“St. Pommeroy’s School for Gifted Children,” Nora whispered reverently. “The first and only Scientist school in the whole universe. Isn’t it just irrefutably, 100% fantastic?”
Zanna threw up.
Chapter Four
The bus touched down in an ancient courtyard that might have once been a Greek marketplace. In the center stood a fountain composed of four marble figures supporting an iron bowl. Atop the bowl sat a perfect model of St. Pommeroy’s, every clock tower and orbiting island painstakingly detailed. Something too silver and shimmery to be water spilled over the edges of the bowl and cascaded over the figures.
Zanna and Nora were the last ones off the bus. Zanna’s stomach was still shaky, but the worst of it had passed. Mr. Gunney refused to let her apologize. “If I had a nickel for every time someone got sick, I’d own a city,” he’d said. A swarm of little metal cubes had popped out of the walls and already cleared away her mess. “So hurry on, you two. Go!”
So, a little weak in her knees and wiping the bad taste from her mouth, Zanna took in the storm of activity that was the courtyard of St. Pommeroy’s. Cars and school buses and four-poster beds and bumper cars and a steam locomotive and playground rocking horses maneuvered around in the sky overhead, disgorging students as they made it through the airborne traffic and touched down. Dodging between all the vehicles were older students flying themselves to school, one hand raised above their head just like Dr. Mumble had done when he had left Zanna yesterday.
One of the vehicles caught Zanna’s eye. A sleek black limousine cut through the traffic, evidently too important to wait for its turn. When it landed, two boys climbed out, both of them dirty blond and cursed with the gangly, slightly mismatched look of English aristocracy. One was older than Zanna, perhaps by three or four years, but the other—the one who hunched his shoulders as if he were carrying a ton of iron—looked her age. The older brother had a medieval shield on his back that made him look a bit like a time-traveling knight.
Nora nodded toward the brothers. “You were asking about the Primers? The one with the shield is Owin Hemmington. Got accepted by the Primers to be a field agent at the end of last year, even though he’s still in school. His father’s Lord Baxter Hemmington, the Head Primer.”
“His father runs the Primers?” Zanna asked. It was absurdly easy to imagine Owin in a medieval court somewhere, accepting tokens from fair maidens and competing in jousting tournaments. “Isn’t that, like, a conflict of interest?”
Nora shrugged. “Everyone knew Owin was going to make it into the Primers. My parents put it at a 99.7% probability. I think we would have been more surprised if he wasn’t accepted.”
“What about his brother?” Zanna asked, shifting her gaze to the younger one. “Is that his brother?”
“His name’s Cedwick,” Nora said. “You’ll probably meet him, since he’s in our grade. But there’s not much to say. He’s got some big shoes to fill.”
The Hemmington brothers bid goodbye to their limousine and headed inside, heads held like kings entering their castle.
Zanna pointed toward the marble fountain in the center of the courtyard. “How old is this place?”
“Two thousand, four hundred, and fifty-eight years or thereabouts,” Nora said as they also started heading inside.
The entrance to St. Pommeroy’s was a wide archway of ancient marble, and in the morning light, Zanna could just make out the four words inscribed in the stone: Mathema, Episteme, Al-kimia, Physis.
“This was originally a Socratic academy until the CG found out what we were really teaching kids. So we took the building and ran away.”
“Two thousand, four hundred, and fifty-eight,” Zanna whispered to herself, reaching out to one of the marble pillars. “And you’ve just been adding on to it the whole time?”
“The CG lets all sorts of perfectly good buildings go to waste,” Nora said, making an adjustment to her glasses. “So we take them. It’s only logical.”
On the other side of the archway stretched an entrance hall full of twisting olive trees and a long reflecting pool. Students sat under the shade of the trees, catching up after the summer holiday. Some gathered around a makeshift arena where a blender was fighting a pair of socket wrenches. A girl shouted, “Lamp!” and the crowd scattered as one of the nearby lampposts suddenly grew arms and feet, chasing after the troublemakers. A red-haired girl in a wheelchair made a cube of continual fire between her hands and lectured to her friends.
