The Extraordinary Education of Nicholas Benedict

by Trenton Lee Stewart

  “Am I really early?” Nicholas asked, surprised.

  “Prob’ly not. Just always feels like it.” Mr. Furrow sighed and came outside with a lantern. He looked around. “Where’s your wheelbarrow?”

  “There’s a wheelbarrow?” Nicholas asked. “Well, that makes sense. I wish someone had told me. It would have made carrying these things much easier. I don’t suppose you’ll let me borrow yours, will you, Mr. Furrow? It will save time.”

  Mr. Furrow grunted and headed toward the barn. “Why not take my furniture, too? Why not take my house?”

  “I’ll be sure to return it,” Nicholas promised.

  At the barn door, Mr. Furrow said, “Stand back, now, and we’ll just see if Rabbit’s finished his carrot.” He unlatched the door and opened it wide enough to look inside with the lantern. The mule, apparently, could not be seen from the door, for Mr. Furrow edged through the gap and craned his neck this way and that. There was a shuffling, thumping sound, and Mr. Furrow cried out and darted nimbly back through the door, slamming it closed. “Finish it, why don’t you! Blasted, finicky, slowpoke mule! It ain’t tea with the queen, is it?”

  Then he leaned against the door and said to Nicholas, without looking at him, “He’s got just the tiniest bit more. Shouldn’t be but a minute now that I’ve woke him. He’ll be ready for breakfast.”

  “Did he kick you?” Nicholas asked.

  Mr. Furrow looked at him askance. “Am I standing? Did you hear my bones breaking? No, he didn’t kick me, boy. Just gave me a charge, is all. Wish he’d move so strong and quick in the field. I think he uses up all he’s got guarding that carrot of his. The fool creature.” He grunted again—he seemed very fond of grunting—and shifted his cigar stub to the other corner of his mouth. “I just hope he survives another planting season. You’d better hope he does, too. How do you feel about pulling a plow, you and your skinny friends?”

  “I don’t know,” Nicholas said. “I doubt we could do it.” He saw no point in telling Mr. Furrow that he had only one friend.

  “I doubt you could, too,” Mr. Furrow said. “Which is why we put up with Rabbit.”

  Eventually Mr. Furrow deemed they had waited long enough, and a quick glance inside confirmed it. Together they milked the cows and goats, and Nicholas gathered the eggs. As he did so, he found himself thinking about the boys’ dormitory. He had never ventured into it before this morning. Having been excluded from it, he had let it grow rather grand in his imagination, with thick mattresses on sturdy beds, and comfortable reading chairs by the windows. In reality it had been quite austere, nothing but cots and lockers. He had known this fact from things he had heard John and Mrs. Brindle say, and yet his emotions, unbeknownst to him, had sneakily transformed his mental image of the place.

  This was a good thing to remember, Nicholas thought. He had known that emotions could change a person’s perception of facts, but he had never imagined them capable of such slyness. It was important to keep an eye on them—to remain alert to their secret workings. Whenever he came into possession of facts, he must be sure to guard them as vigilantly as Rabbit did his carrots. For how else were mysteries solved if not by the careful analysis of facts?

  When at last the milk bottles were brimming and the egg baskets full, Mr. Furrow helped load them all into a rusty wheelbarrow, and Nicholas returned to the Manor. He found John helping Mr. Griese in the kitchen—he had volunteered to do it, even though he was not on the schedule for the morning.

  “I do like to keep busy,” John said, yawning.

  Together they cracked eggs and scrambled them as Mr. Griese prepared biscuits and a thin gravy. In the midst of all this activity, Mrs. Brindle appeared in the doorway, smelling sweetly of perfume, her cleaning apron freshly ironed despite the earliness of the hour. Mr. Griese, instantly red as a boiled lobster, stammered out a polite greeting—and from that moment on, Nicholas and John became invisible. Beneath the grownups’ nervous chatter, the boys were able to hold a muttered, private conversation.

  “No trouble, then?” Nicholas asked.

  “Iggy woke up just as I was about to leave. When he saw what was happening, he tried to block the door and called for the others to wake up. They were too sleepy to catch on, though, and I was able to get by him. He knocked me down, but I jumped up and kept going.”

