The Extraordinary Education of Nicholas Benedict

by Trenton Lee Stewart

  “It makes sense,” he said finally. “Moray probably didn’t think of reading the letter until after they’d already burned it. He hates to read, you know, and he was excited. By the time it occurred to him that he could have known something I didn’t, it was too late. So he lied. He wanted me to at least think that he did. He wanted to make me feel as bad as possible.”

  “Right!” Oliver said. “Which is why I wanted you to know the truth. But please, don’t say anything about this to the Spiders. They’ll kill me if they know I told you. I’m… well, I’m really sorry about everything. I’m sorry you lost your friend.”

  Nicholas sighed. “Thanks, Oliver,” he said wearily. “Don’t worry, I’m never going to talk to the Spiders again. Now you’d better go make your report to Mr. Collum. You can tell him I’m heading upstairs now.”

  Oliver seemed disappointed somehow, but he said nothing, only turned and hurried out. Nicholas trudged upstairs and leaned against his door, waiting. It was not Mr. Collum who showed up to unlock his door, however, but Mr. Pileus, now wearing his nightgown, nightcap, and slippers. He looked almost sheepish as he let Nicholas into his room, and Nicholas suddenly understood what those anxious glances on the Manor steps had been about. Mr. Pileus had known about John’s adoption, had known what Nicholas was about to learn. Everybody seemed to know everything but Nicholas.

  In his absence, a tarpaulin had been hung over the hole in his wall, and several boxes stacked in front of it. His cot had been moved into the empty space the boxes had occupied. Nicholas washed up and changed into his pajamas while Mr. Pileus waited. Then, seeing that Mr. Pileus was reluctantly beginning to speak, he said, “Don’t worry, Mr. Pileus; only a fool would sneak out that window on a night like tonight. I’m not going to do anything of the sort.”

  Mr. Pileus nodded and went out, locking the door behind him.

  For two hours Nicholas lay on his cot, gazing at the plaid pattern on his blanket. Then he rose, changed into his one set of dry clothes, and packed everything he possessed into his suitcase, including the blanket, including his shoes. Though the boxes had been moved around, he quickly located the one in which he had stashed the old, oversized boots, the ones he had always brought for John. He grimaced, remembering the way the two of them had joked about his conjuring the boots. No more jokes with John. No more anything.

  The boots were stowed inside his flour-sack backpack. Nicholas put the backpack on, unlocked his door, and returned for his suitcase. Then he blew out his candle, and in stocking feet he made his way down the servants’ stairs in the darkness. In the basement he found another tarpaulin, and by cutting it to length, with a small hole in the center, he fashioned a sort of rain cloak. With effort he squeezed his head through the hole. His head would get wet, the old boots would be muddy, but his clothes and his bags would remain dry, or mostly so. He paused at the side door to put on the boots, then left the Manor in the same way he had entered it the very first time. Skulking like a thief.

  It was a miserable walk to Pebbleton in the driving rain, and it took Nicholas several hours. Mud sucked at his boots, inside which his feet were wet and aching. His suitcase, though light, seemed heavier than a bag of stones after the first mile; after the second it felt heavier than an anvil. Nicholas slogged along with his eyes almost closed against the rain. One wretched step after the other.

  He had not gone far from the Manor before it occurred to him that he would not be able to tell Violet goodbye, either. He briefly considered crossing the hills to Violet’s farm, but he did not want her to see him like this, so downcast and defeated. He could never think of Violet without thinking of the drawing she had made of him—of that defiant, illuminated boy on the bluff. Now he began to wonder if the moon had spotlighted him only to call attention to his isolation, his insignificance. There he had sat, a lonely little boy on a huge, high rock as old as the world. What could his life possibly matter?

  No, Nicholas did not wish Violet to see this version of the boy in her drawing. He would try to write her a letter and explain how he could not stay at the Manor another day—not after what had happened. John had gone away to a new life, and Nicholas had been publicly humiliated, his secret exposed. Even if not for the Spiders, how could he stand to live under the authority of Mr. Collum, who had so cruelly mistreated him? In his letter, Nicholas would explain how he doubted they could have found the treasure, anyway. He’d found nothing useful in Stonetown. There were no more clues. The orphanage would have closed, and he would have been sent away soon.

