by Dan Elish
Chapter 22
The Charcoal Grill Toaster
On most mornings, students jammed the Blatt School playground, grabbing a final few minutes of playtime before the day’s studies. With the Insanity Cup only an hour away, few children occupied the playground, and they were working. Wanda Twiddles was perched on the bottom of the slide, practicing a short speech about the inner workings of her latest suspension bridge. Wilmer Griffith was on a swing, nose buried in a thick black binder full of charts of the Andromeda galaxy. Atop the jungle gym like a rare bird was Jean-Claude Broquet. He was holding a scroll, emoting dramatically in what Daphna could only assume was Medieval French. Only Thelma Trimm was using the playground as it was intended and was playing a vigorous game of hopscotch, grunting loudly with each leap, “Insanity Cup is mine! Insanity Cup is mine!”
Daphna and her friends slipped into the back entrance of the school without meeting a single eye. Though the lobby was a little bit busier, what students were present were also lost in their own thoughts. Ignatious’s statue lorded over its domain with a grin that Daphna now found wicked.
“‘Be insanely gifted,’” Harkin read from his plaque. “‘Work insanely hard. Be insanely good.’” He shuddered. “Make me sick.”
“You said it,” Daphna said.
“I’ll drop by the crook’s office to see what I can find out,” Cynthia said. “Wish me luck.”
The actress hurried toward the stairwell. A step past the statue, she glanced to her right and left to make sure no one was looking, then took a piece of gum out of her mouth and stuck it on Ignatious’s foot. With a grin to her friends, she hit the stairway at a run.
“Our turn now,” Daphna said. “Where do we look for Myron? He could be anywhere.”
Harkin reached into his pocket and pulled out two thin sticks of gum.
“Gum-Top,” Daphna said.
Harkin nodded. “I figured out a way to get online and hack into the school’s security camera system. Chew with me. Hopefully, we’ll be able to see where he is.”
Daphna popped the gum into her mouth. She purposely didn’t think about composers.org but focused all her thoughts on the Blatt School website.
“Did you see that?” Harkin cried.
The image became clear. Smack in the middle of the school’s home page was a picture of Ignatious holding out a piece of Gum-Top. The banner atop the page read: “The Great Blatt Does It Again!”
“Stay calm,” Daphna said.
“Yeah, yeah,” Harkin muttered. “I’m calm, all right. Go to the school’s security page. See the small camera icon on the lower left-hand corner? Now let’s start scanning the rooms from the bottom up.”
“I’m already at Wilmer’s office,” Daphna said.
The large boy had put a blackboard on each wall, as well as another one on the ceiling, and covered every inch with diagrams and figures.
“I can’t understand a thing,” Harkin said.
“Me neither,” Daphna said. “Check out Wanda’s room. The model of her latest bridge has four levels!”
“Do you remember that sign across from my office that reads ‘BEWARE: VERY LARGE GRASSHOPPER!’?” Harkin asked.
Daphna was already peering inside the room.
“The bug is a foot long.”
“Two feet!”
“Its eyes are two giant Frisbees.”
“Its antennae are two giant windshield wipers.”
“Let’s get out of here.”
“I’m already gone,” Harkin said. He drew in a deep breath and followed the security camera down the hall. “The moment of truth. My office next.”
Daphna didn’t expect to find any remaining traces of Gum-Top. But what met her eyes next was almost more than she could bear. Where Harkin’s fantastic machine had once stood was now a blank wall with a lone wire sticking out of a plug. Also gone were Harkin’s binders with his notes. All that remained was a single overstocked bookshelf, Harkin’s small desk, and a smattering of engine parts on the floor.
“They stole it,” Harkin said. It was as if he hadn’t actually believed it before. “Ignatious really stole Gum-Top!”
“Wait,” Daphna said. “If the school’s surveillance cameras were on this weekend, we can find the footage.”
Harkin shook his head. “Ignatious may be evil, but he’s not stupid. If there was footage, he’s erased it by now. But who cares? We know who the thief is anyway: Myron.”
