Free The Atomic Weight of Secrets or The Arrival of the Mysterious Men in Black by Eden Unger Bowditch Page B

taking notes and observing the work going in the laboratory.
    Though not everywhere in the laboratory. In the back, there was a room with three very large locks. This room was off-limits to Faye, and it had always been so. Faye could always tell when her parents would be headed to the secret room. They would either begin to speak in whispers, or suddenly receive some missive that they would read, heads together. Then would come the double nod, and off they would go, disappearing behind the great wooden door. Her parents spent hours every day in that room. The answer was always “no” when Faye wanted to follow them in. It was perhaps the only insurmountable “no” that had ever come into Faye’s otherwise perfect life. And life had otherwise been perfect. It really, really had...
    The Vigyanveta family laboratory was connected to the Vigyanveta family house that sat on the Vigyanveta family estate. The Vigyanveta family house was a magnificent mansion that had been in the Vigyanveta family for eleven generations. It was surrounded by meadows and orchards full of mango trees and bael trees. There were virtual forests of bamboo and wildly colorful gardens bursting with rhododendrons, ginger, begonia, balsam, clematis, lilies, blue poppy, and orchids brought from the northeast and tended to in greenhouses and beautiful glass bells. There was even the Vidya Vigyanveta orchid, developed by Faye’s great-great-grandfather. And of course, there were the most beautiful roses, like the Viveka Vigyanveta rose—known as the most elegant, stunning rose in India—developed by her great-great-great grandmother. There were vegetable and herb gardens full of cabbages, tomatoes, brinjal, tulsi (basil), mint, and fenugreek. There were groves of banana and tangy pepper trees, and all around, little waterfalls that fell into clear pools on which lotuses and water lilies floated. Huge green and red and blue macaws, toucans, and peacocks (including her favorite white peacock) roamed freely around the land, as flamingoes bathed (before the monsoon season) in the numerous ponds. There was so much property that Faye could walk for an hour and still be on the Vigyanveta family land.
    Faye lived, for all intents and purposes, like a princess. There were servants and assistants to attend to her every need. She had only to ask for something—or sometimes, just look as if she might possibly ask—and it would be in front of her before she could get upset about not having it. There was just one thing nobody seemed able to provide.

    “I would like a friend,” Faye declared one day, standing beside her father’s desk.
    “You have many friends, my little marmelo,” her father said, distracted by his work.
    “I have no friends,” she said, fiddling with her silver chain, which held an old family heirloom. She had worn the necklace for as long as she could remember. It had been in the family for generations, she had been told. When she felt insecure, she held it close. It had, after all, survived a very long time.
    “Mali is your friend,” said her father.
    “He is not. Mali is the gardener.”
    “Play with his son, little Surya. He can be your friend.”
    “Little Surya is thirty-seven years old, and he’s been the head gardener in Ootacamund since I was five,” said Faye. “There are no friends here, Father. There are only servants.”
    “Well, I will tell them they must entertain you,” her father said. “I will insist they be your friends.” He gave her a quick smile, then dashed into the back room. She could hear the locks turn, one by one.

    Faye never had any problems in school because she never went to school. She had always been tutored. When she was small, she had a series of teachers from France and Spain, and one from Germany. For the last couple years, she had been taught by herfather’s students.
    When she came down to the library for breakfast one morning, she thought that the very round man in the black trench coat