This Book Is Not Good for You

  “And now…?”

  “Who knows? The Tuning Fork is probably lying around in some garage or junk shop somewhere.”

  “A junk shop?” Cass repeated in surprise.

  Mr. Wallace nodded. “People probably assume it’s just a normal musical tuning fork. Or have no idea what it is at all.”

  A junk shop.

  That meant one thing to Cass: her grandfathers. The Fire Sale was the biggest junk shop in the neighborhood.

  Was it possible they would find the Tuning Fork there?

  A short time later, Cass and her friends stood with her grandfathers Larry and Wayne outside the old redbrick fire station. In the driveway was Grandpa Wayne’s decrepit old pickup truck, piled high with all sorts of junk. It looked as if Cass’s grandfathers were moving out.

  “I think you’re a little confused, Cass,” said Grandpa Larry, chuckling. “Tuning forks aren’t really forks. They’re not for cooking or eating.”

  “Well, I suppose you could cook with a tuning fork,” said Grandpa Wayne. “Maybe as a fork when you’re carving meat. Or as a skewer. I sort of like that idea—you could make double shish kebabs!”

  “No you couldn’t,” Larry responded. “The ends of a tuning fork are much too blunt.”

  “Well, then, you file them down, of course!”

  “Never mind about that,” Cass repeated. “Please—”

  “Patience, Cass,” said Larry. “Can’t your grandfathers have a little intellectual debate now and then?”

  “It’s just—we were wondering whether you might have any old tuning forks lying around? It’s for a school report we’re doing… well, an over-the-summer report for school.” She stumbled but recovered. “For next year.”

  “Homework in summer? That’s terrible,” said Grandpa Larry. “It’s an oxymoron!” *

  “An outrage,” agreed Grandpa Wayne. “We can’t support it.”

  “I know, I agree, but please,” said Cass. “It would be really helpful.”

  Larry surveyed the pile of junk in the truck, then looked in the window of their store. “Wayne, where’s that old orange crate? You remember—with that dulcimer I made in Woodstock. Isn’t there a tuning fork in there?”

  “Oh, right, that’s—that’s against the back wall, isn’t it? Left-hand side next to the washroom?” Wayne gestured inside the store. “By the fire hose.”

  “Orange crate. Back wall. Fire hose. Got that, guys?” asked Grandpa Larry. The kids nodded.

  “Come on, Larry, we got to scoot,” said Grandpa Wayne, hopping into the driver’s seat of his truck.

  “You bet we do!” Grandpa Larry grinned, climbing into the passenger seat of the truck. “This is the most exciting day of our lives. Antiques Caravan has come to town. With all our stuff we’re going to be the stars of the show.”

  “You be the star. No way you’re getting me on TV,” grumbled Wayne.

  “You won’t care when you hear how much money we can get for this telephone! Everything from the 1970s is huge right now!”

  Larry held up the phone for Cass and her friends to see. It was shaped like a pair of lips. Big red lips.

  “Don’t forget to feed Sebastian,” Wayne called out the truck window.

  “And tell your mom to watch us on Antiques Caravan, Cass,” called Larry. “They’re broadcasting live!”

  The truck lurched into gear and sputtered away in a cloud of smoke.

  The left-hand side of the back wall next to the washroom happened to be the very most crowded section of the store. Here boxes were piled three and four deep, all the way to the ceiling. (Cass hadn’t yet tackled this section in her baby box search; she’d been hoping to find her box without having to touch it.)

  “OK, if you guys want to be here, you have to help. That means really help, Max-Ernest,” said Cass. “The only way we’re going to find that orange crate is by taking down all those boxes so we can see what’s behind.”

  Max-Ernest applied himself a little more diligently this time. Even so, the work was slow and difficult, and after an hour they’d moved fewer than a quarter of the boxes out of the way.

  Sebastian was lying nearby on the old beach towel known as his “magic carpet” (because Larry and Wayne used it to lift the dog and “fly” him around the room). As Cass dropped what seemed like the hundredth box of opera records onto the floor, he kept nudging her leg and barking.

  “Shh. Just let me find this crate, Sebastian. I need it to save my mom. She was kidnapped,” Cass whispered, grateful to be able to confide in somebody, even a dog.

