• • •
That night, while Philip slept, Chris lay in bed thinking about how much his life had changed in such a short space of time. It was a strange feeling, as if a weight had literally been lifted off his shoulders, and yet in some ways he felt unnerved by it, as if he might suddenly wake up and find that this had all been a dream. Barely twenty-four hours had passed since his arrival at Myers Holt, and yet the overdue bills, the desperation he had felt as Frank had refused his offer of his father’s medal, and the arguments with his mother all seemed like faded memories from another life, and when Chris finally fell asleep, he did so with a contented smile on his face.
• CHAPTER TEN •
Tuesday, November 27
The next morning the children of Myers Holt woke up excited to find out what the day had in store for them. They wolfed down their breakfasts and rushed over to the Dome. Climbing over the hill, they saw a young man in a red tracksuit waiting by the side of the pool.
“You’re one minute late,” he said, tapping his watch with his finger, a frown on his face. “I never knew a man come to greatness or eminence who lay abed late in the morning.”
“Eh?” said Rex.
“Jonathan Swift,” said Philip.
“I’m impressed, young man,” said the teacher sternly, “but I’d be more impressed if you were here on time. Now, is this everybody?”
The children nodded.
“Good. My name is Mr. Green, and I’ll be taking you for PE every day.”
“Every day?” said Rex.
“No pain, no gain,” said Mr. Green, smiling.
“I prefer ‘no pain, no pain,’ ” replied Rex. “I think I’ll sit this one out.”
“And I think you’ll join us,” said Mr. Green, leading Rex by the arm. Rex groaned but didn’t resist.
“The changing rooms are over there,” said Mr. Green, pointing to a handle on one of the Dome’s screens. “Your swimsuits and towels are inside. See you in five minutes.”
Ten minutes later the children appeared, shivering. Mr. Green gave them a disapproving glance and then instructed them to get into the warm, clear waters and start swimming lengths. He proceeded to shout motivational quotes at them for the next hour as they swam from one end of the pool to the other, again and again. The shouting was mostly directed at Rex, who spluttered and coughed as he doggy-paddled his way slowly from one end of the pool to the other. Sebastian, in the meantime, barely paused the entire time, gliding through the water like a fish.
Finally the hour was up, and the children climbed out, exhausted.
“Don’t tell me you don’t all feel better,” said Mr. Green.
Rex, who was bending over and taking deep breaths, looked up at Mr. Green and raised his eyebrows.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” said Mr. Green, laughing. “Good work, all of you,” he said, giving them a thumbs-up. “Now that I’ve got your hearts pumping, time to get those brains working too. So go change and have a quick drink. See you all tomorrow and . . . don’t be late!”
• • •
Ms. Lamb walked into the classroom and found the children already sitting at their desks, their hair still damp, chatting amongst themselves. She slammed the door shut to get their attention, and their heads all snapped round to see a short woman wearing high-heeled turquoise leather boots that didn’t look as if they could support the rather large-framed body they were carrying. Never had a name been less suited to the person who owned it. The green leather suit she wore seemed to be made to fit somebody much smaller, and younger, and she had on so much black eye makeup that it made her look like a panda in costume. And if that wasn’t bad enough, Chris could swear that Ms. Lamb had a mustache.
Chris heard Rex stifle a laugh behind him.
“Good morning,” she said, not smiling. “Sit up and stop being silly,” she barked at Rex. “I am Ms. Lamb, and I will be teaching you how to use your Ability for Mind Access.” She walked over to her desk and placed on it the pile of books she was carrying. “So . . . ,” she said, looking over at each one of them, “this is what I have to work with.” She didn’t look impressed.
“You,” said Ms. Lamb, pointing to Sebastian, “what do you know about Mind Access?”
“I . . . not know nothing,” said Sebastian.
“No, clearly not. Anybody else?” she said, looking at the rest of them. Nobody moved.
“Why doesn’t that surprise me,” she said, rolling her eyes.
“You—girl in pink—what is telepathy?”
