Edison's Gold Page 3

  At that moment, Tom couldn’t understand how his dad could settle for life as a waste engineer. The guy was easily the smartest person Tom had ever met, and it killed him to think of his father being bossed around at yet another dead-end job when he could be changing the world with his inventions.

  What was it about being an Edison? Were they just cursed with bad luck?

  His dad returned to the worktable holding a just-opened beer can that looked like it had been bought during the Great Depression, then expertly mixed it in with one of the solutions.

  “Tom, measure me out a half cup of baking soda.” His dad was pointing and snapping his fingers like an air traffic control man as he carefully poured several more mixtures into various Tupperware containers. “Colby, find some clothespins for the negatives. When they’re ready, we’ll need to transfer them to someplace dark quickly.”

  “How about letting me polish off that brew dog?” asked Noodle.

  “How about finding me a couple beakers for these photo baths?” Tom’s dad answered, then placed the roll of film into a plastic, solution-filled container.

  “Lame!” Noodle stomped off in search of the beakers. He was the only one who could get away with being a smart aleck to Tom’s parents, since he’d been a staple at their house since kindergarten.

  “If it’s pictures of the Loch Ness monster or something good, I want a cut,” Colby joked as the four of them continued readying the materials.

  Everyone went quiet while Tom’s dad washed the film, then plopped it into the developing solution. Once it had dried, faint grainy outlines began to take shape.

  “Yo, there is definitely something on that film.” Noodle began to hop around. “The suspense is killing me.”

  “But it looks like only one photo was taken,” Tom noted. “In the whole roll.”

  “Get comfortable,” said Mr. Edison as he removed the negative and clipped it to a clothesline. “ ’Cause this is going to take another hour. At least.”

  And once I’d paid for NYU drama school and Kanye’s producing fees on my demo, if there was any cash left, I’d build myself an in-home recording studio.” Noodle leaned back with his hands behind his head, quite pleased with his answer. “Okay, your turn,” he said with a nod toward Colby.

  “I’d probably buy a beachfront house somewhere along the Jersey shore for me and Nana.”

  For the last hour, they’d been in Tom’s room playing the game “What’s the First Thing You’d Do If These Photos End Up Being Worth Ten Million Dollars?”

  Tom knew exactly what he’d do with the money: give it to his parents so they wouldn’t have to move. He didn’t say that out loud, though, because one, that was a super-boring answer, and two, he was nowhere near ready to drop that bomb on Noodle and Colb. The three of them had been an unbreakable posse ever since he could remember. How many kids got to have their two best (and only) friends at school live within a three-block radius? Tom’s life without them was too depressing to even contemplate.

  “I would have hated olden times,” sighed Noodle as he fell face-first onto Tom’s bed. “Everything was one long wait. Like dial-up.”

  “And then you died of something painful and undiagnosed,” added Colby. “Like scurvy or rickets.”

  “I don’t think you die from rickets,” Tom chimed in.

  “You really need to chill with your hypochondria issues, Colb,” said Noodle. “It was cute when we were eight, but that sorta drama won’t fly in high school. I’ll have to pretend not to know you.” Again, Tom tried not to think about Noodle and Colby in high school without him.

  “It’s not half as lame as being obsessed with comic books,” she fired back.

  “I’m a collector! It’s an investment.”

  “Kids!” Tom’s dad’s voice called up to them from downstairs.

  “They’re ready!” Tom shouted as the three of them tore down the stairs into the basement, where his dad was holding a glass photo loop against the one developed negative. Each of the kids then took turns looking through the lens at the magnified image of a thin-faced, gray-haired man seated in a brick-walled study.

  “None of the other exposures look like they were used,” Tom’s dad said.

  “It’s definitely not your double-great,” said Colby. “This guy looks more like an aging movie star.”

  “I bet you anything it’s an old Charlie Chaplin,” joked Noodle.

  “It’s Harvey Firestone,” said Tom’s dad. “He was one of Edison’s best friends.”

  “The tire guy?” Tom could barely contain his excitement.

