He nodded. “Definitely.”
“You’re not going to have nightmares tonight about being chased by short-armed men, are you?”
He laughed. “As if.”
On the other hand, that might be kind of cool—as long as it was only a dream.
As soon as the door closed he went to work shel ing another half dozen pistachios. When he was done he dropped the whole pile into the tepin bowl
and swirled the mixture around and over them. Satisfied they were al nicely coated, he picked them out one by one and lined them up on his windowsil to
dry.
When he was finished, without thinking, he licked his two wet fingertips and instantly his tongue and lips were on fire.
He jumped up and dashed across the hal to the bathroom for water, but remembered Mr. Canel i’s words just in time:
His mouth was kil ing him, making his eyes tear. What had the old guy said to use instead?
Jack dashed for the kitchen, yanked open the refrigerator. On the door he spotted an open stick of Land O’Lakes butter. He gouged a piece off the end
and shoved it into his mouth, running it al over the burning area. Slowly, the heat eased—didn’t leave entirely but at least became bearable.
He hurried back to his room and stared at the drying pistachios. He’d touched just a drop—less than a drop— to his tongue and look what happened. If
Tom ate that whole pile …
Jack didn’t want to think about how that would feel. Might be
But on the other hand, Jack wasn’t handing them to his brother. Tom would have to steal them to taste them.
The decision would be Tom’s, the outcome entirely up to him.
8
Steve couldn’t open the cube either.
They’d been sitting at the Brussards’ kitchen table where Jack had demonstrated
the technique at least a dozen times.
He wondered if Steve had already been drinking. His fingers seemed kind of clumsy.
“Hey, Dad!” Steve cal ed. “Come check this out!”
Mr. Brussard strol ed in from the living room where Jack could hear some sort of
classical music playing.
“What’s—?” He froze in the doorway like he’d been hit with a paralyzer ray. His
eyes were locked on the cube. “Where did you get
Remembering Weezy’s warning, Jack told a vague story of the two of them
digging it up in the Barrens a while back.
He concluded with, “I’m not even sure I could find my way back there.” Not true, of course, but his promise to Weezy overrode Mr. Brussard’s nosiness. “Get this, Dad. It’s impossible to open—at least for me.”
Mr. Brussard frowned. “What makes you think it opens?”
“Jack showed me how but I can’t do it.”
Mr. Brussard stared at Jack. “You can open it?”
Jack wondered why he looked so surprised. “Yeah. Kind of weird that I’m the
only one.”
“Yes … yes, it is.”
Jack picked it up. “You ever seen anything like it before?”
He shook his head. “No. It’s very strange looking, isn’t it.”
Jack wasn’t sure, but he had a feeling Steve’s father wasn’t being total y honest. “Yeah, I guess.”
“Open it for me,” Mr. Brussard said. “Let me see you do it.”
Jack showed where he placed his thumbnails, then popped it open. Mr.
Brussard’s eyes popped too.
“But it’s empty!”
Obviously. But he was acting as if he’d expected to see something. Jack told him about the pyramid. No point in keeping that a secret. Mr. Rosen
and Professor Nakamura already knew about it, along with a bunch of
