The Extraordinary Education of Nicholas Benedict

by Trenton Lee Stewart

  But it was the final interruption that destroyed their hopes altogether. Violet and her brother happened to be there when it occurred. In fact, it was Violet who first understood it was coming. She was watching the activity with glazed eyes when suddenly she became aware of a rumbling, much different from the usual vibrations, issuing from the hillside beneath their feet. For several seconds no one else seemed to notice it. Then, just when Violet realized what the rumbling might be, men came streaming out of the mine, waving their arms and shouting, “Get back, get back!” The last to emerge were the engineer and his assistant—and they barely made it out. A billowing cloud of dust followed them out into the daylight, and just like that, the tunnel vanished—taking art school with it.

  The hill was too unstable for more drilling, Violet signed. That’s what the foreman said. He was extremely upset. He said that the deeper they had drilled, the greater his concerns had been, and that he had warned the company to shut down its operations. The company executives had not listened to him, but that would change now, he said. The conditions were much too risky. It would be too dangerous even to try to get the drill out.

  But the very next day the foreman’s boss came to my father and told him that the foreman had been badly mistaken. The drilling conditions in the hill were perfectly fine, he said, perfectly normal. Cave-ins were always a risk, even in the safest of operations, he said. The only problem was that this expensive drill was now temporarily out of reach, and trying to tunnel through the rubble to reach it might cause more rocks to fall on the drill and destroy it. Once the company had figured out how to solve these problems, they would continue their work. Officially, he said, the company had not ended its mining operations. The operations were definitely ongoing—the work was just interrupted.

  Nicholas was appalled. “Wait a minute! Do you mean they don’t intend to pay your family any money? But that’s outrageous!”

  Yes, but they have the law on their side. As long as that drill remains on our property, they can insist that the operations are ongoing. There can be no “withdrawal award” if there has been no official withdrawal. I have wished, so many times, that the cave-in had destroyed the drill completely. But everyone could see it, as plain as day, at the end of this little tunnel. It’s back there. There’s just no way for them to get to it. They can pretend to be working on the problem until the contract expires, and then they never have to think about it again.

  Nicholas spat in the dirt. “It’s just pure wickedness,” he muttered. “Pure, gross wickedness.”

  For a long time, Violet signed, I crawled back in there every day to look at it. I was small enough then—I’m not anymore.

  “You crawled in there?” Nicholas said. He peered into the little tunnel again, imagining spiders, scorpions, snakes—even another cave-in. If that tunnel had collapsed while Violet was crawling through it… He shuddered.

  My parents didn’t know, of course. We were all forbidden to go anywhere near this place. It was too dangerous. But I crept up here and crawled down the tunnel to see the drill. Everything had collapsed around it, but that one pocket remained, as if it were protected by magic. Oh, I hated that drill. I despised it. But I took care of it like gold. When I was your age, I was more naive than you are. I thought there must be some mistake. At least I wanted to believe it. And so I greased everything and wrapped the whole drill in cloth, like a mummy, so that when the company finally got it out, they could go right back to work. I was so stupid then.

  “You weren’t stupid, you were just decent!” Nicholas said angrily. “You just didn’t realize that grownups are so selfish. But they are! If you aren’t in their family, you might as well not be a person! They don’t—” He broke off. Violet wasn’t looking at him. She was crying silently, looking down that long, narrow tunnel.

  After a time she turned to him. My parents have worked so hard, trying to save enough money, trying to make it up to me. But they couldn’t save enough. There just isn’t any way. And now that five-year contract is due to expire in weeks—can you believe it? This is what I mean about the timing. After all these years, it’s suddenly as if one ruined dream is finally ending and a better one is opening, right at the same time.

  Violet smiled at Nicholas through her tears. That’s what I mean when I say this all seems fated. It’s too perfect, isn’t it? I have you now, you and John, and we’re going to find that treasure, aren’t we?

  Nicholas smiled back at her. “Count on it,” he said, and he threw her a salute. “Art school, here you come.”