  Nicholas shivered inside his cloak. It would not be a pleasant letter to write. Violet was going to be miserable, too. Her only friends would suddenly be gone. She’d no longer have any hope of finding the treasure. And like a mean-spirited symbol of all her losses, her old dream of mining-company money, already insubstantial as smoke, would finally drift away when that contract expired the day after tomorrow—and her dream of art school would be over for good. Nicholas could hardly bear to think of it.

  He would tell Violet not to worry about him, anyway. He would not tell her how frightened he was. He would not tell her that he had no idea what to do. He had a vague notion of hiding in the Stonetown Library, reading books by night, until he figured something out. But it would be hard to find food, harder still to keep from being discovered. He couldn’t trust himself to stay awake, and when he was asleep, his screams would give him away. Perhaps he was destined to live like a wild animal in the woods. That idea frightened him, too. All he knew for certain was that right now he needed to get away—to escape from everyone and everything that had caused him such anguish.

  In Pebbleton, in the hours before dawn, he found a dry space beneath the porch of the general store, and there he slept until his alarm clock awakened him from hideous dreams. He had been crying out in fear, but no one was around to hear him. It was for this reason that he had chosen the porch of an empty building on an empty street in town.

  Still wrapped in his rain cloak, Nicholas emerged from beneath the porch into a misty dawn. In the distance he saw the electric lamps of the train station glistening in the mist, and the light and the weather reminded him eerily of his arrival in Pebbleton, when he had been hopeful of making a new start in a new home. He wondered where that hope had come from. He couldn’t imagine being hopeful anymore.

  Like many a vagrant before him, Nicholas made his way to the train tracks. He knew the train schedule, of course—he’d memorized it without trying—and he intended to hop the first train of the day, which was due to arrive any minute. A short distance up the tracks was a little patch of woods, and there Nicholas hid, waiting, knowing that every minute that passed brought him closer to the moment his absence at the Manor would be discovered. If Mr. Collum telephoned the county sheriff, and the word got around that an orphan had run away, someone might think to search the train. So once again Nicholas was in a race with Mr. Collum—but this time Nicholas’s only hope was to escape, penniless and scared, into the larger world. That was how far his dreams had tumbled.

  Before long Nicholas heard the whistle in the distance, followed by the chugging of the train. Then he saw a light, and the engine appeared out of the gloom. The train was slowing down for its approach to the station, growing louder as it grew nearer, until the cars began clattering and screeching past, filling his vision. The noise was quite deafening. Nicholas clenched his teeth, trying to steel his nerves. He knew it was dangerous to hop a train, but he could not afford to let anyone see him boarding.

  As soon as he judged the train cars to be moving slowly enough, Nicholas darted out from his hiding place and began running awkwardly alongside the tracks. He stumbled, recovered, took hold of a ladder at the rear of a car, and with great difficulty—almost losing his grip, almost falling—he pulled himself up. His pulse, pounding in his ears, muted the sound of the train’s bells. He was so hot and shaky he might have just run a mile. But he had made it.

  By the time the train had pulled into the station, Nich
olas was in a washroom. He changed into his dry shoes, stowed the boots and his crude rain cloak inside his suitcase, and groomed himself with the aid of a mirror. He needed to appear as respectable as possible.

  Casually he made his way through the train cars, which had yet to acquire many passengers. Few of them even appeared to notice him. Only one, a sleepy-looking man with thick, bushy hair and a bedraggled suit, glanced at Nicholas for longer than a second. This man gazed at him, in fact, for several seconds, with a look of mild curiosity, and Nicholas was glad to leave him behind. He passed through a dining car, where the smell of food being cooked made his mouth water and his empty stomach growl. But a man was working behind the counter, and there was no chance of sneaking anything to eat. Nicholas moved on, searching for places to hide, in case hiding should prove necessary.

  At last he came to a dark, empty car near the front of the train. This seemed to be a good bet, and Nicholas was looking it over when he heard a familiar voice discussing a familiar problem.

