Milo and Mr. Whitmore stopped and turned their eyes to Eleanor. She braced herself for what Milo would inevitably say.
"Eleanor! What is going on here?" He flung his arms in the air in exasperation. "Someone, please explain!"
Eleanor looked to her grandfather for prompting. To her surprise, he was looking expectantly at her.
"Well…" she started, faltering as she looked at Milo. "I…I happened to meet you at the Smithsonian and I thought your name sounded familiar. When I told my grandfather," she gestured to Mr. Whitmore. "He told me everything he just told you. I became Grandpa's eyes and ears at the Smithsonian. I just reported your progress on Atlantis until, today, he said that you were ready."
"Almost ready," Mr. Whitmore corrected.
Milo and Eleanor were both surprised.
I'm sorry, Milo, but I can't let you go with that journal until you can tell me just how you're going to get to Atlantis. And don't say the museum because we already established that they'd never give you the funds."
Eleanor shot a dirty look at her grandfather, but he wasn't paying her any attention. He smiled smugly at Milo.
"Forget about them!" Milo exclaimed. "I will find Atlantis on my own. I mean, if I have to rent a rowboat…"
"Congratulations, Milo," interrupted Mr. Whitmore. "That is exactly what I wanted to hear. But forget the rowboat, son. We'll travel in style."
He leaned forward and pressed a button on the table. A trapdoor opened and a miniature submarine rose out of it. The detail on the craft was incredible.
"Why?" Milo asked gently, picking up a model balloon from the side of the sub.
Mr. Whitmore picked up a stack of papers and addressed Milo with a tinge of nostalgia. "For years your granddad bent my ear with stories about that old book," he began. Eleanor had heard the story a thousand times before. Her eyes and attention became focused on the papers in her grandfather's hands.
Don't look through them! She urged him silently.
As she hoped, Mr. Whitmore did not look through the papers. In fact, he flipped through them quickly and set them back down on the table. Eleanor breathed a sigh of relief.
"Your grandpa was a great man. You probably don't realize how great," said her grandfather. He had moved in front of the fireplace and was looking at the picture of himself with Thaddeus. He shook his head slightly before turning his gaze to the flames before him.
"If I could bring back just one shred of proof, that'd be enough for me. Ah, Thatch," he whispered sadly. Suddenly, he turned around, bright-eyed. "What are we standing around for? We've got work to do!"
Showtime, Eleanor thought grimly.
"You know, in order to do what you're proposing, you're going to need a crew!" Milo exclaimed. He began to count on his fingers. "You'll need engineers and…and geologists…"
"Got 'em all," Mr. Whitmore assured him. "The best of the best."
Returning to his stack of papers, Mr. Whitmore spread the documents out before Milo. Each was a typed resume with a portrait paper clipped to the corner.
"Gaetan Moliere, Vincenzo Santorini, Audrey Ramirez," he began, pointing to each portrait in the line up. When he got to the picture of a doctor, his voice trailed off.
"What?" Milo asked, but Eleanor already knew.
Mr. Whitmore picked up a document that had been partially covered by Helga Sinclair's resume. On it was a portrait of Eleanor herself.
"You're on the crew?" asked Milo excitedly.
"Of course," she replied with all the confidence as she could muster. It wasn't much.
"Atlantis is waiting. What do you say?" Mr. Whitmore asked Milo, though his eyes did not leave Eleanor. His voice had lost its jolly tone and was now rigid.
"I'm your man, Mr. Whitmore. You will not regret this!" he tottered happily out of the room.
"I hope not," Mr. Whitmore mumbled toward Eleanor. "You and I are talking about this. Now."
"I'm going."