  At breakfast the next morning, an owlish, bespectacled boy named Vern was wearing a dunce cap. The Spiders insisted that Vern sit with them, so that they might more easily mock him and enjoy themselves. There was a great deal of laughter in the dining room, and a certain amount of crying on Vern’s part, that Mr. Pileus did nothing about, for it was he who had been on duty when Vern woke up screaming, and he was evidently resentful and weary. He sat drinking coffee and staring at nothing with reddened eyes.

  “He seemed to think Vern was dying,” John told Nicholas over their oatmeal and scrambled eggs. “He was pale and shaking, not very much comfort to poor Vern. It was only a nightmare, of course.”

  Nicholas leaned over the table. In a low voice he said, “Is that what happened, then?”

  John nodded. They spoke no more about it until they were outside walking around, at which time John explained that his hand had actually been on the door handle—this after two long minutes of creeping from cot to door—when Vern screamed. Luckily, a full-blown commotion ensued, and by the time Mr. Pileus had gotten his lamp lit, John was only one of several boys who appeared to have leaped groggily to their feet. John had rubbed his eyes and acted confused and got back into his cot as Mr. Pileus shushed them all and put out the light again.

  “That’s an awfully close call,” Nicholas said. “What if Vern had waited a few more minutes to have his nightmare? You would have been gone. Someone would surely have noticed.”

  “You don’t have to tell me,” John said. “That’s all I could think about as I lay there waiting for everyone to go to sleep again.” He looked sheepishly at Nicholas. “It took them a long time, though—Mr. Pileus was shaken up, I think, and couldn’t get back to sleep—he kept tossing and turning. And I… well, listening to everyone’s breathing…”

  “It’s okay,” Nicholas said. “I can’t decently complain about you falling asleep when you didn’t mean to, can I? But say, does one of the other men sleep in Mr. Pileus’s room when he’s in the dormitory?”

  “Not that I know of. Why?”

  Nicholas rolled his eyes. “That butler’s rope in my room is supposed to sound a bell in Mr. Pileus’s room if I have an emergency. Clearly, Mr. Collum didn’t think everything through when he made my ‘special arrangement.’ I’m glad I have my own way out.”

  “How do you get out, anyway?” John asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

  Nicholas only shook his head. “Nice try.”

  They spent the rest of their walk discussing what Nicholas had learned from Violet the night before. John was every bit as disgusted with the mining company as Nicholas had been, and he seemed deeply moved at the thought of Violet’s broken dreams. He grew quiet and somber when Nicholas told him about Violet’s parents, how they had worked extra hard to save up their money, only to fail in the end.

  “I’m sure she could go eventually,” Nicholas said, “after she found a job and was able to pay for school herself. But that might take years. Much better to find treasure than a job, don’t you think? It’s quicker, anyway.”

  John gave Nicholas a puzzled look. “You seem awfully certain she could find a job, Nick. What sort of job do you think she can find? Jobs are scarce, and Violet’s deaf and mute. Sure, she’s talented, but you can bet a lot of people wouldn’t give her any chance to prove it. I don’t think it would be as easy as you think. Did Violet say something about getting a job?”

  “Sure, she said she hoped to t
ake on some sewing work for a lady in Pebbleton this year.” Nicholas frowned. “She did say it wouldn’t be for very much money, though. Just a little extra to help her parents out.”

  John said nothing further. Neither did Nicholas, whose mood had gone sour. He disliked being wrong, disliked it intensely. The truth was, he should have known better, indeed would have known better if he had taken a moment to think. But he had been caught up thinking about other things. Treasure, mostly, and the glory of finding it.

