Текст книги "NERDS: National Espionage, Rescue, and Defense Society"

Автор книги: Michael Buckley

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Текущая страница: 2 (всего у книги 13 страниц)

The Hyena reached into her pocket and took out a folded note. She double-checked the coordinates written inside and frowned. There was no mistake. She was in the right place and there wasn’t a living soul in sight. Her mysterious new employer had started off on the wrong foot. It was rude to leave a person waiting in subzero weather at the North Pole! With a sigh, she wondered why criminal masterminds were so obsessed with desolate locations. Couldn’t this “Dr. Jigsaw” meet her in Hawaii or the Bahamas? Half of the money she made as a criminal was spent on mittens and long underwear.

Suddenly, she heard a whipping sound above her and looked to the sky. A black helicopter with no identifying marks of any kind hovered overhead and then landed several yards away. She tried to peer through the windows, but they were tinted black. Then the door opened and two men exited the craft. The first was a tall, thin man with bushy white hair and a neatly trimmed goatee. His face was perfect—too perfect—with well-spaced eyes, a long, straight nose, a strong chin, and not a single wrinkle. But another glance said that this man had had a tremendous amount of plastic surgery; his features had been pulled, pushed, and pounded into place. Now, his dark eyes locked onto the Hyena, studying her features as if making plans to rearrange them as well.

The second man was enormous, with slicked-back hair and chiseled cheekbones. He peered at the Hyena beneath heavy brows. “You da Hyena?” he grunted. His voice told her all she needed to know. He was a goon.

“No, I’m at the North Pole ’cause I’m Santa Claus,” she replied. She couldn’t stand goons. Stupidity was like an art form to them, and this particular goon was clearly the Leonardo da Vinci of goons.

“Dumb” Vinci sneered and turned back to the helicopter. Inside the still-open doorway the Hyena spied a figure dressed all in black. He—or she—turned toward her, revealing a mask with a ghostly skull painted on it. The figure nodded, and on his signal Dumb Vinci handed the Hyena an envelope full of money.

“Who is that?” the Hyena asked.

The first man ignored her question. “My name is Dr. Felix Jigsaw. I’m the preeminent expert on tectonic movement—”

“Tectonic what?”

“The movement of continents!” said Jigsaw. It was clear he had little patience for people he considered intellectually inferior. “I have a little project I’m working on and I believe you can help.”

“What kind of project?” the Hyena asked as she counted the cash inside the envelope.

“I’m going to conquer the world.”

The Hyena sighed. If she had a nickel for every criminal mastermind who said he was going to conquer the world, she’d be a very rich assassin. They never succeeded. Still, there was a lot of money in the envelope. If that was his dream, who was she to discourage him? “Sounds good, boss. What do you want me to do?”

Dr. Jigsaw took a piece of yellow paper out of his coat and handed it to the Hyena. She looked it over and smiled. Her career was finally on track.

“Whom should I kill first?” she asked.

Dr. Jigsaw shook his head. “You aren’t killing anyone. I want you to kidnap them.”

“Kidnap? That’s a job for a goon. I’m an assassin,” the Hyena said, trying to hand him back the paper.

“You want da money or not?” Dumb Vinci grunted.

The Hyena glanced at the envelope stuffed with cash. Inside was more than ten thousand dollars. She remembered that her subscription to Tiger Beat was about to expire … and there were those leather boots she had seen at the mall…. She stuffed the money into her pocket. “Once I get them, where do I bring them?”

Dr. Jigsaw turned and pointed toward the horizon. It was then that the Hyena noticed a silver fortress in the distance, built on the ice.

She was going to have to stock up on long underwear.

Without the gaggle of friends that usually surrounded him, Jackson felt like a ghost—a formless entity that no one could see or hear. He could have worn a clown suit to school or danced Irish jigs with his hair on fire and no one would have batted an eye, not even his old gang. He watched them from afar as they ate their lunches in the cafeteria. When they laughed, he laughed. When they whispered to one another, he imagined being part of their secret.

He was, in a word, pathetic. But it was during these lonely days that Jackson began to notice things about his friends he had never noticed before. For example, Steve Sarver smelled each bite of his food before he ate it. It didn’t matter whether he was having egg salad or peanut butter and jelly, he sniffed then chewed. Sniffed, chewed. Sniffed, chewed. Sniffed, chewed.

