Jack: Secret Histories Read online

  “But what if there was an advanced civilization before Sumer? One that was wiped out by the Great Flood?”

  The professor smiled. “That is the stuff of fantasy. No record of such a culture or civilization exists.”

  “All right then,” she said. “What’s the pyramid made of? Did you figure that out?”

  He shook his head—a bit uncertainly, Jack thought. “No. But we know it is some kind of alloy.”

  Weezy leaned back. “An alloy that can’t be scratched—or at least I couldn’t scratch it. Could you?”

  Professor Nakamura looked even less certain. “We did not try. It is not our property—it is yours.”

  “That’s right. And I’d like it back now.”

  Jack said, “We’re forgetting about the most important test. What about that argon dating you mentioned?”

  “Yes-yes. Potassium argon. We did that.”

  Jack waited to hear the results but the professor did not go on.

  “And?” Weezy said.

  Now the professor looked really uncomfortable. “The results were … how shall I say it?… inconclusive.”

  Weezy shook her head, “I don’t understand what you mean. I understand what ‘inconclusive’ means, but what kind of inconclusive results are you talking about?”

  “You couldn’t date it?” Jack said.

  “Oh, yes, we got a date, but an impossible date.”

  Jack felt a fleeting tingle up his spine. Impossible? What kind of date would be impossible? He glanced over at Weezy and saw her sitting rigid in her chair.

  “W-what was the date?” she said.

  The professor waved his hands. “I hesitate to tell you because it will only fuel groundless speculation.”

  Weezy looked ready to explode. She spoke through her teeth. “What … was … the … date?”

  Professor Nakamura folded his hands on his desk and stared at them. He spoke in a low voice.

  “Fourteen thousand years.”

  In a flash Weezy was out of her seat and on her feet, leaning over the desk.

  “Did I hear you right? Fourteen thousand years? Fourteen?”

  “Yes.” The professor looked up at her. “And if you know anything about human history, you will know that is impossible.”

  “I know there’s a lot we don’t know about human history.”

  The professor nodded. “This is true, and there are arguments about which human civilization was first. It appears to be Sumer, but that can be traced back only to five thousand B.C.—seven thousand years ago. The test says your pyramid is twice as old. Clearly that is impossible.”

  “Not if it belonged to an advanced civilization that was wiped out by the Great Flood.”

  Jack glanced at her, not sure if she was kidding or not. But she looked dead serious.

  “You mean like in the Bible?” he said. “Noah’s flood?”

  Weezy kept her eyes on the professor. “The Sumerians had exactly the same legend, long before the Bible was written. All the ancient civilizations of that region had a story about a great flood that cleansed the land. Am I right, professor?”

  He stared at her. “How old are you?”

  “I’ll be fifteen next month.”

  “Fifteen … you know much for fifteen.”

  “I read a lot. But back to the Great Flood. Maybe a flood was only part of it. Maybe it was much more severe. Maybe it wiped out the civilization that made that little pyramid and forced human beings to start all over again from scratch.”

  The professor rolled his eyes. “Next you will be quoting Immanuel Velikovsky.”

  “I know the name,” she said, “but I’ve never read him. I’ve heard he’s a kook.” She smiled. “But then, some people think I’m a kook, so maybe I should look him up.” She held out her hand. “May I have my fourteen-thousand-year-old ‘hoax’ back now?”

  “I am afraid I do not have it with me.”

  Weezy frowned. “You’re going to run more tests?”

  “Yes, but not me, personally. I took the liberty of sending it to the Smithsonian Institution for dating.”

  “You what? Without asking me?” She glanced quickly at Jack. “I mean, us?”

  Jack didn’t care all that much that she’d added the “us.” He too was ticked that the professor had taken it upon himself to send their pyramid all the way to Washington, D.C.

  “Now just a minute, young lady. You gave that over to me for investigation and that is precisely what I am doing. The Smithsonian Institution has access to equipment I do not. They will find an accurate date of origin. Is that not what you wanted from me?”

  Jack thought about that. He’d been to the Smithsonian on his eighth-grade trip just this past spring and had been wowed by the sheer size of the place—all the buildings, all the exhibits. Too many to see on just one trip.

