by Lee Bacon
Alabaster Academy was perched on top of a rocky island. Gray stone walls rose out of the tumbling waves, towering high into the air. Crooked turrets loomed over the ocean, disappearing into the mist. At the top of the tallest tower was a lighthouse that sent its beam swiveling through the fog.
By the time we reached the island, the light drizzle had transformed into a heavy rain. Dragging our luggage behind us, we hurried onto a dock. A grim, hooded figure was waiting up ahead. His raincoat flapped in the wind. His features were shrouded in shadows, so all I could see was a thick silver beard and a pair of dark eyes staring back at me.
Milton hesitated, gripping his jacket tighter. “I-is it too late to turn back?”
I glanced at the ferry behind us. It was already pulling away from the dock. “Afraid so.”
“You sure this is a good idea?”
At that exact moment, I wasn’t. Maybe it was the storm. Or the waves crashing around us. Or the forbidding fortress rising from the rocks. Or the dark figure waiting on the steps, looking like the Grim Reaper with a beard. But right then, I was beginning to wonder whether we’d live long enough to see the first day of school.
Then something unexpected happened. The figure in the raincoat threw back his hood and called out in a jolly voice, “Greetings! I’m Principal Alabaster!”
He had bushy silver eyebrows to match his beard. Rain streamed down his pudgy red cheeks. He was more Santa Claus than Grim Reaper.
“I hope you had safe travels.” The man had to yell to be heard over the sounds of wind and waves. “You must be …”
And here he listed off our fake names. But since I wouldn’t want to put us in any more danger, I’ll just leave that part out of the story.
As we climbed the steps, Principal Alabaster looked us over with a huge grin. “It’s an honor to welcome you to Alabaster!” he said. “A real honor. You must be very proud!”
“Proud?” Milton blurted out. “Of what?”
Principal Alabaster chuckled. “No need for modesty. Captain Justice himself called to let me know that you four have qualified for the first Captain’s Kiddos Scholarship Award. And he’s even offered to make a very generous donation to our endowment fund. Now, let’s get inside before we wash away.”
Our feet splashed against the wooden dock as we trailed Principal Alabaster toward the tall front doors. “Education is a top priority at Alabaster Academy,” he said, inserting a huge iron key into the lock. “And so is safety. When my great-great-grandfather founded this school, society feared and misunderstood Gyfted children. That’s why our fine institution was built on this isolated island, with walls that can withstand the most fearsome attacks. Not to mention top-notch security features.”
Principal Alabaster pressed his hand against a fingerprint recognition pad. With a click the doors swiveled open.
I took one last look up at the gloomy towers of Alabaster Academy. Then I followed the others inside.
The entry hall was enormous. An iron chandelier hung from the high ceiling, casting a glow across two marble stairways that spiraled up into the shadows. On the stone walls were flags with the years of different classes stitched into them.
“For nearly two centuries, Alabaster has been home to many of the most remarkably Gyfted youngsters from around the country,” Principal Alabaster explained. “It’s a nurturing environment where you will receive a quality education while also honing your other—shall we say—skills.”
A pair of footsteps drew my attention to the far end of the entryway. I noticed a tall, slender girl with skin the color of porcelain and long, silver hair that shone in the light of the chandelier.
The girl looked at us with curiosity. “Are these the newbies?” she asked.
Principal Alabaster grinned affectionately at the girl. “Now, Cassie, surely you’re aware that the official term is ‘incoming seventh graders.’ ”
The girl—Cassie—rolled her eyes. “Thanks for the update, Dad.”
“You’re welcome to leave your luggage here,” Principal Alabaster said to us. “Cassie will show you to your rooms.”
“I’ll take it from here.” The girl motioned for us to join her. “Well, newbies? What are you waiting for? Dinner’s in an hour, and we’ve got a big school to cover.”
Cassie spun and headed through an open doorway. My friends and I jogged to catch up. We entered a hall that looked more like a museum than a school. Instead of lockers, the walls were lined with framed paintings. Turning a corner, I nearly bumped into a suit of armor.
