The Atomic Weight of Secrets or The Arrival of the Mysterious Men in Black (43 page)

T
HE
B
ACK OF
K
OMAR
R
OMAK

OR

THE MAN WHO WASN’T THERE

T
he children climbed into the kitchen and ran to Miss Brett.

“That was marvelous, children. You’re all so brave,” Miss Brett said as they untied her from her chair.

“Wallace was the real hero,” said Faye.

“You were all heroes,” said Miss Brett.

Wallace said nothing as he continued to untie the ropes.

The ropes, once unknotted, fell away easily, and once Miss Brett was off the floor, the students and their teacher all clambered to tie up Reginald Roderick Kattaning before he came to.

“For such a skinny man, he sure is hard to move,” Noah said as the six of them dragged Reginald Roderick Kattaning’s unconscious bulk across the kitchen floor.

“Let’s put him in the telephone room,” Miss Brett said. “It’s the only room that can be locked from the outside.”

Folding their gangly burden, they managed to get Reginald Roderick Kattaning into the tiny room, shutting the door just before they heard a low groan. Miss Brett turned the lock and put the key back on the shelf where she kept it.

“He’s likely to wake up any minute,” said Miss Brett. Then she turned to look at her five charges and gathered all of them into
her arms. “I was so worried.”

“We were worried about you,” said Lucy, wiping her eyes.

“Worried about me? I was fine,” she said, a bit too quickly. “Well, I was all right until last night. When he didn’t come back Friday evening, I thought he had gone for good. I tried to reconnect the telephone wires.”

That explained why they had been so badly twisted when Jasper went to reattach them.

“Saturday, for most of the day, I tidied the kitchen and cleaned the house,” Miss Brett said. “I wanted to alert the people in charge of all this that we might have trouble, but they should already have known. I told them on Friday, before Reginald Roderick Kattaning cut the telephone wires.”

“We never saw any of those men in black hanging around our houses,” Faye said. “If they were supposed to be helping us or protecting us or keeping an eye on things, they never checked on us.”

“They gave us Rosie,” said Lucy, “and Rosie could lift a horse if she wanted, all on her own, I bet.”

“They never even came for us,” Wallace told Miss Brett.

“They probably wanted to keep you from coming back here, in case our unwanted visitor returned,” Miss Brett said.

“Well, I... it does seem... Well, you might be right,” said Faye. “It seems like they may have wanted to protect us. Perhaps.”

“But what about you?” asked Lucy, mortified, tugging at Miss Brett’s sleeve. “Didn’t they want to protect you?”

“Well...” Miss Brett considered her words carefully. “I don’t think they didn’t care about me. I’m sure they were planning something,” Miss Brett said. “Saturday night, as I was sitting at
the kitchen table here, I heard all manner of noises coming from the classroom. When I went to look, Reginald Roderick Kattaning grabbed me and tied me up with that rope.” She rubbed her wrists and stretched her neck.

“You spent the night sitting in that chair?” Faye asked.

“Yes, and my neck is quite stiff.” Miss Brett rubbed her own shoulders. “He just ranted and raved at me until, well, until I fell asleep. When I woke this morning, he was still pacing and grumbling and screaming about some
thing.
‘The THING!’ he kept shouting. It must have been the aeroplane,” she said. “My goodness, he was at it all night.”

The children looked at one another—all except Lucy, who instead looked out the open window. In the distance, she could see a cloud of dust along the road. She pulled out her spyglass to get a better look. Everyone stopped talking.

“What is it, Lucy?” asked Noah.

“It looks like a big black automobile. No, two. No, wait—there are at least six motorcars coming down the road,” she said, counting clouds of dust.

“Well, it’s probably the directors or whoever those men in black are,” said Miss Brett, straightening her skirt. “Thank goodness. Now we can turn over that awful Reginald Roderick Kattaning and find out what all of this means. And I want to ask what that gibberish meant that they were saying over the telephone.”

“Gibberish?” said Wallace.

“Yes, they said something like ‘crowbar roback’ or ‘gomart lotack’ or—”

“Komar Romak?” said Lucy.

Everyone looked at her.

“Yes,” said Miss Brett excitedly, “that’s what they kept shouting. What on earth does that mean?”

“And how do you know about it?” asked Jasper.

“It was written on the envelope Reginald Roderick Kattaning had in class. I saw it when he dropped it. It just said ‘Komar Romak’ and nothing else.”

“What does it mean?” asked Miss Brett.

“I don’t know,” said Lucy. “I only saw it written on the envelope.”

“Is it a place?” said Wallace.

“It could be something in another language,” said Miss Brett.

“Or a code word,” said Jasper.

“They’re coming!” Faye exclaimed, pointing out the window. “The nannies must have turned us in.”

“Don’t be silly. They’d never turn us in,” Noah said, “unless they thought they were helping us.”

