Edison's Gold (10 page)

O
nce Mitzi and Noodle had left the room, Tom and Colby wasted no time squeezing themselves between the two towers of stacked glass cages. In one cage, a diamond-backed snake reared back, its tiny fangs bared at Colby. She instinctively moved a little closer to Tom and shuddered. Colby was on overload, trying hard to be nonphobic in the face of all these germy animals.

“On three. Lift and slide.” As Tom's fingertips hooked under two corners of a bottom cage, readying himself, three salamanders scurried to its other end and stared up at him with black, unblinking eyes.

“One … two … three …” The metal screeched against the wood.

“She mighta heard that,” said Colby, cutting her eyes toward the door.

They waited, breath held, for Mitzi and Yoo-Hoo to come storming into the room, but there was no sign of them. Tom and Colby were in the clear. For now.

Tom turned toward the now exposed brick wall behind the stack of cages. At first glance, it didn't look too promising, so he ran his hand along its rough surface, his fingers searching the braille-like grooves for some sort of clue. And then he felt something.

Near the bottom of the wall, in the middle of the brick, was a small indentation and a smooth patch no bigger than a quarter. He knelt, his face inches from the floor, and came eye to eye with an encircled rose imprint etched into the brick.

“Colb!” he whispered loudly. “Over here. It's the seal of the Sub Rosa!”

“Shut up!” Her jaw was on the floor as she huddled in close next to Tom. “Up till now, this all seemed too farfetched … but …” She reached her hand out to touch the sanded grooves of the rose petals.

The mortar surrounding the brick was a different
texture, Tom realized. Lighter, too, as if it had been more recently replaced. Something must be hidden behind that brick.

“How can we get to it?” Tom wondered aloud. “Ugh. I never have C-four explosives when I need them.”

“That's one sentence you are never, ever allowed to say in the presence of my nana.”

Tom leaned against the wall and wracked his brain. Mitzi would be back soon—even Noodle couldn't keep her occupied forever—and there was no way to get through that brick. In a week and a half, he'd be in Kansas and might never get an opportunity like this again. If he could just get his hands on a strong acid.

Vinegar's acidic
, Tom thought.
But not enough, unless I combine it with something corrosive
.

Chemical combinations and reactions swirled through his mind at rapid-fire speed, years and years of basement experiments coming back to him.

After a moment, Tom popped to his feet, snapping his fingers.

“All right, Colb,” he said, turning to her, his face the picture of focus. “We need to split up.”

“Uh-uh, Tom. I know that look. What's going on inside that brain of yours?”

“I can't explain right now, but chemically speaking, this should work.”

“On second thought, I don't even wanna know what—”

“I know you don't. But we don't have time. You need to go to the bathroom, get us some powdered bleach, a plastic bucket if you can find one, and a whole buncha paper towels. And whatever you do, don't let Mitzi see you.”

Colby was about to rattle off the top twenty reasons why whatever Tom was thinking about doing was a terrible idea, but something stopped her. Maybe it was the pleading look in his eyes. Maybe it was the excitement about what could be behind that wall. Or maybe Colby McCracken had become so used to the sneaking and risk taking of this odd treasure hunt that she'd grown a teeny bit braver these past few days. Whatever the reason, she found herself nodding her head.

“Okay, I'll do it. What about you?”

Tom hesitated, surprised by her response, then smiled, with eyes glimmering mischievously. “I'm going through
that window. We'll meet back in five, so you can hoist me up.”

“Cool.”

Placing trust in her friend when safe logic and sound reasoning had failed her, Colby disappeared into the hallway.

O
n their hundred-yard walk to the pet store, Tom remembered seeing Mel's Grocery Mart, a shabby little convenience store on Bedford, but with Mitzi in the front room, probably explaining to Noodle the pros and cons of cockapoos versus schnauzer doodles, there was only one way to get there without arousing too much suspicion.

Paint had gummed the window shut, but after a few heaves, he was finally able to force it open a crack. After that, it was just a three-foot drop to the sidewalk.

Hurrying across the street, he noticed a black Cadillac parked along the curb. Its windows were tinted, and its engine was running. Tom could make out a shadowed figure in dark glasses slumped behind the wheel, but he
was too nervous to take a longer look at the driver's face. Instead he stared straight down at his shoelaces until he was safely inside Mel's.

The convenience store was bare-bones and dusty, and most of the items on the shelves looked to be way past their expiration dates. Tom was still able to assemble all the ingredients he needed: vinegar, salt, baking soda, dish-washing gloves, a plastic jug of springwater, and a Hershey's bar. Weighted down, he approached the register, pulling a twenty-dollar bill from his wallet. Good-bye to a month's savings.

“An investment,” Tom mumbled to comfort himself as a shaggy, incurious teen rang him up.

He grabbed his change, a measly $1.17, and slipped back out the jingling door. Outside, the Cadillac had been vacated. Tom stopped to peek through the window. What a mess. The backseat was littered with fast-food wrappers and empty soda cups, plus sun-faded magazines and newspapers. Whoever drove that car spent a lot of time in it.

“You're just being paranoid over nothing,” Tom said to himself as he crossed the street back to Mitzi's, but he couldn't shake the feeling he was being watched.

Colby, who was already waiting in the reptile room
when he arrived, leaned out the window to help hoist him back into the pet shop.

“Some really strange guy just walked in the front door,” she whispered as she handed Tom a plastic bucket filled with everything he'd asked for. “Didn't look like he was too interested in buying a pet either.”

