This Book Is Not Good For You (8 page)

He flew down the familiar streets, flung open the doors to the granary, and dove headfirst into one of the giant vats of cacahuatal seeds. He hid there, buried, for hours. Seeds wedged between his toes and even up his nose.

Finally, when he was sure it must be the middle of the night, he stuck his head out. And then he froze. Because he was staring into the eyes of a man. A man equally surprised.

Luckily, this man was neither Aztec warrior nor Spanish Conquistador. He was a man of peace. A Franciscan brother. A monk.

He was I.

I had come in the vain hope of stopping my Spanish kin from looting the food supplies of the Aztecs. I was too late. At the far end of the granary, Spanish soldiers were upending stores of corn. Soon, the cacahuatal seeds would spill as well.

Now my attention was focused on the young boy in front of me. So clearly frightened and alone. Thankfully, I had learned enough of the Aztec tongue to ask why he was hiding and if he needed help.

Before answering, he looked around, measuring his chances. At one end were the Spanish. At the other, the Aztecs. In either direction, peril.

“They will kill me if they find this,” he whispered, showing me the silver fork with obvious reluctance.

The object itself was less remarkable than the images engraved on it. On one prong, there was a long-tailed bird, on the other a twisting snake. I thought I recognized what the images meant and they made me shiver.

Haltingly, Caca Boy told me his story about seeing the sorcerer and then finding the fork years later.

Naturally, I dismissed what he said about the sorcerer’s fork as superstitious nonsense. But I agreed to take it from him if that meant saving his life.

“Wait—”

Quickly, Caca Boy scooped up a handful of cacahuatal seeds. Frowning with concentration, he stirred the seeds with the fork…

As I watched in disbelief, the seeds dissolved into liquid. Foaming chocolatl was now cupped in his hand.

Blissfully, he lapped up the chocolatl, licking every drop off his fingers. At last, Caca Boy had tasted chocolatl! And it was every bit as good, nay, it was better than his father had described.

Eyes glistening, he handed me the silver fork. Then he jumped out of the bin—and ran out of sight.

I never saw Caca Boy again.

It is an awkward position for a poor friar to possess a priceless object with unholy powers.

I wanted nothing to do with the fork. Yet, I did not know how to get rid of it. And so it was still hidden in my robes months later when I found myself searching for passage back to Spain.

We friars must often make our way by begging. Alas, ship captains do not always have a matching generosity of spirit.

May God forgive me, I bargained for my berth on the Santa Xxxxx by giving the captain the silver fork.

At first, the ship’s cook was under strict instructions to use the fork only in preparation of the captain’s meals. But on a ship, secrets never stay secret for long. Word of the captain’s magical feasts spread. And soon he had no choice but to share or face mutiny.

There was no limit to the fork’s powers. With it, the cook turned old gruel into golden broth, and rancid meat into fat roast goose. There were impossibly ripe fruits and glorious sweetmeats. Roasted peacocks and stuffed pigs.

Whatever the crew could remember, the silver fork could cook.

Forbidden to eat such rich food by my vow of poverty, I alone did not partake of the fancy feasts. I lived on stale bread.

Need I say what happened next?

The sailors grew fat and lazy and argumentative. The decks were not swabbed. The brass was not polished. The ship veered off course.

As much as I tried, I could not stop them from gorging.

“More! More!” they cried.

And “Get out of the way, you old monk!”

And other things too rude to repeat.

Soon, the chef was forced to turn hay bales into dinner. Then old sailcloth and seawater. The meals still tasted delicious, but the food no longer fattened the crew—it made them sick. It was food in taste only.

I watched in horror as daily the sailors grew more skeletal. The more they ate the more they starved.

By the time the big storm came, most of the crew were dead. The others had no strength left to fight. Only I had the will to live.

If only I had also had the will to let this cursed fork sink with the ship! What new horrors does it have in store for future generations? I shudder to imagine.

Curate ut Valeatis.

—Fr. Rafael de Leon

Still half-lost in the Aztec world, Cass looked up from the monk’s manuscript.