“I—I—don’t know,” said Daisy, looking very nervous.
“Telepathy—the ability to send and receive thoughts. Repeat.”
“Telepathy. The ability to send and receive thoughts,” repeated the children.
“This is the most important skill that you gain with the Ability.”
“We can read minds?” exclaimed Rex.
“Be quiet, boy!” barked Ms. Lamb. “You—hand these out,” she said to Philip, pointing at the pile of books.
Philip stood up and passed the books round. Chris looked down at his spiral-bound copy. It had a faded red cover and the same diagram as the one painted on the wall, below the words, in thick black lettering, THE ABILITY TRAINING MANUAL.
“We have not had enough time to update this from the last edition, printed in 1962. Much of the information is irrelevant, as you will be learning it in the think tanks. For our purposes we are interested in chapter four onward only. Turn to that page now.”
Chris turned to the start of chapter four and saw the diagram on the cover spread out over two pages.
“This is a map of the human mind. It is not an accurate representation, of course, but it is the simplest way to organize the information you will have to access. Glance at it and commit it to memory,” She paused a few seconds. “You, girl with the frizzy hair.”
“Lexi.”
“Not interested. Now, look up and tell me what the first long yellow box is at the bottom of the map.”
“Reception,” said Lexi, gruffly.
“Finally, a correct answer. This is where you hold current thought. Whatever you are thinking about at the present time is held here. Beyond Reception,” continued Ms. Lamb, as the class listened attentively, trying to keep up, “is a complex web of rooms that are all linked. Those links are represented by roads in this diagram. You can imagine yourself walking around a town when accessing somebody’s mind, and that will make it easier to navigate. You should imagine the colored blocks as buildings, each one filled with filing cabinets containing all the information that the mind has stored. The files that are most vivid in a person’s memory will be on the lower floor. As you climb up, you will be accessing vaguer memories and information. On the second floor are the files that contain information that a person can access with some work: When you have something on the tip of your tongue, that would be on that floor. The top floor houses information that the person is not aware they hold and that will only move down to the ground floor if something external literally jogs the memory. Are you all keeping up?”
The children all nodded.
“Right. Finally, before we begin our lesson, you must all learn how to stop somebody else from accessing your mind. If somebody uses their Ability on you, you will hear ringing in your ears the moment that they enter the Reception area. That ringing will increase in volume until the person passes through the door that leads out into the mind’s city, or leaves the mind entirely. The stronger somebody’s Ability, the quieter the ringing in your ears. If, at any time, you hear ringing in your ears, you may stop it by immediately filling your Reception area with a block. A block is a thought strong enough to prevent somebody from moving farther in. Examples of good blocks are nursery rhymes or songs that you are very familiar with. Concentrate on repeating this over and over again in your mind until the person is forced to leave and the ringing in your ears stops. Anybody can use a block, you do not have to be twelve years old, so if you are even contemplating tryi
ng this on myself, or any other member of staff, you will be stopped immediately and suffer the consequences. Understood?”
“Yes,” replied the children.
“Very well. Now, you, you, and you, close your books,” she said, pointing to Chris, Lexi, and Rex. “The rest of you, turn to the next page in your manuals. On it you will see a list of objects. You are to concentrate on the list so that an image of each thing appears in your Reception area. I will give you a few minutes; then I will ask the person sitting next to you to list the objects you were thinking of. To enter the mind, simply look at your partner and focus on looking past their temple. Simple as that. And no blocking for now. You may begin.”
Chris turned to Philip, and Philip looked down at the manual. Chris looked at the side parting of Philip’s hair, and before he had a chance to imagine any map or room, he saw the list of objects as clearly as if he were looking at the manual himself.
“Go on Chris, start,” whispered Philip.
“I already did,” replied Chris.
Philip looked confused. “But I didn’t hear any ringing.”
“Stop talking!” said Ms. Lamb.
“We’ve already finished,” explained Chris, looking round at Lexi and Rex, who were staring intently at Sebastian and Daisy, respectively.
