The Mysterious Case of the Allbright Academy Read online

  Reuben unlocked the door, stood there while Brooklyn put his backpack inside, and then locked it again. Brooklyn was starting to worry. If he didn’t get into the storeroom that day, he had only three days left to switch out three backpacks full of brownie mix. If something happened on just one of those days so that he couldn’t get into the storeroom, he’d have to come back for a third week of work duty so he could finish. Reuben might start asking questions.

  But later that afternoon his luck turned. Reuben set him to filling salt and pepper shakers. That gave him enough time alone in there to switch out the first load of brownie mix.

  Wednesday, however, did not go so well. Reuben just stood with the door open while Brooklyn dropped off his backpack. He did the same at the end of the day. Nothing accomplished.

  By Thursday Brooklyn was getting desperate. He suggested to Reuben that the storeroom shelves could use some tidying.

  “What’s the matter with ’em?” Reuben asked.

  “When I was filling up the canisters, I noticed that things seem spread out a lot. You could fit more supplies in there if you just straightened things up a little. Plus the shelves are pretty dusty.”

  Reuben shrugged. “Sure,” he said. “Why not? I’m runnin’ out of jobs for you to do anyway.” And so the second backpack full of ChokoDream was successfully exchanged for Recipe Variant II. Only one more day and he’d be done.

  On Friday he told Reuben that he wasn’t finished tidying the storeroom, and Reuben said fine, go to it. Brooklyn pulled the door almost shut, dragged out the box of brownie mix, and went to work switching the bags. He was feeling intense relief. It would all be over in a matter of minutes.

  This is always the point in any story where something inevitably goes wrong. Maybe you get too confident and let your guard down. Or maybe by then you’ve done one too many suspicious things. Anyway, there he was, squatting on the floor, with bags of Recipe Variant II scattered all around him, pulling bags of commercial brownie mix out of his backpack and arranging them neatly in the bottom of the box, when a voice exploded behind him.

  “What in tarnation do you think you’re doing?”

  Reuben was standing at the half-open door, mad as a wet cat. As Brooklyn described it to us later, he felt electric waves of terror coursing through his body. For a minute, he said, he absolutely couldn’t breathe.

  “Did you hear what I asked you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What. Are. You. Doing?”

  “I’m, um, tidying the bags of brownie mix?”

  “Do I look stupid?”

  “No. No you don’t. Not stupid at all.”

  “Then let’s try it again. What in tarnation do you think you’re doing?”

  “I can explain, but it’s kind of complicated.”

  “I got all afternoon,” Reuben said, and his voice was cold and hard.

  There was nothing to do but tell the truth. Brooklyn started with Cal’s discovery, told about the Hopkins lab and the three compounds Prescott had found in the brownie mix. Detail by detail, he laid the whole thing out.

  “So that’s it,” he said finally, having run out of things to say.

  “Is this some kind of practical joke? You really expect me to believe a story like that?”

  “No, and yes,” Brooklyn said. “It’s not a joke. And at least I hope you believe it, because it’s pretty important that you do. Strike that. It’s extremely important.”

  Reuben stared at him inscrutably. Brooklyn didn’t have a clue as to what he was thinking.

  “Okay, how about this,” Brooklyn said. “Have you ever noticed how incredibly docile and well-behaved and pleasant and attractive the Allbright students are? Do you know any other group of kids like that?”

  “Sure they’re different; they’re rich and they’re smart.”

  “Nah, that’s not it. Rich, smart kids can be just as mean and messy and lazy and rude as any other kids. A lot of them are worse, because they feel entitled. But the Allbright students are in a whole other league; they’re so perfect it’s creepy.”

  “All of ’em except for you, huh? Seems like you cornered the market on trouble.”

  “I wasn’t really in trouble. I just made that up so I could get in here and switch out the brownie mix.”

  “What a surprise,” Reuben said dryly.

  “C’mon, think about it! Why would I go to the trouble of coming in here and working in the kitchen for two weeks, cleaning out garbage cans, and wiping down counters, and sweeping floors, just so I could load bags of ChokoDream brownie mix in and take the Recipe Variant II out? What possible motive could I have for doing that?”

