The One Safe Place (27 page)

It was morning when Devin woke. He lay very still for a moment or two, thinking. Most dreams, he thought, were perfectly clear when he was dreaming them. It was only when he woke up that they got muddled and confused. But this one was different. This one had made no sense while he was asleep. But now it did. Realization rushed over him. He heaved himself up.

It was hard to wait until he could get out of the room again. It seemed to him that Mrs. Babbage was being particularly slow when she came with his drink and breakfast. She took a long time arranging everything on the table, then came over to the chair where he was pretending to sleep and peered at him, her face very close.

“Nothing to say for yourself? Going to sleep all day are you?”

But at last she was gone and the corridor outside was quiet. Devin made for the stairs, his bones creaking and groaning. He didn’t waste any time going into offices, but headed straight for the metal door he’d seen on his previous visit to the Place.

It’s not a mirror, silly!

Devin stood in front of it. The metal was smooth and looked massively thick. There was no handle on the door and no buttons on the wall beside it.

You just stand and wave!

Devin raised his right hand, palm out and rested it against the frame of the door. He felt a soft vibration as invisible sensors briefly scanned his skin. A green light flickered above the door, then the metal slid back. Devin stepped inside.

It was a large room, completely empty apart from a huge table in the center with a top made of black glass. He shuffled forward uncertainly, and as he did, colors appeared on the surface of the table. Devin gaped in astonishment. A model of the Home had risen before his eyes, although it wasn’t made of anything but light. Devin could see right through it. There were the courtyard and the tower, the outlying meadows, the farmyard, maze, and recreation building, all perfectly proportioned, floating in the air.

And there were the twelve laser posts arranged like the numbers on a clock.

Devin hobbled nearer, his heart pattering, missing a beat or two and then fumbling on again.

Stay alive, Gabriel Penn! Devin thought. Stay alive just long enough!

The model of light seemed to get clearer as he got nearer to it, the edges losing their shimmer. Details emerged. Devin could see the carousel now, and the tree houses and even the wretched ice-cream truck in its spot behind the long hedge. Penn left nothing to chance, he thought. Everything about the Home was planned, down to the last blade of grass.

He reached out and then stopped. What was it the boy had said? Something about a ball. He must need it to activate the model. He bent, grunting from the effort and peered underneath the table. Perhaps there was a drawer down there, hidden below.

Not a drawer but a small shelf. Resting on it was a white globe no larger than an egg. Devin reached for it, squeezing it slightly in the palm of his hand. At once numbers shimmered into view above the model, dozens and dozens of them, arranged in rows and columns. Devin’s eyes locked onto them.

Then they vanished. The code was gone.

“Someone’s been a very naughty boy,” a voice said.

Devin whirled around. Mrs. Babbage was standing in the doorway.

Twenty-Four

“WE CAN’T ALLOW YOU
to look at that, now can we?” she said. “That wouldn’t do at all.”

There was another white ball in her hand. She tossed it into the air and caught it playfully.

“I knew you were faking,” she said. “I saw you peeking, Devin dear.”

Devin couldn’t say anything. His voice was stuck in his throat.

Mrs. Babbage looked at him, her head tilted to one side as if she were about to tell him off for having his elbows on the table during lunch.

“I don’t like to think what’s going to happen to you now,” she said. “But we can’t have anyone knowing what really goes on here, can we?”

Devin didn’t try to deny anything. He knew it was no use.

“I won’t tell anyone,” he said. “I mean it. I just want to get out.”

Mrs. Babbage walked forward, her sandals making a slapping sound on the floorboards. The light from the model cast green shadows on her thin cheeks.

“No kid has ever woken up in here,” she said. “I wonder what makes you so different.”

She was only four feet away. Devin was a grown man, but he was old. He knew he could no more tackle her successfully than if he were a toddler.

“The Administrator doesn’t have to find out,” he said, although he could tell it was useless to plead with her.

“Her?” Mrs. Babbage’s lips pursed up so tight her mouth disappeared.

It sounded, Devin thought, as if all the hatred in the world had been crammed into that single word.

“She does nothing,” Mrs. Babbage continued, “except order people around. And since that father of hers showed up, she’s been even worse. Nothing’s good enough for her, and I’ve had enough of it.”

She paused. An expression of cunning dawned over her features.

“Actually, it would serve her right if I didn’t tell . . .” She smiled, showing her small gray teeth. “Why should I? She’s done nothing for me.”

“That’s right, you don’t have to tell,” Devin said.

Mrs. Babbage shot him a gleeful look. “I wouldn’t get your hopes up, Devin, dear. I’ll tell her all right, but only when I’m ready. Perhaps in front of that wonderful father of hers. She wants him to think she runs this place perfectly . . . Well, my news would show her up, wouldn’t it? Pay her back for how she’s treated me.”

She took his arm. “You must be very tired,” she murmured in his ear. “I think it’s time you went back to your room for a nice little rest.”

Devin let himself be led away.

Someone was calling his name. A girl, her voice high and sharp.

“Devin!”

The word floated above him, rippling and distorted. He swam up toward it, his limbs heavy, his hands beating the darkness.