“Probably,” Daphna said. “We just have to find him.”
“We’d better hurry,” Harkin said. “My Gum-Top is losing flavor, and I only have one more piece.”
Luckily, the two friends didn’t have to search much longer. Scanning up to the next level, Daphna saw a boy in a purple shirt and yellow loafers sprinting down the hallway.
“Got him!” Daphna said.
As Myron disappeared into his office, Daphna and Harkin spit out their Gum-Tops and bolted to the back stairwell. With the hour of the assembly approaching, some students were getting a start on hauling their presentations up to the school theater. Half a flight down, Daphna found herself face-to-face with the mouth of an absolutely immense tuba.
“Make way for the world’s first Blugle-horn!” a small boy with red hair announced.
As Daphna and Harkin flattened their bodies against the wall to let him pass, the boy pushed the instrument up the stairs on a small set of wheels. He stopped to talk, blocking the stairwell.
“You’re a musician,” the boy said to Daphna. “I’ll bet you think my horn plays really low, right? Bet you think it sounds sort of like a tuba, right? Well, that’s not true.”
“Hey,” Harkin said. “If you could move it along, we’ve got to get go—”
The boy lifted his lips to the mouthpiece and filled the hallway with a giant BLAAAATTT! Daphna had never heard a musical note quite so loud or ugly.
“See?” the boy said.
“Nice,” Daphna stammered. Her ears were ringing.
“Want to hear the opening phrase of my concerto?”
“Uh, why don’t we wait to hear it at the assembly?” Harkin said.
“Good enough,” the boy said, and pushed the horn past them up the stairwell.
“How was he ever accepted here?” Harkin whispered.
Daphna shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe his insane gift is playing loudly.”
Two girls appeared carrying a giant cage covered by a blue sheet.
“Meet Hugo!” the first girl said. “The world’s most talented rat.”
“That’s all right,” Daphna began. “But we really . . .”
The first girl pulled off the sheet, revealing a two-foot rat wearing a custom-made tuxedo and top hat.
Daphna cringed. An occasional cockroach or mouse was part of city life. But a two-foot-long rat? Even one so elegantly dressed was more than her stomach could handle.
“What does he do?” Harkin asked.
The second girl grinned. “Sing and dance, of course!”
Thankfully, the girls didn’t insist on a demonstration. With a cheerful good-bye, they continued up the stairs.
Harkin looked at Daphna. “Let’s see if we can finally get down to Myron’s office.”
No sooner did they reach the third basement level—Myron’s floor—than an enormous BANG reverberated down the hall. A steady stream of black smoke billowed out of a distant doorway, followed by an ear-piercing cry: “Noooooooo!”
“Myron!” Harkin said.
“Do you think he’s hurt?” Daphna asked. She sprinted ahead and barged through the door. Atop Myron’s small metal desk stood a machine that resembled a giant silver toaster but with two clear funnels that pointed upward on either side. Clearly, the contraption was Myron’s year-end project. Just as clearly, it wasn’t in working condition. Small flames shot out of the funnels. Worse, Myron was manning a fire extinguisher, spraying the foam onto the floor instead of onto his burning contraption. He slipped and fell hard on his rear end. Daphna grabbed the exting
uisher and put out the fire with two well-aimed spurts as Harkin turned on the air vent high to clear out the smoke.
“Myron?” Daphna asked. “What happened?”
A moment earlier, she had wanted his blood. But now, lying in a puddle of foam in his absurd yellow loafers, he looked downright ridiculous. It was hard not to feel sorry for him.
“It caught on fire!” Myron moaned.
“We can see that,” Harkin said. “But what in the world is ‘it’ supposed to be? A toaster?”
Myron struggled to his feet and kicked his desk. A flurry of sparks shot out of his strange machine.
“Not a toaster,” he said, waving away another gust of smoke. “An instant charcoal grill. In my prototype, this puppy cooks a hamburger in thirty seconds.”
Daphna noticed what appeared to be four hamburgers lying on the foamy floor, charred beyond recognition. She wouldn’t have been surprised if someone had told her they were hockey pucks.
