Miss Croy leaned against the wall, arms folded, sizing him up. Her bored smile barely concealed her contempt for the impossible situation she’d been thrust into. She had a routine she’d developed over the years, and she wasn’t looking forward to breaking in a new vice- principal.
“Uh-huh. Is there anything else you need before I go to lunch, Mr. Frost?”
Her emphasis on the word “mister” made it sound like an insult rather than a salutation, but he ignored it for the moment. Instead, he opened his office door and invited her in.
“I’ve still got some moving in to do, but I’d like to get a look at the student files as soon as possible. And there’s something else.”
“Yes, Mr. Frost,” she said.
She wasn’t sure if he was finished or not so she waited, but he just stared at her with unblinking black doll eyes until she started to feel uncomfortable. Standing this close to him, she realized something else peculiar for the first time; he didn’t have any facial hair. No beard, no razor stubble, no eyebrows, not even eyelashes. She’d assumed that he was fair haired, but she’d been wrong.
“I’m also expecting a response in the next few days to some grants that I applied for, so be a dear and make sure you get them to me as soon as they come in,” he added.
“Yes, Mr. Frost,” she repeated. “Is there anything else?”
She waited for him to answer, but he was already unpacking the cardboard boxes delivered in advance of his arrival, so she showed herself out.
Frost reached into one of the boxes and pulled out a mug, placing it on his desk so it faced the door. But unlike Principal Hoyt’s mug, his didn’t have anything written on it at all.
* * *
Newton chained his Huffy to the rack and went around to the front of the broken-down Windmill. The storybook castles and fairy-tale monsters populating the condemned mini-golf course must have seemed like a mirage to those driving by, an oasis rising up among the bleak desert of blacked-out buildings and abandoned warehouses in that part of the city.
“Close the door,” Grady hissed, shielding his eyes from the sudden intrusion of sunlight.
The others were already there, relaxing in the raggedy furniture they’d salvaged from the course clubhouse, though they were anything but relaxed. In the last two weeks, they’d blown up the school’s water tower, gotten their favorite teacher fired, and been sentenced to a year’s worth of Saturday school. They were exhausted.
Drew lay on his back, tossing a ragged tennis ball into the air, trying to see how close to the ceiling beams he could get without touching them. “What’s a big-shot astronaut like Frost comin’ to our school for anyway?”
Clementine sat opposite Spider, the Xbox between them. She mashed the buttons as fast as she could, her body’s contortions mirroring her fighter’s combination. “Yeah. If he’s such a big-deal astronaut, how come he didn’t go to a better school than Bixby?”
Spider countered her combo with one of his own, his tongue dangling from his mouth like a panting dog. “Yeah. Yeah, maybe he crashed his spaceship and got fired. Like my dad did his truck.”
Grady popped the top on another soda and swooped in behind Newton, hovering over his shoulder while his tablet powered up. “Google ‘Dick Frost.’”
Newton’s face broke into a sardonic smile. “Yeah, thanks.”
The search results came up a second later. Clementine wandered over and ran her finger across the screen while mouthing the words.
“You read Braille, Clem?” Newton asked.
She cocked her head to one side, confused by his question.
“Then please don’t touch the screen,” Newton said, wiping away the smudge marks.
“Out loud,” Grady said. “I can’t see ’cause of Newton’s giant cabbage head.”
Drew read the text to them while Newton defended the size of his head. “Veteran astronaut Dick Frost announced his retirement from the space program today after more than two decades of service.”
Newton scrolled down, and Frost’s official NASA photo came up. It was him, all right, wearing a pristine white space suit and smiling in front of an American flag.
“He don’t look old enough to be retired. It say anything else ’bout him?” Clementine asked.
Drew kept reading. “Let’s see…Dr. Frost, a biologist by training, was a leading proponent of quantum evolution before the theory fell out of favor in mainstream academia.”
“Dude, what’s that mean?” Grady asked.