  Reuben didn’t say anything for a pretty long time. He was nodding his head in a thoughtful sort of way. “I always kind of wondered about that ‘Recipe Variant’ business,” he said finally. “And I sure never heard of a school pushing brownies on their kids the way they do here. And then, you know, everything else in the kitchen comes from a commercial supplier—except for the brownie mix. Dr. Gallow, he brings that in personally, every month, in the trunk of his car.”

  “You’re kidding me!”

  “No, I’m not.”

  More silent staring.

  “So, what’s your long-range plan, kid? You gonna keep coming in here every month with some cock-and-bull story about getting in trouble so you can switch out the brownie mix?”

  Brooklyn took a deep breath. “We haven’t actually gotten that far. First we just need to see what happens when the whole school isn’t being medicated. And while we’re waiting on that—it’ll take a couple of weeks at least—my science-nerd friend is going to finish analyzing the compounds. By next weekend, maybe we’ll have the formulas and everything. Then we’ll decide what to do.”

  “You’re gonna shut down this school, aren’t you? Lose me my job.”

  “I don’t know. Probably.”

  “It’s too bad, you know? And not just because of my job, either. It seems like they got a really fine place here, for smart kids like you. But if they’re doing what you say they’re doing, this school’s gonna close.”

  “Oh, they’re doing it, all right. But you’ve got a point. It would be a shame to throw the cup out with the tea bag.”

  “Cup with the what?”

  “Like ‘the baby with the bathwater,’ only I like to come up with my own metaphors.”

  “Sheeesh!”

  “Look, Reuben, I need to know if you’re going to keep this to yourself till we’ve decided what we’re going to do about it. If you’re still not convinced, you can take one of these bags home with you and make up a batch. Eat one a day for about two weeks and see what happens. Would you do that, at least, before you go telling anybody?”

  “Don’t need to. I believe you. That’s story’s too darn weird to make up. I’ll keep your secret.”

  “Wow, thanks!”

  “And Brooklyn?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You got a friend here. In case you need one.”

  13

  We had now accomplished two important things.

  First, thanks to Brooklyn the Allbright students were no longer ingesting three previously unknown compounds along with their daily brownies. We were already seeing some pretty interesting changes on campus.

  And second, thanks to Prescott we now knew what those three compounds were—though I have to say I was sort of disappointed when he showed us the formulas. They had these totally weird, unpronounceable names that didn’t make sense to a normal person. I mean, if he’d told us there was arsenic in the brownies, say, or antifreeze, now that would mean something. But 2,4-dimethyloxy-5-ethoxyamatronase-doodly-doot? Who could make sense of that?

  A biochemist could, Prescott said. We decided to take his word for it.

  Since they were brand-new compounds, his new pal over at the Hopkins lab suggested that it might be interesting to see if anybody had applied for a patent on them. She promised to look into it but warned Prescott not to hold h
is breath—the patent office, like most government agencies, was notoriously slow. Still, if it turned out that there was an application and it had Dr. Gallow’s name on it, then that would be evidence with a capital E.

  Meanwhile, we still had a long way to go. We needed stronger proof against Dr. Gallow, proof that he had personally and intentionally put those compounds into the brownie mix—that the wind hadn’t blown them in, for example, or his evil lab assistant wasn’t actually the culprit. We also had to find out who, if anyone, was helping Dr. Gallow. Was this a one-man deal or a huge conspiracy? Bottom line, we needed a whole lot more information.

  Where better to find it than in Dr. Bodempfedder’s office?

  The administration office was usually open till five, but on Thursdays Dr. Bodempfedder left early for her weekly four-fifteen appointment with her manicurist. Ms. Lollyheart had mentioned this to Cal one time, when she came by the infirmary to visit earlier than usual. It was a handy piece of information to have, and we took full advantage of it.

  We planned our mission as carefully as a band of jewel thieves out to steal the Hope Diamond. At exactly four ten P.M.—when Dr. B was presumably pulling into the salon parking lot—we entered the building and headed straight for the headmistress’s office.