“I’m sunk,” Myron said. He took one of the burgers from the ground, then stated the obvious. “See? It’s burned!”
Myron still tried to take a bite, foam and all. With great effort, he was able to get his teeth to break into the destroyed burger. Unfortunately, he couldn’t pull them back out.
“Mmmmmmfffpppff!” he moaned, pointing helplessly at his mouth.
Harkin rolled his eyes.
“MMMmmmmmffppff!” Myron said again. This time he pointed at a closet.
“All right,” Harkin said. “Hold on.”
In the closet was a small toolbox. Harkin found a wrench and screwed its jaws onto the burger.
“Hold on,” Harkin said. “I’m going to have to really pull.”
It took three tries, but the burger finally came loose. Then Myron ran to the trash can to pick the remaining bits out of his teeth.
“Serves you right,” Harkin said.
“What?”
“Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about!” Harkin said.
“I don’t.”
“You stole Gum-Top!”
Myron finally turned from the trash. “Gum-Top? You’re crazy! That’s my father’s invention.”
“Is not,” Daphna said. “It’s Harkin’s.”
Myron laughed. “In your dreams.”
“Why were you snooping around our offices on Friday?” Daphna asked.
“It doesn’t take a genius to see you were trying to steal someone’s idea,” Harkin said. “Especially when all you could come up with on your own is this grill.”
Myron’s face scrunched up like he had eaten a sour lime. His look reminded Daphna of how upset he had been in the playground when he had defended his father.
“I’ve got half an hour to get it operational!”
“Okay, forget the stupid grill,” Harkin said. “You still stole Gum-Top!”
Myron shook his head. “Think whatever you want. But I didn’t say anything to anyone. And Gum-Top is my dad’s idea! You really think you’re going to get away with trying to steal an idea from him?”
“But you were looking in Harkin’s window!” Daphna said.
“I was walking by and got curious. Don’t tell me you’ve never looked in other people’s offices?”
Daphna stopped short. She did it all the time. Everyone did.
“Well, sure,” she stammered.
“See?” Myron said.
“That still doesn’t answer what you were doing down in the fourth-floor basement last Friday,” Harkin said.
“I thought I was on mine. I lost track of where I was.”
Daphna looked at Myron skeptically. “You got lost a lot that day. First looking for Yuri’s office.”
Myron laughed. “If I stole Gum-Top, I wouldn’t give it to my father. I’d enter it myself! But you are totally missing the point. The kids in this school aren’t only insanely gifted, they’re insanely competitive. Take Wilmer—he’s so desperate to win, he hasn’t slept all weekend. Wanda wants it so badly, she built a model suspension bridge across the East River. And your friend Cynthia—she’s the nuttiest of all. She’d do anything to see that one-woman Macbeth of hers on Broadway. She’s been talking about it all year!”
Myron’s accusation shocked Daphna. “You’re out of your mind! Are you saying Cynthia would cheat?”
“She’s no crook,” Harkin said.
“Whatever you say,” Myron said. “Listen, I’d love to keep chatting, but I’m running out of time to fix my grill.”
Harkin nodded at the smoking contraption. “You’re still going to enter that?”
“It’s better than whatever you’ve come up with,” Myron said. “Maybe that’s why you’re going around saying Gum-Top is yours. You have nothing of your own.”
“Nothing of my own?” Harkin cried. “Have you forgotten about the Thunkmobile?”
“That piece of yellow junk?”
“That piece of junk flies!”
“That piece of junk looks like junk. No way Cody Meyers will want something that ugly on his show.”
“And he’s really gonna want a grill that looks like a toaster that makes hamburgers that could be doorstops?”
“All it needs are a few minor adjustments. Now a little privacy. The master must create.”
But the master had even less time than he thought. The hollow sound of the Blatt gong filled the room.
“Is it time for the assembly?” Daphna said. “Already?”
Harkin smiled broadly at Myron. “Good luck with your toaster. You’ve got Cody Meyers in the bag.”
