“Class, a new student is joining us. Hiz name is Boris Yeltsinov. I expect you to all make him welcome,” Professor Mumbleby declared.
Boris slouched at the front of the class. He was a stocky boy who looked to be about nine years old, and was shyly hanging his closely cropped head. His intense social embarrassment was serving no useful purpose—absolutely no one in the class was paying the least bit of attention to him. Lily didn’t care what his gift was. Smitty wasn’t placing any bets and, like everyone else, Kimber couldn’t take her eyes off Piper.
“Maybe if we push her off something she’ll remember how to fly,” Nalen whispered to Conrad.
“You’re not pushing Piper off anything.” Violet turned in her seat and confronted Nalen with blazing eyes.
“Mr. Yeltsinov, you may sit with Mr. Mustafa and Mr. Mustafa over zhere and zhey will assist you.” Boris approached Nalen and Ahmed, who were less than hospitable hosts. Just that morning Boris had been transforming street rats into stone and then lobbing them at local gang members in a Moscow slum. His battle was suddenly halted by a flurry of frenzied activity that culminated in an introduction to Dr. Hellion and a helicopter ride.
“Now we vill be reviewing zhe spring science projects.” Professor Mumbleby paused to allow for the customary groaning, followed by the rolling of eyes. Neither reaction materialized and the funereal atmosphere in the classroom threw him off. “Uh, vell then, let us begin. Mr. Harrington. You vill be first. Come to ze front of the room and present your science project.”
Conrad shuffled to the front of the class like a zombie. “Mmm hmm,” Conrad cleared his throat, “my project is on . . . ” Suddenly Conrad couldn’t remember anything about his science project. It had gone completely out of his head. “Uh, my project is on, ah—it’s on—”
Time bent around Conrad. It slowed and changed. A noise roared in his ears, like a big wave approaching. Piper is gone. Another one lost. Conrad saw Piper. He saw the faces of the others looking at him. He saw Boris but he was Ang Chung and then Bella Lovely and so many, many others all at the same time.
“Mr. Harrington?” Professor Mumbleby prompted.
“Uh, yes. My—project, my science project is about . . .”
The roar of a wave that only Conrad could hear hit him full force. He was and wasn’t himself all at once. He was in the classroom and watching the classroom from afar all at the same time.
“My, my project is—”
And then it happened.
SNAP. Like the cosmos had become a chiropractor, Conrad’s vertebrae popped into place with one swift jolt. POP. The wayward pieces of him got whipped together and then rearranged into a new order.
His eyes refocused and he stood in an endless ocean of stillness and silence.
“My science project is on time travel.” Conrad’s voice filled with quiet confidence and conviction.
Professor Mumbleby couldn’t believe his ears. “Nein, Mr. Harrington, nein. Your science project is on magnets.”
“No, Professor Mumbleby, no, it’s not. It’s on time travel.”
“Mr. Harrington,” Professor Mumbleby snapped, “you vill tell us about zhe magnets right now.”
“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!! Conrad yelled so loudly, and for so long, in a voice filled with so much primal rage, that it electrified every member of the classroom. Conrad hadn’t planned on doing it. Indeed, when his mouth closed, it seemed as though it had come from some strange place inside.
Dead silence in the classroom. A shiver traveled up and down Professor Mumbleby’s spine.
“My project is on time travel, Professor Mumbleby,” Conrad quietly repeated in the silence. “But you won’t have the privilege of hearing it because I’m leaving. Right now.”
What!!?!? Conrad’s fellow students could not have been more stunned. Eyes widened and jaws visibly hung open in shock.
Conrad spoke slowly, as though the words were coming to him just before he uttered them. “All of us need to get out. Right now.” Conrad looked into the faces of his classmates. “Right now,” he repeated.
Professor Mumbleby remembered himself. “Mr. Harrington, you vill calm yourself right now or I vill—”
“Or you’ll what? Is that what you’re going to do?” He pointed at Piper, who didn’t appear to understand anything that was going on behind her vacant happy expression. “So what. You’ll do it to us anyway, sooner or later. So I say, bring it on.”