  Nicholas was not, however, especially saddened by this new perspective on Violet’s problems. For one thing, he felt certain that the treasure was going to solve them. For another (though one day he would be ashamed to remember it), in some strange way he was actually pleased to know of her misfortune, to be on the inside of her miserable story. He felt the same way about John. Nicholas was thrilled to have friends who, like him, felt set apart from everyone else. For together they were not set apart—or rather, they were, but they were set apart together. The feeling was so unfamiliar, and so pleasant, that even in his downcast mood Nicholas found himself thinking it would almost be nice if he never solved the mystery, never found the treasure, but instead went on like this indefinitely, with his two outcast friends, meeting in secret, with all their problems to discuss and an enormous mystery to solve.

  But Nicholas still had to get through his days at the Manor, and the days were tricky at best, awful at worst. Later that morning, for example, he awoke from a nap to find himself locked inside a pitch-black basement.

  It had happened like this: During Crafts and Skills, Mr. Pileus had sent Nicholas and Vern to the basement to fetch paint thinner and varnish. Nicholas suspected that Mr. Pileus was still upset with both of them—they had both given him a good scare in the past couple of days—and wanted them out of his sight as much as possible. That would also explain why he didn’t check on Nicholas but simply accepted Vern’s explanation (a truthful one, as it happened) that he had succumbed to a nap. Mr. Pileus had only grunted and sent Vern back for the remainder of the varnish.

  Unfortunately, Moray, seeing an opportunity, had gripped Vern’s elbow before he left and whispered for him to turn off the light and lock the basement door. Vern understood, of course, that the humiliating dunce cap on his head would be the least of his problems if he disobeyed. And so as he exited the basement for the second time, he turned Mr. Pileus’s key, which had been left in the lock, and scurried guiltily away.

  Nicholas remained in the basement for two hours. No one came to check on him. John told him later that he had asked Mr. Pileus if he might do so, but Mr. Pileus had grumpily refused. As soon as Crafts and Skills ended, the Spiders hurried inside, so that they might be the ones to unlock the door and witness the pleasingly sad spectacle of Nicholas huddled alone at the bottom of the stairs.

  The light had been turned back on, but that was no surprise. Any frightened fool could have groped his way up the stairs and fumbled around until he found the switch. What surprised the Spiders was the music. And as they descended the stairs to discover their so-called victim riding on a stationary bicycle, grinning hugely and singing along to a phonograph—a phonograph somehow powered by the bicycle he was pedaling—their surprise turned to confusion, and finally to fury. While they had been stripping and varnishing furniture in the morning heat, Nicholas Benedict had been enjoying himself?

  “Hello there, fellows!” Nicholas called, somewhat breathlessly, as they came down. “How was Crafts and Skills?”

  “What… is… this?” Moray seethed, and Iggy and Breaker glowered intensely.

  “Why, it’s music!” Nicholas cried. “I suppose the phonograph was considered broken—this bicycle, too, for that matter—but things are rarely broken for good, you know, if only you have proper tools and know how to use them.” He waved a hand around him, still pedaling. “Luckily, the basement is full of tools, so I’ve just been tinkering around.”

  Moray stalked forward with the obvious intention of yanking Nicholas off the bicycle, but just then Mr. Pileus entered the basement, followed by several of the other boys. Nicholas quickly explained that, as the basement door had been locked—accidentally, I’m sure”—and no one had answered his shouts for help, he had naturally felt a need to occupy himself.

  Mr. Pileus studied the bicycle and the phonograph in silence. Then he grunted. And then he smiled. And then he selected a different record from the box of records Nicholas had found, and he took a turn on the bicycle.

  It had turned out to be an enjoyable morning, therefore, and Nicholas was feeling more than a little triumphant. Yet at the same time, somewhere in the shadows of his mind, a voice was asking “What next?” The incident reminded him that he could never let his guard down, not even for a moment. As long as he lived at the Manor, he could never relax, and he would never be completely safe.

  It would have been bad enough even without the Spiders. Look at poor Vern, for instance. Not only was he forced to wear the dunce cap because of his nightmare, he’d been given extra chores for the day. And then, because he’d “accidentally” locked Nicholas in the basement, he was given extra chores for the entire week. The punishment was awfully harsh, Nicholas thought. For him, losing so much free time would have been torture. All that lost reading time!

