Cragbridge Hall, Book One: The Inventor's Secret (6 page)

“I wonder if I’ll ever get used to this kind of stuff at school,” Abby said.

“Sure you will,” Derick said. “It’ll just take a little time.” He paused for a moment. “So is your roommate pretty?”

Abby didn’t feel like talking anymore. “Why do you care?”

“I’m your brother, so I should get to know her. You know, to make sure she’s good enough for you.”

Her brother was at least partially joking around, but Abby didn’t feel like discussing her roommate.

Later Abby would decide that she should have said that Jacqueline was bald with a couple of splotches of hair, had a hunchback and a goiter the size of a second head, but she didn’t think of it in the moment. She didn’t say anything.

Derick looked back at Abby. He must have noticed her reddening eyes. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Abby lied. She inhaled long and hard, and then told her brother about the night before.

“Really?” he asked.

Abby nodded.

“Wow. She didn’t even give you a chance.”

“Maybe she’s right,” Abby said. “Maybe I don’t ...” She didn’t finish.

“Oh, c’mon,” Derick said. “Of course you got in because you deserved it.” There was something about the way Derick spoke—his voice was flatter than normal—that made Abby wonder if he really meant what he said. “Should we go down to the office and complain or something? Or we could call Grandpa. Maybe he could punish her by forcing her to watch the history of crochet ... or ... fishing.”

“No,” Abby said, smiling slightly at her brother’s joke. She took another deep breath. “I’ll be fine.”

They walked for another ten yards in an uncomfortable silence before Derick broke it. “So what class is next for you?”

“English. How about you?”

“Music and then zoology,” Derick said, his face brightening. “I can’t wait for zoology.”

“Do you think the rumors are true?” Abby asked, thinking about what she had heard about the inventions they used to learn about animals. Grandpa was partly responsible for them as well as for so many other things.

“Everything else has been better than I expected,” he said. “I don’t see why zoology would let me down.” He gazed at a device in his hand. It flashed and vibrated, showing that it was time for him to turn right. It was the new way of guiding seventh graders around campus. Abby heard that originally the orientation committee had requested personal holograms of Lewis and Clark to guide new students, but the administration thought the idea belittled history.

“Looks like this is where we split up,” Derick said. “Have a good time. You’ll show them.”

“I’ll try,” Abby said, and turned left.

She checked her orientation device. Her unopened mail messages showed in the corner. A new one appeared from Jacqueline. The subject line read, “Sorry.” Abby let out a huge breath. What a relief. Jacqueline had been under a lot of stress. It was probably her first time living away from home as well. Abby could give her the benefit of the doubt.

She clicked the message open. The file had the face of a dark-skinned girl with large pretty eyes. Her name, the file labeled, was Kyra. The message held some sort of information sheet. The girl spoke three languages and had become a successful computer programmer. During sixth grade, she did freelance CGI work for a major firm.

The next sheet showed a boy who had already sung in the Metropolitan Opera House seven times before he turned twelve.

Next was a girl who won the national debate tournament.

Abby flipped through several more sheets. She read about kids who made inventions, played stringed instruments, and crossbred birds into a new subspecies. After the last of twelve information sheets, she read a single line.

I’m sorry. I’m sorry you’re here instead of these people who were turned down. Go home, Miss Ordinary.

7

Ms. Entrese

Oscar Cragbridge winced and opened his eyes. He coughed as he breathed in dusty air. Wherever he was, it smelled of drywall mud. He looked around the best he could with a stiff neck. He was lying in a simple twin-size bed, but it was somewhere much larger than a bedroom. Off to the side, he saw a wooden chair, painted black. He looked up to see a series of mounted lights. They were rather like simple stage lights. Where was he? The last thing he could remember ...

It all came flooding back. They had come for him.

Oscar heard footsteps.

“Good morning, sir,” a voice said. “You’ve slept in, which is quite understandable, under the circumstances.”

Oscar rubbed his eyes and slowly sat up. He looked at a man with thick eyebrows and a flat nose. He wore a black suit. “I’m sorry. You’re probably very uncomfortable,” the man said. “But we had to travel during the night, and we couldn’t have you making noise and drawing attention to us, so we tranquilized you again. You probably don’t recall that I explained this all to you hours ago.”

