by John Saul
Jennie Phelps, the teaching assistant who had filled in for Jeanette last week, had insisted on staying, at least for today.
And from almost everyone there had been the exact same words. Uttered in a hushed whisper, after the speaker had drawn Jeanette into a secluded corner, the question never varied. “How are you, Jeanette, really!”
As if each of them, through some mystic right Jeanette couldn’t comprehend, expected her to share her private grief, to admit to the speaker alone that she was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, or felt like killing herself, or didn’t think she could survive Adam’s loss.
Each of which, at one moment or another, had been quite true, but none of which she felt was anyone’s business but hers and Chet’s. To each whispered inquiry, she’d replied with an answer as invariable as the question that was posed.
“Really, I’m fine. The best thing is for me to get back to work and start living my life again.”
The words, of course, were as empty as the way she felt, but they at least seemed to satisfy her interrogators, each of whom smiled with relief and assured her she was doing the right thing.
Now, with still an hour to go before lunch, she surveyed her cluttered desk, wondering what she could do to clear off the most clutter in the least amount of time.
Her eye fell instantly on a stack of half a dozen master’s theses that had trickled in over the summer, all of which were now waiting to be Xeroxed and distributed among their authors’ jurors.
Just the kind of idiot work she felt competent to do. And the steady, rhythmic sounds and motions of the copier had always been a soothing sensation to her, something she’d used to calm her nerves in the midst of hectic afternoons when students and professors seemed to come at her from every direction.
Scooping up the stack of theses, she retreated to the small room off her office where the copier stood waiting, its control panel glowing reassuringly.
Slipping the first thesis out of its ring binder, she dropped it into the feed tray, pushed the buttons that would order the machine to make and sort five copies of the document, and hit the start button.
The machine came to life, whisking the bottom sheet off the stack, feeding it onto the glass, then running five copies of it before spitting the paper back out again, now on top of the stack.
All Jeanette had to do was stand there, in the unlikely event that the machine chose to crush one of the originals or choke on a piece of copy paper.
The first thesis went through in five runs of thirty pages each, and when it was complete, Jeanette collated the stacks of copies, leaving them next to the binding machine, whose operation was another nearly mindless task that she thoroughly enjoyed.
And would save for after lunch.
She continued on through the stack, making five copies of each thesis, and eventually came to the next to the last one. As she set it on top of the copier in preparation for feeding it into the machine, her eyes fell on the title, and her breath caught:
The Gift of Death:
A Study of Suicide
Among Genius Children
Her hands trembling, she turned the title page and glanced at the précis of the thesis.
Her eyes swept over the words, which told her that the student who had authored the thesis had spent the last year carrying out research on the psychological evaluations of gifted children who had taken their own lives. The purpose of the thesis was to construct psychological profiles that could serve as an early warning system to identify suicide-prone children before it was too late.
Her hands trembling, Jeanette flipped quickly through the thesis.
She paused at a chapter heading halfway through:
Barrington Academy: Six Case Histories
As she began reading, she felt a chill in her blood. Was it really possible that six of the Academy’s students had killed themselves in the last five years?
Except that it wasn’t six.
It was seven now, for the research for the thesis had obviously been completed before Adam had died a little more than a week ago.
Jeanette stood quite still at the copier, a strange hollowness forming in her stomach.
She had to read the thesis, had to know what this graduate student had discovered, had to know whether, if she’d seen the thesis even two weeks ago, she might have saved her son.
And yet she couldn’t read it now, couldn’t even scan the chapters.
She waited until her hands steadied. When she had regained some semblance of calm, she began copying the thesis.
Instead of making the usual five copies, this time she made six.
One for each of the jurors on the student’s panel.
And one for herself. Though it violated the rules of the college, she would slip it into her purse and take it home with her that afternoon.
That night she would read it, and try to discover how the Academy could have lost so many students in so short a time.
Amy Carlson was sitting by herself at a corner table of the Academy’s dining room, facing the wall, struggling to force down her lunch. She’d ignored Josh MacCallum when he’d tried to coax her to sit at their regular table, refusing even to answer him as she walked past him with her tray gripped in her hands.
After she left the lab, she’d gone back to her room, slipping unnoticed into the house through the back door and scurrying up the stairs before Hildie Kramer or anyone else could spot her. Once in her room, she’d scooped Tabby up from her pillow, then flopped down on the bed, cradling the cat in her lap, petting it and talking to it as if by heaping affection on Tabby she could somehow make up for the pain that was being inflicted on the creature in the laboratory.
And there she’d stayed until lunchtime. skipping the rest of her morning classes.
But when noon came, she decided she’d better go down to the dining room, even though she didn’t feel like eating. Otherwise, someone—Josh, probably—would come looking for her, and she still didn’t want to talk to him, or anyone else.
So she’d gone down to the dining room, gotten her lunch, but ignored all the rest of the kids to sit by herself, facing the wall and staring at the uneaten food on her plate.
For the first time since she’d met Josh and decided to stay at the Academy, she wanted to go home, to go back to her own room in her own house, where her own cat was waiting for her.