Tom wondered if this guy and the Caddy outside were related, but he didn't want to make Colby any more nervous than she already seemed.

“What's Noodle up to?”

“Last I saw, they'd moved on to snuggling kittens. Mitzi didn't see me.”

“Noodle's got the gift,” said Tom, dumping almost all the springwater out the window, then spreading the rest of the ingredients in front of him. “And every good posse needs a maverick.”

“How long do you think this'll take?” Colby nervously peered out the door. “That fat guy in the other room's weirding me out.”

“Less than a minute. Just need to mix the vinegar with bleach to form a vitriolic solvent.”

“And you know you need a three-to-one ratio of salt to acid for any vitriol compound, right?” Colby pivoted from
her guarding spot near the doorway to address Tom. “I remember that from science class.”

“That's the difference between you and me, Colb. You live for the A—”

“And you live for the explosion.”

“True. Maybe that's why we work.”

Drawing on his gloves, Tom eyeballed about twelve ounces of vinegar into the springwater jug, then sifted four ounces of powdered bleach into the solution. The surface of the bleach-green dust bubbled and smoked as it mixed into a smelly purple concoction.

“I ever tell you my dad and I developed twenty-eight different inventions using bleach?” Tom reached for the cardboard container of Comet. “Bleach hybrid battery, SuperDuperStick adhesive goop, this really cool stain remover for bicycle grease—”

“And this'll be your last invention, if we don't hurry it up,” Colby interrupted. They could now hear the sound of a man's heavy shoes slowly walking the perimeter of the main room.

“Add some salt to the baking-soda-and-bleach combo, and
voilà
!” Tom began to swirl the frothing liquid inside the jug. “Homemade hydrochloric acid.” He unwrapped
the chocolate bar and placed it on the wooden floor, directly beneath the brick.

“Lactose and sucrose for absorption,” said Colby with a nod. “Smart thinking.”

“Stand back,” said Tom, then carefully splashed a little bit of the acidic mixture directly onto the wall.

Hiss! Crackle!

The bricks began to dissolve, and as the excess acid dribbled down to the floor, it made contact with the candy bar, reacting with the milk and sugar to form a gummy substance that resembled a squishy putty.

“Amazing. One of your experiments could actually be working.” Colby blinked.

“Gee, thanks,” Tom answered, though he could hardly believe it himself. He poured a little more of the solution onto the brick.

As a small section of the wall disintegrated into a bubbling red liquid, a snug compartment behind it was exposed.

“No way.” Colby rushed over, her jaw hanging open in amazement. “Are you gonna grab those already, or should I?”

“Just waiting for the acid to dry.” Slowly, Tom reached
in and pulled two disk-shaped packages from the hidden space, careful not to let any exposed skin make contact with the wall.

The packages were both wrapped in brown paper. The first disk was about six inches in diameter, while the second, thicker disk was roughly half that size around. Both were covered in almost a full centimeter of gray dust.

“Unbelievable.” Tom was genuinely speechless. His heart was hammering from a mixture of excitement, adrenaline, and fear.

Colby leaned forward. “What do you think they are?”

Clomp, clomp clomp clomp …

Heavy footfalls interrupted them. Down the hallway, but definitely getting closer to the reptile room.

In a flash, Tom stuffed the two disks into his backpack.

“Let's go!” he mouthed, leading the way as Colby followed him out the room's window. They slipped around the side of the building with only moments to spare before they heard the footsteps enter the reptile room.

“Whoever that is'll know we were there,” said Colby, who was on the verge of hyperventilating. “Part of the freaking wall's dissolved.”

“We can't think about that right now,” said Tom. “We just have to get Noodle out of the building. I got a weird feeling about that guy.”

“So do I.”

The two of them went quiet, listening as the footsteps paused, paced, and paused again, probably inspecting the mess they'd left. Sweat prickled along every inch of Tom's body. There was a long silence. Perhaps the man was waiting them out. Or pulling all their fingerprints off the walls. Or loading his gun.

Finally, the footsteps headed out of the room and back down the hallway.

“Let's go back in,” Tom whispered.

“Are you out of your mind?”

“Believe me, he probably thinks we're halfway to the Prospect Park subway station by now. Returning to the scene of the crime's the last thing he'd expect us to do.”

“You better be right.” Colby sprang to the sill and vaulted it neatly. Tom was not quite so graceful but, with Colby's help, managed to pull himself up. Crouched behind one of the largest cages, they waited until they heard the pet shop's front door slam.

Tom counted to twenty before stepping into the
hallway. “Let's hope he didn't take Noodle with him.”

Out in the main room, Noodle was nonchalantly balancing a guinea pig on his head for Mitzi's amusement. He looked thrilled and relieved to see his friends.

“Took you guys long enough,” he whispered to Tom. “I tried to warn you about that fat dude coming in but didn't want to blow our cover.”

“It's cool. We hid from him.” Tom peered through the window. The Cadillac was gone. “Did he say anything?”

“Just that he wanted to buy a kitten for his niece, but I wasn't really buying it.”

“Is there a back entrance to this place?” Tom called to Mitzi, who had moved to one of the side rooms.

She seemed far more interested in the fat, yapping pug squirming and slobbering in her arms. “Helloooo, Parsley! There's a boy!”

“Another way out?” Tom asked, louder.

“There's a fire door in the back.” Mitzi pointed toward the rear curtain behind her. “But I don't see why …” As the kids headed straight toward it, she called, “Wait! We never found your friend a dog!”

“I just remembered my mom's allergic,” Noodle called back. “Sorry, Mitzi—it's been a blast!”