The Temple in the Sky - Fernando Herrera Jr (children's ebooks online .TXT) 📗

last word in difficulty .
“Yes, but why in the world would he burry it? That doesn’t make any sense… unless…” Jeffery excogitated with a grin staring at the floor.
“What? Unless what? Jeffery?”
“Well, before he disappeared, he began to make frequent trips to Peru. I became quite involved with his studies. I became somewhat of his assistant apprentice and fell in love with the subject of anthropology myself. I was immensely drawn to his studies. I traveled with him on several occasions. They were very exciting times for me… but then he disappeared and I can’t possibly afford trips like that, you know. He took his final trip on a Sunday, I believe, early June, never to return home. His plane was never found. It is believed that he crashed somewhere in the Atlantic. But before he disappeared, he became fascinated with Nazca, an ancient City in Peru. Jasper was witty, you know. He became outraged by immature theories of narrow minded and culture blinded archeologists and scientists, so he began to travel to Nazca to study ancient lines whose uses and purposes remain a mystery. I remember he talked about something, something big. He said it was top secret and he couldn’t speak to me of it, not until he ascertained the complete facts. I suppose he did not trust me to keep his findings secret… or simply assumed it was too much for me to handle. I’ll never know. But he said he was onto something, something very big, something so big that it would become one of he greatest discoveries in the history of humanity, something that would rattle the very essence of the human race. “If I play my cards right, I will go straight into my grandchildren’s history books!” were his exact words. I don’t know what he meant by that. He had turned quite hysterical. He was obsessed with his work—perhaps possessed, and he began to suffer from paranoia—even. He thought he was being watched by the government at all times... and I believed him. There were definitely many archeologists who were intent on bagging his findings. Whatever artifacts he had in his possession were treasured by the anthropologic world. This house was once ransacked. Nothing was taken… but whoever broke in here was looking for something in specific, maybe that chest. Perhaps he felt burying it was the safest thing to do. I believe he was being perused and perhaps staged upon by the feds. I think he really did find something of immense significance, something that was too big--too big even for him to handle, something he shouldn’t have been tampering with--that’s for sure. Although this may be a bit farfetched, master, but I did consider the possibility of an organized assassination by a federal agent who was trying to shut his operations down. You know, stuff like that does happen out there… and your grandfather was a very important man--both in the archeological world and banking. A government conspiracy? Who knows. Son, whatever’s in that chest may just be exactly what he found. Oh dear, my heart is going crazy. I’m a nervous wreck. This is all too much for me. I am not as young as I used to be. Well, what in the world are we waiting for? Let’s go get that chest! I do know a little bit of the Nahuatl.” He chuckled as he adjusted his shirt collar.
Jasper could not be more giddy. This was exactly the type of adventure he had always longed for. All those child games, this is what they were all about. A real mystery he and his friend could solve. This one wouldn’t be a game; it would be the real thing.
They found the chest right where Jeffery had left it: in the closet on top of a cupboard that was hidden behind hanging garments. They studied the contents and found that one of diaries had been written entirely in english. Jeffery read that poem and realized something significant about the date. “He came back...” For a short moment, he stared at the paper with distressed eyes. “This was written three years after he disappeared! This means that he’s okay, or was, after he disappeared! He came back! He came back, Jasper! He didn’t die! He wasn’t assassinated! Oh dear, this is wonderful news! I should inform your father immediately! But where in the world did he go? Why didn’t he inform anybody? Something big is brewing here. He returned three years later and buried this chest. Remarkable.”
“But what does it mean?”
“Who knows? Only he who wrote it knows its true meaning. A poem is that of depth, a depth of the poet’s spirit that is forged upon paper with esthetic. We may interpret the lyrics otherwise and garble its essence… or in this case, gist.” He chuckled. “But I consider this to be a love poem. I can tell by the volta of the dilemma which seems to be a heartbreak. I think he wrote it to your grandmother after she left him. Your grandfather then left the country… in search of his ‘true identity,’ as he put it. I followed him around the world. I was his consort. We returned after three years but after five months he disappeared—never to be heard of again—that is, until now. This poem proves he came back.”

