The Mysterious Case of the Allbright Academy (14 page)

“W
ell, that was a total bust,” Cal said as we drove away from the house. “Not to mention really, really depressing.”

“Depressing, yes,” Prescott said, “but not a bust. That interview was a prime piece of evidence. We can get Spielberg, here, to add it to the presentation.”

I winced. Beamer rolled his eyes.

“Prescott,” I said, “his name is Beamer and he is doing us a huge favor. He's not some servant you can order around.”

Beamer touched my arm. “Doesn't bother me,” he said.

“Well, it should.”

“

Prescott, who was sitting up front with Cal and Ray, turned around and looked at me, puzzled. “What?”

“I liked you better on the brownies,” I muttered.

“Um, guys,” Brooklyn said, “can we try to stay on track? Prescott is right. The visit wasn't a complete disaster. I also agree that, if Beamer is very
kindly
willing to help us a little bit more, by adding the interview to the presentation, it'll be that much more powerful. I'd leave out the part about Jimmy Carter, maybe. Some of that other stuff.”

“See, Prescott?” I said. “
That's
how it's done. Same content, much better result.”

Prescott didn't say a word.

“Guys,” Cal said, “we still don't have a plan. We can't get it to the board without Dr. Planck.”

“How about Martha Evergood?” I suggested.

“Yeah,” Brooklyn said. “That's a good possibility.”

Then Prescott turned around, leaned his chin on his arm, and gave us a thoughtful look. “Let's reboot this whole thing,” he said. “Start over. Wipe out the old ideas. Why are we so focused on taking this to the board of directors' meeting? Maybe it's time to take it to the police.”

“Police?” This from Ray, who until then had only been half listening to our conversation. But
police
had been the magic word. “What the hay are you kids up to?”

“Well, it's sort of complicated,” Beamer explained. “The school they go to is doing some illegal things. We thought the guy we just went to visit would help us fix the situation, only he turned out to be the bad guy himself. So we're looking into other options.”

“I thought you were doing this for a school assignment,” Ray said, still grappling with the new concept.

“I lied.”

Ray had to think about that for a while. He was clearly not the swiftest minnow in the stream. This new twist was apparently more than he could absorb.

“People?” Prescott said, finally. “Police?”

Everybody turned to look at Brooklyn, who shook his head. “No way. Not my mom. Sorry. The, um, hacking, and the breaking and entering, and the lying—I'm not ready to lay all that out for her just yet. Preferably never.”

“Some other police officer, then.”

“Fine, just so long as the officer isn't related to me and living in my house.”

“I don't know,” Cal said. “They're going to think we're crazy.”

“Not once they see the evidence.” Prescott seemed very sure of this.

“All right,” she said, not entirely convinced. “Whatever.”

“Then let me plug the interview into the presentation first,” Beamer said. “I'll just pull key sections out, so he won't seem so senile. It'll take about an hour, probably less. You guys can wait at my house while I do it, then we can go straight to the police station from there. I'm sure Ray will be glad to drive us. Right, Ray?” He leaned forward and patted Ray on the shoulder. His only response was a shrug. “What time do you have to catch the van back to Allbright?”

“Five thirty. But we need to go home first and pick up our stuff.”

“That gives us plenty of time. Is everybody okay with the plan?”

Everybody was.

 

The officer behind the desk looked weary. In fact, everybody in the station house looked weary. I guess fighting crime is an exhausting job. Or maybe the ceaseless sound of ringing phones had worn them to a nub.

“What can I do for you folks?” the officer asked.

“We're here to report a crime,” Prescott answered.

“And what sort of crime would that be?”

We all looked at one another. How, exactly, should we describe it?

“Giving drugs to children without their permission?” I suggested.

“What kind of drugs, exactly?”

“They're previously unknown compounds,” Prescott said. I knew right away that this was the wrong thing to say. It came out sounding way too goofy.

