a minute to finish the rest of these incredible pancakes, and I’ll report for riddle duty,” Wally said, forking a piece into his mouth. “This is seriously good cooking, Jax.”
“Fuel for the mind,” Jax said, wiping his hands on a paper towel. “We’re going to need it today.”
I ignored the flutter of anxiety in my stomach. He was right. We had a lot to do, and although I didn’t want to put too much pressure on myself, everything hinged on me.
I paced the living room, my brain racing. Mr. Toodles followed, yipping at my heels, probably thinking I was playing a game with him. “Wally, read it to me again, this time slowly.”
“How many times do you want to hear it?” he asked from the couch, my laptop balanced precariously on his knees.
“As many times as it takes. Sometimes I absorb things better when I hear them. I’m as much an aural learner as a visual one.”
Sighing, he looked back at the screen and read it again. “The title is All About Numbers. Here’s what’s written:
One dark 3-D smooch, not a single kiss more,
Ilion, New York, is starting a war.
Tulinsky, it means something to you,
Check number nine, and you will be through.
“Nope, still means nothing to me,” Frankie said cheerfully.
“And you’re still not the target audience,” Wally said. Frankie stuck her tongue out at him, but he ignored her and looked over at me. “Anything ring a bell this time, Angel?”
“Not yet.” I plopped on the couch next to him, and he handed me my laptop. “It’s obvious I need to break this riddle apart, piece by piece. Let’s each take a line. I’ll take the first one. Wally, you take the second line, and Frankie, you’ve got the third. Jot down any and all ideas for what the meaning could be. We’ll tackle the last line together, okay?”
Everyone took their line and got down to work.
I started with mine. A dark 3-D smooch, but just one. What did that mean? A light kiss versus a dark kiss? And why only one?
We worked quietly and furiously. I could hear the tap of fingers on keyboards and the quiet murmur of the others’ voices from the dining room as they worked out a plan to get me to my father safely and dug up more information on my dad and J. P. Lando.
After about forty minutes, I asked Wally and Frankie to stop so we could review what we’d come up with so far in regards to their lines of the riddle. I went first.
“My line is ‘One dark 3-D smooch, not a single kiss more.’” I angled my keyboard toward them so they could see the screen. “Since the title of the riddle is All About Numbers, I came at from a math angle. I think I have the number he wants me to have, but I don’t know how it fits into the rest of the riddle.”
“What number?” Wally asked.
“Well, it seems pretty straightforward. Smooching is kissing, so the first thing that leaped to mind was the kissing number problem.”
“There’s a kissing number problem in math?” Frankie asked. “That’s so weird, but sweet, in a geeky way.”
“Newton’s number,” Wally said. “A 3-D smooch. Good thinking, Angel. It makes sense.”
“It does.” My excitement started to rise.
“Hey, you two!” Frankie snapped her fingers at us. “Can you speak English so I know what’s going on?”
I turned to her. “Sorry, Frankie. The kissing number in geometry—sometimes referred to as Newton’s number—is the number of equally sized spheres that can be arranged together without overlapping, but still touch a common unit sphere.”
“How exactly does that involve kissing?” she asked.
“Good question. I’d never really thought about it before. Maybe touching and overlapping leads to kissing somehow? Wally, you got any thoughts on that?”
“Given my extremely limited knowledge of kissing, I’ve got nothing,” he replied, not looking up from his laptop.
“Math is so complicated,” Frankie said, rolling her eyes. “So, math geeks, how many spheres can be arranged without overlapping?”
“Twelve is what Isaac Newton came up with, and is what’s generally accepted as the correct number by mathematicians,” I answered. “However, there was a long-running disagreement about it between Newton and fellow mathematician David Gregory. Gregory believed the correct number to be thirteen spheres. It wasn’t until 1953 that Newton was definitively proved correct. The kissing number in geometry is twelve.”
“And the riddle says not a single kiss more,” Frankie pointed out. “So, maybe twelve is the answer? If we don’t go a single kiss