Free Just Plain Weird by Tom Upton Page B

covered with wild grass, there was no evidence of tree growth or that there had ever been trees growing here. Even the lack of insects struck him as odd; the surrounding jungle was alive with insects, but it seemed to him that the insects were actually avoiding the clearing.
              “He staked out a couple areas within the clearing, and started to do some digging. He never thought that this might find the village that he was looking for. An ancient village like that would be swallowed by the jungle; this was all just a little too neat. But he knew the area was unusual, and was worth the time and effort to excavate.
              “So for the next few days, he dug and dug and dug. He sifted the earth that he’d dug up, and all he found was dirt and rocks. At one point the thought, he found a fragment of an ancient tool, but in the end, it turned out to be just a piece of petrified wood. He didn’t get frustrated right away; instead, he staked out new areas, this time closer to the edge of the jungle. He worked on those areas for a couple days, but didn’t find anything.
              “By now, we were running low on supplies. He’d planned only for a three week outing. So he sent the guide and the men back to get supplies for an extra week. If everything went right, they would return in about a week and a half, just as our supplies ran out. Meanwhile he worked from sun up to sunset each day digging and sifting, digging and sifting…. Before long, the clearing was filled with squared areas of dug up earth-- like flower gardens dug but never planted. Still, no matter how deep he dug or how many places, he found not a single thing. Finally, he moved our tents, deciding to excavate the ground under them. He really didn’t have any rational reason to want to excavate under the tents, other than that was the only place within the clearing that he hadn’t touched.
              “So he staked out the area, and after only about three hours of digging he found something.”   Here, she jumped to her feet, and raced upstairs, leaving me alone on the sofa. I could hear the distant sound of a short conversation-- actually it sounded more like an argument, a short exchange of fiery comments. A moment later, Eliza was loping down the stairs, carrying a box before her. “Well, what do you think so far?” she asked me. “Nothing too crazy, right? Oh, maybe it’s a little nutty that my father would drag my mother and me all over the world while he searched for-- whatever. But, you know, that kind of thing happens; it’s not abnormal to have one parent who is driven to achieve something.
              “Now, here is where the true weirdness begins,” she said, and set the box she’d retrieved from upstairs down atop the glass coffee table. It was a wooden box, shaped like a perfect cube, with brass-inlaid designs on all sides.
              “Nice box,” I said.
              “It’s what’s inside, Travis, that started my family on the wild and wooly ride to Weirdville.”
              She reached over and slowly opened the box.
              I leaned over and gawked at what was inside the box.
              “Well?” she said.
              “I don’t get it,” I confessed, for all I saw in the box, laid neatly on a nest of velvet, was nothing more than what looked like a metal ball.
              “Take it out and look at it,” she said. “It won’t bite you, you know?”
              I removed the ball from the box. It was the size of a baseball and was bronze in color. What struck me as somewhat odd was that it felt very light, given its size and that it was obviously metallic, and I immediately suspected that it must be hollow.
              “What is it?” I asked.
              “Actually, we still don’t know,” she said. “But watch this.”
              She took the sphere from my hand, and