  She petted his head repeatedly, but Sebastian, who tended to bark very loudly because he was very nearly deaf, only barked louder.

  Cass was about to go hunt for some dog food when she realized he was barking in the direction of the old fire hose Wayne had mentioned. It was coiled around a big iron wheel.

  Wedged behind the wheel was a box Cass hadn’t noticed earlier. Was this the cause of Sebastian’s barking?

  Growing excited, Cass pulled out the box. It was cardboard and about the size of a case of soda pop. It looked banged-up, as if it had been in her grandfather’s store for quite a while.

  Cass sighed, disappointed. One thing was certain: it wasn’t an orange crate. Why had Sebastian steered her so wrong?

  She was about to push the box aside with the others when she noticed a quarter-size hole cut into the cardboard. And the words HANDLE WITH CARE written in black marker.

  Could it be…?

  She looked over at her friends—they were both absorbed in what they were doing—and then she nervously peeled back the layers of masking tape that kept the box closed.

  The box was empty, save for a single piece of paper.

  BABY GIRL—7 LBS, 3 OZ

  TIME OF BIRTH—6:35 PM

  According to the story her grandfathers had told her, those were the only words written on the piece of paper that had been taped to her chest. Yet here she found a long letter written below them.

  DEAR LARRY AND WAYNE:

  YOU ARE THE MESSIEST, MOST DISORGANIZED, MOST FRUSTRATING CLIENTS I HAVE EVER HAD THE DISPLEASURE OF WORKING FOR IN MY ENTIRE CAREER AS AN ACCOUNTANT. HOWEVER, I DO NOT KNOW WHO ELSE TO TURN TO. DESPITE THE DISARRAY IN WHICH YOU LIVE, YOU HAVE GOOD HEARTS AND YOU KNOW MANY PEOPLE. I AM SURE YOU WILL FIND A GOOD HOME FOR THIS BABY GIRL. IT IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT THAT NOBODY KNOW OF MY CONNECTION TO THE CHILD—ESPECIALLY THE CHILD HERSELF. ANY MENTION OF MY NAME WILL PUT HER IN DANGER.

  YOUR HUMBLE SERVANT,

  WWW III

  WWW III.

  William Wilton Wallace, the Third.

  Mr. Wallace.

  It had to be. It couldn’t be a coincidence. Even if there were somebody else with those initials, what were the chances that he would also be an accountant?

  Of all the people in the world, it was Mr. Wallace who had left her on her grandfathers’ doorstep!

  Cass knew she shouldn’t be surprised. As she’d learned in her hunt for the homunculus, Mr. Cabbage Face, her connections to the Terces Society ran deep. The founder of the Terces Society, the Jester, was her ancestor. Her great-great-great-great-grandfather. Or something like that. She was the Heir of the Jester. Mr. Cabbage Face had told her as much. He could tell by her ears.

  And then there was the fact that she had found her birth certificate, the first clue that she wasn’t exactly who she thought she was, in a Terces Society file. Mr. Wallace had claimed never to have seen the birth certificate before, but looking back, she’d been foolish to believe him.

  He always seemed to disapprove of her being a member of the Terces Society. He said it was because of her age, but what if it was because of who she was?

  Could Mr. Wallace be her father?! No. It was impossible. She refused to believe it. They looked nothing alike. More importantly, their personalities were nothing alike. But it was very likely that he knew who her parents were.

  Correction: who her birth parents were. They hadn’t raised her, she reminded herself
. Somebody else had.

  She stared at the box in front of her, eyes moistening, thinking about how her mother had been there at the firehouse with her grandfathers when she, Cass, then an orphaned baby, was delivered to their doorstep. Just as if her mother had been waiting for her.

  As if it had been meant to be.

  “What’s that? Did you find the orange crate?” asked Yo-Yoji.

  “No, just… nothing.”

  Cass quickly pushed the box behind the fire hose.

  If she didn’t act fast, she would be orphaned again. That was all that mattered now.

  Max-Ernest was the first to spot it. It was teetering at the top of the back row of boxes. An old wooden crate with a picture of an orange shining in the sky like a sun.

  Fighting his fear of heights, he climbed up to the orange crate, dislodging more than a few boxes along the way.

