She was up in a flash grabbing it from him.
“I didn‟t.” Her expression turned furious. “They have no right!”
As she started for her door Jack blocked her way. She had a wild look in her eyes. Jack had seen that look a few times before when she‟d lost it, and she seemed ready to lose it now.
“Easy, Weezy. Could you maybe wait on this? You‟re going to put me smack-dab in the middle of the fight.”
For a second he thought she might hit him. He didn‟t know what he‟d do if she tried. He was relieved when the look faded.
“Because you found it?”
He nodded. He didn‟t want to become a player in the ongoing tug-of-war between Weezy and her parents—mostly her father—who wanted her to be what they called “a normal girl” and what she called “a bow head.”
“You know,” she said, her voice thickening as she stalked about her room, “if they‟re so unhappy with me, why don‟t they just send me off to boarding school or something so they don‟t have to look at me?”
Jack didn‟t like that idea one bit. Who would he hang with? He tried to lighten the moment by clutching his hands over his heart and giving her his best approximation of a lost-puppy look.
“But-but-but wouldn‟t you miss meeee?”
It didn‟t work. She was off to the races. She‟d always been hard to stop once she got rolling, but almost impossible since the disappearance of the pyramid. She‟d gotten a little scary lately.
“I‟m going to be fifteen next week! I‟ve got a brain, why don‟t they want me to use it? They have no right to throw out my stuff!” She stopped her pacing. “Maybe I should pull a Marcie Kurek! That‟d show ‟em!”
Marcie Kurek was a runaway who‟d been a soph at the high school last year. She lived in Shamong. One night she said she was going out to visit a friend and never showed up. No one had seen her since.
Weezy turned and threw the photo on the floor.
Jack knew she tended to leave her stuff all over the house, a perfect invitation for her folks to dump the things they didn‟t approve of, especially anything that referred to what she called the Secret History of the World.
The Secret History was her passion—her conviction that accepted history was a collection of lies carefully constructed and arranged to hide what was really going on in the world, and conceal the hidden agenda and identities of those pulling the strings. Ancient secret societies manipulating events throughout the ages …
People—especially her family—tended to roll their eyes once she got started on it. Jack too, though not as quickly as he used to. He‟d seen and heard things last month that he couldn‟t explain … he didn‟t know if they fit into Weezy‟s Secret History, didn‟t know if they fit anywhere, or if they were even real.
Weezy was convinced that the pyramid they‟d found was connected to the Secret History. And maybe it was … this was a picture of the mound where they‟d found the body and the artifact, or rather what was left after those strange government men had dug it up in the night.
He glanced at it now on the floor and was once again struck by the strange outline. As he looked he noticed something to the right of the mound …
He picked it up for a closer look … a dark object or structure in a small clearing. He‟d never noticed it before. But then again, the photo had been in Weezy‟s possession all this time, so he‟d never had much chance to study it.
“Hey, Weez. Where‟s your magnifying glass? Or did your folks throw that away too?”
“Not funny.”
She plucked a magnifier with a two-inch lens from a shelf above her desk and handed it to him.
Jack poised it over the area in question and felt a tingle of excitement across his neck as it grew larger and came into focus.
“Oh, man, you‟ve got to see this.” He passed the lens and photo to her, then tapped the spot.
“Right there.”
He watched her brow furrow as she moved the lens up and down and around.
“Hmmph. Never noticed.” She glanced up. “Could be just a big rock.”
“Yeah? Take another look. Count the sides.”
He watched her eyes narrow to a squint as she complied, then widen. She wore an entirely different expression when she looked up this time.
“Six.”
“Yeah. Just like our pyramid.”
A light sparked in her eyes. “Actually it had seven if you count the base. But this is bigger.
Much bigger.” She frowned. “Too big for them to steal.”
Jack knew who “them” were but didn‟t want her to get started on that now.
“You got that right. Want to take a look?”
“You kidding? Of course I—”
“There you are!”
Jack turned and saw Weezy‟s portly brother standing in the doorway, twisting a Rubik‟s Cube.
He had short, sandy hair and a pudgy body, and his striped rugby shirt gave him a definite Pugsley look. Jack was tempted to remark on the Addams Family theme here in the Connell house, but held his tongue. Eddie wouldn‟t take kindly to the Pugsley comparison.
But if Cousin Itt showed up …
“Hey Eddie. I was just—”
“No Berzerk today, man,” Eddie said, looking miffed. “My dad‟s booting me out of the house.
Wants me to „enjoy the outdoors.‟ Can you believe it?” He shook his head sadly. “Boracious.”
Eddie was not a fan of the outdoors, unless it meant sitting in the shade with a copy of Uncanny X-Men
Jack pointed to the Rubik‟s Cube that had become Eddie‟s latest obsession. “Hey, anytime you want me to straighten that out for you, let me know.”
He gave a wry grin. “Yeah, right. Like you could.”
Jack shrugged. “Just trying to help the helpless.”
Eddie glanced at his sister stretched on the bed and his grin turned evil. “You too, cave girl. He wants us both out in the”—he grabbed his throat and made a strangled sound—“fresh air.”