by Jennie Brown
“What did you just say?” she said abruptly, tucking the pieces of hair from her face and into the hair tie. Her big brown eyes locked with mine, her mouth hanging wide open.
She was sitting two feet away from me, how did she not hear it? I spoke louder and slower this time. “I said that the whole chair thing was pretty epic.”
“Why would you say that?” Ellie demanded.
Okay. This was confusing. “Because you just mentioned it. Du-uh.”
Ellie’s eyes grew even bigger, and then she cautiously spoke. “I never said anything about the chair incident,” she said with a gulp, “out loud.”
“What do you mean? I heard you, Ellie.”
She just stared at me. “I never said anything about it at all, Poppy,” she emphasized.
Obviously the nail polish fumes were getting to her head. “Um, you’re not making any sense at all. I heard you say it, Ellie.”
We stared at each other for a moment until Ellie broke the awkward silence.
“Well, whatever. I’m sure it was just some fluke,” she said casually, flicking her wrist as she spoke, like shooing away a fly.
Her eyes darted to the clock, and mine followed. Yuck. We had our check-in with Grimeley in a few minutes. I pushed what just might or might not have happened out of my mind. We had a plan in place for this meeting, and I needed to focus on that.
“Now tell me about the progress you’ve been making.” Mr. Grimeley said in his squeaky voice. A pen hovered over a notebook that sat on his baggy pants. I stared at the center of his face, pretty sure that his nostrils had gotten even bigger over the last few days. If we looked hard enough, maybe we would find our stuff hidden up there.
Ellie made snorting noises in an attempt to hold back a laugh. I was pretty sure she had read that thought right out of my head.
“Mr. Prince, you go first,” Mr. Grimeley sneered.
Logan looked at me, winked, and then began. “It’s going a lot better than that first day. I disappeared on command in my power intensive class today.” He stopped there, not wanting to give away too much information … just like we had all agreed.
Nostril-man Grimeley wriggled in his seat a little and then scribbled down some notes.
“Are you writing this stuff down to report back to Mrs. Larriby?” Sam asked, taking him off guard.
“I … oh … don’t know what you’re talking about,” Mr. Grimeley said totally unconvincingly while giggling erratically. Such an odd man. “Of course not. No. The answer is no. Nope,” he babbled and then ended the babbling with a loud snort.
Strange little man.
He quickly changed the subject. “And what about you, Miss Mayberry?”
I was getting so tired of all these adults calling us by our last names. Seriously, my parents named me Poppy for a reason. Just use Poppy for goodness’s sake.
“Well. Not so well,” I said, much more convincingly than Mr. Grimeley’s lie.
Logan, Sam, and Ellie frowned in (fake) concern.
“Miss Maggie asked us to paint a smiley face on a canvas today in order to practice control.”
Mr. Grimeley wrote down everything I said, word for word, surely to report back to Mrs. Larriby later. “Continue, Miss Mayberry,” he pushed.
Ugh. It’s Poppy.
“And just when I had the brush touching the canvas, it flew across the room and hit Matilda right on the behind. Her butt was totally sky blue. She looked like a smurf!”
Everyone in the teeny office giggled. Minus Mr. Grimeley. His pen vigorously wrote on the paper. But behind that stoic appearance, there was a tiniest hint of a smirk. He loved thinking my powers were not coming along at all. Nice.
Okay, so maybe I was purposefully mixing up my facts a little. My brush did, in fact, fly to the ground, but I used my powers to get it back up. Tara’s (one of the three “T” sisters) brush was the one that actually hit Matilda in the butt.
Sam stared directly into Mr. Grimeley’s eyes. He moved his index finger up and down, and up and down. Each time it went up, the lamplight on Mr. Grimeley’s desk went out. Each time his finger went down, the light came back on. He was totally toying with him, and I loved every second of it.
“And I am really struggling with mine,” Sam boasted while continuing the flicking of the lights on and off.
In one swift movement, the lamp’s cord tore out of the wall outlet and hit the side of the desk with a loud snap. We all jumped at the sound.
