Chapter Fifteen
The Man in Blue Shoes
As one convoluted, twisting mass of child and Labradoodle, the Beans burst from the confines of the basement. They tumbled from the doorway, and onto the hardwood floor that lay before them.
As he lay sprawled on his stomach, Neil reached out with one hand and slammed the door closed. He wheezed with the exertion of it, but he was determined to establish a barrier between himself and whatever might be in the basement. But then again, he thought to himself, what good could this door possibly do, if the vault fails?
Blissfully, the music stopped again, and no more thooms were heard from below. In the sudden stillness, they could hear their loud breathing, as they all tried to regain their wits. As they recouped on the floor, the Beans tried to comprehend all that they had just witnessed. It was quite a bit to digest, and they were undoubtedly in some amount of shock. Even Nibbler was panting heavily, and he seemed to be thoroughly exhausted.
Distracted as they were, they failed to notice the person who walked into their presence. Nor did they notice when he walked closer still, and came to a stop right in front of them… until he spoke.
“Was there something out of sorts in the basement, m’boy?”
The Beans scrambled to their feet, and Nibbler wagged his tail in greeting.
“Oh! …Good afternoon, Uncle Lefty,” Jack said. “Um, nope, there’s nothing out of sorts, everything’s fine here! We weren’t messing around in your laboratory, not at all. Um… I hope you don’t mind me taking my friends down there to have a look around.”
“Hah!” Lefty waved a dismissive hand at the notion. “Not at all, m’boy. Curiosity is one of the greatest virtues one can have. I applaud such curiosity! Good for you! By the beard of Archimedes, you should have gone down there earlier. I was wondering what you were waiting for!”
“Uh… good!” Jack said, a bit taken off guard. He had expected his uncle to be more upset about him venturing into the laboratory.
“Who on earth is Archimedes?” Neil whispered loudly to Sara and Maria, to which they shrugged.
“Without such curiosity, all progress in the fields of science would come to a sudden stop,” Lefty explained. “Human beings must continue to be curious… to strive to achieve the next step… and to endeavor to see what yet remains around the next bend. Curiosity… it’s the key, m’boy! Don’t you see?”
“I like the sound of that,” Neil said.
“We’re big fans of curiosity,” Sara assured him.
“Ah-hah! Excellent!” Lefty exclaimed. “A curious bunch, are you? Why don’t you introduce me to your friends, m’boy?”
Jack did so, introducing each of his friends to his uncle. As they formally met and shook hands, the Beans had an opportunity to get a good look at Lefty.
He may have been roughly forty-five years old, but oddly, his hair was almost entirely white. The Beans silently wondered if that unruly mop of hair had ever seen a comb before, but they were too polite to inquire. The hair pointed this way and that, adding several inches to his otherwise average height.
It must have gone white prematurely, for Lefty was nowhere near old enough to have a head of such color. There were still a few strands of brown, indicating the former appearance of his hair, but they were few and far between. Of note was the fact that the hair seemed to have been singed at the edges of many places… perhaps by experiments gone wayward? Absorbing this detail, the Beans could not help but recall the rumors they had heard about Lefty’s strange genius.
Accentuating this crazy mop of hair was a bushy, white mustache, as well as a short, snow-colored beard. Above the mustache, there was a rather large nose, upon which was perched a pair of glasses. They had black plastic frames, and the lenses were so thick that they caused Lefty’s eyes to appear somewhat distorted. He periodically pushed the glasses back into place, as they slid down the bridge of his nose.
He wore a brightly striped sweater, and over this was a white lab coat, which fit loosely around his torso. It had large, voluminous pockets, which bulged with gadgets and scientific instruments. Likewise, his cargo pants had several pockets, filled with odds and ends. They looked like the kind of pants that an adventurer might wear on safari. The pants were cuffed above a pair of bright, blue sneakers.
Around Lefty’s neck, there was a thin cord, from which a silver pendant hung. It was rectangular in shape, and not particularly large, measuring at about an inch in length and a half-inch in width. What was curious, however, was that there was a great deal of tiny, miniscule text on the surface of the pendant.
It almost looked like a chart of some kind. Jack thought that you might very well need a magnifying glass to read whatever was written on the thing. It was also curious that he had never noticed Lefty wearing this pendant before, and he wondered if it had previously been hidden beneath his lab coat.
