The Journal of Curious Letters (The 13th Reality #1) (10 page)

“Oh, really?” Mr. Chu asked, his tone almost sarcastic. “Don’t you realize all this stuff leads to things that are much, much more fascinating? We need to build a solid foundation so you can have a lot of fun later.”

He only received blank stares in answer.

“I mean it! Here’s an example. How many of you have heard of quantum physics?”

Along with a few others, Tick raised his hand. He’d once watched a really cool show on the Discovery Channel with his dad about the subject. Both of them had agreed afterward that quantum physics must have been something
Star Trek
fans invented so they’d have another topic to discuss instead of debating the average number of times Mr. Spock visited the toilet every day.

“Who’d like to take a stab and tell us what it’s about?” Mr. Chu asked.

Trying to make up for his earlier daydreaming, Tick was the only one who offered. Mr. Chu nodded toward him.

“It’s about the really, really small stuff—stuff smaller than atoms even—and they have a lot of properties that don’t seem to follow the same rules as normal physics.”

“Wow, you’re smart, SpongeBob,” someone whispered from the back. He thought it was Billy the Goat, but couldn’t be sure. Tick ignored him.

“Such as?” Mr. Chu prodded, either not hearing the smart-aleck remark or disregarding it.

“Well, I don’t remember a whole lot of the show I saw on T.V., but the thing that really seemed cool was they’ve basically proven that something can literally be in two or more places at once.”

“Very good, Tick, that’s part of it.” Mr. Chu paced back and forth in front of the students, hands clasped behind his back, trying his best to fit the mold of Very Smart Professor. “We can’t get into it very much in this class, but I think many of you will be excited to learn about it as you study more advanced classes in high school. My favorite aspect of the Q.P., as we used to call it in my peer study groups, is the fact they’ve also proven you can affect the
location
of an object simply by observing it. In other words, how you study it changes the outcome, which means there must be more than one outcome occurring simultaneously. Does that make sense?”

Tick nodded, fascinated, wishing they could drop the easy stuff and dig deeper into this subject. He didn’t bother to look around the room, knowing that the rest of his classmates would once again return nothing but blank stares.

“Basically,” Mr. Chu continued, “it means alternate versions of the present could exist at any moment, and that your actions, your observations, your
choices
can determine which of those you see. In other words, we’re living in one of maybe a million different versions of the universe. Some people call it the multiverse.” He folded his arms and shook his head slightly while staring at the floor, a small smile on his face, as if recalling a fond memory. “Nothing in all my studies has ever fascinated me as much as quantum physics.”

He paused, looking around the room, and his face drooped into a scowl of disappointment like a kid who’d just told his parents he’d seen a dragonfly, only to get back a “Who cares? Go wash your hands for dinner” in return.

“Uh . . . anyway, I guess that’s enough on that subject. The bell’s about to ring. Don’t forget your monthly research report is due tomorrow.”

Tick gathered his things and put them in his backpack, not worried about the assignment; his had been done since before the Gnat Rat attack.

Mr. Chu came up to him and put a hand on his shoulder. “Tick, you should think about studying quantum physics in more detail when you get a chance. It’s right up your alley. Pretty crazy world we live in, don’t you think?”

“Tell me about it,” Tick muttered. “Hey, Mr. Chu?”

“Yes?”

“Does your family . . . I mean . . . have you ever heard of a company called Chu Industries?”

Mr. Chu’s face wrinkled into a look of confusion. “No, never heard of it before. But there are a lot of Chus in the world. Why?”

“Oh . . . nothing. Just an ad I saw somewhere. Made me wonder if you had anything to do with it.”

“I wish. Sounds like it could’ve made me rich.”

“Yeah, maybe. Well, see ya tomorrow.” Tick swung his backpack over his shoulder and walked to his next class.

~

That night, Tick decided he needed a better way to organize the letters and clues he’d received from M.G. and Mothball, especially knowing that because of his decision not to burn the first letter, more and more would be coming.

He went down to the basement and rummaged through a couple of boxes labeled with his name and last year’s date. Every year or two, Lorena Higginbottom insisted on a full top-to-bottom cleaning of the entire house, and her number one rule was that if you hadn’t used something in more than a year, it needed to be thrown away or put into storage. These boxes were the result of last spring’s mine sweep through Tick’s closet.

He remembered he’d been given a journal for Christmas two or three years ago from his Grandma Mary. He’d vowed to write in it every day, chronicling the many adventures of the genius from Jackson Middle School, but the night he’d sat down to complete his first official entry, he hadn’t been able to think of one thing that sounded interesting. He had managed to write his name on the front cover before he’d put it aside, hoping Grandma Mary would never find out. She’d have been devastated if she knew what had happened to her gift.

But he’d never forgotten how cool his name looked on the cover, and the journal would be the perfect thing for him now. Tick’s life was no longer boring or uninteresting.

He found the journal lying beneath a stack of Hardy Boys books. Tick had read each of them several times before they’d made way for bigger and better novels. He pulled the journal out and stared at the cover. It had a marble-brown hardcover, its edges purposely worn and slightly burnt to make it look like the old record-book of an international explorer on the high seas. The pages inside were slightly yellowed for an aged appearance, lined from top to bottom, just waiting for him to record his thoughts and notes and scribbles.

It was perfect.