Mr. Grimeley was a Monday. Enough said.
“I see you are doing quite well then,” he said to Sam through a grimace and turned his head. “And what about you, Miss Preston?”
“Her name is Ellie,” I said, annoyed with the last-name thing now.
Ellie actually smiled at me. “I just can’t stop listening to people’s thoughts,” she said, batting her eyelashes.
Mr. Grimeley shifted uncomfortably in his seat once again.
She concentrated on Mr. Grimeley and then crinkled her nose. “I mean, you, for instance, Mr. Grimeley, are thinking about a tuna fish and mushroom sandwich, which is totally gross, and quite possibly not what you really want to think about.” She exaggerated the word really, and that made Grimeley wince. A few pieces of gray hair stuck to his sweaty forehead. Logan noticed them too.
He’s nervous, Logan mouthed to me.
I nodded and smiled. It was working.
“So where exactly are you and Mrs. Larriby hiding Pickle?” I asked, taking the anxiety-ridden, sweaty Grimeley off-guard. Our goal was to get him flustered, and then hopefully he would let his guard down. That way, maybe Ellie could read something.
“Well … well, I’m not really sure where … uhrm …” he stuttered.
Mr. Grimeley quickly gathered his notes and literally pushed Ellie toward the library door. “Meeting is over for today,” he said.
Before Ellie was completely out of sight I caught a wink from her eye. That was the signal that she was able to get something.
Our once-dreaded meeting with Mr. Grimeley might have actually been a success.
We sat around the dinner table cracking up.
“And did you see the sweat dripping from his pen? So nervous. Priceless. And I bet Old Lady Larriby is tearing him apart right now!” Logan said between laughing and chewing on a bite of macaroni and cheese.
Favorite. Food. Ever. And so much better than leftover stuffing grossness. Seriously, that stuff was the epitome of disgusting cafeteria food.
“When do you think Ellie’s gonna get here?” Sam asked excitedly. It was official, in the short time Sam had known Ellie, he was totally crushing on her. Logan’s knowing grin told me that he sensed it too.
I looked up at the clock to see that dinner started like fifteen minutes ago, and got a little nervous myself. “She said earlier that she wanted to change her shirt after our meeting.”
“Into another pink one?” Logan asked.
I liked how funny he was.
“So, you two are on speaking terms now?” Logan asked, cocking his head to the side so that a few hairs fell over his eyes. There was no way I was going to attempt to move them with my Monday power again.
“Yeah, I guess so.” I shrugged it off.
“Awww … you’re besties now!” Sam mocked.
“Ha. Ha. Haahhh, guys. Sooooo funny,” Ellie said, plunking down into the seat next to me and rolling her eyes. “Not even close to besties,” she spat.
Ouch.
“Where the heck were you?” Sam asked, pushing his glasses up his nose. He really needed to look into adjusting those nose pads.
“Oh, you know … just doing a little more detective work.” She smiled. It was obvious that she enjoyed calling herself a detective.
“So, I totally had every intention of going up to change,” Ellie said, looking down at her perfectly fine shirt, the same one she was wearing in our meeting from earlier. She set her purse down on the table, reached one han
d in, looked around the cafeteria, and then pulled something out. We all scrunched in closer to shield the piece of folded paper she held in her hand we knew must be important.
“What is it?” Sam asked.
Ellie leaned in closer. “As greasy Grimeley practically threw me out of the library, I could totally get into his head.” She cleared her throat and pushed her bangs to the side. “Is that any good?” she asked, pointing at the plate full of macaroni in front of Sam.
“Ellie! Get to the point,” Logan barked.
“Yeah. So, he kept muttering stuff over and over in his head …” She paused. “I thought in his head, at least.”
She grinned like she was proud of this fact.
“And what did you hear?” Logan pressed, pushing the macaroni out of the way.
“Well …” Ellie was excited because she began twirling a few strands of hair around her fingers and her eyes got super big. “He was crossing the main foyer hallway from the library toward Mrs. Larriby’s office. I tiptoed, like, totally quiet.”
