Deprivation House

by Franklin W. Dixon

  “Okay.” I thought about her question for a moment. “I think I’d be somewhat different, but not completely different,” I said.

  “So if you had been adopted by Frank’s family and he’d been adopted by yours, you’d have the same personality?” Brynn turned to face me.

  “Yeah. I definitely don’t think I’d have Frank’s personality, if that’s what you mean,” I answered. “I don’t think I’d eat pizza with a knife and fork. I wouldn’t have a kitten if somebody put a CD back in the wrong case.”

  “Frank eats pizza with a knife and fork?” Brynn asked.

  Oops. I’d gotten so into talking to Brynn I’d messed up on the cover story. She made me forget my ATAC training for a second.

  “He definitely looks like the kind of guy who would, right? I mean, look at his jeans. I think he irons them. And they’re jeans,” I said. “But back to your first question, I wouldn’t be a guy who ironed, well, anything. But I guess every experience you have changes you somehow. Gives you knowledge. Or memories that are good or bad. Or skills. For example, because I met you, I’m now an opposites master.”

  I figured I’d given a long enough answer to make her forget my slipup. “What do you think? Would you be totally different if you lived in a different place or had a different family or whatever?”

  She shrugged. “Who knows?”

  “Fine. You make me give a big, long essay-question answer and you get off with ‘who knows,’” I complained.

  “You could have said ‘who knows,’” Brynn told me. “You could have . . .”

  As she continued speaking, a flash of light from among the trees below caught my eye. I tried to pretend I was listening to Brynn as I watched for it to come again. It did. Frank was sending me a signal. A few flashes later and I had it.

  Basically, the signal said, “Get to work.”

  • • •

  I wandered around the house, trying to figure out exactly how to get to work. Actually, as far as Frank knew, talking to Brynn could have been working. She could have been giving me insight into the motive of the killer. She wasn’t, but he didn’t know that.

  I heard James’s voice in the exercise room and decided to swing in there. He was a suspect who could use some further investigation.

  “What’s with the blue hair?” James lay on his back on a weight bench. He let out his breath slowly as he lowered a hundred-pound weight to his chest. He looked over at Bobby T, who was pedaling slowly on one of the exercise bikes.

  Bobby gave a one-shoulder shrug. “It’s a style.”

  “It’s weird.” James began lifting the weight again.

  “How am I supposed to answer that?” Bobby asked me.

  “You’re not,” said James before I could open my mouth. “You’re supposed to tell me to go eat a toad. I knew you were a wimp. I was just verifying.”

  “A wimp who pretty much beat you in two competitions,” Bobby T said. He didn’t sound too bothered.

  James slammed the weight back on the bar over his head and sat up. “The first one was canceled before it was finished.”

  “I’ll be sure to make that clear in my blog when I write about it,” Bobby T answered. “Veronica isn’t allowing me to post anything that’s directly about the show. Nothing about the contests or that there are even deprivations or anything. I still wrote about Leo, just without the contest part.”

  Bobby T started pedaling faster. “And I wrote about my near-death experience. Thanks for telling me my lips turned blue and everything, Joe. I put in that we’ve all gotten death threats, too.” He took a swallow from his water bottle.

  “Don’t you have to have our permission to write about us?” James asked.

  “Nope. I’m writing about my life, and you happen to be in it.” Bobby T jumped off the bike. “I’m ready to try out the sauna. It should be nice and hot by now. Mitch got it going for me. Who’s in?”

  “I guess that’s the only way you’ll work up a sweat. You weren’t exactly feeling the burn on that bike,” James said. “But my muscles could use some loosening in the sauna.”

  “Why not?” I came into the gym because I wanted to gather info on potential suspects. I could do that anywhere.

  Except what I ended up finding out was something I already knew—saunas are hot. That’s pretty much all we said to one another. Variations on “It’s hot in here.”

  “It smells kind of like pine,” I commented. Only to say something different.

  “It’s the wood, genius. It’s white pine,” James told me.

  Note to self: James is not very polite. I leaned my head back against the white pine wall and closed my eyes.

