

When she arrived on Saturday morning with Sebastian, Cass immediately noticed something strange about Max-Ernest’s house. Indeed, it would be hard not to notice, even from a distance. The house was split down the middle. Half the house was white and geometric-looking; a real estate agent like Gloria Fortune would say it had a “sleek and modern” design. The other half was dark and wooden; Gloria would probably describe it as “warm and rustic.” The modern side was Max-Ernest’s mother’s side. The woodsy side was his father’s.

When the door opened for her, Cass saw that the split personality continued on the inside. Neither parent was supposed to cross into the other parent’s side of the house—something Cass figured out when she tried to shake Max-Ernest’s father’s hand while she was standing in Max-Ernest’s mother’s half of the entry hall. Cass almost fell over because she was expecting him to reach out his hand and he didn’t.

“Hello, Cass, I’ve heard so much about you,” he said, smiling, but not moving from his side of the entry.

“Cass, welcome! Max-Ernest has told me so much about you,” said Max-Ernest’s mother, as if his father hadn’t just said the same thing.

For her, apparently, Max-Ernest’s father did not exist. And vice versa. It was an odd arrangement, to say the least.

When Cass commented that she’d never seen a house like theirs before, Max-Ernest explained that although his parents were divorced, they believed every child should be raised with two parents in the house. In fact, it was the only thing his parents agreed on. As a result, they lived together—but they kept every aspect of their lives separate, including the décor of their home.

“Oh, well, I only have one parent—my mom,” said Cass. “So our house only has one style.” She was about to add that she liked it just fine that way, but then she decided against it; she didn’t want to pick a fight when she and Max-Ernest were about to embark on an important secret mission.

Despite their strangeness, Cass found Max-Ernest-’s parents quite nice. They were obviously very excited to meet their son’s first-ever friend and they treated her like visiting royalty. They let her take Sebastian inside, each of them immediately giving him a bowl of water (much to the confusion of the blind dog, who was used to being given only one bowl of water at a time). And they didn’t even make a fuss when Cass refused to take off her backpack.

“I’m a survivalist,” Cass explained. “I have to keep it on at all times.”

“Terrific,” said Max-Ernest’s mother. “It’s important to be prepared for emergencies.”

“That’s great,” said Max-Ernest’s father. “Emergency preparation is important.”

Each parent insisted on making breakfast for Cass: Max-Ernest’s father offered pancakes. Then his mother offered waffles. Then each offered what the other had offered. Cass had already eaten, but she knew it would be rude not to accept anything. So she asked for toast, thinking that would be fastest. In a flash, Max-Ernest’s mother handed her a piece of toasted French bread with plenty of butter. Almost as quickly, Max-Ernest’s father gave her a piece of toasted whole wheat bread with raspberry preserves.

Before Cass could finish a single piece of toast, let alone both pieces, Max-Ernest said they had to go. Cass was ready with a story about how they were going to the park to collect materials for their science project, but Max-Ernest’s parents were so thrilled that he had a friend that it didn’t even occur to them to ask where the kids were going.

“What happened to your dad?” asked Max-Ernest, after the door had closed behind them.

“What do you mean? Who says something happened?” asked Cass, walking quickly away from Max-Ernest’s house.

“Well, you said you only had a mom.”