“This is so exciting,” Joey’s mom said in a singsong voice as they exited the cab.
“Wait until you see this place,” Joey’s father told him. “I have a feeling actually being there is going to change everything for you.”
Joey’s expression told his parents what he thought of that theory.
“I mean it. I was reading up on the school’s notable alumni last night. It’s amazing what some of these students have accomplished. Last year one of Exemplar’s seniors sold a social media company she started in her freshman year, for eight hundred million dollars.”
“I saw that too,” his mother said. “They’re not all tech wizards, either. Back in the eighties, a sixteen-year-old boy from Exemplar was confirmed as a federal judge!”
“Yeah,” Joey said, looking sideways at his mother. “In Florida.”
“It still counts!” his mother said, not giving an inch.
The school was on the Upper West Side, across the street from Central Park. Exemplar Academy cut an impressive figure, taking up a full city block. Joey stayed cool and detached as they approached, determined not to marvel at the giant building’s stately facade. Boxcar-size foundation stones at the sidewalk level gave way to subtle brickwork tastefully arranged in shades of brown and tan. The many rows of flat, rectangular windows, intersected by columns of turret windows, were all bordered with decorative stone molding. The roof was a mountain range of peaks, steeples, and cupolas that were layered beneath slate shingles and accented with copper highlights that had turned green with age. Joey’s father whistled in admiration. “Wow. They don’t make ’em like this anymore, do they?”
“No, they don’t,” his mother agreed.
Joey said nothing. He was not prepared to endorse the school in any way, shape, or form. Even offering a harmless compliment about the building’s architecture was a bridge too far, but he did appreciate its old-school vibe, no pun intended. He knew a bit of the building’s history from reading the Exemplar Academy website. It had once been the private residence of an old-money New York family, constructed during the city’s horse-and-carriage days, back when a harsh-toned “Good day, sir!” was still considered a sick burn. Old buildings like this usually got knocked down to make room for condos and corporate headquarters, but sometimes people stepped in to save them by turning them into museums, libraries, or in the case of Exemplar Academy, schools.
They arrived at a massive arch in the center of the building, right in the middle of the block. There was a gated entrance there, and beyond that, a courtyard filled with manicured hedges. Thick, black, wrought-iron bars, twenty feet high, separated the honking bustle of city traffic from an academic oasis. The bars twisted into ornate patterns throughout the gate, and gilded touches of flair added an extra layer of sophistication. Joey’s parents were visibly impressed, but Joey wouldn’t allow himself to be taken in so easily. He saw what was really going on. They had made the iron bars look pretty so that people would forget they were iron bars. The gate wasn’t there to keep people out; it was there to keep people in. To Joey, the whole school was one big fancy jail cell. His father hit the call button, and someone on the inside buzzed them through.
They were greeted in the courtyard by a middle-aged woman with toned arms, perfect skin, and a big smile. She waved with one hand, and in the other held a leather folio, presumably filled with information about the school, Joey, or both. Next to her was a young girl wearing a plaid skirt, a jacket with the Exemplar Academy crest, and a white button-down shirt underneath. She made the school uniform look cool with her striped tie knotted loosely around her neck and several buttons pinned on her lapels. She had dark brown skin and her hair was done up in short, natural curls. Sunglasses shielded her eyes as she stood there, typing away on her phone. Once Joey got close enough, he was able to read the buttons on her jacket: HAN SHOT FIRST! MARCH FOR OUR LIVES, GREEN IS THE NEW BLACK, EVIL GENIUS, and more. She looked up to smile at Joey and put the phone away.
“You must be the Kopecky family,” said the older woman as Joey crossed the flagstone path with his parents.
“That’s us,” Joey’s father replied. “I’m John, this is my wife, Helen, and this, of course, is Joey.”
“The boy I’ve heard so much about! So nice to meet you! Welcome!” She made a point of shaking Joey’s hand first. “I’m Dr. Cho, dean of students, but please don’t call me that. We’re very casual here. My first name is Julianna. Feel free to call me Jules.”
“Okay,” Joey said, a little flustered.
