“As you can see—if you break your focus, the suggestion will fade,” said Ms. Lamb, with what seemed like a slight note of disappointment that Daisy had reacted as quickly as she had. “It all depends on how strong the suggestion is, and the best way to enforce it is to repeat it, preferably three times, to fully cement it in that person’s—or, in this case, dog’s—mind.”
Daisy completed the course in two minutes and fifty-four seconds, with a five-second penalty for patting the dog at the end (“He’s not a teddy bear,” said Ms. Lamb, irritated). Sebastian and Rex followed, both managing to complete the course without incurring any penalties, while they all watched in silence.
“You,” said Ms. Lamb, pointing at Chris, “and don’t mess it up.”
Chris stepped forward to the starting line and turned to Hermes.
“Get on with it!” barked Ms. Lamb. Chris felt himself tense up—he had barely looked at the dog.
Chris focused on the dog’s mind, and almost immediately he found himself in the dog’s Reception, which was full of the sounds of the Dome—he could even hear the heartbeats of himself and the others. The room was filled with one image only: Ms. Lamb standing in her tight, shiny, purple suit on the path ahead. Chris shuddered and focused on replacing it with the first suggestion . . . to run up a yellow ramp.
“For goodness’ sake! Hurry up!” shouted Ms. Lamb, breaking Chris’s concentration. Chris breathed out, angrily; he had been trying for less than ten seconds—the others had spent far longer at the start of the course. He tried again, but no sooner had he placed the image of the dog running up to the ramp in his mind then Ms. Lamb shouted at him again.
“You’re wasting our time!”
Chris felt his face go red in anger. He closed his eyes and counted to ten to try to calm himself, but all he could think about was how satisfying it would be to set Hermes on Ms. Lamb. No sooner had he let the thought enter his mind than he heard the other pupils behind him gasp.
Chris opened his eyes and watched, in horror, as the dog lurched forward onto Ms. Lamb, knocking her to the ground, his jaw open, fangs bared.
“AAAAARGH!” screamed Ms. Lamb as Hermes sunk his fangs into her ankle.
“Somebody stop him!” shouted Daisy, but Chris and all the other pupils were frozen in shock watching the attack as it became increasingly frenzied.
The louder Ms. Lamb screamed, the more violently the dog shook his head, her ankle wedged firmly in his mouth, and then suddenly John appeared, running toward them, followed by Ron. John’s giant hands grabbed Hermes by the jaw and wrenched open his mouth. Ms. Lamb’s leg fell to the ground, surrounded by a pool of blood and shredded turquoise leather, and John fell backward as he wrestled with the furious dog.
“It’s all right, boy, it’s all right,” said John in a low voice over and over, until Hermes began to calm. Finally the dog stopped struggling and whimpered. John stayed holding on to him as Ron attended to the hysterical Ms. Lamb by ripping his trousers off and wrapping them round her leg, creating a tight tourniquet.
Chris looked over at the carnage he had created—the blood, Ron in his boxer shorts, John lying on the ground with his arms wrapped round the whimpering dog—and his heart sank.
“What’s going on?” shouted a voice from the other side of the hill. The children looked over to see Mr. Green running toward them.
“It’s all under control,” said Ron, as Mr. Green approached.
“Go straight to the Map Room, all of you!” instructed Mr. Green, looking over at Chris and his fellow pupils.
“Is she going to be okay?” asked Chris, genuinely concerned.
“I’m going to be in better shape than you will be once I’ve finished with you, boy!” screeched Ms. Lamb. Mr. Green looked over at Chris and nodded for him to get out. Philip grabbed his arm and pulled him away toward the exit.
• • •
Back in the Map Room, Chris paced the floor nervously.
“I’m in trouble now,” said Chris.
“That’s the understatement of the year,” said Rex, “but still, if it makes you feel any better, at least you entertained us.”
“Glad I could help,” said Chris miserably.
“What were you thinking?” asked Lexi.
“I think we know exactly what he was thinking,” said Rex.
Chris sat down on the edge of the sofa and put his head in his hands. “They’re going to throw me out for sure. . . . I can’t believe I did that.”
