The Atomic Weight of Secrets or The Arrival of the Mysterious Men in Black (9 page)

OR

JASPER AND LUCY FIND THEIR PLACES

J
asper and Lucy systematically took their clothing, piece by piece, and placed the lot into travel bags. They didn’t even have the emotional strength to tell Rosie they did not want her help, so she busied herself refolding and brushing off everything they had packed.

Jasper’s silence was simply because he could not find the words for protesting yet another departure. But Lucy had a ghostly quality to her, a kind of dark sadness that hung about her like a shadow. Her silence worried Jasper. She had been so eager for answers.

“Lucy.” Jasper touched her hand. Rosie had just left the room to fetch clothes hanging on the clothesline in the garden. Lucy, while refolding her yellow nightdress, had slowed to a stop. She simply stood there, mid-sleeve, looking up at her brother, then quickly down at the floor, neatly placing the sleeve of the nightdress in a fold.

“Lucy,” Jasper repeated.

Lucy slowly raised her head. Her eyes were full of tears.
Jasper put his arm around her and she fell onto his chest in great shuddering sobs.

“Oh, Jasper!” she cried, unable to say anything else for nearly a full minute. Taking a deep breath when she finally could, Lucy looked up at her brother searchingly. “It... it’s our fault, isn’t it? It’s all our fault.”

“What do you mean, our fault? Of course it isn’t our fault.”

“It’s our fault they’re sending us away,” she said. “It’s our fault they’re taking us away from Rosie. It’s our fault they’re taking us away from where Mummy and Daddy might come and... and... and...” But she could not continue.

“Oh, Lucy,” Jasper said, taking his sister by the shoulders, “don’t be such a silly thing. It’s never been our fault. Those men were planning to take us to school all along.”

“But they came right after we rang the bell. And we did it and we made them angry and we shouted at Rosie and the men came right away and we made them come because we shouted and made Rosie sad and—”

“Hold on there, Luce,” Jasper said. “No one knows about the bell but us. And we have been shouting at Rosie, but...” Jasper swallowed hard and felt the pang of guilt in his belly. “Well, they’ve obviously been planning to send us to school. I’m sure of it. Rosie may have even mentioned it to us.”

“To you? She never mentioned it to me, Jasper.”

“Well, no. But she never sent for them, I bet. They just... had to set it up. That’s it—they had to find the right school for us to attend.” Jasper didn’t know what he was really saying. He just didn’t want Lucy to blame herself.

“But now we’ve lost Rosie.” Lucy’s eyes were full of tears.

“Nonsense, my precious girl,” said Rosie, standing at the door with an armful of clean laundry. She dropped her bundle onto the bed and pulled the children to her. Rosie was a strong woman and, in her arms, they would have been hugging her whether they had wanted to or not, which they did. “My sweet children, my darlings, my dears, my sweet
clann,”
she said, “never for a moment can you think I’d deliver you into the hands of harm. Upon the weekends, I shall be here, with treacle tarts and Yorkshire pudding and clotted cream and cakes and roasts and pies and everything this old pair of hands can make to fill your bellies. I’ll be here to sing you to sleep and to sing you to wake. You’ll be back in my arms, right soon...” She kissed them both and they could each feel the tears falling onto the tops of their heads.

“Will you make hot chocolate and honey biscuits?” asked Lucy. She hadn’t had an appetite for days, but suddenly she was famished.

“Well, we don’t have to wait for the weekend,” said Rosie. “Let’s have some hot chocolate right now.” Rosie hurried off to the kitchen to prepare a late hot chocolate for the children.

The morning came and found the children with renewed fears. This time they were not afraid that they would not be returning to Rosie. This time they were afraid of what lay ahead. Neither Modest child could think of a single pleasant school experience, other than the end of term and the subsequent departure. No, the idea that they were going to be sent to a school in which a new set
of children were at this very moment preparing to hate them was not an idea they looked forward to.

It was with that weighing on their shoulders that Jasper and Lucy walked solemnly out of the house at One Elm Street, the sound of Rosie’s clucking right behind. As she left, Lucy bent and picked a small flower growing between the paving stones and waved it at Rosie, who, in turn, waved her hankie at the children.

Jasper and Lucy climbed into the waiting carriage. Actually, there were two waiting carriages, one driven by a man wearing dark glasses, a black cape, and a bullfighter’s hat that appeared to have actual horns coming out of either side, the other by a driver who seemed to be so short that he’d have a hard time seeing over the knee guard on the coachman’s seat. That said, his hat was so tall it seemed it would stretch higher than the man himself, if they were placed side by side. Like his fluffy jumper and ballooning trousers, the hat was black. His glasses, or rather goggles, were black, too.

