Spring-Heeled Jack

by Wyll Andersen

  If he could read minds, he felt this whole debacle would be solved already, but then what would be the fun in solving puzzles.

  After a few seconds, the Ghost turned back and faced Atticus. In a panic, he tried to jump back and hide in the shadows, out of the figure’s line of sight. The sun was at his back, so he thought that maybe he’d be well enough hidden. But, he was wrong. The Ghost stared straight at him, right in the eyes, and once again Atticus was paralyzed with fear. It gestured for him to follow, but Atticus couldn’t move. His legs felt like they were made of concrete.

  Eventually, the Ghost left without him, sprinting away and Atticus losing sight of it.

  His breathing was heavy and his heart pounded violently, but he couldn’t let the Ghost get away. No more stalking and sneaking. Atticus had to make a move no matter how much it terrified him.

  He sprinted as fast as he could in an attempt to tail the mystery figure, but he wasn’t paying the closest attention. In his hurry, he crashed into something old and grouchy, knocking both himself and his professor to the ground.

  “Mr. Whaelord, what is the meaning of this?” Varnum shouted.

  Atticus leapt up to his feet and looked all around for the Ghost. Sadly, it seemed that the figure had just vanished. There was nowhere for it to hide unless it jumped the fence or climbed a building or tree, but there was no way it was that fast.

  “Well?”

  “I-I’m sorry professor.” Atticus offered his teacher a hand, but Varnum swatted it away.

  “I have had it with your shenanigans, Mr. Whaelord,” Varnum said. He brushed himself off, but he never let his glare wander from Atticus.

  “I know professor. I just thought I saw-”

  “What? A rodent? A nuisance? Were you chasing a mirror, Mr. Whaelord?”

  Atticus didn’t say a word.

  “Goodness gracious! I’m covered in dirt and grass stains now because of you,” shouted the professor. “What will the Nelsons think of me now?”

  “T-The Nelsons?”

  Varnum let out a frustrated sigh and said, “Principal Shepard and I are meeting with the Nelsons to discuss a memorial dinner for their son. I thought it would be a good way to show how much Fortuna Prep cares for its students.”

  “But, you don’t care,” Atticus said. Varnum was silent. “This is just a big publicity stunt, isn’t it professor? A way to make yourself look good to the public eye and get the Nelsons some free advertising, am I correct?”

  Varnum’s face turned bright red. If it was possible for smoke and fire to shoot from one’s nostrils, Varnum would’ve done it just then. “How dare you accuse me of such a thing! I don’t have time for such foolishness! I’m already late and now thanks to you, Mr. Whaelord, I’m highly unpresentable! You will make this up to me!”

  “How about I stay late after class tomorrow,” Atticus asked. “And at lunch, why don’t I stop by and help you grade exams?”

  Varnum’s face was starting to return to its normal color. “That will not be necessary. We’ll discuss it tomorrow. Now, if you don’t mind.”

  Before Atticus could respond, Varnum shoved past him and made a straight line toward the faculty office building.

  That man is hiding something, Atticus thought. He is involved in some way.

  Atticus made one last glance around campus, hoping that maybe he could find a hint as to where the Ghost disappeared to. Sadly, he had no such luck.

  Frustrated and defeated, Atticus plopped down onto the grass, his face in his hands. He was furious. He found the Ghost; the one Mike was so afraid of, and the killer. He didn’t have any evidence, but he just knew it. He knew the cloaked figure was the killer and he had him in sight. But Professor Varnum had to come up and ruin it.

  He got to his feet, brushed himself off and suddenly the gears in his head clanged viciously. Varnum had appeared right as the Ghost had disappeared. Varnum vanished when the body was found. Atticus wondered: perhaps the Ghost and the professor were the same.

  A glimmer caught Atticus’ eye. What looked like bright white and black gravel lay in a pile where Varnum had fell. Atticus kneeled down and shuffled the debris into a small mound and realized that it wasn’t gravel at all, but instead a broken piece of jewelry.

  “Was this the professor’s,” he whispered to himself.

