A smile hit the corners of his mouth and then it turned into a laugh. Reeling around, Conrad grabbed Piper’s hands, pulled her out of bed, and started to jump up and down.
“You’ve lost your mind.”
“No, I’ve found it.” Conrad couldn’t stop laughing and, despite the fact that it was clear her dear friend had entirely lost his marbles, Piper started to laugh too.
“Let’s do it!” Conrad yelled.
“Let’s do it!” Piper repeated.
“Stop that racket, you two!” Betty called up from the kitchen. “Breakfast is on.”
Conrad stopped dead and looked at Piper as if he were hearing Betty’s voice for the first time.
“Where’s your father?” Conrad said urgently.
“I don’t know.”
“I have to see him.” Conrad rushed to the window and threw it open. He craned his neck to look out in the direction of the barn. “He should be on his way back for breakfast by now. I can’t see him. Where is he?”
“Uh, I don’t know,” Piper repeated.
Conrad turned around and bolted from her room. Piper could hear him thunder down the stairs, and she dropped out the window and onto the porch. She opened the screen door and came into the kitchen at the same moment that Conrad came down from the stairs. She was in the perfect spot to see his face upon discovering Joe McCloud sitting quietly, as ever, in his chair and drinking his morning cup of coffee.
Piper could have sworn that tears came to Conrad’s eyes. He walked with reverence to Joe and put his hand ever so softly on Joe’s sleeve, as though to assure himself that Joe was really there.
Oblivious to the strangeness of the scene taking place in her kitchen that morning, Betty was consumed with the tasks before her. As was often the case at meal times, Fido was nosing about under her feet, hoping to catch any stray scraps that might fall. To keep him from pestering her further Betty tossed him a generous crust of bread, whereupon he happily flew to the top of the sideboard and sat munching on it loudly. Wiping the crumbs off her hands, Betty next gathered several prescription bottles off the window ledge and took them to the table, where she began doling out specific numbers of pills from each one.
Startled to see so much medication, Piper came to the table. “What’s that for, Ma?”
“Oh, it’s nothing.” Betty waved away Piper’s concern. “A few weeks back Doc Bell showed up out of the blue, saying that Conrad had told him to come and take a look at your pa’s heart. Sure enough, just like Conrad said, there was a problem.”
Piper noticed that Conrad was nodding as Betty spoke.
“But how come I didn’t know?” Despite what Betty said, Piper was worried.
“I thought you did,” Betty said evasively, as though she couldn’t quite recall why Piper was not part of this. She shrugged and immediately dismissed the matter. “Of course, Doc Bell says that if we hadn’t caught it in time, it could have been a nasty business.”
Joe patted Piper’s hand reassuringly.
“As long as he takes his pills, the doctors say that his heart is stronger than an eighteen-year-old’s.” Betty finished with the bottles and put them away to get to her next task. “We just thank our lucky stars that Doc Bell caught it in time. You know your pa, he’d as soon go to the doctor as a hen party. Can’t say I even remember the last time he went to have Doc Bell take a look at him. It was providence, I tell you, providence plain and simple that Doc Bell came when he did.”
As Piper looked between Conrad and her father, a shiver ran up and down the small hairs on her neck. Last night her father had looked tired—his shoulders were bent over and there was a gray tone to his skin—yet as she looked at him this morning, he looked as if he’d grown ten years younger overnight.
“Eggs are getting cold. Sit and eat,” Betty commanded, getting Conrad to his chair and moving Piper about. “We’ve got lots to do today and there’s no point standing around, gabbing about things that don’t need our notice.”
Conrad dug into his food and then asked for more. He sat up straight in his chair and his eyes were shining with excitement and plans and something else: something that Piper had never seen before in Conrad—joy. As long as she would live, Piper would never understand Conrad’s miraculous transformation. While Conrad tucked into a huge breakfast, Piper couldn’t eat a bite, maybe because she couldn’t take her eyes off Conrad—afraid he was a mirage that might momentarily evaporate to reveal the sad, dispirited soul who had been shuffling about the farm for the last few months.
