The Mysterious Case of the Allbright Academy (17 page)

Dr. B sprung to her feet and sprinted for the door.

Officer Offloffalof made no effort to stop her. “Secret Service is out there, you know. Just scads of 'em. But go on ahead if you want to.”

Dr. B paused with her hand on the knob and didn't move. She froze there, like she was playing statues.

“Why don't you just sit down, Katrina,” Martha Evergood said.

Dr. B sat down.

“Is there anybody here who wishes to dispute the truth of the things you've heard this morning?” Dr. Evergood asked. “Because I, personally, am quite convinced.”

“Horace?” Jonas Ford said, “Katrina? Do you have anything to say? Any possible sort of explanation?”

Dr. Gallow's expression was frightening, or at least it would be if he'd looked at
me
like that. Vice President Ford, however, didn't bat an eye.

“The results speak for themselves,” he said, gesturing angrily at Toby and the other alumni board members sitting at the far end of the table. “Just look at them. Are they not far superior to any leaders we have in this country today?”

“Superior
final products
?” Saul Roth said with disgust.

“Merely a turn of phrase,” Dr. Bodempfedder said. “Unfortunate, perhaps. But Horace is right. Our graduates, these perfectly educated, extremely dedicated young people, are wonderful treasures; they constitute an immeasurable gift we have given to this great nation.”

“Excuse me, Katrina,” Ford said, “but that is utter hogwash. And since you don't deny that you have betrayed this board, this school, and most of all its students, I suggest you save the rest of your explanation for the courtroom.”

Officer Offloffalof raised her eyebrows in question. “Time to go?”

“I believe it is,” Martha Evergood said.

“My pleasure, Madame Secretary. It'll take just a minute.” She pulled out her phone and called for a squad car.

There was a moment of silence. Then, for the first time, Toby spoke. “Dr. Evergood? Members of the board? May I say something here?”

“Of course, Toby. Please go ahead.”

“I understand that everyone here has been grossly taken advantage of, and I can just imagine how angry you are. But I am—surely you will agree—the biggest victim here. They planned to turn me into the front man for their hateful agenda. This very afternoon I was supposed to have lunch with Dr. Gallow, apparently to have my ‘brain scrubbed.' You all heard it.”

The others nodded sympathetically, then turned again toward Dr. Gallow, who now sat with his head resting on one hand, staring defiantly at the bookcase.

“Having said all that,” Toby went on, “let me add something on a more positive note. There is one issue that hasn't been mentioned yet, and it's potentially the most disastrous aspect of this whole disastrous mess: the hundreds and hundreds of ‘final products' out there, people like me and Janice and Saul.” He gestured toward the other
Allbright graduates on the board. “The problem of putting the toothpaste back in the tube, as the saying goes. I just wanted to assure you that, despite their best efforts, Dr. Gallow and Dr. Bodempfedder failed. The human spirit is not that easily captured.

“When I went off to college, I carried all of Dr. Gallow's—and I am sorry to learn, Dr. Planck's—odious ideas and opinions with me, along with a thousand little ‘improving' habits of behavior and manners, some of which actually proved to be helpful. But rather quickly those ideas began to fall away. I found myself evolving, learning to question authority and think for myself. My friends from Allbright, at least the ones I've kept up with, have evolved too.”

Janice nodded in eager agreement.

“Yes,” Saul said. “Me too.”

“We truly benefited from the education we got here,” Toby went on. “The rigorous curriculum, designed for our unique talents and learning styles, the incredible teachers, the mentors, the internships, the enrichment program—they were all fabulous. What a wonderful gift! But the twisted theories—once we got away from Allbright, we gradually sloughed them off. If anything, our quality education helped us do it. We are not irretrievably damaged.”

“What a relief to hear you say that, Toby,” Caroline Kelly said. “I desperately hope you're right. Because there are so many of you out there, so many graduates.”

“I think we'll be okay. I really do.”

“Toby,” Martha Evergood said, “Janice, Saul, we—as representatives of this school—owe you the most profound apologies for what was done to you. It was generous beyond belief for you to be so positive about your time here. Thank you. And I must say, I'm pleased that Horace and Katrina got to hear it too. It will give them something to think about in prison—how their efforts failed. Officer Offlofalof, how long before that squad car arrives?”

“Momentito,” she said, and dialed again. “Ready? Thank you.” Then she dazzled the room with a beautiful smile.

“You have the right to remain silent…,” she began.

And over at Larkspur Cottage, students in their rooms, in the dining hall, and in the common room that Saturday morning, were astonished to hear a loud and triumphant cheer.