I glanced down at her clacking kitten heels and found that hard to believe.
“I was quiet enough, Poppy,” she said, rolling her eyes.
“So, did you read his mind or not?”
She continued, ignoring my question. And here I thought we were starting to patch things up.
“As I got closer to him, I heard him muttering some stuff under his breath. Like, out loud.”
“Told you he’s strange,” Sam said, looking around at us all. His eyes lingered a little longer on Ellie’s. She smiled back at him.
“Did you read his mind or not?” I asked again.
She beamed, looking at me. “You’d be proud, Poppy. I didn’t have to.”
We leaned in even closer. The rim on Sam’s cowboy hat hit my head, so I backed away a few inches.
“I think he was making himself think nonsensical stuff, like earlier with the mushrooms and tuna fish, so he wouldn’t give anything away. So his thoughts were worthless, but what came out of his mouth totally mattered.”
Ellie had a way of making a story last a really long time. My eyes urged her to continue. The blank stares from Sam and Logan told me that they were ready for her to get to the point too.
“Anyway, I think he was so focused on not thinking anything, he was literally saying out loud over and over again what he really needed to remember.”
“So, basically he was thinking out loud,” Logan restated quickly, again prompting her to get to the point.
We all stared down at Ellie’s hand with the folded up piece of paper like it contained some ancient treasure. She ran her fingers over the edges.
“And that’s it, what he was saying? Written down?” Logan asks pointing to it.
“Yep.” She smiled broadly and gently unfolded the paper. “This is what I heard him say.”
7-7-6-0
We stared at Ellie with puzzled expressions.
“Um … okay. And what does it mean?” Sam asked the question we were all thinking.
“Well, then I watched him go to Headmistress Larriby’s office door with that giant light-up keypad thingy, and I would bet that is the number that he punched to get in there,” she said sing-songy while her manicured finger pointed to the scribbled numbers.
“Sweet,” Sam said. He reached his hand up and gave Ellie a high five.
“And I didn’t even have to use my powers,” she said, flicking her hair behind her back and pushing her chest out proud as a peacock.
“In the meantime though, let’s try to find out as much as possible. We don’t know for sure her office will have any info,” offered Logan.
That never occurred to me. Maybe our hope of finding something in her office was useless. But at least we had somewhere to start.
I turned to Ellie. “Today you were a real detective,” I said, smiling. “No powers needed.” Then I look directly at Logan and Sam. “The rest might be up to us. We just need to figure out if those numbers will get us into her office and if there is actually anything of value in there.”
“To keep it locked up with a freakin’ lock like that, she has to be hiding something pretty darn important,” Logan said, looking me straight in the eye. Then he added confidently, “And we’re going to find out what it is.”
Chapter Fifteen
The next morning flew by without any of us having the chance to check out Headmistress Larriby’s office. Sure, we all knew what the passkey combination was, but there was rarely a time when the office was left unattended. Grimeley or Larriby were always there. The fact that when they entered the room they allowed the door to open just enough to slip their bodies in, (for Larriby, that meant the door was open pretty wide) made it even more apparent that there was something in there they didn’t want us to see. But that gave us even more of a reason to break in.
Since it hadn’t happened yet, we all vowed that we needed to get in there within the next few days. At this point, Pickle had been held who-knows-where for what seemed like forever. This needed to end. And it needed to end soon! The four of us decided that the beginning of the end would be tonight. All we had to do was stay out of trouble until then. And for the boys, that may have been more difficult than I thought.
“Mr. Bricker and Mr. Priiiice?” Blind-as-a-bat Mrs. Barkdoll wailed in Nova History class for like the quadtrillionth time, calling out attendance. Logan corrected her twice yesterday on the whole last-name thing.
“It’s Prince, you know, with an ‘n,’” he had said, and we both giggled together.
But it seemed that Mrs. Barkdoll may have been just as hearing-impaired as she was vision-impaired because she still couldn’t get it right. You’d think she would get it after a few days of being at Power Academy.
