Free The Last Notebook of Leonardo by B.B. Wurge

cave?”
    â€œI might,” she said. “But that’s hard to prove. There’s more than one cave that might fit the legend. Six or seven, I believe. But the one that I’m thinking of is special. It’s the only one that nobody has been able to reach. Ever since I was a little girl I wanted to explore it, but it’s quite inaccessible. When I was fifteen I broke my leg trying to climb the cliff face, and when I was thirty I broke my wrist. I’m afraid I rather stopped trying after that. I’ve seen a few rock climbers shake their heads and give up because the cliff is too full of rubble.”
    â€œI bet that’s the one!” Dad said. “I bet that’s Leonardo’s cave!”

    â€œI don’t know about that,” she said. “The legend of the cave always seemed, well, legendary to me. Merely an excuse to explore a new cave. I’d hazard a guess that my special cave is filled up mostly with old bird’s nests.”
    â€œBah!” my dad said. “It has an ornithopter in it.”
    â€œAll the same,” she said, “I wish . . . I still do wish I could see the inside of it. I admit, however, I’m a little old for spelunking. Do you know, when I was little, I used to look up at that cliff and think, if only I were a monkey, I’m sure I could climb it. If I had four hands I could climb anything. Carl Martin, I will make a deal with you. I’ll show you where my cave is. In return, if you can reach it, throw me down a rope. I’ll tie it around my waist and you can pull me up.”
    â€œIt’s a deal!” my dad roared, sticking his hand forward between the two front seats. Noma’s hand was so small and fragile that she could only manage to grasp one of Dad’s fingers, but she shook the finger, and the deal was made.
    We drove four hours along that icy road at a creeping rate, up into the Catskills through a tangle of back roads, onto a gravel lane that seemed more like a rutted driveway, and reached Ipskunk late in the evening. The sun had long gone down, and there was no point trying to climb anything until the next
morning. Noma drove us to her house. I got out and pulled on my dad’s arm to help him slide out of the back seat. He had to lie on the ground in the snow for a few minutes to expand to his proper size, and then he could stand up all right.
    Noma’s house was a little one-story cottage that she said her father had built. It was on a saddle in the mountains, several miles from any town. It was made out of old gray weathered boards, and had a front porch about big enough for a single chair, and one window, and a metal pipe sticking out of the roof that must have been the chimney. My dad could never have fit through the door. She said we could set up our tent in her yard, if we wanted to, and stay for the night. Or, if we liked, we could sleep in the barn.
    Her house was in a clearing in the trees, lit up by the moonlight so that the slate roof seemed to glow. Away from the house, just under the branches of the woods, stood a spooky dark barn. The front window was covered over in wire and looked like a snarling mouth with braces. She said the barn used to have goats in it, but hadn’t been used except by barn swallows for about thirty years, and was probably good protection against the wind. Dad would have slept in it, but I didn’t want to. I wanted our warm, comfortable tent.

    Dad unhitched our wagon from the car and put up the tent in the moonlight beside Noma’s house. Noma watched him, standing in the snow and clutching her shawl around herself to keep warm. She must have been amazed at how good he was with his hands and feet. He set up the tent in record time. I bet it was less than two minutes.
    â€œIf you can’t climb up to that cave,” she said, “I don’t think anyone can.”
    â€œHow far away is it?” Dad said. “Can we get there early in the