“Hey! Wait!” he shouted. He wanted answers.
Flinch turned and spotted him, but quickly ran off after his friends. When Jackson rounded the corner, the hall was empty. Duncan, Ruby, Matilda, Heathcliff, and Flinch had vanished! Their only possible exit was a door at the end of the hall, but when Jackson opened it, he found a broom closet filled with mops and urinal cakes. Where had the herd gone?
“Son, are you lost?” a voice called to him from the other end of the hallway. Jackson turned and spotted the school’s new janitor approaching. Jackson couldn’t remember his name, but his appearance was unforgettable. He looked like a male model with broad shoulders and rugged blue eyes. He had a pronounced limp in his right leg, and he used his mop and bucket to help him get along. Still, he seemed dignified and intelligent. Jackson had heard some of the female teachers mooning over him and commenting on what an improvement he was over the old janitor, Mr. Pecko, who was short, had a lazy eye, and suffered from persistent mouth funk.
“No, sir. I just—” Jackson stammered.
The janitor was about to say something, but he was interrupted by a bellowing voice.
“Mr. Jackson Jones, aren’t you supposed to be in class?” Charging toward Jackson and the janitor was Principal Dehaven, a little man with a curly perm and a moustache. He had stubby arms and legs, and a chest like a pickle barrel.
“I, um …,” Jackson said, realizing that telling the truth about spying on a bunch of nerds would make him sound like he’d been standing too close to the dry-erase markers.
“’Um,’ is not an answer, young man,” Dehaven growled. “The answer is ‘Class, sir!’ I’m not sure if you are aware of this, young man, but you are in a school. Perhaps you’ve heard that word before? ‘School’?”
“Actually, sir,” the janitor interjected, “Jackson was just asking me about a career as a janitorial engineer. I asked permission from his teacher to show him the ropes—you know, mopping, sweeping, scraping gum off the bottom of desks. He’s showing a lot of promise, if you ask me, and I thought I’d give him a leg up on the competition.”
“Is this true?” Dehaven eyeballed Jackson like he could see through him. “You want to be a janitor?”
Jackson looked to the janitor, then nodded. “It’s my dream.”
The principal nodded. “Well, I suppose that’s all right. Though I must say, I think you’re setting your sights a little high, Mr. Jones. Very well, then. Get on with it, Mr…. What is it, again?”
“Brand,” the janitor said. “And I fully intend to, sir.”
Dehaven turned and charged back down the hall leaving Jackson and Mr. Brand alone.
“Perhaps you should get back to class, Jackson,” Mr. Brand said.
Jackson nodded and headed back down the hall.
“And Mr. Jones?” Brand called out just before Jackson turned the corner. “Don’t forget what killed the cat.”
That night, Jackson couldn’t help but replay the scene in his head. He was sure the herd had gone down that hallway. How had Ruby, Heathcliff, Duncan, Matilda, and Flinch disappeared? A funny thought occurred to him. Could they have been hiding in the lockers that lined the hallway? He knew the nerd herd had probably been shoved into a few in their day, but would they lock themselves in them on purpose? And if they had, why?
He tossed and turned, feeling that odd tingling in the back of his head. Jackson was swimming through a secret and soon he would be able to see through it all the way to the bottom.
Jackson didn’t have to wait long. The very next day, during Pfeiffer’s lecture on his favorite television sitcoms, the nerds’ noses went off again. Up from their seats they jumped and were out the door in a flash. Ignoring Dehaven’s threats and the odd janitor’s warning, Jackson raced right behind them. This time, however, he was careful not to be seen or heard. His stealth paid off. It was just as he had suspected! The nerds each climbed inside an unused locker and closed the doors behind them.
What a bunch of weirdos! Jackson thought. He opened the locker he had seen Duncan enter, his mind brimming with questions, but to his utter amazement, the locker was empty. He rushed over to the locker he had seen Ruby enter, but found only a couple of school books and a half-eaten orange. He rushed to Heathcliff’s locker—empty. Then Matilda’s— empty. Flinch’s—empty, empty, empty! Where had they gone?