  Weezy’s lower lip showed just a trace of a quiver. “But you should have asked first.”

  The professor nodded. “Yes, I suppose I should have. But I thought you would be happy to know that some of the greatest experts in the field will be studying your artifact.”

  “Well,” she said slowly, “I guess I am. But what if something happens to it along the way? Or what if it gets lost? Things get lost in the mail, you know.”

  “Oh, no. I did not send it by mail. I used overnight delivery. Federal Express. And I packed it very carefully in a box. It will be fine. The Smithsonian Institution handles valuable artifacts all the time. They will take good care of it.”

  “They’d better,” she said.

  Jack didn’t see much point in hanging around here any longer so he rose and stood next to Weezy.

  “Will you call us as soon as you hear anything?”

  The professor slid a sheet of paper and a pencil across the desk.

  “Leave me your phone numbers. As soon as I hear from the Smithsonian, you will hear from me.”

  As Weezy wrote down their numbers, Jack said, “Professor, have you ever heard of a klazen?”

  Weezy stopped writing but did not look up.

  The professor frowned. “An unfamiliar term. What does it refer to?”

  “I’m not sure. A creature, maybe? A spirit?”

  “No. Most sorry. I have never heard of such a thing.”

  Swell, Jack thought. I’m batting zero today.

  4

  “Well,” he said, squinting at Weezy outside Professor Nakamura’s house, “what do you think?”

  Her expression was grim. “I think I wish I had the pyramid back. I’ve got a bad feeling …”

  Jack tried to look on the bright side. “Yeah, but you’ve got to admit, if anyone can find out what that thing is, it’s the Smithsonian.”

  “I suppose.” Suddenly she perked up and looked at him with bright eyes. “What if they come back with the same age? Fourteen thousand years! Do you know what that means?”

  “It means Professor Nakamura will have to eat a big plate of fricasseed crow.”

  She gave his arm a gentle slap. “Who cares about that. It means we’ll have to start rewriting human history!”

  Jack thought about that and found it kind of scary.

  “Yeah, I guess we will.”

  Just then a blue Mustang convertible pulled up with a grinning Carson Toliver behind the wheel. He pointed to Weezy.

  “Hey, you following me?”

  She reddened. “No, I, no, I mean, no, we were just visiting Professor Nakamura.”

  This guy had just turned the smartest girl Jack knew into a babbling boob.

  “Aw, too bad,” he said, dramatically snapping his fingers. “I was hoping you were. A guy likes to have a pretty girl following him.”

  Weezy said nothing, just stared.

  “Hey,” Carson added, “I bet you like the Sex Pistols.”

  Weezy hesitated, then said, “Yeah. They’re cool.”

  “Knew it! I could tell by the way you dress. I love to blast them as I tool down the road.”

  You are a tool, Jac
k thought.

  “Want to try that sometime?”

  “Yeah.” She swallowed. “Sure.”

  “Great. I’ll call you up sometime and we’ll go for a spin.”

  He waved and roared off. Weezy watched him go, then grabbed Jack’s arm.

  “Did you hear that? Carson Toliver just asked me out.”

  “Yeah, to listen to the Sex Pistols—which you hate by the way. Or did you forget?”

  “I didn’t forget. They’re awful.”

  “Then why’d you tell him they were cool?”

  “I couldn’t insult him.”

  “If you ask me, he’s following you.”

  “Don’t be silly. He lives right on this street.” She beamed. “And he thinks I’m pretty.”

  Weezy had said she had a bad feeling about the pyramid going to the Smithsonian. Well, Jack had the same sort of feeling about Weezy getting into Carson Toliver’s car.

  5

  Jack sat by the living room window, pretending to read but really watching the driveway.

  Mom had the annoying Oklahoma! score playing, and he was forced to listen to “The Surry with the Fringe on Top” as he stood watch. Stupid, lame-o song.

  She was in the kitchen fixing dinner and Kate was helping. Dad wouldn’t be home from work for another half hour or so. Only Tom was unaccounted for. He’d been gone most of the day but Mom said she expected him for dinner.