  “I’m going to have to build a fence!” the stationmaster was saying. “That’s all there is to it!”

  “Big place you have out there, though,” said another voice. “A fence will cost you a pretty penny.”

  The stationmaster was speaking with the train conductor on the station platform, just outside the windows. Nicholas peered out. He didn’t recognize this conductor. The stationmaster must talk about his stolen eggs to anyone who would listen.

  “I know it’s going to cost me a pretty penny! But what else am I supposed to do? Go the rest of my life without eating another egg?”

  “Well, let me know how it turns out,” said the conductor, yawning. He turned to mount the steps of the very train car Nicholas was standing in.

  Nicholas dropped to his belly and crawled under a row of seats. There he lay, still and quiet, until the conductor had walked past him and the train had pulled away from the station. He had won the race with Mr. Collum. Now he had only to avoid the conductor.

  Avoiding the conductor did not prove to be easy, however. After a few more stops, the train began to fill up. There were passengers in every car now, and Nicholas could no longer hide beneath the seats when the conductor passed through collecting tickets. After the next stop he would be in a real pickle, so he worked his way through the train, studying all the passengers and formulating a plan. It was a good thing he did, too, for it wasn’t long before he found himself caught between passengers crowding the aisle behind him and the conductor approaching him from the front.

  The conductor, sweating and harried, nonetheless noticed Nicholas trying to brush past him, and he put out his arm. Nicholas was ready for this, though. Looking up with his most winning smile, he explained that he was part of a large family whose tickets had already been collected. He described the family, seated at the back of the train, in great detail, and claimed that he had boarded with them and been seated with them and that the conductor had taken his own ticket, as well. Didn’t the conductor remember?

  He spoke so earnestly and with such accurate detail that he almost convinced himself, and the conductor, for his part, was entirely persuaded. He trusted Nicholas’s account better than his own memory. “Of course, of course, young man,” he said, and patting Nicholas on the head, he moved on.

  Nicholas was safe.

  Or rather, he believed he was safe.

  After speaking with the conductor, Nicholas quickly took the nearest available seat in the crowded car, sitting with his arms folded protectively over his suitcase, not making eye contact with anyone around him. And so he sat for the next few minutes, weary and uncomfortable but extremely relieved—until he felt a tap on his shoulder, and everything changed forever.

  Nicholas looked up. It was the man in the bedraggled suit, the one with bushy hair who had looked at him right after he’d hopped the train.

  “Come with me to the dining car,” the man said quietly. “Let’s get a bite to eat and have a little talk.” His brown eyes, rimmed with red, did not express suspicion or displeasure. Nor was his voice unkind, but it was quite firm, and Nicholas sensed that trying to argue would only make matters worse. For the moment, anyway, it was best to play the part of the obedient boy, respectful of adults who wished to speak with him.

  “Sure,” Nicholas said lightly, and bringing his suitcase, he followed the man out of the car, his heart beating triple-time. Was the man some sort of railway official? Did he keep track of the tickets? Had he heard Nicholas lying to the conductor? Were they really going to the dining car, or had that just been an excuse to keep Nicholas from trying to get away?

  They really were going to the dining car. The man told Nicholas to order whatever he liked, and ordered coffee for himself, and paid for it all. They sat at a small, round table in the corner. All around them dishes clinked, and people ate and talked as if this were a regular day, a regular train journey. But Nicholas had a feeling he was sitting down to the most fateful meal of his life.

  “You look hungry,” the man said. He gestured at the eggs and biscuits and gravy Nicholas had ordered. “Please, tuck in.”

  Nicholas didn’t have to be told twice. Whatever was going to happen next, he might as well meet it with a full stomach. The eggs didn’t taste as good as Mr. Griese’s, but he hardly cared. He shoveled them into his mouth and washed them down with great gulps of lukewarm milk.

  The man sipped his coffee and looked casually about the car, giving Nicholas time to eat. He looked even more tired up close. He needed a shave, and his bushy brown hair, though carefully combed, bore the imprint of a hat worn at a strange angle. Down and forward, Nicholas thought, and instantly knew that the man had slept with his hat on, tilted down to cover his eyes.