  Reading was exactly what Nicholas was doing that afternoon when Vern came into the library with a feather duster. The pitiful boy puttered miserably about without meeting anyone’s eye, his dunce cap giving his head the ridiculous look of an upside-down ice-cream cone. From time to time Vern glanced out through the open doorway, and each time he did, he saw Mr. Collum’s stern face looking back at him through the entranceway mirror, and in evident terror he redoubled his efforts with the duster.

  Nicholas observed all this with a mixture of pity and amusement, though only with part of his attention, for as usual he was deeply engrossed in his reading. As he stood at the shelves, however, he slowly became aware of the fact that Vern was sidling toward him, dusting the books nearer and nearer to Nicholas. He felt vaguely irritated—surely Vern could have picked other places to dust just then—and in fact was about to suggest as much, when he saw Vern slip a small, folded piece of paper into the empty space on the shelf from which Nicholas had taken his current book. He saw Vern cast a frightened glance at him before quickly sidling away again.

  Nicholas sighed. No doubt it was a threat from the Spiders, or some sort of warning or ultimatum. He was tempted not even to look at it, but as always curiosity got the better of him. He unfolded the slip of paper and read: I am relly sorry for locking that door I had no choise. And with a start, he realized that the note was from Vern himself. Turning around, he saw Vern scurrying out of the library without looking back.

  What do you know, he thought. Someone around here actually has a conscience.

  On an impulse, Nicholas put away his book and hurried out into the entranceway, thinking that if no one else was around, he might persuade Vern to talk to him. He could use another ally, even if it had to be a secret one.

  He met with no such luck, however. The entranceway was already empty, and Nicholas saw no one in the east or west passage. He went to check the kitchen, but there was no sign of Vern there, either. Well, it was a long shot, anyway, he thought, and started back toward the library. He stopped to poke his head into the butler’s pantry, just in case. It was empty, too, and Nicholas was about to withdraw, when he heard agitated voices coming from the anteroom beyond it.

  The Spiders’ voices.

  Nicholas considered. The door to the anteroom was slightly ajar, and it was dark in the butler’s pantry. The conditions for eavesdropping were perfect. Could this be a trap? Had Vern been sent to him as bait? He glanced around. He sniffed the air. He hesitated a moment longer. Then he slipped into the butler’s pantry and crept toward the anteroom door, poised to flee at the first hint of trouble.

  “It’s embarrassing!” Breaker was grumbling. “He goes around like he doesn’t have a care in
the world! Like he’s enjoying himself!”

  “What if people start to think he’s smarter than us or something?” Iggy put in. “I mean, he—he isn’t, right? I mean, you don’t think he can really, you know—”

  “Shut up, Iggy,” Moray snapped. “Now listen, both of you, we’re going to get him, all right. I don’t care if we have to take a punishment for it. We’re going to get him good—so good that everyone will see it. There won’t be any doubt.”

  “I don’t want to get punished, though,” Breaker protested.

  “Me, neither,” Iggy whined. “Can’t we get him some other way?”

  “We’ll keep our eyes open, sure. But if we don’t get a safe crack at him soon, we’re going to have to take our chances. Otherwise, we look like fools.”

  “Well, if we’re going to get punished for it,” Breaker muttered, “we’d better make it good.”

  “By good you mean bad, right?” Iggy said.

  “What do you think?” Breaker snarled.

  “It will be bad, all right,” Moray said. His tone was harsh and determined. “You can count on it.”

  After this dismaying pronouncement, the Spiders went out the back door, and Nicholas heard nothing further. He had heard enough, in any case, to fill his belly with dread. If the Spiders were willing to take punishment, there was no limit to what they might do to him, and very little he could do to protect himself.

  Nicholas trudged back to the library. Which was the worse fate? he wondered. To be surprised by an unavoidable vicious attack, or to know it was coming?

  The answer made little difference, he knew.