  “This is it!” Victorious, he passed the crate down to Yo-Yoji.

  They had to pry off the lid with a screwdriver, but soon they were pulling things out, making yet another pile on the floor.

  At the bottom of the crate, beneath a broken thumb piano and a curiously misshapen string instrument that they guessed was the dulcimer Larry had made, was a gleaming, two-pronged metal object.

  “Is that the Tuning Fork?” Cass asked, feeling a tingle of excitement in her ears.

  “Well it’s a tuning fork…” Yo-Yoji picked it up, then hit one of the prongs with a small candlestick he found nearby. “Hear that note? That’s an A.” (As Cass and Max-Ernest had memorably learned when they were trying to interpret the song of the Sound Prism, Yo-Yoji had perfect pitch—the musical kind, that is, not the taste-bud version.)

  “But, wait—if it works, that means it can’t be the right one. Because the Tuning Fork isn’t really a tuning fork,” Max-Ernest pointed out. “How ’bout that?”

  “Oh… right,” said Cass, crushed.

  “Besides, it doesn’t look very Aztec,” Max-Ernest added.

  Cass sat down on the orange crate, suddenly filled with an overwhelming sense of despair. “This whole thing was stupid—what were the chances my grandfathers would have the tuning fork we were looking for? We just wasted all this time—for nothing.”

  Well, not exactly for nothing, she reminded herself. But she would return to that box later.

  “What’s the big deal? We’ll find the Tuning Fork,” said Yo-Yoji. “Eventually.”

  “Well, realistically, we probably won’t,” said Max-Ernest conversationally. “We don’t even know if the Tuning Fork is still around. For all we know, it could be just a legend, like Pietro said. Or like a myth that’s partly based in fact. Or—”

  Cass gritted her teeth. “Thanks, that’s really reassuring, Max-Ernest. You’re a big help.”

  “Why is that reassuring?” asked Max-Ernest, confused. “Oh wait, you were being sarcastic, huh?”

  Cass was about to respond in a suitably snippy manner but she stopped herself. After all, it was definite progress for Max-Ernest to recognize sarcasm.

  The question was: how to convey the urgency of their task without giving her secret away?

  “Sorry. I wasn’t supposed to tell you guys this but…” Cass struggled with her conscience: was it OK to fudge the truth in this circumstance? “Well, Pietro said if the Midnight Sun finds the Tuning Fork before we do, then this will be our last mission for the Terces Society—ever!”

  “Really? He said that?” asked Max-Ernest.

  Cass nodded.

  “That sucks!” said Yo-Yoji. “Why would he—?”

  “Actually, I think it’s Mr. Wallace’s fault,” Cass elaborated. “You know how he doesn’t think kids should be in the Terces Society? Well, they agreed this would be a test.”

  “But we took an oath,” said Max-Ernest. “Can they un-oath us? I thought we were in for life. I mean, unless we talked about the Secret. Or something else we weren’t supposed to talk about—”

  Cass grimaced at this reference to secret-spilling. “Well, it’s up to them, isn’t it? They kind of make the rules, don’t they?”

  “But the Terces Society is hundreds of years old—”

  “Well, it doesn’t matter, anyway—nobody’s going to kick us out because we’re going to hunt down the Tuning Fork as fast as we can,” said Yo-Yoji, determined. “But first we gotta eat. I’m starved.”

  “I agree—our blood sugar levels are really low,” said Max-Ernest.

  Cass was hardly in the mood for a relaxing lunch, but she had to acknowledge she was hungry, too; Max-Ernest was right about their blood sugar levels. Combing through her grandfathers’ stuff was hard work.

  She led her friends upstairs to the old firemen’s galley—now her grandfathers’ kitchen—to see what there was to eat.

  “… You’re right, it is Chippendale—that’s the good news…”

  Sitting on the kitchen table was an old portable TV—so old it had antennae sticking out of the back. Next to the TV was an equally old VCR—a video cassette recorder left over from the days when film and television shows were recorded on video tape. A blinking red light indicated a recording in progress.

  On the television screen, a dapper man in a three-piece suit was talking to a wide-eyed—and rather wide-bodied—young woman. A shiny wooden table stood beside them.

  “A piece like this recently sold for $300,000…,” said Dapper Man.