Maybe this evening, after dinner, she’d call her mother and ask them to come and get her. Even going back to public school would be better than staying here, where they tortured little animals!
Amy felt a hand on her shoulder and jumped.
“Amy?” Hildie Kramer said. “What’s happened? Why are you sitting all by yourself?”
Amy stiffened. “I just want to.”
Hildie’s hand dropped away from Amy’s shoulder. For an instant the little girl thought the housemother might leave her alone.
Instead, Hildie sat down in the chair next to her.
“Well, I know something must be wrong,” Hildie said quietly, her voice soft enough so that no one but Amy could hear her. “Dr. Engersol wants to see you in his office before afternoon classes begin. And you didn’t go to any of your classes after the seminar, did you?”
Any licked her lower lip nervously and shook her head. “I—I didn’t stay in his class, either,” she admitted. “They were doing things to a kitty, and I left.”
“Oh, dear,” Hildie sighed. “So that’s why Dr. Engersol wants to see you, is it?”
“I guess.” Amy felt a flash of hope. “Is he going to send me home?” she asked, trying to keep her voice from sounding too eager.
Hildie chuckled. “Somehow I don’t think so. It’s not that easy to get expelled from the Academy. I suspect he just wants to explain what they were doing, and help you understand that the cat wasn’t really being hurt.”
“But it was!” Amy exclaimed, her indignation flooding back. “He was torturing it!”
Hildie’s brows rose. “Torturing it? I can�
��t believe Dr. Engersol would do something like that.”
“But it’s true!” Amy insisted. Doing her best not to exaggerate, she told Hildie about the experiment and what had happened to the cat. When she was done, Hildie’s expression was every bit as angry as her own.
“If that’s what happened,” she said, “I think it’s just as terrible as you do.”
“But it is what happened,” Amy cried. “Ask anyone, if you don’t believe me! Ask Josh! He saw it. All the boys did. But they didn’t care. They thought it was fun!”
Hildie shook her head sympathetically. “That’s boys for you. I’ll tell you what. I’ll go with you to talk to Dr. Engersol, and we’ll see what he has to say. And if he’s planning any more experiments like that, you and I will call the SPCA. We certainly won’t tolerate abuse of animals in our classes!”
Amy stared at the housemother. “You mean you didn’t know?” she asked.
“Of course not,” Hildie replied. “Now come on. Let’s the two of us go have a talk with Dr. Engersol.”
Her hand clutching the housemother’s, Amy left her untouched lunch where it was. Maybe, after all, things were going to be all right. She’d actually done what she’d said she was going to do, and told on Dr. Engersol, and instead of being mad at her, as she’d been expecting, Hildie was on her side!
But as they left the house and started toward Dr. Engersol’s office, another thought came into her mind.
With Hildie taking her side, wouldn’t Dr. Engersol be even madder at her than he already was?
When they reached his office, on the top floor of the building that housed the artificial intelligence laboratories, Dr. Engersol didn’t seem to be mad at her at all.
In fact, he appeared worried about her. He didn’t even seem angry when she told him she didn’t want to take the special seminar anymore.
“Everything we do seems like it’s being mean to the animals,” Amy said. “And I can’t even think about what we’re supposed to be doing. I just worry about the animals.”
“But, Amy,” George Engersol explained one more time. “We’re really not hurting them. Even the cat we were working with today is going to be just fine. In a month the fur on his head will be all grown out again and he’ll be just like he’s always been.”
Amy’s face set stubbornly. “It’s just not right to hurt poor little animals,” she declared. “And Hildie says I’m right.”
Engersol turned to his administrator. “Is that true?”
Hildie hesitated, then nodded. “I’m afraid it is, George. I had no idea you were wiring up cats in that seminar. You know how I feel about that kind of experimentation.” The two exchanged a long, probing look. “If it’s going to continue,” Hildie said, “I’m afraid I’ll have to resign.”
“And we’ll tell the SPCA on you, too,” Amy chimed in.
Engersol took a deep breath, then let it out. “Well, the two of you aren’t really leaving me much choice, are you? I don’t want to lose either one of you, and I suppose I can find other ways of teaching the class. So we won’t do any more animal experimentation. Agreed?”
Amy hesitated. “Then what will you do?”
Engersol smiled at her. “How’s this sound? Instead of trying to figure out how animals think, we’ll try to figure out how human beings think.”
“How?” Amy asked, her brows coming together suspiciously.
Now Engersol chuckled out loud. “I’ll tell you what. This afternoon, we’ll do the experiment I talked to you about last week, and then you’ll know.”
“But you didn’t tell me anything about it,” Amy protested.
“And I’m still not going to,” Engersol replied. “If I did, it wouldn’t be valid anymore. But I’ll promise you this. I won’t ask you to do anything you don’t want to do, and you can stop the experiment anytime you want. And we’ll have Hildie there, just to make sure no one tries to talk you into anything. Okay?”
Amy’s mind worked rapidly, searching for a trap. But if Hildie, who was on her side, were there, how could there be a trap? Finally she nodded. “All right. But I won’t do anything I don’t want to do!”
“And I won’t ask you to,” Engersol repeated.
