by John Saul
“Aw, come on, Hildie,” Jeff Aldrich complained. “It’s more fun if we cheat.”
“Sure it is,” Hildie agreed. “And if what I know about Josh is right, cheating’s going to be about the only way you’ll beat him, once he catches on.”
Jeff grinned slyly up at her. “Wanta bet?”
Hildie’s brows rose. “Sure,” she agreed. “I’ve got a dollar that says Josh beats you first time out. But you have to promise to show him all the moves, and not get creative when you play. Deal?”
“Deal,” Jeff agreed.
“I’ll make sure he doesn’t cheat,” Brad Hinshaw said. Instantly, he shifted from playing against Jeff to demonstrating to Josh how all the moves worked and why he was making them. Though he talked so quickly that Brenda was immediately confused, Josh seemed to be following every word he said. After watching for only a few seconds, Brenda let herself be guided into the house.
Thirty minutes later, after she’d had a full tour of the house—save for the cupola on the fourth floor, which Hildie had explained was Dr. Engersol’s private apartment—Brenda sank down into the depths of the leather-covered sofa in Hildie Kramer’s office, grateful for a moment in which to collect her thoughts in such a comfortable setting. Hildie’s big desk was cluttered with papers and framed photos, and a well-used ceramic mug sat next to a plate on which a doughnut—clearly part of Hildie’s morning snack—remained. Brenda felt overwhelmed by everything she’d seen. Nothing about the place was anything like what she’d been expecting. From what she’d seen so far, the Academy didn’t resemble a school at all. Instead it appeared to be just what it looked like from the outside: a huge home where people lived.
She’d seen the immense dining room. Like most of the house, it appeared very much as it had been when old Eustace Barrington had died back in 1942, at the age of 103. The walls were still covered with red silk, and the original sideboards, filled with china, stood against them as they had for more than a century. An immense crystal chandelier hung in the center of the room, its pendants brightly polished. The only change, Hildie explained, was that the original dining table at which Eustace Barrington had often entertained fifty people at formal dinners, was gone, replaced by much smaller tables for four or six.
In each of the more than twenty rooms Brenda had been shown, mahogany paneling gleamed on the wainscoting, and ornate plaster moldings adorned the ceilings.
A music room at the back of the ground floor overlooked a broad terrace and the hills rising up behind the school. “According to Mr. Barrington’s will,” Hildie had explained as they’d entered, “the house was to be preserved in its original condition, right down to the furniture. He left a huge endowment, and directed that the place be kept as a museum. But he did realize that a time might come when even the endowment wouldn’t be enough to maintain the mansion, and he put in a clause to the effect that in the event the endowment wasn’t sufficient for upkeep, the university could put the house to use, provided that—and I quote—‘it be maintained as a residence in as close as is practically possible to its original condition, which was as a home for the children to use and enjoy.’ ”
She’d gone on to note that the word “children” had proved to be the key. The lawyers were able to argue that since he hadn’t specified his children, the clause could be interpreted to mean that any children could enjoy the house, and that as long as the building was used for the benefit of children, the will would be satisfied. “Actually, it was Dr. Engersol who first came up with the idea,” Hildie told her now.
“Dr. Engersol?” Brenda asked.
“The director of the school,” Hildie explained. “The Academy was his idea. He’s always been interested in gifted children, and when it became obvious that the house was turning into a massive white elephant, he went to work.” She smiled as she recounted the manner in which George Engersol had gone about building his school. “I assume you’re familiar with the term ‘nerd’?”
Brenda nodded. “Some of the kids call Josh that all the time.”
“I’ll bet they do,” Hildie agreed. “Anyway, this whole area is filled with people who were nerds when they were kids. Except they’re not nerds anymore. Now they’re computer millionaires, and they have more money than they know what to do with. Dr. Engersol went to every one of them and explained what he wanted to do. It was very simple, really. He just told them he wanted to set up a school for kids who were like they’d once been—a school totally geared to meet those needs. Not just academic needs, but social and psychological needs as well. Needless to say, the response was incredible. Within a year the Academy was totally funded. The money still pours in.”