Newton typed “quantum evolution” into the search bar. “Here it is-- the creation of new classes of organisms based on existing DNA.”
“Yeah. Yeah, but what’s a DNA?” Spider asked.
Newton rolled his eyes. “Here. DNA contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms. Hmm.”
Drew could tell by the way Newton folded his arms against his body that he wasn’t buying it. He saw conspiracy in everything and was just smart enough not to be convinced otherwise by the facts.
“Wonder what he really did up there?” Newton said.
“I know how we can find out,” Drew said.
“How?” Newton asked.
“Ask him.”
* * *
The janitors had cleaned out most of the curios and oddities Mr. Birdsong collected over the years, leaving the science classroom cold and empty, which was exactly what Mr. Frost wanted for Saturday school. Detention wasn’t a reward. It was a punishment, and he’d decided that the environment should reflect that reality.
The Vice-Principal finished explaining the rules and regulations and looked up from his binder. He adjusted his cuffs and straightened his tie. “Any questions?”
Their hands shot up, and the questions came rapid-fire.
“What’s it like in space?” one kid asked.
“Cold,” he said.
“Did ya ever walk on the moon?” another asked.
“No, sorry,” he said.
“What’s the earth look like from that high up?” another student asked.
“Lonely,” he said.
“What’s that crawling across the floor?” Clementine squealed.
The rodent scurried across the classroom’s slick linoleum, but Frost slammed the door shut, blocking its escape.
Grady jumped on top of his desk. “It’s a rat!”
“Don’t be afraid,” Frost said. “It’s not a rat, it’s a mouse. It won’t hurt you.”
The mouse made a sharp turn and doubled back, slipping and sliding along the baseboard while searching for a crack to squeeze through.
Frost casually reached into his coat pocket and pulled out something like a TV remote. He hit a button, and the mouse spasmed like it’d just bitten into a live wire.
The Vice-Principal bent down and scooped up the suddenly docile rodent.
The kids crowded around the intruder, who, in addition to being enormous, was wearing a red-leather harness that fit like it was custom-tailored.
“What’s his name?” Grady asked.
“Romeo,” Frost answered. “His name is Romeo.”
“How’d he get the stripes?” Drew asked.
The gray bands, resembling a tiger’s markings, ran a shade darker than the mouse’s white coat.
“Oh, those. Just side effects. He’s part of an experiment I’m working on,” Frost said.
The kids followed Frost to the back of the room, invigorated by the sudden dose of adrenaline Romeo’s unexpected appearance brought. Frost opened the storage closet, unleashing a faint whiff of ammonia into the air. He turned to shut the door behind him, but by then the kids were already inside with him.
“Whatcha doin’ with all these mice?” Grady asked.
Dozens of mesh-wire cages sat stacked on top of each other like a rodent penitentiary, filling the already cluttered closet to capacity.
“Like I said, they’re part of an experiment I’m working on,” Frost said.
> “How come Romeo looks different than the others?” Drew asked.
“Romeo doesn’t just look different. He is different,” Frost boasted.
“Whatcha mean?” Spider asked.
Frost reached into one of the cages and grabbed another mouse with his free hand. “This is Juliet.”
She was rounder and softer than Romeo and lacked the distinctive striped pattern, but wore the same kind of harness. Her left ear seemed to have a piece missing, as if it’d been gnawed off, but she seemed otherwise to be a normal mouse.
“You, there—four-eyes. What’s your name?” Frost asked.
“Me?” Newton squeaked. “Newton…my name is Newton.”
“Nougat. Pull the cover off of that other cage in the corner,” Frost ordered.
Sliding steel panels divided the other cage into identical halves; each half further divided into a maze with ramps and slides, almost like a video game level.
“What are these?” Grady asked.
The mechanisms in question were bolted into place throughout the maze, their exposed gears and sprockets fitting together like the guts of a clock.
“See for yourself,” Frost said.
“Hey!” Grady yelped. He jerked his finger out of the way just as the steel blade snapped down.