  Nicholas peppered the eggs. “You all right?”

  “Banged my knee. I’ve had worse. And it would have been worse this time if you hadn’t warned me.”

  “We need to find what we want to find,” Nicholas said significantly, “and get out of this place as quick as we can.”

  John nodded his agreement. “I’m just hoping Mr. Collum doesn’t get a telephone call about you-know-what today.”

  “Mr. Collum is away on business. Anyway, no one will call, because she isn’t going to tell.”

  “He’s due back at noon. And I hope you’re right.”

  Nicholas was right. There was no telephone call. Nor were there any visits from concerned parents or sheriff’s deputies. And though Mr. Collum came home from the station looking deeply vexed, his mood evidently had nothing to do with Nicholas, who was not summoned to his office or even looked at askance.

  Nicholas liked to think that Mr. Collum had reached another dead end in his search for the treasure, that this was why he seemed so cross. He definitely had not given up, however. This became clear that afternoon, when Miss Candace and Mrs. Brindle took all the orphans to the parlor for a group activity.

  Miss Candace, in the lead, was about to unlock the parlor door, when she saw that it had already been unlocked and stood slightly ajar. When she pushed it open, several of the children, including Nicholas, saw Mr. Collum standing near the parlor fireplace, blinking at them in surprise. He had just taken a small painting from over the mantel, and he hastily replaced it as though he’d been caught trying to steal it. Nicholas felt sure he had been searching for hidden levers or loose stones in the fireplace chimney.

  Flustered, Mr. Collum pretended to busy himself with the painting as the group filed into the parlor. When Mrs. Brindle shuffled in, he seized upon his excuse. “Mrs. Brindle,” he said sternly, “the paintings in this room have been sorely neglected. They need a good dusting. Please assign someone to the task at once.” Without another word, he strode from the parlor.

  Mrs. Brindle sighed, then winced, then cast her eye over the group in search of a candidate. Nicholas jumped forward to volunteer, just beating out John, who had been about to do the same. Dusting sounded infinitely preferable to the group activity, which was to involve paper cutouts and thimbles and promised to be shockingly dull. Besides, as he dusted, Nicholas hoped to thoroughly examine the area around the fireplace, just in case Mr. Collum had been onto something.

  The activity did prove to be a miserable affair. Several girls fell asleep where they sat and drooled on themselves, and several boys got thumped by thimbles that the Spiders kept surreptitiously flicking at them. John, who was watchful, avoided one thimble that unfortunately struck young Oliver in the eye. (Oliver foolishly claimed his tears were caused by a dust allergy; as Miss Candace led him away for a good dose of drops, he was crying all the harder.) But a couple of the thimbles hit John smartly on the back of his head, and he could only wince and say nothing.

  Throughout all of this, Nicholas dusted (and secretly inspected) the paintings, the fireplace, the mantel, the baseboards—everything that reasonably could be dusted. If the parlor concealed any secret panels, he did not detect them. He found this encouraging, for it strengthened his growing conviction that Mr. Collum had no advantages over him in the treasure hunt. Mr. Collum appeared to have been nosing about the parlor entirely at random, not following clues but simply hoping to get lucky.

  Nicholas had another reason to feel encouraged: He didn’t think Mr. Collum had the missing diary pages. Last night, while Mr. Collum was still out of town, he had let himself into Mr. Collum’s bedroom and searched it. The room had been the most simple and
spartan imaginable, with almost no furniture—a bed, a wardrobe, a desk—and not even a rug on the floor. It was easy to determine that nothing was hidden in there. And then this morning Nicholas had asked John about it, and John could not remember ever having seen Mr. Collum studying any torn-out pages.

  It seemed likely, therefore, that those pages had been removed by Mr. Rothschild. Perhaps they’d been destroyed long ago. That would be unfortunate if a secret combination had been written on them, but at least in that case Mr. Collum wouldn’t have it himself. And perhaps the pages had not been destroyed at all but were tucked away somewhere, and Nicholas and John, working together, would figure out the hiding place.

  Either way, it appeared that Mr. Collum had nothing to go on but hopes and hunches, whereas Nicholas had the observatory, a brilliant mind, a plan, and a partner….

