The Extraordinary Education of Nicholas Benedict

by Trenton Lee Stewart

Or not simple, exactly, but certainly possible. Nicholas envisioned a system by which both cranks would need to be turned in the right direction until a certain, secret gear engaged, at which point only one should be turned until yet another gear engaged, and so on. Fascinated, he watched it all happening in his mind. Then he reversed the process, contemplating more efficient ways of accomplishing it, and only after several minutes had passed did he realize he’d gotten carried away thinking about mechanical design.

  Chiding himself, Nicholas stood up. He needed to focus on the matter at hand. He couldn’t stay here all night, after all. He did have to sleep sometime.

  For half an hour he worked with the cranks, trying out different combinations, hoping to see a section of the floor rise up to reveal a secret staircase, or a wall stone pop out of place to expose a hidden lever, or simply anything at all out of the ordinary. Unfortunately, he could turn only one stubborn crank at a time—his arms proved too tired to manage two at once—but he was nonetheless able to experiment with the sequence, the direction, the number of turns. Round and round went the cranks; round and round went the turntable. The roof panels opened and closed so many times that clipped, tangled segments of vine were strewn about the floor, and dust no longer fell when the panels retracted. But no secret staircases, no hidden doors appeared.

  Nicholas was exhausted and disappointed, but he was not discouraged. Really, he’d hardly begun. With fresher arms, he might be able to turn two cranks simultaneously, which would allow for ever more complex combinations. He could attempt some of those tomorrow night, before fatigue set in, and if those didn’t work, he could go back to turning one at a time…. Nicholas scratched his head, considering the possibilities.

  As it happened, this single, simple physical act brought him abruptly to his senses. He could not ignore his quivering arms, his aching fingers and hands. Was he really going about this the right way? Mr. Rothschild would not have wanted the combination to be too cumbersome, but the number of possibilities for even a very simple one was daunting in the extreme. Nicholas frowned at himself. He knew that, yet in his excitement he had thrown himself into the task without thinking it through.

  So think it through, Nicholas told himself, and his brain switched tracks.

  His first thought was to wonder whether Mr. Rothschild had written the combination in his diary, perhaps on one of those torn-out pages. Finding those would be helpful, to say the least. But what if he couldn’t find them? What were his other options?

  When a minute of hard thinking turned up no new ideas, Nicholas sighed and shook his head. He would need to ponder all this awhile. He was itchy with impatience, but at least now he was being sensible. Turning things over in his mind, deliberately and carefully, was guaranteed to be more productive than turning these cranks at random. His mind was his strength, and he should use it. In the meantime he should go to bed.

  Reluctantly, Nicholas gathered his things, offered the cranks a farewell salute, and went out through the curtain of vines. After so long inside, he felt strangely exposed in the open air, though surely there was no one to see him. He glanced all around. Trees surrounded the clearing, obscuring his view in every direction except upward. No one is watching but the man in the moon, he assured himself, and he will keep your secrets. He smiled and was about to start downhill when he noticed, near the corner of the observatory, a faint, narrow trail among the weeds.

  The trail was so vague that Nicholas had overlooked it earlier. It led away from the observatory, northward through the tall grass and brush that covered the clearing, and down into the far woods—away from the Manor. Nicholas stared wonderingly at it. He had not imagined that there might be more to explore.

  Every unfamiliar trail is an invitation, and Nicholas, weary though he was, accepted this one without hesitating. Why, there was no telling what he might find! It might be the key to everything! And so, pausing only to turn up his lantern, Nicholas followed the trail across the clearing and into the trees beyond.

  The trail, leading downhill again, did not wind about as the trail on the other side of the hill had done, to make the going easier. Rather, it descended very steeply through the trees, almost in a straight line. Nicholas walked with an awkward, backward-leaning posture, and was often compelled to cling to low branches to keep from stumbling. At the bottom of the hill, the trail vanished into a dry streambed, but Nicholas did not give up on it. Swatting mosquitoes, he made his way across and, with little difficulty, found where the trail continued.

