This Book Is Not Good For You (10 page)

As soon as Simone woke, she knew she was not alone.

Her vision was too blurred to see who—or what—was in the cell with her. She only hoped it wasn’t the mamba.

“ --, ---’ -- -------! ---’ -- ---- ------ --- -----.”

It wasn’t a snake; it was a woman. Talking to her. In English.

Simone had been trying to learn the language by reading the old newspapers in her cell—most of them were in English—but the woman was speaking too fast for her to understand.

Shakily, Simone sat up and tried to make her eyes focus. She had a headache so excruciating it felt like a drill was boring into her skull.

At least I’m alive, she thought. Somehow, she had recovered from eating that dark and terrible chocolate. That last Palet d’Or.

“Can you speak more slowly?” she asked. “I speak English very little.”

“I said, oh, you’re awake. You’ve been asleep for hours,” answered the woman. “I’m Melanie. What’s your name?”

“Simone.”

“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Simone. I’m glad to see you’re OK.”

Gradually, Simone’s eyesight was returning. Her cell looked much the same as it always had. Grim and gray.

The woman—Melanie—was sitting against the wall on the opposite side of the cell. Her hair was bedraggled and her shirt was torn. She looked tired. And scared.

“Are you a supertaster, too?” Simone asked.

“A what?”

“Do they make you taste the chocolate?”

Melanie shook her head, confused. “No…”

“So then why are you here?”

“I’ve been asking myself the same question.”

Now that she was fully conscious, Simone was remembering more and more about her excruciating experience eating the chocolate. And about the memories—of her past, of her family, of her home—that the chocolate had brought back to her.

A tear slid down her cheek.

“Has the bird been here?” she asked.

She didn’t know why it seemed important, but it did. She could tell by the sky that it was late in the afternoon. A full day had passed. Or had it been several days? There was no way to tell.

“Bird?”

“A green bird with a long tail?”

“Oh! Yes. About an hour ago. He kept squawking. He seemed angry.”

“He has hunger. He has anger if you do not feed him.”

“Just like my daughter.” Melanie smiled—sadly. “And they keep you here… to taste chocolate? Against your will?”

Simone nodded.

Melanie was silent a moment, absorbing this strange and terrible information.

“Where are your parents?” she asked finally.

“I do not know. For three years.”

“They must miss you very much.”

“Then why did they give me to these bad people?” Simone blurted out.

“I don’t know,” said Melanie. “But I bet it was because they love you and they thought you would have a better life with them. If your parents knew what it was like, I’m sure they would try to rescue you.”

“You think so?” asked Simone in small voice.

Melanie crawled over and grasped Simone’s hands. “Yes, I think so.”

Simone smiled gratefully. “Your daughter misses you, too. I know it.”

“I just hope she’s OK. She’s a tough girl, but she’s never been on her own for such a long time.…” Melanie trailed off. “The last time I saw her, we had a fight. Well, not a fight really. But we were angry at each other. She said… she said I wasn’t her real mother… I adopted her, you see.”

Simone nodded. “Probably she is not angry at you. Probably she is angry at her old parents. For giving her away.”

Melanie looked at Simone in surprise. “I never thought of that! You may be right.”

She released Simone’s hands. “Where did you grow up?”

“The countryside. East of Abidjan.”

“Abidjan? That’s in Africa, isn’t it?”

Simone laughed. Was this woman serious? “Who does not know where Abidjan is? It’s the biggest city in the country.”

“What country?”

“This country. The Cote d’Ivoire.”

The older woman looked shocked. “We’re in the Cote d’Ivoire? I had no idea we traveled so far…”

Simone thought about it: all this time, she’d simply assumed they were in her home country. But she’d been asleep when she arrived. She had no idea how far she’d traveled either.

“Actually, I don’t know where we are,” she admitted.

In truth, they could be far, far from Abidjan. They could be anywhere in the world.

“You there! Get up!” Daisy was outside their cage, turning the lock.

“Me?” Melanie asked.

“Yes, you. They want to talk to you.”

“Whatever you do, don’t eat any chocolate,” Simone whispered.

Melanie nodded and stood shakily to her feet.

A short time later, a wretched-looking Mel was escorted out of the Tasting Room.

“Just like I thought—that woman knows nothing,” said Dr. L. “Why is she here? It’s her daughter we want.”

“Precisely, darling,” said Ms. Mauvais. “Precisely.”

“I see.” Dr. L smiled thinly. “Nice work, Hugo.”

The chef bowed his head, his dark glasses glinting.

*?*?*?SECRET MESSAGE?*?*?*

DEAR READER:

DO NOT BE ALARMED!

