Chapter 4
The Infamous Dr. Barnes
Sarah squinted at the exterior of Matt’s house. It dwarfed the other houses on the street, rising out of the snow like a breaching whale. She looked from Matt’s ragged parka to the mansion, all the while rubbing her forehead. As she drew nearer, though, she could see chips and gouges in the grey brick, and strips of black paint peeling from the multiple garage doors. One of the shutters—a New England touch splashed onto an Upper Canada construction—was hanging off one hinge, and some of the shingles had blown off the roof. Matt keyed in a code for the garage door opener and they went inside.
“No one home yet?” asked Sarah.
“Nadine doesn’t get in from the office until six.”
“Is that your mother?” Sarah pretended ignorance.
“My mom died when I was born,” said Matt, avoiding her gaze as he shut the door. “There’s just Nadine and, well . . . my father.”
“Oh,” said Sarah. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I never knew my mom.”
“Who’s Nadine then?”
“She’s my dad’s assistant. I live with her when Dad’s away.” He slid his backpack from his shoulder and stashed it in the front hall closet. He wriggled out of his parka like a moth from a cocoon and left it to molder in a pile of slush on the floor. Sarah twisted her lips, biting back a neat-freak comment as she hung her coat on a hanger in the closet.
“I thought your dad was home. You said I could meet him.”
“You can,” said Matt. “Come on. I’ll show you.”
He loped up the stairs, which rose in a lighthouse spiral from the front hall into the upper reaches of the house. Sarah followed, listening for some sound of human life. There was nothing other than the swish of their feet on the hardwood. They emerged in a long hall that extended the length of the dilapidated mansion. Every other step they took evoked an eerie squeak from the floorboards that ricocheted off the walls and ceiling of the vast arched hallway. At the end of the hall Matt stopped. “This is my room,” he said, pointing to a mauve door, a bruise in the stark white corridor. He pushed it open.
“Your dad sleeps in your room?” asked Sarah, raising her eyebrows.
“No. Well, sort of. Come on in. I’ll show you.”
Sarah stepped into the room, and sucked in her breath as she gazed at a cyclone-swept trail of debris. Clothes and sports equipment, empty Coke cans and candy wrappers littered the floor, choking out any sight of the carpet. Grimy bed covers were thrown in a heap at the bottom of the bed. Holes and tatters grappled with every item, as if they’d been attacked by ravenous rats. Sarah wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d told her a bomb had been detonated in the centre of his room. “If your dad’s here, we’ll never find him,” she said.
“Very funny.” Matt threw some clothes off the swivel chair in front of his desk. He pulled up another chair from the corner and swept the magazines off it for Sarah. “Take a seat. There’s something I have to show you.”
Sarah wiped the seat with her hand and sat down as Matt logged onto his computer. As she swung her foot around she kicked over a stack of music and video game discs on the floor, along with a rather thick book. Normally, she wouldn’t have given it a second thought, but the book looked strange. It had a cracked cover and thick paper yellowed with age. The title seemed totally weird for a boy who slept through history class—The Decline of the First Nations.
“What’s this?” she asked, picking it up.
Matt’s eyes widened. He snatched the book from her hand.
“Nothing,” he said, setting it on the other side of the desk.
“I thought you didn’t like history.”
“I don’t.”
“Then why the book? It even looks well-read.”
“It’s just an old book I found in the house. I read a couple of pages. So what?” He gave her a stern, drop-it look.
“So nothing,” said Sarah, taking the hint. “What do you have to show me?”
“This.” He activated the memory on the computer and brought up old messages, the most recent dated Sunday, February 10—yesterday. “I’ll introduce you to my dad.”
The video sprang to life and there stood Professor Barnes, beside a stepped pyramid of pristine whitewashed limestone surrounded by lush green palms and ferns.
“Hi Matt. I hope you’re doing well. As you can see I’m surrounded by the mysteries of the Maya. We found a new city in Guatemala. I can’t tell you the exact location.” He raised his hand to his mouth, leaned in to the camera and whispered: “Top secret. But I can tell you there’ll be revelations here that will shock the world. People in ancient societies were much more intelligent than we gave them credit for. Anyway, thought I’d drop you a line. Take care. End transmission.”
The screen froze. There was a moment of heavy silence before Matt finally spoke. “There you have him. You’ve met my dad.”
“Is this some kind of joke?” asked Sarah.
“No joke,” said Matt. “You’ve seen as much as I have.”
