Edison's Gold (4 page)

“Who's Ford? Like Henry Ford?” Colby was biting her
lip the way she always did just before she called out the right answer to a math problem at school.

Beneath the riddle was stamped the print of a rose inside a perfect, thin circle. Tom plucked the roll of film from Colby's fingers.

“I wonder how old it is.” He felt the urge to add that roll film was invented by a farmer in Wisconsin named David Houston, but thought better of it, since Noodle would definitely make fun of him for that tidbit.

“I bet you it's pictures of scary dead people.” Noodle's eyes were alive with anticipation.

“Uh, Dad?” Tom called up to the kitchen. “Can you come down here and promise you won't yell about the mess?”

For right now, Nanny Golightly would have to wait.

S
o this isn't the kind of film you take to a Rite Aid and get back in an hour, is it?” Tom stared up at his dad, who was holding the stiff scrap of paper half an inch from his thick-lensed glasses as he inspected the encircled rose beneath the riddle.

“No, but photographs are nothing more than silver oxide,” he answered, though his thoughts seemed to be somewhere else.

“And how does that help us, Big T?” said Noodle.

“Developing them's not all that different from polishing a tarnished set of knives and forks.”

“So we're gonna polish the photos?” asked Colby.

“Sort of.” Tom's dad began sifting through his messy workspace, grabbing a few plastic canisters. “This really is
something,” he added as he bent down to search through a lower cabinet of grimy, unlabeled plastic bottles. Thankfully, he'd been so fascinated by the roll of film and riddle that he wasn't too upset about the fallen bookcase. Tom's mom, on the other hand, would be a different story.

“What are you looking for?” Tom asked.

“Sodium bicarbonate, among other things. I thought we had some around here.” After a few more minutes of rummaging, Tom's dad headed toward the basement's old, rusty fridge. “We'll just have to improvise with the old beer-and-baking-soda recipe. Chemically speaking, it's the same as any low-acid film developer.”

At that moment, Tom couldn't understand how his dad could settle for life as a waste engineer. The guy was easily the smartest person Tom had ever met, and it killed him to think of his father being bossed around at yet another dead-end job when he could be changing the world with his inventions.

What was it about being an Edison? Were they just cursed with bad luck?

His dad returned to the worktable holding a just-opened beer can that looked like it had been bought
during the Great Depression, then expertly mixed it in with one of the solutions.

“Tom, measure me out a half cup of baking soda.” His dad was pointing and snapping his fingers like an air traffic control man as he carefully poured several more mixtures into various Tupperware containers. “Colby, find some clothespins for the negatives. When they're ready, we'll need to transfer them to someplace dark quickly.”

“How about letting me polish off that brew dog?” asked Noodle.

“How about finding me a couple beakers for these photo baths?” Tom's dad answered, then placed the roll of film into a plastic, solution-filled container.

“Lame!” Noodle stomped off in search of the beakers. He was the only one who could get away with being a smart aleck to Tom's parents, since he'd been a staple at their house since kindergarten.

“If it's pictures of the Loch Ness monster or something good, I want a cut,” Colby joked as the four of them continued readying the materials.

Everyone went quiet while Tom's dad washed the film, then plopped it into the developing solution. Once it had dried, faint grainy outlines began to take shape.

“Yo, there is definitely something on that film.” Noodle began to hop around. “The suspense is killing me.”

“But it looks like only one photo was taken,” Tom noted. “In the whole roll.”

“Get comfortable,” said Mr. Edison as he removed the negative and clipped it to a clothesline. “ 'Cause this is going to take another hour. At least.”

A
nd once I'd paid for NYU drama school and Kanye's producing fees on my demo, if there was any cash left, I'd build myself an in-home recording studio.” Noodle leaned back with his hands behind his head, quite pleased with his answer. “Okay, your turn,” he said with a nod toward Colby.

“I'd probably buy a beachfront house somewhere along the Jersey shore for me and Nana.”

For the last hour, they'd been in Tom's room playing the game “What's the First Thing You'd Do If These Photos End Up Being Worth Ten Million Dollars?”

Tom knew exactly what he'd do with the money: give it to his parents so they wouldn't have to move. He didn't say that out loud, though, because one, that was a super-boring
answer, and two, he was nowhere near ready to drop that bomb on Noodle and Colb. The three of them had been an unbreakable posse ever since he could remember. How many kids got to have their two best (and only) friends at school live within a three-block radius? Tom's life without them was too depressing to even contemplate.

“I would have hated olden times,” sighed Noodle as he fell face-first onto Tom's bed. “Everything was one long wait. Like dial-up.”

“And then you died of something painful and undiagnosed,” added Colby. “Like scurvy or rickets.”

