Falcon Quinn and the Black Mirror (19 page)

“I wasn't leading,” asked Falcon. “I was following. We were just trying to get Quimby back. And protect Lincoln Pugh.”

“You knew,” said Mrs. Redflint, “that this little
adventure
was one of peril. That the others were endangered. Didn't you?”

Falcon was not sure how to answer. He
had
known they were doing something reckless last night. But he hadn't led them into danger on purpose. Had he?

“I thought it was a risk worth taking,” said Falcon simply. From the expressions on the adults' faces, it was clear that this was not the right answer.

“Even if the others were at risk,” said Mrs. Redflint. “Even if the others were destroyed?”

“I didn't want anything to happen to them,” said Falcon, “to my friends.”

“Miss Crofton,” said Mr. Hake, “hanging by a thread, suspended in midair. She might have fallen to her doom. Mightn't she? Were it not for the headmaster's intervention, she would be dead. Wouldn't she? You know, Falcon, in death there is no happy.”

“The others, in Chamber X!” hissed the moth man. “In Chamber X!”

“What did he tell you?” asked Mrs. Redflint. “The headmaster? I take it he gave you a command, when you looked into the mirror? Well?”

“The voice said I should—seek my soul.”

“Seek your soul, yes,” said Mrs. Redflint. “And what did you see, when you sought your soul in the mirror's dark heart? What did you see?”

“I—I…,” stammered Falcon.

“Tell us!”

Again Falcon tried to conjure in his mind the image of the thing he had seen: the wings, the glow that surrounded its form. His black eye burned like it was about to burst into fire, and as it did the other one began to glow as well. A soft blue light flickered from that eye, and the adults gasped for a moment and covered themselves, as if to avoid contact with something deadly and toxic.

“I don't know!” said Falcon. “I don't know what I saw!”

The adults looked at each other gravely, as if with these words, some conclusion was now obvious. “That will do, Mr. Quinn,” said Mrs. Redflint. “You are excused.”

 

Falcon encountered the moth man again later that afternoon, in Numberology. For weeks now they'd been reading math problems out of textbooks, pushing the buttons on
calculators, and writing down the answers.

The moth man began the class by standing motionlessly at the front of the room, staring at Falcon. He did it for so long, in fact, that his classmates started shifting uncomfortably in their seats.

“Dude,” said Max, looking at Falcon, whose blue eye began to burn and glow once more.

Then the moth man turned his back on them, his powdery gray wings twitching softly. “First problem,” he said, and wrote on the board:

“It uses the calculators. The calculators.”

The room filled with the sound of students pushing the buttons. A few of them raised their hands.

“It,” said the moth man, pointing to a skeleton girl named Bonesy. “It writes the answer on the board.”

Bonesy went up to the board and wrote:

“Perhaps it is correct,” said the moth man. He looked very intently at her sweater. “It gives that to us,” he said.

“What?”

“It gives that to us,” he said again.

“My sweater?” said Bonesy.

The moth man took the wool sweater from her. “It takes its seat again.” As Bonesy sat down, the moth man started chewing on the wool sweater. It didn't take him very long to gnaw a big hole in it.

“Wool,” said the moth man, chewing. “So crunchy good!”

Lincoln Pugh sighed loudly. “This is stupid,” he said.

“Not stupid,” said the moth man. “Crunchy good!”

“Hey, Bonesy,” said Merideath. “Next time maybe you should bring some mothballs.”

“Hey,” said one of the minotaurs, laughing, “mothballs!”

“It solves,” said the moth man. “It uses the calculator.”

“Hey, Mr. Pupae,” said Mortia. “Are we ever going to actually learn how to figure out these problems, or are we just going to punch a bunch of buttons on a calculator?”

“It uses the calculators,” said the moth man.

“At my old school we learned how math
works
,” said Mortia, “instead of just punching buttons.”

The moth man turned to Mortia. “It doesn't need math,” he said in his quiet, silvery voice. “No one needs math.”

The students looked confused at this.

“Math was invented by humans,” said the moth man,
“to torture the young.
To torture them.
All the answers can be found on the calculator. By pushing the buttons. No need for torture. No need for math. It is—
pointless
.”

“Oh, for crying out loud,” said Lincoln Pugh. “How much more of this are we supposed to take?”

“Wait,” said Merideath. “Are you saying we don't need to know how to do math? We don't need to know the quadratic equation, or how to multiply complex numbers, or how to divide polynomials?”

“No
need
for math,” said the moth man. “Pointless. Uses the calculators. There are the answers.”

“But shouldn't we know,” said Mortia, “like, the principles of algebra?”

“Enough misery,” said the moth man, “enough torture in human world. Enough pain and sadness, death and sickness. No need for that, plus math too. Horror of the world enough already. Use calculators. Reduce misery.”

“I can't stand it,” said Lincoln Pugh. “Can't you all see, he's not real? HE'S A HALLUCINATION! THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS A MOTH MAN!”

“Dude,” said Max.

“He's telling you we don't need math! He's wrong! The whole world runs by numbers! On fractions and equations! Imaginary numbers and binaries! Without math, the world is—is,” Lincoln screamed, “
unquantifiable!
AGGGGHHHH!” Lincoln Pugh started running around
the room, throwing students' calculators on the ground. As he ran he started growling, and as he growled, in his frenzy, he started looking more and more like a werebear.