  Atticus looked all around, making sure no one was in sight and cupped his hands over the debris. Atticus shut his eyes tightly and focused. He felt a tingle on the back of his hand and slowly the Queen of Spades began to appear. His hand began to heat up and he curled his fingers into a fist around the broken trinket. Soon his hand began to burn. He felt the item take form in his hands. He opened his eyes, and released his grip. What used to be a pile of white and black rubble was now a ring embedded with a design that looked like a “Z” overlapping a “Y”: The symbol of the Zebulon Corporation.

  He picked up the ring and held it in his palm. Of all things, why a Zebulon ring? What did it mean and why’d the professor have a destroyed one?

  Atticus planned to leave his professor alone for the rest of the evening, but now he had a special something to return, and it wasn’t something that could wait until tomorrow.

  Chapter 7

  Atticus didn’t intend to eavesdrop, but it happened anyway.

  He snuck past the receptionist by saying he was going to visit with his chemistry teacher, Professor Banner. He didn’t lie. Atticus actually did have plans to visit his professor so he could apologize for missing class. He was one of Atticus’ favorite teachers and he figured he’d understand.

  Banner was a young professor, only in his late thirties, but he was a brilliant man. He was exceptionally tall, standing roughly 6”5, but he was a quite slender. He was also a much more laid back teacher, preferring to wear just a nice dress shirt and black slacks as opposed to suits or formal attire.

  Atticus confronted him at his desk. “Good evening, Professor Banner.”

  “Good evening, Mr. Whaelord.” The professor was hard at work grading exams and reading thesis essays. He was always doing something to keep his mind working.

  “I-I just wanted to apologize for missing class today. You see, I wasn’t feeling the best”

  “After Mr. Nelson’s passing? I understand.”

  “Y-Yes,” Atticus said. “You do?”

  Banner nodded, his eyes still glued to his papers. “I know you two were friends. After a loss like that, I almost wouldn’t want you to attend class. Bad for the brain, you know? I assumed that’s why you missed.”

  Atticus was at a loss for words. “T-Thank you?”

  The professor dropped his pen and looked up at Atticus, his eyes peering over his tiny oval reading glasses. He said, “Mr. Whaelord, Atticus, just make sure you have a note delivered to me next time. Assumptions can only take one so far.”

  Assumptions can only take one so far, Atticus thought. That phrase struck his as a rather odd thing for the professor to say, but perhaps it was just some sagely advice he wanted to give to his student.

  Atticus nodded and said, “Yes, sir.”

  Banner smiled and went back to his work. “I know it’s hard to lose someone like that. Just promise me that you won’t blame yourself, alright?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Mr. Nelson’s passing,” he said. “This is a very tough time in most students’ lives. We adults put so much on your plate and sometimes the weight becomes unbearable. Tragedies like this occur, and sometimes we don’t’ see how much someone is struggling until it’s too late.” The professor took off his glasses and lowered his head. “I know all about that kind of pressure.”

  It dawned on Atticus that Professor Banner thought Mike killed himself. Why would he think otherwise? Atticus wanted to jump in and tell him that wasn’t the case, but he stopped himself.

  “Alright, Professor,” he said. “Thank you.”

  Atticus said his farewells, picked up his missing assignment and then went on his way. Now that he had an
alibi, it was time for him to find Varnum.

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out the Zebulon Ring. Atticus still couldn’t figure out why the professor would have one. At first, he figured that since Zebulon owned Fortuna Prep maybe that’s why; but as far as he knew, no other teachers had rings. Then Atticus thought that perhaps it wasn’t the professor’s ring at all. Maybe it was lost on the ground and when the two bumped into each other, Varnum landed on it, shattering it into ruble. But that wasn’t possible. Despite the professor’s boney butt, it couldn’t have destroyed a ring.

  Atticus snuck his way up to the second floor to Principal Shepard’s office. The door was a standard wood fame with a glass window pane marked with the principal’s name: Principal Dorothy Shepard.