“She deserved it, Chris,” said Philip. “That woman is a witch. Back in the Middle Ages they’d have burned her at the stake.”
“Philip!” said Daisy.
Philip shrugged his shoulders unapologetically. “What? It’s true—that woman is pure evil. Did you see the way she was trying to wind Chris up? She’s lucky she got away with just one shoe missing. I don’t know why you’re sticking up for her anyway, Daisy—you could tell she wanted that dog to rip you apart.”
Daisy considered this for a moment, then nodded. “It’s true. And those boots are hideous—you should have got the dog to take the other one too.”
“Daisy! I’m proud of you!” said Rex, putting his arm around her. “I never knew you had it in you!”
“It doesn’t mean I want Chris thrown out of here, though,” said Daisy, looking over at Chris, who still had his head in his hands. Chris looked up.
“Do you really think they’ll throw me out?” he asked. Nobody answered.
Chris took a deep breath and, suddenly overcome with the need to be by himself, he walked out of the room. For the next few minutes he paced up and down the corridor, his head spinning, until an opening door interrupted him and Ron and John stepped in from the Dome.
If Chris hadn’t felt as terrible as he did, he would have probably laughed at the sight of Ron in his sunglasses and boxer shorts, but as it was, Chris didn’t even break a smile.
“That was quite a stunt you pulled there,” said Ron.
“I—I’m so sorry,” said Chris, his head bowed in remorse.
“Sorry? You’ve got nothing to feel sorry for,” said John.
Chris looked up in surprise.
“What?”
“I said, you’ve got nothing to feel sorry for. Come here—I want to show you something,” said John, reaching into his jacket pocket and pulling out his wallet.
Chris walked over as John opened up the wallet and handed it to him. Curious, Chris took it, only to find himself looking at a photograph of a small white poodle with a red collar curled up on a sofa.
Chris didn’t know what he was supposed to say. “Er, is he your dog?” he asked.
“She,” corrected John. “Her name’s Fifi. Beauty, isn’t she?”
Chris nodded and looked at Ron, who just cocked his head as if to say, I’ve got nothing to do with this.
“My point is,” said John, taking the wallet back, “I love that dog. She’s my best friend. Mind you, I love all dogs. See, dogs, they’re just not like humans, are they, Ron?”
“No, John, they’re not,” agreed Ron.
“They’re loyal, they don’t talk back, and they trust you. What that teacher of yours did today is the single most despicable act I’ve seen in all my years of service—and I’ve seen some despicable acts, Chris, let me tell you.”
Chris, who didn’t really know what John was talking about, remained silent.
“That dog . . . what’s his name?”
“Hermes,” said Chris.
“Hermes. Well, do you think little Hermes would have agreed to have people experiment on his brain if he’d been able to talk?”
“I suppose not,” said Chris, not having thought of that before.
“No, exactly. He would have said, “No, Mummy, please don’t let them use me like that. I just want to play fetch with you, Mummy.”
Ron peered over his sunglasses at John as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing.
“That teacher got exactly what she deserved. You did a goo
d thing today, son; just remember that. No matter what happens, you know you can walk out of here with your head held high.”
John patted Chris on the shoulder. “Take care of yourself,” he said, and then turned to Ron. “Come on—I want to see how that dog’s doing.”
Chris watched as Ron’s pale white legs disappeared around the corner, and his shoulders dropped. He knew that John was just trying to comfort him, but all he could think about were the words “no matter what happens.” He knew exactly what John meant, and—dignity intact or not—he simply wasn’t ready to leave Myers Holt. He sighed deeply and put his head in his hands. What’s going to happen now? he thought miserably.
• • •
Chris didn’t have to wait long to find out. An hour later, while Chris was eating his lunch in silence while the others discussed the morning’s events, Sir Bentley walked into the room.
“Christopher, come with me, please,” he said. Chris stood up.
“Good luck,” whispered Philip as Chris passed him.
• • •
“What on earth did you think you were doing?” asked Sir Bentley, back in his office. “This is extremely serious. Ms. Lamb is understandably furious—she’s in hospital right now getting stitches to her leg.”