He was sure he was losing his mind. All that metal in his mouth must have seeped into his brain. He turned to head straight to the school nurse when he heard someone approaching from down the hallway. The rapid steps and heavy breathing told Jackson that Principal Dehaven was on his way. If the principal found him in the hallway again without a pass, he’d spend the rest of his natural life in detention. In desperation, he did the only thing he could think of to save himself. He climbed into a locker and closed the door.
Oh, the irony. How many nerds had he shoved into lockers? He wasn’t even sure numbers went up that high! And now, here he was, crammed into one himself.
“Where is that janitor?” he heard Dehaven grumble to himself as he stopped just outside Jackson’s locker. “He’s never around when I need him.”
Jackson watched through the vents in the locker door. Dehaven was tapping his foot impatiently. Then he peered around, making sure he was alone, and did something terrible. He picked his nose.
“Gross,” Jackson said.
Mr. Dehaven spun toward the locker. He stepped up close and peered into the vent, then tried the handle. Jackson gripped the edge of the metal door, preventing it from opening. After several moments, Dehaven gave up and stomped back the way he came.
Jackson realized he needed to get back to class before the principal returned, but when he tried to open the door, he found it was jammed. Jackson was trapped. He wanted to call out for help, but Dehaven would hear him. He worried that he might be stuck in the locker all day before someone discovered him. Heck, he might be in there for years! Explorers might open the locker eons in the future and discover him there, like some nerdy mummy in his gym-shoe-smelling sarcophagus.
“If you get me out of this, I swear I will always be good,” he promised the heavens.
And then suddenly, a red light flashed above his head and the floor beneath him slid away. He couldn’t see, and all he heard was his own screaming as he shot down a metal tube. Then there was an enormous roar, like someone had flipped on the world’s largest ceiling fan, and a powerful wind came up from below. When Jackson looked down, he saw a huge wind turbine, blasting air at him and slowing his fall. Soon, he was hovering, like a loose feather, directly over the turbine’s grate. A steel panel slid over the fan, and Jackson landed squarely on his feet. He hardly had time to thank his lucky stars before the floor tilted upward, revealing another hole. Jackson tumbled into it and rocketed along a twisty-turny slide. He went through a loop-de-loop, and just when he was sure he would barf, another hatch opened and he fell through it.
Much to his surprise he landed in an overstuffed chair. An oddly proper voice said, “Welcome to the Playground.”
He was in a large square room as big as a baseball field. The floor was decorated in multicolored ceramic tiles, and the ceiling was held aloft by dozens of marble columns. Each wall was decorated with an elaborate mural dedicated to a different branch of science—biology, physics, geology, and chemistry. Scattered about the room were workstations. Some held computers, others elaborate experiments—vials of chemicals, half-built machines, water tanks. Mounted above all this were the largest television monitors Jackson had ever seen. They were broadcasting scenes from around the world: a man taking money from an ATM with the Eiffel Tower in the background, two men playing dominoes in Red Square, a woman and her son sightseeing at the Great Wall of China. Jackson realized these weren’t television shows, but actual events caught by surveillance cameras around the globe. On several monitors, Jackson could see students from his school walking to class, sleeping at their desks, struggling to climb the rope in the gymnasium. It seemed every inch
of Nathan Hale Elementary was under surveillance.
Tearing his attention away from the TVs, Jackson noticed a circular desk sitting on a platform at the center of the room. It was made from some kind of glass, inlaid with tiny computer circuits. Jackson walked over to take a closer look. When he touched the surface of the desk, a tiny blue orb floated out of a hole in the center. It spun like a tornado, then began to emit particles of light. The particles combined to form a three-dimensional picture of a snow-capped mountain range. It was so real, Jackson felt he could dip his hand into the snowmelt rushing down to the river below. He had never seen technology like it in his life. He wondered how the school could afford something this advanced when most of the students shared textbooks.
Suddenly, as if a bell had sounded somewhere, doors swung open around the room and dozens of people dressed in white lab coats and goggles rushed to the workstations. They didn’t seem to notice Jackson.