Brenda spotted an opportunity to voice the worry that had been growing within her from the moment she’d heard about the school. “But it has to be expensive,” she ventured.
Hildie nodded. “It costs a fortune to run,” she agreed. “But Dr. Engersol covered that, too. Since brilliance isn’t a function of wealth, he insisted that no financial demands be put on any of our kids’ families. So we operate on a sliding scale. The higher a family’s income, the higher our fees. But they never exceed what the family can comfortably afford.”
Brenda swallowed nervously, and hoped her voice didn’t betray the extreme embarrassment she was feeling. “I—I don’t know if I can afford anything at all,” she began.
Hildie stopped her with a gesture. “We already know that,” she said gently. “You must understand that money isn’t a problem here. We were set up with the purpose of dealing with children like Josh, no matter what they can afford to pay. Dr. Engersol’s interest is in providing them with an environment in which they can flourish. We’re not here to take your money, Brenda. We’re here to help kids like Josh, who have brilliant minds and all the problems that usually go along with that brilliance.”
“Lord knows, he’s got problems.” Brenda sighed. “Sometimes it seems like he’s got nothing but problems.”
“A lot of the kids are like that here,” Hildie said ruefully. “At least they are when they come. And a lot of those problems run far deeper than their families know. Or at least,” she added carefully, “they don’t know about them until their kids try to kill themselves.”
The words struck Brenda sharply. “You know about what Josh did?” she asked.
“Of course.” Hildie looked deep into Brenda’s eyes as she spoke, her voice warm. “That’s one of the reasons we wanted to meet him as quickly as possible.” She moved out from behind her desk and joined Brenda on the sofa. “I know what Josh did must have struck you as bizarre,” she went on. “But with children like him, suicide is much more common than it is among children whose intelligence falls within the normal range. When you think about it, it makes sense. They’re bored in school, they have little in common with their peers, and when they start getting into trouble—which they often do, simply as a way of entertaining themselves—they begin to feel like failures. The whole thing can turn into a downward spiral in which the child feels more and more isolated, more and more out of touch with everything around him, and finally death seems like the only way out of what, to them, is a miserable life. Children, no matter how gifted, can’t see far into the future, you know. To them, a year is almost a lifetime, and telling them that things will be fine when they grow up does no good at all. So here we try to put them in an environment where they are with their intellectual and emotional peers, rather than simply their chronological peers, I’m sorry to have to say it, but what they told you in Eden was true—there’s nothing they can do for Josh there, nothing they have to offer him. If he stays there, his isolation will only get worse,”
Brenda took a deep breath, knowing that Hildie Kramer’s words had the ring of truth, “Are you saying you’ll take him, then?” she asked, uncomfortably aware that her hands had begun sweating.
“I’m almost certain we will,” Hildie replied. “This afternoon, after lunch, Dr. Engersol will give Josh some tests and have a talk with him. From
his records, I doubt very much that there will be any reason for us to turn him down. But there’s another question, of course,” she added.
Brenda’s brow furrowed with uncertainty. “Another question?” she repeated.
Hildie smiled thinly. “The question of Josh himself. Does he want to come here?”
Brenda felt the hope that had been building inside her begin to crumble. Should she lie to this woman? But there was something about Hildie Kramer that she found reassuring. Even though she hadn’t met Hildie until less than an hour ago, she felt she could trust her. “I—I’m not sure,” Brenda said. “When I first suggested it to him, he thought—well, he thought it was a place for crazy kids, and that I was trying to punish him for—for what he’d done.”
Hildie nodded thoughtfully. “That’s only to be expected. But you said that’s what he thought at first. Has he changed his mind?”