Six motorcars drove up the long road to the farmhouse, followed by several now familiar black carriages.

They all hurried toward the door. Miss Brett stopped only to check that the lock on the telephone room was secure.

Miss Brett and the children stood on the front steps of the schoolhouse and waited as the large black motorcars came to a halt in front of them. Each motorcar contained four of the men in black, all of whom emerged at once, like a river of black seeping through every car door.

Miss Brett and the children recognized many of the men, although not all. There was the man in a lady’s bonnet and the man in the inner tube. There was the man in the black nightie
and the man with the black beret. There was the man in the black fur coat and the man with the wooly jumper, as well as the man in the lady’s floral hat.

“That’s the man who was jumping on Mummy’s bed,” Lucy whispered to Jasper, pointing to the man in the velvet hat.

There were several men in black bowler hats and long coats and three in top hats. To her surprise, Faye saw the man in the turban.

The man in the black fur coat walked up to Miss Brett. “Where is he?” he asked in a deep, accented voice.

“Reginald Roderick Kattaning?” she asked.

“Who?” the fur man asked.

“Reginald Roderick Kattaning? The man who was here?”

“Yes,” the fur man answered gruffly, “the man who was here.”

“We’ve locked him in the telephone room,” she said, stepping aside.

“Locked him?” the fur man asked in surprise.

“Yes,” said Miss Brett defensively. “He had me tied to a chair all night and was very rough with the children. We had to protect ourselves.”

“He is locked?” the fur man asked again. Then, with a grunt, he pushed past Miss Brett. “We shall see,” he said.

Miss Brett and the children followed the fur man to the telephone room door.

“Open, please,” the fur man said.

Miss Brett took the key from her apron pocket and unlocked the door.

The room was totally empty. A pile of rope sat in a heap on the floor. Lucy pointed at something beside it, which looked very
much like a small caterpillar. Upon closer inspection, however, it was half of a brown moustache.

“But... but... I... I...” Miss Brett stammered. “Children, you saw... you were there... we all... he was—”

“Yes, we all saw,” said Faye, reaching for Miss Brett’s hand, giving it a gentle squeeze.

“How is this possible?” said Wallace. “We haven’t had the door out of sight for a minute.”

Miss Brett looked up. About nine feet up on the wall was a tiny window.

“Not even Lucy could fit through that,” said Jasper. “Even if she could reach it.”

“This is impossible,” said Noah, shaking his head.

“Komar Romak,” said the man in the black swimsuit who had come to see.

“Komar Romak,” said the fur man.

“Komar Romak?” asked the bonnet-wearing man.

“Komar Romak,” said the man with the black inner tube, looking up at the impossibly small window.

“Komar Romak?” said Miss Brett. “What on earth is Komar Romak?”

“What Komar Romak is not,” said the man in the bonnet.

“What it is not
what?”
asked Noah.

“Not what,” said the bonnet-wearing man.

“What
is not what?” said Jasper, now utterly baffled.

“It,” said the fur man.

“What?” the children asked at once.

“Not it,” said the inner tube man.

“I am asking what Komar Romak is,” Miss Brett said, calmly
and slowly. “Does it mean something in another language? What is it?”

“Not
it,”
said the fur man, rather more emphatically than before, looking at the other men in black, clearly as frustrated as the children and Miss Brett.

Miss Brett took a deep breath, and was about to start again when Lucy asked,
“Who
is Komar Romak?”

“Yes,” said the bonnet-wearing man. “Yes, who.”

“All right,” said Miss Brett, addressing the fur man,
“who,
pray tell, is Komar Romak?”

All of the men in black standing near the doorway looked up in unison, pointing to the window above.

“Him?” Miss Brett pointed up. “Reginald Roderick Kattaning?”

“No,” said the man in the black nightie, “Komar Romak.”

“Who is he?” asked Noah.

“We cannot say,” said the nightie man.

“We mustn’t,” said the fur man. Miss Brett could see fear in his eyes.

“Is he really so very bad?” asked Jasper.

“So very bad,” said the inner tube man, adjusting his inner tube as one might adjust a collar growing too tight under pressure, “and what is not alone.” The inner tube squeaked like a duck as the man shifted under the immediate gaze of his comrades.

“What is not alone?” asked Wallace.

“No!” shouted several men in black.

“But what can we—”

Miss Brett was cut off immediately by the bonnet-wearer, putting a finger to his lips. “We must go now,” he said. The fur man
picked up the telephone and spoke in whispered tones, inaudible to Miss Brett and the children.

“Everything must go now,” said a bowler hat-wearing man. “Now, we go now.”

Miss Brett and the children scrambled to collect their things. Within minutes, the children were all in a large car, once again headed somewhere. Miss Brett was in the car right behind. The children thought they must be going home, at least to one home or another. But they had been wrong before.

T
HE
Y
OUNG
I
NVENTORS
O
N
T
HE
M
OVE