He watched as a man climbed into a tank of water. He had a tiny green device in his nose and, once he was submerged, it was clear that the device was allowing him to breathe. In another corner of the room, a scientist wearing a bright orange jumpsuit that covered him from head to toe was handed a lit stick of dynamite. Jackson panicked, but when the dynamite exploded, the scientist appeared to be unharmed.
Jackson gaped in wonder as he moved about the room, examining one experiment after another, but his attention finally settled on a scientist working with a pink-nosed guinea pig. She plugged a computer cable into the back of a video monitor. The other end of the cable was inserted into the belly of the furry rodent. At once, the monitor came to life, broadcasting what appeared to be the guinea-pig’s-eye view. A colleague came over to watch.
“I call it the ‘guinea pig camera,’” the proud scientist announced to her colleague. “The team can give one of these to a suspect’s child and it will record anything it sees or hears. Just plug in this cable and it downloads right onto your hard drive!”
The scientist continued her demonstration, aiming the furry animal in all directions. The image stopped on Jackson.
All at once, the scientists turned to face him. “How did you get in here?” one shouted.
“Uh, I’m lost,” he said.
Before he could explain further, a siren went off and a voice announced: “We have an intruder in the Playground. Attention, all agents. We have an intruder in the Playground.”
Jackson had no idea what was happening, but one thing was clear—he had not stumbled into the teacher’s lounge.
STILL HERE, HUH? I WOULD
HAVE BET MONEY YOUR LITTLE
BELLY COULDN’T HANDLE ALL
THE EXCITEMENT. WELL, YOU’RE
BRAVER THAN I THOUCHT.
EAGER FOR MORE? GOOD.
PLEASE PLACE YOUR EYE
ON THE RETINAL SCANNER.
I’M WAITING, PAL. I
KNOW YOU DIDN’T DO IT.
LEVEL 3
ACCESS GRANTED
SEE HOW EASY
IT IS WHEN YOU
COOPERATE?
Each of the scientists the Hyena kidnapped and delivered to the secret lair at the North Pole went through the same process. Henchmen took their clothing and personal possessions and gave them orange prison jumpsuits. They were shoved into tiny cells without windows and told to sit tight until they were needed. They weren’t allowed to use the phone, but they were well fed and even given magazines and books to help them pass the time. At last they were ushered into a large room filled with chalkboards and chairs. Half the chalkboards held a long, intricate equation. Xs and Ys swam through it, and quite a number of question marks. The henchmen forced chalk into the scientists’ hands and instructed them to fill in the missing numbers and finish the equation. They worked day and night, though it was clear none of them was sure exactly what the equation was or what it might solve.
It was during those long afternoons that the Hyena started to see Dr. Jigsaw’s diabolical nature. What kind of black-hearted soul forced a person to do math problems? She remembered the math teacher she had had in the third grade who insisted that someday she would need long division. Three years later she was still waiting. But Jigsaw’s evil went far beyond any math teacher’s, because of how he reacted to the scientists’ progress. Every few hours he would emerge from behind a locked door in the back of the room and study the equation. Sometimes he would get very excited and praise his hostages, but more often he would get violently angry, snatch an eraser, and obliterate days of work right before their eyes. The first few times this happened, the scientists took it in stride, but by the tenth time they were in tears.
The Hyena couldn’t help but feel sympathy for the scientists. They all looked distraught and exhausted. But her sympathy quickly turned to anger. She wasn’t supposed to have compassion! She was a professional assassin. She was supposed to have veins clogged with ice and a heart as black as coal. Contract killers didn’t sit around worrying about their victims. She had to get herself under control. Sympathy was very unprofessional.
Eventually, one of the braver scientists stepped forward. “Dr. Jigsaw, this would be easier if you would tell us what this equation is meant to solve.”
Jigsaw rolled back on his heels. “It’s not obvious?”
The scientists shook their heads.