“It’s wonderful to finally make your acquaintance. I feel like I know you already, but of course, there’s only so much one can learn from looking at someone’s test scores, isn’t there? I’m excited to get to know you in real life.”
“Yeah, it’s… nice to meet you too.” Dr. Cho was not at all what he had expected. She was welcoming and warm. He had anticipated some kind of educational drill sergeant. Only so much you can learn from test scores? Joey had assumed the people here cared about test scores and nothing else.
“We’ll have plenty of time to get acquainted later on. Today I’m just going to let you wander around and explore. You get the fun part of orientation day. Your parents and I will deal with the more tedious aspects of getting you enrolled.” Dr. Cho made a queasy face. “Registration forms, permission slips, liability waivers… yuck.”
“Liability waivers?” Joey asked.
“All part of the process.” Dr. Cho smiled. “I don’t want to waste your time with every boring detail. I think you’ll get a lot more out of speaking with a fellow student. But I do want to explain to your parents how we, as administrators, view our role here at Exemplar, which is to put every conceivable resource at your disposal and help you unlock your potential in a relatively risk-free environment.”
“Sounds great,” Joey’s father said.
“What does that mean, relatively risk free?” his mother asked.
“That’s what we’re here to find out today. It really depends on Joey. We’re going to go through his file together.” Dr. Cho patted the leather folio she was holding and smiled at Joey. “It’s all in here: academic history, psych profile, medical records… everything we need, from favorite foods, to phobias, allergies, and more.”
“Bees,” Joey’s mother said.
“I’m sorry?” Dr. Cho asked.
“He’s allergic to bees,” she repeated.
“Oh. Let’s keep him away from Sandy’s project, then,” Dr. Cho told the young girl next to her.
The girl nodded and removed her sunglasses. “My friend Sandy is running experiments to reverse the decimation of the bee population,” she explained. “She has forty-seven hives in her lab—thousands of bees—all genetically engineered to resist the effects of climate change. In fact, they’re completely indestructible, which presents another problem altogether. She can’t release them into the wild. You need to wear a suit and everything on that floor until she figures out what to do with them.”
Joey’s eyes widened. “Right, let’s stay away from that. Please.”
“Joey, this is Janelle Thomas. She’s going to be taking you around today. You’re here just in time. Janelle is going to be leaving us soon.” Dr. Cho gave her a little one-armed hug, her eyes at once sad and beaming. “We’re going to miss her terribly.”
“Don’t tell me you’re off to college already,” Joey’s dad said to Janelle.
“It’s only for a month,” she replied. “I’m going to help lead a renewable energy project at Caltech.”
“Wow.” Joey’s mother was impressed. “That’s fantastic. Good for you.”
“They wanted her to matriculate in the fall, but she’s opted to stay with us a little while longer,” Dr. Cho said, full of pride. “Janelle is too modest to tell you, but she’s one of our greatest young minds in the field of physics. And when I say ‘our,’ I don’t mean ‘our school.’ I mean ‘our planet.’ ”
“I believe it,” Joey’s father said.
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“Okay…” Janelle tucked her sunglasses into a jacket pocket and picked up her backpack off a nearby bench. “Joey, we should head out before it gets any more embarrassing. Come on, I’ll show you around.” She tugged on his sleeve and waved to the others. “It was nice meeting all of you!”
“You too!” Joey’s parents replied in unison.
“Janelle, we’ll be in the visitors’ lounge if you need us,” Dr. Cho said. “Joey, have fun—you’re in good hands!”
“Thanks,” Joey replied as he followed Janelle into the school. He thought he knew what to expect going in. The former mansion had been built in the late 1800s, so he had envisioned a refined, classical interior: dimly lit oak-paneled halls lined with oil paintings of hundred-year-old men and an oversize portrait in the lobby depicting a crotchety old headmaster with a book in one hand and a switch in the other. Joey had imagined a plaque that read OUR FOUNDER, TOBIAS EXEMPLAR, or some other such thing, but none of that was there. Instead, it was like stepping into the future. The lobby was bright and thoroughly modern, a large, empty space with a clean, streamlined look and feel. The wall to Joey’s left curved around to meet the one on his right, creating a room shaped like the upper-left quadrant of a circle. The contoured wall doubled as a high-definition video screen, which was displaying a sort of digital motion mural. Streaks of white light set against a field of brilliant blue drifted across the room from left to right like slow-moving comets, briefly hypnotizing Joey.