  Jack wanted to know when he arrived so he’d have time to set up his sting.

  When he saw Tom’s ‘79 Malibu pulling into the driveway, he jumped up and hurried to the kitchen. He pulled out the bag of pistachios and, while Kate and Mom weren’t looking, emptied the envelope with the tepin-treated nuts on the counter. He’d just tucked the envelope into his back pocket when Kate turned and saw the pile.

  She frowned. “I’d eat those right now, Jack. You-know-who just arrived.”

  Good old Kate, always looking out for him.

  Jack shrugged. “They’ll be okay.”

  She shook her head. “You’re a glutton for punishment, aren’t you.”

  “Trust me, Kate,” he said with a smile. “I’m anything but a glutton for punishment.”

  But, he thought, I’ve arranged some punishment for the glutton.

  He started shelling pistachios but ate them instead of adding them to the pile. He tensed as he heard the frontdoor screen slam. This was it. Tom still had a chance. He could turn Jack’s plan into wasted effort by walking past and leaving the pistachios where they were. His fate was in his own hands.

  Jack pretended to be looking the other way as his big brother breezed into the kitchen. Without breaking stride and without the slightest hesitation, Tom swept the nuts off the counter and into his hand, then popped them all into his mouth.

  Jack yelled, “Hey!”

  Kate said, “Tom!”

  Mom hadn’t noticed and Tom said nothing as he opened the refrigerator and reached for a beer. He never made it. He froze in mid-reach, then coughed and spat the nuts into his palm.

  “What the—?” As he turned toward Jack, his face started to redden. “What did you—?” Then the redness darkened. “Oh, my God!”

  As Tom dove for the sink, Jack remembered what Mr. Canelli had said about water making the burning worse. He felt it only fair to warn Tom, but he lowered his voice, Willy Wonka style.

  “Stop. Don’t. Come back.”

  “Dear Lord!” Mom cried as Tom dumped the partially chewed nuts in the sink and turned on the water.

  He didn’t wait to get a glass, simply tilted his head under the faucet and let the water run into his mouth.

  “Tom?” Kate said. “What on Earth are you doing?”

  Tom lifted his head—his face was almost purple now—and pointed to Jack. “That little bastard—!”

  Mom whipped him with her dish towel. “Thomas! I will not have that kind of language in this house. Now you—”

  Tom wailed and stuck his mouth under the faucet again.

  “The burning!” he croaked between gulps. “I can’t stop the burning!”

  Jack watched him, trying to keep from smiling. He felt like going over there and dancing around him, chanting, Gotcha-gotcha-gotcha!

  Kate turned to Jack. “What did you do?”

  Jack raised his hands, palms up, and shrugged. “Nothing much. Just spiced them up a little.”

  She smiled. “With what? Pepper?”

  Jack nodded.

  “What kind? Jalapeño? Habañero?”

  “Hotter.”

  She began to laugh. “Oh, this is rich—this is too rich!”

  “It’s not funny!” Tom yelled, his voice echoing from down in the sink.

  Mom was clueless. “What’s the matter? What’s wrong with him?”

  “He poisoned me!” Tom cried, then went back to drinking.

  Mom obviously knew that wasn’t true, because she was half smiling as she turned to Jack.

  “Why did you poison your brother, Jackie?”

  Kate was still laughing. “Tom stole his pistachios, but they had pepper on them!”

  Mom hit Tom again with the towel. “Now are you going to stop stealing from him? Have you learned your lesson?”

  “I’m going to kill him!”

  “You’ll do no such thing. And drink some milk. Water makes it worse.”

  Tom lifted his dripping face. “What?”

  Kate grinned at him. “The stuff that burns is an oil. Water spreads it around.”

  “Oh, no!” Tom leaped for the fridge.

  “And don’t you dare drink from the carton!” Mom told him.

  6

  Jack stood by while Kate told Dad what had happened.

  “Serves him right.” He laughed, then settled down to watch the evening news before dinner.

