Cragbridge Hall, Volume 2: The Avatar Battle (2 page)

“I’m not sure what you said, but it doesn’t help me feel any better.” Derick walked out from under Rafa’s hand. “Unless you said that you were lucky, and I’m really much better at this avatar stuff than you.”

Rafa’s grin broadened, a long strand of black hair slipping from his ponytail and falling over his face. “I said, ‘You did well.’”

“Nope. Didn’t help.” Of course no one had expected Derick to win. At least they shouldn’t have. He was the underdog. But he had wanted it so badly.

The two started walking toward the door. Derick slowed his pace; the class was waiting outside.

“Seriously,” Rafa said, “you’re becoming pretty impressive.” He paused. “A few of us get together to practice on the avatars a couple times a week. It’s a small group—like a club, I guess. Since I have access to the lab, Dr. Mackleprank lets us get together. I can’t make any promises, but I’ll ask the others if you can join up if you are interested.”

Avatar club? That existed?
“Definitely.” Just the idea of getting a chance to get more practice on the avatars made Derick’s heart beat faster. He wondered what they did to practice and what they were capable of doing that he hadn’t even thought of yet. His mind filled with images of monkeys having contests leaping from tree to tree, rhinos breaking through walls, and gorillas doing triple backflips and aerials.

“Plus, you came up with the idea for a relay race,” Rafa said. “I hadn’t done anything like that before. We could use your creativity.” He grabbed the handle to the door. “I’ll let you know.” After a quick pull on the door, he motioned Derick through to greet the rest of his class.

The students who had been waiting congratulated Rafa and said things to Derick like “Nice try,” “You were really close,” and “Next time.” It still bothered him, but with the possibility of joining the avatar club on his mind, it wasn’t so bad.

Dr. Mackleprank was also waiting for them. “Good job, you two,” the zoology teacher said, then turned to the rest of the class. “Good work today, everyone. I hope you did well on your final and enjoyed the end-of-semester challenge. It has been a pleasure to teach you this semester. Hopefully I’ll see some of you in my classes next semester.” As the students began to file out of the room, Dr. Mackleprank reached out and put a hand on Derick’s shoulder. “Could you stick around for just a few minutes?”

Rafa waved at Derick and his teacher. “
Até a próxima vez.
”

“English!” Derick called out, as Rafa walked away. “I saw it on the homesite. English is the official language of this school.”

Rafa didn’t turn around.

Derick looked to his teacher. “I can’t help but think he’s either insulting me or cracking jokes.”

“He is,” Mackleprank said.

“You understand it?” Derick asked.

Mackleprank nodded. “
Claro que entendo.
”

Derick palmed his forehead.

“Sorry, I couldn’t resist. I studied Portuguese for a while.” The zoology teacher chuckled. “And I was kidding. He just said, ‘Until next time.’”

“Oh,” Derick said. “Good to know that someone understands him.”

“Step into my office.” Mackleprank gestured toward the doorway. Derick followed his teacher out of the viewing area and through the largest of the avatar labs, a room with several stations for students to control the robot animals. At the back of the lab, Mackleprank unlocked the thick door to his office. A desk and several tables covered in avatar parts lined the walls. Derick noticed a gorilla arm, a set of robot eyeballs, and a monkey with half of its inner robotics exposed. Various sets of machinery and tools lay beside the parts. Charts of animal skeletal structures and muscles were displayed on the wall screens. A large set of doors stood at the back of the room. Derick guessed it was some sort of storage.

Mackleprank sat on the edge of the desk, the same position he usually took while teaching zoology class. He looked around for a moment, scratching the nape of his neck just below his light hair, a mix of blond and white. “Let’s wait just a moment.”

Wait? Why step into his office just to wait?