“There she is! Nora!”
A boy pushed through the crowd of students, pulling a girl behind him. He had shiny black hair, tanned skin, and a desperate attempt for a beard on his chin, while she was strawberry-blonde and pale as summer straw. The boy dropped into a deep, mocking bow as he got close, his voice full of mischief. “Oh, great and wise Nora Elmsley, we—”
“What do you want, Amir?” Nora said, not amused.
He rose, grinning maniacally. Amir was a restless boy. Even standing still, he kept bouncing up and down. “My compatriot, Libby Wilder, has a question for your esteemed judgment.”
The girl stepped forward, a crumpled piece of graph paper in her hand. Zanna never thought of herself as particularly well put together—like her hair, there was always a bit sticking out at odd angles—but compared to Libby, she felt as new and organized as Nora’s backpack. The bonnet on Libby’s head was hastily pinned, her tie was askew, and the finger she used to jab at the paper looked like it was smeared with engine grease. The only part she seemed to have spent any effort on was her mascara. “Yeah,” she said with a soft Southern drawl. “Amir said you could explain this Self-thing class in the afternoon? What’s it about?”
Nora straightened herself up and adjusted her glasses. “In a gross oversimplification, the Self function is what makes you who you are. Through introspection and personal study—”
“So I was right,” Libby muttered, cramming the schedule back into the grocery bag she was carrying her books in. “It’s useless.”
Nora coughed. “It is certainly not useless. Understanding the Self is key—”
“Hey, wait a minute,” Libby said, cutting Nora off again. The strawberry-blonde girl seemed to notice Zanna for the first time, and her eyes narrowed. “Are you the girl who got kidnapped yesterday? Anna?”
“I wasn’t really kidnapped—” Zanna mumbled. “And it’s Zanna.” But that was enough for Libby, who took a step closer.
“You are! So you saw one? A real, live metallurgical illusion?”
“I . . . guess?” Zanna said.
Libby grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her as if answers might come tumbling out. “You have to tell me everything about it,” she said. “Everything!”
Zanna gulped. There was something ravenous in Libby’s eyes. It was the same sort of look Pops got when she showed him a book of puzzles he hadn’t completed yet. Something hungry for the next challenge to beat.
“I mean, there’s not much to tell,” Zanna said slowly. “It looked just like a regular school, with students and teachers and classrooms and everything. Then it vanished.”
“Vanished? How?” Libby’s grip tightened. The girl was strong, certainly stronger than Zanna. “You telling me you know how to break a metallurgical illusion already? You got to tell me how!”
“Look, I don’t know!” Zanna said. “I didn’t do anything! It was all Dr. Mumble. He’s the one who undid the illusion and found me and took me home. I just—I haven’t really done anything!”
Libby frowned, but at least she let go. “Well, that’s a shame,” she said, crinkling her nose. “You know when we’re supposed to get into metallurgical illusions? Senior year. Ugh.”
Zanna shrugged. She wanted to change the subject, and her eyes fell on Amir. “So, I’m guessing you two know each other?” she said, pointing to him and Nora.
“Oh, yes,” Amir said bef
ore Nora could open her mouth. “Nora and I go way back. To wee little tots crawling around the Learned Society.”
If he had been trying to get a rise out of Nora, it didn’t work. She kept her composure with a drawn-out sigh. “Amir’s mother is the Median of the peer review board at the Society,” she said. “She works with my parents.”
“Mmm, fascinating. Hey, let me ask you something,” Libby said to Zanna, and she instantly braced for the girl to grab her by the shoulders again. But this time, Libby kept her hands to herself. “Since apparently you’re the only other one who didn’t know about this beforehand, does it sort of feel . . . weird? In a good way, I mean. Like you were always supposed to come here?”
Zanna chewed on her lower lip, doing her best not to think about the strange woman in her bedroom. St. Pommeroy’s is no place for a girl like you. “Kind of.”