  Now it led up—almost straight up—another steep wooded hill, and twice Nicholas had to pause for breath. Once he lost the trail and had to backtrack. But at last, panting and perspiring, he arrived at the top of a wooded ridge, where he sat on a moss-covered boulder to rest. He wondered how far he was prepared to follow this trail. Eventually he would have to retrace every step, and the steps were adding up. Perhaps he should return tomorrow night, when he could set out earlier.

  Nicholas hated to quit, however. He decided to press on just a little farther, and heaving himself off the boulder, he followed the trail downward from the ridge. Scarcely had he taken a dozen steps when the trail forked. To the left it continued its steep descent. To the right it ran crosswise to the slope, rather than down. Nicholas’s weary legs turned right almost on their own. After another dozen steps, the trail took a sharp turn around an enormous boulder and disappeared. Perhaps it simply headed downhill again on the far side. Nicholas couldn’t tell. The boulder was too large, the woods too dark and thick.

  Intrigued, Nicholas hurried around the boulder, only to draw up short with a gasp. He very nearly dropped his lantern. Where a moment ago there had been the darkness and closeness of unbroken woods, now there was nothing but empty space and a brilliant night sky. The world seemed to have fallen away completely.

  Nicholas had unwittingly blundered onto a bluff. He realized this even as he drew back in alarm. He was not really in danger of falling—or not much, anyway, for the flat ledge of barren stone jutted out several yards—but the open view had appeared so suddenly that its effect was shocking. He was lucky he hadn’t collapsed on the spot.

  When his heartbeat had settled down, Nicholas ventured onto the bluff again, careful of every step. He made his way out almost to the edge. The bluff overlooked a wide, moonlit valley of rolling farmland. Nicholas gave a low whistle, impressed. Inching forward, he strained his neck to peer over the edge of the bluff. The sheer rock wall plummeted down and down—a very long way down—into more trees below.

  The trail must lead to this lonely promontory purely for the sake of the view. And with good reason, Nicholas thought. From here one could gaze down upon the nearest farm as if it were a toy set, its miniature pieces arranged upon a table. The windows of the toy farmhouse reflected the moonlight. Nothing stirred in the toy barnyard. A little lane that might have been made of ribbon led away from the farm, running out across the wide valley, where in the distance Nicholas could see other, even tinier farms.

  From his conversation with Mrs. Brindle, Nicholas knew that he was looking down upon the Hopefield farm. It felt strange knowing the name. So it was the Hopefield family who lay asleep in that quiet farmhouse. He wondered what sort of family it was, whether it included any children. He wondered if it had been children who made these trails. If Nicholas had lived down there, he, too, would have ventured into the hills exploring. He, too, would have found this bluff a perfect spot to sit and think. The trails were faint now, though; they appeared seldom, if ever, used. Perhaps the children had grown up and lost interest.

  Nicholas settled on the bluff, leaning back on his hands, and let his ankles and feet dangle over the edge. A breeze fluttered in his ears and cooled his bristly scalp. The moon cast the farm fields below in tones of blue and silver. For a long time he gazed out over them, his mind moving more slowly now, more calmly. It was peaceful here. He was in no danger of falling asleep; he no longer felt sleepy in the least. On the contrary, he felt wide awake, alert,
and strangely aware of all his emotions, including sadness, including loneliness, though they did not trouble him very much. Eventually Nicholas stopped looking at the fields and gazed only at the huge, brilliant moon above him.

  When the alarm clock rang, its tinny rattling muffled inside his backpack, Nicholas felt startled and disoriented. He fumbled to shut it off, still looking upward. He had the strangest sensation that he was drifting back down to earth, as if he had been up there with the moon all this time. He knew he had to go back. Back to the orphanage, back to the Spiders, back to that prison cell of a room, back to his nightmares. He stood, dusted off his pants, hesitated. And then he set the alarm clock again, and sat down again, and allowed himself just a few minutes more.

  The next day was a Friday, which happened to be “special chores” day. After breakfast all the children were told what they would be doing that morning. The older boys were sent off to churn butter, rake out barn stalls, and mend fences with Mr. Furrow at the farm. The older girls were set to washing linens and hanging them on a clothesline in the side yard, with the exception of a few who were to help Mrs. Brindle clean the chandelier. Nicholas and the other children were assigned to yard work.