“You have taken leave of your senses, Mr. Harrington, and I vill get Dr. Hellion zhis instant to—”
Conrad blocked Professor Mumbleby’s path to the door. “You’ll do nothing unless I say so.”
After forty years of teaching these children, Professor Mumbleby had prepared for everything but this. Students were spontaneously rising from their seats and forming a circle around him. He sensed something in his students that he’d never sensed in the classroom before, during all of his time as a teacher at I.N.S.A.N.E.—the absence of fear.
“Sit down now and no one vill be punished. I tell you this truly. Jasper, sit down. Violet, take your seat.” Professor Mumbleby acted angry to cover his terror. “Conrad, I varn you.”
“Then we can consider ourselves both warned.” Conrad’s eyes didn’t flicker away.
Professor Mumbleby pushed Conrad aside and made for the door. He only managed to take two steps before he felt strong arms holding him in an iron grip.
“Sit,” Daisy said.
Professor Mumbleby sat because he had no choice.
Everything happened at once. There was no forethought, but everyone seemed to know what they had to do all the same. Myrtle got a rope, and while Daisy held Professor Mumbleby, they tied him to a chair. When Professor Mumbleby resisted, Kimber assisted in keeping him still with several thousand volts of electricity. Smitty went for the door and kept lookout. Conrad and the others gathered around the dry-erase board and quickly made a plan.
“We’re getting out.”
“How?”
“We haven’t planned anything.”
“True, but they aren’t prepared either, and we have the element of surprise working in our favor.” Conrad suddenly got an idea. “What time is it?”
“4:55 p.m.”
“Good. At five, the freight elevator stops at every level to collect any specimens going to the experiment laboratory on the fourth floor. If we can get to the elevator shaft, we can use that to get to the surface.” Conrad was already drawing floor schematics from memory on the dry-erase board.
“I could short out the main power to slow the agents down,” Kimber offered.
“I’ll take out the security cameras.” Lily was chafing at the bit to be part of the action. As were they all. The energy in the classroom was electric.
Smitty suddenly jolted. “Conrad. Conrad, Nurse Tolle’s leaving his desk. He’s on his way to the classroom.”
“What’s his ETA?”
“Five minutes tops. Maybe less.”
“Okay, so here’s the plan—”
“Conrad?”
“Myrtle will go first.” Conrad drew the plan as he spoke, showing them. “Kimber, you go here and short out the electricity in this grid. Lily, you take out this camera and this camera. Daisy, you’ll run interference—”
“Conrad!”
“Once we get past this checkpoint, it’ll be a straight shot down this corridor and then we’ll crawl through this vent system to get to the eighth level and—”
“CONRAD!!”
Startled, Conrad turned to find Violet pale and shrunken. “What about Piper?”
Piper had managed to get to her feet and she was hobbling about aimlessly with a vacant expression on her face. Not only could she hardly walk, but she was almost completely out of touch with what was going on around her.
“She won’t be able to do that, Conrad.” Violet nodded to his plan.
Conrad knew immediately that Violet was right. It had taken Piper ten minutes just to walk to class, and it hadn’t even
been that far. There was no way they were going to be able to get her out in her condition.
“Nurse Tolle’s walking up the stairs, Conrad,” Smitty warned.
“What are we going to do?” Violet persisted.
Conrad hesitated. Logically, Piper should have been left behind. She was lost to them now anyway. But all the same, Conrad now knew that wasn’t the right answer. But what was the right answer?
“Conrad, Nurse Tolle’s two minutes away, tops. Maybe less.”
Conrad began to pace back and forth. Should they leave her and he could come back for her? No, that would never work. What about trying to take her with them? No, even if Daisy carried her out, Piper, so thoroughly brainwashed by Dr. Hellion, was sure to resist or, worse, scream for help. What then? What was the right answer?
“Conrad? What do we do?” Nine pairs of eyes waited on his answer, but he didn’t have the answer. Where could he find it?