“That’s the Scientist in you,” Nora interjected like a proud parent. “Every Scientist knows that something’s wrong with the CG world. They want to explore and figure things out. That’s the hallmark of a scientific mind. It’s part of who you are.” She looked pointedly at Libby. “Part of your Self function. Which is quite important, I promise.”
“Do students ever decline their enrollment?” Zanna asked while Libby rolled her eyes at Nora. “I mean, is that possible?”
“Of course it’s possible,” Amir said. “This isn’t a prison. But you’d probably be miserable out in the CG. See—”
“Ms. Zanna Mayfield.”
She whirled around, recognizing Dr. Mumble’s bored and impassive tone at once. But the dean was nowhere in sight. Instead, there was a small silver marble hovering next to her, just like the ones Dr. Mumble had made from the soda cans in the empty lot, and his voice emanated from it.
“Please report to my office at once. This Particle will show you the way.”
The others were looking at her when she turned back around. “Sorry,” she muttered to Amir, who had stopped in the middle of his sentence. She jerked a thumb over her shoulder. “I heard—Dr. Mumble—”
“Oh, he sent you a Particle!” Nora said, spotting the floating marble behind her. “What did he want?”
“You didn’t hear it?” Zanna asked.
“Not if he limited the sound from it,” Nora said. “It’s really easy to do. All you have to do is determine how far you want the sound to travel, write a function for the border coordinates that contains the inverse sound wave, and cancel it out. That way, no one can eavesdrop on your communications.”
“That is the opposite of ‘really easy,’ Elmsley,” Amir said.
Libby snorted at his joke and bumped him playfully with her shoulder. “Oh, you,” she grinned.
“He told me to report to his office,” Zanna said, a little pink at how boldly the strawberry-blonde girl flirted. “Am I in trouble?”
Nora waved her question off, still refusing to acknowledge any of Amir’s jibes. “No, I suspect it’s just your registration. Don’t worry about it. I’ll save you a seat in Mathematics!”
Zanna wanted to ask about a hundred more questions, but the little marble Nora had called a Particle was bobbing up and down so impatiently that she bit her tongue and let it lead her off into the hallways of St. Pommeroy’s. As soon as she left the entrance hall, the school became dead quiet. The Particle bobbed along at a brisk pace, pausing occasionally to let Zanna catch up. So much of the school was open to the sky. Light breezes swept through the open architecture and made the entire school seem alive with sunlight. At an intersection of hallways, a tall olive tree grew out of the stones in the center, stretching overhead and creating a cool, dappling shade.
Then the architecture changed. The floating marble took a turn, and suddenly, Zanna was surrounded by tapestries and impressive castle stonework. Suits of armor stood on either side of the hallway, and at one of them, Zanna saw a little floating cube of iron that reminded her of the cubes from Mr. Gunney’s bus. Tiny spindly arms stuck out of either side, buffing the armor with a cloth. Some prankster had stuck googly eyes on it. If what Nora had said was true about the Scientists taking buildings that the CG no longer used, then this had once been a real medieval castle, and those were real sets of armor. It made her feel incredibly small.
The marble led her through a portcullis and into a perfectly kept English garden with rows and rows of blooming rose bushes, manicured hedges, and tall iron statues lining the gravel path. In the center of the garden, an ivy-covered tower rose up five stories, gently tapering to an enormous flame made out of brass and copper. It looked like an ever-burning candle left behind by some ancient behemoth. Something about the garden made Zanna very still, as if all the statues lining the path were watching her. They depicted men and women in everything from loose Greek togas to Arabic robes to Victorian dresses, but they all had a similar serious expression on their metal faces that made Zanna lower her gaze in respect.
At the door to the tower, she paused to read the inscription. It was the same as the entrance hall—Mathema, Episteme, Al-kimia, Physis. The marble had disappeared while her back was turned, its guide duties complete. All that was left was for Zanna to go inside.
