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.

before were gone, but Vivienne pulled

familiar slippers, Floyd gave Vivienne

sort through everything you can understand. I'll help you with these," Vivienne said, dragging two chairs over, one big and one small, for them to

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

the next half hour, the whole family

his pen, scratching his head sheepishly, "That's all I can remember for now. Can I tell you the rest after I get the dictionary from home?" Vivienne took

making the complex symbols easy to

it was time for dinner and called everyone down. Floyd was well-behaved, eating everything without complaint, adhering to the

go home, Vivienne, not Percival, took it upon

with Vivienne, at least she hadn't scared him to

was buzzing with excitement in

rearview mirror at a

this script is unique to your family. Aren't your family members going to be upset with you

was met with a few seconds of silence before Floyd looked down again, his bangs

saw yesterday,

fighting, mostly over this script. My dad wants to keep using it, but my mom disagrees, leading to endless

using the script.

eyes, filled with sorrow,

gaze,

car door for Floyd and

sound of something crashing came from inside

if

can go in by myself." Floyd's face was red, his eyes darting towards the yard, not wanting Vivienne to witness such an embarrassing scene. The doorbell