“Do you think the Tuning Fork is really cursed?” she asked.

“I guess it depends on what you mean by cursed,” Max-Ernest responded. He and Yo-Yoji had abandoned the other file boxes long ago and were now sitting across from her. “I mean, anybody can curse anything, right? That doesn’t mean the curse works.”

“Yeah, things like that only happen in old legends and movies and stuff,” agreed Yo-Yoji.

But neither of them sounded very confident. The trouble was, as members of the Terces Society, they’d already seen plenty of things that were only supposed to happen in legends and movies. It wasn’t that long ago, after all, that they’d been having a picnic lunch with a two-foot tall, five-hundred-year-old man born in a bottle. (Oh, and did I mention he was a cannibal?) *

A man’s cough—a dry, raspy cough—made the kids snap to attention. And made the hairs on their neck stand on end.

The worst had already happened, Cass reminded herself. Her mother had been taken from her. She was ready to face anyone, even Senor Hugo.

Slowly, they all looked up.

“Cassandra, Max-Ernest, Yo-Yoji, it’s a little early in the morning for clown camp, isn’t it? Don’t you know a circus never stirs before noon?”

It was Mr. Wallace. The gaunt man lurched over them, blocking them from standing up.

“At your age, you should be sleeping in on a Sunday,” he prattled on. “Me, I couldn’t get to sleep so I decided to get a jump start on my day. Then again, I hardly fit in in the circus, do I?”

“Us… too,” Cass stammered. “I mean, we don’t fit in—I mean, we got up early.”

“Hard to get your story straight sometimes, isn’t it?” Mr. Wallace queried.

Mr. Wallace was the oldest member of the Terces Society—not necessarily in age (Cass wasn’t sure but she thought Pietro was older) but in the sense that he had been part of the society longest. According to Pietro, Mr. Wallace knew more about the history of the Secret, and more about the Midnight Sun, than any other living person. (At least more than anyone outside of the Midnight Sun. And to what extent the Masters were considered living was open to debate.) And yet, for some reason, Cass had never trusted Mr. Wallace. And she’d never felt that he trusted her.

Mr. Wallace peered over her shoulder. “Ah, the memoirs of the monk, Rafael de Leon. A most vivid account, don’t you think? I’m glad you’re following your orders so assiduously.”

“My orders?” Cass’s heart skipped a beat. How could he know about Hugo’s note? Unless…

“From Pietro. To investigate the Tuning Fork.”

“Oh… right.”

Relieved, Cass stood up, gripping the Tuning Fork file tight in her hand.

She tried to sound casual: “So where do you think it could be, anyway?”

“The Tuning Fork? No idea. If I had, I’d be rich. Or dead.” Mr. Wallace leaned in toward the kids. “But between you and me, I’ve always had a hunch it’s somewhere close…”

The way Mr. Wallace said close, it almost seemed the word meant something sinister—as if the Tuning Fork might be haunting them at the very moment.

“You mean near… here?” asked Yo-Yoji.

Mr. Wallace nodded, taking the file from Cass’s hand without asking. “We know the fork made its way to Europe with Brother Rafael. And from what I can tell, it crossed the Atlantic again a hundred years later. Possibly on the Mayflower. Or soon thereafter.”

He put the file back in its drawer, which he closed, Cass noticed, with an air of finality. They wouldn’t be opening it again anytime soon.

“You mean like with the Puritans?” asked Max-Ernest.

Mr. Wallace shrugged. “Of course this is all speculation… but did you know that along with all the Puritans, there were also witches banished to the New World?”

“So you think a… witch had it?” Cass could hardly believe they were using the word seriously. But over the past couple years, she’d learned not to discount anything—even the supernatural.

“Well, a woman believed to be a witch anyway.” Mr. Wallace smiled—an occurrence so rare as to be nearly supernatural in itself. “All those stories about witches feeding children candy have to come from somewhere, don’t they? And I did read a report once about a witch named Clara who was famous for her frothy cups of hot chocolate…”

“And now…?”