  Though the burning from the tepin juice had been intense, it hadn’t lasted long. Tom recovered and had retreated to his room in embarrassment. Jack was heading back to the kitchen when he heard a knock. He reversed direction and arrived in time to see his dad opening the front door for Mr. Bainbridge.

  They shook hands, then Mr. Bainbridge pointed at Jack and smiled.

  “There’s the man I want to see.”

  Jack looked around. Man? Me? Was he in trouble?

  “Jack?” Dad said. “What for?”

  “Seems he stood up for my brother-in-law the other day when that Bishop punk was hassling him.”

  Dad tilted his head down and looked at Jack over the top of his reading glasses.

  “That so?”

  Embarrassed, Jack shrugged. “Not really. Weezy’s the one who—”

  “Yeah. Walt’s not always reliable in what he says, but he told me you and the Connell girl took his back against two guys a lot bigger.” Mr. Bainbridge looked at Dad. “Sound like your boy’s not afraid of anything—just like his old man.”

  Dad gave him a sharp look, then turned to Jack. “Grab us a couple of beers, will you?”

  “Sure.”

  As he left the room he heard Dad say, “No Korea talk, Kurt. You know how I feel about that. Save it for the VFW.”

  Yeah, Dad never wanted to talk about the war. He and Mr. Bainbridge had met in Korea. Then, seven years ago, when his company transferred him from Kansas City to Trenton, he looked up Dad. He loved to fish, and when he learned how plentiful the trout and bass were in these parts, he decided Johnson was the ideal place to live. So he moved in with his wife, Evelyn, and her brother, Weird Walt.

  Jack pulled out a couple of Carlings, red cans with a black label, and brought them back to the living room. On the way in, he heard Mr. Bainbridge speaking in a low voice.

  “Yeah, Walt’s all right. Keeps to himself. Mostly we don’t know he’s there. But the drinking … man, the guy’s always half lit. He says it’s because of ‘Nam, but come on—he couldn’t have seen any worse than we did above the thirty-eighth. We—”

  He cut off when Jack arrived with the beers.

  “Ah, here’s the ma
n we’ve been waiting for.” He laughed as he took the can from Jack. “‘Mabel! Black Label!’ I see you’re still stocking the Canuck stuff, Tom.”

  “They know their beer.”

  They popped their tops, clinked cans, and drank.

  Jack hesitated, then had to ask: “What did you mean by ‘above the thirty-eighth’?”

  Dad shot Mr. Bainbridge an annoyed look, then said, “North Korea and South Korea are divided along the line of latitude thirty-eight degrees north of the equator. It’s called the thirty-eighth parallel. When the commies in North Korea tried to take over the south, we were sent in to kick their butts back above the thirty-eighth.”

  Mr. Bainbridge wiped his mouth. “Which we did pretty easily, and that should have been that. But some REMF ordered us above the thirty-eighth, and that’s when it got ugly. I remember—”

  “Hold on there, Kurt,” Dad said, raising a hand. Then he turned to Jack. “What you’ve just heard is a history lesson. Let’s leave it at that.”

  Before Jack could protest, or ask what a REMF was, Mr. Bainbridge said, “Hey, you hear what happened at Al Sumter’s wake?”

  With no prospect of war stories, Jack had been about to retreat to his room. But now he was all ears.

  “I thought that was tonight,” Dad said.

  “They had a viewing this afternoon. That freeholder, what’s his name?” He snapped his fingers. “God, you see his name everywhere—”

  Jack’s mouth felt as dry as pine needles. Finally he managed to say, “Mister Haskins?”

  He pointed to Jack. “You nailed it!” He smiled at Dad. “Good citizen you’ve got there. Knows his civics.”

  Jack decided to let him go on thinking that. No way could he tell him about eavesdropping on Haskins and Steve’s father.

  “But tell me,” Mr. Bainbridge went on, grinning. “Do you have any idea what the hell a freeholder does?”

  Jack shook his head. “Not really.”

  Mr. Bainbridge laughed. “Neither does anybody else!”

  Jack wasn’t interested in what freeholders did. Who cared? He was interested in the fate of just one of them. He had a premonition he needed confirmed.