“ You shouldn’ t mind other people’ s business, boy,” Mr. Esell hissed,“ Who knows what might happen?” Jacob grimaced as the hand on his shoulder gripped it to the point of pain.“ Well boy, from now on, I hope you don’ t get it into your tiny brain to looking through my private stuff.” Jacob nodded hurriedly.
“ Mr. Esell, what are you doing to Jacob?” asked his father. He was glaring at Mr. Esell suspiciously.
“ Just showing your child how business works,” replied Mr. Esell with a false smile,“ He seems like a bright young man.” Mr. Esell looked down at Jacob and continued,“ He might even work in the company one day!”
“ My son will never work there,” his father said with a dangerous glint in his eye.
“ Oh well, you can’ t make every decision for him,” Mr. Esell continued,“ I guess Jacob will decide whether he wants to or not.” Mr. Esell straightened his tie again and grabbed his briefcase.“ I will be off.” he said and left. Jacob’ s father slammed the door shut after him.
“ That lying, cheating, little snake,” Jacob’ s father was saying,“ Having the nerve to come into my house, my life, my family.” Jacob didn’ t reply. He knew from past experiences that his father would just keep on talking. A bit like Tyler. He went back upstairs to his room. As he took out a book he was going to read, an item fell out of his pocket. He picked it up and realized that it was the penny that he had taken form the briefcase. Jacob sighed and began reading, absentmindedly rubbing the penny between his fingers. He heard a click and two pieces of the penny fell onto his floor. Great, now I’ ve broken it.
Jacob bent down to pick up the pieces. The penny had split into half so that the head and tails side of it were now separate sides. Jacob had never seen anything like this. As he look into the break in the penny he saw a little sheet of paper. Jacob looked closer at it and saw that the paper was covered with dots organized in rows of four. They looked just like black spots. But, as he looked even closer, putting the dots under even greater scrutiny, he saw that they were made up of multiple lines. Jacob suddenly recalled a method of spying he had read in a book. It was called microdots. It was made by taking a photograph and shrinking it down to a near microscopic level.
Curious to what these possible microdots could contain, he went to grab his microscope from his closet. The following events can be described by the sounds heard from the closet. First there was the“ Ahah” as Jacob found the microscope. Then there was the“ Uh-oh” as he realized that in pulling the microscope out, he