The thin African man behind the receptionist desk looked up at her as she entered. He was surrounded by a swarm of huge flies, but as Zanna stepped up to his desk, she saw that they were actually little marbles like the one that had found her and led her back here. Particles, she reminded herself. Behind him was a gumball machine stocked to the brim with Particles. On his desk was a huge pot of coffee, a well-worn copy of The Constant, piles and piles of graph paper, and for some reason, a model battleship.
“Ah, you must be Zanna,” he said. The gumball machine behind him turned its crank and dispensed a Particle that he glanced at briefly before it zipped up and out of sight. Only one of his eyes actually peered down at Zanna. The other seemed terribly interested in the model battleship. “I’m Mr. Tinders, secretary for the Candela. Thank you for being prompt. They’re waiting for you in Dr. Mumble’s office. If you could just sign in here.”
A book that looked to be about five hundred years old slid out from the front of his desk, opening to the first available space. Zanna took the pen that was chained to it and signed her name. This one, she noticed with relief, didn’t draw any blood.
“You are a freshman, correct?” Mr. Tinders asked as the book slid back. The hatch was so seamless with the desk that Zanna couldn’t find it again. “I’ll loan you an elevator.”
Cabinets and drawers of all sizes covered the wall behind him, and at his beckoning, one of the larger cabinets sprung open. Something that looked like a pair of bicycle handlebars flew out. Mr. Tinders caught it and ran his finger over the metal, as if inspecting it for cracks.
“Here you are,” he said, handing it over. “Grip it with both hands and give it a twist, but only when you’re ready. Right button to ascend, left button to descend. Dr. Mumble is on the top floor.” One eye looked over the rim of his round glasses, his voice serious. “It is not a toy.”
“Ascend?” Zanna looked over the piece of metal she had been given. It really did look like someone had just wrenched the handlebars off a bicycle. “You mean flying? Can’t I just—wouldn’t it be easier if I took the stairs?”
Mr. Tinders chuckled. “I’m afraid not. You’ll see.” A gate beside his desk lifted, and he waved her through.
She saw what he meant at once. Beyond the gate, the little hallway led out into a circular room that reached all the way up the center of the tower. Warm orange light filtered down from the top, giving her the distinct impression that she had fallen into a deep well and was looking up at the glimmer of day, far out of reach. There were no stairs at all—just landings that jutted out from the circular wall. Zanna poked her finger at them, counting all the way up to the top floor. That was Dr. Mumble’s office.
The elevator seemed very flimsy in her hands. She
looked down at it and then back up to Dr. Mumble’s tiny balcony. “Who builds a tower and forgets to include stairs?” she muttered. Just as Mr. Tinders had told her to, she gripped the elevator in both hands, gathered her courage, and hoped she wasn’t about to lose her breakfast again. Not that there was much left to lose. “Lunatics, that’s who.”
She gave it a twist.
The elevator came to life at once. It unfolded from the middle, stretching down toward Zanna’s feet to make a small metal platform for her to stand on. She tested it with her right foot, and though the contraption bobbled a bit, it recovered quickly, hovering steadily a couple of inches above the stones.
Zanna looked up at Dr. Mumble’s balcony again, doing the calculations of how a pair of floating bicycle handlebars was supposed to get her up there—and what a fall from that height would do to her spine. But there wasn’t any other way about it. With a hard swallow, she put her left foot onto the elevator and pressed the right button.
At her touch, the elevator puttered and started to ascend. It wasn’t going to break any speed records, but Zanna was thankful for that. It was all she could do to keep her finger on the button and not scream as it chugged dutifully all the way up.
At the top of the tower, it came to a halt. Dr. Mumble’s balcony was just a foot away, but it took another minute of deep breathing before Zanna could will herself to step off the elevator and onto the stones. Only when both her feet were on solid ground did she look down. She didn’t know what the elevator would do when she let go of it, but it remained just as she had left it, unfolded and hovering, waiting for her like a silent chauffeur.
The Zanna Function Page 5