Journey on a Runaway Train

  They hurried into the study. “Look,” Benny said, pointing at the desk. “The turtle is still here.”

  “That can’t be,” Jessie said. “The turtle was in the trunk when I left and the lid was shut.”

  “Somehow it got back out.” Henry picked it up. “There is something very strange going on.”

  Jessie looked at the turtle, amazed it was still in the house. “We need to ask Mrs. McGregor what happened,” she said. “Maybe Mrs. McGregor took the passports before the men loaded the trunk.”

  The children ran into the kitchen and told the housekeeper what had happened.

  “Oh dear. I had no idea you hadn’t finished going through the trunk, Jessie,” Mrs. McGregor said. “I saw some papers in the box, so I thought you were finished.”

  “What about the turtle?” Benny asked. “How did it get back out of the trunk?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t take it out. I didn’t see either of the two men take it out.” Mrs. McGregor paused and then said, “There was something odd that happened. After I let them in and they started to move the trunk, the telephone rang. I couldn’t reach the telephone on Mr. Alden’s desk because the men and the trunk were in the way. I went into the kitchen to answer it, but there was no one there. When I came back, they already had the trunk out on the porch.”

  “So one of them had time to take the turtle out of the trunk without you seeing it,” Henry said.

  Mrs. McGregor nodded her head. “If they were quick about it, they could have.”

  “I’m worried about our passports,” Jessie said. “We need to call Mr. Ganert right away. But I can’t remember the telephone number of Reddimus Curiosities.”

  “I saw Grandfather put the business card down on the hall table,” Violet said. “It will be on there. I’ll go get it.”

  She brought the card into the kitchen. “We’ve got a problem. There is no phone number on it. No address either. The only things on it are the words Reddimus Curiosities and a couple of words I don’t know how to pronounce.” She sounded them out. “Ar-te per-en-net. I don’t know what those words mean.”

  “Could I see the card?” Jessie asked. Violet handed it to her. Jessie looked at the unfamiliar words. “I don’t know them either. I don’t think arte or perennet are English words.”

  “Even if we knew what they meant, it wouldn’t help us get in touch with Mr. Ganert,” Henry said.

  “I see something written on the back,” Benny said.

  Jessie turned the card over. “More odd words. Confert Latinum.”

  Henry looked over Jessie’s shoulder. “Latinum? That sounds like Latin. Maybe all those words are in Latin.”

  “What’s Latin?” Benny asked.

  “It’s an old language,” Henry explained. “People still study it today. I’ll take it in school next year.”

  “Even if we figure out how to translate the words, we still won’t have a phone number,” Violet said.

  “Why don’t you just look in the telephone book?” Benny suggested.

  Henry laughed. “Smart, Benny. We should have thought of that. High five!” Henry held up his hand and Benny jumped up to slap it.

  The children took the turtle back into the study. Henry pulled the telephone book out of the drawer in Grandfather’s desk and leafed through it until he got to the R’s. Running his finger down the page he read off a list of businesses beginning with RE. “There isn’t a Reddimus Curiosities here. I don’t understand why a business wouldn’t be listed in the telephone book.”

  “What about the flyer?” Violet asked. “That’s how Jessie got the number in the first place.”

  Jessie thought for a moment. “I think Grandfather had it last.” They searched everywhere but couldn’t find it. Violet asked Mrs. McGregor, but the housekeeper hadn’t seen it either.

  Henry snapped his fingers. “I know. The man was delivering flyers all over the neighborhood. We can get the number off one of the neighbor’s flyers.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Violet said. The children rang doorbells up and down the street. None of the neighbors on the street had received a flyer. As the Aldens walked back to the house, they discussed the problem.

  “So why would that man deliver a flyer just to us?” Jessie wondered aloud. “It’s almost like they knew the trunk was here and wanted to convince us to sell it to them.”

  “Do you think they wanted to steal our passports?” Benny asked.