  The man seemed to read his thoughts, or perhaps he had followed Nicholas’s gaze. He reached up and felt his hair, then looked about beneath his chair. “Now, where did I leave my hat?” he muttered. “Tell me, was I wearing it when you boarded at Pebbleton?” His eyes met Nicholas’s. They were not accusatory, nor even challenging, but they conveyed absolute certainty. They made it clear to Nicholas that there was no point lying to him.

  “No,” Nicholas said. “Maybe you took it off in your sleep.”

  “Maybe I did,” the man acknowledged. “Or maybe it fell off. I’ll need to check under my seat. I’m so tired I can hardly keep track of my own feet, much less hats and bags.” He sipped his coffee thoughtfully. After a pause he said, “How did you know I slept with my hat on?”

  “The mark in your hair,” Nicholas said through a mouthful of biscuit. He swallowed. “The angle.”

  The man looked at him, then shook his head wonderingly. “I thought perhaps I’d been wrong about Pebbleton. I thought you might have boarded much earlier and passed by me while I was asleep. Instead, it simply turns out that you are even more clever than I suspected.”

  “What makes you think I’m clever?” Nicholas asked. He was genuinely curious, for this man had struck him as being very clever himself.

  “First of all, the story you told the conductor was most impressive,” the man said with a smile. “If I hadn’t known better, I might have believed you myself. But I saw that family board—the family you claimed to be with—and they didn’t get on the train when you did. And yet you described them perfectly, as if you’d spent your whole life with them. Do you want something else to eat?”

  Nicholas had cleaned his plate. “No, thank you. I’m quite full.” This happened to be the truth, but it was also true that his stomach was clenching and unclenching like a fist. He was caught in his lie. He had suspected as much, but now he knew it for sure.

  “You’re welcome,” the man said. He extended his hand. “My name’s Harinton, by the way. Sam Harinton. Pleased to meet you….” He lifted his eyebrows inquiringly.

  “Matthews,” Nicholas replied, giving the man’s hand a firm shake. “James Matthews. Pleased to meet you, too.”

  Mr. Harinton nodded and sat back in his chair. “To continue, J
ames—or shall I call you Jim? Yes? To continue, Jim, another reason I know you’re clever is that you remembered whether or not I was wearing my hat when you first saw me. And then, just now, you deduced that I’d slept with it on, merely by looking at my hair. Now, if I hadn’t been traveling for three days without benefit of a shower, you wouldn’t have been able to tell that, I promise. When my hair is clean, it’s actually quite springy and healthy-looking.”

  Mr. Harinton winked, and Nicholas smiled. He saw that the man was trying to be jovial and friendly. But why? What did he want?

  “Finally, Jim,” said Mr. Harinton, “you are clever enough not to give your real name to a stranger whose purposes are unclear to you. Yes, I know that Jim is not your real name. We needn’t argue about it. Jim will do fine for now. More important, Jim, is that you are clever enough to see that I can tell when a person’s lying. I have a feeling that you can tell when someone is lying, too. Am I right?”

  “Usually,” Nicholas said. “At least, I think so.”

  Mr. Harinton nodded. “Some people just have a gift. As for me, I’ve had lots of training. I’m an attorney for the government. I’ve spent my career figuring out when people are lying and when they aren’t, and I’ve gotten pretty good at it, if I do say so myself.”

  “For the government?” Nicholas asked. “That sounds like an important job.”

  Mr. Harinton arched an eyebrow. He finished his coffee with a gulp. “Another thing I’ve gotten pretty good at, Jim, is knowing when people are trying to change the subject. Also when they’re trying to flatter you, to get you on their side. But listen, I’m already on your side, all right?”

  Nicholas shrugged. He did not know what to say.

  “All right,” said Mr. Harinton, as if answering himself. “Yes, I work for the government. I was stationed overseas during the war, but now my station is wherever I am—I mean, wherever they send me. I’ve been down in Chesterton for the last month. Now I’m heading overseas again. Am I telling the truth?”