  Under the nervous supervision of Mr. Pileus, who was working on the Studebaker in the driveway, Nicholas helped trim the azalea bushes, mow the grass, and gather fallen branches from the large front lawn and down the lane. It was a dreary business. The morning was hot and sticky, Nicholas was miserably tired, and as usual the other children were avoiding him. (His only company was a swarm of gnats that followed him everywhere.) Even more tiresome was Mr. Pileus, who kept yelping with alarm and charging over to correct Nicholas’s grip on the pruners or to demonstrate how to maintain the proper distance between his feet and the blades of the reel mower.

  Nicholas wished Mr. Pileus would leave him alone and stick to the Studebaker, which at this rate would never get fixed. It was plain by now that Mr. Pileus was neither an especially handy handyman nor a mechanically minded mechanic. He did have a knack for noticing problems, but their solutions generally evaded him. Earlier that morning, for instance, he had driven Mr. Collum to the station in Pebbleton (the director had weekend business out of town) and returned in a state of high anxiety. With a fretful scowl, Mr. Pileus had soon scattered tools all around the driveway and porch steps. But though he had started the Studebaker engine numerous times—cringing every time at the squealing sound it produced—that was all the progress he had made.

  It didn’t help, Nicholas supposed, that the man was so distracted by the children he was supervising. He couldn’t take his eyes off them for fear they would suffer grievous injuries. Finally Nicholas couldn’t stand it any longer, and when Mr. Pileus ran down the lane to admonish young Buford (whom he’d spotted walking too quickly with a sharp stick), Nicholas drifted over to take a look at the Studebaker’s engine.

  “I think I have it!” he said when Mr. Pileus came back. “I think I see what you were getting at!”

  Mr. Pileus, who had been about to shoo him away, hesitated. He looked confused.

  Nicholas hurried on: “It’s the fan belt, isn’t it? You were testing us, weren’t you, to see if anyone would notice the sound! That’s an excellent way to teach, if I do say so myself, Mr. Pileus. I thought that’s what you were up to when you kept starting the engine and shutting it off again. They make such an awful racket, fan belts, and this one obviously needs to be replaced. Would you like me to fetch one from the basement? Did you leave the door unlocked?”

  Mr. Pileus blinked. He bent to inspect the fan belt. Then he nodded twice—once for each question—and turned away, his face as red as his hair.

  Nicholas saluted him and dashed up the steps. The prospect of working on the Studebaker was infinitely more appealing than pruning shrubberies. It was one thing to read books about engines, quite another to actually lay hands on them. The fan belt would not take long to replace, unfortunately. He wondered if he might suggest other repairs….

  His mind full of engine parts, Nicholas charged into the entranceway, flung the door closed behind him—and was brought up short by what he saw. What in the world? A skinny, flaxen-haired girl appeared to be suspended high above the entranceway, her arms extended upward and her legs kicking frantically, as if the air were water and she was trying to swim to the surface.

  Nicholas squinted his eyes, which were still adjusting to the indoor gloom. He had experienced so many bizarre hallucinations in his life that for a split second he wondered if he’d been dreaming this entire morning. Was he, in fact, still in his cot upstairs? But in the next instant everything became clear. The girl—it was Gertrude McGillicuddy—was dangling from the chandelier, her eyes wide with terror. Two other girls stood beneath her, shifting anxiously from foot to foot. And in the background, of course, were the Spiders.

  Moray and Breaker, holding the tall stepladder that they had yanked from under Gertrude’s feet, were laughing silently through their noses. Iggy stood behind them, at the bottom of the staircase, where he could keep an eye on the east and west passages.

  “Why, hello, fellows,” Nicholas said breezily. “I thought you were supposed to be over at the farm.”

  “We’re taking a break,” Breaker said with a sneer. He spoke softly, as if not wishing to be overheard.

  “I can see that,” said Nicholas. Stepping to his left to peer down the north-running passage, he spied the back of Mrs. Brindle’s cleaning apron poking out of a closet. He could just make out her muted muttering as she rummaged around for a missing bottle of polish. “So you slipped away when Mr. Furrow had his back turned.”