WE WRITE TO YOU WITHOUT THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE WRITER OF THIS BOOK—THAT SHAMELESS CRETIN WHO CALLS HIMSELF PSEUDONYMOUS BOSCH. HOPEFULLY, YOU WILL FIND THIS NOTE BEFORE HE DOES.

PSEUDONYMOUS BOSCH IS NOT WHO HE SAYS HE IS. HE IS A LIAR AND A FRAUD. DO NOT BELIEVE A WORD HE WRITES.

THE MIDNIGHT SUN IS NOT AN EVIL ORGANIZATION OF BLOODTHIRSTY ALCHEMISTS. WE ARE A PEACEFUL GROUP OF DOCTORS AND SPIRITUALISTS WHO HAPPEN TO SHARE A PASSIONATE LOVE OF GLOVES.

IT IS TRUE THAT WE WANT TO KNOW THE SECRET. BUT IT IS ONLY BECAUSE WE WANT TO SHARE ITS FRUITS WITH THE WORLD.

THE TERCES SOCIETY PRETENDS TO GUARD THE SECRET OUT OF PRINCIPLE, BUT IN REALITY THEY ARE SELFISH AND GREEDY AND WANT IT FOR THEMSELVES. IT IS THE TERCES SOCIETY THAT MUST BE STOPPED!

WE INVITE YOU TO COME TO ONE OF OUR MEETINGS AND FIND OUT FOR YOURSELF. YOU WILL BE SURPRISED BY HOW MUCH WE CAN OFFER A PERSON LIKE YOU.

A LONG LIFE—A VERY LONG LIFE—IS ONLY THE BEGINNING.

SECRETLY,

THE MIDNIGHT SUN

Family dinner. Now that was an oxymoron, thought Max-Ernest.

Never once in his life had he experienced anything like a family dinner.

Dinner with his parents?—yes.

Dinner as a family?—no.

For years, he and his parents had all lived in the same house. Every night, they’d all eaten at the same time and at the same table. But it was never the same dinner. Never a family dinner.

Rather than share, his mother had made one dinner, his father another.

Night after night, his parents sat across from each other, refusing to acknowledge each other’s existence let alone each other’s food. Max-Ernest, meanwhile, had been expected to eat everything: his mother’s dinner and his father’s.

The result: a lot of stomachaches.

Things had improved slightly last year when his parents had—literally—split their house down the middle, his father moving his half-house across the street. Now Max-Ernest could go back and forth between his two dinners rather than having to eat them both at once.

Tonight, though, something radical was going to take place. He and his mother and his father were all going to have dinner together.

As a family.

The same dinner.

That was the plan, anyway.

It all started with Max-Ernest’s allergies:

Tonight, like all Tuesday nights, was supposed to be spaghetti night in both Max-Ernest’s half-households. Due to his wheat allergy, Max-Ernest could eat only gluten-free pasta. Unfortunately, all the gluten-free spaghetti was gone last Sunday when Max-Ernest’s mother went to the supermarket. Why? Because Max-Ernest’s father had taken the last package. As Max-Ernest’s mother learned when she found herself in line behind Max-Ernest’s father at the checkout stand.

There was, by all reports, a brief tussle that ended in gluten-free spaghetti spilling all over the supermarket floor. Who was at fault Max-Ernest would never learn because, strangely, each of his parents blamed him- or herself:

“I don’t know what came over me,” said his mother. “I just grabbed at that box as if it was the last spaghetti on earth. I’m ashamed of myself. Everybody was staring!”

“I felt so foolish,” said his father. “We were squabbling like two-year-olds in a sandbox. The whole store was looking at us! Why I couldn’t just give that box to your mother I’ll never know.”

Max-Ernest had trouble imagining the conversation that ensued after the spaghetti spill; he’d never heard his parents say more than two or three words to each other. But, apparently, instead of escalating the fight, his parents had reconciled. At least to the point of agreeing to have dinner together. At a restaurant, naturally. So they wouldn’t fight over who was to cook or whose half-house to eat at.

For years, Max-Ernest had dreamed of something like this. But now that it was really happening, he felt nauseous. He wouldn’t be able to eat a thing, he thought. Gluten-free or otherwise.

There were simply too many obstacles to navigate.

Left undecided, for example, was whether the three of them would drive to the restaurant in one car or two. If one car, what if his parents fought on the way and they never made it to dinner? If two, whose car would Max-Ernest go in?

And that was just getting there.

At the restaurant, would he be expected to eat two dinners as he was accustomed to (but which seemed excessive under the circumstances) or would he be permitted to order just one dinner? Would he be able to talk to both his parents at once for the first time? Would one parent be offended if he talked to the other?

