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.

bear slippers Floyd had worn the day before were gone, but Vivienne

the familiar slippers, Floyd gave Vivienne a sweet

they headed upstairs. The study looked 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

For the symbols he couldn't write, he used phonetic spelling. Vivienne

next half hour, the whole family watched Floyd

now. Can I tell you the rest after I get

easy to understand, and even noted several meanings for

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

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

at least she hadn't

with excitement in

drive, Vivienne glanced at Floyd through the rearview mirror at a red light, "There's something I've been curious about."

script is unique to your family. Aren't your family members going

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

saw

over this script. My dad wants to keep using it,

by insisting on using the script. If telling you about it can somehow prevent a

sorrow, didn't

softened her gaze, her own

door for Floyd and straightened his clothes, "You're home

something crashing

if

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