  “$300,000?!” repeated Wide Woman.

  “Hey, it’s Antiques Caravan!” said Yo-Yoji. “Your grandfathers must have set it to record.”

  Cass and Max-Ernest gathered close to watch:

  On-screen, Dapper Man nodded. “If you’d left the table as it was, you would be a rich woman. Unfortunately, by restoring the finish you’ve made it totally worthless. No better than a fake.”

  “Oh no! I thought I was doing the right thing…” Tears streamed down Wide Woman’s face.

  “Look—your grandfathers are in the back.”

  Max-Ernest pointed to the corner of the television screen where the two older men—identifiable by their exceptionally long beards—were having what looked like a heated argument with another antiques appraiser. Larry kept shaking his red lips telephone in the air.

  “I guess the antiques guy didn’t think the phone was worth very much money,” said Cass.

  After a short break for what the show called “a word from our sponsors” Dapper Man was back, now speaking to a woman in a violet pantsuit and matching hat.

  Yo-Yoji stared. “Is that who I think it is…? I thought she crawled into a cave or something during the summer…”

  Max-Ernest’s jaw dropped. “What’s Mrs. Johnson doing on Antiques Caravan?”

  Indeed, Pantsuit Woman was their very own school principal—on television.

  “It was my Great-Great-Great-Aunt Clara’s,” Mrs. Johnson was saying proudly. “One of the original New En-gland colonists, and a leading citizen in her time. Best cook in the county. Famous for her candies. She carried the piece with her on the Mayflower. The workmanship is English…”

  “That’s weird,” said Max-Ernest. “Didn’t Mr. Wallace say something about the Mayflower and a woman named Clara?”

  “Yeah, a witch,” said Yo-Yoji. “How funny would that be if Mrs. Johnson’s aunt was a witch!”

  Dapper Man gestured toward a small object that was sitting under a bright light. “I can’t tell what it is exactly—perhaps a ritual object of some kind? What I’m certain about is that it is not English…”

  Mrs. Johnson looked at the antiques appraiser with outrage. “Are you doubting that my Aunt Clara came over on the Mayflower?”

  “You know what’s really weird—” said Cass, “how much that thing on the table looks like a tuning fork.”

  “Most of the design has worn away but it is undoubtedly pre-Columbian—probably Mayan or Aztec,” Dapper Man continued smoothly. “Do you have proof this object is yours? It is illegal to own a pre-Columbian artifact without proper documentation.”
>
  “Proper documentation? What are you accusing me of!? I’ve never been so insulted in all my life!”

  Mrs. Johnson grabbed the item in question off the table and stormed out of the television picture frame, leaving the appraiser aghast.

  Back at the fire station, Max-Ernest and Yo-Yoji were still staring at the television screen, unable to believe the object they’d been looking for was in their principal’s possession.

  Cass was already standing up and heading for the round opening in the kitchen floor.

  “C’mon, follow me!”

  Trying to get the Tuning Fork out of the hands of Mrs. Johnson was only slightly more appealing than cuddling up to a T. rex, but they had no choice.

  And there was no time to lose.

  Grabbing hold of the brass fire pole, she slid down to the floor below.

  If you’ve ever run into a teacher outside of school then you know what an alarming experience that can be.

  Say your teacher is at the supermarket buying groceries. Awful, right? You don’t want to know what your teacher eats for dinner. Or how about seeing your teacher at the movies on a date? What could be worse than that?

  Yes, in theory, we know our teachers are human. But we don’t want to see the evidence up close.

  Now imagine that instead of a teacher it is your principal you’re going to be seeing outside of school. In fact, you’re going to visit her house.

  That, dear reader, is the terrible task Cass and her friends now undertook.

  Their principal’s house was the last of five identical townhouses squashed together on a short block. I say identical but in fact there was no mistaking Mrs. Johnson’s for anybody else’s. While the other four houses had more or less unexceptional grass and shrubbery in their tiny front yards, Mrs. Johnson’s had, well—

  Gnomes. Lots of gnomes.

  I’ve never understood what possesses normally sane people to decorate their gardens with plaster-cast versions of two-foot-tall fantasy humanoids, but whatever it is it had possessed Mrs. Johnson one hundred times over.