“So, how’s it going?” Janelle asked Joey.
“It’s going,” Joey said, gawking at the lobby. It felt more like the office of a trendy tech company than it did an exclusive prep school. “I’m actually kind of overwhelmed, to tell you the truth. I feel like my whole world just got turned upside down this week, and it’s only Tuesday.”
Janelle nodded. “I guess that means you haven’t gotten started yet.”
Joey turned. “Started on what?”
“Don’t you remember? Hang on.” She dug around in her backpack and pulled out a pamphlet that read SAVE THE PLANET. She handed it to him, grinning. “You told me you were going to get right on that. What’s up? No progress?”
Joey scanned the pamphlet, putting two and two together. “That was you on the train?”
“Good to see you again. I didn’t expect it to be here.”
Joey looked up at Janelle and felt embarrassed. “Holy cow. I didn’t even recognize… I don’t know what it is.… My head’s all over the place right now.… I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right,” Janelle said. “I didn’t recognize you at first, either.”
“I mean, I’m sorry for yesterday. I was kind of rude, wasn’t I?”
“You were,” Janelle confirmed casually. “Don’t worry. I won’t judge,” she added with a smile. “I remember when I started here too. This place… It’s a lot. You’ve got some stuff on your mind. I know how it is.”
“I’ve got some stuff, all right,” Joey agreed. “How long have you been going to school here?” he asked, trying to work out how old Janelle was. She looked like she was his age, but she seemed so much more confident and mature.
“I’ve been here two years. Trust me, it’s cooler than you think.”
“No kidding,” Joey said, unable to suppress a skeptical half smile. He was going to say it would have to be, but he didn’t want to be rude again.
“I mean it,” Janelle reassured him. “When I first came here, I heard about the year-round classes and I thought this school was going to be a prison. It took a little while before I realized the inmates run the asylum here.”
“You mean the kids are in charge?”
“One hundred percent. Exemplar is all about giving us free rein. The last thing they want to do is stifle a young creative mind that might be on the verge of some monumental breakthrough. Whatever you’re into, you get to do that thing here. That and nothing else. You follow your passion. Isn’t that the way it’s supposed to be?”
“In a perfect world,” Joey agreed. “Dr. Cho… um, Jules… said you study physics? That’s your passion?”
Janelle smiled enthusiastically. “Oh yeah. Physics, quantum physics, theoretical physics, string theory… you name it. I love physics. Love it all.”
Joey smiled along with her. Physics was the study of matter and energy… the way the world worked. He wondered how Janelle would feel if she knew what he knew. That the world didn’t work the way she thought it did and there were mysteries science could never explain. He looked around the lobby, wondering where they went from here. The room was completely empty. There was no elevator bank, no check-in desk, and apparently no way in or out except for the door they had just walked through. Janelle went to the center of the room, and a thin, clear glass kiosk rose out of the floor to meet her. She touched her phone to it, eliciting a pleasing chime, followed by an automated voice that spoke her name: “Thomas, Janelle.”
“Elevator please,” Janelle told the disembodied voice, and the kiosk descended.
“I feel like I’m on the bridge of the Enterprise,” Joey said.
“What’d I tell you? Kids come here from all over the world for a reason.”
“Where are you from?” Joey asked.
“Hoboken.”
Joey staggered a step. “I’m from Hoboken!”
“I know. We met on the PATH train, remember?” Janelle laughed as the elevator arrived, or more accurately, appeared, opening up inside the digital mural. “Why do you think Jules wanted me to show you around? She’s awesome, by the way. You’ll love her.” She motioned for Joey to follow her into the elevator car and pushed the button for the fourth floor. “Two geniuses from ’Boken. What are the odds?” She put up her fist for Joey to bump.