T
he school was shut down, but the board members stayed on to clean up the mess. We weren't around to see it, but it must have been a really big job. They had to contact everybody—the students, faculty, staff, and parents—and tell them all, one painful phone call at a time, what had been going on at Allbright.

Once the kids had gone home and the school was empty, the board began tracking down the graduates. According to Martha Evergood (who drove out to our house to personally apologize to our parents for bringing us to Allbright in the first place, and to thank us profusely for helping to nail the scumbags), Toby had been right. Beyond the astonishing
degree of their success, the Allbright graduates appeared to be perfectly normal. The most encouraging discovery, Dr. Evergood said, was the great variety of their political and philosophical opinions. Each one had, in Toby's words, evolved. And ironically, they really
were
serving their country, each in his or her own unique way.

Their amazing success had so astonished the board members that once the smoke had cleared—the trial over, the former director and headmistress of Allbright in prison (Dr. Planck was judged incompetent to stand trial, but his great reputation was ruined forever), the campus and all its luxurious furnishings sold to settle the lawsuits—they voted unanimously to do the unthinkable: start another school. This one would be a day school in the D.C. area, incorporating all the positive things that had made Allbright so wonderful. And Martha Evergood would be its director.

I wish them well.

 

Prescott went back to his ritzy private school in Baltimore. But that summer he took an internship at a lab in the Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington, where he lived in one of the dorms. This seemed like an odd choice to me, since Hopkins had plenty of fabulous labs close to where he lived. Then Zoë shed light on the mystery.

“He wants to be near Cal,” she said.

“Ah!” I said. “Of course!”

Prescott, as my dad would say, was “sweet on” Cal. Actually, I think she kind of liked him, too. Say what you will about Allbright and its personal development counselors—yeah, they went way too far with it, but in Prescott's case it had helped him a lot. He had grown almost likeable. Who would have thought it?

Cal was now living and going to school in the Virginia suburbs of D.C. Her dad had finally come to his senses. Actually, he had been in the process of resigning his position in Goristovia in favor of a stateside desk job, when bad news from Allbright started popping up in his e-mail.

Two months after he came back to make a proper home for his daughter, Mr. Fiorello married his old college friend, Ms. Lollyheart. Talk about your happy endings!

 

Brooklyn is now wearing his hair in a giant Afro. He says he's in his “historical period.” He promised to go back to the dreadlocks eventually, because they really do suit him, but felt he needed to “explore the sixties” for a while.

When his book of poems was officially published in the spring, we gave a party for him. Now he's working on a volume of haiku. He asked if he could
use the one about the tempura trees, and I said sure. He's calling it “Franny's Snow,” so if this book gets published, I'll have my own little moment of fame.

As for Reuben, Martha Evergood hired him as her new driver, at three times his Allbright salary.

Zoë and J. D. and I are just glad to be home again. Mom and Dad still hover too much, but they'll get over it in time. Meanwhile, we're trying to sort out the positive things we learned at Allbright from the negative; like Toby, we're evolving. Also like Toby, we're fine.

 

The day after the momentous board meeting, Beamer came over to our house with his camera.

I made myself comfortable on the couch, with a fat cushion behind my head and the chenille throw wrapped cozily around me. Beamer didn't want to use natural light this time; he liked the warm glow of the pole lamp beside the couch.

Zoë and J. D. were in the den too, listening—Zoë curled up in Dad's leather chair and J. D. on the rug with his legs draped over the couch. Beamer was watching me through his camera.

“‘Chapter One,'” I read. “‘I Am Born. Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. To begin my life with the
beginning of my life, I record that I was born (as I have been informed and believe) on a Friday, at twelve o'clock at night. It was remarked that the clock began to strike, and I began to cry, simultaneously.'”

And suddenly, like little David Copperfield, I began to cry. Not a big, loud baby's wail like David's, just a trickle of tears down my cheeks and a shaking voice as I continued to read.

How nicely he put things, I thought, old Mr. Dickens. For at that moment I knew that all of us had become the heroes of our own lives. And though I would never be a genius like Brooklyn or Prescott, I no longer thought of myself as ordinary. I had built a robot from scratch, all by myself, and together with my friends, had taken something very wrong and made it right.

I turned the page and went on reading. Beamer had stopped filming now. He sat on the floor near J. D., his arms around his legs and his chin on his knees, listening.

Outside, it began gently to rain.

By Brooklyn Offloffalof

Jacket art © 2008 by Greg Swearingen

Jacket design by Amy Ryan