There was a knock at the open office door. Derick turned to look into familiar eyes. His grandpa walked into the room, his cane tapping the ground every other step. As usual, he wore a simple collared shirt and blue blazer, the school crest featuring a watchtower embroidered over the breast pocket. “Hello, Derick,” he said, a smile sweeping over his wrinkled face. He shuffled across the room rather quickly for a man of his age and gave Derick a hug. It probably would have made Derick feel uncomfortable when he had first started at Cragbridge Hall, but after having his grandpa kidnapped and almost losing his parents earlier in the year, he didn’t mind.

“You didn’t start without me, did you?” Grandpa asked Mackleprank.

“No,” the zoology teacher answered.

“Good.” Grandpa turned and motioned for Derick to sit down. Derick chose a tabletop. Grandpa brushed a robotic wing—only partially covered in feathers—off to one side and leaned against the desk next to Derick. “You know that I trust you, Derick. After what happened last semester, I would be a fool not to.”

Derick hoped he wasn’t turning red.

“Dr. Mackleprank has approached me with an interesting dilemma. After discussing it thoroughly, we decided that he should give something of his to you.”

“Please say it’s a woolly mammoth avatar,” Derick said. “Or a centaur.”

“No,” Mackleprank laughed. “Those are both great ideas, though. It’s actually more important.” The teacher’s smile disappeared. “And much more serious.”

“It is something I first gave Dr. Mackleprank,” Grandpa explained.

Dr. Mackleprank reached forward and opened his hand—a locket. Just looking at it flooded Derick’s mind with memories and gave him chills.

“This locket led me to four challenges. I made it to the end of three, but the last is incomplete,” Dr. Mackleprank said.

Derick immediately remembered having his own locket and following clues his grandfather left inside it to discover his secret. But Derick had failed. Just thinking about it made his heart beat heavy and slow. Thankfully, his sister had continued where he left off and finished the challenges. “I’m flattered. But why give it to me?” He looked at his zoology teacher. “Why not finish the last challenge yourself?”

Dr. Mackleprank and Grandpa shared a look.

“You’ll have to trust me.” Dr. Mackleprank explained. “I have my reasons.” Why didn’t Mackleprank finish the challenges? Did he not trust himself to find out Grandpa’s secret? Had Muns blackmailed him? Did he simply not want to be involved? Or could he not pass the tests?

Grandpa tapped Derick’s leg with his cane. “Of all the other possible candidates in this school,” he said, “you deserve this locket the most. And that includes adults, teachers that are world-renowned. If it wasn’t for you, we would not have protected the secret to which this locket leads.”

Derick took a deep breath. He looked down at the locket, then back at Dr. Mackleprank. “You’re sure?”

Dr. Mackleprank nodded and dropped the locket into Derick’s open hand. Grandpa nodded too.

As soon as the metal touched Derick’s skin, a shiver rushed through him. Could he do it this time?

2

Detectives and Psychopaths

Abby focused her thoughts as she read aloud. She knew her whole English class could see what she imagined as she read. Every detail was portrayed on the screen behind her. It was all due to the chair she sat in, another fantastic gadget invented by her grandfather for Cragbridge Hall. The Chair was made of cedar wood lined in places with dark metal. Something in the metal along the tall back of the chair connected to the reader’s thoughts and relayed images of them to the screen. Over the course of the semester she had imagined
Oliver Twist
,
Little Women
, and
The Call of the Wild.
But today was different. As Abby read, she imagined two men meeting for the first time.

“You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive,” the taller of the men said. He had a pointed nose and square chin, his eyes dancing with self-confidence. He knew he was right.

Abby imagined the other man’s surprise. It was easy. She just had to think of how she would feel if someone could deduce a lot of information about her after only knowing her for seconds.

“Can anyone guess who these two men are?” Abby asked, looking up from the words to her classmates. Class participation was a requirement for her end-of-semester presentation, and she needed to fulfill
every
requirement.

Several students raised their hands. She called on a girl with short black hair. “Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson,” she answered.

“Very good,” Abby said. She hoped she didn’t look as stupid as she felt. All of the others were geniuses and had probably known everything she said since they were in fourth grade.