“Nurse Tolle’s ninety seconds out and counting.”
He had no time. Conrad looked at Piper and suddenly the decision was easy. “Here’s the plan. I’m staying behind with Piper. You guys will go without me. Lily, buy us some time with Nurse Tolle.”
As simple as that, Conrad had finally done it. For the first time in his life he had the right answer. It wasn’t the best decision and it certainly wasn’t a logical one, but it was the right one.
Seeing the change in Conrad had a powerful effect on all of the kids. It was like Conrad had opened a door and stepped through it, and his actions somehow invited them all to do the same. It was frightening and new and none of them moved, except Lily, who roused herself to the hall, where she telekinetically stole the file right out of Nurse Tolle’s hand and then tossed it in the air. Bits of paper were suddenly flying every which way down the corridor and Nurse Tolle was frantically waving his arms about, trying to collect them. Lily figured that they had a good ten minutes before he would be through collecting it all. She returned to the classroom to find Conrad trying to organize her stunned classmates.
“You need to get out now. All of you. We made a plan that will work. I’ll take care of Nurse Tolle.” Conrad pushed a few kids toward the door.
Still no one moved.
“I mean it. Go now!”
“N-n-no.” The trembling voice belonged to Jasper. He was even more pale than usual and he stumbled as he came forward. “P-p-piper said we all h-h-have to go t-t-together.”
“Jasper, there’s no time to argue. You have to—” Conrad began, but his words fell away as he saw what Jasper was doing.
Jasper was looking at his hands. Placing them together, he began to rub them up and down against each other. The contact created a light. It was dim at first, but as Jasper’s hands moved faster and faster, the light grew until it was blinding. Then Jasper leaned forward and blew into his hands, which caused the light to change from red to bright white. It became so bright that none of the kids could look at it directly without blinding themselves.
“What’s he doing?” Lily whispered.
“I dunno.” Kimber was too stunned to even chew her gum.
Approaching Piper, Jasper knelt before her. He placed his glowing hands gently on Piper’s legs and the light immediately jumped into her flesh.
“Ahhh,” Piper gasped, inhaling sharply. The light took hold of her body, traveling up and down it in waves. The force of it was so strong that it rocked Piper back and forth. Suddenly, her canes went flying and the metal braces popped off of her legs.
At last the light began to fizzle and fade, and then it disappeared altogether. In its wake Piper stood straight and tall on two healthy legs.
“Jasper, you have the power to heal!” Conrad couldn’t believe it. After all of this time the mystery was solved.
“I d-d-didn’t remember but I do n-n-now.” Jasper blushed, shyly. “Piper m-m-made me want to r-r-remember. And I know what I’m g-g-gonna do when I g-get out too!”
“What?”
“I’m gonna heal s-sick animals ’c-c-cause they can’t t-talk too good just like m-me and I can m-make them well a-a-again.”
Lily nodded her approval. “That’s the best dream of all.”
Conrad turned his attention to Piper. She still hadn’t moved and her face remained blank. “Piper?” he asked cautiously.
“Piper, can you hear me?” Violet came closer.
“Piper, are you alright?”
THERE IS a place deep, deep inside every person that is hidden and hard to find. If things get bad enough and life gets too hard, though, some people will go to that place and never come back from it. Certainly, all outward appearances will suggest otherwise. They will look as they always did. They may even act somewhat like their old selves, but the truth is, the real truth is that they are hiding in this place deep inside where no one can touch or hurt them anymore.
After Sebastian was gone and the pain of the M.O.L.D. got to be too much, Piper discovered her secret place, locked herself inside, and hid the key. She arranged herself nicely there, happy to be away from the pain and from the struggle of it all.
I plum can’t fathom why I didn’t come here sooner, Piper thought to herself. I’ve got it made in the shade in this place. And Piper could never think of a good enough reason to leave. Indeed, the longer she stayed the more the things of her life that she had cared so much about began to fade and disappear from her memory altogether. Soon it got so Piper couldn’t have returned even if she had wanted to. She no longer knew her way back, and even if she had, she could never quite seem to recall what there was to go back to.