Frost laughed. “The Gauntlet is designed to measure their abilities. The traps like the one you triggered are the consequences of failure, negative reinforcement.”
The Vice-Principal put the mice into the Gauntlet, Romeo on one side and Juliet on the other. He wound the traps near the exits, cranking the gears until they locked into position. Then he baited them with some pellets he took from his pocket.
Frost took a stopwatch out of his coat. “Evolution happens slowly, over millions of years, but sometimes the unexpected happens. Evolution gets pushed forward, skipping a generation ahead. Like what happened to Romeo.”
“Or,” Clementine whispered, “like your eyebrows.”
Spider’s eyebrows arched in response, like they knew someone was talking about them. “Whatcha mean?”
“One day those caterpillars napping on your forehead will evolve into beautiful butterflies and just flutter away.”
“Alright, quiet down,” Frost commanded. He tapped the glass, and the mice scurried forward on command. “Those best suited to survive will thrive and multiply. Those that aren’t will become extinct, like the dinosaurs.”
Drew watched the action unfold with the others, but when he looked up, he noticed that while he was watching the mouse, Frost was watching him.
Frost stopped the timer as soon as Romeo found the treat, which didn’t take long. “His best time yet. Romeo is strong, but he’s also smart and getting smarter. And as you saw before, he keeps figuring out how to escape.”
Juliet was slower than Romeo, lumbering through the maze and making one wrong turn after another. The kids rooted the clumsy underdog on, though their cheering just seemed to make her more nervous.
Juliet finally turned the corner and entered the stretch-run. She waddled back and forth in front of the trap, pink nose twitching in anticipation—and then she stopped.
She reached for the treat…
The kids gasped…
The trap fired.
Drew waited until Juliet retreated to a safe distance and then yanked his pencil from between the mechanism’s gears.
The blade slammed down like a guillotine, and the little mouse enjoyed the rare treat, oblivious to the close call she’d just survived.
The look of disappointment on Frost’s face was hard to ignore. “Of course, there’s always the possibility of divine intervention to move things along, too.”
* * *
Lazy-Eye Susan backed into the greenhouse through the wrought-iron door, careful not to spill the drinks on her silver tray. She smiled and headed toward the fire burning brightly in the center of the frosted-glass enclosure, passing through the kaleidoscope of red, pink, and gold flowers arranged in neat little rows on either side.
Lucy stirred the blackened brass cauldron with a wooden oar, the glowing embers beneath hissing in chorus. Though only a bit younger, the years had been kinder to Lucy than to Susan. She was a bit smoother around the edges in appearance and manner, and dressed like she was on her way to church, regardless of whether it was Sunday or not.
Penelope hovered nearby, adding items one at a time as Lucy called for them. Penelope was taller than Lucy, though not as tall as Susan, and stouter than the latter though more petite than the former. She was the middle ground between them in appearance and temperament, in dress and demeanor, the middle sister in every way.
“I made lemonade,” Susan announced, setting the tinkling pitcher on the glass patio table.
Lucy stuck her head into the pot and took a healthy whiff, her nose crinkling at the pungent aroma. “Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble.”
“Whatcha see?” Susan asked with uncharacteristic intensity.
“Potatoes, carrots, celery,” Lucy said.
Susan giggled. “Good. Soup’s done.”
* * *
After eating, they retired to the library, where dusty tomes collected over the years welcomed the sisters to the sanctum they’d been absent from for so long. They slipped into the brocade gowns they reserved for such solemn occasions as these, the worn stitching and faded colors a reminder of just how long it had been since they’d come together for something like this.
“Don’tcha ever dust?” Lucy asked after a long, violent cough. “A broom hain’t just fer flyin’ around on, ya know.”
But Susan’s mind was preoccupied with weightier matters. Curious signs and omens had plagued her since Drew’s reading—frogs falling from the sky, river water turning to blood, shadows falling across the face of the moon. Something was on the verge of happening, but she didn’t know what, though she knew how to find out.