A few minutes later Amy left the director’s office, once again unaware that she had been manipulated into doing exactly what George Engersol wanted her to do.
“What happened this morning?” Engersol asked when he was alone in his office with Hildie Kramer.
Hildie smiled, but without the warmth she always managed to summon up for the children. “She spent it alone in her room, and when she came down, she wouldn’t even talk to any of the other kids. Not even Josh MacCallum.”
Engersol nodded with satisfaction. “Then the last thing any of them remember is that she was very angry, and very upset?”
“And withdrawn,” Hildie added.
“Perfect,” Engersol murmured. “Just like Adam Aldrich.”
16
Amy looked up at the clock on the wall. Only five more minutes until her last class of the day ended.
She wished it would go on for the rest of the afternoon, right up until dinnertime, for every minute that went by brought her one minute closer to the experiment.
“But he said you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do,” Josh had insisted when she’d talked to him an hour ago, during the break between history and math. “What are you so scared of?”
Instead of answering his question, Amy had said nothing at all, for the image in her mind was still the one of the cat in the cage, wired to the computer, being subjected to electrical shocks, frightening sounds, and the stinking odor of the skunk.
Her trepidation hadn’t been eased at all when Mrs. Wilson, her math teacher, had handed her a note at the beginning of the hour, instructing her to appear at the gym at three-thirty.
The note had been signed by Dr. Engersol.
Why did he want her at the gym? Was that where the experiment was going to be held?
“Amy? Amy, are you listening at all?”
The voice of Enid Wilson, the math teacher, punched through the worries that were churning through the little girl’s head. Startled, Amy automatically sat up straight in her chair.
“Haven’t you been listening at all, Amy?” Mrs. Wilson, a tall, angular woman whose gray hair was pulled back into a severe bun pinned at the back of her neck, was glaring at her over the rims of her glasses. The stridency in her voice made Amy cringe.
“I—I was thinking about something else,” she said, her voice trembling.
“Obviously,” Enid Wilson replied, her voice crackling. “But when you’re in my classroom, I expect you to pay attention to me.” She rapped the pointer in her hand on the chalkboard behind her. “Can you solve this equation, or not?”
Amy stared at the complicated algebraic equation that was written out on the board, knowing that she should be able to solve it in her head. She concentrated, her eyes squinting and her brow furrowing as she began to do the calculations, visualizing the numbers in her mind as clearly as if she were working with a pencil and a scratch pad.
“Come now, Amy, it’s not that difficult,” Mrs. Wilson prodded. “It’s really nothing more than a simple reduction!”
Amy swallowed hard, trying to clear the lump that had suddenly formed in her throat. In her mind, the numbers faded away, and she lost her place in the equation. “I—I can’t do it,” she breathed.
The teacher’s eyes fixed on her, making her want to sink through the floor. “Then perhaps you can do some extra homework this evening,” Mrs. Wilson told her while the rest of the class tittered at her discomfort. “If you’re not going to pay attention in class, you’ll simply have to do the work in your room.” Smiling thinly, Mrs. Wilson addressed the rest of the class. “Work out the first fifteen problems at the end of Chapter Three,” she told them. “Amy Carlson will do the rest of them for you.”
Amy’s eyes widened. If Chapter Three were like the first two, ther
e were fifty problems to be solved. And she had a chapter of history to read, and a story to write for Mr. Conners. How would she ever do it? And all because she hadn’t been able to solve one stupid equation!
The bell rang. As the rest of the students hurried toward the door, intent on getting out into the afternoon sunshine, Amy lingered where she was. When the room was at last empty save for herself and the teacher, Mrs. Wilson finally gazed questioningly at her.
“Is there something you want to talk to me about, Amy?” she asked.
For a second Amy wondered if it would do any good to tell Mrs. Wilson how much other studying she had to do that night. She decided it wouldn’t. Mrs. Wilson wasn’t like Mr. Conners, who was always willing to listen to his students’ problems. Mrs. Wilson didn’t seem to care how much work they had to do for their other classes. “It’s simply a matter of planning your time,” she’d told Brad Hinshaw last week, when he’d complained that the assignment was too long. “You’re all gifted children, and we’re here to challenge your intellects, not coddle the habits you developed in public school. I know everything has always been easy for all of you, but life isn’t like that. You must learn to do what is asked of you without complaining.”
“She’s sure a bitch,” Brad had muttered as they’d left her room that day. When some of the other kids had giggled, Mrs. Wilson had recalled them to the classroom and demanded to know what they were laughing about.
And then she’d doubled Brad’s assignment.
“N-No, Mrs. Wilson,” Amy finally said as the teacher’s eyes bored into her. “I’m okay. I’m sorry I wasn’t paying attention.”
Enid Wilson’s lips relaxed into a semblance of a smile. “Very well,” she said. “Your apology is accepted. As,” she added, the smile disappearing, “will your homework be tomorrow. Now I suggest you get about your business. Dr. Engersol doesn’t like to be kept waiting, you know.”
Nodding quickly, Amy pulled her book bag out from under her desk and left the room. Emerging from the building, she turned left and started toward the gym on the other side of the campus.
