Recluse Island

Chapter 29

Present

June 2049

I'm bored. I hope you're not sleeping. I've already tried drinking warm milk and reading the encyclopedia. Letter U - did you know Uranus is the seventh planet from the sun and was discovered March 13, 1781, by Sir William Herschel? Oh, and the word ukulele roughly translates to "jumping flea?" haha. Nothing has worked! Anyway, here is a brain teaser. Named after George Washington Gale Ferris Jr and sometimes referred to as the Chicago Wheel, this outdoor activity was the largest attraction at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois. What is it?

            That's easy, the Ferris wheel!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

            That's a lot of exclamation points for someone who hardly uses them. Have you been drinking???????????

            Haha. No, I'm investigating.

            OOOOOOOH! Now we're talking! What's up??????

            I'm going through the items that Sabrina and I took earlier from locker eighty-eight.

            So, from the safe?

            Well, I was trying to make it sound cooler. But yeah, the safe.

            Okay so what have you uncovered so far??????

            Well, you know about the manuscript. There's also the journal of first mate Gauither Rizenthaler, a locket, mirror, map of the Clinkirk Compound, photo taken from Robert and Eugenia Mayhew's wedding and a scientific journal recorded by Dr. Julian Thomanisse.

            Not to be a killjoy but shouldn't these items have been donated to a museum or something and not left in the safe of a professor who's been dead for thirty-six years.

            That's some fast math Alan!! And to answer your question probably but the fact remains they weren't so are you really going to quibble about what should have been done or just be happy for me? That was a rhetorical question in case you didn't know!!!!

            Yes of course I'm happy for you! And seriously enough with the exclamation points.

            You're one to talk.

            You mean text???? Lol.

            Haha. I have to go now. You're distracting me, why don't you go read letter V?

            Letter V, please I already know about volcanoes and violins.

            What about Vicars?

            What????

            Exactly!!! Text you later! And try to get some sleep.

            Having concluded her conversation with Alan at least for now Mia stuck her phone in the front pocket of her NYU sweatshirt. Then trying to be as quiet as possible she grabbed her backpack from the floor and left her bedroom where Sabrina remained snoring softly (though she denies doing any such thing) and crept over to the terrace. She needed someplace she couldn't be overheard to more accurately peruse the items found in the professor's safe.

            It had been three days since their arrival on Pigscula Keys and things had been busy! Along with the Tweetfeet's the villa was also overrun with the Weismann's: Josiah, Effie and their three children twenty-one-year-old Heidi, seventeen-year-old Noah and thirteen-year-old Tabitha.

The Weismann's had never left Pigscula Keys and lived in a modest house in Guemmer Gates which the Niles and Wittenburgs had visited. They swam in their pool, enjoyed Effie's delicious homemade lemon bars and watched Heidi's failing attempts to flirt with Witt who naturally brought along his anatomy and physiology book which he read by the pool while drinking Nelson's famous strawberry daiquiris.