She uncorked a slender glass vial and poured some of the pale yellow powder into her open palm. “How’d it go? Oh, yeah. Now I ’member.”
She bent over and carefully traced a pattern onto the creaky hardwood floor, leaving a trail of the yellow powder behind her. After she was finished, she stepped back to check her work, the blood rushing to her head when she stood up.
“Hmmm. Somehow that don’t seem quite right,” she muttered.
The smiley face was lopsided, but it would have to do.
“Turn off the lights,” Susan said. “Time to make some sense outta these signs we been seein’.”
They lit the candles and sat inside the smiley face, their hands joined. Susan led them in the incantation, Lucy and Penelope repeating the sacramental words in chorus. Their voices grew louder and stronger with each verse, until rising to a tumultuous crescendo.
The light appeared not long after, separating itself from the velvety blackness, dancing above their heads like a firefly. The chant continued until the light bloomed outward and enveloped them in the warmth of its incandescent blue radiation.
They felt themselves pulling away from the library, ghostly images forming in their periphery, ethereal and lacking clarity. As they traveled farther and farther back, they realized they were in a tunnel that reached to the infinite horizon ahead and as far behind them as they could see.
Blurry images rushing by them came into focus and the shadows of days past, and days yet to be, flickered by like the frames of a silent movie.
Gaining momentum, they moved faster and faster until the light faded and everything went black…
* * *
The desolation stretched from where they stood, far into the brown horizon where the bleak landscape dissolved into the somber gray sky. All around them, the charred carcasses of the city’s burned-out buildings stood like tombstones, mourned by the howling wind whistling through the hollow streets.
“Where are we?” Lucy asked.
“Don’t know,” Penelope said. “But somethin’ seems familiar ’bout all this.”
The
eerie sense of déjà vu was palpable, the memory of a memory yet to be made. After the initial shock wore off and they regained their senses, they realized why everything seemed familiar.
“We traveled…but not through space,” Susan whispered.
She approached the rubble with a heavy heart. Her house, like everything else for miles, was a cadaverous husk, laid waste by whatever anonymous apocalypse had claimed the rest of the city.
“Lookey here,” Penelope said.
Susan knew what the smiley face sprayed across the singed block wall meant; the patch of graffiti pointed at them like an accusing finger from across the ages.
“Graffiti spells all over the place,” Penelope said, picking out the tags among the ruins. The smiley faces seemed like proof of their involvement in doomsday. But what role did they play?
“Maybe it weren’t us,” Susan said. “Maybe was some of the others. Maybe they was tryin’ to prevent this calamity, not cause it.”
“We gotta find out what happened here,” Lucy said.
“But who do we ask?” Susan said.
A sad little raggedy doll appeared in their periphery, moving between the piles of broken masonry choking the road. She was pale and gray, the color faded from her like a photograph bleached by the sun, one ghost watching them among the millions.
Susan knelt down and brushed the matted hair out of the girl’s eyes, but stumbled backward in shock. “Whoa!”
“Like the Roman god Janus,” Penelope muttered.
The birthmark divided the girl’s face into symmetrical halves and was unlike anything they’d seen before.
“Janet?” Lucy said.
“Not Janet. Janus,” Penelope said. “The Roman god of transitions. Don’tcha read the newsletters they send out?”
“Naw, I didn’t know we had a newsletter. I do check the website from time to time,” Lucy said in her own defense.
Now it was Penelope’s turn to be surprised. “When did we get a website?”
“Janus was two-faced—or two-headed, dependin’ on which version of the myth ya believe,” Susan said. “He…she…it, could see into the past and into the future at the same time.”
Susan turned to face the girl and smiled, ashamed of how she’d first reacted. “What happened?”
A blood-curdling yowl echoed through the ruins in answer to her question.
“W-w-what was that?” Lucy stammered.
The little girl raised her finger to her lips to shush them and pointed to the smoldering rise at the far end of the street. “Cryptos,” she whispered.