“We, uh, have everything here on the computer,” Beamer said, indicating his laptop. “All the evidence.”

“
Evidence
, huh?” The officer raised his eyebrows and gave us an amused look, the one he probably saved for wackos who think there are aliens living in their toothpaste tubes. “Evidence is always good. If you'll fill out this form, please…”

We went over and sat on some plastic chairs and filled out the form. Cal has really nice handwriting, so we gave her the job, using Beamer's laptop as a desk, and we discussed every question as a group. It took forever. Finally we brought the form back to the man at the desk. He glanced over it, apparently focusing mostly on the description of the crime.

“This is a joke, right?”

“No, sir.”

“The school is putting drugs in your
brownies
?”

How I wished it had been anything but brownies—they made the whole thing sound so silly.

“If you'll take a look at our presentation,” Prescott said, “you'll see we had the brownies analyzed by a
Hopkins lab. There were three separate compounds that had been added.”

I was desperately hoping Prescott wouldn't say anything about programming and the fall of democracy. We sounded nuts enough already.

“
You
had the brownies analyzed by a Hopkins lab?”

“Yes, I did. My mother works there.”

“Ah. Your mother works there. Very handy. Well, we'll look into it.”

“That's all?”

“We'll look into it.”

“But don't you want to see the presentation?”

“We'll give you a call.”

 

“See?” Cal said, as we walked back to Ray's car. “That's exactly what I was afraid of.”

“It's a tough sell,” Brooklyn admitted, “a story like that. Would
you
believe it if somebody laid it on you?”

“Of course not,” Cal said. “Which is why—”

“Give it a rest,” Prescott said. “You were right. It's over. What now?”

“Can't we just leave it up to the police,” I suggested, “now that we've already gone in there and humiliated ourselves?”

“They're not going to do anything,” Cal said. “That guy thought it was a joke.”

“But aren't they required by law to look into all complaints, especially when the welfare of children is involved?”

“Yeah, they probably are,” Brooklyn agreed. “And I can just see it now: An officer walks into Dr. B's office. ‘Excuse me, ma'am, but there has been a complaint filed by, um, Brooklyn Offloffalof, Frances Sharp, Calpurnia Fiorello, and, um, Prescott Bottomy the Third.'”

“I didn't put ‘the Third' on the form!”

“‘They claim you are, um, putting
drugs
in the brownies out here. Sorry, ma'am, but we have to check these things out….'”

“Yeah,” I said. “That's exactly how it will go. And then Dr. B will explain that we are all a bunch of goofballs, always playing practical jokes, and she'll seem so refined and proper and beautiful and smart that he'll be eating out of her hand. Then the minute he leaves, we're toast.”

“I hate to say this, but we need an adult to help us,” Brooklyn said. “Somebody the police won't laugh at. Which brings us back to Martha Evergood. She's powerful, she's connected to the school, and I bet we can get to her through Zoë. Dr. Evergood was the one who recommended Zoë for Allbright in the first place, right? And she's really involved with the kids she mentors.”

“What about Ms. Lollyheart?” Cal suggested.

“Doesn't she work for the bottom feeder?” Beamer asked.

“She's a secretary. She doesn't make decisions or anything. She's just this really amazing person who's made the school her whole life.”

“Yeah,” Brooklyn said, “I like her too. But it still makes me nervous. She works so closely with Dr. B and they made her orientation leader and everything. The school depends on her for a lot of important stuff.”

“Well, I still think we can trust her,” Cal said.

“All right,” Brooklyn agreed. “She's on the short list. Plus, there's Reuben.”

“What can
he
do?” Prescott said with a sneer in his voice. “He works in the kitchen.”

Brooklyn glared at Prescott with squinty eyes. “Yeah, and he risked his job switching out that last batch of brownies for us. Hauled the bad ones away and has them stored in his garage.”

“Calm down. I didn't mean anything negative or racist, Brooklyn. I just don't think he has, you know, influence or anything. Not like a former secretary of state.”