“I hardly think so,” said Ms. Lamb. “You were supposed to read the whole list.”
“I did,” said Chris.
“Very well, list them now.”
“Scissors, a candlestick, an apple, a paper clip, a truck, and the sun.”
Ms. Lamb looked surprised, then annoyed. “It’s not reading somebody’s mind if the person simply reads the list out to you,” she said, furious.
“I—I didn’t,” said Philip, surprised and a little confused. “It’s just, I didn’t hear any ringing.”
Ms. Lamb considered this for a moment. “Well, you obviously weren’t paying attention. Right,” she said, looking up, “the rest of you can stop now. You—yes, you—tell me what was on the list.”
Lexi closed her eyes. “Ummm, scissors, a candlestick, an apple, and a paper clip.”
“And . . . ,” said Ms. Lamb.
Lexi hesitated. “That’s all.”
“No, that’s not all. You, freckles, what else?”
Rex looked nervous. “A truck and the sun?”
“Correct. Good. At least I have one person in this class useful for something.”
Rex looked thrilled. He turned to Lexi and grinned. “Oh yes, ha-ha! I am Rex, reader of minds; you can bow to me now.”
Lexi curled her lip and turned away from him, disgusted. To Chris’s surprise, Ms. Lamb made no comment.
“Now we’ll try this again with the same people looking at the list on the opposite page, but this time you are going to try to block the person the moment you hear the ringing in your ears.”
Philip straightened his jacket and looked down at the page opposite. Once again Chris was able to see the list immediately.
“I can’t hear anything,” said Philip, staring intently at the page.
“That’s because I’ve already done it,” whispered Chris, looking apologetic.
“Again? I haven’t even picked what I’m going to use for my block yet.”
Chris shrugged, then looked up to see Ms. Lamb looking over at him with a disapproving stare.
“Talking again? I suppose you’ve finished, have you?”
“Umm, yes. I didn’t mean to, but I had already done it before Philip started blocking me.”
“You’re supposed to use the block,” said Ms. Lamb to Philip.
“But . . . but . . . I didn’t hear anything again. I hadn’t even started reading the list.”
“Have you seen this book before?” asked Ms. Lamb, staring at Chris.
Chris reddened. “No, honestly, I haven’t. I don’t know what’s going on.”
“Well, if you think you’re so clever, maybe you can come up here and do a demonstration.”
Chris sunk back in his seat. “I’m sorry, I’ll—”
“I said, get up here.”
Chris stood up from behind his desk and walked over to where Ms. Lamb was standing.
“All of you can stop now,” said Ms. Lamb, and the rest of the class looked up. Chris stood awkwardly, shoulders hunched.
“I don’t like cheats. It’s pointless and a waste of everybody’s time,” said Ms. Lamb, addressing the class.
“But I didn’t cheat,” said Chris, shocked.
“Well, we’ll soon see about that. If you’re so brilliant, then I’ll expect you’ll have no problems reading my mind before I block you. You have one minute to find my least favorite color. That will be in the Dislikes building which is next to—”
“Fears and Phobias,” said Chris.
“Fine, begin,” said Ms. Lamb, irritated.
Chris looked at Ms. Lamb and tried to ignore the hair that lined her upper lip. He looked at her temple, and immediately he imagined himself in a room with a door up ahead. He walked straight across to the door, opened it up, and saw he was standing on an empty street lined with buildings of various sizes and colors. Streets led off in all directions, but Chris, having memorized the map, knew exactly where he was going. He raced ahead, out of habit looking both ways as he crossed the street, and down another main road toward an enormous green building that stood in the center of a group of buildings ahead of him. He reached it and looked up to see a sign above the door that read DISLIKES. Chris hurried inside and entered a room full of filing cabinets lined up in rows. Chris rushed along them, checking the white label on each one.