Cassie listed off the sights as we went. “Classroom, classroom, stuffed rhinoceros, classroom.”
“Excuse me … er, Cassie,” Milton called after her. “So you’re Principal Alabaster’s—”
“Daughter? Yes.”
“So does that mean you’re next in line to be principal?”
“Not in a million years.”
“How come?”
Cassie came to a stop beside a tall window. With her ghostly pale skin and grandmother hair, it was tough to pin down her age. For a moment, she looked no older than thirteen. But a shift of the light suddenly made her appear twice that age.
Gazing at the rain and the tumbling waves outside, she said, “I’ve basically spent my entire life on Alabaster Island. Dad’s the principal, Mom’s a teacher. They decided to homeschool me.”
“But your home is a school,” Miranda pointed out.
“Exactly. And that school happens to be located on an island where there are two kinds of weather: rainy and very rainy. Don’t get me wrong. It’s an interesting place to grow up. But if I took over as principal, I’d spend the rest of my life here. No thanks.”
Cassie started walking again. Our next stop was the library, where a girl was scaling the tall shelves like a spider. Plucking a book off the top shelf, she leaped, performing a backflip on the way down.
“You know there are ladders, right, Veronica?” Cassie called out, leading us into a hallway.
We walked past a kid admiring his reflection in a tarnished old mirror. But as we passed, the boy actually stepped into the mirror. And instead of bumping his head, the two reflections merged and the kid disappeared.
“Okay, that was awesome,” Milton said.
“You get a lot of that kind of thing here,” Cassie said. “In regular society, Gyfted kids are treated like freaks when they use their powers. But here, they don’t have to hide who they are.”
We followed Cassie up a flight of stairs. A kid zipped past us, down the banister, squealing. With a yelp, he collided with another kid, who was sliding up the banister. The two boys tumbled onto the steps, cackling with laughter.
Cassie rolled her eyes. “As you can see, everyone’s a little restless with classes starting tomorrow.”
At the end of the hall, we reached a massive steel door. Cassie pressed her face close to a retina scanner. An automated voice droned through speakers above the door: “Access granted.”
Cassie led us into a recreation room. In the corners, kids were sprawled on beanbag chairs, playing video games or watching TV. A group was gathered around a card table. Ten feet above them, a girl was lying in a hammock tied to the ceiling beams, reading a book. In the center of the room, a couple of teenagers were playing Ping-Pong—at least until one of them slammed the ball so hard it exploded.
As my friends and I entered the room, all the activities came to a stop. Everyone turned in our direction. The girl in the hammock peered down at us. The guy who’d just caused a Ping-Pong ball to explode gripped his paddle a little tighter, as if he was thinking about doing the same thing to our heads.
I felt like someone had tied my vocal cords in a knot. Luckily, Cassie took care of the introductions.
Sort of.
“All right, everyone. These are the newest newbies. I won’t bother telling you their names, ’cause you probably won’t remember them anyway. They’re starting seventh grade. Apparently, they’ve been personally recommended by Captain Justice. So
feel free to tease, torment, or torture them, as long as you don’t mind risking a butt-kicking from a superhero.”
The entire room gaped at us for a few seconds longer. And then everyone went back to what they’d been doing before.
“Okay, then,” Cassie said. “This concludes your tour. The boys’ dorms are to the left. Girls’ are on your right. And don’t even think about sneaking from one to the other. The RHMs can be ruthless.”
“RHMs?” Sophie asked.
“Robotic hall monitors. They maintain law and order around here. Believe me, you don’t want to upset them.”
We decided to meet in the rec room in half an hour to get dinner together. While Cassie led Sophie and Miranda to the girls’ dorms, Milton and I headed to our left, down a bright hallway that seemed to go on forever.