  Cal was the first one through the door. She went over to Ms. Lollyheart, whose desk was in the middle of the reception area, and started up a conversation. As planned, she made a point of standing over on the far right-hand side of the desk. This meant that in order to talk to her, Ms. Lollyheart had to turn to her left. Sitting in this position, she couldn’t see the door to Dr. Bodempfedder’s office.

  Brooklyn and Prescott came in ten seconds later, carefully staying close together, so as to form a visual barrier. This was important and had to be done just right (we had even practiced it in advance) because I was creeping in behind them, trying to be invisible. We took our assigned places on the opposite side of the desk from Cal, who was doing everything in her power to keep Ms. Lollyheart’s full attention. Cal was explaining, loudly and in infinite detail, this really neat idea for a community service project that we wanted to discuss with the headmistress. (Yeah, I know we’d already used that one, but there’s nothing wrong with recycling. And we completely changed the details this time.)

  While Cal was chattering on about our project, Brooklyn and Prescott continued to stand quietly on the far side of Ms. Lollyheart’s desk, acting as human shields in case she unexpectedly turned around. “So,” Cal said, wrapping things up, “we just wanted to run it by Dr. B and see what she thinks. Would that be all right?”

  “I’m sure it would, hon,” Ms. Lollyheart said, “but she’s already gone for the day.”

  That was the signal. Now that we knew for sure that Dr. B wasn’t in there—that the manicurist hadn’t called in sick or something—my big moment had arrived. I tiptoed over to Dr. Bodempfedder’s office, quietly opened the door, and slipped inside.

  “You want to come back tomorrow?” Ms. Lollyheart was saying.

  “Sure,” I heard Cal say. “Do we need to make an appointment or anything?”

  Ms. Lollyheart said if we came around four, that would be fine; she’d pencil us in. Cal and Brooklyn and Prescott all said good-bye. I heard the shuffling of feet and the closing of the entry door. Ms. Lollyheart began tappety-tapping on her keyboard. Apparently she never noticed that four kids had come in, but only three had gone out.

  Now that I was in there, I had to find someplace to hide, just in case Ms. Lollyheart needed to come in there to check Dr. Bodempfedder’s schedule or get some paperwork out of a file or turn off the lights before locking up.

  In the middle of the room on a large oriental rug sat a big antique desk with a keyboard and a flat-screen monitor on it. There was also a little sitting area over by the window with a couple of comfortable chairs and a small glass coffee table. That was it, furniture-wise. The rest of the office was pretty much bookshelves and filing cabinets, plus a couple of potted plants. Then I turned around and saw, to my huge relief, that there was a second door. It had to be either a closet or a bathroom.

  It turned out to be a closet, a really small one, containing only a Burberry raincoat, an umbrella, a short tweed jacket, and a navy blue suit, complete with a crisp, white shirt to wear under it. (Dr. B, being a stylish lady, would naturally want to keep a change of clothes at the office, in case she spilled spaghetti sauce down the front of her jacket at lunch, or just had a really, really sweaty day.) I would have preferred a packed closet with lots of stuff to hide behind—winter coats, ski boots, tennis rackets—but any closet was better than the next-best hiding place, which was under the desk. I shut the door, scrunched down in the corner, leaned back against the wall, and waited.

  A little after five I heard the door open. I heard Ms. Lollyheart come in and click off the desk lamp. Just then it occurred to me, for the first time, that the Burberry raincoat might be hers—and any minute she might open the door to get it. But I heard the reassuring jingle of keys as she locked the door, and I heaved a big sigh. Then all was silent.

  Our plan was for me to wait till around six thirty, by which time it would be getting dark and everybody would be at dinner. I would then call Brooklyn on his cell phone to say that the coast was clear (he had a phone for the same reason I did—because his parents had insisted) and then tiptoe downstairs and unlock the main door.

  But I realized that there was no reason for me to sit around waiting till the others got there. I could get a head start now, and it would be a lot easier, too, while there was still daylight to read by. I wouldn’t have to use the mini flashlight I had in my pocket.

  The filing cabinets seemed like the obvious place to start. Unfortunately, they turned out to be locked. I pulled out the pencil drawer in the center of the desk and searched for keys. I found pens and pencils, a stapler, paper clips, a miniature Kleenex box, a tin of Altoids, reading glasses, Post-it notes, and a calculator—but no keys.