Myron frowned. “Get out, shrimp.”
“Don’t worry. We’re going.”
Daphna and Harkin hurried to the hall.
“I still don’t trust him,” Harkin said.
“Me neither,” Daphna said. “But without any proof, what are we going to do?”
The Blatt gong sounded a second time.
“What do we do?” Harkin said. “Go to the assembly and hope that Cynthia found out something from Ignatious. Come on!”
Chapter 23
The Insanity Cup
Old Iggy wasn’t even there.”
Cynthia was with Daphna and Harkin on the fourth floor of the school, outside the Blatt School theater. A beautifully redone assembly hall, it seated one hundred people in plush velvet seats in the orchestra section, and one hundred more in the balcony.
“What a waste,” Cynthia went on. “I could’ve spent the time rehearsing Macbeth.”
Cynthia grew even angrier when Harkin and Daphna filled her in about their discussion with Myron.
“That little weasel suggested that I might have been the one to have stolen Gum-Top? I’ll shove his yellow loafers down his rotten throat.”
“Let it go,” Daphna said.
Harkin smiled.
“What?” Cynthia asked.
“If it makes you feel any better, you should’ve seen his project.”
“Bad, huh?”
“The worst. A charcoal grill that makes burgers the consistency of cement.”
Cynthia allowed herself a satisfied grin. “I know that shouldn’t make me so happy, but I don’t care. It just does.”
“Let’s forget about Myron for now,” Daphna said. “What’s next? Go to the assembly and keep our eyes and ears open for clues?”
“Sounds like about all we can do for the time being,” Harkin said.
“Let’s grab some seats,” Cynthia said.
That would prove to be easier said than done. As Daphna stepped into the theater itself, she saw that nearly every seat in the orchestra section was already taken. Less surprising was the flurry of precontest chatter, flying fast and furious.
“I finally did it,” a voice rose above the din. “Made a steam engine that runs on garbage!”
“So what? I’ve made a plane!”
“My robot built a rocket!”
Daphna exchanged a glance with her two friends.
“I used to think Blatt students were nice.”
“All to be on a stupid talk show,” Cynthia said. “Who cares?”
“Easy for you to say, I suppose,” Harkin said. “I mean, you’re on stage every night. For lots of these kids, showing their stuff on TV is the be-all and end-all.”
Cynthia blew a bubble and let it pop over her lips. “A waste of energy, if you ask me.”
Daphna thought again of Myron and shook her head. Cynthia had known fame since she was six. She was the last person in the school who would need to steal to get on TV.
“Shall we?” Harkin said, pointing down the aisle.
Daphna looked out over the theater. “Love to, but there’re no seats. Should we head up to the balcony?”
“Not so fast,” Cynthia said. “Follow me.”
“Where?” Harkin said.
“I see three seats up front.”
Daphna followed her two friends down the aisle, her heart racing faster with every step. The Insanity Cup. It was just a silly contest—Cynthia was right about that—but it was impossible not to get caught up in the mood of the room. It was as though everyone’s competitive energy had been mixed into a big pot, shaken, stirred, heated up, and ignited. Students were positively aching to show off their projects.
“Yo, Mr. D’Angelo!” Daphna heard a boy call out to the popular teacher. “I’ve taught my monkey how to play the clarinet.”
“I’ve taught my dog how to whistle ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’!”
“My dog rewrote ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’!”
A student in the back row lofted a paper airplane to the front of the hall.
“Hey!” a voice called out. “That’s the blueprint to my submarine!”
To everyone’s amusement, the paper airplane landed in Ms. Frank’s hair. She crumpled it into a ball, then shot it back to its owner with a quick kick from her famous thigh-high boots. As the student body cheered, the three friends continued down the aisle. Outside they had briefly taken the spotlight; now they were roundly ignored. No one cared that Cynthia had missed a few performances of The Dancing Doberman. No one cared that Harkin had lost his mind and claimed that Ignatious had stolen all his ideas from a bozo named Billy B. Brilliant. The Blatt students were concerned with one thing and one thing only: themselves.