“He’s not as scary as I thought he would be,” Neil whispered to Sara and Maria. He seemed disappointed. “I was expecting somebody a bit more like Dr. Frankenstein, you know? With a cackle, and possibly an evil sidekick lurking about in his shadow. That would have really been something, wouldn’t it?”
Lefty did not seem to hear Neil’s thoughtful musings, but Sara nudged him in the side with her elbow, nonetheless. “Shh!” she whispered.
“I was just out and about, getting some supplies,” Lefty said, as he indicated a tote bag of groceries that he held in one hand. “I thought I might make some cookies later! Although it’s not my best field, I’ve been known to dabble in the culinary arts.”
“Yeah, that sounds good, but about the basement…” Jack trailed off.
“Yes! Tell me, was there some sort of commotion? I thought I heard a ruckus as I was coming into the house.”
“Well, as a matter of fact…” Jack began.
He exchanged a wary glance with his friends before proceeding. What exactly should he say? It was true that his uncle seemed to be quite good-natured about them exploring his laboratory. But what could have possibly been in the vault of the basement? What was Lefty hiding down there?
It occurred to Jack that he really did not know his uncle very well, and that Lefty still held many secrets. After all, why had his father never even mentioned Lefty, when they lived in the same town? But before he could decide what to say, there came the sound of several computerized noises from somewhere in Lefty’s lab coat.
“Ah-hah!” Lefty said. “What’s this?”
He rested the bag of groceries on the floor, and began rooting around in the deep pockets of his lab coat. After much muttering to himself, he pulled out a computer tablet, while spare change, buttons, rubber bands, and assorted doodads spilled onto the floor.
Lefty paid those contents no mind whatsoever, for his concentration was focused entirely upon the tablet. “Hmm,” he murmured to himself, as he began poking and prodding at the display. “Uh-huh. Ah-hah! Very interesting. Very interesting, indeed.”
Jack exchanged a curious look with his friends, and raised his shoulders in a shrug. He had warned them that his uncle was a bit odd, and quick to distraction. Absentminded might have been a good way to describe him.
“I’ve been very excited about my current project,” Lefty said, as he continued to manipulate the tablet.
“We found it a bit exciting when his ‘current project’ was trying to break out of the vault a moment ago,” Neil said beneath his breath, to which the sisters giggled.
Lefty didn’t hear the comment, and he continued with his train of thought. “I’ve been running programs and algorithms all night and day, in an effort to complete the formulas necessary for progress. Those automated programs are synched to my tablet, and I’m alerted when updates occur. It seems there’s been some activity recently!”
“Oh, you could say that,” Jack whispered to his friends, and Nibbler sneezed in agreement.
“I’ve got to work out the quirks, you know? That’s the thing about science... The more you work at it, and
the more progress you make, the more challenges that arise. But you can’t let these obstacles discourage you… triumphing over them is what brings us our greatest satisfaction. There is nothing more fulfilling than the pursuit of knowledge, and making progress in that which we are passionate about!”
Lefty was passionate about his work. That much was abundantly clear, and he continued to tinker with his tablet, muttering to himself, and becoming more and more absorbed.
Without warning, the basement door popped open, just as it had before the Beans had gone to investigate the laboratory. The children found this to be quite startling, and they all leaped back. Even Nibbler skittered around the door, eyeing it suspiciously.
Lefty looked up from his tablet, and giggled at their reaction. “Oh, don’t let that old door spook you. It just needs a new latch, that’s all. It keeps popping open! I’ve been meaning to fix it, but I’ve just been so preoccupied. These results I’ve been experiencing are quite fascinating!”
Trying to control their racing hearts, the Beans sighed with relief, and they slowly began edging away from the basement, and closer to the front door of the manor. Lefty seemed to be paying little attention to them, as he mumbled to himself and consulted his tablet, pacing back and forth as he examined its surface.
“Well… we should be heading off to the baseball field, Mr. O’Houlihan. It was a pleasure meeting you,” Maria said, as she and her friends continued edging away. “Coach will be there soon, and we’ll be getting started on our warm up drills.”
As he hustled toward the door with his friends, Jack had a last minute idea. Though he doubted anything would come of it, he thought that it couldn’t hurt to ask. As he left the house, he called out over his shoulder, “Try to make it to the game if you can, Uncle Lefty!”