  “Careful with that duster!” Mrs. Brindle called from across the parlor. “Dear heavens, I’ve never seen anyone attack anything so fiercely—you’ll take the paint right off that picture!”

  “Sorry, Mrs. Brindle,” Nicholas returned with a grin. “I suppose I’m just… just excited.”

  His back was to the room, but he heard the Spiders snickering at this and Moray whispering loudly, “Get a load of Pickle Nose—he gets excited about dusting!”

  A few children laughed, but Mrs. Brindle huffed angrily and told Moray that further name-calling would result in double duties for the remainder of the weekend. She clearly meant business, and Moray hushed.

  Nicholas turned to catch the bully’s eye and give him a wink. You wait, he thought, turning away again before Moray could react. Just you wait and see.

  That night the boys cleaned the observatory with a broom and mop that Nicholas, true to his word, had conjured. Then they retracted the viewing panels, and Nicholas stood on John’s shoulders to clear away the roof vines that dangled in. He had to stretch to reach them. Luckily the thick heels of John’s dilapidated old boots provided an extra two inches of height.

  “That’s why I conjured those boots instead of sneakers,” Nicholas said.

  “Naturally,” John said, gritting his teeth as he held tight to Nicholas’s ankles. “I’m sure it had nothing to do with what you could find in—well, wherever it is you’re getting these things. Your secret treasure trove.”

  “I’m hurt by your disbelief,” Nicholas grunted, yanking down the last of the vines. “Anyway, this place is the treasure trove, remember? At least we hope it is. There, it’s all clear—you can let me down.”

  They dragged all the vines out of the observatory, after which John insisted on sweeping the floor again. When at last their work was accomplished, Nicholas turned the lantern down low, and they lay beneath the opened dome, their hands behind their heads, gazing up at a completely cloud-covered sky.

  “It’s beautiful,” John said drily, and both of them giggled.

  “I’m glad you’re cheering up,” Nicholas said. “You’ve seemed awfully serious today.”

  “Well, I was a bit concerned about that telephone call!” said John indignantly. “I guess you were right, after all, but I think it was reasonable for me to feel worried. Not everyone can predict the future, you know, or conjure things out of thin air.”

  Nicholas chuckled. “Sure, it isn’t your fault, and of course you’re a very serious person to begin with. You almost never laugh—or even smile, for that matter.” He regretted the words the instant he uttered them. He had spoken without thinking. He had a pretty clear idea about John’s solemn moods and had never intended to mention them.

  For a time John was silent. Then he said, somewhat stiffly, “You lost your parents when you were a baby, didn’t you, Nick?”

  Nicholas closed his eyes, wishing he could start over. “Yes,” he said, miserable but resigned. “They died in a laboratory accident. They were scientists of some sort. I was sent to live with my aunt, but then she died, too. I don’t remember any of them. It’s been orphanages all my life.”

  After another pause, John said, “I’m sorry about all that, Nick. Honestly I am. But you know, for some of us it hasn’t been so long.”

  “Sorry.” Nicholas tried to think of a more fitting response, but nothing came to him. “Sorry, I do know that.”

  In a rather shaky voice John went on. “I lost my parents exactly fourteen months and five days ago. I miss them every day. What really gets me is I never realized how lucky I was before. Just normal things, like doing chores around the house—I had no idea how much I could miss that. But it was my home, and I was helping people who actually cared about me. Everything was different then. Everything.”

  John was quiet again after this. His breathing sounded irregular, and Nicholas thought he might be crying.

  Nicholas lay with his hands on his chest, thinking how hollow it felt, like an empty gourd. He had never missed having a family, though he had wanted one all his life. Yearned for one, even. Indeed, he used to like to imagine that he had a long-lost brother who would find him one day—it was perfectly possible, he would tell himself. Maybe his aunt could only afford to take in one child, and so the other had been sent elsewhere. At any rate, this brother would find him, and together they would fight off all the bullies and outsmart all the nasty adults. The fantasy had sustained him through many a hard time at Littleview.

  “Look, you’ve had plenty of your own problems, Nick,” said John in a strained voice. “And you may be smart, but you’re only nine. I don’t expect you to understand how I feel.”

  Nicholas considered this. “Well, I know it must be awfully hard, anyway. It’s why you like to keep so busy, right? To keep your mind occupied.”