Brenda thought about it, remembering Josh’s quietness over the last few days, when he’d stayed at home with his sister and Mabel Hardwick while she’d gone to work. As she thought about it, she realized that he’d seemed to be on good behavior since she’d brought him home from the hospital.
As if he was hoping that if he were good enough, she wouldn’t send him to the Academy?
But he’d gone to the library, and apparently read everything he could about not only the Academy, but the man for whom it was named, as well. “I don’t know,” she finally admitted. “He’s been awfully quiet, and I haven’t sent him back to school yet. He really hasn’t said much one way or another. Except he’s always hated school. I don’t have any idea what he might say if we asked him.”
Hildie smiled almost conspiratorially. “In that case, let’s not ask him. Let’s just let him get a feel of the place, and get to know some of the kids. If he’s like most of them, he’ll have slid right into things before he even stops to think about whether he wants to or not.”
Brenda cocked her head, regarding the older woman. “Is that why you left him outside, instead of bringing him in to show him around?”
“Of course,” Hildie said. “The sooner he starts making friends, the more he’s going to want to be here.” She glanced out the window, sizing up the chess game that was still in progress only a few yards away. “From what I can see, it looks like we’re stuck here for about another thirty minutes. Would you like a cup of coffee?”
Brenda eyed the single doughnut that remained on the plate on Hildie’s desk. “Would you mind if I ate that?” she asked timidly. “I’m afraid I didn’t take time for us to stop for breakfast.” She didn’t add that she also hadn’t wanted to spend the money breakfast would have cost. While Hildie passed her the plate with the doughnut, then picked up a phone and asked someone for a pot of coffee and two cups, Brenda looked out the window, trying to follow the chess game in which her son appeared to be totally engrossed. As she watched, Jeff Aldrich moved a piece, capturing one of Josh’s.
“I guess he’s not doing too good,” she observed, hearing her own defensiveness. “But it’s only his first game. I don’t think he ever even saw a chess set before, except on television.”
Hildie stole another peek out the window, then smiled. “Looks to me like he’s doing just fine. Right now, I’d say the odds are about two-to-one that Jeff’s going to have to pay me off.” She chuckled mischievously. “And, oh, how that boy hates it when he loses bets with me!”
Brenda took a bite of the doughnut, then smiled at Hildie. “You really love these kids, don’t you?” she asked.
“Every one of them,” Hildie replied. “There’s nothing as satisfying as watching these children grow up and become everything it’s possible for them to become.”
They’ll take him, Brenda said silently to herself, forming the words more as a prayer than anything else. They’ve just got to take him. He belongs here.
As Brenda MacCallum and Hildie Kramer stepped out onto the loggia half an hour later, Josh glanced up for a split second, then quickly returned his attention to the board. In his mind, he reviewed once more all the various moves the pieces he still controlled could make, then shifted his point of view to the other side, calculating all the possible countermoves Jeff could make to whatever he might do.
Unless there was something he hadn’t noticed, he could move his castle four spaces ahead, and no matter what Jeff did, he would be able to capture Jeff’s king on his next move.
And then what would happen?
Jeff was the same age as the boys in Josh’s class at Eden School, and he remembered the looks in their eyes on Monday, when he’d been able to answer the questions they had not.
Angry looks, looks that had hurt him almost as much as if they’d hit him.
Would Jeff look at him the same way?
Or had Jeff deliberately lost, making mistakes on purpose?
In his mind he reviewed the whole game, move by move. The image of the board was clear, and as he mentally replayed the long match, he very carefully studied everything Jeff had done.
None of his moves had been stupid, and none of his mistakes—if there had been any—had been obvious.
And the situation now was obvious, too.
So if he didn’t make the move with the castle, Jeff would know that he himself was throwing the game.
Still he hesitated.
And then, next to him, he heard Brad’s voice. “Come on, Josh, do it. He knows you’re going to. Why don’t you just finish him off?”
Josh glanced up to see both boys watching him. Brad looked eager to see the last move, but Jeff looked …
What?