The moth man picked up the telephone on the wall and spoke into it. “It is Mr. Pugh,” he said. “Yes. Send me Reverend Thorax. Yes.
Reverend Thorax!
”

Lincoln had transformed entirely into werebear form now, although he was still speaking in his own voice. “There are no such things as monsters!” he shouted. “There are no such things as”—he pointed to each of the students in the room as he named them—“zombies! Or Frankensteins! Or vampires! Or”—he pointed at the teacher—“or moth men!”

At this moment the door to the classroom swung open, and a gigantic praying mantis appeared in the doorway. Everyone froze as he entered, even Lincoln Pugh. The mantis wriggled with surprising speed over to Lincoln Pugh, regarded him dispassionately with his vast, triangular head, then clasped him with his raptorial legs and bore him out of the room.

The stunned students looked at the door through which Reverend Thorax and Lincoln had vanished. Then they all turned toward the teacher.

“It was wrong,” he said. “As it turns out, no such thing—as Lincoln Pugh!” And then he made a sound that none of the students had heard before. It took several
seconds, but gradually they understood that the sound they were hearing was moth laughter.

“Mr. Pupae?” said Megan, raising her hand.

“It has a question?”

“Yes,” she said. “Where are they taking him? Where's he going?”

“The dungeon,” said the moth man. “It is going to the dungeon now.”

“Dude,” said Max. “How's he supposed to learn math in a dungeon?”

Mr. Pupae picked up Bonesy's sweater again and started chewing another hole in it. “Doesn't need math,” he said.

 

Dinner that night was lima beans, served in several different ways. There was a succotash with lima beans and purple corn; there was a lima-bean loaf that had the texture of meat loaf but had a pale, gruesome green color. And there was a lima-bean “salad” that contained lima beans and baby green corns and green tomatoes and some hard-boiled eggs, all of which tasted like lima beans. There were lima-bean pizza, and lima-bean tacos, and lima-bean burgers.

Max and the Sasquatches partook of their lima-bean medleys without complaint, wearing strange expressions.

Falcon leaned toward Max and said, “What's up?”

Max nodded conspiratorially. “We're in,” he whispered.

“What do you mean, you're in?”

“We're all in. We're going with you.”

“But—
you
don't have to leave,” said Falcon. “Jonny and I are the only ones they're going to…” His voice trailed off. “Never mind.”

“Turn to stone?” Max said. “Dude. Did you see what they did to Lincoln Pugh today? A giant—mantis thing hauled him off to some dungeon! Face it, this whole Academy has turned out to be totally bogus.”

“You know about the turning to stone? I thought that was a secret.”

“Yeah, well. Destynee told everybody, okay? What's your problem, not going to your friends when you're in trouble? Are you stupid or something?”

Falcon didn't know what to say. “Maybe,” he said.

“We talked it over, and we decided. We're with you. Me and Pearl and Peeler and Woody. Weems and Destynee. Jonny Frankenstein and Megan. We're all going.”

“Megan's going to go too?” said Falcon, his features brightening.

“Dude, she's coming,” said Max. “Jonny told me. He's the one who asked her to go away with him.” Max blinked. “With us,” he added.

“You don't have to do this,” said Falcon. “You aren't in any danger.”

“Dude,” said Max. “You think I want to stay here
and learn how to be a big fake? I'm a Sasquatch, okay? A Sasquatch! And you know what? There's nothing wrong with that!” He roared. “Wherever you're going, I'm going with ya.”

Falcon smiled. “Max,” he said. “You're something.”

“You got that right. I'm vast. I contain, like—
multitudes
!”

“Attention, boys and girls,” said Mrs. Redflint. “We have two announcements. First, Mr. Hake has finally finished running your information through the Reidentification program—no easy task since you all come from so many different places! But at last we have your new names and identities and all about who you're going to be from now on.”

Max looked at Falcon. “Dude,” he said.

Mr. Hake turned to address the students. “All righty, then,” he said. “As you all know, you'll all be reentering the world of humans as soon as you graduate from the Upper School. All of you except Lincoln Pugh, of course! He's in the dungeon, hanging upside down. Boohoo for Lincoln Pugh! But the rest of us are on our way to Happy! What we have for each of you now is your new name, which we'd like you to start using, so that by the time you graduate from the Upper School, it'll feel like it was your name all along. In some cases we have some new hobbies and characteristics for you too! Anyway, all
the information is here in your new Reidentification Fun Profile I'll be handing out right now. For instance—Mortia Moulder—are you here? From now on, your name is Violet! Violet Humperdink. Hi, Violet! Everyone say, ‘Hi, Violet!'”

The students said, “Hi, Violet!” as Mr. Hake handed Mortia a folder with a bright pink cover. It also had a yellow smiley face in its center. “And you like puppies and jumping rope!”

“I do?” said Mortia, or Violet, or whoever she was now.

“Yes,” said Mr. Hake. “You do! Lucky you! Lucky Violet Humperdink!”

“Wait,” said Mortia. “It says here my favorite food is bacon!”

“It is, Violet,” said Mr. Hake. “You're crazy about bacon!”

“I'm not crazy about bacon,” said Mortia. “I'm vegan!”

“Not anymore,” said Mr. Hake cheerfully. “And who's next? Ah! Mr. Parsons. From now on,
your
name is Gus.”