The Tell-Tale Start Read Free Page B

the size of a golfball. The twins had customized each ball with its own built-in stopwatch. Cautiously, they ventured to the edge of the roof and looked straight down into the backyard.
    It was a long drop.
    In a famous experiment, the sixteenth-century Italian scientist Galileo had dropped cannon balls of different weights from the Leaning Tower of Pisa in order to prove the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle’s theory of motion wrong. Now, Edgar and Allan wondered if they might redeem Aristotle’s reputation with new evidence (might some phenomenon of quantum physics have altered the fabric of the universe since Galileo’s time?).
    “One, two, three,” they said in unison, dropping the balls.
    After climbing back through the window and untethering themselves, they raced downstairs to check the results.
    No luck. The speeds proved identical—Galileo remained right. The twins had suspected as much, but it would have been nice to make history. Poor Aristotle.
    Still, they didn’t lose heart.
    Instead, they went into the garden to pick asters.
    Returning to their uncle Jack’s study, they placed the flowers between the pages of two old leather-bound books, flattening the petals. The twins’ hypothesis was that a flower pressed in a book of Shakespearean tragedies would fade in color more quickly than one pressed in a book of Shakespearean comedies. They knew it was a long shot. And that it would take months or even years to determine. But they believed in the scientific method.
    “Lunchtime!” their aunt called.
    It had been a busy morning, but by the time the twins were seated again at the kitchen table, their thoughts had turned from their experiments to the well-being oftheir classmates. Who would secretly reprogram the GPS on the school bus next week so that the seventh grade would “accidentally” arrive at a miniature golf course rather than at the sewage plant for their planned (boring) field trip?
If not us, then who
? the boys wondered.
    “What’s wrong?” Aunt Judith asked.
    “Now that we’re gone, there’s nobody looking out for the kids at school,” said Allan.
    “Oh, your friends will survive,” Aunt Judith assured them as she set out their lunch of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, apple slices, and snickerdoodles. “The real problem is what we’re going to do to educate you two.”
    “Maybe it’s time we went to Harvard,” Edgar suggested.
    “I don’t think being expelled is the sort of recommendation that Harvard’s looking for,” she answered.
    “Then how about if you teach us, Aunt Judith?” Allan asked. “Here at home.”
    She stopped chewing, letting the words sink in. “What a lovely thought. You know…yes, that could work.”
    “Or we could go to Yale,” Allan added.
    Aunt Judith laughed and shook her head. “Why don’t you boys go outside and spend some time with your friends?”
    “It’s lunchtime. Our friends are all in school.”
    “Doesn’t the high school get out early today?”
    “Well, yes, but…”
    There were some things Allan and Edgar didn’t talk about with their aunt and uncle. They avoided topics that were too brainy—for example, dead languages or advanced mathematics or the microbiology of hummingbirds. Nobody could keep up with the twins when it came to such things. And, more important, they avoided any personal topics that might make their guardians feel helpless or sad, keeping quiet about situations they determined were best taken care of by themselves. Things like this:
    Many of the older kids were
very
unkind to the Poe twins.
    It had been going on for years. Every time the bullies in the neighborhood saw Allan and Edgar, they sang out, “Gruesome twosome, gruesome twosome,” pointing and making faces. At first, the boys didn’t mind too much. After all, they
were
a twosome, and (as far as they were concerned) there were worse things to be than gruesome. But the lack of originality in the rhyme—“gruesome/twosome”—eventually