  “Uh-huh. Edison, Ford, and Firestone were known as the fathers of modernity.”

  “This could be worth some real dough then,” said Noodle.

  “Doubtful,” Tom’s dad answered. “We had a few photos from the attic appraised a while back. It’s probably worth a couple hundred dollars.”

  Tom’s heart sank. He’d been secretly hoping for more. A lot more.

  “But what about the riddle?” asked Colby, scanning the paper that was pronged in her fingers.

  “Uh, I’m not sure what to make of that.” Tom’s dad averted his eyes. “I don’t think it’s too important either.” None of the Edison men were good liars, and Tom couldn’t help wondering what his dad might be hiding. There was something forced about his casual tone.

  “Make sure you hit the lights on your way up,” Mr. Edison said as he climbed the stairs with the Firestone negative in his hands.

  Despite the disappointment, Tom still felt like he’d been meant to find that photo. Like it was his destiny.

  The question was, why?

  Tom, Noodle, and Colby had decided the best way to celebrate the first night of spring break was with a sleepover, though it was almost midnight, and the three of them weren’t doing much sleeping.

  Once his parents had gone to bed, Tom had tiptoed into his dad’s study and swiped the Firestone negative, which he’d been examining intently with the magnifying lens for almost an hour.

  Up close, he could see that Firestone’s hand was resting on a leather-bound book, and his index finger was pointing toward something Tom could not see. Embossed on the book’s spine was a title, The Alchemy Treatise, which Tom could barely make out, and the wood beams running along the ceiling behind Firestone were intricately carved and painted with fleurs-de-lis and various family shields. The window over his left shoulder looked out onto an old-fashioned city landscape, where the distinct curved edge of a tall brick building was just visible.

  “I got something here.” Noodle’s face popped up from behind his laptop, where he’d been doing some online research on The Alchemy Treatise. “It says this book was some kind of recipe manual from the Middle Ages.”

  “For what?” said Colby. “Making fish soup and weird serf food?”

  “No, it’s for, like, people who wanna turn base metals into gold.” Tom and Colby went silent. “Apparently, this alchemy stuff was all the rage back then.”

  “So maybe Firestone and my double-great were into, like, medieval witchcraft,” said Tom.

  “Maybe they were the original Dungeons and Dragons geeks.”

  “I haven’t even told you the good part yet,” interrupted Noodle. “Six copies of The Alchemy Treatise are left in existence. And one of them”—he let his words linger, drawing out the suspense like he was telling a ghost story at a campfire—“is at the Met.”

  Only an hour away by train.

  Of all the places in the world, Tom thought. This book’s just a few miles from my house. Destiny was calling to him louder than ever.

  “I think this is a clue,” he announced to them after a moment.

  “For what?” said Colby.

  “I have no idea. But think about it. There’s that weird riddle about the sun and moon. And only one photo was taken? In the entire roll? Don’t you find that sorta strange?”

  “Seems like a stretch,” said Noodle. “Plus your dad said the riddle meant nothing.”

>   “Yeah, that’s another piece. Didn’t you guys think my dad was acting weird about this whole thing?”

  Colby and Noodle shook their heads no, but Tom was on his feet now, pacing.

  “You said it yourself, Noodle. The Alchemy Treatise is a recipe book for making gold. Maybe there’s some kinda gold treasure hidden somewhere. And this book’s the next clue.”

  “Not sure I’m buying all that, but I guess the book’s worth checking out,” said Noodle after a moment. “You got me sorta curious about it now.”

  “Are you two out of your freaking minds?” Colby was looking back and forth between Tom and Noodle. “There’s no treasure. It’s just a photo and a dumb riddle. That’s it.”

  “Colb, we’re a crew. This is what we do,” said Noodle. “Tom’s the crazy daredevil. You’re the levelheaded brainiac. And I’m … the smooth operator.”

  “No, you’re the idiot.” Colby was shaking her head. “This is how you guys always get me in trouble. With your stupid schemes.”

  “It’s spring break. What else are we gonna do?” said Noodle.

