The Atomic Weight of Secrets or The Arrival of the Mysterious Men in Black (20 page)

“I know,” said Faye, “but this time she’s wrong. Why would we pass that statue more than once? There must be more than one of them.”

“Not another one on the street where the little barbershop sits next to the lovely lady with the flowers. And we’ve passed the same bicycle shop twice.”

Wallace pulled out the last butter biscuit. He divided it equally into five pieces and handed them out.

“Well, we sure seem to be mighty far from Sole Manner Farm. And it seems to be a long way from wherever we’re going,” Noah said, tossing the piece of biscuit into his mouth.

“Obviously,” said Faye.

Even as they spoke, though, Faye could see that they were once again coming around the corner and passing the green grocer and the statue.

“The idiot must be lost.” Faye reached forward to climb over the rear-facing seats and to knock on the driver’s window, but Lucy clapped her hands.

“Look, we’re almost there!” shouted Lucy. “There’s the duck pond and—”

“Our coachman is headed home,” said Noah.

“And here’s Hickory,” said Lucy, “and next will be Hawthorn and then—”

“Look,” said Faye, “that’s Hawthorn Street there! My mother spent her summers with her cousin Katharine around here somewhere.”

“Your cousin? How lovely,” said Lucy. “Perhaps we can visit her.”

“Well, perhaps,” Faye said, doubtfully, as the carriage turned
again.

“Oak!” cried Wallace, and in a sudden panic, he rummaged in his pocket.

“What’s wrong?” asked Noah.

“It’s just this,” Wallace said, struggling to pull from his pocket a folded piece of paper. He unfolded it, his hands almost shaking with excitement.

“What is it?” Faye asked.

“Now I understand,” Wallace said quietly, as if speaking to the paper.

Faye took the paper from Wallace’s hand. “‘One Oak’? That’s all it says?” she said.

“It’s my street. Address. It’s my house. Now I understand.”

“Understand what?” asked Faye, handing him back the paper.

“I understand the note my father left me. He gave it to me as the carriage he was in pulled away, but he never explained what it meant. It was my only clue.” Wallace looked again at the crumpled piece of paper. He read it and looked up.

He looked out the window as they passed a house, the only one on the block. And there was One Oak.

And there went One Oak.

“We’ve passed it, sir,” Wallace said. But the duckman ignored them and immediately turned the corner onto Maple. There was precisely one house on this block as well—One Maple—and again the driver went around the block, making a right onto Chestnut and passing by its one house. One Chestnut.

“Our street is next,” said Lucy, sitting on the edge of her seat. “I wonder if he’ll stop there.”

But he did not. Again he went around the corner, this time finally stopping at One Oak. As the duckman jumped from the carriage and threw down Wallace’s satchel, a very tall, thin woman came out of the door of One Oak, waving her long arms. Wallace stayed in his seat. The woman came right up to the carriage, without a glance at the coachman.

“Wallace?” She looked around.

“I’m Wallace,” Wallace said meekly.

“Well, you are, aren’t you? Look at you. I bet you’re starving. I’m your Daisy, and I’ll be taking care of you while you’re home for the weekend.”

“Is my father here?” Wallace asked hopefully.

“Well, no,” said Daisy. “Not yet.”

“We told you about that ‘not yet’ bit,” said Jasper quietly. “Don’t hold your breath.”

But Wallace stepped down and allowed Daisy to take his hand. With the other hand, she picked up his bag as if it weighed nothing, and Wallace followed her into the house.

For a moment, the others just stared. They had not been separated for a week.

“I miss Wallace,” said Lucy.

“You can’t miss him,” said Faye. “He’s been gone for all of thirty seconds.” But Faye, too, watched the door to One Oak close as the coachman jerked the reins.

The coach turned right and right again.

“That’s our house!” cried Jasper, pointing at One Elm, but the driver passed it. All these turns, Jasper decided, must have been some kind of security precaution. They were making sure no one was following.

The carriage drove around the block twice again, then stopped at One Maple. A plump, dark-haired woman with freckles all over her nose and cheeks came waddling down the walk to the carriage, all smiles and belly.

“Let me see my boy,” she said in a gruff but jolly tone. “Noah?”

“I’m Noah,” Noah said, raising a hand.

“Well, there you are. I’m Myrtle, and I’ll be doing the feeding and watering around here, me laddie. Come on,” she said as Noah climbed down. “Hmm, let’s see if we can’t fatten you up.” With a brisk wave back, Noah followed her into the house at One Maple.

Faye, Jasper, and Lucy sat in silence as the carriage drove thrice around the block.

“I suppose we’re neighbors, then,” Jasper finally offered as Faye stared out of the window.
She looks so alone,
thought Jasper.
I hope she’s let out before us so she doesn’t have to be the last.

But Jasper’s wish was not granted. The carriage pulled up and stopped at One Elm, and there was Rosie, clucking and waddling down the path.

“Um, want me to wait with you? I mean, on the ride around the block?” Jasper said to Faye. “I mean, it’s no bother, no bother at all. It’s only just around the block. I can walk home in a jiff.”