Family dinner.

Correction: not an oxymoron, a nightmare, Max-Ernest thought.

As it turned out, all Max-Ernest’s worries were for naught.

Just two minutes and thirty-five seconds before they were supposed to leave—yes, he was counting the seconds—a teary-eyed Cass arrived on his mother’s half-doorstep.

“It’s an emergency,” she whispered. “Wherever you were going, tell your mom you can’t go!”

“Great!” exclaimed Max-Ernest. “That’s totally… great!”

“Wait, now are you being sarcastic?”

“No, I just didn’t want to have to go to dinner.…”

When he spoke to his parents, Max-Ernest received an even bigger shock than he’d received when his parents announced the dinner plans in the first place:

“No problem—we’ll be fine without you!” said his mother, smiling at his father. “There’s leftover tabbouleh in the fridge. Or your father can give you money for delivery. He’s always so generous!”

“Great—enjoy your night at home!” said his father, smiling at his mother. “Order in if you want. But your mom’s tabbouleh looks terrific! That’s what I’d have…”

A moment later, they waved good-bye as cheerfully as if they’d been planning on dinner for two all along.

Overnight, his parents had gone from acting like their whole worlds revolved around their son to being completely indifferent to his presence.

What had happened?

Max-Ernest didn’t know whether to be happy or sad or disappointed or relieved or grateful or angry.

So he decided to save emotions for later.

As a place for a young survivalist—or anyone else—to find comfort, Max-Ernest’s mother’s half-house left something to be desired. It was an elegant but cold place decorated with hard, sharp objects. More troublingly, an entire side of the half-house was boarded up with plywood where Max-Ernest’s father’s half-house had been sawn off. Navigating the half-house was difficult for anyone who wasn’t used to it (and sometimes even for people who were used to it).

Nonetheless, it was in Max-Ernest’s mother’s living room that Cass now found herself pacing back and forth.

I won’t go into detail about Cass’s confession; I like her too much to embarrass her that way. To her credit, she told Max-Ernest everything. From her foolishly bringing up the Tuning Fork in Chef Hugo’s class to her even more foolishly handing him the fork an hour before.

There were, however, two words missing from her long, solemn soliloquy:

“You didn’t say I’m sorry,” said Max-Ernest, sitting on his mother’s favorite polished stone bench, his spiky hairs bristling like the quills of an angry porcupine.

“Why should I apologize?” asked Cass, who in her agitation was pacing more and more rapidly.

“You lied.”

“Not really. I just didn’t tell you everything. The note from Hugo said I couldn’t… Ow!” Cass exclaimed. (Cass, pacing, had bumped her shin into the corner of a sleek glass coffee table.)

“No, you lied,” said Max-Ernest, ignoring Cass’s injury. “You told us the reason it was so important to find the Tuning Fork was that Pietro was testing us. But he wasn’t, was he?”

“No, not really, but I had to say something… Ow!” Cass exclaimed again. (Cass, recoiling from the coffee table, had backed into the plywood wall behind her.)

“No, you didn’t,” said Max-Ernest, ignoring Cass’s second injury. “You could have just said it was important and not told us why. Or—”

“OK. I didn’t have to lie,” said Cass, holding the back of her head and fighting tears (whether of emotional or physical pain, I couldn’t say).

“And you got us all worried for nothing. How ’bout that?”

“For nothing!?—my mom was kidnapped!”

“I didn’t mean nothing in that way. Anyway, that’s not the point. You should have trusted me. Friendship is based on trust.”

“How do you know? You didn’t even have any friends until you met me!”

“Well, how many friends did you have?”

Cass paused. She wasn’t sure if his question was rhetorical or if he actually wanted her to answer. Either way, he’d stumped her. *

“All right. I’m sorry.”

Max-Ernest looked stricken. “Don’t say that!”

“What?”

“That you’re sorry.”

“Why? I thought you wanted me to.”

“But you never apologize.”

Max-Ernest could count on one hand—really on one finger—the times Cass had apologized to him in the past. And the one thing he liked less than Cass lying to him was Cass changing.

“Everybody’s… different now. It’s so upsetting.”

“OK, whatever. I take it back then.”

“Good.”

They were silent for a moment, each lost in thought.

“Anyway, sorry your mom was kidnapped. I don’t mean sorry sorry, I mean… that’s… bad.”

“Yeah, it is.”

That ended their argument. For now.