Unlike the many who had become lost in their secret places before her, a blinding white light came and found Piper. Uncovering her hiding place, it woke Piper with its sharp brightness. It wrenched her back to reality and exposed her to the fact that she was in a room full of strangers.
“Piper,” the strangers said. “Piper, are you alright?”
Piper was shocked to suddenly find herself in such a strange place. She was even more surprised to be surrounded by so many other people. Piper had to admit that there was something very familiar about the strangers. But where or when or how did she know them? And how had she gotten there?
Pins and needles tingled up and down her leg muscles as though they’d fallen asleep. Piper got up and carefully placed one foot in front of the other until her legs bore her weight, when suddenly memories began to bubble to the surface of her mind in quick flashes. The boy, that boy in front of her was Conrad! She remembered Conrad now. And over there was Violet. And Smitty and Kimber and all the rest of them.
“What’s going on? Where am I?” Before anyone had the time to answer Piper’s questions, she remembered everything all on her own.
It was immediately apparent to anyone looking at Piper that she had returned. Her shoulders straightened, her eyes filled with intelligence, and a smile took to her lips.
“Like I always said, Conrad,” Piper quipped, “you just can’t keep a good girl down.”
The cheer that rose from the throats of the children was deafening.
“YESSSSS!!!”
“Piper’s back!”
“We’re gonna be free!”
Violet threw her arms around Piper and squeezed every bit of air out of her. Electrical sparks spontaneously flew off of Kimber, while the tears that clouded Smitty’s vision prevented him from even catching a glimpse at Piper’s underwear. As for all of the rest, there weren’t enough hugs or sighs or joyful smiles to even begin to contain their gratitude and joy—except, of course, for Conrad.
Conrad’s head hung low, his eyes stinging from the painful reminder of his deception, his heart so full of remorse and guilt, it had no harbor for the joy.
“Conrad?” Piper grabbed hold of Conrad, ecstatic to see him. Conrad crumpled and then regained a tentative control. He had thought he wanted Piper to tell him how to find answers, but standing before her, he knew that he’d made yet another mistake. He didn’t want answers, he wanted forgivene
ss. Lifting his eyes, which were heavier than solar systems, he met Piper’s gaze.
“Piper, it was me. I told Dr. Hellion. I betrayed you all.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
PIPER’S WATERY eyes crystallized to steely blue. Her face traveled from incomprehension to disbelief, and then finally settled into shock.
“You what?”
Conrad had spoken quietly, but it made no difference; everyone heard and was silenced by the revelation. Several children felt as though they had been sucker-punched in the gut.
“I told Dr. Hellion about the escape.”
“You told Dr. Hellion about the escape?” The possibility that they’d been set up had never occurred to Piper.
“Yes, I told them everything. I’m sorry, Piper. I’m so sorry. . . .”
“You mean they were lying in wait for us that whole time?” Piper turned away; her mind wrapped itself around this surprising new information. “So we were caught ’cause you ratted us out?”
“Yes, that’s what I’m trying to tell you. It was me.” Conrad felt mild frustration at Piper’s repetition of the facts. It was bad enough he did it, he didn’t want it repeated over and over again.
“So the escape woulda worked if you hadn’t told?” Piper added it up like it was two plus two, and then went over the calculation again.
“Like I said, it’s all my fault. They caught us because of me!!” He snapped, frustrated that Piper seemed to be having such a difficult time understanding such a simple concept. “I told them everything. And what I’m trying to tell you is that I’m sorry.”
“But what you’re saying is that the escape would have worked?”
“Alright, this isn’t a difficult one. Let’s go over it again.” Conrad had forgotten how frustrating Piper could be. He spoke slowly so she’d understand. “I told them how to catch us. They did. I’m sorry. End of story.”
Piper launched herself at Conrad, and he braced for her blow. Instead, she threw her arms around him and ecstatically squeezed him and laughed out loud.