  John rubbed at his eyes and gave a little sigh. “Sure, but then I always did like to keep busy, even before. I guess you do what you’re good at. I wish I could read like you, but the truth is I’m a slow reader. It takes me forever to get through a book, and if I sit still too long, my mind drifts. Anyway,” he said abruptly, sitting up, “I think that’s quite enough of that. Don’t we want to get started on the diary?”

  “Absolutely,” Nicholas agreed, and of course he really did want to. But it also occurred to him that, despite their uncomfortable conversation, he’d been enjoying himself, and part of him would have been content to keep on talking about other things. Well, he told himself, sitting up, when you’re both rich, you’ll have plenty of time for conversations, and you can talk about whatever you please.

  “Fine, then,” John said, rubbing his hands together. “I suppose we should start with the first entry that mentions the treasure, then go from there. You have a pretty good idea of the order, right?”

  Nicholas raised his eyebrows. “Of course I do. I told you, I have the whole thing memorized.”

  “What, all of it? I thought…” John’s look of surprise was plain enough, even in the gloom. “When you said you remembered it, I thought you meant—you know, more or less. Do you mean to say you remember the whole diary word for word?”

  “Sure!”

  John was growing excited. “Like that morning at breakfast? You know, on your first day, when you repeated everything I’d told you?”

  Nicholas nodded. “Exactly like that. Here, I’ll show you.” And without hesitating, he launched into another word-for-word repetition of the things John had said the first morning. He didn’t get far before John leaped to his feet in amazement.

  “I can’t believe this! You still remember all that? I mean, I knew you could—but I didn’t know you could—” He began to pace excitedly back and forth. “Do you mean to tell me, Nick, that you remember absolutely everything?”

  “As far as I know,” Nicholas replied with a shrug. “I thought you knew this already.”

  John wagged his head almost violently. “No, I didn’t! Sure, I knew you were smart as a whip, smarter than me, anyhow, and probably smarter than anyone I know—but this! I had no idea! Why, you’re like Einstein! Or… or Leonardo da Vinci! Or Galileo or Mozart!”

  Nicholas gr
inned. “I’ve never even touched a piano, so maybe not Mozart.”

  Abruptly John came to kneel beside Nicholas, the better to see his eyes in the dim light of the lantern. The older boy stared with almost unnerving intensity. “What did you read during your free time today?”

  “Oh, several things! First I read The Emergence of Electricity, then—”

  John hastily interrupted. “Fine, take that one. Let’s say I asked you what the second line on page forty-three was, could you tell me?”

  Nicholas thought a moment, then quoted: “ ‘And he was thrown against the wall with such force that his boots were knocked free of his feet. Miraculously, however, he survived his electrical encounter with little more than…’ ” He nodded. “That’s it. That’s the second line.”

  John clapped his hands to his head. “I can hardly stand it!” he cried, laughing. “But wait, he survived with ‘little more than’ what? Now I’m curious. You have to tell me!”

  By this time Nicholas was laughing, too, although in his usual restrained way (so that what would have been a guffaw came out as a sort of stuttering squeal). He was enjoying John’s amazement—which seemed so good-humored and generous, not like the jealous, bitter reactions he had so often experienced—and it was difficult not to laugh at least a little. But he soon checked himself, and he was about to tell John what had happened to the man in the book, when he noticed that something was different in the room.

  What it was exactly Nicholas could not say, but the observatory had definitely changed somehow. Was it the echoes of their voices? The draft in the air? He felt a prickling along the back of his neck, and with a frown he reached for the lantern. John, noticing his troubled expression, had likewise fallen silent, and he watched uneasily as Nicholas turned up the lantern flame and dispelled the shadows.

  In the stronger light, both boys saw the figure in the doorway.

  Both of them screamed.

  What happened next took only a moment, but the moment was full of smaller moments, each of them imprinted on Nicholas’s swiftly slipping consciousness. He felt himself losing his grip on the lantern. He felt John catching at his shoulder as he slumped sideways. He saw that the figure in the doorway—it was the girl, he saw that now—did not even flinch at their screams. Nor did she speak. But she smiled and raised an eyebrow, and it was perfectly clear what she was thinking: Now we’re even.