“I have to tell Pietro, don’t I?” Cass said, sitting down on the bench next to Max-Ernest. (I can say with some certainty that Cass meant this as a rhetorical question, but he answered nonetheless. )

“Yes… no,” Max-Ernest replied.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, yes, you have to tell him, it’s your duty as a Terces member. But no, you can’t tell him because there’s no way to reach him,” Max-Ernest explained. “Yo-Yoji told me that Pietro and Lily just left for Africa to look for Owen. They haven’t heard from him and they’re worried. Lily even canceled Yo-Yoji’s violin lessons. How ’bout that?”

“Well, then we have to go, too!” said Cass, standing up again. “I bet that’s where Hugo’s going with my mom.”

“How’re we going to go to Africa? That’s ridiculous. You never make sense. We’ll never be allowed.”

“Well, my mom’s not around to stop me, is she?”

“Maybe we can help from here.”

“How?”

“I don’t know—why don’t we blow up the picture in We and see if there’re any clues we missed earlier? For starters.”

Cass opened her mouth, about to dismiss his idea. Then she gave him a small, grudging smile. “Actually, that’s not such a bad idea. For starters.”

Max-Ernest small-grudging-smiled back. “Hey, do you want an ice pack? My mom keeps lots of them in the freezer for when people hurt themselves.”

Cass shook her head. She wanted to get on with the job at hand as soon as possible.

Cass had never been to Yo-Yoji’s house before.

Under normal circumstances she would have resisted going: what if he didn’t want her there? what if his parents said something embarrassing? what if the other kids at school found out? (Last year, a rumor had gone around school that she and Yo-Yoji had crushes on each other and they’d never quite lived it down.)

But these were anything but normal circumstances; and of the three young Terces members, Yo-Yoji had by far the best computer setup.

So here they were.

At Cass’s dream home.

Even as preoccupied as she was with her mission, Cass couldn’t help noticing that Yo-Yoji’s house had everything she’d ever wanted in life. (That’s an exaggeration but it pretty well expresses her feeling upon seeing the house.)

In the driveway, leaning against the side of the house, there were mountain bikes and snowshoes and kayaks and canoes and fishing poles and a trailer that looked like it had seen more than its fair share of camping trips.

When Yo-Yoji let her and Max-Ernest in, she saw all the photos that Yo-Yoji’s father had taken of snowy mountain peaks and sandy deserts and river gorges. And all the artifacts from around the world that Yo-Yoji’s mother had collected: six-armed goddesses from India, carved Buddhas from Cambodia, handwoven blankets and baskets from the American Southwest.

“Wow, your parents have been a lot of places, huh? That’s so cool. Your father’s a really good photographer.” Her own mother never traveled (although it was true Melanie was famous among her friends for her collection of travel books).

Yo-Yoji shrugged. “I guess. He always has to use this old film camera he’s had for forever. And then he can never get the pictures developed anywhere. It’s kind of crazy.”

“He should go to my grandfathers’. They have a ton of old cameras.”

“Hey, Yoji—guess what,” yelled a very young voice from across the house. “I still have my whole pudding left!”

It was a strange and unfamiliar sight that greeted Cass and Max-Ernest when they followed Yo-Yoji into the kitchen: a family sitting around a table. Yo-Yoji’s parents, his little sister, Miho, and their littler brother, Gajin. The table was stained with some kind of brown and orange slop, and Gajin was jiggling a spoonful of chocolate pudding in front of his sister’s nose.

Yes, it was family dinner. Just the way you see it on TV or in the movies. Well, maybe a bit more chaotic, but close.

Gajin smiled when he saw his older brother walk into the room. “Hmm, looks good doesn’t it?” he taunted.

“Don’t you just love chocolate pudding, Yoji? Isn’t it the best thing in the world? Don’t you wish you had more?”

“You think you’re so smart waiting to eat ’til everybody finishes, but nobody cares!” said Miho in a cutting, older-sister kind of way. But the way she was looking at his pudding you could tell she wished it was hers.

Undeterred, Gajin put the spoon in his mouth and savored it slowly. “Yummmmmmmmmmmmmmm,” he said, drawing the sound out as long he could.

“O-M-G, you are so immature!”

Unable to take it any longer, Miho grabbed her brother’s full bowl of pudding and took a big, heaping spoonful.

“Mom! Dad!” Gajin screamed. “She’s eating my pudding!”

“Sorry, Gajin,” said his father. “The phrase ‘you asked for it’ comes to mind.”

“Can’t you two at least pretend we’re having a nice family dinner?” asked their mother. “If you haven’t noticed, your brother has guests.” She turned to Cass and Max-Ernest. “Sorry, guys—please excuse these monkeys.”