“I'm just saying that he knows what's going on, and he's promised to help us. You never know.”

“All right, all right!” Prescott put his hands up in mock defense. “He's on the list.”

“Okay,” I said. “We've got three people we think
we can trust, but if you want my opinion, I still think Dr. Evergood is the best bet. At least let's try her first. Want me to call Zoë?”

Silent nods all around.

 

“Wow,” Zoë said, when the presentation was over. “That's…absolutely…horrifying! And it explains so much—why I felt different after I got here. Smarter, you know? And then when I stopped eating the brownies because you told me to, after a while I started to feel normal again.”

“I don't feel different,” said J. D., whom Zoë had insisted on bringing along. “I never did.”

“That's because you're in this special category—what they call visionaries. They put you all in Violet Cottage and left you alone, to develop in your own unique ways. No brownies, no PD.”

“That so
fits
!” he said excitedly. “The kids in Violet seemed like the only normal people on campus. It was really starting to weird me out, all these creepy, perfect kids. I felt like I was in an institution or something.”

“And Zoë—I'm not sure if you caught that reference, during the taped conversation? ‘The only other kid in Toby's league is in sixth grade'? That's you. They've been grooming
you
to be president.”

“Of what?”

“Of the United States!”

“No!”

“Yes! You're, like, their discovery of the decade!”

Her mouth hung open. For a minute she couldn't speak.

“So, what are you going to do?” J. D. asked. “Tell the police?”

I sighed. “We already tried that. They thought we were hilarious. We're guessing that either they won't do anything, or they'll do just enough to warn Dr. Gallow and Dr. Bodempfedder that we're onto them, and get us in trouble.”

“Guys,” Cal said, “I just had a horrible thought! Even if the police
do
decide to get involved, they can't use our evidence. We got it illegally. It's tainted. They can't take it into court!”

“Yeah, they can,” J. D. said.

“No, they can't,” I said. “Cal's right. I saw it on
Law and Order
. If you get your evidence illegally, it's inadmissible.”

“If you're a police officer and you get your evidence illegally, then yeah—that's a problem,” J. D. said. “‘Fruit of the poisonous tree,' they call it. But if a private citizen gives the police a tip and the police get a proper search warrant and go into the files and the computer and find the same stuff you found, it's perfectly admissible.”

“How in the world did you know that?” asked Cal.

“He's a visionary, remember?” I said, feeling
suddenly very proud of my odd little brother. “He reads some very random stuff. It comes in handy sometimes.”

J. D. smiled contentedly.

“Well, that's nice to know,” Brooklyn said. “But unfortunately, it's not an issue. The police aren't interested in our evidence at the moment. And we need to do something pretty quick, before everything unravels—which brings us to the reason we wanted to talk to you, Zoë. We were hoping you could go to Dr. Evergood and convince her to help us.”

Zoë wilted. “She's out of the country. She won't be back till Friday night. I know because she was going to take us to a reception in Washington Friday afternoon, but she had to cancel.”

“Nuts!” Cal said. “I guess we'll have to wait till she gets back, but every day we wait there's a greater chance that some policeman's going to show up in Dr. B's office.”

We sat there for two full minutes, feeling totally miserable. Finally Zoë broke the silence. “I have a thought,” she said.

“Let's have it,” Prescott said.

“Well, there's a board meeting Saturday morning.”

“We know,” I said.

“That's why Dr. Evergood is flying in Friday night so she can go to it. And the board members are all these really important, famous people who
are willing to travel here four times a year, just because they care about the school. I say we show the evidence to them, let them take it from there.”

“That was actually our plan, Zoë,” Cal said. “But we can't get anywhere near those people. Dr. Evergood was our only hope, and she's not getting in till late Friday night. I can't see you calling her house at midnight to tell her all this, no matter how nice she is.”

“Don't worry,” Zoë said with a smile. “We're Allbright whiz kids, right? We'll figure out a way.”