Lost Cause Read Free Page B

thought that was in all our minds. “There are only six of us.”
    â€œWell,” the lawyer said, a slight smile playing around his eyes, “as I said, there is a most interesting twist. There is a seventh grandson.”

    After the adults filed back in, stared at us oddly and settled themselves, the lawyer explained to them what had gone on and replayed Grandfather’s DVD. My mom and her sisters were sobbing by the end. The lawyer gave them a moment to calm down, and then he’d repeated the bombshell about the seventh grandson.
    It didn’t come as such a shock for Mom and the others. Grandfather had told them that they had an unknown half sister and another nephew. He had also asked them to keep it from us boys.
    Apparently, Grandfather had been quite the lad, and the result had been a fifth daughter named Suzanne, who had then had a son called Rennie Charbonneau. This kid was the same age as DJ and me, but Grandfather had only discovered his existence a few months ago from reading an obituary in the newspaper.
    I couldn’t help smiling as I wondered how many cousins or half cousins I might have scattered across the world. This meeting had definitely been worth coming to. It had given me a much greater sense of Grandfather as a person, and it had also given me a quest and a real mystery to solve. I looked down at the envelope in my hand.
    â€œAren’t you going to open it?” Mom was standing beside me.
    I shook my head. “I’ll wait till I get home.”
    I looked around the room. The meeting appeared to have broken up. DJ was standing looking at his envelope, and several of my cousins were in huddles with their parents, talking quietly. I hefted my envelope. It was light, not much in it. I was eager to know what my task was, but I was also enjoying the anticipation, the not knowing, the mystery. Grandfather had mentioned tickets, money and guides. Perhaps my summer wasn’t going to be as disappointing and boring as I had thought.
    Steve,
    I hope you came to the will reading and are examining the contents of this envelope with an open mind. I know we have not always seen eye to eye. We are, after all, separated by two generations and the world I grew up in was very different from the one that you know. I hope that this will not be a handicap to our friendship, even if that friendship will be a bit one-sided now!
    Rosa Luxemburg, a heroine of mine when I was your age, once said something to the effect that freedom only meant something if it was freedom for those who think differently. I think something similar applies to friendship. Being friends with those who are the same as you, have the same interests and beliefs, is easy. The problem is that you miss much of the richness that makes us human. Seek out the odd and unusual, the novel ideas of those who think differently from you.
    Sorry, I seem to be preaching. I don’t mean to, it’s just that I wanted my letter to you to be as long as the ones to your brother and your cousins. This letter will be short for two reasons.
    1) I know how much you dislike sentimental stuff, so I won’t go into any details about how cute you were when you and your brother first came into this world! I suspect that, deep down, you are as sentimental as the rest of us, but that you keep it hidden. Probably a good characteristic when you become a scientist, which seem to me to be where your interests lie.
    2) Your task is very simply explained, although it may not be as easy as you imagine to carry out. I could certainly give you more information and point you in certain directions, but this is your task, not mine. You must find your own way, make your own decisions and come to your own conclusions. I know how much you love mystery novels, so I am going to give you a real-life mystery to solve.
    Some time ago, a letter from Spain came for me. It had found me through an organization of which I am a member. It was from someone I had