  Colby raised her hands. “Look, it doesn’t matter. I know I’m never going to convince you this is a dumb plan, so I might as well just save myself the headache and go along with it.”

  “So you’ll come with us?” asked Tom.

  Colby rolled her eyes. “Yes, but that’s it!”

  It was settled. The three would head to the museum tomorrow on a preliminary recon mission. Without Tom’s dad.

  As Tom crept back into his father’s study, he realized that slight nagging feeling had grown into a riptide pull. Every slight against his family name, every lost job, every failed invention, it all bubbled over onto that Firestone photo. Tom was meant to find this clue. He was sure of it. And he was going to do whatever it took to unlock its secrets and prove to the world that the Edison name was not a punch line but a badge of honor.

  And so, the trio was once again off on a new adventure. Tom prayed it would not be their last.

  Your timing is quite terrible, you know,” muttered the wizened gremlin of a curator as he led Tom, Noodle, and Colby through a room of Italian Renaissance paintings. “The Science and Mysticism exhibit doesn’t open until next month.”

  The curator waved his magnetic ID badge in front of a glass door, which unlocked it.

  “Whoa,” said Noodle as they followed him into the dark exhibit. “Do you ever feel like you’re the commander of the starship Enterprise?”

  “Sometimes.” The curator chuckled.

  Tom was thankful he had Noodle. The kid could charm a troll, and the term off-limits simply wasn’t in his vocabulary. At first, the curator had been less than thrilled to let three seventh graders into a closed exhibit. That was, until Noodle went into a long-winded story about their extra-credit history project on medieval sorcery, peppering in heart-wrenching details about how it had been his great-grandfather’s dying wish to see a copy of The Alchemy Treatise in person, as well as Noodle’s own life-changing field trip to Sir Isaac Newton’s alchemy lab in England. None of it was true, of course. But it got them access to—

  “The Curt Keller exhibit.” Colby read the name off a metal placard affixed to the entrance archway. Tom’s neck hairs prickled at the name. Curt Keller? Could it be the same Curt Keller who’d just laid off his father? The man who was responsible for his family’s move?

  Inside, the exhibit was incredible. Gold-painted star maps covered the walls, and glass cases displayed manuscripts and illustrated texts from all over the world. It was hard to miss the overriding theme of this exhibit. Most of the precious objects were related to one thing—alchemy. There were oil paintings of dour alchemists in their labs, plus a group of shelves filled with golden weighing scales and antique vials used for distilling liquids.

  “Do all these pieces belong to Mr. Keller?” Tom asked.

  “Most of them,” said the curator. “His interest in the occult is widely known. And he’s especially fascinated by alchemy. Much like yourself, Mr. Zuckerberg.”

  “I’d like to meet this Mr. Keller,” said Noodle, surveying the room with a scholar’s seriousness.

  And then Tom saw what they had come here for, open and displayed inside its own sealed glass case—The Alchemy Treatise. So stunning, it almost made him swallow his gum. Its pages were razor thin, its edges dipped in gold leaf, and lavish paintings of astrological imagery adorned the borders of its calligraphy text.

  Tom touched his nose to the glass. His fingers itched to turn a page.

  “Hands to yourself!” the curator loudly reminded him from across the room. “That’s a five-hundred-year-old artifact.”

  “Er, sorry.” He jammed his hands back into his pockets.

  Mouth twitching in suspicion, the curator glided a little closer to Tom to give him a quick once-over.

  “Tom, I think I found something,” whispered Colby as she tugged on his sleeve and nodded toward the adjoining room. Her eyes were alive with excitement. “You’ll definitely want to see this.”

  It was an oil painting of a well-known mustached politician hanging on the far wall of the room. The plaque next to it read: PORTRAIT OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT, 1915.

  “It’s a painting of Teddy Roosevelt, Colb. Big deal. There’s probably a million of them.”

  “The question is what it’s doing in an exhibit on science and mysticism,” she whispered with a glance toward the unsuspecting curator. “Look closer.”

