by Mark Walden
At first Otto had seemed to be quite a normal child, with the obvious exception of his unusually coloured hair, but as he got slightly older people had started to notice that there was something a little bit odd about him. At the age of three he taught himself to read. He sat on the floor of the common room staring for hours at several of the books that older children had left lying around, his face frozen in a look of intense concentration. The staff had thought this was highly amusing.
‘Look at him! He looks just like he’s reading,’ one of the staff would say.
‘Oh, he’s just copying what the other children do,’ another would reply.
But he wasn’t just imitating what he had seen other people do. As he sat staring at the letters on the page it was almost as if his brain just understood them. At first the words had meant nothing to him, but as he stared at the pages their meaning became clearer and clearer to him, as if the knowledge was somehow just growing in his head. Not only that but he could remember every last word of every page that he had looked at. It was as though his brain was sucking the knowledge, vampire-like, from the books.
Then there was the time, when he was five, that he had taken Mrs McReedy’s phone apart. It was not unusual for the children at St Sebastian’s to dismantle things like this, but Otto didn’t just take it apart. As he sat surrounded by the scattered components of the phone he could see exactly what each piece was supposed to do and how, when they were fitted back together correctly, their function could be improved. In fact when he did finally put the phone back together again it worked better than it ever had before. It wasn’t until two months later when the next phone bill arrived that Mrs McReedy realised that none of the calls she had made for the past eight weeks had cost her anything. She had queried this with the phone company who informed her that their systems didn’t make mistakes of that kind and she should stop wasting their time claiming that she had made calls when she clearly hadn’t.
When he was very young, before he started school, Otto spent many hours slowly exploring every nook and cranny of the mysterious old building. He had an uncanny knack for sneaking away unnoticed. He would sit down with the other pre-school children in the common room and appear to join in with their games. Then someone would call the member of staff away for a moment or their attention would wander for a few seconds and before they knew it Otto would have vanished. The first time that this happened it had triggered a full-scale panic as the staff of the orphanage turned the building upside down searching for him. Not a trace could be found anywhere of the little boy, despite a thorough search of the building and grounds. Mrs McReedy had been just about to call the police and officially report him missing when he had toddled back into the common room. He had been missing for several hours and was covered from head to toe in dust and grime. When asked where he had been all day he had given Mrs McReedy a puzzled look and replied, ‘Here.’ Further questioning had proven useless. Eventually, this became such a common occurrence with Otto that the staff gave up looking for him, knowing that he would eventually reappear, none the worse for his travels and surprised, irritated even, by their concern.
The staff of the orphanage weren’t the only people who witnessed Otto’s slightly odd behaviour. Just down the street from the orphanage was the library, one of the oldest and largest in London. Like St Sebastian’s, it was a grand old Gothic building that dated back hundreds of years and for Otto it soon felt like a second home. Mrs McReedy had given up trying to find new books in the orphanage for this strange little boy who read so quickly that it looked as if he was just checking the page numbers. So she would take him down to the library whenever she could where he would be placed in the charge of Mr Littleton, the librarian, a good friend of Mrs McReedy. Mr Littleton was happy to keep an eye on Otto for her the little boy was no trouble at all, he told her. He just sat flicking through the books all day, without a care in the world. Nobody, at least at first, believed that a child of Otto’s age could actually be reading and understanding the books at that speed.
But he was, though it wasn’t reading as most people understood it. In just the same way as when he learnt to read in the first place it was as if the knowledge contained within each book he read was leaping straight from the page into his brain. He couldn’t explain it, but the more he read the more he knew and the more he knew the better his understanding of what he had already read. And he read literally everything, from Tolkien to Tolstoy, from Sun Tzu to the Sunday Times, often choosing a specific section of the library each day and devouring whole bookcases without pausing. The staff at the library would joke with each other about the odd little boy who just sat on the floor, surrounded by piles of books and papers, pretending to read. Perhaps he’s not quite right in the head, they would say to each other, but at least he’s safe and happy here. All except Mr Littleton, who, over time, grew to realise that Otto was reading the books, absorbing them, almost. He tried to tell this to his colleagues but they just started to think that he was as odd as this strange little boy. Occasionally, when Mr Littleton happened upon Otto sitting in the aisles, he would stop, pluck a particular book from the shelves and hand it to him.
‘Don’t miss this one; you’ve got to read this.’
‘Thank you, Mr Littleton,’ Otto would reply each time, smiling at the elderly librarian with that peculiarly adult expression of his and adding the book to the top of one of the piles surrounding him.
All of which made traditional schooling rather irrelevant for Otto. The other orphans were normally sent for lessons at the local school but it quickly became clear that Otto was a little more advanced than his peers. His reading in the library had covered so many different subjects that by the time he was ten years old he had a better understanding of their subjects than most of his teachers. His teachers, for their part, had not taken kindly to being repeatedly corrected by a ten-year-old boy and eventually, inevitably, the headmaster of the school had formally complained to Mrs McReedy. So she in turn had summoned Otto to her office.
‘What am I going to do with you, Otto?’ she said, looking concerned.