Chris sat in the chair opposite Sir Bentley’s desk and bowed his head.
“I don’t know what happened—I just . . . I just thought about it, and the next thing the dog was attacking her. I didn’t mean it to actually happen.”
Sir Bentley sighed. “This was exactly what we discussed when you first joined, Christopher. With great power comes great responsibility. You have an extraordinary talent, Christopher, nobody would deny that, but today you let yourself down.”
Chris nodded. “I know—I’m really sorry, I really am. . . . Are you going to expel me?” asked Chris, looking up at Sir Bentley.
Sir Bentley sighed. “I don’t know what I should do. Ms. Lamb certainly doesn’t think you should be allowed to remain here—she made that quite clear—and I can’t have members of staff being attacked, regardless of how talented you are. . . .”
Chris braced himself.
“But,” continued Sir Bentley, “I believe you when you say it was an accident.”
“It really was,” interrupted Chris.
“Yes, I suppose it was. Nevertheless, I can’t ignore what happened. I think, at the very least, you owe Ms. Lamb an apology. A written one. And I need your assurance that nothing like this will happen again.”
“I promise,” said Chris.
“I really mean it, Christopher; you’re going to have to learn to control your Ability, and you’re going to have to learn to control it soon. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” said Chris.
“Good. Go back to your room now and write that letter. That’s all for now—off you go.”
Chris stood up. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me, Christopher; just make sure nothing like this happens again.”
“Yes, sir,” said Chris.
“You can give me the letter this afternoon—I’ll be taking the lesson.”
Chris left the room, feeling hugely relieved.
• • •
While his classmates ran around the Dome with Mr. Green shouting at them, Chris sat at his desk and attempted to compose the letter to Ms. Lamb, but no matter how hard he tried, he found it impossible to apologize sincerely to somebody he disliked so intensely.
An hour passed, and Chris still had nothing to show for his efforts but a wastebasket full of crumpled-up paper. The door opened, and Chris turned to see Philip, grinning.
“Hey! He’s here!”
Chris heard the footsteps of the others running up the corridor. Lexi peered over Philip’s shoulder.
“What happened?” she asked. “Did you get into trouble?”
Chris nodded. “Yeah, but at least I didn’t get expelled. I’ve just got to write a letter to Ms. Lamb and say I’m sorry.”
“Oh, yay!” said Daisy, running into the room and giving Chris an enormous hug.
“That’s it? You lucky dope!” said Rex.
“Not really,” said Chris, still red with embarrassment from Daisy’s hug. “I’ve been trying to write this letter for ages. Here’s what I’ve written so far—what do you think?” Chris picked up the piece of paper in front of him. “ ‘Dear Ms. Lamb, I’m very sorry. Yours sincerely, Chris.’ ”
“Oh, no, this is inadequate!” said Sebastian, walking up to Chris. “I suggest you provide her with poetry; she will be melted with your sentiment.”
Chris raised an eyebrow. “I’m not writing her a poem. I mean, I’m sorry about her leg and everything, but I don’t think I need to go that far.”
“I don’t know, I think Pedro’s onto a winner,” said Rex, grinning. “I’ll help you. How about, ‘Violets are red, roses are blue, I hope your leg rots and the other one too.’ ”
Lexi laughed.
“Rex! He’ll definitely get expelled if he writes that!” said Daisy, looking horrified.
“It’s okay, Daisy—I’m not desperate enough to take Rex’s advice yet,” said Chris, looking back down at the piece of paper in his hands. He sighed. “Then again, I might have no choice. . . .”
“I assist you,” said Sebastian. “I have been perusing much poetry in recent times.”
Chris shrugged. “Okay, I’m desperate. What have you got?”
• • •
That afternoon, after a game of soccer in the garden, the children filed into the classroom for Sir Bentley’s lesson. Chris went up to the teacher’s desk and handed the letter to Sir Bentley, who opened it up and started to read it as Chris stood by his side, looking mortified.
“Dear Ms. Lamb, I am very sorry I hurt your leg. To show you how sorry I am, I wrote you a poem.”
