The Mysterious Case of the Allbright Academy Page 4

  “So, Dad went to New York, accompanied by a couple of bodyguards, who never left him alone for a second. But the ceremony was in this big hall full of people, and since the commencement speaker was some famous politician, lots of reporters were there, and security too. Dad didn’t think his ‘handlers’ would make a scene in such a public place—terrible press for the Russians—so he decided to make his move. Right in the middle of the ceremony, with everybody watching, Dad got up from his seat, walked over to ‘ze most beautifool policeman in the room,’ and asked for political asylum.

  “So Dad married his ‘beautifool policeman’ and became an American citizen and moved to Brooklyn, which is where I got my name. He thought it was so poetic. My mom could not convince him that a name like Brooklyn was a terrible burden to place on a young child. He promised to let her name the next one.” Pause. “My sister’s name is Junebug.”

  Hilarious laughter.

  “Was she born in June?” came a voice from the crowd.

  “Of course.”

  Brooklyn said all this in a deadpan voice that made it that much funnier. He waited for the laughing to subside, then continued in the same calm manner.

  “Last year we moved to Baltimore, where my dad is poet-in-residence in the Hopkins Writing Seminars Program. My mom is with the Baltimore PD.”

  “And you?” Ms. Lollyheart asked. “Besides having an obvious talent for telling stories, what would you say are your special gifts?”

  “Well, first I need to say that my parents come from two of the most demonstrative cultures the world has ever produced, so nothing at our house is ever understated. We actually have exclamation points on our grocery lists: Kleenex! Potatoes! And any little disagreement can turn into this major drama. My dad will bring in the pogroms and the gulags (like they were my mom’s fault) and she’ll drag in slavery and Jim Crow (like they were his). You feel like you’re watching the semifinals of the ‘International Suffering Playoffs.’

  “Well, in a household like that—and with a name like Brooklyn—I could either spend my life hiding under the bed in terror, or I could pay close attention and use it as material. I’m not really into hiding under beds, so I became a writer instead. My first book of poems is being published by Broadbrook Press in the spring. It’s called In the Shadow of the Bridge.”

  No wonder they had recruited him, I thought. Cheez Louise, I was so out of my depth! Not that I really had time to brood about this, unfortunately. We had passed Offloffalof and were moving on to Petersen. Either I was going to have to call my mom to come take me home, or I’d better pull myself together and come up with something to say.

  At last my name was called. I marched up to the dais with all the dignity I could muster. I had decided there was only one way out of this predicament: I would have to be funny.

  “I’m Franny Sharp,” I said, “from Baltimore. And I am here to make the rest of you feel brilliant. You probably don’t need any help with that” (a tittering of laughter), “but I will give it all I’ve got. I have absolutely no talents, and will endeavor, at all times, to be ordinary. Every bell curve has its two extremes, and I promise to keep a death grip on the bottom end. I am glad to do it. Really, I am. Sydney Carton said it best, in A Tale of Two Cities, as he went to his death in another man’s place: ‘It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done.’ No need to thank me. You’re perfectly welcome.”

  I bowed, and the room went wild with cheering and clapping. And then—I swear I am telling you the truth—they gave me a standing ovation!

  I returned to my seat feeling wildly elated. My best hope had been to survive the ordeal without making a fool of myself. But I had surpassed that by far. In a room full of geniuses, they’d given me the standing ovation! They liked me because I was funny and unpretentious and wasn’t a threat to them.

  Not the greatest foundation for friendship, you say? I disagree. At least they liked me for who I really am.

  5

  It was eleven thirty by the time the introductions were over. Ms. Lollyheart congratulated us all on the “hard work and dedication that our incredible accomplishments represented.” This kind of startled me for a minute. I had just assumed that success came easily to these kids. They were born smart, end of story. But of course, even brilliant kids have to study. And pretty much all of them had chosen something challenging to do with what little free time they had. They were busy starting literary magazines and founding tutoring programs for inner-city kids while I was home watching old movies on TV. Somehow, this blurred the line between them and me. I might not have their talent, but that was no excuse to float through life.