“Excuse me. You’ve lost me somewhere. That was just a video feed from Guatemala, from a Mayan pyramid.”
“Exactly. That’s all I’ve ever seen of him. My dad is a computer-generated image. Get it?”
“He’s not real?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know? Of course you know. He’s around here sometimes, isn’t he? You’re putting me on.”
Matt leaned back in his chair and linked his hands behind his head. “I wish I were.”
“You mean he’s never home?”
“Never.”
“Even when you were a baby?”
Matt shook his head.
“But that can’t be. No dad would—” She stopped. Her eyes watered as she looked at Matt, his face as calm as a windless sea. Yet she could see a slight tremor in his lips. “Then who looks after you?”
“Nadine.”
“Is she nice?” asked Sarah.
Matt pursed his lips, as if he needed to mull over his words. “She’s . . . busy. Issuing news releases for the press. Logging all of Dad’s amazing discoveries. She carries him along in her briefcase.”
“What does that mean?”
“It’s her uplink, or whatever you want to call it. All her contact with him seems to come from his old computer in the lab. She carries the laptop with her whenever she’s not there, which I guess is connected to it. She never lets me see it. Yells at me when I catch her with her hand in the cookie jar.”
Sarah frowned. “I don’t get it.”
“When she’s into the case, I have to stay away. Top secret, you know. What I think, is that he’s dead, and she’s just playing this game for all it’s worth.” He riffled his hair and looked away.
Sarah bit her lip, her heart swelling. “I’m sorry.”
Matt shrugged. “I don’t know him, really. Except for these.” He pointed at the frozen screen, the image of a tall, disheveled genius. His eyes were mossy-green like Matt’s, his sandy hair tousled. But when she looked beyond the man, the image was blurry, and something else bothered her, too.
“Matt,” she said. “That pyramid doesn’t look very old.”
Matt glanced back at the screen. “I know.”
“The bricks aren’t crumbling or yellowed.”
“I know.”
“Do you think it’s all a hoax? All of his discoveries?”
“I don’t know,” said Matt. “I just know that I hate him.” He glared at the computer, looking as if he’d like to rip it from the desk and smash it against the wall.
Sarah opened her mouth, then shut it. Sometimes she was so mad at her parents for getting divorced she wished she could kick them, scream at them, throw them into a vat of boiling oil—or at least lukewarm. But she couldn’t imagine what it would be like to grow up without them, not even knowing if they were alive, and being strung along like a puppet by someone else. She put her hand on his
shoulder even though it was probably the wrong thing to do.
He shrugged it off. “I’m okay. I just need to know if he’s alive or not.”
“Maybe we can find out,” said Sarah.
“Don’t you think I’ve tried?” said Matt with a note of exasperation in his voice. “The only answer is in the lab or in the case. I think she keeps the keycard for the lab in the case. She never lets it out of her sight, day or night.”
“Night would be the obvious answer.”
“She locks it. I wouldn’t be surprised if she swallowed the key, ’cause I’ve never found it.”
“Then it’ll have to be day. She must open it sometime,” said Sarah.
“She’s always at my father’s office.” He glanced out the window as if he could picture Nadine downtown in some cubicle, clutching the briefcase to her chest and smiling.
“Have you been to the office?”
“Yeah, sure, when I was five and she had no choice but to take me. Tight security there. I tell you, Sarah, there’s no way.” He was looking at her earnestly, but she didn’t believe he would give up this easily. After all, this boy loved to defy his teachers.
“But you’re his son,” she said.
“She’d never leave me alone with it. You’d think she had classified information in the bag and it was attached to her wrist with handcuffs.”
“Never say never,” said Sarah with a spreading grin. “Even the wicked witch has to go to the ladies’ room sometimes.”
Matt eyed her sideways. The pained expression slowly dissolved.
“Where there’s a will . . .” she said.
“There’s a way.” They slapped palms and started making plans.
At six-ten Nadine arrived home and slammed the front door on her way in. Sarah snuck down the hall and glanced over the stair railing to catch her first glimpse of the mysterious guardian.
Even before she had slid out of her glossy leather coat it became evident that Nadine was a mere twig of a woman. She had dips and hollows in her face that would be the envy of any skeleton, and she wobbled on stilted stork-legs as she thrust open the closet door. Her blonde hair hung in wisps from a taut chignon, accentuating the sharp bones in her cheeks and adding even more angles and less curves.