“Devin!”

He opened his eyes with a start. Kit was tugging on his arm as if she could physically drag him out of sleep. He was on his bed in his room at the Home; he was back from the Place. He turned his head and saw Malloy and Luke standing nearby.

“He’s awake!” Malloy cried.

“You’ve been asleep for hours,” Kit said. “What happened? Did you get the code?”

Devin sat up, bewildered. He shivered slightly.

“Did you get it?” Luke insisted.

“Give him a minute,” Malloy chimed in. “He’s still foggy.”

Devin shook his head. “I’m okay . . . I looked for the code everywhere. I nearly got caught. It was hard . . . I couldn’t hide, couldn’t get down on my knees . . .”

“Okay,” Luke said. “Take your time. Start from the beginning.”

Devin drew a deep breath and told them what had happened. How he’d searched the offices and overheard the Administrator’s meeting with the Visitors and found Gabriel Penn in a dream when he was still a small and trusting boy.

By the time he got to the part about the model of light and the little white ball, the others were on the edges of their seats with tension, and when he told them about the code appearing and then disappearing, they exploded.

“What?” Luke shouted.

Malloy covered his face with his hands.

“I can’t believe it!” Luke cried. “If only you’d had more time!”

Devin stared at them in confusion.

“At least you tried, Devin,” Kit said softly. “You tried your best.”

“But . . . I saw it!” Devin said. “Didn’t you hear me?” He drew in his breath sharply as understanding dawned.

They don’t know what I can do. Until this moment, even I didn’t know.

Kit had told him the way he saw things was like a secret power, and now he understood what she meant. It wasn’t a power like X-ray vision or invisibility; it wasn’t nearly as interesting or as incredible as that. But it had been exactly the power he’d needed when he came across the security codes for the Home.

“I can memorize things, complicated things,” he said, his words tumbling out in a rush. “I can do it really, really fast. I didn’t think it was anything special. But it is, isn’t it? Remember how surprised you were, Luke, when I told you how many books there were in the Administrator’s office? And the scavenger hunt—I knew where everything was without having to hunt like everyone else. And before that, in the city, I would never get lost, Kit, because I’d seen all the buildings from your rooftop. I had memorized them all. I only got a glimpse of the code for a few seconds, but it was enough.”

Devin had to stop for breath. “The numbers were in the shape of a square,” he continued more calmly. “Twelve columns of twelve numbers, 144 in total. The first column read 01, 33, 19, 02, . . .”

Luke scrambled for a piece of paper. “Hang on. Let me get a pen.”

He wrote steadily while Devin dictated. At last he put down his pen.

“How did you remember all that?”

Devin felt embarrassed. “I don’t know,” he mumbled. “I can just do it. Numbers and letters, they make different sounds for me, and they’re different colors too, so they stick in my mind. They kind of make a pattern . . . like a map. And then there are all the shapes in between the numbers—they make another pattern. And some of them I feel on my skin too . . .” His voice trailed off. “Don’t you understand?”

Malloy was shaking his head. “No,” he said. “We really, really don’t, Strange Boy.”

“It’s like a page of words,” Devin said, trying again. “If they were just random words, you’d never remember them, would you? But if the words made a story, it would stick in your head. I think that’s how I remember things—because everything makes a kind of story for me.”

There was a short silence. They still didn’t understand, Devin thought. He couldn’t explain it. But perhaps it didn’t really matter.

“I thought you were a fool,” Kit said. “I was so wrong.”

Luke was staring at the piece of paper, gnawing on his lip. “Never mind about all that,” he said. “I’ve got to think. You realize there are too many numbers here? You can’t possibly have to enter each one of them to shut down the laser posts . . . unless it’s a code.”

“A code for a code?” Malloy piped up.

“Shut up! Let me think!” Luke tapped his pen against his knees, his eyes narrowing to slits. “Twelve columns . . . twelve numbers in each . . . twelve laser posts . . .

“Got it!” he said, sounding almost disappointed. “It’s actually kind of lame. See if you can guess. What else has twelve?”

“Twelve eggs in a carton?” Malloy suggested.

“Oh, just tell us!” Kit snapped. “This isn’t a math quiz, Luke.”

“Twelve months in a year,” Luke announced. “Look, the first number of the top row is 01. That’s January. Next 02, that’s obviously February. So the code changes every month. You don’t have to enter all the numbers, just the ones in the column for that particular month. There’s twelve numbers in every column, one for each of the twelve laser posts. Very simple.”

“For a genius . . . ,” Malloy said.

They all looked at each other. “So that’s it. We’ve got everything.” Kit said. “You figured out a diversion, Malloy?”

“I guess so.”

“So when are we going to do it?”

“How about tomorrow? That gives us a little more time to plan,” Luke said, his eyes starting to twitch.

“We can’t wait,” Devin said. “Mrs. Babbage said she wouldn’t tell right away, but she’s only waiting until she can humiliate the Administrator as much as possible. She might have told already. We have to go as soon as possible.”

Kit looked at her watch. “It’s now or never,” she said. “I say we go during lunch.”