Joey gave her some reluctant knuckles. “Pretty unlikely,” he said, thinking he didn’t qualify.
Janelle didn’t catch his real meaning. “How about that? The birthplace of baseball, Sinatra, and the two of us. What kind of genius are you?”
Joey shook his head. “Not much of one,” he said, still anxious that he didn’t belong.
“The modest kind!” Janelle said, surprised. “That’s refreshing. We don’t see a lot of that around here.” Her phone beeped. “Excuse me one second.” She took a quick time-out to respond to a text. The elevator bell dinged, and she put the phone away. “Here we are! Fourth floor: sportswear, appliances, robotics labs, holographic imaging, laser science…”
“Lasers?”
“You keep repeating everything I say as a question,” Janelle observed.
“Sorry. It’s a habit. I do it when things get weird.”
“It’s only weird until it becomes the new normal.” Janelle nudged Joey out the door. “Have a look around. Get used to it.”
Joey stepped off the elevator. The hallway was quiet. Just like downstairs, everything looked brand-new and curiously empty. He wandered down the hall, peeking through the window in every closed door he passed. They were not classrooms, but state-of-the-art labs. He had to go halfway down the corridor before he found one that was occupied. Inside, a boy younger than him was fixing goggles over his eyes. He was getting ready to do something. Maybe fire a laser? A mess of wires, tubes, and high-tech hardware was bolted to a workstation in front of him. The boy flipped a few switches on a nearby control panel, and a circle of thin, emerald beams of light materialized, converging on a central point. A second later their combined energy formed a single, much stronger laser beam that shot out like a blast from the Death Star. The next thing Joey knew, a blinding light filled the lab, pouring out into the hallway. Joey threw his hands up over his eyes and turned away. There was an electric crackle followed by a loud bang, and the light show stopped.
Seeing spots, Joey went back to the window and found that the boy’s project had exploded. The workstation was on fire, and the boy in the goggles was pounding the desk in frustration. Joey felt like he might as well have been watching himself at the Majestic Theatre last night. His own experiment
s there had been less explosive but also far less impressive.
“That’s Suhash, our resident expert in optical amplification,” Janelle said, looking over Joey’s shoulder. “Ooh,” she added sympathetically, surveying the damage to his lab. “Not a good time. We’ll come back.” She urged Joey on, but he lingered at the window, staring at the fiery mess on the other side of the glass. It occurred to him that once upon a time, people would have believed such a device to be a form of sorcery or witchcraft. Joey couldn’t imagine putting something like that together. Somehow, mastering Redondo’s impossible style of magic felt like a much more attainable goal. They continued down the hall, but the other labs were all empty.
“Where is everyone?”
“They’re around. Don’t expect a big crowd when the bell rings, though. There’s only twenty-five students in the whole school.”
Joey was about to repeat “Only twenty-five?” but he stopped himself before the words slipped out. Instead he asked, “Why so few?”
“What do you expect? Exemplar is hyperexclusive. The top one percent of the one percent. Academically speaking, not economically. Tuition is free.”
“I think that’s my parents’ favorite part of this.”
Janelle’s phone beeped again. She checked it quickly. “I’m sure they’re excited about the quality of the education you’re going to get. Class size is as small as small can be here. It’s just you. That’s how they can be so super focused and play to everyone’s specific strengths.”
Joey grunted. Janelle said that like it was a good thing. And maybe it was for her, but Joey saw it as a detriment to his preferred method of getting through the school day. A school with only twenty-five students that was big on individual attention was not at all good for him. You can’t hide in the back of the class when there is no back of the class.
Continuing the tour, they took the stairs up to the next floor, exiting the stairwell into a spacious gymnasium. “This is the athletics level,” Janelle explained. The room was bare except for some gymnastics equipment arranged on the floor: padded mats, a pommel horse, uneven parallel bars, and a set of rings that hung from the ceiling. Joey noticed a boy wearing a warm-up suit stretching in the corner. A tiny woman in a matching tracksuit was directing him.
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