About a month later, on the sunny afternoon of May 19th, Meredith was relaxing on a leather couch in a parlor reading a magazine and enjoying a chilled, gin martini. She rested her bare feet upon a cushy footrest while clinching her toes to add to the quiescence of her leisure. She had noticed Jasper had been acting a bit peculiar for the past few weeks. He scarcely left the house and was spending a lot of time with Jeffery in his room. This afternoon was no different. She heard Jeffery’s door open and knew it was his because his bedroom was two rooms beside the parlor and it had a particular creak of its own. As she took a sip of her drink, she noticed Jasper swing by the parlor through a narrow aperture of the tan curtains which covered the glass sliding-doors of the entrance. “Jasper!” she called out.
He entered the parlor. “Yes, mother?”
“Where are you going?”
“Out.”
“You never go out. Where are you going?” she asked while bitting off the garnish olive from a spear.
“Just to the shops with my... f-friend,” he stuttered.
“What friend? You don’t have any friends. Daisy is your only friend. Are you going out with Daisy?”
“No, mother,” he grunted.
“Well then, where in the world are you going? And with whom?”
“I’m just going out to buy... buy some stuff for school with my friend Greg.”
“Greg Newman? Oh really? In May?” She smirked at him. “You go on and and leave with Greg Newman... who happens to be in Hawaii with his parents, by the way, and shop for school during the summer,” she jeered at him, never looking away from her magazine.
Jasper gulped, realizing he had been caught in a lie. “I’m going out to buy Daisy a wedding gift. There. Happy? I’ll be back later.”
Meredith gave a baffled look to him but disregarded his lie and let him leave.
“Make sure you get her something nice! Do you need money?” she yelled out.
“No!” he replied.
“Weird kid,” she muttered to herself as she took another sip of her martini.

Later that afternoon, Daisy arrived home from tennis practice. She ran upstairs to her bedroom to pick up an outfit and then to the bath, but before she could shut the door, she heard her mother call her from the living room downstairs. So she walked back down to it and noticed Jasper sitting on a couch. “Oh, hey you. What are you doing here?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “I just wanted to ask you out for lunch.”
“Oh, what’s the occasion?”
“No occasion. Just haven’t seen you in a while.”
She laughed. “Okay, well, that’s sweet, but I was about to get into the bath. Howbout you let me bathe and I meet you at your place in about thirty minutes? I’m very clammy from tennis. I won’t go out like this.”
“I’ll wait,” Jasper responded.
“If you want. Go up to my bedroom, if you like. The view is nicer. Sit on my balcony. There are a few books and magazines on the coffee-table.”
He agreed and went upstairs. Her bedroom was large and clean. It was obvious the maids were on top of it. She had a fine collection of European furniture: brightly festooned cupboards and wardrobes made of burnished wood that matched her queen-size bed. The bed was dressed in puffy burgundy covers and matching pillows. The walls in the room, just as the rest of the chateau-style house, were of a gravelly, gray stone. As he waited, he perceived no interest in the balcony, thence began to pry around the bedroom looking around at the girl’s belongings. He noticed a few family portraits on the walls, and smaller photographs of her friends, who happened to be mostly attractive men, set about on her cabinets. He also noticed that he wasn’t in any of them. She had a few candles and neat plants set around as appurtenances, but the bedroom was mostly arranged to match the rest of the houses embellishments. Juxtaposed to a tall clock, a chiffonier with an enormous mirror on top and wide drawers was set. One drawer was slightly opened and he noticed a white, thin cord dangling loose. He decided to set it back in. As he did so, he noticed how neatly the garments had been folded and set inside. He was naturally, curiously naughty, so a peek inside was ineluctable. It came about as a pleasant surprise to him that that precise drawer happened to be occupied by Daisy’s undergarments. He smiled and picked a pair of white, florally knit panties by the thin band. One of the bluntly unknowable wonders of mankind: “Why must the perverted man inhale the female pantie aroma?” That’s what Jasper was asking himself as he took the immaculate, silk cloth to his face--and though he had not the answer to that, he found himself more than wittingly, instinctively forced succumb to such obstinate of a praxis. His intentions in folding it back as it was before were futile, so he stuffed it back in as he could. As he did, Daisy entered the bedroom dressed in a white polonaise dress that revealed a colorful underskirt. She wore a towel wrapped around her head. He swiftly shut the drawer with a thump and stood in a military-like-erect-stance.
“What are you doing?” Daisy asked while she shifted the towel on her head.
“I-it was open. There was a string. I put it back in.” She gave him an uneasy gaze. “That was a quick bath,” he added.
“I didn’t want to make you wait too long.” She stood beside her chiffonier as she took the towel off her head and looked in the mirror to brush her hair.
As she stood in front of the mirror, Jasper scrutinized her backside, admiring the narrowness of her waist brandished by the tight bodice. “You look beautiful,” he said in a soft voice.
She turned her neck and gave him a quizzical glare. “Thanks,” she mussitated with a soft voice caught in a titter. “Though my hair is a mess... and I have yet to powder my face.” She released a faint giggle.
“I know and that’s how I like you best.”
“If you say so. Are you coming to my rehearsal tonight, Jasp?”
Jasper fondled the right pocket of his pants