  You’d think this would have depressed me, but it didn’t. It made me feel strangely hopeful.

  “So that’s it for this morning,” Ms. Lollyheart said. “Outside, in the hallway, we’ve set up a desk. If you’ll line up there, please, you’ll be given your orientation packets. You’ll find your schedule for the rest of the week in there, plus a number of forms I’ll need you to fill out and return by tomorrow. But most important, the packet contains your cottage assignments.

  “I suggest you head directly over to your cottages and start unpacking—the boxes your parents dropped off at the gym this morning should have been delivered to your rooms by now. I want you back here tomorrow at nine, ready to shine. So get a good night’s sleep and bring your thinking caps!”

  Brooklyn and I made a dash for the door so we could grab a good place in line. About a minute later, Cal joined us. “I’m not cutting in,” she assured the girl behind us. “I just wanted to say hi to these two, real quick.”

  “That’s okay,” the girl said. “I don’t care if you cut.” Then turning to the boy behind her, she asked, “Do you?” He said he was cool with it.

  “Really? That’s so nice of you! Thanks!” Cal slipped her arm through mine and gave me a beautiful smile.

  “So here we are again, all three of us,” Cal said. “Isn’t it great?”

  We agreed that it was.

  “You’re going to love it here,” she went on. “I promise! Allbright is just the coolest place!”

  She reached over and squeezed Brooklyn’s hand. “Hey, guy, aren’t you going to speak to me?” She flashed a playful smile.

  “Can’t get a word in edgewise,” he said.

  “Oh, you!”

  I simply couldn’t get over the change in Cal. It was like she had switched places with her beautiful, confident, perky twin. I was glad she seemed so happy now, and who wouldn’t want to turn glamorous all of a sudden—but I missed the old Cal, that vulnerable, thoughtful, hockey-playing, world-traveling girl I’d met last spring and liked so much. I wondered if her sadness had just been a temporary thing, like a bad mood, and she’d simply gotten over it. Didn’t she miss her dad anymore, now that she’d realized what a cool place Allbright was?

  “I already know I’m in Larkspur,” Cal was saying. “It’s the cottage for linguists, so no surprise there. They gave us summer students our assignments ahead of time; they needed us to go ahead and clear our stuff out of Aster—that’s where we’ve been staying—so the new kids could move in. I don’t guess there’s much chance that either of you will end up at Larkspur, though.” She made a cute, disappointed face that reminded me of Allison.

  “I’d be willing to bet the ranch on it,” I said. “At least as far as I’m concerned. I had this really minimal Spanish program in fourth grade, and every time I’d sit down to memorize vocabulary, I’d fall asleep.”

  “You’ll be in Cyclamen, of course,” Cal said to Brooklyn. Cyclamen was full of writers and journalists and playwrights and poets.

  “That’s what I figured,” he said.

  “What about you, Franny?” Cal asked. “Got a hunch?”

  “Well, not really—since I’m totally without talent and all.” They both pooh-poohed this statement, to buck me up, but I kept going. “Not Sunflower; I’m pretty good at science, but I stink at math. And I’m not especial
ly artistic, so it won’t be Aster.” I was counting them off on my fingers. Including Larkspur, that was three cottages so far that wouldn’t want me. It was turning into a rather depressing list of what I wasn’t good at. “I’m not really leadership material, so that eliminates Primrose. And—what’s left?”

  “Geranium,” Cal said. “They’re policy wonks and economists. Very not you. And Violet Cottage. Nobody really knows what Violet is all about, except that the kids there are real oddballs.”

  “Oh great, that’s probably where they’ll put me!”

  “No,” Brooklyn said. “You’ll be in Cyclamen, with me.”

  “I wish. Unfortunately, I’m not a published author.”

  “You’re a reader, though. You’re a word person. You quote Dickens.”

  “True enough.”

  By then, we had reached the front of the line. No point in speculating any further. Packets safely in hand, we headed out into the sunshine to open them and discover our fates.