“Who knows? The Tuning Fork is probably lying around in some garage or junk shop somewhere.”

“A junk shop?” Cass repeated in surprise.

Mr. Wallace nodded. “People probably assume it’s just a normal musical tuning fork. Or have no idea what it is at all.”

A junk shop.

That meant one thing to Cass: her grandfathers. The Fire Sale was the biggest junk shop in the neighborhood.

Was it possible they would find the Tuning Fork there?

A short time later, Cass and her friends stood with her grandfathers Larry and Wayne outside the old redbrick fire station. In the driveway was Grandpa Wayne’s decrepit old pickup truck, piled high with all sorts of junk. It looked as if Cass’s grandfathers were moving out.

“I think you’re a little confused, Cass,” said Grandpa Larry, chuckling. “Tuning forks aren’t really forks. They’re not for cooking or eating.”

“Well, I suppose you could cook with a tuning fork,” said Grandpa Wayne. “Maybe as a fork when you’re carving meat. Or as a skewer. I sort of like that idea—you could make double shish kebabs!”

“No you couldn’t,” Larry responded. “The ends of a tuning fork are much too blunt.”

“Well, then, you file them down, of course!”

“Never mind about that,” Cass repeated. “Please—”

“Patience, Cass,” said Larry. “Can’t your grandfathers have a little intellectual debate now and then?”

“It’s just—we were wondering whether you might have any old tuning forks lying around? It’s for a school report we’re doing… well, an over-the-summer report for school.” She stumbled but recovered. “For next year.”

“Homework in summer? That’s terrible,” said Grandpa Larry. “It’s an oxymoron!” *

“An outrage,” agreed Grandpa Wayne. “We can’t support it.”

“I know, I agree, but please,” said Cass. “It would be really helpful.”

Larry surveyed the pile of junk in the truck, then looked in the window of their store. “Wayne, where’s that old orange crate? You remember—with that dulcimer I made in Woodstock. Isn’t there a tuning fork in there?”

“Oh, right, that’s—that’s against the back wall, isn’t it? Left-hand side next to the washroom?” Wayne gestured inside the store. “By the fire hose.”

“Orange crate. Back wall. Fire hose. Got that, guys?” asked Grandpa Larry. The kids nodded.

“Come on, Larry, we got to scoot,” said Grandpa Wayne, hopping into the driver’s seat of his truck.

“You bet we do!” Grandpa Larry grinned, climbing into the passenger seat of the truck. “This is the most exciting day of our lives. Antiques Caravan has come to town. With all our stuff we’re going to be the stars of the show.”

“You be the star. No way you’re getting me on TV,” grumbled Wayne.

“You won’t care when you hear how much money we can get for this telephone! Everything from the 1970s is huge right now!”

Larry held up the phone for Cass and her friends to see. It was shaped like a pair of lips. Big red lips.

“Don’t forget to feed Sebastian,” Wayne called out the truck window.

“And tell your mom to watch us on Antiques Caravan, Cass,” called Larry. “They’re broadcasting live!”

The truck lurched into gear and sputtered away in a cloud of smoke.

The left-hand side of the back wall next to the washroom happened to be the very most crowded section of the store. Here boxes were piled three and four deep, all the way to the ceiling. (Cass hadn’t yet tackled this section in her baby box search; she’d been hoping to find her box without having to touch it.)

“OK, if you guys want to be here, you have to help. That means really help, Max-Ernest,” said Cass. “The only way we’re going to find that orange crate is by taking down all those boxes so we can see what’s behind.”

Max-Ernest applied himself a little more diligently this time. Even so, the work was slow and difficult, and after an hour they’d moved fewer than a quarter of the boxes out of the way.

Sebastian was lying nearby on the old beach towel known as his “magic carpet” (because Larry and Wayne used it to lift the dog and “fly” him around the room). As Cass dropped what seemed like the hundredth box of opera records onto the floor, he kept nudging her leg and barking.

“Shh. Just let me find this crate, Sebastian. I need it to save my mom. She was kidnapped,” Cass whispered, grateful to be able to confide in somebody, even a dog.