“No,” said Faye, “it’s just around the block as you say, and...” She faltered as Jasper stepped down from the carriage.

He paused, waiting for what would follow the “and.”

“Thanks,” said Faye. “Thanks for asking, I... I suppose.”

“Anytime,” Jasper said as he closed the door behind him. He could feel the flush rising in his cheeks. He could feel the warmth in his belly, and in his feet of all places.

“Come on, Jasper!” shouted Lucy. “We’ve got crumpets and
custard and blackberry jam.”

Jasper followed the call of food and the clucking of Rosie into the house they called home.

After they’d been filled with the most delicious treats, Wallace, Faye, and Noah discovered their homes for the first time. They each had a laboratory in their nursery. Faye had a drafting table and Wallace had burners and a large selection of chemicals for his experiments. To his immense pleasure, Noah found tools and gears and pistons to use in his own motor and engine experiments. He was less enthusiastic about the music room, complete with a music stand, sheet music, and rosin, all set up by the window.

Meanwhile, Jasper and Lucy wandered into their meadow—only now, they realized, the meadow was theirs to share with the others. Standing right in the center between all four houses, Jasper and Lucy concluded that it was still their private place—but private for all five of them.

“Will you look what the neighborhood dragged in?” shouted Noah from his back porch. As he ran down to meet Jasper and Lucy, Wallace emerged from his house as well. Soon, Faye had joined them.

“This is quite lovely,” Faye said. “I suppose.”

“Amazing,” said Noah. “Did old crotchety grumbletrousers just say something was lovely?”

“Oh, shut up, you idiot boy,” Faye said.

“Ah,” said Noah, “that’s the girl I know and loathe.”

Faye gave him a rude hand gesture, but could not completely hide the smile on her face. Noah was very funny. And the meadow was, after all, quite lovely.

That first weekend brought Faye an interesting mixture of comfort and concern. She was glad to have a room and a home of her own. She had her own laboratory and her own space, and she had her fellow scientists nearby. But she seemed haunted by fear for her parents.

Noah and Wallace understood Faye’s concern, but unlike Faye, both boys were rather sure their fathers voluntarily went wherever it was they had gone. Like Jasper and Lucy, who had the note from their parents, they wanted to believe that all would soon be revealed.

Faye could not, or would not, bring herself to believe that her parents had left her of their own free will. This had never been done to her, and therefore had not been done to her this time. She was resolute in her conclusion that her parents had been kidnapped, and she had to rescue them.

Still, even Faye enjoyed the weekend in what the children, referring to the neighborhood street names, dubbed their “tree houses.” They ran around the meadow during the day and explored each others’ houses at night. Daisy taught them to play draughts, explaining that she was always the best when she was a child back in Ireland, and Camelia, Faye’s nanny, taught them halma, which she said was much like a game called Hoppity that she, too, played as a child. Rosie taught them hopscotch, or Scotchhoppers.

“I’m quite fond of hopscotch,” said Lucy on Saturday, tracing the court with a piece of chalk on the stone patio out back. “It’s jolly fun.”

“Well, it is fun,” said Wallace, “and it is amusing. There’s no logic required—simply skill at tossing and hopping. Daisy showed me yesterday.”

“Well, sometimes cleverness doesn’t help us have fun.” Lucy handed Wallace a stone to toss and suggested he go first.

They even had an enormous picnic on Saturday afternoon, with Daisy, Myrtle, Camelia, and Rosie each bringing their specialties. There was a lot of laughing and playing and Lucy collecting wildflowers. With a coconut from Faye’s house, the children and their nannies played a makeshift form of bowling, knocking over a line of sticks balanced against one another. They played until it got dark. Jasper smiled to himself more than once when he caught Faye laughing as she tossed her stone in hopscotch or when she won at draughts. He got that tingle when she smiled, like the first time he met her, before she told him he was an idiot. Her beauty shined through her smile.

Their Sunday departure for Sole Manner Farm came more quickly than they had expected. Like Jasper and Lucy, Noah and Wallace felt they had homes of their own, and were no longer fearful of weekends away from Miss Brett. Faye had warm feelings, too, although she did not admit it. The weekend’s easy fun helped dispel some of her fears and distrust. The nannies were so lovely
and kind. The games were unforgettable, especially for Lucy.

With a hamper filled with onion tarts and caramel custards, Jasper and Lucy were the first in the carriage. The coachman wore an oddly square hat that seemed to come down below his chin so that his whole head looked like a living pillow, along with something like a black sheet over his entire body. He took their bags and tossed them in the trunk. Jasper and Lucy waved to Rosie until they turned the corner onto Chestnut, where Faye stood with a loaf of Camelia’s cinnamon raisin bread. Noah was next, with a very big hamper filled with sandwiches and five small pecan pies.

When they pulled up to One Oak, Wallace was sitting next to Daisy on the porch swing. His head leaned on her arm, because he was not tall enough to reach her shoulder. Daisy gently caressed his head and pointed to the carriage. Wallace sat up and walked with Daisy, who kissed him on the forehead before he climbed aboard.