  “Let’s go over there,” Brooklyn said, pointing to a circle of benches in the shade of some big, old maple trees.

  Cal and Brooklyn opened their packets right away and verified what she already knew and he strongly suspected: Larkspur and Cyclamen. Suddenly I was as nervous as I’d been before the admissions tests. I really didn’t want to live in Violet with the oddballs.

  “Come on, Franny, open it,” Cal said. “We’re dying of suspense.”

  I opened my envelope and pulled out a sheaf of papers in a rainbow of colors. Right on top was my cottage assignment. I held it up to my chest, so they couldn’t see it, and smiled.

  “What?” they both said together.

  Then I turned to Brooklyn and offered my hand for a high five.

  “Cyclamen?” he said.

  “Cyclamen,” I answered.

  He got this truly satisfied look on his face and gave my hand a very enthusiastic slap. This was a lot of emotion for Brooklyn. He was genuinely happy that we’d been assigned to the same cottage, and I felt strangely proud. This extremely cool person, whom I admired, liked me that much!

  “That’s awesome!” Cal said, with no apparent sign of feeling left out of this lovefest. She began flipping through her pile of papers. “Want to see if we can sign up for some of the same activities?”

  “Sure,” I said, my heart still pounding with excitement.

  “How about the field trips?” Brooklyn suggested. “Blue sheet.”

  We all got out our blue sheets and looked them over. There was a trip to the National Gallery, a concert in Shriver Hall, a tour of Ford’s Theatre (that’s where President Lincoln was shot, in case you didn’t know)—and that was just September.

  “What’s not to like?” Cal said. We signed up for all of them.

  “What the heck is this?” Brooklyn asked. He was looking at his orientation schedule. “PD?”

  “Oh, you’ll love it,” Cal said. “That’s Personal Development. You have it once a week, just you and your PD counselor. They videotape you during your first session so you can see how you come across to other people. Then you discuss it and set goals for improvement. Maybe, like, you need to stop slumping. Or you have a tendency to mumble or talk too loud. If you have skin problems, they arrange a visit to a dermatologist. If your hair is really awful, like mine was, they send you to a stylist—”

  Brooklyn was staring at her. He looked positively horrified.

  “They’re gonna give me grooming tips?”

  “They might,” Cal said. “I know you think it’s stupid, but you’ll be surprised. I found it really helpful. Celebrities and business people pay media consultants big money to get that kind of advice. Don’t look at me like that, Brooklyn. You’ll love it.”

  “So is that the deal with your hair?” he said, indicating Cal’s new look.

  “Yes. And you have to admit I look better.”

  “I am not walking into that trap! No, ma’am! You are every bit as beautiful as you always were.”

  “Snicker, snicker.”

  A crowd of sixth graders came flowing out of Willard Theater, all clutching their packets. I searched for the twins and eventually spotted Zoë, surrounded (no surprise) by a cluster of giggling girls. I waved and they headed our way.

  “That’s my sister.”

  “Cute,” Brooklyn said.

  “Yup,” I agreed. “Always has been.”

  Zoë introduced her friends and I introduced mine, feeling rather proud of myself for having two of them already—and here it was only the first day of orientation. The previous year, at the previous school, I’d spent two and a half weeks sitting alone in the lunchroom before I’d finally met Beamer.

  “Let me guess,” I said. “Primrose.” My sister might not know much about foreign affairs, but she had the leadership thing going in spades.

  “Yes!” she said, glowing all over. “I guess I’ll have to start reading the newspapers, huh? How about you?”

  “Brooklyn and I are in Cyclamen,” I said, “and Cal is in Larkspur. She’s a linguist. She can speak Bahasa and Hindi and is working on Mandarin.”

  “Wow!” from Zoë and all of her friends. Cal punched my arm in a friendly way.

  “Have you seen J. D.?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” Zoë said, her face clouding a little.

  “And?”

  “He got Violet Cottage. He says he’s okay with it, but I’m kind of worried. I heard this rumor—”

  “That it’s where they put the oddballs?”