  “I’m starting to feel sort of like I did last night,” Bobby T said.

  My eyes snapped open. “You mean before you had the attack?”

  “Yeah,” he answered. “My chest feels tight.”

  Frank and I had thrown away the contaminated toothpaste. And anyway, I’d been with Bobby T for about the last half an hour. He hadn’t eaten anything. He’d drunk some water—we all had—but his was from the same bottle he’d been using since I came into the gym. He would have had a reaction by now if it was contaminated.

  I realized my own chest felt kind of tight. Hot and tight. “It’s just from sucking down all this hot, dry air,” I said. “I think we should head out.”

  I stood up, and my brain seemed to do a slow roll inside my head. “We should definitely head out. I’m more dehydrated than I thought.” I walked over to the door and grabbed the handle. It didn’t move.

  I gave the handle a jerk. It still didn’t move.

  The door didn’t have a lock, did it? I slid my hands over it, even though I was sure it didn’t.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Bobby T.

  “The door’s jammed,” I answered.

  “Let me do it.” James got up, elbowed me aside, and yanked on the door. It didn’t open.

  “Wait. Are we trapped in here?” Bobby T demanded. He crowded up to the door too.

  “Let’s discuss it with the heat down,” I said. I hurried over to the thermostat. At least this sauna had it inside. I slid my thumb across the wheel.

  Jammed.

  “No way,” said James, looking over at me.

  Bobby T groaned. “I finished all my water a little while ago.”

  “I’m out too,” James told us.

  “I have about a quarter of a bottle left,” I said. I did a quick check of the room. There was no intercom in here.

  “Here’s my next question.” James picked up his empty water bottle and crushed it. “How long can we stay in here without passing out from heatstroke?”

  No Joe

  Now where’s Joe? I thought.

  I bet I knew who he was with, even if I didn’t know where. The Brynn thing—it was starting to get a little annoying.

  It’s not completely under his control, I told myself. Attraction and all that released a lot of chemicals into the brain. He was clearly operating while impaired.

  But this mission was complicated. There were a ton of suspects. Chemical-soaked or not, I needed my brother.

  So I began my search, starting with the top floor. I didn’t find Joe up there. But I did find Brynn. Okay, I admit it. I was wrong.

  She was standing alone in the library, running her finger up and down one of the stripes on the wallpaper.

  “Can’t find anything good to read?” I asked.

  “Too many good things. Practically everything. Even new stuff,” she said.

  “Why wouldn’t there be new stuff? This place has the newest everything,” I answered.

  “I guess I expect libraries like this”—she gave the wheeled ladder a little push—“so-old fashioned looking, to have only old-fashioned books.”

  I spotted a book I’d liked a lot and pulled it off the shelf. “Have you read Life of Pi? I’m usually more of a nonfiction guy, but it was really great.”

  “I almost always read nonfiction too,” Brynn answered
. “I just read this one.” She slid a book off the shelf—the book that was waiting for me in my living room back home.

  “The part where it described the peeling away of the—,” I began.

  “Yeah,” she agreed.

  I realized I was having another conversation in the library with a girl. And I wasn’t blushing. I guess it was because I started talking to Brynn without planning to talk to her. Now I really was beginning to understand why Joe kept wandering off with her.

  “You haven’t seen Joe around, have you?” I asked.

  “Not for a while,” she said. And I was hit with how cute she was. I knew she was cute. I’d noticed it before. But it suddenly hit me—like a sucker punch. That’s when I felt the Blush.

  “I’ll, uh, see you later.” I rushed out of the room and continued looking for Joe.

  No Joe on the third floor.

  No Joe on the second floor.

  No Joe on the first floor.

  I reached the basement and looked through the tiny window in the sauna door. My pulse started to race—

  Joe.

  He was sprawled out on the wooden planks. Motionless. Bobby and James lay beside him.

  I grabbed the door—yanked it. Locked. No, jammed.