  Having the principal to one of the nation’s most well-known schools be a woman was a pretty hot topic. Most school headmasters, especially for private prep schools like Fortuna Prep, were men; but Dorothy Shepard showed the whole world what she was capable of. Since she’d taken over, the school hadn’t burned to the ground like some had said, but instead flourished. She was an exceptional leader and speaker. Because of her, students were more inclined to work harder. She listened to the students as well as the staff. She also had connections to very fit and abled professors like Professor Banner whom she’d met when she was a university professor. Of course, that didn’t make her perfect. She did still hire Professor Varnum after all.

  She was also an advocate for smaller class sizes and more professors overall. Shepard could easily negotiate with the Zebulon higher ups in charge of the school’s budget in order to get that done.

  “If these students are to be working for Zebulon,” she would say, “then should they not be taught to their fullest abilities? These students will be Zebulon’s future, and as such we should spare no expense.”

  Atticus peaked into the principal’s office and saw her speaking with Varnum and the Nelsons. Quickly, he crouched down and pressed his ear to the door, trying to listen in.

  It all sounded okay except for when Varnum would butt in. Principal Shepard and the Nelsons would be calmly discussing plans for this “Memorial Dinner” as they were calling it, but Varnum would then jump in and push his own agenda: guests to invite, newspaper headlines, proper location, etcetera. Worst of all, whenever he would say something, no matter how stupid or selfish, Mrs. Nelson would agree wholeheartedly. Then, after his wife agreed, so would Dr. Nelson.

  It made Atticus’ blood boil to hear how they treated Mike’s death like it was just the theme of the evening, almost like they’d been planning the dinner long before his death. Maybe they had? If is theory was correct and the Nelsons were working with Varnum, they could have been planning this since before the year started. Maybe the Nelsons were the ones who got Varnum a job at Fortuna Prep: So he could keep an eye on their son.

  Atticus pressed his ear to the door even harder.

  He heard Principal Shepard say, “Let’s not forget the reason behind this event. We are to mourn the loss of a student, your son, and try to prevent things like this from happening again.

  “Yes, of course,” said Mrs. Nelson.

  “Did you think we were trying to suggest something else,” Varnum asked.

  “Not at all. It’s just that we can’t get to distracted from our goal.”

  Varnum sighed and said, “Yes, yes. Our goal to prevent future tragedies. I just feel thatwe can use this to help so many other foundations.”

  How could he say that, Atticus thought?

  Varnum wanted to make this about him as much as he could. He didn’t even care that a student was dead. Here was this grumpy old man who claimed to be a professor, but was terrible at his job, and instantly jumped onto the biggest campus tragedy in recent history simply to get some notoriety as a philanthropist. Atticus saw through his guise. He was nothing more than a selfish, greedy fraud.

  Atticus couldn’t sit by any longer. He didn’t care how much trouble he got into, he needed to find a way to reveal the professor’s true colors.

  He threw open the door and barged his way in, marching straight up to Professor Varnum.

  “S-Sorry to disrupt,” he said, “but I think you dropped this earlier professor.” Atticus pulled the ring from his pocket and offered it to Varnum.

  A disturbing silence lingered through the office. Everyone’s gaze shifted from Atticus to Varnum, like a pack of hungry wolves who’d just found some fresh prey.

  “Th-that,” Varnum stuttered, “that’s not mine.”

  “Well, when we bumped into each other I found it where you fell,” Atticus said. “I-I assumed it was yours.”

  “Well, I can tell you that your assumption is undoubtedly wrong, Mr.-” Varnum turned and looked at the Nelsons. Dr. Nelson’s eyes were hidden behind his goggles, but Mrs. Nelson was definitely giving Varnum a stink eye. Varnum turned back to Atticus and said, “I’ve had just about enough of you and your harassment, do you hear?”

  “Now please, Henry,” Principal Shepard chimed in. “There’s no need to be rude to the boy.”

  “You don’t understand, principal,” Varnum said turning way. “This boy here has been making numerous scenes-”

  “None of which I’ve seen, nor have you reported on prior. All I see is a student trying to return something to his professor.” Varnum stayed silent. “And honestly professor, do you expect me to believe that Atticus here is a trouble maker?”

  “Wait a minute,” Dr. Nelson said. “You’re that boy from the earlier today! I thought I was just being delusional, but you are most definitely the same one.”