She petted his head repeatedly, but Sebastian, who tended to bark very loudly because he was very nearly deaf, only barked louder.

Cass was about to go hunt for some dog food when she realized he was barking in the direction of the old fire hose Wayne had mentioned. It was coiled around a big iron wheel.

Wedged behind the wheel was a box Cass hadn’t noticed earlier. Was this the cause of Sebastian’s barking?

Growing excited, Cass pulled out the box. It was cardboard and about the size of a case of soda pop. It looked banged-up, as if it had been in her grandfather’s store for quite a while.

Cass sighed, disappointed. One thing was certain: it wasn’t an orange crate. Why had Sebastian steered her so wrong?

She was about to push the box aside with the others when she noticed a quarter-size hole cut into the cardboard. And the words HANDLE WITH CARE written in black marker.

Could it be…?

She looked over at her friends—they were both absorbed in what they were doing—and then she nervously peeled back the layers of masking tape that kept the box closed.

The box was empty, save for a single piece of paper.

BABY GIRL—7 LBS, 3 OZ

TIME OF BIRTH—6:35 PM

According to the story her grandfathers had told her, those were the only words written on the piece of paper that had been taped to her chest. Yet here she found a long letter written below them.

DEAR LARRY AND WAYNE:

YOU ARE THE MESSIEST, MOST DISORGANIZED, MOST FRUSTRATING CLIENTS I HAVE EVER HAD THE DISPLEASURE OF WORKING FOR IN MY ENTIRE CAREER AS AN ACCOUNTANT. HOWEVER, I DO NOT KNOW WHO ELSE TO TURN TO. DESPITE THE DISARRAY IN WHICH YOU LIVE, YOU HAVE GOOD HEARTS AND YOU KNOW MANY PEOPLE. I AM SURE YOU WILL FIND A GOOD HOME FOR THIS BABY GIRL. IT IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT THAT NOBODY KNOW OF MY CONNECTION TO THE CHILD—ESPECIALLY THE CHILD HERSELF. ANY MENTION OF MY NAME WILL PUT HER IN DANGER.

YOUR HUMBLE SERVANT,

WWW III

WWW III.

William Wilton Wallace, the Third.

Mr. Wallace.

It had to be. It couldn’t be a coincidence. Even if there were somebody else with those initials, what were the chances that he would also be an accountant?

Of all the people in the world, it was Mr. Wallace who had left her on her grandfathers’ doorstep!

Cass knew she shouldn’t be surprised. As she’d learned in her hunt for the homunculus, Mr. Cabbage Face, her connections to the Terces Society ran deep. The founder of the Terces Society, the Jester, was her ancestor. Her great-great-great-great-grandfather. Or something like that. She was the Heir of the Jester. Mr. Cabbage Face had told her as much. He could tell by her ears.

And then there was the fact that she had found her birth certificate, the first clue that she wasn’t exactly who she thought she was, in a Terces Society file. Mr. Wallace had claimed never to have seen the birth certificate before, but looking back, she’d been foolish to believe him.

He always seemed to disapprove of her being a member of the Terces Society. He said it was because of her age, but what if it was because of who she was?

Could Mr. Wallace be her father?! No. It was impossible. She refused to believe it. They looked nothing alike. More importantly, their personalities were nothing alike. But it was very likely that he knew who her parents were.

Correction: who her birth parents were. They hadn’t raised her, she reminded herself. Somebody else had.

She stared at the box in front of her, eyes moistening, thinking about how her mother had been there at the firehouse with her grandfathers when she, Cass, then an orphaned baby, was delivered to their doorstep. Just as if her mother had been waiting for her.

As if it had been meant to be.

“What’s that? Did you find the orange crate?” asked Yo-Yoji.

“No, just… nothing.”

Cass quickly pushed the box behind the fire hose.

If she didn’t act fast, she would be orphaned again. That was all that mattered now.

Max-Ernest was the first to spot it. It was teetering at the top of the back row of boxes. An old wooden crate with a picture of an orange shining in the sky like a sun.