The man did look familiar. Not like Oscar had seen him often. They were definitely not friends.

“Feel free to walk around. My team and I will keep you safe. This is going to be your quarters until you tell us what we want to know. Of course, you may remember that you have fewer than three days to do so.”

“Where am I?” Oscar asked.

The man smiled. “I think once you let yourself fully wake up, you’ll recognize the place, despite the remodeling. I was told that it would be a fitting location for you, should you decide not to tell us anything.”

Oscar looked around and suddenly remembered.

• • •

Abby walked down the hall, trying not to think about Jacqueline—trying not to think about others who were more qualified than she was to be at Cragbridge Hall.

After several classrooms, the corridor opened into a large common area. Tables filled one end of the large room, and the other had large steps with a statue in the middle. A replica of Grandpa Cragbridge, chiseled out of stone, looked over her. He wore stone glasses and a suit—complete with his Cragbridge Hall blazer. He somehow managed to look both dignified and casual at the same time. Seeing his face calmed her nerves.

Abby remembered her grandpa’s words. He believed she could succeed. She took a deep breath and moved on down the hall, glancing at her guidance system. She turned left and then right, and walked into her next classroom. As with most classes, desks stood in rows. The floor gradually sloped downward, so that those in the back could see the front easily. Several digital posters lined the walls. Abby recognized a few pictures of great works of literature—a woman with a scarlet letter on her dress and a sweeping view of a massive whale coming out of the ocean.

Abby found an empty seat and sat down.

Immediately after the tardy tone hummed, the teacher stood from behind her desk and began speaking. “Hello. I’m Ms. Entrese,” she said. She wore a black dress with a blacker belt, black nylons, and black shoes. “I am here to be your guide through the great world of irony, symbolism, types, foreshadowing, metaphors, conflict, mystery, and resolution.” She annunciated every word carefully, and her voice fluctuated dramatically as she spoke. Ms. Entrese probably had some experience onstage.

Abby glanced around the room. Jacqueline sat on the other side, four rows to her left. Abby’s stomach rolled as Jacqueline glared back. Abby quickly looked away, back to the teacher.

“Today, I would like to introduce you to one of the great inventions we have here at Cragbridge.” She pointed to one of the boys in the front row. He seemed startled. “Your brain,” Ms. Entrese said. She pointed to several other students’ heads. “I say ‘introduce you’ to this invention, because in this class, you will be asked to use your brains in a manner different than you ever have before.”

Ms. Entrese pointed to a simple chair with a tall back. It was made of cedar wood and lined in places with a dark metal. “This chair,” she said, “is another of Oscar Cragbridge’s inventions. The Chair will unlock what really goes on inside your mind.” She pointed to a blonde girl. “For example, Carol, please step forward.”

Carol responded quickly. “Um ... how did you know my name? Not that a teacher shouldn’t know my name, but I was just a little surprised. It is our first class with you.” She spoke rapidly, without stopping to breathe between sentences.

“I simply studied your picture in the registry,” Ms. Entrese said. “I’ve studied all of your pictures and all of your names.” She rattled off several names of students in class. “I used my mind.” Ms. Entrese patted the Chair. “Now, have a seat.”

Carol walked to the front of the class. “What do I do? Is the Chair going to tell me my future or electrocute me or something? I guess it wouldn’t kill me, because then you’d be in
huge
trouble, because—”

“Just sit,” Ms. Entrese interrupted. “And think.”

“About what?” Carol asked. “Because if I’m thinking about
trying
to think, I don’t think it will work very well. Wow, I said the word
think
a lot there. Sorry for the repetition.” Carol’s hands moved in quick gestures as she spoke. She sat down before continuing. “Or should I think about something completely random, like a buffalo in a tutu?” Suddenly on the screen behind Carol, an image appeared of a buffalo curtseying in a pink tutu. The class gasped and clamored with excitement.

Carol whirled around to see her imagination in action. “What? You can see my thoughts? That’s awesome!” She paused for a moment, and the buffalo grew a clown nose and huge shoes. Then it sprouted a purple afro and began an amazingly agile disco dance. The class laughed and cheered.