On either side of the hall were students’ rooms, the doors decorated with messages scribbled on dry-erase boards, photographs, and pages cut out of Super Scoop. Halfway down the hall, we passed a wrinkled poster that showed me dressed up as the Nameless Hero. Someone had drawn a mustache on my masked face and scribbled THE NAMELESS NERD.
“Check it out.” Milton tugged at my sleeve and pointed. “One of those RHM thingies.”
Whizzing in our direction was an all-white robot with a pair of treads for legs and glowing slits for eyes. It had a downturned speaker where its mouth should’ve been, giving it a permanent frown.
“Greetings, new students,” the RHM said in a formal electronic voice. “My identification code is Epsilon-45736, but you can call me Bob.”
“Hey, Bob!” Milton waved. “Nice to m—”
“Proceed this way,” the RHM interrupted. It whirled and began rolling back the way it had come. We hurried after it, passing a few students who were hanging out in the hallway, chatting about their summers and throwing a Frisbee around.
“No tossing objects in the hallway,” the RHM said. Without slowing down, it snatched the Frisbee midflight and crushed it in its metallic claws.
With cries of protest trailing us, we jogged after the robot. At the very last door, it came to a stop.
“This is your room,” it said. “Before entering, you must submit security protocols.”
Zipping forward, the RHM plugged its claw into a slot. A panel opened beside the door. At the robot’s command, Milton and I pressed our hands against the panel. Once it had scanned our handprints, we did the same with our eyes.
Milton squirmed, his face pressed against the panel. “It’s tickling my eyeball!”
The RHM removed its claw from the slot. “You now have security authorization clearance. Goodbye.”
With that, the robot turned and rolled away.
“See ya later, Bob!” Milton called.
I pressed my hand against the panel again, and this time the door slid open. Milton and I stepped inside.
I paused just inside the doorway. Everything seemed to be smaller than in my bedroom at home. A wooden bunk bed. Two tiny desks, each with a small computer monitor perched on top. A mini-fridge. A couple of squat dressers. A thin window at the other end of the room looked out on the ocean—rain and gray waves as far as I could see.
Our luggage was waiting for us at the foot of the beds. By the time Milton and I were done putting away all our stuff, it was time to meet the others for dinner. We hurried back down the hallway, jumping sideways to avoid getting run over by Bob along the way.
The cafeteria was a madhouse. Grabbing a tray, I joined the line along with Milton, Sophie, and Miranda.
“Have you guys seen Cassie?” Milton asked.
Miranda shook her head. “She said she’d meet us here. But I haven’t—”
A cloud of silver smoke drifted into line beside us. The cloud whirled into a human form, tendrils of smoke solidifying into fingers, a face forming from the silver blur. And suddenly, Cassie was standing next to us.
As the four of us stared, speechless, she flipped her silver hair over her shoulder and picked a tray off the stack.
“Thanks for saving my spot,” she said.
After being served our food by a line of surly cafeteria drones, we set out to find a table. On the way, we passed a group of tough-looking kids. The burliest of them shot us a nasty glare. Even though he looked about our age, the guy already had stubble on his cheeks and hair on his arms. I guess puberty had hit him especially hard.
“Looks like we got us some newbies,” he said in a low growl. “Fresh off the boat.”
I tried to sidestep the guy, but he lumbered into my path.
“I heard you got a sissy scholarship from Captain Justice,” he snarled. “You think that makes you special?”
Cassie pushed between us. “What’s the matter, Winston?” she asked. “Swallow a hair ball?”
“Very funny, daddy’s girl.” His lips curled back, showing off a set of long, sharp fangs that looked like they were made for ripping apart large animals. I felt sorry for his dentist.
The guy—Winston—shot the rest of us a malicious grin and moved aside.
“See ya around, newbies,” he said. It sounded like a threat.
“What’s his problem?” Sophie asked once we were out of earshot.
Cassie shrugged off the question. “If you thought that was bad, you should see him when he’s angry.”
She set down her tray near the end of a table. A group of other kids our age were already eating. As we took our seats, Cassie introduced us. Fortunately, they were a lot more welcoming than Winston.
