Chapter 13. Bradley designs a trick for John.
As soon as Bradley fell asleep, he was pushed on the shoulder by someone. He opened his eyes and saw Megan and two other girls in front of him. Even though Bradley was extremely tired, he exclaimed, “Oh, Megan, I’m so glad to see you!” Then he sat up in bed and asked in amazement, “But how did you find me?”
Bradley was not surprised that Megan managed to get into his room; he assumed she did it by flying. But how did she know which room to enter? Megan told him about traveling through the walls, finding the exit and them coming back to get him, John and Mary’s friends.
“During the day we didn’t see anybody in any rooms, but as evening approached, people started to return back from wherever they were during the day. We stopped to talk to some of them. They all told us that they were very happy here and encouraged us to learn to fly,” Megan concluded, plopping onto Bradley’s bed. The other two girls, also very tired, asked Bradley and Megan to scoot over.
“Yes, this flying thing totally transforms you,” Bradley agreed, moving to the very end of his bed and told them about John. “We need to find a way to drag him out, too. Otherwise he will get stuck”.
“We better sleep first, at least a little bit,” suggested Megan. Bradley liked this idea, but Mary protested.
“You guys are now united, and my friends are still nobody knows where,” she said.
But Bradley found an argument, which he though should be convincing. He said, “When everybody goes about their fun business in the morning, it will be much easier to locate people who have not learned to fly yet and want to get out. If there is anybody in the room, it would likely be such a person.”
To his relief, everybody agreed. They all stretched themselves on the floor and immediately went to sleep. In the morning they woke up because the Tenacious opened the ceiling and hovered around the room, intending to talk to Bradley. “Why is he here so early?” Bradley wondered, slowly opening his eyes. He had forgotten that he had guests in the room and was surprised that the Tenacious showed up before his awakening.
“What is going on here?” asked the Tenacious. “What a great company of no-learners! Get up now, all of you, and let’s get you back to your rooms.”
“Oh, yeah… He saw the girls here and showed up to bring order,” concluded Bradley. To his surprise, the Tenacious was not inquiring anything regarding the means, by which the girls got in. By calling them all “no-learners” he acknowledged the fact that he did not know about Megan’s flying capability. Bradley, however, did not like the tone of his voice, and his attitude was unacceptable. The Tenacious behaved like they were all in prison and had to obey orders.
Bradley figured that the Tenacious was greatly outnumbered and decided to stand their ground. He said, pointing to the girls, “You are not their boss, so knock it off.”
“I’ll call their boss in a minute, but it’s not necessary, because right now you are in a building, which is supervised by me. So I’m in charge here.”
“Fine, then,” said Mary. “We are not going anywhere. What are you going to do?”
Bradley nodded and looked at the Tenacious with all seriousness, even though he thought to himself that it would not be a bad idea to get away. He was not sure, however, whether they should reveal to the Tenacious that the girls could go through walls.
The Tenacious looked back at Bradley, but the boy caught a glimpse of indecisiveness on his face. Clearly, the Tenacious did not expect this behavior. He ought to have been used to everybody learning to fly sooner or later. From the way the Tenacious looked, Bradley concluded that they were somehow outliers from the norm.
After a prolonged silence, the Tenacious said, “I’ll call your supervisor.”
To Bradley it appeared as a very favorable outcome. They could run away while the Tenacious was getting help. If he had some electronic device, then Megan could surprise him with her flying ability and pull him down to ground level so others could all jump him and prevent him from doing so.
“She will be here shortly,” the Tenacious proclaimed without performing any action that would indicate that he’d called someone.
“Oh, is that so?” Bradley asked, winking at Megan and trying to get her to fly up and get the Tenacious. Megan did not move right away, and Bradley kept making faces, endangering the whole operation, because the Tenacious started looking at him in amazement. But then Megan got the hint and flew up. Bradley was hoping that she would knock the Tenacious down, and then as a group they could temporarily disable him on the ground to allow some time for escape before the other Unknown showed up.