  “No,” Henry said. “They wouldn’t know the passports were in the trunk in the first place, and once they bought the trunk, they couldn’t know Jessie wouldn’t have time to take the passports out.”

  “Except Jessie did get the mysterious phone call,” Violet reminded them.

  They reached their house, walking up the steps to the porch. “What about the phone history on the telephone?” Jessie suggested. “It should have the last number we called.”

  Henry shook his head as he opened the door. “Don’t you remember? We used Grandfather’s old-fashioned dial phone in the study. That doesn’t have a phone history on it, and the calls don’t show up on the other phones.”

  “Maybe Mr. Ganert will come back when he finds the turtle isn’t in the trunk,” Benny said. He didn’t say it out loud but he was glad the turtle had been left behind. He really, really liked it.

  Jessie couldn’t stop worrying about the passports. “I hope so,” she said, “but we should tell Grandfather.”

  When Grandfather came home and heard about the passports, he said not to worry. “Let’s wait and see if Mr. Ganert calls us,” he said.

  By Monday, though, there was still no call from Mr. Ganert. The Aldens’ attempts to find out more about the turtle on the Internet had been unsuccessful. Googling black and orange turtle brought up images of an interesting type of real turtle, an Eastern box turtle, but no pottery turtles.

  They had better luck with the words on the business card. Jessie typed the words into a Latin translation site. “It works!” she exclaimed. “Ar-te per-en-net means ‘Art endures.’”

  “I like that. It means art lasts a long time,” Violet explained to Benny.

  “What about the other words on the back?” Henry asked.

  Jessie typed in confert Latinum. She laughed at what came up on the screen. “‘Latin helps.’ That’s not the best way to give us a clue—by telling us in Latin the words are in Latin.”

  “So we know a little, but we still don’t know anything about the turtle,” Violet said.

  “Maybe it’s time to visit the library,” Henry suggested. “We can’t make any more progress here. And it’s a good time for a bike ride. It’s not supposed to rain this morning.”

  They were all happy to get outside. When they reached the library and parked their bikes in the bike rack, Henry pointed at all the other bikes filling the spaces. “It must be busy inside. Look at all the other bikes.”

  He was right. The library was full of people. The children stood in the entrance. “What do we do first?” Benny asked.

  “Let’s divide up what we need to do,” Jessie suggested.

  “I’ll try to find out about the turtle,” Violet volunteered. “Benny, you can help me since you like it so much.”

  “Then Jessie and I will try to figure out the Reddimus clue,” Henry said. “We’ll be sitting over there at that table. Come get us if you figure out something or if you need help.” Henry and Jessie found a table and sat down.

  Violet told Benny, “The colors on the turtle remind me of the pottery we saw when we were in New Mexico. Why don’t we start with books about Native American nations from the Southwest? That will help narrow down our search a little. If I’m wrong, we can move on to other regions.”

  “Okay, how do we do that?” Benny asked.

  “First, we need to look up the right call numbers for the section of art books on Native American pottery,” Violet explained. She showed Benny how to use the library computer to look up the information they needed. When she and Be
nny went to find the books, some were too high on the shelf for them to reach.

  “Let’s ask a librarian to help us,” Benny suggested.

  “I only see one librarian, and I don’t recognize her,” Violet said. “She must be new.”

  “Which one?” Benny asked. He didn’t know the librarians as well as Violet did.

  “The woman with her leg in a cast. Look, her cast is purple! And she had a purple streak in her hair! We are seeing lots of purple these days.” Violet noticed the new librarian watching them. The woman was putting away a book on a shelf while using one crutch to balance. As soon as the librarian was finished, she headed back to her desk, waving to Benny and Violet as she went by.

  “She doesn’t look so busy now,” Benny said.

  When the two went up to her, the librarian smiled at them. “I could tell you needed help. I’m Trudy. What can I do for you?” Her name tag said her name was Trudy Silverton. In front of her on her desk, Violet noticed a pile of markers and a piece of paper with a big question mark on it. The question mark was in all different colors.