In the center of the front cover was a three-inch wide rectangle of burnt orange where he’d written his name a couple of years ago. Using the permanent black marker he’d brought downstairs with him, he added a few more words to the title. Finished, he held the journal up and took a prideful look:

Tick Higginbottom’s

Journal of Curious Letters

He then took out the glue from his mom’s scrapbooking case and pasted the first letter from M.G. onto the first page of the journal, centering it as best he could. He left a few blank pages for notes and calculations, then glued in the first clue, along with his solution and the ripped-out calendar with the special date of May sixth circled. Finally, he attached the second clue. He made sure everything was dry, then closed the book.

Satisfied with his efforts, and glad to have everything he needed in one portable book, he took his journal and went back upstairs.

The next day, almost as though the mysterious M.G. knew Tick was organized and ready to go, the third clue came in the mail.

~

It was Saturday, and just as he had done a couple of weeks earlier, Tick spied on the mailbox, waiting for the mailman to show up. The day was clear and crisp, the sun almost blinding as it reflected off the snow still covering the ground. Tick sipped hot chocolate and watched countless little drops of water fall from the trees in the yard as clinging icicles dripped away the last remnants of their lives. His mom and dad had gone Christmas shopping, Lisa was upstairs playing house with Kayla, and the soft melody of Bing Crosby crooning “White Christmas” echoed through the house. Tick didn’t know if life could be any better.

The truck finally rumbled up to his house around noon, and Tick didn’t bother looking to see if there was any sign of a yellow envelope. He had his boots and coat on and was out the door before the mailman had even left for the next house. By the time the truck drove off, Tick had already pulled out the stack of letters.

Sitting right on top was a crumpled yellow envelope with the same messy handwriting, postmarked from South Africa. Other than a strange lump in one corner, the rest of the envelope was flimsy and flat. Intrigued, a shiver of excitement rattling his nerves, Tick sprinted back to the house and up to his room in no time, where the
Journal of Curious Letters
lay resting on his bed.

He ripped open the envelope and peered inside, seeing nothing at first. He billowed it out, turning it upside down and shaking it until a little, flashy square fell out and tumbled off the bed. Tick picked it up off the floor. It was a tiny cassette tape, the kind his dad used when he made everyone talk about themselves for a tape to send to Grandma and Grandpa in Georgia. (A couple of years ago, his dad had finally switched to a video camera, but he still occasionally used the tape recorder, too.)

Nothing had been written on the tape label, but it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what M.G. intended the recipients of this clue to do. It took Tick ten minutes to dig out his dad’s little tape machine, hidden behind some socket wrenches in his dad’s infamous “junk drawer.” Tick could hardly contain himself as he went back to his room, locked the door, popped in the tape, and pushed PLAY.

He heard a few seconds of scratchy background noise, then a loud clank. Tick, pencil in hand, planned to transcribe every word into his journal, but once the message started, he could only listen, fascinated.

A man spoke, his voice quirky and heavy with a British accent. Not like Mothball’s accent; no, this man’s voice sounded much more sophisticated and tight, like the head butler at an English manor who has just realized his entire staff is stricken with the flu on the night of the big Christmas party to which hundreds of very important people are invited.

Well, one mystery had been solved: M.G. was a man.

When the short message ended, Tick laughed out loud, then rewound it to listen again. Then he quickly fast forwarded through the rest of the tape to make sure there were no other messages. On the fourth time, he wrote every single word into his journal:

Say the magic words when the day arrives, then hit the ground below you ten times, as hard as you can, with a very specific object. It’s a bit of a quandary because I can’t tell you what the object is. Let’s just say, I hope your soul is stronger than mine because there are no exceptions to this requirement. Also, the object must be the opposite of wrong but not correct.

Whew, glad to have that bit done. I really need to use the lavatory before I . . . oh, sorry, . . . meant to turn the recorder off. Where is that confounded button . . . ? Ah! There we are—

Click.

Tick hit the STOP button, shaking his head at how
crazy this M.G. guy seemed. Ever since he’d mentioned peppermint sticks and sweetened milk in the first letter, Tick had sensed a subtle sense of humor in the man, a contrast to the message of doom that seemed to be laced throughout the clues and warnings. He wondered if he’d ever get to meet M.G. He’d already begun to feel a sense of trust toward him.

Tick stared at his own handwriting, rereading the words, committing them to memory. Something in the back of his mind told him this one was simple, an itch he couldn’t quite scratch. The mystery lay in figuring out what the object must be. Once he knew that, it seemed pretty obvious what he needed to do: hit the ground ten times after saying the magic words.

Tick decided it really came down to two phrases:

Let’s just say, I hope your soul is stronger than mine

and

the object must be the opposite of wrong but not correct

Thinking, Tick flipped to a blank page in the journal to see if jotting down notes could whip up his brain functions into a frenzy. Staring at the empty lines on the page made him suddenly remember that he’d never written down the odd words Mothball had said that day by the woods when she’d been listing the things she wasn’t allowed to mention. Mad at himself for not doing it sooner, Tick squeezed his eyes shut and searched the darkness of his vision, hoping bright neon words would jump out and remind him of what she’d said. One or two did almost immediately, and after a few minutes he’d remembered four and wrote them in a list on the left side of the page.

The Master

The Barrier Wand

The Realities

The Kyoopy

There’d been another weird word that he couldn’t quite recall. Nothing else came to him, and he realized his eyes were getting droopy, his brain nice and ready for an afternoon nap. Wanting to check his e-mail—and needing some fresh, cold air to wake him up—he threw his new journal into his backpack and headed off for the library, telling Lisa he’d be back in a couple of hours.