The Million-Dollar Heart by Rebecca Ryan

Percival's eyebrows arched in surprise.

Indeed! Floyd knew a lot, those symbols turned out to be his family's script.

"Wow, they belong to your family? Why would your family create such complicated scripts? It seems pretty hard to write, doesn't it tire you out?"

"We don't use them anymore, actually. They were used by our ancestors long ago. They thought of these as family secrets, so they developed a script only our family could decipher." "How come you know about it if it's that ancient?"

"Every child in our family learns it from a young age, along with English. Plus, my dad still has some of these books at home, so I picked it up over time."

Floyd looked towards Vivienne in the driver's seat, "But my dad always said this was unique to our family. Why do you have something with our family's script on it?"

His eyes were filled with a thirst for knowledge, driven by his father's stern warnings that these secrets must never be shared with anyone, under any circumstances!

Vivienne didn't turn back, "We found these and are still trying to decode them. They might be related to a case."

"So, you're detectives?"

Percival and Vivienne remained silent.

Taking their silence as confirmation, Floyd turned to Juliette, impressed, "No wonder you wouldn't tell me what was going on at lunch. It's because you're detectives, that's so cool!" Juliette chuckled awkwardly.

"Don't worry, I won't tell anyone!" Floyd promised, covering his mouth.

Vivienne glanced at him, saying nothing.

Soon, they arrived at the house, and Vivienne stepped out with the kids.

worn the day before were gone, but Vivienne pulled out an identical pair

the familiar slippers, Floyd gave Vivienne a

the same as the day before, except the items from the floor were now on the desk. "Let's sort through everything you can understand. I'll help you with these," Vivienne said, dragging two chairs over, one big and one

meanings of the symbols Vivienne had drawn, according to his memory. For the symbols he couldn't write, he used phonetic

the whole family watched Floyd

"That's all I can remember for now. Can I tell you the rest after I

easy to

everyone down. Floyd was well-behaved, eating everything without complaint, adhering to the good

Floyd to go home, Vivienne, not Percival, took it upon herself to drive Floyd

at least she hadn't scared him to

buzzing with excitement in the

glanced at Floyd through the rearview mirror at a

your family. Aren't your family members going to be upset with you for sharing it with

met with a few seconds of silence before Floyd looked

you saw

wants to keep using it, but my mom disagrees, leading to

say that my dad is harming others by insisting on using the script. If telling you about

sorrow, didn't

her gaze,

door for Floyd and straightened his

sound of something crashing came from inside the

as if

towards the yard, not wanting Vivienne to witness