Breakfast was over, the plates were cleared away, and the new Conrad remained. He pulled Piper to the old bank barn.
“Conrad, are you sure you’re feeling alright?”
“Never better.” Conrad hurried over to one of his worktables, pulled apart a strange device, and quickly reshaped it into something else. Fido landed on the table next to him and began snuffling through the equipment, knocking things over.
“It’s very strange is all.” Piper sat on a bale of hay. “What happens now?”
“Now,” said Conrad, “we call the others.”
“Why?”
“Because you all want to change this world for the better. That’s why. So, let’s do it. If you want a leader, then here I am. It all starts here and now!”
CHAPTER
10
As it turns out, if you reach your fourth birthday and have yet to utter your first word, people tend to get a bit jittery, particularly nervous and overambitious mothers, and this invariably leads to an enormous number of assessments. The purpose of these assessments is to determine exactly and specifically how dumb you are and why you are so dumb and then to hit upon just the right label for your particular brand of dumbness.
Aletha Harrington was exactly four and a half years old, and not a sound had ever been heard to come from her lips. She had her mother’s long, curly dark hair, endlessly liquid brown eyes, and an utterly silent bow of a mouth.
Her mother, First Lady Abigail Churchill-Harrington, hovered like an agitated meerkat as Aletha underwent her second assessment that day. Silently, Abigail repeated the same words over and over again: Say something. Anything. Please.
“Aletha, babykins, can you purty please pick up the itty red block off the table?” For some reason that no one could fathom, the esteemed Dr. Dillweed spoke only in baby talk. In his dreams he was five feet tall (in daylight not a hair over four foot eight) and he perfectly fit into the toddler-size table in Aletha’s playroom. Aletha sat opposite him on a Tinker Bell chair while Dr. Dillweed had to content himself with Fairy Mary.
“Reddy-weddy is such a pretty-witty color. I like reddy-weddy lots.” Dr. Dillweed smiled and simpered.
Aletha stared at him and had nothing to say.
“She knows red. I’m sure of it,” Abigail whispered over Dr. Dillweed’s shoulder. “She understands; I know she understands.”
“Does Aletha-kins like candy-mandy?” Dr. Dillweed held up a lollipop. “Would she likey this itty-bitty sweetie?”
Aletha looked at the lollipop; it was made of swirls of color and was larger than her head. Dr. Dillweed moved it inches from her face, either to tantalize her taste buds or tease her.
“If Aletha-weefa wants the yummy candy, she needs to talky-walky to Dr. Dillyweedy.”
“Say you want it, Aletha.” Abigail’s voice came out harsh and commanding. She bent down next to Dr. Dillweed and opened her mouth impossibly wide. Using her fingers, she pointed to the movement of her lips. “Just say ‘yes.’ Y-E-S.”
Aletha folded her hands one on top of the other and closed her lips tightly.
Suddenly President Harrington came striding into the room. Abigail immediately jumped to her feet and went to him.
“We’re still in the middle of the assessment,” Abigail whispered to her husband so as not to disturb Dr. Dillweed. President Harrington looked at his watch impatiently. He hadn’t so much as set eyes on Aletha in weeks, but Abigail had insisted—as in put her foot down—th
at he show up to hear what the doctor had to say.
“I don’t have time for this. I have important things to do,” he snapped.
“And your daughter isn’t important?” Abigail’s whisper became harsh and accusing.
“She’s fine.” He dismissed Aletha with a wave of his hand.
“She won’t talk. That’s not fine.”
“It’s a phase. It’s not as if she’s like—” President Harrington stopped himself. He had few feelings for other people, but he did have feelings for his own self-preservation, and there were certain things he couldn’t say to his wife.
Abigail was not fooled. “Like who? Like Conrad? My boy was…” Tears came to her eyes and stopped her words.
“Conrad is gone now, and we shouldn’t talk about him. Let the dead rest.” President Harrington looked at his watch again. “I’m leaving. You deal with this.”
When President Harrington looked to his wife again, her eyes were wide and her mouth had fallen open in astonishment. He turned on his heel to see what she was looking at, and there in the middle of the playroom stood Aletha.