“I don't think you die from rickets,” Tom chimed in.

“You really need to chill with your hypochondria issues, Colb,” said Noodle. “It was cute when we were eight, but that sorta drama won't fly in high school. I'll have to pretend not to know you.” Again, Tom tried not to think about Noodle and Colby in high school without him.

“It's not half as lame as being obsessed with comic books,” she fired back.

“I'm a collector! It's an investment.”

“Kids!” Tom's dad's voice called up to them from downstairs.

“They're ready!” Tom shouted as the three of them tore down the stairs into the basement, where his dad was holding a glass photo loop against the one developed negative. Each of the kids then took turns looking through the lens at the magnified image of a thin-faced, gray-haired man seated in a brick-walled study.

“None of the other exposures look like they were used,” Tom's dad said.

“It's definitely not your double-great,” said Colby. “This guy looks more like an aging movie star.”

“I bet you anything it's an old Charlie Chaplin,” joked Noodle.

“It's Harvey Firestone,” said Tom's dad. “He was one of Edison's best friends.”

“The tire guy?” Tom could barely contain his excitement.

“Uh-huh. Edison, Ford, and Firestone were known as the fathers of modernity.”

“This could be worth some real dough then,” said Noodle.

“Doubtful,” Tom's dad answered. “We had a few photos from the attic appraised a while back. It's probably worth a couple hundred dollars.”

Tom's heart sank. He'd been secretly hoping for more. A lot more.

“But what about the riddle?” asked Colby, scanning the paper that was pronged in her fingers.

“Uh, I'm not sure what to make of that.” Tom's dad averted his eyes. “I don't think it's too important either.” None of the Edison men were good liars, and Tom couldn't help wondering what his dad might be hiding. There was something forced about his casual tone.

“Make sure you hit the lights on your way up,” Mr. Edison said as he climbed the stairs with the Firestone negative in his hands.

Despite the disappointment, Tom still felt like he'd been meant to find that photo. Like it was his destiny.

The question was, why?

T
om, Noodle, and Colby had decided the best way to celebrate the first night of spring break was with a sleepover, though it was almost midnight, and the three of them weren't doing much sleeping.

Once his parents had gone to bed, Tom had tiptoed into his dad's study and swiped the Firestone negative, which he'd been examining intently with the magnifying lens for almost an hour.

Up close, he could see that Firestone's hand was resting on a leather-bound book, and his index finger was pointing toward something Tom could not see. Embossed on the book's spine was a title,
The Alchemy Treatise
, which Tom could barely make out, and the wood beams running along the ceiling behind Firestone were intricately carved
and painted with fleurs-de-lis and various family shields. The window over his left shoulder looked out onto an old-fashioned city landscape, where the distinct curved edge of a tall brick building was just visible.

“I got something here.” Noodle's face popped up from behind his laptop, where he'd been doing some online research on
The Alchemy Treatise
. “It says this book was some kind of recipe manual from the Middle Ages.”

“For what?” said Colby. “Making fish soup and weird serf food?”

“No, it's for, like, people who wanna turn base metals into gold.” Tom and Colby went silent. “Apparently, this alchemy stuff was all the rage back then.”

“So maybe Firestone and my double-great were into, like, medieval witchcraft,” said Tom.

“Maybe they were the original Dungeons and Dragons geeks.”

“I haven't even told you the good part yet,” interrupted Noodle. “Six copies of
The Alchemy Treatise
are left in existence. And one of them”—he let his words linger, drawing out the suspense like he was telling a ghost story at a campfire—“is at the Met.”

Only an hour away by train.

Of all the places in the world
, Tom thought.
This book's just a few miles from my house
. Destiny was calling to him louder than ever.

“I think this is a clue,” he announced to them after a moment.

“For what?” said Colby.

“I have no idea. But think about it. There's that weird riddle about the sun and moon. And only one photo was taken? In the entire roll? Don't you find that sorta strange?”

“Seems like a stretch,” said Noodle. “Plus your dad said the riddle meant nothing.”

“Yeah, that's another piece. Didn't you guys think my dad was acting weird about this whole thing?”

Colby and Noodle shook their heads no, but Tom was on his feet now, pacing.

“You said it yourself, Noodle.
The Alchemy Treatise
is a recipe book for making gold. Maybe there's some kinda gold treasure hidden somewhere. And this book's the next clue.”

“Not sure I'm buying all that, but I guess the book's worth checking out,” said Noodle after a moment. “You got me sorta curious about it now.”

“Are you two out of your freaking minds?” Colby was looking back and forth between Tom and Noodle. “There's no treasure. It's just a photo and a dumb riddle. That's it.”