The Forbidden Stone. Tony Abbott

was something exciting about lenses and gears and mechanisms that made exploration that much more, what was the word, human.

      Wade had long had a thing for the old Painter Hall telescope, ever since his father first brought him into that round room. It was there he learned to locate the planets and constellations. It was in that observatory that he’d read the myths that lay behind their exotic names. It was there where he’d come to appreciate his own tiny place in the vast cosmos of space.

       Where math and magic become one.

      “Not bad, huh?”

      “Not bad at all.” Darrell jumped up to the platform. “Cables, cranks. Levers. A clock drive! Mechanical future stuff. I love it! What awesome stuff can it do?”

      “Not much in the daytime, but we’ll come back tonight for some real stargazing. Don’t mess with anything until I find the operating instructions. You’ll love the way it swings around with just a touch.” Wade plopped down at a small desk near the door. His father was writing a history of the telescope and had set up a research station there. “Just wait. Mars will be as close as a dinner plate.”

      “I wish I were close to a dinner plate,” said Darrell. “Do you still have nothing to eat?”

      “Since the last time you asked? No. But why don’t you check those pockets you never check?”

      “Because I obviously don’t carry food with me … oh.” Darrell pulled a slender packet from his other pocket. “Gum is food, right?”

      “It is if you swallow it,” said Wade.

      “I always do.”

      Before he’d met Darrell and his new stepmom, Sara, three years ago, Wade had hoped for the longest time that his real mother and father would get back together. He was crushed to realize they weren’t going to, and he was still having trouble accepting that the past was really the past. But he saw his real mom often (she lived in California now) and was coming to understand that you move on and learn to live with lots of stuff. He also had to admit that the new families were working out really well.

      “Can you believe Mom’s going to be lost in the jungles of South America for a week?” Darrell asked from the platform. “Well, not lost, but hunting down some crazy writer?”

      “I know, a week with no phones, no electricity, nothing.”

      “Except bugs,” said Darrell. “Lots of bugs. Then she flies to New York. Then London. My jet-setting mom.”

      “Sara’s supercool,” Wade said.

      “Yes. My mother is.”

      Any way you looked at it, the best part of the deal was Darrell himself. From the instant the two boys were introduced, he’d become the brother Wade had always wanted. They complemented each other in just about every way, but at the same time, Wade and Darrell couldn’t be more different.

      Darrell had short dark hair, olive skin, and deep brown eyes that he got from his Thai father. Wade was fair-skinned, sandy-haired, and lanky. Darrell was five feet four and a guitarist of strange loud stuff that might be really excellent or might just be loud. Wade was three inches taller and owned an iPod full of Bach, because Bach was not loud, was the most mathematical of composers, and was someone his mother had taught him to love. Darrell was a junior tennis pro. Wade wore sneakers like a junior tennis pro. Darrell was comfortable with just about everyone. Wade felt more comfortable with Darrell than he did with himself. Finally, Darrell was usually smiling, even when he was sleeping, while Wade had invented neurotic worrying.

      And he felt a sudden jolt of worry at exactly that moment.

      While searching for the telescope’s operating manual on the desk, he’d accidentally moved the mouse on his father’s computer. The screen saver flickered away and an email message popped up. Without wanting to, Wade noticed the sender’s name.

      Heinrich Vogel.

      “No kidding?” Wade whispered. “Uncle Henry?”

      “No. The name is Darrell,” said Darrell from the platform. “I thought being my stepbrother for three years you would know that.”

      “No. Dad got an email from Uncle Henry. We were just talking about him. You know he’s not really my uncle, right? He was Dad’s college teacher in Germany. I haven’t seen him since I was seven.”

      Darrell hopped down the stairs and peered over Wade’s shoulder. “Emails are private. Don’t read it. What does it say?”

      Wade tried not to read it, but his eyes strayed.

      Lca guygas eamizub zb.

      Bluysna luynaedab odxx sio wands.

      Juilatl lca Hyndblaub xanytq.

      Rdse lca loaxma uaxdtb.

      Qiz yua lca xybl.

      Darrell frowned. “Does Dad read German? Or is that Russian?”

      “Neither. It’s got to be some kind of code.”

      “Code. Wait, is our dad a spy? He’s a spy, isn’t he? Of course he’s a spy, he never told me he was, which is exactly what a spy would do. I knew it. It’s that beard. No one really knows what he looks like under there.”

      “Darrell, no.”

      “He’s probably a double agent. That’s the best kind. No one’s a single agent anymore. Or, no, a triple agent. That’s even better. Wait, what is a triple agent—”

      The door squeaked open. “So there you are!”

      Wade shot up from the desk the moment his father entered the observatory. “Nothing!” he said.

      Roald Kaplan had run track in high school, had been a champion long-distance runner in college, and still ran the occasional marathon. He was trim and tall and handsome behind sunglasses and a dark, close-cut beard. “Sara’s safely off on her flight to Bolivia. Thanks for hanging out here, while we did our last-minute zipping around. What are you guys up to?”

      “Well,” Darrell piped in, “I found gum.”

      “And I …,” Wade said, “… didn’t?”

      Darrell cleared his throat. “Wade’s odd behavior means he’s worried. Which, I know, is not breaking news, but he found something bizarro on your computer …”

      Wade pointed at the computer screen. “Dad, I’m sorry, but it was an accident that I saw the screen at all. I know I shouldn’t have read the email, but I saw it, and … what’s going on? It’s from Uncle Henry, but it looks like code.”

      Dr. Kaplan paused for a long moment. His smile faded away. He leaned over Wade and tapped the keyboard. The email printed out on a nearby printer. Then he deleted the message and shut the computer off.

      “Not here. Not now.”

      

      “Can you at least tell us why Uncle Henry’s writing to you in code?” Wade asked when they got into the car. “Is he in trouble? Or in danger? Dad, are we in danger?”

      “You worry too much,” said Dr. Kaplan, unconvincingly.

      “Is Uncle Henry a spy?” asked Darrell. “Because if he’s a spy, that’s huge. A spy in the family would actually be terrific and awesomely cool. As you probably already know, I would make a perfect spy—”

      “Boys, please,” Dr. Kaplan said, weaving through campus traffic and onto the streets. “I’m sure Uncle Henry is just fine, and I’m almost positive it’s some kind of joke message. In any case,