Aletha was halfway between the table and where they stood. Both her feet were planted firmly and she was staring straight at her father as her index finger pointed at him. President Harrington stood still in astonishment, and the room was absolutely silent as all eyes rested on Aletha’s serious and focused face.
With her finger pointed at her father, Aletha opened her mouth and spoke.
“Conjuror.”
No one moved.
“Conjuror,” she said again, as though shooting him.
The color drained from President Harrington’s face and he took a step back. His eyes darted from side to side shamefully.
“Conjuror.”
Aletha lowered her arm and turned back to the table. Taking the massive lollipop out of the hands of the ridiculous Dr. Dillweed, she sat on Tinker Bell and started to enjoy the strawberry swirl.
Unable to meet his wife’s eyes, President Harrington backed out of the room. “I want her assessed again,” he growled. “There’s something wrong with her.”
CHAPTER
11
Piper put the word out and it didn’t take long for the farm to be overrun by all of their friends. Lily and Jasper, Kimber, Smitty, and the rest couldn’t have been happier to see the change in Conrad at long last—for they had all been waiting for the day when Conrad would lead them and they could finally put their abilities to some greater use.
Immediately they transformed the old barn into a beehive of secret activity. The kids cleared away the hay and used the entire loft to suit their needs. In the middle was a raised area covered with mats for hand-to-hand training; around the edges were individual workstations.
“We need to sharpen our abilities and work as a team,” Conrad warned the group after the initial excitement of gathering had settled down. “The sum of our talents is greater than our individual parts. Only as a team will we accomplish great change, and not until we work as a team, think as a team, and dream as a team will we be ready for the work before us. This means anticipating one another’s strengths and weaknesses, it means communicating without speaking, it means being better than you ever thought you could be.”
The kids were expected to be up and ready at sunrise, and by sunset they were often still at it. Conrad divided the day into three parts: the morning began with individual skill development, followed by team-building exercises, and by the afternoon, Conrad assigned the group mock missions. If anyone was still awake or able to stand after the mission Conrad would review results and performance, pointing out ways to improve.
“Precision, control, and discipline,” Conrad repeated over and over again. “I want surgeons, not cowboys.”
Conrad set Smitty the task of honing his X-ray vision as a lie detector. “When someone lies it affects their nervous system, creating subtle effects on their heart rate and blood flow,” Conrad explained. “Learn to use your X-ray vision to detect those variations.” And so every day Smitty was given a new target to study and test—trying to determine when they were lying and when they were telling the truth. It was exacting work that required great concentration, and at the end of the day he was spent and grumpy.
Of course, the Mustafa twins could whip up a tsunami that could take out an entire port town, but Conrad pushed them to control the movement of a single small cloud across the sky.
“We’re sick of this,” they complained after two weeks of working with small clouds. “Give us something fun to do!”
“Fun is what happens when you have control,” Conrad snapped. “I don’t want cowboys, I want surgeons. Move that cloud at exactly one mile an hour. When it reaches the sun make it hover for ten minutes. Then make it rain away. When you can do that, I’ll show you fun.”
Everyone was careful to keep a wide berth around Daisy’s workstation, where she had to squeeze coal into diamonds (there was more than one incident of exploding coal shooting out willy-nilly across the place), and Kimber’s—she had to learn how to channel electrical energy between her two hands until she was able to create light. Once the light was stabilized she had to vary its intensity. On the days she had to create a bright light, things could get a little unpredictable, and more than once a hole was ripped through the walls or roof of the barn.
“It looks like a little lightning b-b-bolt,” Jasper commented one day.
“Exactly,” Conrad agreed. “Next Kimber’s going to learn to throw it.” This information pleased Kimber to no end—she couldn’t wait to get to the part of throwing lightning bolts about! Smitty lost more than one night’s sleep contemplating the exact same scenario and mentally gauging exactly how painful a lightning bolt might be.
