Chapter 2 2 ~ Bruce ~ Etymology

We looked at each other and said, "Whoa." in unison. That happens a lot. I guess it's a twin thing. We both sat down in silence for a couple of minutes as we mulled over what our Uncle had just shared with us. Was this the secret to Uncle David's success?

"I'm excited," I said.

"So am I, but differently than I was before. I feel like this isn't just any adventure, it feels more important."

I moved over to the computer on Uncle David's desk. "I'm going to look up these words that are on the scroll."

"Do you think that the computer is the best way to find out all of the word meanings?" said Wes. "Uncle David said that we need to know all the meanings of the words. We have some serious stuff to learn, do you know how much etymology we'll have to learn to be ready for anything? Dad always said that the Oxford English Dictionary was the best because it gives you what the word means now and what it meant in past centuries."

"You're right. I may be glad we are doing this together. Two heads are always better than one. I'll look and see if Uncle David has a link on his computer for the Oxford English Dictionary. Of course, once we are out on our own, we'll have to take a laptop and look for free Wi-Fi or libraries."

"Maybe that's why he said the first one would be the easiest."

"Yep! He has a link to it on here! I'm just going to print off the meanings so we can take them with us to study."

"Good idea!" said Wes.

We each grabbed a backpack and loaded it with sandwiches, snacks, bottles of water, pens, paper a laptop, and since we didn't have a car of our own, we headed for the bus station. Two tickets for Springfield, Missouri were purchased, and we started making our way across the state.

"What do you think Mom will think of this?" I said.

"She knows, Uncle David said they talked it over and he wouldn't just send us off without permission. Besides, we're only two years away from being completely on our own anyway."

We boarded the bus and spent our time memorizing the eight words and what they meant in every century since they were used.

"Wonder what kind of riddles they may ask? Are you any good at them?" asked Wes.

"I don't know, I haven't done many of them. I guess we'll find out. I figure if we know our stuff, we can figure it out."

The trip seemed long. The bus stopped at every little town along the way. "Too bad we don't have our own car," said Wes.

"Yeah, I guess we'll have to put up with public transportation as long as it gets us where we need to go. The Crystal Cave is north of Springfield. I hope we can find a ride that way, otherwise, we'll have a long walk."

"It sounds like a neat place," said Wes. "I looked it up on the Internet and it used to be a tourist attraction; it's closed, so we'll either have to get permission to go in or sneak into it."

"I wonder how the Guardian will know when to meet us there?"

"I don't know. We'll just have to go and see if he or she shows up. I figure they'll either get in touch with us or have some way of knowing we're there," I said.

"Haven't you thought of about a hundred questions we should have asked Uncle David before we started this trip?" I asked.

"No duh! I guess that is part of learning to think for ourselves. We need to know when to ask questions and what questions to ask." The bus finally pulled to the edge of Springfield. "So, where are we at?" asked Wes.

I pulled out the laptop and punched in the address of the bus station and the address of Crystal Cave. "It looks like we're on East Kearney Street. At least we are on the right side of town. We just have to head west on Kearney and then North on Glenstone which turns into Missouri Highway H."

We got off the bus. It was a little station, nothing like the stations in some bigger cities. We started walking and it took about 20 minutes to get to Glenstone Avenue.

"Let's eat!" I said. "I'm starved!"

"Me too, There's a cafe with Wi-Fi. Maybe we can do some last-minute research and study while we eat and rest a bit."

"Okay." We headed into the restaurant and the smell of fresh-baked bread hit us like a wall, which made us even hungrier. We each ordered a bowl of soup and a sandwich. After downing our sandwich, we opened the laptop and plugged it into a nearby outlet to keep it charged up.

"What are we looking for?" asked Wes.

"I thought I would look for puns and riddles using the words we have." "Good idea!" Wes savored a spoonful of soup. "I love cheddar and broccoli soup! Maybe I'm just extra hungry from the walk. How much further is it to the cave?"

"Looks like about 7 or 8 miles," I said. "I'm a little scared we won't be prepared enough to answer the questions or whatever he throws at us."

"It doesn't seem like these words are hard at all," said Wes.

"I know; that's part of what scares me. How can it be much of a challenge if the words aren't that big?"

"We've learned a lot about them. The etymology is interesting. Who knew how much different the meanings of some words could be from one century to the other? I'm guessing part of what we're learning, like the prefixes and suffixes and their meanings are going to make it easier to understand other words. What if the Guardian doesn't quiz us on the exact word, but on what we have learned about the parts of the word?"

"Good thinking," I said. I knew I wanted you along for something! We need to be ready for that. Putting in that possibility does make it a little more of a challenge...and we didn't know this stuff, to begin with, so we are learning something."