A guy with eyes that changed color from green to blue to purple asked, “How was the ferry ride over here?”
“Wet,” Miranda replied.
“It always is.”
Beside him was the girl we’d seen earlier, scaling the shelves of the library like a climbing wall. Veronica.
“Did Cassie tell you about the ghost?” she asked.
Milton dropped his fork. “What ghost?”
“Some people say the ghost of my great-great-great-grandfather haunts the school,” Cassie said.
“The ghost of Herman Alabaster,” said Veronica in a spooky voice. “People claim he lives in the walls. You can sometimes hear him rattling around at night.”
“Pass the salt,” called a kid at the other end of the table. The guy with color-shifting eyes pointed a finger at the saltshaker. It zipped across the table.
“Has anyone ever seen the ghost?” I asked.
“Tons of people.”
“Really?” Milton glanced around like he might see the ghost of Herman Alabaster drifting through the cafeteria, munching on a sloppy joe. “What’s he look like?”
“You can see for yourself,” Veronica said. “There’s a painting of Herman Alabaster on the second floor. Some people say he emerges from his painting in the middle of the night to roam the hallways.”
A mixture of disbelief and curiosity stirred inside me. I wondered if there was any truth in what they were saying. Of course, in the past forty-eight hours, I’d been attacked by mall merchandise, taken a ride in the world’s biggest bubble, and changed my identity to enroll in a school full of superpowered kids.
Maybe a ghost wasn’t such a strange idea after all.
“I call top bunk!” Milton said, pulling his eye away from the retina scanner. The door to our room slid open and he raced inside.
I followed him into the room. “Do you think all that stuff is true? About Herman Alabaster being a ghost?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised.” Milton grabbed his laptop and scrambled up the bunk-bed ladder. “There’s all sorts of crazy stuff going on in this place. Why not a ghost?”
“I guess you’re right. It’s like everyone and everything at Alabaster is extraordinary in some way.”
“Yeah, well … almost everyone.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Milton didn’t say anything. Instead, he opened his laptop and hunched behind the screen, as if he was trying to hide his face.
“Everything okay?�
� I asked.
“It’s just”—a sigh came from behind the laptop—“I don’t belong at a school like this. You said yourself, everyone’s extraordinary. Except me.”
“That’s not what I said.”
“Might as well have. All the kids here are special. Even the paintings have ghosts living in them.”
“You don’t know that.”
“The point is I don’t fit in here. And before long, everyone else is gonna realize it.”
I’d felt the same way as Milton most my life. Like I didn’t fit in. Like the rest of the world was on the verge of finding out the truth about me. Like a fake. In every new town, in every new school, I was constantly wondering if my classmates would realize my true identity, or my parents would embarrass me by trying to destroy the world again.
Things had only gotten tougher in the last year. As my Gyft started to kick in, I was always on edge. Middle school is hard enough without a freaky superpower. Believe me, when your gym shorts catch on fire during PE, you get some weird looks from the other kids.
All of a sudden, everything had flipped upside down. Everyone at Alabaster had superpowers.
Except Milton.
“Don’t let it get to you,” I said. “How many of the kids here can say that they’ve been part of a famous superhero team? How many have saved the world?”
“Yeah … I guess.” Milton leaned backward, his face emerging from behind the laptop. In the glow of the screen, I could see a slight smile forming on his lips.
By the time I brushed my teeth and climbed into the bottom bunk, the only sounds in the room were the patter of rain against the windows and the click-click of Milton on his laptop above me. Just as I was starting to drift off, the bed creaked. A second later, Milton’s head appeared next to me, upside down.
“Dude!” he said. “You’ve gotta see what I just found!”
“Is it more photos of Scarlett Flame in a bikini?”
“Not that.” Milton lowered his laptop. “Take a look at this.”
I leaned forward. The screen showed the website for Super Scoop. A headline was splashed across the top of the page in big, bold letters: