only this time with a new wrinkle.
He went to the kitchen and searched through Mom’s junk drawer—where she kept everything she had no other place for—and found an old eyedropper
he’d seen some time ago. He grabbed that and the pistachios and headed back to his room.
He set up at his desk with the pepper juice and the eyedropper. This time he wouldn’t shel the nuts. Instead, he’d dose them while they were stil inside.
He picked out fifteen good-size nuts with wide-open shel s. Using the dropper, he added a generous amount of juice into each opening. When he was
finished, he placed the nuts on the windowsil to dry—and couldn’t resist taking a quick look outside to make sure no one was there.
Back in the kitchen he replaced the bag of pistachios in the cabinet. Then he wrapped a paper towel around the eyedropper, crushed it under his heel,
and threw the pieces into the trash. No way he wanted anyone—not even Tom—to use that on their eyes.
He returned to his room and dropped back on his bed, thinking about Tom sneaking through his room, just as he’d been in Dad’s. He didn’t like the
idea, just as Dad wouldn’t.
Maybe he should just forget about that box. He couldn’t get it open anyway.
Then he remembered something he’d seen at USED and suddenly the world seemed a little brighter.
“Hi, Mister Rosen!” he cal ed as he strol ed into USED. “It’s me, Jack.” “I can hear you,” the old man said as he ambled from the rear. “In China they
can hear you.” He glanced at the clock. “And it’s just after nine. What are you doing here three hours early?”
Jack held up the issue of
this back.” He gently and reverently laid it on the counter. “See? The
same condition as when I took it.”
“So it is,” he said as he inspected it, turning it over and back again. “And this
couldn’t wait until noon?”
Jack had thought he could wait but found it impossible. He’d been so anxious to get here he’d had trouble concentrating on the Spider’s exploits last
night.
“I want to buy something.”
Mr. Rosen stared at him over his reading glasses. “Again—it couldn’t wait til later?”
“I suppose it could’ve but I wasn’t sure you stil had it.”
“And what might that be?”
“Let me get it and show you.”
Jack hurried al the way to the very rear of the store to where a beat-up old dresser sat in a corner. He’d been dusting it off last month when he’d pul ed
open the top drawer and found a folded piece of felt containing an assortment of metal doohickeys of varying shapes, al odd. Some of them reminded
him of the picks his dentist used when he was looking for cavities, others were half cylinders made of thin metal and flanged along the top.
Folded within was a smal booklet titled
He remembered thinking at the time how cool it would be to know how to pick a lock, but a quick look through the booklet had convinced him it was too
complicated to learn without spending more time than he cared to.
Last night had changed his mind.
He pul ed the kit from the drawer and brought it to the front where he slapped it on the counter in front of Mr. Rosen.
“How much?”
The old man picked it up, looked it over, then shook his head.
“Not for sale.”
Jack stiffened. “But—”
“If it was for sale it would be in one of the display cases already. You did not find this in a display case, did you.”
“Wel , no—”
“Then it’s not for sale. Put it back.”