Ron Schultz limped, favoring his right leg. Lori Baker licked her lips every 2.3 seconds (Jackson timed it). Jenise Corron wouldn’t eat peas. Even his former best friend, Brett Bealer, who had once seemed like the coolest kid Jackson knew, had an odd quirk—he skipped when he ran.

As Jackson sat on the school bus one afternoon thinking about some of the quirks he had seen that day, he felt a tingling sensation at the back of his brain. It swept through his whole body and set his imagination on fire. Why did his friends do the things they did? Were they aware of their strange habits? He decided to dedicate himself to unlocking the mystery of their puzzling behavior.

The next day he began his life as a spy in earnest. He eavesdropped on his friends’ conversations. He followed them home. He opened their mail. He dug into their trash for clues. Remarkably, no one questioned his activities. No one stopped to ask why he was sorting through disgusting bags of garbage. Jackson was a social outcast, a misfit, a nerd—kids like that were always doing weird things; it hardly deserved attention. Jackson really was like a ghost.

Eventually, he found clues—little scraps of evidence like puzzle pieces. When they were assembled, they created a picture of the person Jackson was watching. Soon, he knew more about his old friends than they knew about themselves. Steve had once had a violent case of food poisoning from some bad clams he had eaten in Playa del Carmen, Mexico; Ron had an ingrown toenail; Lori drank too much cranberry juice, which gave her a bad case of dry mouth; Jenise had once had a pea lodged in her nostril for two weeks; and Brett, well, he just liked to skip.

To his amazement, Jackson realized that all his former friends were misfits too. Each of them had some bizarre habit that could have easily gotten them ostracized … if anyone had noticed. But his discovery puzzled Jackson. If everyone was an oddball, why had he been singled out as a nerd? Resentment set in, and Jackson contemplated revenge. He considered posting a list of his friends’ bizarre tics on every locker in Nathan Hale Elementary. How would Brett and the others like it when they were the objects of ridicule? How would they feel when they had to eat their lunches under the stairs? But something kept Jackson from carrying out his plan. Not loyalty, he realized, but the fact that his “spy” work had been fun. If he was being honest, it was the most fun he had ever had. And if he wanted to do more of it, he couldn’t risk exposure.

The problem with mysteries is once they are solved, they become boring. So when Jackson was done with his former friends, he began spying on other students, and then when they got boring, he moved on to the teachers and staff, the PTA, the band director, and even the crossing guard. Soon Jackson had unlocked nearly every secret at Nathan Hale, and worried that he might have to turn to schoolwork to keep himself occupied. But then, like a ray of sunshine from the heavens above, the “nerd herd” stumbled into his life.

They consisted of five of the most awkward kids in the history of fifth grade: Duncan Dewey, a chubby African American kid whose diet consisted entirely of paste; Matilda Choi, a wheezing and gasping Korean American who was never far from her inhalers; Heathcliff Hodges, a freckled kid whose outrageous overbite made him look like a camel; Ruby Peet, a scratching, sniffing, sweating, and swollen collection of allergies; and finally, Julio Escala, otherwise known as “Flinch.” Julio was a walking ball of energy spiked by the dozens of cookies, candy bars, and sugary sodas he consumed each day. He was so hyperactive he appeared as a blur.

Jackson had never really noticed these particular nerds before. It was easy to overlook them. The nerd herd never participated in any clubs or sports. They steered clear of social settings like dances and pep rallies. They had no use for other kids—not even other nerds. It boggled Jackson’s mind, but it was almost as if the nerd herd didn’t want to fit in.

When Jackson told his brother about the herd, Chaz bristled. “You sound like you’re envious of them.”

Though he didn’t admit it to Chaz, Jackson realized that his brother was sort of right. The herd might have been a collection of misshapen goobers, but at least they had each other. They were inseparable, and Jackson longed to have that kind of friendship again. When he realized he was jealous of a bunch of nerds, it was such a shock he accidentally clamped his teeth down on his thumb. His braces locked together like a vice, requiring a visit from the fire department with their “Jaws of Life.”