  Next I checked the drawers on either side. They were remarkably neat and boring. (The only unusual item I found was a pair of fleece slippers. I guess those spike heels got to be a bit much by around three in the afternoon, even for Dr. B.) But there weren’t any keys in there, either. Maybe she kept them in her purse, on the ring with her car keys. Still, that seemed odd. I couldn’t picture her fishing into her purse every time she wanted to open a file. No, I had a strong feeling that she would have them somewhere handy, but not too obvious.

  That’s when I thought of the Altoids tin. It might contain breath mints. On the other hand, it might contain something else. I opened the pencil drawer again, took out the box, and—yes! A set of tiny keys.

  I didn’t know what was in the cabinets, but I figured most of them were students’ files. Since the drawers weren’t labeled on the outside, I opened one at random, pretty much in the middle of the room.

  The tabs all had names and dates on them, none earlier than the late eighties. Graduation dates, probably. I picked one, mostly because I was intrigued by the name: Juniper Manly. I discovered that Juniper had graduated in 1991. She’d lived in Aster Cottage, had gone to the Rhode Island School of Design, and was now working for an advertising agency in New York. There was a computer printout, an e-mail from Juniper’s “alumni counselor” to Dr. B, saying that Juniper was “progressing nicely.” Below this, elegantly handwritten in blue ink, was the following: “a possible asset for TB’s campaign?”

  I wondered if there was something special about Juniper, or if the school kept track of all its graduates. That was pretty hard to believe. There were so many—drawers and drawers of them! And what was that about TB’s campaign?

  I flipped through more M files and noticed that one had blue tape on the tab—I figured that meant he was special in some way, so I pulled it out. Saul Missner had graduated in 1988, and once again, Allbright knew where he’d gone to college (Columbia), where he was working (at the Washington Post), and how he was doing (just fine). There
was even a folder filled with clippings of his articles. A note was stapled to his alumni counselor’s e-mail, and it was in the same elegant script as before. It said that Saul should be considered for the alumni board, adding, “Saul is in a position of increasing influence and could use our guidance.”

  Okay, so apparently they had an army of counselors at their beck and call. I put Saul’s file back, closed and locked the drawer, and made a wild guess as to which drawer contained the S’s. On the first try I got R, so I locked it and moved on to the next one.

  And sure enough, there we all were, lined up together, in alphabetical order: Sharp, Frances Claire; Sharp, Joseph David; and Sharp, Zoë Elizabeth. I noted that Zoë’s file had red tape on the tab. This didn’t surprise me, since the school had been so anxious to get her. What did surprise me though, was that my folder was flagged too—in yellow. In that whole drawer there were only three others marked with colored tape—a blue one and two greens. Clearly, these were students they were especially interested in for some reason. But why me? I was the reject!

  I took out our files and sat down on the floor by the filing cabinet. I opened mine first.

  Inside I found a fat booklet with a beige cover. INVENTORY OF APTITUDES AND KNOWLEDGE, it said. My name was typed on the cover, along with the date and the name of the psychologist who had tested me. I flipped through and saw a list of all those tests I had taken. There were scores for visual perception, idea production, reasoning (inductive, analytical, and number series), spatial (structural visualization, wiggly block, paper folding), auditory (tonal memory, pitch discrimination, rhythm memory). As far as I could tell, I was average to superior in most things. That was good enough for me. I closed the book.

  But the summary letter was far more interesting:

  “Frances Sharp is a non-recruited applicant. (Note: her sister, Zoë Sharp, has been recruited by Dr. Martha Evergood.) Frances is above average in intelligence and generally does well in school with the exception of math, in which she is merely adequate. Her testing bears out a general strength in verbal as opposed to numerical skills. Her emotional profile suggests a child with a vivid imagination and only moderate impulse control. Though she tested quite well, she would still be in the bottom quartile of Allbright students. She is a generalist, and with the exception of her very advanced vocabulary (she is an avid reader), Franny displays no special talent.” That was it. My whole self boiled down to one paragraph.