Jigsaw let out an exasperated sigh, grabbed a stick of chalk, and drew a picture of the Earth. At the top he drew a massive satellite dish and on each of the major continents he drew arrows pointing toward the other continents. The Hyena had no idea what any of it meant, but once Jigsaw’s drawing was complete, the kidnapped scientists let out a collective gasp.
“You can’t be serious!”
“You’ve lost your mind, Jigsaw!”
“It will never work!”
“It will never work?” Jigsaw cried as he spun around and walked back to his private room. “Follow me.”
The henchmen shoved the scientists along and into Jigsaw’s secret room. Eager to see what was inside, the Hyena followed the crowd. She was flabbergasted by what she found. The room was as big as a football field, with walls that rose to the clouds. There was no ceiling and it was bitterly cold. Dozens of henchmen dressed in heavy coats, gloves, and goggles rushed about working on a massive satellite dish pointed toward the sky.
“It has to work, my friends,” Jigsaw said as he gestured to the dish. “You see, I’ve already built it.”
Jackson’s brain screamed for him to run, but when he spun around to flee, a metal slab dropped from the ceiling, blocking the exit. He saw other exits being cut off around the room. He raced toward the only open doorway he saw, but the scientists lined up to block his path. However, they were no match for the Fighting Tigers’ former star quarterback! Jackson rushed forward, executing a block that knocked a scientist to the floor, and a stiff arm that kept another at bay. He weaved and danced around a couple of tables, and slipped through the open doorway just as a steel slab fell behind him.
When Jackson caught his breath, he found himself in another strange room, this one shaped like a circle with a mosaic of the universe laid into the floor. Aside from the shelves of dusty manuscripts that lined the walls, the only other thing in the room was a silver pedestal. The pedestal was covered in knobs, buttons, and blinking lights, and a large blue orb hovered above it, just like the one Jackson had seen in the other room. Hanging from the ceiling directly above the pedestal were more computer monitors and hundreds of thick, loose cables dangling like the arms of an electronic octopus. Jackson studied the pedestal and his heart soared. It was clearly some kind of computer, even if it did have more bells and whistles than most. It had to have e-mail too! He could send for help! He’d have the police, the FBI, the army, and the local Girl Scout troop kicking down the door of this screwy secret lab in no time.
Unfortunately, Jackson had no idea where to start. There was no mouse and no obvious power button. In desperation, he went to work pushing all the buttons, not sure of what th
ey might do.
Then the strange voice he had heard after falling through the locker returned. “You have accessed the physical enhancement protocol of the National Espionage, Rescue, and Defense Society. Prepare for upgrade. Code name, please?”
“Are you talking to me?” Jackson asked, looking around.
“Yes. Have you chosen a code name?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jackson said. “I’m just trying to find a way out of this—”
The voice interrupted him. “No code name submitted. Subject has twenty-four hours to log in a code name or an appropriate one will be assigned. Scanning for weaknesses.”
Suddenly, the bookshelves on either side of Jackson moved away from the walls, revealing banks of little green lights. Each emitted lasers, which whisked across his body in odd patterns. They didn’t cause him any pain, but they did make him nervous.
“Physical attributes are above normal range,” the voice said. “Continuing to scan for weaknesses.”
As the lasers continued to sweep across his body, there was an awesome bang on the door and a huge dent appeared, as if a giant had tossed a rhino against the steel. The scientists on the other side were trying to break down the door.
“Where’s the e-mail program?” Jackson cried as he frantically pushed more buttons.
A bank of little red lights appeared on the pedestal. The machine began to beep and twitter and the orb above it began to spin. It turned slowly at first, but then whirled so fast it dazzled Jackson’s eyes. A million light particles scattered around the room.
Crunch! A bigger dent appeared in the door.
The particles swirled over the walls and floor, eventually collecting into one unified shape—a three-dimensional skeleton floating directly before Jackson. It seemed to move as Jackson did. When he turned his head, it turned its head. When he raised his arm, it did the same. He reached toward the skeleton, but when his hands broke the image’s surface, the figure disappeared. “It’s a hologram,” he said aloud.