  Atticus nodded. “Yes sir, that was me.”

  “Yes, what did you say your name was? Atticus something?”

  “Clayton, please,” Mrs. Nelson said. “We really shouldn’t bother him. He probably wants to get back to his friends.”

  Suddenly, Atticus felt a strange tugging feeling in his gut. He’d never really felt anything like it before. He didn’t know why, but he became incredibly intimidated by this woman. He felt like he wanted to do exactly what she said without question.

  Luckily, Dr. Nelson chimed in, snapping Atticus out of it. “No, Pearl, this young man seems familiar. Almost like I’ve seen him before today. Now what’s your name young man?”

  “A-Atticus,” he said. “My name is Atticus-”

  “Pardon me!” Suddenly, barging in through the door was Detective McCloud, wearing his brown trench coat, his fedora held in his right hand. Atticus saw on his finger was one a Zebulon Ring, just like the one he found. “Sorry for showing up unannounced.”

  “What on God’s green Earth are you doing here,” Dr. Nelson shouted. “I was not aware you’d be joining us, McCloud.”

  McCloud looked at Atticus with his piercing green eyes. He gave him a reassuring wink, but Atticus didn't know what was so reassuring about it.

  Atticus wasn’t sure what Dr. Nelson had against McCloud, but it was clearly deep seated. But, not only was Dr. Nelson upset, so was Principal Shepard and Professor Varnum. Shepard’s eyes were tightly squinted at the detective, almost like she was plotting something.

  Then there was Varnum who looked extremely pale in McCloud’s presence. His breathing faltered, sweat trickled down his cheek, and Atticus saw that his hands were trembling. If those weren’t signs of someone in the wrong, then Atticus didn’t know what were.

  McCloud looked at the principal with a snarky grin. “G’day to you, m’lady principal.”

  “Explain what you’re doing here, detective,” Shepard demanded.

  The detective chuckled, which was a bit unsettling, and said, “Yes, yes, so down to business we are.” He turned to Dr. Nelson. “I just stopped by to say that I think I have a lead on the murder of your son. You see-”

  “Shut your trap,” Dr. Nelson shouted. He bolted to his feet and got face-to-face with McCloud. “I’m tired of your lies about my son, McCloud! You’re just a dog of Zebulon, trying to cover up the truth! You’re the biggest mon
ster of them all!”

  The doctor’s face beamed a bright and bloody red and his breathing hastened, but McCloud stayed calm.

  “Clayton, that’s enough!” Mrs. Nelson stood up and placed her hand on her husband’s shoulder.

  Slowly, Dr. Nelson’s face began to return to its regular color and his breathing slowed down. Without a word, Dr. Nelson pushed past the detective and left the office.

  “I’m very sorry, detective,” said Mrs. Nelson.

  “Tis quite alright, m’lady.” McCloud smiled and moved aside. “You best not keep your husband waiting.”

  Mrs. Nelson curtsied and left to join her husband.

  There was a long uncomforting silence that filled the room after the Nelsons were gone. Atticus stood in the corner, watching the three adults in the room. Varnum still looked ghastly, hands still trembling and his knees shaking. Principal Shepard continued to eyeball McCloud who stood silently, his hat still in his hands.

  Principal Shepard broke the silence. “I’m sorry about all of that, Atticus.”

  “It’s okay,” he said. “Yelling adults: I’m used to it.”

  “Well, Mr. Whaelord,” said Varnum, “because of your intrusion, we’ll have to delay our meeting to another time.”

  “But, I-”

  “Tell me professor, what was the meeting about,” McCloud asked.

  Varnum’s face tensed. He stuttered trying to answer, but he was fumbling over all of his words. McCloud gave a smirk and changed the subject.

  “I do believe it was my intrusion that caused the commotion, not the lad’s. Anyway, I do apologize about that. I simply thought they’d be interested to hear what I had to say, but nay. Farewell everyone.”

  As the detective left, Atticus saw that Varnum was still petrified and Principal Shepard was still on edge. Something was up with them. Why would they all act strangely when McCloud was round? Was the principal in on this scheme too?