The next day, thumb in a splint, Jackson set out to solve the mystery of the herd. It wasn’t easy. He knew close to nothing about them. Besides lactose-free pudding, the only thing that Duncan, Heathcliff, Matilda, Ruby, and Flinch seemed interested in was reading quietly in the library. Jackson had been completely unaware that his school had a library. At first he was dumbfounded that anyone would want to spend their free time around so many books, but then he spotted the school’s librarian, Ms. Holiday. She was an angel in a cardigan sweater. She had blonde hair, skin like milk, and smart-looking glasses that magnified her gorgeous blue eyes. She was so pretty, Jackson could barely concentrate, and promptly fell over a shelving cart, dumping books everywhere. However, he soon discerned that Ms. Holiday was not the reason the herd hung out in the library. The boys in the herd paid little attention to her or her dazzling smile, and the girls, even less. They actually read the books!

When the bell rang at the end of free period, the herd filed out into the hall. Jackson looked at the books they left behind. Duncan was reading a book on the chemical compounds in glue. Heathcliff’s book was on military mind-control experiments. Matilda had been studying the aerodynamic qualities of rockets. Ruby was reading a guide to surviving hay fever, and Flinch, well, Jackson couldn’t tell what he had been reading since the pages were covered in chocolate and nougat.

The nerd herd’s reading material was as mysterious as they were. Hoping for better clues, Jackson decided to follow them home. At the end of the day he raced outside to wait for his targets, but they never came out! The other kids fled the school like pigs at a barbecue, but the herd was not among them. Maybe they were at band practice or a meeting of the Star Trek Fan Society, Jackson guessed, but when it grew dark, he had to accept that they had left without him noticing. As he trudged home in frustration, dodging the dozens of magnetized hubcaps his headgear attracted off of passing cars, he wondered if the herd actually lived in the school. He shook off the idea as silly, but there was certainly something odd about those kids.

After a week without learning much, Jackson caught a lucky break in class. His teacher, Mr. Pfeiffer, was famous for his lesson plans. Instead of earth science or say, grammar, Pfeiffer concentrated on a subject he was well acquainted with– himself. This particular day was no different. While Pfeiffer waxed on about his favorite vacations, Jackson watched the herd. And something extraordinary happened: All five of them sneezed at the same time. At first Jackson didn’t think much of it. After all, nerds were always sneezing. But the sneeze was followed by something peculiar. No sooner had these nerds wiped their noses than bucktoothed Heathcliff marched to the front of the class and said something to Mr. Pfeiffer in a low voice. The teacher seemed almost mesmerized. He nodded enthusiastically, then gave Heathcliff a hall pass. All five of the nerds walked out of class. A moment later, Pfeiffer was back to discussing the benefits of cocoa butter and aloe vera.

If the simultaneous sneeze had happened once, Jackson wouldn’t have given it a second thought, but several days later, during Pfeiffer’s lecture on how he planned to redecorate his apartment, the herd went into another sneezing fit. As before, Heathcliff approached the teacher and whispered something, and a moment later the herd was dashing into the hall. Jackson realized he was witnessing a pattern and, also, that Pfeiffer was unqualified to educate children. The next time it happened, Jackson would be prepared.

A few days later, when the herd’s sinus sirens wailed once more, and when Pfeiffer gave the gang the go-ahead to leave, Jackson darted out into the hall after them. He looked one way and then the other, and spotted them as they raced around a corner.

“Hey! Wait!” he shouted. He wanted answers.

Flinch turned and spotted him, but quickly ran off after his friends. When Jackson rounded the corner, the hall was empty. Duncan, Ruby, Matilda, Heathcliff, and Flinch had vanished! Their only possible exit was a door at the end of the hall, but when Jackson opened it, he found a broom closet filled with mops and urinal cakes. Where had the herd gone?

“Son, are you lost?” a voice called to him from the other end of the hallway. Jackson turned and spotted the school’s new janitor approaching. Jackson couldn’t remember his name, but his appearance was unforgettable. He looked like a male model with broad shoulders and rugged blue eyes. He had a pronounced limp in his right leg, and he used his mop and bucket to help him get along. Still, he seemed dignified and intelligent. Jackson had heard some of the female teachers mooning over him and commenting on what an improvement he was over the old janitor, Mr. Pecko, who was short, had a lazy eye, and suffered from persistent mouth funk.

“No, sir. I just—” Jackson stammered.

The janitor was about to say something, but he was interrupted by a bellowing voice.

“Mr. Jackson Jones, aren’t you supposed to be in class?” Charging toward Jackson and the janitor was Principal Dehaven, a little man with a curly perm and a moustache. He had stubby arms and legs, and a chest like a pickle barrel.