  How long have they been in there? I thought as I scanned the door, trying to figure out the problem. Did they pass out, or are they—

  “No!” I burst out. “It’s not too late.” I wasn’t going to let it be too late.

  There was a workshop on the basement level. I’d seen it the night we checked out the bowling alley.

  I jerked around and tore out of there. Through the locker room. Through the gym. Down the hall. Right or left? Right or left?

  This place was too huge!

  I went left, praying that was the way to the workshop. Yes! I charged inside. I knew exactly what I needed. I ran my eyes over the tools hanging neatly on the wall. There it was.

  A chainsaw.

  I was back at the sauna door in seconds. I yanked on the safety goggles and the work gloves I’d found. I got the saw going with two quick pulls. Then I attacked the wall. Going at it as far away from where I’d seen the guys as I could.

  There was probably a better way to do it. Maybe even a faster way. But this was the first way I thought of.

  The chainsaw bucked under my grip as I struggled to carve out a hunk of wall large enough to get a body through. A person, I corrected myself. Not a body. A person.

  “What is going on here?” I heard someone yell from behind me. I thought it was Veronica.

  “Three people are passed out in there and the door won’t open. That’s what’s going on,” I shouted. I kept on sawing, sweat running down my back, the grip getting hot under my hands.

  A jagged rectangle of wood finally fell to the sauna floor. I turned off the chainsaw.

  “This is one of the stupidest, most irresponsible things I’ve ever seen.”

  I put down the saw and glanced over my shoulder. Yeah, it was Veronica. Ripley, Olivia, and Wilson were clustered behind her.

  “We’ll have to talk about it later.” I leaned through the opening I’d created. I was relieved to see that the chunk of wood hadn’t hurt anyone.

  And the sound of the chainsaw must have revived Joe, James, and Bobby T. They were huddled as far away from the spot I’d gone in as possible.

  “Can you guys walk?” I asked. “Can somebody get them some water?”

  “I’ll go,” Ripley said.

  “Getting a little cooler air in here is already helping. The thermostat was jammed too,” Joe told me. He helped Bobby T over to the new “door.” Together we eased him out of the sauna.

  “All I want is an ice-cold shower,” he said.

  “Cool, not cold,” I said. “And first just sit for a while in the air-conditioning.”

  “Are we going to have to call 911 again?” Veronica asked as James climbed through the hole. His legs were trembling.

  “I don’t think they have heatstroke. They’re still sweating, which is good,” I answered. I got Joe out. “You okay?” I asked.

  “Kind of nauseous. A headache. It’s kind of like when I went on the Screaming Eagle coaster eleven times in a row,” Joe said. Ripley handed him a bottle of water.

  “Sip it,” I ordered. “You guys too,” I told James and Bobby T.

  I never wanted to live through a day like that again. But I had to watch myself live it over and over. The next day a clip of me and the chainsaw was on a bunch of news shows. I figured Dad had been able to do damage control with Aunt Trudy and Mom. Otherwise they’d already have flown out here and dragged Joe and me home.

  All fourteen of us spent the entire day watching anything on TV that mentioned the accident. No one was calling it anything but an accident, even though anyone who had looked at the door or the thermostat knew it wasn’t one. I figured Veronica had managed to do some spin when she leaked the tapes.

  She’d definitely gotten the door and thermostat out of sight fast. Mitch had practically dismantled the sauna before Joe and I could check it out for evidence.

  We were still in the great room late that night—make that a quarter of the great room. Everyone seemed to want to stay close together. There hadn’t been any real protests when Veronica had announced that we were losing the use of most of the bathrooms. We’d only have two to share from now on. I bet if she’d tried to pull the plug on the TV, there would have been a riot.

  Now we were watching The Midnight Hour. No one had gone to bed yet, not even Mary or Hal, and they usually crashed pretty early.

  Bobby T kept only half an eye on the plasma. He kept checking the counter on his blog. “I’m getting so many hits,” he told us all. “I’m telling you, death sells. Even near death. And I had two near deaths in two days. Plus the death threats that we all got.”

