The Atomic Weight of Secrets or The Arrival of the Mysterious Men in Black (35 page)

“Um, what was that question again?” Faye asked, hoping to stall until something better came to mind.

As the strong smell of boiling onions wafted through the kitchen and, she hoped, into the classroom, Miss Brett put her ear to the classroom door. She could hear the squeaking, growling voice of Reginald Roderick Kattaning. She then banged a few pots together and made some cooking-type noises before she tiptoed over to the tiny room where the telephone was kept.

“Blast you!” shouted Reginald Roderick Kattaning. “I want a report on the
thing
!”

“The thing?” asked Noah, innocently.

“The... blasted... snglrumpfrsss... grmblfrng...” Reginald Roderick Kattaning turned quite red. “The ruddy, the... the bloody thing, the
thing,
the pieces, the... the thing you used... and don’t any of you dare deny it... and that blasted machine that you have been so obviously busy working on and obviously successful in getting off the blasted ground! The thing!!!”

Trapped in the front row, both Wallace and Jasper suddenly wished they had brought umbrellas to shield them from the spittle that flew from the mouth of Reginald Roderick Kattaning.

“Well, I wouldn’t say successful, really,” Faye said. “Actually, it was a rather silly thing. You see, when I was in India, I had a little parrot. Well, it wasn’t my parrot. Actually, it
was
my parrot. Not exactly
my
parrot, more like—”

“Oh, shut up, shut up, will you?” Reginald Roderick Kattaning screeched. He began rubbing his temples with his long bony thumbs.

“Actually,” said Faye, looking reflective, “that brings to mind—”

“I said shut up!” Reginald Roderick Kattaning turned and pointed directly at Wallace. “You! Where is it, boy?!”

“I, sir, I... I... I’m sure I don’t—”

“Don’t ‘don’t’ me,” Reginald Roderick Kattaning said with a sneer. “Don’t you dare ‘I don’t’ me when you know I know you know you do, you know, I do, don’t you, hm?”

Wallace opened, then closed his mouth. He then opened it again, then closed it. He did this several times, like a fish.

“Oh, shut up, the lot of you!” Reginald Roderick Kattaning stood up, dropping his paper folder from his lap. In it was a long envelope he snatched up before anyone could see what was written on the front.

Well, not everyone. Lucy saw.

He grabbed Jasper by the throat and pulled the boy’s face right up to his own. The rest of the children were about to intervene when Reginald Roderick Kattaning dropped Jasper suddenly. He then brushed off his sleeves and attempted to regain
control of himself again. But the cruelty that had come through his eyes when he held Jasper in his grasp had not escaped any of the children.

He spoke in a hissing whisper. “I want you all to pick up your pencils and write one hundred times, ‘I will obey Mr. Reginald Roderick Kattaning and tell him what he asks.’ Right now, all of you,” he said. Grumbling to himself, he muttered, “Think they’re so clever... think I won’t get what I came for... blasted smelly little children...”

Meanwhile, on the other side of the door, Miss Brett had concerns of her own. The problem was this: She had no idea how to use a telephone. On three occasions, she had been handed a telephone and spoken into the mouthpiece—twice at the home of a friend of her parents, and once in the lobby of an office building when a call was placed to an upstairs office. In each case, she was able to hear someone respond on the other end. It was very exciting.

On one other occasion, she had seen a call placed and received. In fact, there had been a demonstration in front of a shop near her boarding house. One man stood on one side of the street and another man stood on the other. The first man picked up the earpiece and spoke into the mouthpiece connected to the stand. She hadn’t heard what the first man said, because she was on the other side of the street next to the second man. Moments later, however, an alarm bell had sounded on the phone next to her and the man picked it up. She was thrilled to see the whole thing
in action. Several people had signed up right then and there to get their own telephones in their own homes. Obviously, the more people who had them, the better. At the time, she had been excited about the idea of these modern devices and would have loved to have one, but she hadn’t the money or the proper home. She hadn’t known anyone who had a telephone, either. And after her parents died, there really hadn’t been anyone to call.