  Tom followed her finger, which pointed to the familiar circled rose symbol—the same one that had been stamped beneath the camera’s riddle had also been painted in red strokes just above the artist’s signature.

  “It’s gotta be connected to the photo somehow,” Tom whispered back. He was getting that all-too-familiar butterfly feeling, the same one he got when he was close to an experimental breakthrough. “We need to know if this symbol is anywhere in The Alchemy Treatise.”

  “Salvatore?” squawked the walkie-talkie that was hooked to the curator’s belt.

  “Yes, Amanda?” he answered.

  “Buford Bixby is in the foyer.”

  “Tell him I’ll be right down.” Salvatore approached Tom and Colby with his hands clasped behind his back and a phony smile plastered to his face. “I’m afraid our time is up, kids.”

  Tom shot a pleading glance toward Noodle. Work your magic.

  “Five more minutes?” said Noodle, picking up his cue as he approached the curator from behind. “Please? My great-grandfather would’ve wanted that.”

  “I’m terribly sorry, but I’ve already broken enough museum regulations for one day. And the exhibit will be open to the public next month. You can come back then.”

  Next month? Tom might already be at a new school in Wichita by next month, but there was no more bargaining with Salvatore. That was quite clear.

  Salvatore doesn’t know he’s messing with an Edison, thought Tom as he stopped to retie his shoe and plucked a crinkled gum wrapper from his pocket. As he ran to catch up with the group, he slipped the wrapper over the door’s latch.

  “Good luck with your report, young man.” Salvatore mussed up Noodle’s hair like a friendly uncle before heading toward the escalators.

  “So what now?” Colby asked. “Wait till next month?”

  “We’re going back in,” said Tom, spinning on his heel once the curator was safely out of sight.

  You’re certifiably insane, you know that? This is just like the time you got me in trouble for helping you calculate the combustion ratios for that hot air balloon.” Colby was not pleased about sneaking back into the exhibit. Especially when she was 110 percent positive they were going to get caught.

  “That balloon would’ve worked if we’d bought more propane,” said Tom while he inspected The Alchemy Treatise’s display case, trying to figure out the best way in.

  “It didn’t work because you lost interest. Like you do with everything.”

  Colby had a point. Where Tom’s dad wa
s thoughtful and cautious, he was slapdash and distracted. He loved the joy of discovering something new. So much so, he usually couldn’t find the patience to see any of his projects to the end.

  “Chill out, Colb.” Tom had his Swiss Army knife out and was unscrewing the bolts of the display case. “It’s not like I’m gonna steal the thing. Just doing some investigation is all.”

  “As the smooth operator of the group,” said Noodle, “I’m gonna have to agree with Colby. I really don’t wanna end up in upstate juvie like my third cousin Marty.”

  “Just stand guard and make sure no one’s coming.” But no sooner had Tom nudged the glass off the case than a shrill alarm began to sound and swirling red lights were triggered.

  “What was that?” Colby squeaked.

  “I think I set off one of the sensors!”

  “Then why are we still standing here?” yelled Noodle, who was already moving toward the exit.

  “Noodle, no!” Panic had crept into Tom’s voice. If they got caught, the search would be over like that. “It’ll be crawling with guards out there.” He quickly replaced the display case and scanned the room for another exit. “We’ll have to go through the air-conditioning vents.”

  “No way. Uh-uh,” said Colby, already backing away. “That’s not even close to a normal exit strategy. Once we’re in the vent, how would we even get out?”

  “I’m sure the ducts lead to, like, a central room or something,” Tom assured them. But his friends didn’t look too convinced. “Guys, I can’t afford to get busted again. My parents’ll crucify me.”

  “This isn’t school, bro!” Genuine fear held Noodle’s face. “We could get in serious trouble. Like police trouble.”

  “I promise I can get us out, but you’ve gotta trust me.” There was no more time to waste. Security would be here any second. Tom had his knife out, and within seconds had pried off the vent cover.

  “I cannot believe we’re actually doing this,” Noodle muttered, even as he squeezed into the opening in the wall after Tom. Colby was not far behind.