  “There he goes again,” Iggy said scornfully, “pretending he can ‘see’ things.”

  Nicholas sighed. He hardly needed a crystal ball to see what had happened. The Spiders, sneaking around the Manor, had come upon the girls unattended and decided to have some fun. They were in little danger of being caught. They were out of Mrs. Brindle’s line of vision, and thanks to her constant muttering, they would know when she was approaching. She moved so slowly, they would have plenty of time to escape before she reached the entranceway. And of course the girls dared not cry for help.

  Nicholas had no such qualms, however. Wasn’t he already on the Spiders’ enemy list? With an impatient roll of his eyes (as if he were really much too busy always to be spoiling the Spiders’ fun), he said, “Well, it’s certainly easy enough to see what Mrs. Brindle will think about all this.”

  “Call her and you’ll regret it!” Moray hissed, shooting Nicholas a warning look. “If you can see so much, I guess you can see what I’ll do to your face if you tell.”

  Iggy drew a finger across his throat to make the warning clearer. Above them, Gertrude could be heard panting with effort and fear, her legs bicycling in the empty air beneath her. Her grip was probably weakening, but the Spiders wouldn’t have considered that.

  Nicholas turned to the mirror near Mr. Collum’s office door and pretended to inspect his frayed collar. “Fine,” he said casually. “I won’t say a word.”

  Then he grabbed the mirror with both hands and turned it.

  He could tell he had achieved the proper angle when the Spiders’ mouths fell open. Perhaps they were not the most intelligent creatures, but even they understood that if they could see the back of Mrs. Brindle’s apron in the mirror—which was now the case—then Mrs. Brindle had only to turn and glance at the mirror to see them.

  Moray’s face turned a deep shade of crimson. Iggy’s face grew so pinched it looked as if it might collapse upon itself like a rotten piece of fruit. Breaker began gesturing wildly toward the east passage, indicating that they should flee before they were spotted.

  Moray jabbed a finger in Nicholas’s direction. “You’re going to pay for this, Fat Nose!” he hissed as they all hurried from the room. “Count on it!”

  Nicholas gave him a jaunty salute.

  Then the Spiders were gone, and as the girls scrambled to replace the ladder be
neath Gertrude, Nicholas returned the mirror to its original angle and headed for the front door. He would have to tell Mr. Pileus he needed help finding the fan belt. He no longer dared to go to the basement alone, not with the Spiders on the prowl.

  Even before he reached the door, Nicholas could hear the girls’ sighs of relief—Gertrude had safely found her footing again. He did not meet their gazes, however, but opened the door without a word. He knew perfectly well that he was not to be approached, much less thanked, and he did not care to see the girls turn away from him. He would rather do the turning away himself.

  So it was that Nicholas left the room in the solitude of his own thoughts, oblivious to the silent looks of gratitude that followed him.

  No doubt it was the lack of sleep that led Nicholas to be so careless. He was thinking less clearly than usual, paying less attention to his circumstances, and his mind was taken up with cranks and combinations. But though his circumstances on that particular Friday were uncommonly precarious, Nicholas failed to recognize just how precarious they were.

  He knew, of course, that he needed to be extra careful that day. Staff supervision at the Manor was limited even when Mr. Collum was present, much less when he was away on a business trip. What Nicholas did not properly take into account was that the Spiders might also be thinking of this and planning accordingly. He did not think them capable of hatching clever plots.

  But clever or not, the Spiders were definitely plotting. The fact was that they had slipped away from the farm with the express purpose of setting a trap for Nicholas. They had simply gotten sidetracked by that business with Gertrude and the ladder, after which—thanks to Nicholas’s humiliating interference—they were more determined than ever to punish him. And so they returned to their planning and plotting. And when the moment was right, they sprang.

  That moment arrived after lunch, when Nicholas, spending his free time in the library as usual, was compelled to lie down in the midst of reading a book about mechanical engineering. The library supervisor on duty was Miss Candace, who was filing her nails at the desk when Iggy ran in to inform her that young Oliver Crooke was outside in the gazebo complaining of a bitter bellyache.