The Last Notebook of Leonardo Read Online Free Page B

was worried at first that it was too heavy. But he grabbed hold of the handle and tugged, and wheeled it along the sidewalk just fine. He didn’t seem to notice the weight. It was nothing to him. Maybe he could have lifted up the whole thing in his arms if he had wanted to.
    I walked beside him. I was happy now, and so was he. Somebody said, “Hey, look at all those Christmas presents those people bought!” and a little girl pulled on her mother’s sleeve and said, “Mummy, is that a real monkey?” and her mother hushed her up and said, “Don’t point, Spongella, it’s rude,” and a little boy turned to his daddy and said, “Hey Pop! Look at the funny Santa!” And the truth was, my dad was like Santa, and our wagon was piled up with Christmas toys, because we were starting out on the most exciting adventure I could imagine. And if that wasn’t Christmas, I didn’t know what was.

    â€œWhere do we go first, Dad?” I said.
    â€œWell, Jem,” my father said, “what say we turn left up there at 34th and hit Starbucks?”
    That’s what we did. My dad waited outside with the wagon and I bought us three large steaming hot chocolates, one for me and two for him. My dad couldn’t digest milk very well anymore, so I had to get two Soy No Whip Hot Chocs for him. Then we sat on the curb next to the wagon and drank our hot chocolates under the lamp light, with snow falling on our heads. My dad gave a huge loud slurp at the drink in his right hand, and then a slurp at the drink in his left hand, his lips vibrating against each other, and then he leaned back against the side of our wagon and said, “Ahhhhh, Jem, this is the life. I tell you. Who would have thought it, two weeks ago? Goes to show, doesn’t it?”

Hot chocolate.

    5
    â€œWe might have a long night of walking, Jem,” my dad said, sipping at his chocolate. “We should try to get out of the city as fast as possible. I don’t like the way people keep looking at us. Once we get into the countryside we can go easier.”
    â€œAre we going anywhere in particular?” I asked.
    â€œThat’s an important question,” my dad said. “I want to head north of the city and explore around. It’s important for my next project.”
    â€œUh oh,” I said. “I hope you’re not going to turn me into anything.”
    â€œDon’t be silly. I hope I’m turning you into a creative and imaginative person. The next project will be a wonderful and amazing adventure, Jem. I always wanted to visit the final resting place of Leonardo.”
    â€œYou want to drag our wagon to Italy? Won’t the Atlantic be hard to get over?”

    â€œVery clever, smarty. He didn’t die in Italy. He died in America.”
    â€œDad! He died in Amboise in 1519.”
    â€œJem, you’re amazing. You remember me telling you that?”
    â€œYou only told me about thirty times,” I muttered.
    â€œOh, ha ha. The truth is, Jem, I’ve been studying notebook 217A, and I think he staged his own death in Amboise, and came over to America. Here, look. . . .”
    He slid his foot out of his boot to take hold of one of his drinks. The toes on his feet, of course, were flexible and almost as good as fingers. Then with his free hand he reached behind him into the wagon and rummaged in one of the boxes of papers, which he had packed conveniently close to the edge in case a sudden inspiration came over him.
    â€œLook.” He smoothed a piece of paper on his lap. It was a photocopied page of one of Leonardo’s notebooks. “Plain as plain. Can’t you see? Look at that line scribbled in the corner.”
    â€œI can’t read it,” I said.
    â€œOf course you can’t,” he said. “It’s mirror writing. He always wrote in mirror writing. Bizarre, isn’t it? If he was alive today, how fast do you think he’d get