“I, um …,” Jackson said, realizing that telling the truth about spying on a bunch of nerds would make him sound like he’d been standing too close to the dry-erase markers.

“’Um,’ is not an answer, young man,” Dehaven growled. “The answer is ‘Class, sir!’ I’m not sure if you are aware of this, young man, but you are in a school. Perhaps you’ve heard that word before? ‘School’?”

“Actually, sir,” the janitor interjected, “Jackson was just asking me about a career as a janitorial engineer. I asked permission from his teacher to show him the ropes—you know, mopping, sweeping, scraping gum off the bottom of desks. He’s showing a lot of promise, if you ask me, and I thought I’d give him a leg up on the competition.”

“Is this true?” Dehaven eyeballed Jackson like he could see through him. “You want to be a janitor?”

Jackson looked to the janitor, then nodded. “It’s my dream.”

The principal nodded. “Well, I suppose that’s all right. Though I must say, I think you’re setting your sights a little high, Mr. Jones. Very well, then. Get on with it, Mr…. What is it, again?”

“Brand,” the janitor said. “And I fully intend to, sir.”

Dehaven turned and charged back down the hall leaving Jackson and Mr. Brand alone.

“Perhaps you should get back to class, Jackson,” Mr. Brand said.

Jackson nodded and headed back down the hall.

“And Mr. Jones?” Brand called out just before Jackson turned the corner. “Don’t forget what killed the cat.”

That night, Jackson couldn’t help but replay the scene in his head. He was sure the herd had gone down that hallway. How had Ruby, Heathcliff, Duncan, Matilda, and Flinch disappeared? A funny thought occurred to him. Could they have been hiding in the lockers that lined the hallway? He knew the nerd herd had probably been shoved into a few in their day, but would they lock themselves in them on purpose? And if they had, why?

He tossed and turned, feeling that odd tingling in the back of his head. Jackson was swimming through a secret and soon he would be able to see through it all the way to the bottom.

Jackson didn’t have to wait long. The very next day, during Pfeiffer’s lecture on his favorite television sitcoms, the nerds’ noses went off again. Up from their seats they jumped and were out the door in a flash. Ignoring Dehaven’s threats and the odd janitor’s warning, Jackson raced right behind them. This time, however, he was careful not to be seen or heard. His stealth paid off. It was just as he had suspected! The nerds each climbed inside an unused locker and closed the doors behind them.

What a bunch of weirdos! Jackson thought. He opened the locker he had seen Duncan enter, his mind brimming with questions, but to his utter amazement, the locker was empty. He rushed over to the locker he had seen Ruby enter, but found only a couple of school books and a half-eaten orange. He rushed to Heathcliff’s locker—empty. Then Matilda’s– empty. Flinch’s—empty, empty, empty! Where had they gone?

He was sure he was losing his mind. All that metal in his mouth must have seeped into his brain. He turned to head straight to the school nurse when he heard someone approaching from down the hallway. The rapid steps and heavy breathing told Jackson that Principal Dehaven was on his way. If the principal found him in the hallway again without a pass, he’d spend the rest of his natural life in detention. In desperation, he did the only thing he could think of to save himself. He climbed into a locker and closed the door.

Oh, the irony. How many nerds had he shoved into lockers? He wasn’t even sure numbers went up that high! And now, here he was, crammed into one himself.

“Where is that janitor?” he heard Dehaven grumble to himself as he stopped just outside Jackson’s locker. “He’s never around when I need him.”

Jackson watched through the vents in the locker door. Dehaven was tapping his foot impatiently. Then he peered around, making sure he was alone, and did something terrible. He picked his nose.

“Gross,” Jackson said.

Mr. Dehaven spun toward the locker. He stepped up close and peered into the vent, then tried the handle. Jackson gripped the edge of the metal door, preventing it from opening. After several moments, Dehaven gave up and stomped back the way he came.

Jackson realized he needed to get back to class before the principal returned, but when he tried to open the door, he found it was jammed. Jackson was trapped. He wanted to call out for help, but Dehaven would hear him. He worried that he might be stuck in the locker all day before someone discovered him. Heck, he might be in there for years! Explorers might open the locker eons in the future and discover him there, like some nerdy mummy in his gym-shoe-smelling sarcophagus.

“If you get me out of this, I swear I will always be good,” he promised the heavens.