Food . . . places . . . transport . . . people, said Chris to himself, noticing how large the PEOPLE cabinet was. Ahhh . . . He stopped at a small, one-drawer filing cabinet labeled COLORS and opened it up. Inside was a single folder, which he opened up. A cloud of orange exploded about him.
Excited with his success, Chris rushed out to return to Reception, when he spotted the sign above the building next to him: FEARS & PHOBIAS.
A quick look might be useful, thought Chris, then ran in through the front door and opened the bottom drawer of the first enormous filing cabinet he came to. He took a bulging folder out of it. As he opened it carefully, a scene appeared before him. He saw Ms. Lamb at a table, on her own, crying in the middle of a desolate gray landscape. The words “Being Lonely” appeared above, hovering.
Chris grimaced uncomfortably, closed the folder quickly, and rushed back out onto the main street, back to Reception, where the sound of Ms. Lamb singing “London’s Burning” filled the room. Chris walked straight through and out the door into a bright light. He squinted, then opened his eyes to find he was staring Ms. Lamb directly in the eyes. He looked away quickly.
“Pathetic . . . pathetic,” said Ms. Lamb. “You didn’t even try. Not so easy when you don’t have a book to cheat with is it, young man?”
Chris opened his mouth to speak, but Ms. Lamb raised her hand to stop him.
“I don’t want to hear your excuses. You have to look into my mind and try to access it to gain the information we’ve asked you for. If you can’t even enter the Reception area, then you really are wasting your time in my lessons.”
“But I already did,” said Chris.
“No, you didn’t. What do you take me for? I can hear when you’re using your Ability by the ringing in my ears.”
“I did!” said Chris, getting annoyed.
“Fine, then, what is my least favorite color?”
“Orange,” said Chris defiantly.
A flash of confusion crossed Ms. Lamb’s face. “A lucky guess, of course. Sit down.”
“And you’re most scared of being lonely,” added Chris in anger, immediately regretting the words as they left his mouth.
Ms. Lamb stared at Chris, her face turning red with a combination of embarrassment and fury. “You—you—how dare you?”
Chris heard the gasps from the other children, but he didn’t dare to look round.
/> “Get out, all of you. Take your manuals and practice for tomorrow’s lesson.”
Chris couldn’t get out quickly enough. He grabbed his manual and rushed out the door. He waited at the foot of the hill in the Dome, and the other children appeared moments later. As soon as they saw him, they burst into laughter and Chris, in spite of the trouble he knew he was going to be in, started laughing too.
• CHAPTER ELEVEN •
A few hours later
While the pupils of Myers Holt enjoyed afternoon tea discussing their think-tank lesson where they had learned to drive a car using only the power of their minds, property developer Richard Baxter was sitting in his brand-new four-wheel drive, parked in the middle of a vast construction site, which—if today’s meeting went well—was to become his largest development project yet. Baxter looked around at the cranes and bulldozers and imagined them being replaced by the enormous concrete tower blocks that were going to make him a very rich man, as long as he could convince the planning office to sign on the dotted line.
“You’re a winner,” said Baxter, looking at himself in his rearview mirror. “You’re a winner, you’re a winner, you’re a winner,” he repeated under his breath, fastening the yellow hard hat under his chin and grabbing his briefcase. He stepped out onto the dirt floor beneath him and strode out purposefully toward the group of people talking amongst themselves in the distance, not noticing the two identical boys ducking down behind the steering wheel of the bulldozer next to him.
“Good morning,” said Baxter, as he approached the group of people. “Baxter, Richard Baxter,” he said, shaking each person’s hand with a vicelike grip. “Thank you for coming down today. I’m sure the changes we’ve made will impress you.”
A stern woman with a clipboard under her arm nodded. “Perhaps you could start by showing us around,” she suggested.
“Of course, of course . . . Sheila,” he said, reading her name badge. “Why don’t we begin here. At the moment we are standing in what will be the lobby of the Baxter Building, the largest of the five towers. As you suggested, we have now reduced the number of apartments from seven hundred to six hundred—a considerable reduction, I’m sure you’ll agree.”
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