Lily complained endlessly about the difficulty of the “jelly bean torture,” as she had coined her task. Conrad had devised an exercise for her whereby she had to telekinetically select one white jelly bean out of a bowl filled with red jelly beans. Once she successfully lifted the jelly bean from the bowl she had to move it through a glass maze without once touching the sides. After a solid month of working on this every single morning she completed the entire task flawlessly and turned to Conrad in triumph. Without missing a beat Conrad said, “Okay, do it again but this time blindfolded.” At which point Lily picked up the entire bowl of jelly beans, telekinetically, of course, and dumped it over Conrad’s head.
The only sore point in the entire operation was Fido, who proved to be absolutely untrainable. Conrad decided that Fido’s training should start with learning how to fetch a stick, but Fido would have none of the stick fetching no matter what training method or inducement was offered, and the ground was littered with sticks that had been thrown but would forever remain unfetched. Instead, Fido spent his days trailing around after Conrad and getting involved with whatever mischief he could find or invent. Once Violet took it in her mind to shrink down and go for a ride on Fido’s back, but her first trip proved to be her last. “He flies like a maniac. It makes me feel sick,” she complained. And so Fido was left to his own devices and was generally coddled and doted upon by all.
Once the kids had completed their individual training agenda, they were paired up and given team tasks. As soon as Nalen and Ahmed successfully demonstrated their ability to control a small cloud, Piper had to learn to stay within the cloud while Nalen and Ahmed moved it across the sky.
As though that wasn’t difficult enough, Lily was assigned the task of telekinetically moving Violet, who had shrunk down to the size of a small doll, through a specifically designed maze that was suspended from the ceiling. It was Violet’s task to silently achieve certain goals while Lily moved her. These goals were ever-changing, but they usually involved picking a lock or rewiring a mock bomb or locating a hidden item. As Violet and Lily achieved some mastery, Conrad increased the level of difficulty by challenging Lily to telekinetically move more than one object at once. This proved too much for Lily, and Conrad set her to juggling obj
ects telekinetically, of course, for days on end until she could do it with her eyes closed.
Daisy got herself into trouble when she added a ten-ton boulder to the front-end loader she was holding above her head and gave herself a sprained wrist. Then Jasper’s hands, which took on incredible heat and light while healing, became overcharged after saving no less than twenty-seven squirrels with mysterious stomachaches. His skin became burnt and started to peel away and Conrad had him hold his hands in ice water for the better part of an afternoon until his hands cooled down.
Conrad did not hold himself exempt from this process, and challenged himself to create a Direct Brain Interface (DBI), which he then experimented with on his own head. The device was the size of a quarter and had the computing power of a mainframe. With the help of Kimber’s electrical precision and Jasper’s healing hands Conrad managed to hardwire it directly into his brain. He then used the DBI in conjunction with specially designed glasses, which when worn appeared to be normal glasses, but were actually computer screens in his line of vision.
Piper was equal parts amazed and disgusted by the device. “You mean you put a computer inside your brain?”
“No,” Conrad corrected, showing her where the device was tucked discreetly behind his ear. “It’s not inside, see? It’s still outside my body, but I hardwired it into my brain so that I can’t take it out.”
“So your brain is now talking directly to the computer? It’s like your brain’s got its own computer.” Piper poked at it gently with her face screwed up like she was worried it might explode. “Is that safe? And did your brain really need a computer in it?”
Conrad shrugged. “You can never think too fast or have too much information.”
* * *
Of course, the fact that the McCloud farm was suddenly bursting at the seams with kids had not gone unnoticed by Betty and Joe.
“We’ve got youngens comin’ out of our ears, Mr. McCloud. Something’s gotta be done!” Betty demanded soon after they arrived. She had kids bursting out of bedrooms and sleeping on floors and a crowd that wouldn’t fit around the kitchen table jostling to be fed. So Joe got to work on converting the grainery into sleeping quarters for the girls and the upper loft for the boys. This kept the youngens close enough so that an eye could be put on them but far enough away that Betty didn’t have to see all the antics they got up to. After all, there was only so much that a God-fearing woman such as Betty McCloud could take of their hijinks.