“Mr. Bricker and Mr. Priiiice?” she bellowed again, still getting his name wrong. “Tsk. Tsk,” she said wiggling her pen toward … well … no one really. “Do students not realize the punishment for tardiness to my class?” She walked down the next row, checking off students as she went.
Mrs. Barkdoll told us on the first day that if we were late to her class that it would result in an evening of “close-monitoring.” Basically, that meant that greasy Grimeley or clothes-too-tight Larriby would be babysitting whomever for the evening. For obvious reasons, that could not happen. Without all four of us together tonight, there was no way we even had a chance of breaking in. We needed the guys. It was all or nothing.
I thought back to the first day in History of Nova class. “No more than five minutes late, hear me,” Mrs. Barkdoll had said then. And I could tell she meant it.
I glanced at the clock. It was nine-twenty. The class began at nine-fifteen. My palms started to sweat, and I noticed Ellie’s pink flats tapping harder than usual on the floor below. This was not good. Not good at all. If Sam and Logan didn’t show up within the next five seconds, then we definitely wouldn’t be able to get our stuff back and would have to stay … gulp … here.
My eyes were glued to the clock. Tick. Tick. Tick. Just a few more seconds to go. Tick. 9:21 a.m. It was official, they were late.
Ellie sighed at the same time as me, as if she read my mind. Well, she probably did.
Mrs. Barkdoll got back to the front of the room and read off their names one more time.
“Mr. Bricker and Mr.—”
“Prince?” a voice bellowed from the back of the room. I spun around and smiled. It was Logan.
“I … uh …” Mrs. Barkdoll stumbled on her words. She gathered herself. “Um … where did you come from, young man?”
“Oh, I was here the whole time, but didn’t realize you were calling my name,” he said, shooting a wink in my direction. There was no way Mrs. Barkdoll noticed his small eye movement.
“Then why did you not speak up earlier?” She pursed her lips in frustration.
All eyes were on Logan. “I was just so engrossed in chapter twelve, reading about Tuesdays’ teleporting powers, I
simply couldn’t concentrate on anything else,” he said so convincingly, even I almost believed him. “I would do anything to be a Tuesday.” He sighed.
Obviously, blind-as-a-bat Barkdoll was swayed. “Do you know that I’m a Tuesday?” she asked, grinning from ear to ear.
Of course, we all knew. She had only told us about thirty times.
“I didn’t!” he exaggerated, even more convincingly than before. “I just think it would be wonderful to be able to teleport.”
Mrs. Barkdoll disappeared and then instantly reappeared next to Logan. “It is rather fun,” she said, nudging his shoulder. Logan was good. He was really good.
She shoved the seating chart back up to her face and then squinted toward the clock. I followed her gaze. 9:23 a.m. I sighed. Sam was really late.
“Now, where is that Mr. Bri—”
Boom! The door slammed behind heavy-breathing, hat-wearing Sam.
“Mr. Bricker, you are late for my class, and you know what that—”
“Whatever do you mean?” he interrupted, doing an Ellie-like eyelash batting. Sam was almost as convincing as Logan.
Ellie frowned. She knew just as I did—he was caught red-handed.
Mrs. Barkdoll continued, “Well, you are over five minutes late, and you know my rule—”
“But I’m not,” he stated matter-of-factly, pointing to the clock above the front board. I watched the minute hand fly back three little black lines.
Mrs. Barkdoll’s white sneakers squeaked with each step she took until she was directly underneath of it. “Hmmm. I swore it wa—” She cleared her throat. “It seems I was wrong,” she admitted, and brushed it off, chuckling, “maybe it’s time for some new glasses.”
The rest of the class laughed. I was sure Mrs. Barkdoll thought they were giggling with her, but they all knew just as much as I did what Sam had done. He was definitely good. I looked at the clock. 9:20 a.m. on the nose. He was an awesome power-manipulating Wednesday. That was a close one.
But why were those boys late anyway?