‘Why, what’s the matter, Mrs McReedy?’ Otto replied, appearing genuinely uncertain what it was that he was supposed to have done.
She looked down at some papers on her desk. ‘It appears that some of your teachers . . . well, all of your teachers, actually, have been complaining that you’re disrupting classes. Is this true?’ She looked sternly at him.
‘Well, if you call exposing their woeful incompetence disruptive, then yes, I suppose I have.’ Otto stared back at her. Over the past few years Mrs McReedy had become increasingly used to Otto talking like this – clever but rude – and she could see how it would drive his teachers mad.
‘Otto, you are ten years old, you aren’t qualified to say whether or not your teachers are doing a good job. None of the other children have the problems that you do,’ she continued, looking slightly exasperated with him.
‘I’m not like the other children, you know that. They just take so long to understand everything that I get bored waiting. It’s not my fault if I’m better than them,’ Otto replied matter of factly. ‘I’ve already learnt everything that’s being covered in classes and I’m starting to wonder if I should even be there.’ He folded his arms defiantly.
‘Don’t be silly. Your education isn’t something you can just ignore, Otto. What are you going to do when you leave here if you don’t have any qualifications?’ Mrs McReedy couldn’t quite believe she was having this conversation with someone Otto’s age.
‘Oh, I’m sure I’ll think of something, Mrs McReedy.’ Otto knew that he didn’t need to worry about qualifications and exams. They were for normal children and he was already quite aware that he was far from normal.
‘So what do you suggest we do, then?’ she asked, secretly hoping that he would actually have a useful suggestion since she was struggling to come up with an answer herself. If Otto’s misbehaviour continued, he would be excluded from school an
d that would mean questions might be asked about her own care of the children.
‘You could be my teacher,’ Otto replied.
She gave him a condescending smile. ‘It’s a long time since I taught anyone, Otto, and if your teachers at school aren’t good enough for you what good would I be?’
‘Oh, I’m not suggesting that you actually try to teach me. I agree, that would be pointless. No, better just to say that you’re going to give me private tuition here at the orphanage, in order to keep up appearances,’ Otto said thoughtfully.
‘Who would teach you then?’ Mrs McReedy seemed slightly confused.
‘I would,’ he replied calmly. ‘Most of the teachers at the school are just reading the textbooks out loud. I can do that myself, and a whole lot faster than they can. You would just say that you’re giving me private lessons here. Nobody ever needs to know otherwise.’ He looked pleased with the idea.
Mrs McReedy considered Otto’s suggestion for a moment. It did make a certain kind of sense, even if it wasn’t strictly honest. It was clear to anyone that met Otto that he didn’t want or need a traditional education, and at least this way there wouldn’t be any awkward questions asked about her orphanage. In fact, being seen as the teacher of an apparent child genius would do her reputation no harm at all. She eyed Otto carefully.
‘Let’s just say for a moment that we went with your plan. You’d have to tell everyone that I was giving you lessons, and only you and I would know the truth.’
‘It would be our little secret, Mrs McReedy,’ Otto smiled. ‘I imagine there’s some sort of grant paid to people who provide a first-class education to a boy like that. Quite a substantial grant, several thousand pounds a year I should think, at least . . .’
A switch seemed to flick in Mrs McReedy’s brain. There was a brief look of calculation on her face and she struggled in vain to suppress a smile.
It wasn’t just books or machines that Otto could understand at a glance, it was people too. When he talked to someone he could understand precisely what made them tick and what to say to get exactly what he wanted. In Mrs McReedy’s case it was surprisingly easy pride and greed – the two best instincts to appeal to when trying to manipulate anyone. Machiavelli had taught him that one.
‘Oh, I’m sure it wouldn’t be much.’ Her face betrayed the fact that she appeared to know otherwise. ‘Let me make some enquiries. I can’t promise anything but it might be worth looking into the possibility, at least.’
‘I do hope it’s possible,’ Otto replied. ‘I just think it would be so much better for everyone.’
Me most of all, he thought to himself.
It came as no surprise to Otto that the new arrangements for his education by Mrs McReedy were subsequently made with almost indecent haste. He also noticed that her clothes suddenly seemed more expensive, and he occasionally caught a glimpse of some new piece of jewellery glittering on her wrist or at her throat. Clearly he was a profitable student. He didn’t mind her spending the money on herself – indeed, if it meant that she was as eager as he was to keep the details of their ‘arrangement’ to herself then so much the better.
And so it was that for the next three years Otto was free to do essentially as he pleased. He had meant what he had said when he spoke to Mrs McReedy – he really did plan to educate himself, and over the following months he set about that task with a vengeance. He continued to read everything he could get his hands on and started to experiment with building more and more complex devices and machines of his own design, testing the limits of his knowledge. Every time he encountered a problem he didn’t understand he would find the answer or study the theory that might lead to an answer. As his experiments grew more complicated he soon found that he needed a larger private space where he could work in seclusion, and had set about converting the orphanage’s cavernous attic space to that end. The narrow flight of stairs that led up to the roof space was tucked away in one corner of the top floor of the building and he was fairly sure, judging by the state of the room, that no one had been up there for years. It suited his purposes perfectly and he spent several weeks clearing out the junk that had accumulated in this abandoned space over the years, preparing the attic for his use. He had even decorated the room after a fashion.