Sir Bentley looked up at Chris and raised his eyebrows before looking back down and reading the poem out loud.
“‘O how I regret the pain you suffered, the hurt that I caused you.
The sorrow for my actions flows, like the ocean, from me to you.
Be this the start of pastures new, a Spring to follow Winter.
I hope you’ll soon be fully healed and running like a sprinter.’”
Sebastian smiled and raised both thumbs up to Chris, as Sir Bentley continued to read on.
“ ‘I hope that you get well soon. I promise that from now on I will work harder and not get into trouble again. Yours sincerely, Christopher.’ ”
Sir Bentley looked up. “I hope you mean it.”
“I really do, sir,” said Chris.
“Very well. It’s clear you put some effort into it. I’ll pass this on to Ms. Lamb. Now, sit down—I want to have a word with all of you.”
Chris took his seat and listened as Sir Bentley gave them a stern lecture, not dissimilar from the one he had been given earlier that day, about taking care when using the Ability.
“. . . and that’s all I want to say about that. Let’s forget all the nonsense of this morning and get on with your training—we have work to do. Today’s lesson is, perhaps, the most important one in preparing you for the Antarctic Ball—assuming you need to use your Ability at all there.”
Sir Bentley walked over to the mind map painted on the wall.
“This, as you all know, is the map of a person’s mind. As you’ve learned, you can retrieve information from it and place suggestions in the person’s current thoughts to make them do or think whatever you want. It was believed, for a very long time, that that was the extent of what you could do to somebody’s mind. Some countries experimented with trying to kill people using the Ability, but with no success at all. It seemed that the moment that somebody tries to suggest a person do something that could kill them, the person’s survival instinct kicks in automatically and provides a complete block. That, as far as we know, is still the case, although not much research has been done about the Ability in a very long time. However, we did find out that while a
person couldn’t be killed using the Ability, they could be damaged for life—such as what happened to Cecil Humphries.”
“Please can you define ‘damaged’?” asked Sebastian.
“I mean you can manipulate the mind so that you fill Reception with whatever you want and then destroy the rest of the information in the mind. The person’s brain is tricked into believing that it’s still functioning, because their Reception is still filled with thoughts, while the rest of the person’s thoughts and memories are completely destroyed.”
“Wow!” said Rex. “That’s amazing!”
“Amazing, yes,” said Sir Bentley, “but also terrifying. The powers that you have can damage a person for life. That’s exactly what happened to Humphries, Richard Baxter, and Lady Magenta. And it’s completely irreversible. Their Receptions were filled with whatever each one of them was most terrified of—which means whoever did it accessed their Fears and Phobias and used the information to leave them in a permanent state of terror. It’s an extremely complex technique—one which we call Inferno.”
“Why Inferno?” asked Chris.
“Because to destroy the rest of the person’s mind—once you have filled their Reception area with whatever current thought you want—you then visit every building of the mind and set fire to it until the whole mind has been effectively burned down.”
“Are we going to learn how to do that?” asked Rex enthusiastically.
“No, Rex, you’re not.”
“Ohhh,” said Rex, disappointed.
“But you are going to learn how to stop it from happening. Unfortunately, this won’t be a practical lesson—there’s no way that we can replicate the effect to let you practice—so I will teach you how to do it, and you’ll have to listen carefully. If you do ever have to use what you’re learning today, then it will be while somebody is already using Inferno, and you will have minutes, maybe even seconds, to stop them.”
Sir Bentley spent the next hour guiding them round the map, teaching them how to stop the process of Inferno by attacking the person who was using the Ability and replacing their current thought with suggestions to stop what they were doing. He also explained how to stop the process in the mind of the person being attacked (if it wasn’t possible to see who was carrying out the attack) by meeting the attacker in the victim’s mind and forcibly removing them from where they were, using a complicated system of blocks and suggestion. It was a long lesson, in which Sir Bentley loaded them with information as they all listened attentively. At the end he handed them each a set of printed sheets with diagrams and step-by-step instructions for all of the scenarios he had discussed.
The Ability (Ability, The) Page 20