But still, there in the farmhouse of Sole Manner Farm, she had to try. Miss Brett tried the door to the little room. It was locked. She had forgotten. She had placed the small key in a jar above the kitchen sink. She went to get it, hesitating when she heard Reginald Roderick Kattaning shouting at the children. She wanted to run in and demand he leave at once, or remove the imposter by force, or at least dump the great big boiling pot of onion water on his head. She was so angry at herself for not having been forceful from the start, leaving the children alone with that man. But he had crushed a rock with his fist. She had taken that to be a threat. Any overt action on her part could put them all at risk. If she was going to help the children, she would have to make the “unless” call. And she would have to do it now.

She took the little key and opened the door to the tiny room. There sat the glowingly red telephone. She approached it gingerly, looking to one side, then the other. She leaned toward it.

“Hello?” she whispered, looking around to see if anyone but the telephone had heard her. She waited a moment, then cleared her throat.

“Hello?” she said in a strong voice—not too loud, she hoped.

There was still no answer. Of course—how foolish of her. One had to pick up the earpiece and speak into the mouthpiece in
order to be heard. She did just that.

“Hello?” she said into the mouthpiece. “Hello? Please, somebody.” She listened and waited. Still there was no reply.

She sat on the floor next to the contraption, the earpiece still in her hand.
Think, think,
she thought. What had the man on the other side of the street done before speaking? She looked at the telephone and jiggled the little arm that held the earpiece.

“Hello?” came a voice in her ear.

“Oh, hello, yes, hello, hello,” Miss Brett said excitedly, before remembering the mouthpiece. “Hello, hello, hello.”

“Enough hello, Miss Brett. What is happening?” The voice sounded gruff but concerned.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” said Miss Brett, at once quite shocked to hear her name and quite glad to be recognized. “You see, there is a man—”

“A man?” The voice went up an octave.

“Yes, he’s in the classroom and—”

“In the classroom?” The voice went even higher, now almost shouting into Miss Brett’s ear.

“I’m terribly afraid. I didn’t think he was one of your people. You see, Lucy thought she saw—”

But now Miss Brett heard a jumble of voices, all talking frantically at once, and quite a bit of confusion on the other end of the receiver.

Then she heard a door slam shut. But the slamming door was not in her earpiece. The slamming door came from the kitchen.

Reginald Roderick Kattaning had been pacing back and forth, mumbling rude things about the children. The children, on their end, were doing their part to foil him. Jasper wrote as slow as humanly possible while still appearing to move his hand. As Faye sat, pretending to contemplate the meaning of the assignment, doodling pictures of Reginald Roderick Kattaning in various states of peril, Lucy and Wallace each tried to write as quietly and neatly as possible. Both of them were terrified that Reginald Roderick Kattaning would again lose his temper and do someone physical harm.

Noah, meanwhile, wrote a note, which he tried to get to Jasper. Jasper was able to grab it subtly. It said, “Patrol will see him! They’ll help us!”

Jasper passed this to Faye, who nodded.

The children now found themselves in the strange position of hoping the men in black would come and save them.

But the note came back from Lucy, who shook her head. “Friday,” the note said. “No patrol.”

As his pacing became stomping, Reginald Roderick Kattaning walked over to the door connecting the house to the classroom. He sniffed the air and muttered something, rubbing his belly. He opened the door to the kitchen and peeked inside. Suddenly, he slammed it shut and ran out of the classroom.

All pencils stopped. Several moments passed before anyone could even move. Of all the things that could have happened, the abrupt departure of Reginald Roderick Kattaning was utterly unexpected.

“What happened?” Jasper said.

“Do you think he’s gone?” asked Noah.

“I hope so,” said Lucy, looking at her brother with the deepest of doubts.

The children looked out the empty doorway through the field to the quiet road. The Daytonic Birdwatching Society motorcar was nowhere to be seen. And there was no sign of their unwanted visitor. But none of the children believed they had seen the last of Reginald Roderick Kattaning.

“Sorry. What was that?” asked Miss Brett into the mouthpiece.

The voice in the phone said something, but it sounded very strange. They may have been words in another language, she thought.