He wasn’t sure what had made him put the desk and large leather chair at one end of the room but, like the map of the world that hung on the wall above them, they just seemed right somehow.
In tandem with his ongoing studies he had also started to build up stronger relationships with the other children at St Sebastian’s. At least the ones that he considered to be most useful. Many of the others, even those a few years older than Otto, seemed to regard him as some sort of leader for reasons that Otto didn’t quite understand at first. The children, for their part, reasoned that here was a boy who apparently didn’t have to go to school, who seemed in fact to be able to do exactly as he pleased whenever he wanted and whom Mrs McReedy seemed strangely reluctant to criticise. His example seemed to them to be an excellent one to follow.
St Sebastian’s, however, had continued to fall into disrepair. There were even some sections of the building that had now crossed the line from being a bit battered and rickety to actually becoming genuinely unsafe. Otto was determined that he would try to arrest this process and had set about a new project of restoring as much of the old building as possible to its former glory. It wasn’t that he rolled up his sleeves and got on with the repairs himself, which seemed to him to be dangerously close to hard work. Instead he employed the services of companies from all over London which seemed all too eager to believe that the BBC were making a programme about the renovation of the building and understandably provided their services free of charge to such a worthy cause. This new show, Please, Think of the Children, was, of course, a complete fabrication on Otto’s part, but he had discovered that one could work wonders with a big lie, some headed notepaper and an anonymous PO Box address. The donations from companies did not stop at repair work, though. Over the next few months the orphanage received free books, DVDs, games consoles, TVs, stereos, sports equipment and a host of other well-meaning donations. Otto was not interested in keeping any of these things for himself – he knew that if he could keep the other children at St Sebastian’s happy then he wouldn’t have to worry about them sticking their noses too far into his business or drawing inspectors to the orphanage with tales of inadequate facilities or poor treatment.
Now, as he sat alone at his desk rereading the ominous letter that had arrived that morning, he began to suspect that all of his efforts might have been for nothing. He had only just managed, after years of work, to get St Sebastian’s into a state that he was happy with, and now some faceless bureaucrat was trying to take all of this away from him. It would take for ever to recreate such an elegant setup at a different orphanage and he had neither the time nor the inclination to start over from scratch like that. Indeed, without someone who was as easy to influence as Mrs McReedy running the orphanage it might not be possible at all. There must be a way to stop this, he just had to figure out what it was . . .
‘PM’S CHILDCARE CRUSADE’ was the headline of the newspaper article that Otto sat reading. The article neatly summarised how the plans for wholesale changes to the nation’s orphanages were part of a personal project for the Prime Minister and that he alone was the driving force behind the rapid journey of these new plans through parliament. The plans were not that popular with the rest of his party but the Prime Minister’s personal backing had ensured that they were being pushed through regardless. Otto put the paper back down on his desk and considered the plan that was forming in his head. It was risky, audacious, stupid, even, but it was the only solution of the many he had considered that might work.
He pressed a button on a small intercom unit on his desk. There was a slight delay and then the voice of Mrs McReedy replied.
‘Hello Otto. Is there something you need?’ She still sounded upset.
&nb
sp; ‘Yes, Mrs McReedy. Could you send Tom and Penny up, please?’ Otto asked politely.
‘Certainly, Otto.’ The intercom went dead and Otto sat back in his chair, still analysing the finer details of his plan.
A few minutes later there was a soft knock at the attic door.
‘Come in,’ Otto said loudly, and Tom and Penny walked into the room. Tom was the older of the two; he was good-looking and tall for a boy of his age. Penny, meanwhile, was about the same age as Otto and looked like the sweetest, most innocent little girl that you could ever hope to meet. Anyone who met the pair of them would think that butter would not melt in their mouths. It would only be later that they would notice that the rest of the butter had mysteriously disappeared along with the silverware . . . and the DVD player.
‘Morning, you two,’ Otto addressed them both cheerfully. ‘I’ve got a bit of a shopping list and I was wondering, if you weren’t too busy, if you could just run out and pick up a few things for me.’
‘Sure, Otto. What do you need?’ Tom replied, apparently eager to help.
‘Oh, nothing especially difficult, a few new components, a couple of books, some software, the usual kind of thing.’ Otto offered a piece of paper to Penny. ‘Everything’s listed there; if there’s anything you’re not sure about just let me know.’
Penny read the list carefully. ‘Shouldn’t be a problem, Otto, might take a couple of days, though.’
Otto had chosen these two for this task carefully; they had certain unique skills that marked them out from the other children. Simply put, they seemed to be able to get their hands on just about anything that Otto needed, no matter how rare or obscure. He was reasonably confident that if he told them that he wanted the London Eye dismantled and rebuilt in the orphanage garden that they would at least give it a try. They both insisted that they never stole anything, though, and that their talent apparently lay in convincing other people to give them the things that they needed.