The children were led by the bullfighter who, unlike the other driver, stepped down from his perch and took their satchels.

“Where is this school?” asked Jasper, as the bullfighter coachman opened the carriage door.

“Yes,” said the coachman, who closed the door behind them.

Jasper did not ask anything else.

Once the carriage began to move, Rosie waddled out to the street and waved them away with her hankie. Lucy climbed up to the back window and waved until Rosie was out of sight. Then Lucy slid down into her seat and clung to Jasper’s arm.

Jasper looked down at his sister and gave her the most forced smile he had ever had to muster in his life. He looked out of the
window so she wouldn’t see the tears in his eyes.

Jasper was startled awake. He was in the carriage with Lucy who, asleep, had been drooling from the corner of her mouth onto Jasper’s shirt, which was wet where the drool had pooled.

For a moment, Jasper could not remember where he was. For a moment, he thought everything had been a dream—the move, the boat, the train, the house, Rosie, the men in black—and he was in a carriage with his parents.

But then, he blinked, and it all came back to him in a giant leap. It was real.

Outside, the city had become more countryside, and the other carriage was no longer following. He wondered when they had separated and why there had been two when it had only been Lucy and himself.

Without warning, the carriage turned. Jasper caught sight of a rusted old gate ahead, standing in front of a long drive through fields and an orchard. There was an old sign, half hidden by a willow tree. The hinges on one side were broken, having rusted away. The sign said “Sole Manner Farm.” It may have even said “Sole Manner Farm School” at one time, but it was impossible to tell because that part of the sign had broken away and what looked like an “S” may just have been an impression on the wood. And there was some other kind of writing on the sign, too, or perhaps it was the only remains of a pattern running along the bottom edge.

Whatever it said didn’t matter to Jasper when he saw the
farmhouse at the far side of the field. Lucy stirred.

“I think we’re here,” Jasper said, allowing his sister to wake of her own accord.

“Where’s here?” asked Lucy with a yawn. “Are we lost?”

“I think it’s the school,” Jasper said, “or the farm. I think we’re on a farm, but we’ve definitely come on purpose. I doubt we’re lost.”

Lucy clambered up to see through the window.

“It’s lovely,” she said, admiring the orchard and watching the birds drift on the breeze.

Jasper saw the birds, too, and the fields, and he understood what Lucy was seeing.

“It
is
lovely,” he said. And it was.

“Lovely” was an excellent description. The smell of apples yet to ripen and late berries at the end of their season filled the carriage. Lucy pulled down a window so they could breathe in the fresh air. There were none of the dirty smells of the city. Here, you could fill your lungs without smelling smokestacks or tanneries or glue factories. Here, there was nothing but air to breathe.

As they pulled up to the farmhouse, Jasper could see that there was a classroom. The farmhouse had a second building, and Jasper guessed that was where they would sleep. Farther back, he could see this place really was a farm, a working farm, with a barn, a henhouse, acres of green, a potting shed, and an old silo that had fallen into rubble,

Lucy pointed and gasped. Jasper followed the line of her
finger. There, standing in the doorway of what was clearly the schoolhouse, was a very lovely young woman.

“She’s beautiful,” Lucy said, practically breathing the words instead of speaking them.

Whether she was beautiful or not, Jasper could not tell, but the woman’s smile made him agree. It was a smile that said everything was going to be all right. Jasper wished he could believe it.

The woman approached the carriage, and her smile broadened as she saw little Lucy struggling to keep her eyes above the bottom of the window ledge.

“You’re like a princess,” Lucy said.

“Well, thank you, sweet angel. I’m so glad you’ve come,” said the woman. “And this is your brother? Welcome. I’m Miss Brett. I’m your teacher.” Her fair hair was pulled back into a braid, but several strands had escaped and framed her face as they fell. She had eyes the color of the darkening summer sky.

She did not wait for the coachman to open the door. Instead, the coachman threw her an indistinct look and went to fetch the baggage.

Jasper and Lucy stepped down from the carriage with Miss Brett holding their hands. Once they were down, Miss Brett knelt to meet Lucy’s gaze, eye to eye.

“I’m Lucy,” said Lucy.

“I’m Jasper,” Jasper said.

“Yes you are,” said Miss Brett, smiling, standing now and guiding the children to the schoolhouse. “We’ve been waiting for you...”

The classroom was marvelous to behold. There were microscopes and telescopes and, on one table, all manner of test tubes, burettes, and burners. On opposite corners of the ceiling, there were also paper flowers and a great paper sun and moon. There were shelves of books and rows of puzzles.