  He sounded way too happy. Maybe it’s because he really needed money, like Olivia said. If he could get the option on his blog renewed and the movie made, he could get out of debt, whether he won the contest or not.

  My spine went cold as I pictured my brother, James, and Bobby T passed out in the sauna.Could Bobby T have sabotaged the door and the thermo-stat? He could have rigged the door to jam when it closed. And he could have rigged the thermo-stat earlier in the day. Could he be desperate enough to risk his own life to get more hits on his blog?

  “I’m trying to decide which clip got more play—Ripley’s or Frank’s,” Mikey said.

  SUSPECT PROFILE

  Name: Bobby Tibbins

  Hometown: Chowchila, California

  Physical description: 5’6”, 155 lbs., sandy hair currently dyed blue, hazel eyes.

  Occupation: High school student/blogger/movie producer.

  Background: Skipped a grade in elementary school; housebound for half a year in seventh grade with mononucleosis and started his blog; parents and two sisters have limited interest in the Internet.

  Suspicious behavior: Seems happy that he’s almost died twice in two days.

  Suspected of: Sending death threats to all contestants including himself, staging near deaths for himself.

  Possible motive: In deep debt and needs money. Hopes an exciting bunch of blog entries will do it.

  “Like we care,” James muttered.

  “Actually, both were Bobby T clips,” Bobby T reminded everyone.

  “I did a quick calculation,” Rosemary said. “Frank’s clip ran twenty-two percent more often.”

  “Which is so unfair!” Ripley exclaimed. “I’m the celebrity. I’ve been in People magazine. I was a guest host on The Scene.”

  “You’ve been in Star magazine a lot,” Brynn added.

  Ripley glared at her. “I was in Forest of Blood 4.”

  “Oh, right. That was you who got killed off right in the beginning,” said Mikey.

  “If I give you a thousand dollars, will you just shut your mouth?” Ripley screamed at him. She whirled toward Brynn. “You too!”

  I was seeing the
PR problem now.

  Ripley covered her face with her hands. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m really sorry. I’ll leave now.”

  “Don’t go,” Brynn said. “So you had a hissy fit. It’s okay. You’re stressed. We’re all stressed.”

  “I’m stressed!” Kit howled. “I have had no caffeine since yesterday morning.”

  “That’s actually supposed to make you calmer,” put in Mary.

  “I’m unique, okay?” Kit screeched.

  “See?” Brynn said to Ripley. “Kit just had herself a full-on hissy too. It’s no big.”

  “But everyone is going to see mine.” Ripley shook her head. “You know they’re going to use that on the show. That’s the Ripley people want to see—insane, spoiled Ripley. That five seconds will probably be on every commercial.”

  She was probably right.

  “Aw, poor little rich girl,” James snarked.

  “Who has a piece of paper?” asked Brynn.

  Hal tore a piece off the bottom of his current planet sketch and handed it to her. She wiggled her fingers, and he handed her the pen, too. Brynn curled her left hand around the paper and wrote something down. “Pass it to Rip,” she told me.

  I made sure to read it without looking like I was reading it as I gave the note to Ripley. It’s not a cool thing to do, but Joe and I needed to know everything that was going on in this place. Things were getting too dangerous to miss any clue.

  The note said: “I bet Mitch could erase a few minutes of film. Oopsie!”

  Ripley smiled when she read what Brynn had written. “Sorry again, everyone. I—”

  “Brian’s talking about the show in his monologue,” Kit cried.

  Everyone’s attention snapped back to the TV. “Nobody knows what this new show’s about,” Brian, host of The Midnight Hour, was saying. “But I think it’s finally happened. We’re going to get to watch an actual death, live on TV. And as a bonus, it’s going to be the death of an American teen. And they all deserve it, don’t they? It’s not as if they’re going to take care of us in our old age. Selfish monsters.”

  Rosemary stood up.

  “You going to bed?” Kit asked her.

  Rosemary didn’t answer. She walked over to the intercom by the door and pressed the talk button. “Veronica, I want the fifty thousand dollars. I want to leave here tonight.”