Fighting his fear of heights, he climbed up to the orange crate, dislodging more than a few boxes along the way.

“This is it!” Victorious, he passed the crate down to Yo-Yoji.

They had to pry off the lid with a screwdriver, but soon they were pulling things out, making yet another pile on the floor.

At the bottom of the crate, beneath a broken thumb piano and a curiously misshapen string instrument that they guessed was the dulcimer Larry had made, was a gleaming, two-pronged metal object.

“Is that the Tuning Fork?” Cass asked, feeling a tingle of excitement in her ears.

“Well it’s a tuning fork…” Yo-Yoji picked it up, then hit one of the prongs with a small candlestick he found nearby. “Hear that note? That’s an A.” (As Cass and Max-Ernest had memorably learned when they were trying to interpret the song of the Sound Prism, Yo-Yoji had perfect pitch—the musical kind, that is, not the taste-bud version.)

“But, wait—if it works, that means it can’t be the right one. Because the Tuning Fork isn’t really a tuning fork,” Max-Ernest pointed out. “How ’bout that?”

“Oh… right,” said Cass, crushed.

“Besides, it doesn’t look very Aztec,” Max-Ernest added.

Cass sat down on the orange crate, suddenly filled with an overwhelming sense of despair. “This whole thing was stupid—what were the chances my grandfathers would have the tuning fork we were looking for? We just wasted all this time—for nothing.”

Well, not exactly for nothing, she reminded herself. But she would return to that box later.

“What’s the big deal? We’ll find the Tuning Fork,” said Yo-Yoji. “Eventually.”

“Well, realistically, we probably won’t,” said Max-Ernest conversationally. “We don’t even know if the Tuning Fork is still around. For all we know, it could be just a legend, like Pietro said. Or like a myth that’s partly based in fact. Or—”

Cass gritted her teeth. “Thanks, that’s really reassuring, Max-Ernest. You’re a big help.”

“Why is that reassuring?” asked Max-Ernest, confused. “Oh wait, you were being sarcastic, huh?”

Cass was about to respond in a suitably snippy manner but she stopped herself. After all, it was definite progress for Max-Ernest to recognize sarcasm.

The question was: how to convey the urgency of their task without giving her secret away?

“Sorry. I wasn’t supposed to tell you guys this but…” Cass struggled with her conscience: was it OK to fudge the truth in this circumstance? “Well, Pietro said if the Midnight Sun finds the Tuning Fork before we do, then this will be our last mission for the Terces Society—ever!”

“Really? He said that?” asked Max-Ernest.

Cass nodded.

“That sucks!” said Yo-Yoji. “Why would he—?”

“Actually, I think it’s Mr. Wallace’s fault,” Cass elaborated. “You know how he doesn’t think kids should be in the Terces Society? Well, they agreed this would be a test.”

“But we took an oath,” said Max-Ernest. “Can they un-oath us? I thought we were in for life. I mean, unless we talked about the Secret. Or something else we weren’t supposed to talk about—”

Cass grimaced at this reference to secret-spilling. “Well, it’s up to them, isn’t it? They kind of make the rules, don’t they?”

“But the Terces Society is hundreds of years old—”

“Well, it doesn’t matter, anyway—nobody’s going to kick us out because we’re going to hunt down the Tuning Fork as fast as we can,” said Yo-Yoji, determined. “But first we gotta eat. I’m starved.”

“I agree—our blood sugar levels are really low,” said Max-Ernest.

Cass was hardly in the mood for a relaxing lunch, but she had to acknowledge she was hungry, too; Max-Ernest was right about their blood sugar levels. Combing through her grandfathers’ stuff was hard work.

She led her friends upstairs to the old firemen’s galley—now her grandfathers’ kitchen—to see what there was to eat.

“… You’re right, it is Chippendale—that’s the good news…”

Sitting on the kitchen table was an old portable TV—so old it had antennae sticking out of the back. Next to the TV was an equally old VCR—a video cassette recorder left over from the days when film and television shows were recorded on video tape. A blinking red light indicated a recording in progress.