Not mad. In fact, he looked as if he knew what was coming, and was just waiting for it to happen.
Tentatively Josh reached out and shifted the castle.
“Checkmate!” Brad crowed. “He got you! On his very first game, he got you!”
Josh didn’t move, waiting.
A smile—slightly twisted, but nevertheless a smile—appeared on Jeff’s lips. If he was angry, his eyes didn’t show it. Indeed, they barely showed anything. “Pretty good,” Jeff admitted. “Maybe we ought to enter you in the tournament this year.”
“And maybe you ought to pay me my dollar,” Hildie Kramer, appearing at the door, reminded him.
Jeff shrugged. “All my money’s up in my room. How ’bout if I pay you later on?”
“How ’bout if you get my dollar before I forget about it?” Hildie countered.
“Aw, come on, Hildie, gimme a break—”
“A bet’s a bet. If you can’t stand to lose, don’t play the game. Now go on.”
“Aw, Jeez,” Jeff groaned, but got to his feet and signaled to Josh to come with him. “Come on, you might as well see how terrible the rooms are here. Maybe you can talk your mom out of putting you in this jail.” He ducked out of the way as Hildie took a playful swipe at him, and a moment later darted into the house, with Josh following.
As they entered the huge foyer, Josh stopped, gazing around him in wonder. At the foot of the stairs, Jeff grinned at him.
“Cool, huh?” he said.
Josh nodded, his eyes fixed on the brass cage of the elevator. “Does that work?” he breathed.
Jeff’s grin broadened. “Sure. Wanta ride it?”
Josh nodded mutely, already moving toward the ancient contraption. He pulled the door open, watching as the polished brass slats of the barrier folded in on themselves. Stepping inside, he waited for Jeff, then closed the door with a resounding clang. He pressed a worn black button with a faintly visible arrow pointed upward still etched into its surface, and the machine came to life. From somewhere below, gears meshed, and the car jerked into motion, rattling satisfyingly as it rose slowly to the second floor, guided only by its skeletal frame.
“Really cool,” Josh breathed as he followed Jeff out onto the second floor landing.
“Wait’ll you see my room,” Jeff replied. “It’s the coolest one in school.”
Josh frowned, remembering Jeff’s words of only
a few moments ago. “But you said it was like a jail—”
“I was just giving Hildie a hard time. Come on.”
He led Josh to a room at the end of the hall. Opening the door, he stepped aside to let Josh go in first. “Ta-da!” he sang, flinging out an arm as if he were a magician who’d just amazed his audience. “The most excellent room in school, awarded to me because I’m a truly awesome person!”
Josh gazed around the large room. It was at least four times the size of the one he shared with his baby sister at home, and had windows on two sides. There was a desk covered with a scattering of books and papers, and an unmade bed with a jumble of dirty clothes at its end. But what grabbed Josh’s attention was an enormous aquarium that sat against the wall next to one of the windows. It wasn’t like anything he’d ever seen before, and it was filled with fish he instantly recognized from pictures he’d seen in the Eden library’s collection of National Geographies.
“Jeez,” he whispered. “That’s saltwater, isn’t it?”
“Uh-huh,” Jeff grunted. As Josh went over to look more closely at the aquarium, Jeff began rooting around in his desk in search of the money he kept hidden there.
“How do you keep it so clean?” Josh asked. “In school, we couldn’t even keep a little freshwater one balanced.”
“It’s computerized,” Jeff told him. “See?” He began showing Josh all the sensors in the tank, sensors that were attached to the computer that sat on his desk. “The computer’s always monitoring it, keeping the water aerated and checking all the filters. It even keeps track of the salinity, and tells me what I need to add.”
“Wow,” Josh breathed. “How long have you had it?”
Jeff shrugged. “A while. Since last year. But I’m getting kind of tired of it. I mean, fish don’t do anything, you know?”
“But it’s neat,” Josh protested. “If I had something like this—”