Alexander Graham Bell: Master of Sound #7 Read Free

were because he would tell her, in excruciating detail.
    “Their great-great-grandmother was from Newport,” Maisie said.
    “Impossible,” Great-Uncle Thorne said. “I don’t know anyone by the name of Ziff.”
    “She died young,” Maisie told him. “And tragically.”
    “Navy brats!”
    “What’s wrong with the navy?” Maisie challenged as she tried to hide the greasy dark duck meat under the wild rice, which was also terrible.
    “They’re rapscallions, those navy kids,” Great-Uncle Thorne said, motioning for Ayfe the maid to bring him more
duck l’orange
. “They have no real home, no roots. And it shows, the way they run around town without any regard for anyone or anything.”
    “Not all navy children—” their mother began.
    But Great-Uncle Thorne boomed, “What does it matter? They come and go, like that.” He snapped his fingers. “They’re transient, Jennifer.”
    Their mother rolled her eyes.
    “I’m glad there are new kids at school,” she said. “It makes it more interesting.”
    “And they’re twins,” Maisie said, as if simply by having another set of twins at school meant they were destined to become friends.
    “I liked being the only twins,” Felix said. Their school in New York had been overflowing with twins—and two sets of triplets. But here being a twin carried a certain amount of cachet.
    Felix looked at his sister, who had grown strangely still all of a sudden. He watched as a slow smile spread across her face.
What is she up to?
he wondered with a sinking feeling.
    “Don’t invite them to Elm Medona,” Great-Uncle Thorne said, digging into his third helping of
duck l’orange
. “Who knows what they might take?”
    “Take?” their mother said indignantly. “You mean steal?”
    “That’s right. My little Rodin I like so much, or the onyx cat from Egypt. They could slip them in their pockets and be on the next boat to Shanghai.”
    “Don’t be ridiculous,” their mother said. “I’m sure these girls are perfectly nice and not thieves at all.”
    As his mother and Great-Uncle Thorne talked, Felix kept his eyes on Maisie. It was almost as if he could see right into her head, as if he could see her brain working.
    “I agree,” Felix blurted out. “No new twins at Elm Medona.”
    “Felix!” his mother reprimanded.
    Maisie narrowed her eyes at her brother.
    “Twins,” he said, meeting her gaze, “can read each other’s minds. Right, Maisie?”
    She didn’t answer. But she didn’t have to; it was a rhetorical question. She knew that Felix knew exactly what she was thinking: wouldn’t it be fun to have another set of twins go into The Treasure Chest with them? Now all she had to do was figure out how to get back in there.

    “Forget about it,” Felix said on their way to school the next morning. “Only Pickworth twins can time travel.”
    “Says who?” Maisie asked.
    “Great-Uncle Thorne,” Felix reminded her. “That’s what he told Penelope Merriweather.”
    They were walking down Bellevue Avenue, the broad, tree-lined street where Elm Medona sat among all of the other mansions from the Gilded Age. You couldn’t see any of them; they were hidden by high walls and impressive iron gates. But signs pointed to them.
Rosecliff. Marble House. The Breakers.
Whenever he passed them, Felix wondered if thosehouses had rooms like The Treasure Chest, too. Or had Phinneas Pickworth been the only one with a magical room? Penelope Merriweather’s father had a sarcophagus with an honest-to-goodness mummy in it right in the entry hall. But according to Penelope, almost everyone owned a sarcophagus back then. “We had such fun at parties when the sarcophagus was finally opened,” she’d said dreamily.
    “Are you listening to me?” Maisie demanded.
    “Yes,” Felix lied.
    “Then what did I say?”
    Felix thought for a minute.
    “You said you wanted to try anyway,” he said finally. “You want to bring those Ziff twins to Elm Medona, somehow get into