  Violet leaned in closer. “The question mark is made up of lots of little words all in a line! That’s pretty,” Violet said.

  “It is pretty, isn’t it,” Trudy said. “It’s a form of word art. You pick a shape you want to draw, and then you make the shape by writing little words where you would normally draw the lines.” The librarian picked up a blank piece of paper and a marker. “See, if I wanted to make a picture of a bird, I could write ‘chirp, chirp, chirp’ one after another and curve the words around in the shape of the bird’s back and then its head.” She wrote a few words and then set the marker down. “It takes a little while to do a whole picture, but it’s fun and easy. I’m going to do a session here at the library for people who are interested in learning more about this kind of art.”

  “I’d like to try that,” Violet said. “I like all kinds of arts and crafts. We’re here today because we are trying to find out more about a piece of art, a type of pottery, but we can’t reach the books we need. Could we use a stool to get them?”

  “I’d be glad to help you,” Trudy said, getting up from her desk.

  “It might be hard for you with your cast.” Violet glanced at the cast. It covered most of Trudy’s leg.

  “Oh, I’ve gotten good at managing,” Trudy said. They followed her to the right shelf and took the books as Trudy handed them down. “You are sure to find what you need,” the librarian said as she helped them find a spot to sit down. “These are the right books.”

  Violet didn’t know why Trudy sounded so sure, but she thanked the librarian and then she and Benny got to work.

  “How do we start?” Benny asked. “Do I look for a picture of a turtle?”

  Violet picked a book and opened it. “You could, but you might not find a turtle. There won’t be pictures of every type of Native American pottery.”

  “So how will we know?” Benny took another book.

  “The designs and the orange and black colors on it are important,” Violet said. “We learned that different groups used certain colors based on what kind of glazes they could make from the rocks and minerals around them. Now potters can buy the glazes in the colors they want. It’s a lot easier, though I think it would be fun to make glazes.”

  For the next several minutes, they flipped through the pages. Benny liked all the different pictures of animals on different shapes of pottery. He decided he wanted to learn to make pottery too.

  He was about to pick up another book when Violet cried, “I found something!” She showed him a picture of some black and white pottery. “I don’t know what the I and the K mean, but Acoma is the name of one of the Native American Pueblos in New Mexico.”

  “What’s a pueblo?”

  “The book says the word has some different meanings. It means ‘town’ in Spanish. It’s also the word used for some Native American nations and their cultures. There are several Pueblos in the southwestern part of the United States. The Acoma one is in New Mexico.”

  Benny jumped up from his seat. “Let’s go tell Jessie and Henry!”

  “Tell us what?” Henry asked as he and Jessie came up to the table. “We have something to tell you, but let’s hear you first.” Violet explained about Acoma Pueblo.

  “Good job, Violet!” Jessie said, a big grin appearing on her face. “Here’s what we figured out. I thought Reddimus was someone’s last name, but then we realized it doesn’t sound like a name we’ve heard before. Our only other clues were words in Latin, so I had the idea that reddimus might be Latin too, and it is! We looked it up in a Latin dictionary. Reddimus is a Latin word meaning ‘we return.’”

  “So we found two important clues!” Benny said.

  Jessie’s smile faded. “Except we still don’t know how to find Mr. Ganert or Reddimus Curiosities.”

  Henry sighed. “We still haven’t solved this mystery.”

  “Trudy, the new librarian, is staring at us,” Violet whispered.

  The Secretive Silverton Family

  “We’re making too much noise. Let’s go home. It’s almost time for lunch.” Henry and Jessie helped Violet and Benny carry the books to the return cart, and then all the Aldens walked to the door of the library.

  As Henry pushed open the door, they heard Trudy’s voice. “Wait!” she called as she hobbled toward them. She carried a thin leather-bound book. It looked old.

  “You forgot this,” Trudy said, handing it to Henry.

  “No, this isn’t our book,” Henry said, trying to hand it back.

  Trudy refused to take it back. “It’s checked out in your name. I think you will find it very useful, especially once you open it.”