As Nadine’s glance swept the mess of coats and hats, boots and mitts weeping water on the front tiles, she shook her head. She cast her gaze up the stairs, shocking Sarah into an instant retreat.
“Can’t you ever pick up after yourself, you slob?” she yelled.
“Can’t you get a maid?” Matt yelled back.
“Very funny.” There was silence for a minute; then weary footsteps thudded on the wooden stairs. “So,” she said. “Who’s the guest?” Apparently she’d noticed the baby-blue parka.
“A friend,” said Matt.
“You don’t have any friends,” said Nadine, a slight edge to her voice. She peered around the doorframe, her eyes contracting suspiciously.
Matt glared at her.
Sarah smiled. “Hello,” she said. “I’m Sarah.”
“A girl?” Nadine said, gaping.
“Yes, that is my gender,” said Sarah.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude.”
“Didn’t you?”
Nadine looked taken aback. “I was just surprised, that’s all.”
Sarah smiled as if she were indulging a sweet old grandmother in a little eccentric behaviour. “Yes, that can happen. I was wondering if I could meet Matt’s father. Have you seen him lately?”
Nadine’s lips twitched. “He’s on assignment.”
“Guatemala?”
“Yes. Matt, those videos are confidential.” She moved swiftly into the room, but slowed almost immediately as she began tripping over baseball gloves and sneakers, candy wrappers and old jeans.
“Why?” asked Matt. “There wouldn’t be anything artificial about them, would there?”
“Of course not,” said Nadine. “But they’re only meant for your private viewing.” She stumbled again, then couldn’t contain herself any longer. Her face crinkled in distaste as she examined the half a Snickers bar that she’d impaled with the heel of her shoe. “This place is a pig sty.”
Matt ignored her and continued in the same vein. “Don’t you mean designed for my private viewing?”
Another wisp of hair fell out of her bun as Nadine glared at him. “I don’t get your meaning.”
“You wouldn’t,” said Matt.
“I was wondering,” said Sarah, trying to cut the tension between the two, “if I could see some of your discs that you keep at the office. Matt says you have a whole slew of videos from all over the world. I’m doing a project—”
“I don’t think I can arrange that,” said Nadine.
“Oh,” said Sarah. This wasn’t working. Maybe if she tried something else. “My dad’s an MP in Ottawa. I think they’re going to make him Minister of Finance.”
Nadine’s lackluster eyes sparked to life. “Oh really?”
Matt turned towards Sarah and smirked.
“He’s always been interested in Professor Barnes’s projects. My parents just got divorced, you know.”
Nadine’s pasty face bloomed.
“We live just down the street,” said Sarah.
“Well, perhaps— But I really can’t allow anyone in the lab. We’re conducting some rather sensitive experiments. I could bring some of the videos out.” She licked her thin lips, smearing the thick ruby lipstick over her skin.
Sarah tried to hide her frustration. This wasn’t the solution she was seeking. “Well, maybe you could bring them to my dad’s office on Parliament Hill. He has a viewing room we could use. Then maybe we could have dinner afterwards.”
“On the Hill, you say?” Nadine’s forehead creased in calculation.
“I know he wouldn’t mind,” Sarah continued. “If the lab is downtown, then you wouldn’t have to travel far.”
Nadine took a minute to answer, as if it was a difficult decision, but Sarah could have sworn she heard the woman purr. “If it’s okay with your father,” she said, “I would be happy to drop by after school on Friday and show you and your father the videos.”
Matt had to bite his lip to keep from laughing. Sarah kicked him gently. He smoothed his face as best he could and looked out the window.
“That sounds great,” said Sarah. “Thank you.”
“No problem. Now if you’ll excuse me—” Nadine backed towards the door.
“You must be tired,” said Sarah.
The woman nodded. “Long days.” She staggered as her foot connected with a buried baseball, but she quickly regained her balance, tugged her sweater down, and walked out into the hall.
Sarah rolled her eyes. “She’s a shark.”
“Takes one to know one,” said Matt.
Sarah clobbered him with a shoe that was dangling off the desk.
“Hey, I loved it. But are you really willing to sacrifice your dad?”
“Dad’s not that dumb,” said Sarah. “I’ll convince him to let her on the Hill. He’s always been a fan of Professor Barnes. He’ll be able to distract her while we make a grab for the briefcase.”
“Right,” said Matt. “You know, I don’t think my dad’s the genius, Sarah. You are.”
Sarah smiled and bowed dramatically. Matt grinned as he ushered her out the door.