As she continued to read, Sherlock explained all the clues his sharp eyes had detected. He saw that Watson had a tan face and hands, but paler wrists. Sherlock deduced it was from wearing a long-sleeved uniform somewhere warm. From simple gestures and mannerisms he could tell Watson was a doctor and had served in the military. He also noticed that Watson held his hand stiffly. “Where in the tropics could an English army doctor have seen much hardship and got his arm wounded? Clearly in Afghanistan,” Sherlock concluded.

Sherlock fascinated Abby. He noticed so much and was able to quickly access and use what he knew. She wished she were that way. If she were, perhaps her palms wouldn’t have been sweating and she wouldn’t be trying desperately to keep from imagining the grade she would get and displaying it for all to see.

Abby stood up from the Chair and glanced at Ms. Entrese, her English teacher. Ms. Entrese was wearing black pants, black shoes, a black belt, and a black V-neck T-shirt trimmed in pink. It was the first shard of color other than black Abby had ever seen her English teacher wear. She was the one Abby had to impress. Abby hoped her presentation wouldn’t lead to another C. At Cragbridge Hall a C was pathetic, and based on her midterms she was in danger of getting three. Not to mention two B minuses and two Bs.

“But my assignment is to show how literature has affected real lives, or was influenced by real life.” Abby continued her presentation. She tried to act like her twin brother Derick would, confident and smart. Of course
he
was confident because he got the family genius genes.

“The author, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, based Sherlock Holmes on a real person, one of his medical school professors named Joseph Bell. Bell encouraged his students to observe patients carefully and deduce information about them because it helped in diagnosing their problems and diseases. And he showed them how. I’ll switch over to the Bridge to show you an example.”

Abby stepped away from the Chair and used her rings, a small computer on each of her fingers, to sync to her class’s copy of the most famous of her grandfather’s inventions. The Bridge showed history three-dimensionally throughout the room. It was a faded image of the past, but an image just the same. Over the semester her teachers had stood in front of their classes and used the Bridge to show Abby and her classmates real soldiers fighting for freedom, presidents addressing their nations, and artists creating masterpieces. But now Abby stood with the controls. She selected the date she wanted and soon the faded image of a small lecture hall appeared. It was history, live and 3-D in her English class.

A few rows of students from the past sat ready to take notes. A teacher stood in front of the room, tall with a thin nose—much like Sherlock.

A patient entered the room gazing around from under a hat. As he met Dr. Bell for the first time, the man explained his medical symptom; it felt like his skin was hardening on the inside of his legs.

“Well, my man,” Dr. Bell said in a Scottish accent that Abby loved, “You’ve served in the army.”

The man looked surprised, but responded with an “Aye, sir.” He was equally Scottish.

“Not long discharged?” the doctor asked.

“No, sir.”

“A Highland regiment?”

“Aye, sir.” The man’s brow furrowed, obviously trying to figure out how the doctor knew so much about him.

“A non-commissioned officer?”

“Aye, sir.”

“Stationed at Barbados?”

At this, the man’s jaw fell limp for a moment. He looked completed dumbfounded. “Aye, sir.”

The doctor turned to his class, some now with their mouths equally open, others shaking their heads in disbelief. He explained that because the man hadn’t removed his hat, Dr. Bell could tell that he had served in the military, as that was their custom. And the patient hadn’t been home long enough to drop the habit. And from his complaint, he had elephantiasis, which was much more common in Barbados.

Ms. Entrese raised her hand to signal that Abby had thirty seconds to finish.

Abby stepped back into the middle of the room. She had to try to bring it home. “It completely changed my attitude toward Sherlock Holmes when I learned he was based on a real person,” she said. “That meant it could really be done. You really can deduce a lot from observing. In fact, Joseph Bell actually helped in several real crime cases. So while literature can entertain us, it might inspire us to gain new skills and improve ourselves as well.”