The Atomic Weight of Secrets or The Arrival of the Mysterious Men in Black (33 page)

As they drove down the road from Sole Manner Farm, the driver looked back at his burden in the boot of the carriage.

“Are you growing something?” asked the driver in the giant black sombrero hat.

Answers of “Yes” and “No” came from the cabin.

This did not seem to bother the driver, who took both answers as if they were one and continued, in silence, into town.

The five children remained quiet, too, for some time. Jasper watched as Lucy tilted her head to lean sleepily upon his shoulder.
Everyone else seemed tense, wearing various expressions of worry on their faces.

It was Wallace who caught Jasper’s attention. Wallace sat there, silent, his hands shoved deep in his pockets. As Jasper watched, tears welled up in his eyes.

“Wallace,” Jasper began, but quickly realized he wasn’t sure what to say.

“I’ve let her down, Jasper,” Wallace said, turning to the window. Then he said it again, this time in a whisper.

“You have not,” said Jasper.

“My birthday is in two days,” Wallace said.

“Right, it’s in two days,” Jasper said. “You have two days to put it back together and—”

“That’s not true,” Wallace said with an insistence that made him sound unusually forceful. “Those chemicals take weeks, months even, to formulate. I only got there after working on it for almost a year, and I’m still not finished. And I don’t know if I had it right this time, either. I ruined it. I dropped it on the floor.”

“You’ll do it.” Jasper was equally forceful. “You are a brilliant chemist, Wallace, and—”

“What’s Wallace on about?” Faye asked. “Is he crying because he didn’t get to finish his polymer?”

The carriage was now on its circuitous route around the neighborhood, growing closer and closer to their houses. Wallace had remained silent and Faye only noticed his tears when she leaned forward to see what street they were passing.

“It’s not that—well, not what you’re thinking,” Jasper said.

“Oh, honestly,” Faye said dismissively. “We’re all trying to save our parents from likely peril and Wallace is crying because
he didn’t get to finish his chemistry experiment.”

With that, Wallace climbed down from the carriage, which had stopped in front of his house. He left without a word, and without the help of the sombrero-wearing driver.

“What?” Faye responded to a look of cold disbelief. “It’s true. He was selfish and wanted to mess around with that experiment when we were trying to save our parents. He’s the reason we failed. He obviously doesn’t—”

But Jasper turned his back on her and followed Lucy out of the carriage, leaving Faye mid-sentence with a slightly confused, semi-awake Noah at her side.

Faye came out to the meadow looking for Jasper that evening. She pretended that she was just walking out there, after supper, but she really wanted to talk to Jasper. And she was unhappy about wanting to talk to him, too. She was mad at Jasper for not telling her whatever it was that Wallace had told him about the polymer, but she also knew that Wallace was clearly struggling with something.

As for Jasper, he had gone to the meadow to watch the fireflies and have a moment of quiet while Lucy had her bath. When he saw Faye coming, he almost hid behind the willow before she could see him. He realized, though, that this was a silly thing to do because she had probably come out to talk to him.

“What do you want, Faye?” he asked, not sure whether she really did want anything.

“What do you mean?” Faye said. “I just came out to... to watch
the fireflies.”

“Fine,” said Jasper, now certain Faye had come for him.

As they watched the fireflies in silence, Jasper steeled himself for the onslaught of accusations or complaints or whatever it was that Faye was pretending not to have brought with her to the meadow.

“I was wondering if you’ve spoken with Wallace,” Faye finally said.

“What do you mean?”

“He was upset—you know, unhappy,” Faye said.

“And?”

“And I was hoping he was all right.”

“I’m sure he’s fine,” Jasper said, focusing on a firefly that glowed in pulses. He thought it must be the language of light.

“Oh, well, if you spoke with him, then you know,” Faye said. She wanted to know what Jasper knew. But Jasper simply sat there and stared at the dratted fireflies.

“Jasper,” Faye said after several seconds of silence, “what is it about Wallace? Is he so obsessed with his experiment that he doesn’t care about anything else?”

“Are you trying to be cruel or is it just the way you are naturally?” Jasper asked, turning to look at Faye. Her face was lit by the moonlight. Her green eyes sparkled like glowing fireflies trying to communicate. But her beauty hid the nature that Jasper was sure lay just beneath those eyes. Faye cared for no one but Faye.

She opened her mouth, but no words came out. Jasper was glad for this, because he hadn’t finished.

“You don’t care how Wallace is feeling,” he said. “You don’t
care about anything. You were ready to leave that boy behind. You don’t even know what caring is, do you?”