  “Something like that. But you know J. D. He said it’d be more interesting living there. He said he thought the Allbright kids seemed a little too perfect anyway, you know? Remember Allison? And anyway, being weird has always been J. D.’s claim to fame.”

  “Hmm,” I said. “There’s some truth to that.”

  Zoë reached down and squeezed my hand. “We need to go unpack. See you later. It was great meeting you.” And they headed toward the cottages. Both Cal and Brooklyn followed her with their eyes. She had that effect on people. Zoë was like a sunset over the ocean; you just couldn’t help staring.

  “Hey, guys,” I said, finally. “Want to look over the PE options? It’s the yellow sheet.”

  “Sure,” Cal said, flipping through her papers till she found it. “Anybody into swimming?”

  “Yuck!” Brooklyn rolled his eyes. “Swimming laps reminds me of the fifth circle of hell.”

  “Okay,” I said, “are you going to explain that, or do you just plan to sit there and let us feel dumb?”

  “Dante’s Inferno. The wrathful and slothful sinners, sloshing around in the River Styx.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “Such a lovely image. I take it we can eliminate swimming. Tennis, anyone? Racquetball? Hiking?”

  “Hiking!” Cal and Brooklyn said together.

  “Hiking it is, then.” We all checked the little box.

  “I think that’s it,” Cal said. “The rest is just info.”

  “Time to go unpack those boxes, then,” Brooklyn said.

  We gathered our papers together, slipped them back into the envelopes, and strolled off in the direction of the cottages. Eventually we reached the turnoff point; Brooklyn and I headed up the hill to Cyclamen, while Cal stayed on the path to Larkspur.

  “Hasta mañana,” I said brightly. “That means ‘see you tomorrow’ in Spanish.”

  “No kidding,” Cal said.

  “Oh, Cal,” Brooklyn called. “Don’t forget to bring your thinking cap!”

  6

  “All right,” said Ms. Lollyheart. “Will everyone please give me your attention? We need to get started.”

  The room grew quiet.

  “Thank you. I hope you’re all settled in nicely at your cottages and ready to give your full attention to our traditional Allbright orientation exercise. I think that by the time it’s over, you will have learned a great deal—about yourselves, about this school, about cooperation and leadership, and about the way things work in the real worl
d. It may seem silly at first, but please bear with me.

  “Now, to begin, we need to divide you into two teams. Adriana Gomez and Prescott Bottomy, will you please come up to the front?”

  My heart sank, because I knew what was coming next. Adriana and Prescott would be asked to choose teams.

  Every kid who has ever played baseball knows this routine. It’s a chance to shine if you happen to be popular or a really good athlete, but for the poor kid who can’t catch a ball to save his life, it’s slow death by humiliation. I am not terrible at sports, just not particularly good. As in so many things, I am kind of medium. I can always count on being chosen a little past halfway through. But even once you’re safely on a team, it’s still gut wrenching to watch those last few kids squirming with shame and embarrassment, wondering which of them will be chosen last.

  “Ms. Lollyheart,” Prescott said, “can you give us some idea of what our teams will be doing? So we’ll know how to choose?”

  She gave Prescott a wry smile. “Actually, hon, you won’t be needing any kind of strategy today. I will be selecting the teams.”

  I let out a deep breath. Once again, Allbright hadn’t let me down.

  Ms. Lollyheart proceeded to read out names, and one by one we got up and went over to stand by our team leader. There were twenty of us in total, ten to a team. Brooklyn and I were in Prescott’s group, Cal in Adriana’s.

  Ms. Lollyheart unlocked a closet door and pulled out two large wooden boxes set on little wheels, each with a rope to pull it by.

  “Now,” she said, “this exercise was designed to use many different talents and thinking styles, all of them abundantly represented here in this room. But what makes it so challenging is that within your teams, you will each work entirely alone on your assigned task—without help from any of your teammates. If each of you does your job properly, then the whole thing should come together like clockwork. Independence and interdependence, just like in the real world.”