But Bradley did not take into account that the Tenacious had much more superior flying skills than did Megan. He darted out of the way without being touched, Megan colliding with a thud into the ceiling. While she was falling to the floor, the Tenacious easily flew through the opening in the ceiling and could be heard laugh as it closed. Megan did not hit the ground as hard as Bradley expected a falling person might do. She said, “We’ll see who has the last laugh. Bradley, it’s time to go.”
Rachel and Mary went through the wall, Bradley started to hesitate, but Megan gave him a push, so he went through before convincing himself that this would not work. Only on the other side of the wall he realized that he just did something from the category of technically impossible and something that he probably should not be doing. He had a feeling that if he used the laws and rules of this world, he would start becoming a part of it, and it would be much harder to go back. Another thing he absolutely had to have, and of course forgot all about during the commotion with the Tenacious, was his books.
“One very important thing,” he proclaimed. “I have to go back to my room.”
“Are you crazy, the Tenacious might peek back in, wondering why we’re suddenly so quiet!” exclaimed Megan.
“Don’t worry. He probably already left. That laugh of his told me that your trick isn’t in their rule book and he wouldn’t be expecting us to be gone. But I need the books.”
And Bradley returned to his room before the girls had time to object or to ask the question, what books. Just in ten seconds he was back. He grabbed his schoolbag and turned around. As he expected, the Tenacious was not there.
“Let’s go, everyone!” he exclaimed. “We have a bigger mission now. To find everyone who disagrees with the state of affairs and help them to get out.”
“Are you sure we’ll succeed in such a crowd?” Megan asked, doubt written all over her face. “The Unknowns will see us approach. Won’t it be better to leave the World of the Unknowns quietly and then come back to get them?”
“There is no time. If they are pressured to learn to fly, they may be lost before we return,” reasoned Bradley. “Let’s go!”
They went through walls and saw mostly empty rooms. Finally they found Mary’s friends. But there were no more people anywhere else.
“Is it possible that everyone else wanted to learn to fly and has been satisfied afterwards? Has not anyone regretted doing so?” Bradley was wondering. He could not believe what he was seeing. The phenomenon was so uniform, and the six of them were the only exceptions. There were hundreds and hundreds of rooms that they passed that day, and they were all empty.
“All right, time to go to the exit,” said Bradley. “Let’s go back, pick up John, I think he’s back from his rides by now.”
There was still some time. The kids did not have to go all the way back, because as they were going through the walls, they were going on a sort of circle. So on the way back they were hoping to cover a set of rooms that they had not visited before. As evening approached, it was of a concern that they would run into people who were now part of the World of the Unknowns, who would return back to their rooms. But the kids did not see anybody on the way back. John’s room was empty, too, so Bradley suggested that they waited.
“We better don’t tell him that we are going to go to the exit. I’m afraid, he won’t join us if he finds out that
we’re planning to escape,” Bradley said to the girls. “I’ll tell him we’re going to have fun exploring the World of the Unknowns by traveling through walls. You girls take us to the tunnel where you saw the exit signs, and then we’ll all pretend that we’re seeing them for the first time.”
In about ten minutes the ceiling of the room opened, and John flew in. When John started expressing his amazement, Bradley announced, “See, learning to fly was not so hard, indeed. Now it’s your turn to learn something different.”
And Bradley went to his room through the wall. After several unsuccessful attempts John managed to repeat the maneuver and got through the wall into Bradley’s room, too. All the girls followed.
“And now,” announced Bradley solemnly again, “we’re going to go have some fun. Are you in?”
John nodded in excitement. Bradley rejoiced deep in his heart that it was so easy to trick John by suggesting there was fun to be had.
John inquired, “And what are we going to do?”
“We’re going to explore the World of the Unknowns by means of travel through the walls. We did it all day today, and it was a great fun.”
All the girls introduced themselves to John. Megan and Mary took the lead to get everybody into the tunnel with the arrows pointing to the exit. Bradley was wondering whether he would be able to play his role all the way to the end and not allow John to guess what was truly going on.
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