“I... I... it’s just that... well, Wallace didn’t do anything—”

“He jolly well did. He helped us all with the—”

“You know perfectly well that none of his help was vital,” Faye said, without cruelty, only honesty. “We all could have and would have had equally helpful design ideas. We would not, however, have been able to make the propeller, the tail, the engine, or the wings without the rest of us. Wallace has been on the outside and I want to know why.”

Jasper wanted to yell back that she was wrong and that Wallace had been vital to saving their parents and had been an equal part, but Faye was right. It was what Wallace had been saying all along—that he was a chemist, not an engineer. His contributions were certainly helpful, and he may have seen things before the others, but nothing was particular to his genius. His genius was being spent on his own work—not theirs.

“Wallace has to do this, Faye,” Jasper finally said. “I can’t say why, but the boy lost his mum, and he has to do this. He has to finish, but... there’s only a couple days left to do it.”

“Why?” said Faye. “Why? I don’t understand, Jasper. It’s crazy. What, did his mother tell him he had to finish this before he turned ten?”

Jasper said nothing. Faye had found that grain of truth again and made it sound ugly. But it was the grain of truth from which the whole thing grew.

And suddenly, Faye knew it, too: what only Jasper had known.

Wallace’s mother had issued a proclamation before she died,
that Wallace would change the world by the age of ten. She surely meant to show her son how much she loved and believed in his brilliant mind, never expecting it would become something by which Wallace measured himself. The tenth birthday probably had not meant anything at all to her.

But it meant everything to Wallace.

Faye felt the power of a parent’s words—a parent who had died and gone and left her child with a promise that now, Faye understood, he would not be able to keep. Wallace had indeed tried to help them, but for him, there was always another challenge—the race to achieve something for a mother who would never see her son grow up and never know how hard he tried.

Faye ran back to her house so Jasper would not see the tears threatening to rain down in the meadow.

T
HE
D
ISTURBING
S
UBSTITUTION

OR

WHAT JUST FLEW IN

S
unday, which was Wallace’s birthday, came quickly. Faye was unusually quiet, everyone noticed, but no one said anything to her. Truthfully, most were glad to have a break from her bossiness. Jasper felt twinges of guilt for hurting Faye, but in truth, she had done it to herself. It was important for a person to know that other people had feelings, too.

Saturday had been spent working on various modifications. Faye had been especially kind to Wallace, asking his opinion about the wingspan and the weight ratio. By the end of the day, they were ready to test the aeroplane again. Loading the packages onto the carriage the following morning, the flappy-hatted, fuzzy boot-wearing driver simply placed the packages in the boot without question. The other driver must have given some explanation that was sufficient to prevent further inquiry.

Once they were back at school, it was plain that Miss Brett had plans. She’d placed fresh flowers around the classroom and had cut out papers to form letters that said “HAPPY BIRTHDAY WALLACE!”

Wallace was stunned. There was cake and candy apples and
honeyed milk for everyone. “Thank you, Miss Brett,” Wallace said while the others indulged.

“You are very, very welcome,” she said, kissing the birthday boy on the top of his head. Wallace closed his eyes. Not since his mother would wake him with kisses did he have such a gift. Today, the weight of his promise to her felt heavy in his stomach.

After Miss Brett’s birthday treats, the children used their time to reassemble the aeroplane and make some minor adjustments. They successfully flew three more times, although never more than thirty seconds. By the third flight, they were sure it was because they did not want to be seen—not because the aeroplane was incapable of flying longer. They then successfully hid the pieces in the crumbled silo, which they were certain would not be tidied up anytime soon. The gardening shed was now full of seedlings for winter lettuces, cabbage, and kale.

Miss Brett never asked, but they all knew she suspected they were up to something. As for the birdwatcher, they had seen nothing of him since their failed attempt to hitch a ride on the back of his truck. Lucy began to worry that the birdwatcher had not simply driven away.

On Friday morning, the weather was rather rainy. The sun made only a brief appearance, only once or twice peeking from behind the curtain of clouds. A wet chill hung in the air like a hostile audience, unwilling to depart. Miss Brett lit a fire in the kitchen and made thick vegetable potage. She served it with her delicious buttermilk biscuits for lunch. She and the children ate in the farmhouse and, after cleaning up and putting the dishes away, returned to the classroom for afternoon lessons and free time. While they enjoyed discussing new books, like
The
Wonderful Wizard of Oz
and
Five Children and It,
and how the stories were the same and different, thoughts of the aeroplane flew around their heads and distracted them from everything else. If only Miss Brett knew, it would be a fabulous surprise.