And then suddenly, a red light flashed above his head and the floor beneath him slid away. He couldn’t see, and all he heard was his own screaming as he shot down a metal tube. Then there was an enormous roar, like someone had flipped on the world’s largest ceiling fan, and a powerful wind came up from below. When Jackson looked down, he saw a huge wind turbine, blasting air at him and slowing his fall. Soon, he was hovering, like a loose feather, directly over the turbine’s grate. A steel panel slid over the fan, and Jackson landed squarely on his feet. He hardly had time to thank his lucky stars before the floor tilted upward, revealing another hole. Jackson tumbled into it and rocketed along a twisty-turny slide. He went through a loop-de-loop, and just when he was sure he would barf, another hatch opened and he fell through it.

Much to his surprise he landed in an overstuffed chair. An oddly proper voice said, “Welcome to the Playground.”

He was in a large square room as big as a baseball field. The floor was decorated in multicolored ceramic tiles, and the ceiling was held aloft by dozens of marble columns. Each wall was decorated with an elaborate mural dedicated to a different branch of science—biology, physics, geology, and chemistry. Scattered about the room were workstations. Some held computers, others elaborate experiments—vials of chemicals, half-built machines, water tanks. Mounted above all this were the largest television monitors Jackson had ever seen. They were broadcasting scenes from around the world: a man taking money from an ATM with the Eiffel Tower in the background, two men playing dominoes in Red Square, a woman and her son sightseeing at the Great Wall of China. Jackson realized these weren’t television shows, but actual events caught by surveillance cameras around the globe. On several monitors, Jackson could see students from his school walking to class, sleeping at their desks, struggling to climb the rope in the gymnasium. It seemed every inch of Nathan Hale Elementary was under surveillance.

Tearing his attention away from the TVs, Jackson noticed a circular desk sitting on a platform at the center of the room. It was made from some kind of glass, inlaid with tiny computer circuits. Jackson walked over to take a closer look. When he touched the surface of the desk, a tiny blue orb floated out of a hole in the center. It spun like a tornado, then began to emit particles of light. The particles combined to form a three-dimensional picture of a snow-capped mountain range. It was so real, Jackson felt he could dip his hand into the snowmelt rushing down to the river below. He had never seen technology like it in his life. He wondered how the school could afford something this advanced when most of the students shared textbooks.

Suddenly, as if a bell had sounded somewhere, doors swung open around the room and dozens of people dressed in white lab coats and goggles rushed to the workstations. They didn’t seem to notice Jackson.

He watched as a man climbed into a tank of water. He had a tiny green device in his nose and, once he was submerged, it was clear that the device was allowing him to breathe. In another corner of the room, a scientist wearing a bright orange jumpsuit that covered him from head to toe was handed a lit stick of dynamite. Jackson panicked, but when the dynamite exploded, the scientist appeared to be unharmed.

Jackson gaped in wonder as he moved about the room, examining one experiment after another, but his attention finally settled on a scientist working with a pink-nosed guinea pig. She plugged a computer cable into the back of a video monitor. The other end of the cable was inserted into the belly of the furry rodent. At once, the monitor came to life, broadcasting what appeared to be the guinea-pig’s-eye view. A colleague came over to watch.

“I call it the ‘guinea pig camera,’” the proud scientist announced to her colleague. “The team can give one of these to a suspect’s child and it will record anything it sees or hears. Just plug in this cable and it downloads right onto your hard drive!”

The scientist continued her demonstration, aiming the furry animal in all directions. The image stopped on Jackson.

All at once, the scientists turned to face him. “How did you get in here?” one shouted.

“Uh, I’m lost,” he said.

Before he could explain further, a siren went off and a voice announced: “We have an intruder in the Playground. Attention, all agents. We have an intruder in the Playground.”

Jackson had no idea what was happening, but one thing was clear—he had not stumbled into the teacher’s lounge.

STILL HERE, HUH? I WOULD

HAVE BET MONEY YOUR LITTLE

BELLY COULDN’T HANDLE ALL

THE EXCITEMENT. WELL, YOU’RE

BRAVER THAN I THOUCHT.

EAGER FOR MORE? GOOD.

PLEASE PLACE YOUR EYE

ON THE RETINAL SCANNER.

I’M WAITING, PAL. I

KNOW YOU DIDN’T DO IT.

LEVEL 3

ACCESS GRANTED

SEE HOW EASY

IT IS WHEN YOU

COOPERATE?