Chapter Eleven

Across town, night fell over Jeronicus’s shop, and all at once it was cloaked in twinkling stars.

Journey burnished the bannister on the upper landing. “So, what are you working on?”

Jeronicus bent over his desk, and peered through rotating glass lenses. “Is someone talking to me?” He kept his head down. “No, it couldn’t be somebody talking to me because the only person talking to me couldn’t be talking to me because they’re so busy doing their chores.”

Journey stopped polishing. “But Grandpa, I don’t want to—”

“Talking,” he said tersely, but not unkindly.

“I was just trying to—”

“Chores,” he cut in again.

Huffing, Journey turned and walked away, then stopped. Slowly she spun back around. While Jeronicus rotated a colorful green lens and squinted through it, Journey snuck back up behind him, spying on what he was starting to scrupulously write down. She’d recognize a mathematical notation anywhere. If she couldn’t get him to like having her around, then at least she could learn from the greatest inventor of all.

But, as she watched over his shoulder and saw him finish the formula, she couldn’t prevent herself from teaching him. “You have to raise the variable exponentially to the second power.”

Jeronicus didn’t look up, but he made the slight adjustment to the formula.

Journey chuckled. What was he thinking? Wasn’t it obvious? “The other one,” she shared.

“No, that’s not possible.” He scrutinized the formula. She was right. He made the change then turned to her with a mystified expression. “You understand this?” he asked incredulously.

She gave a sanguine nod.

“What about . . .” He reached across his note-cluttered desk and pulled out a piece of paper with another formula written on it in peculiar concentric circles. “This one?” he asked, testing her ability.

“That’s the circumference of spectacular,” she said with aplomb.

“And this?” He reached for another page marked with a sort of bell curve.

“The second derivative of sensational,” she said proudly.

Jeronicus stared long and hard at her, baffled. “You’ve been looking through my notes,” he accused. Only he and Jessica had ever been able to understand such things. And yet . . . He snatched up a blank sheet of paper and jotted down one more zany formula. She tried sneaking a peek over his shoulder, but he kept the note hidden. “Hey, hey! Watch it!” he warned as she wiggled this way and that. “Wait until I’m finished.”

Finally, he stopped writing and turned to her. “You’re not gonna trick me with this one. What about this?” He offered her the note. There was no way she’d deduce that theorem. He doubted anyone with a sound mind could understand it. If she could, then maybe, just maybe, she could help him with creating his something revolutionary in order to save his shop.

She contemplated it then looked up at him vacantly.

Jeronicus sighed, pursing his lips. “That’s what I thought,” he said sadly, turning back to tweaking away with a pair of rusty needle-nose pliers. “It’s okay,” he added gently.

“Well,” she said, “it would be the square root of possible . . .”

Jeronicus froze. She could understand it! Because she wasn’t just anyone with a sound mind; she was a Jangle, whose minds were unbelievable and full of soundness—and sounds!

“But there’s a miscalculation,” she stated. She stared off into space, and then, before Journey’s eyes, neon-blue lines and symbols appeared in the air directly in front of her. She had unlocked this special, magical side of her long ago, after which Jessica had shared that Journey had inherited the ability from her grandfather. This was why it had been so important for Journey to meet Jeronicus. But while she’d operated her magic before, she had never seen it glimmer and dazzle so brilliantly, so vibrantly, so clear!

Refusing to let her excitement distract her, Journey focused in as she heard her imagination ignite. Noises echoed and clanged over one another, until they coalesced into one clear inner voice that showed her the way. Intuitively lifting her hand, she sifted through the glowing numbers and letters, and used her finger to write an even longer calculation in the air. The intervals and functions and decimals sparkled before her.

Jeronicus couldn’t see the magic like he’d once been able to. Still, he watched. Still, he knew.

Journey finished writing the formula, and stopped to study it amid her utter exhilaration. There it was, shimmering before her like a starry galaxy full of answers. An accomplished smile cometed across her face. “Now it should work,” she said with a certain, elated bob of her head.

Jeronicus stared at her in fascination. “You can see that?” he breathed. Not even Jessica had inherited his magical ability. It must have skipped a generation.

She turned to him with an inquisitive smile. “Can’t you?”

“No. Not anymore.” At that, he stood and began to retreat down the hall.

Journey could see that she had accidentally touched a nerve. “I was just—”

“No more talking. Chores,” he reminded her in a sing-song, vanishing through the doorway and into the lonely darkness that lay beyond it.

Journey set her rag down on the desk and slumped her shoulders. Something must have happened to her grandfather to cause his magical ability to submerge in the murk of his mind, or, perhaps, of his heart.

Just then, something on the desk caught her eye . . .

A book open to a page of eccentric color-penciled doodles and designs. Picking it up, she regarded robot designs, then flipped the book and read the gilded name on the cover: JESSICA J.

Journey scrunched up her nose. “Mom?”