“That’s enough, that’s enough,” Ms. Entrese said, blowing a stray hair out of her eyes.

Carol began prattling on again. “So if I think about the trip I took with my parents to Cancun, or the time when Ben Tristen kissed me in the third grade, which, I might add, wasn’t as bad as I anticipated—I thought it would be all slobbery and stuff ...” The corresponding images appeared on the screen. “Or my first night here.” Carol appeared, unpacking her things. Then another image of her talking with a roommate. Abby just hoped Carol hadn’t been one of the girls who witnessed Jacqueline kicking her out of her room last night. She didn’t want that on the screen for the whole class to see.

“Yes,” Ms. Entrese said. “Exactly. The Chair could be used for many purposes—”

“You could interview criminals with this thing,” Carol interrupted. A new image appeared: a man with a blond beard and scraggly hair seated in front of a police officer. “Or even better, you could interview cute boys.” Now the screen showed several boys, including one who sat in the back corner of the room. The class erupted.

“Calm down, calm down,” Ms. Entrese said. “The situations you described may or may not be useful. The person in the Chair still controls their mind, and if they are bright enough, there would be no way of knowing whether they are showing the truth or something imagined.” She sighed for a moment, looking tired of explaining. “The Chair is useful here at the academy to show literature.” She handed Carol a book. “Read the marked passages.”

Carol looked down, cleared her throat, and began to read:

“‘Second to the right, and straight on till morning.’”

Abby recognized the words almost instantly, and apparently, so did Carol. A boy, wearing a mix of animal skins and leaves, with curly auburn hair, stood on the screen. Abby smiled as she realized that the boy had the same face as the boy in the back of corner of the room that Carol thought was cute.

“Wait for a moment,” Ms. Entrese said. “Notice how this image isn’t nearly as clear as those we saw when Carol pictured a memory. See how part of it is completely out of focus? As Carol practices more, she will learn to fill in the image with more detail.” She nodded at Carol to continue reading.

In the next passages Peter, Michael, John, and Wendy whooshed across Carol’s version of London. They flew between chimneys and circled church spires. They were all dressed in their night robes. Abby was surprised when, at a certain point, John shifted his momentum, and his long nightshirt blew up and exposed his underwear. She hadn’t considered how hard it might be to fly in a nightshirt.

Carol read how the group of children in their pajamas continued to fly and fly. It took days to get to Neverland. They had to snatch food from birds, and they tried not to fall asleep—sleeping could kill them. As soon as they were unconscious, they dropped like stones. Abby had no idea it had been so dangerous to go to Neverland. She had seen a few movies, but they always left that part out. Perhaps she needed to read the book.

“Not bad, Carol,” Ms. Entrese said. “The book was obviously
Peter Pan.
Who wrote it?”

Several in the class answered, “James Barrie.”

“Yes,” Ms. Entrese said. “I gave you a rather easy one to start. James Barrie, a Scottish novelist and playwright, wrote
Peter Pan
. Actually, it originally was a play that was adapted into a novel in 1911. It was first titled
Peter and Wendy.
”

Ms. Entrese stood behind a podium near her desk. “The power of literature is its ability to create pictures with words, but those pictures only form in the mind of the reader. The Chair helps us practice our ability to understand literature and grasp the author’s meaning, or at least to solidify our own interpretations.”

“Abby, your turn,” Ms. Entrese said, pointing to the Chair.

Why her? Somehow, Abby had known it was coming. She slowly got up and walked to the front of the room. Her heart pounded, and her nerves tingled all over. Was she going to be able to do this? She didn’t have the same type of genius mind as the others. Ms. Entrese handed Abby a book, opened to a page with marked quotations.

Ms. Entrese spoke to the class. “Robert Louis Stevenson wrote the rough draft for
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
while sick in bed; he finished it in fewer than three days. He revised the manuscript for several weeks, and it was published in the late 1800s.”

“Now before you begin to read this one, Abby, I should prepare you. It’s a little more complex than a few kids flying through the sky. We will launch right into the text, so you’ll need a few points of reference. The character we’ll read about is a good and respectable scientist. You may want to begin by imagining someone you think is good and respectable, someone you admire and look up to.”