  “Miss Silverton!” the other librarian called.

  “I’m sure I’ll see you soon,” Trudy said to the Aldens as she turned to go back to her desk.

  “That’s odd,” Violet said. “Why does she want us to take this book? What’s it called? It doesn’t have at title on the cover.”

  “Let’s go outside and talk,” Henry said.

  They took the book over to the bike rack. Henry opened it up, revealing the book had only a few pages in it. The strangest part of it was that all the pages were blank.

  “It’s not even a real book,” Violet said.

  “And it’s not a library book,” Jessie added. “There aren’t any numbers or stickers on the spine.”

  Henry flipped through the pages. “Look at this.” He pulled out two pieces of loose paper that had been stuck between two pages. “There is a note and a folded piece of paper. The note says Bring the turtle. Come to the museum at 8:00 tonight.” He unfolded the other piece of paper and held it out for the rest of them to see. “It’s a map of Greenfield that someone drew.”

  Jessie took it from him and studied it. “There is a square on it labeled Silverton Mansion.”

  “Does it show the location of the museum?” Violet asked. “I didn’t even know there was a museum in Greenfield.”

  “It doesn’t have anything marked as a museum,” Henry said, looking over Jessie’s shoulder at the map. “I don’t remember ever seeing the Silverton Mansion either.”

  “I know where it’s at,” Jessie said. “The mansion is at the edge of town by the old railroad, but it’s set back from the road and hidden by a bunch of big trees. I don’t know anything about a museum though.”

  “How are we going to go to a museum tonight if we don’t know where it is?” Benny asked.

  “We should ask Grandfather.” Violet pulled her bike out of the rack. “If there is a museum in Greenfield, he’ll know where it’s located.”

  Back at home, the Aldens found Grandfather reading the newspaper in the living room. “I’ve known the Silverton family for a long time,” he said when the children told him about the message and the map. “They once helped the Alden family out, and we’ve always been grateful to them for it. But that’s a long story for another time. The Silverton family made their
fortune over a century ago. They built and sold luxury railroad coaches. Much fancier than your boxcar.” Grandfather ruffled Benny’s hair. “Their coaches had velvet sofas and crystal chandeliers and beautiful woodwork.”

  “That doesn’t sound like our boxcar,” Benny said.

  “Maybe we could add a chandelier to it!” Violet suggested.

  “No,” Benny looked horrified. “I don’t want a fancy boxcar to play in. I like it just the way it is.”

  “What about the museum?” Henry asked. “Where is it?”

  Grandfather pointed at the house on the map. “It’s right here. Most people don’t remember it, if they ever knew about it. Once train travel became less popular, the Silvertons opened an unusual private railroad museum behind their mansion. There were some of the old train cars on display. But the museum hasn’t been open for many years. The family is reclusive. They keep to themselves.”

  “Why would they want us to go there tonight?” Jessie asked. “I don’t understand any of this.”

  Grandfather smiled. “It’s an unusual way to invite us to their house, but there are many things about the Silvertons that are unusual. You will find the visit very interesting.”

  The rest of the day passed quickly because Mrs. McGregor had a whole list of errands she needed the children to do for her. After they finished, they ate a quick dinner, and then it was time to go.

  “Bring Watch along too. He’ll enjoy the car ride,” Grandfather said as he picked up his keys and went to pull the car out of the garage.

  “I’m surprised Grandfather wants Watch along,” Jessie said. “We don’t usually take him to strangers’ houses.”

  “Grandfather is being thoughtful,” Benny told her. “He knows Watch likes car rides.”

  Jessie wasn’t so sure that was the reason. “I’ll get the turtle,” she said.

  Mrs. McGregor came out on the front steps with them and hugged them all. “Have a good time,” she said.

  “We’ll be back in a few hours, Mrs. McGregor,” Jessie said, wondering why the housekeeper was seeing them off. The others didn’t notice. They were too excited to go to the Silvertons.