by James Ponti
“I thought it was beautiful.”
He put his hand on my shoulder and turned me back around so that I faced the school again.
“You will find that a miracle beats inside these gross, disgusting buildings, too. It’s the miracle of gifted students and talented teachers coming together. It’s the miracle of education,” he said. “And seven years from now, when you graduate from this school, I guarantee that you’ll no longer see how it looks. You’ll only see it for what it is. And I’m willing to bet that you’ll think it’s beautiful.”
“That’s . . . pretty hard to believe,” I answered, not giving an inch. “But before I can do any of those things, I still have to get past my interview.”
“Don’t worry about that,” he said as he gave me a friendly pat. “You just aced the interview.”
That’s how I found out that I was accepted to MIST, and nearly a year and a half later, the memory of that day brought a smile to my face as I walked onto the campus. I stopped at the same point where we’d met, and I looked at the school. While I still wouldn’t call it beautiful, I had to admit that it was growing on me.
There are four main buildings on the campus, and each one is named after a letter from the Greek alphabet. Alpha is the largest and is home to the Upper School, grades nine through twelve. The Lower School, where I take most of my classes along with the rest of the sixth, seventh, and eighth graders, is in Beta. (Since it was built alongside the East River, Beta has the best daydreaming views when you get bored in class.) The cafeteria and the gym are both in Gamma, which is why the teams at MIST are nicknamed the Gamma Rays. And my favorite building is Delta because it houses most of the science labs as well as the auditorium and library.
The library is where Alex asked the rest of us to meet him during lunch that day. Apparently, my theory about the current identity of Milton Blackwell wasn’t the only big revelation of Thanksgiving break. And while I wanted to do a little more research and think mine through before sharing it with the others, Alex said he had news about Track 61 and M42, the mysterious places we’d discovered underneath Grand Central Terminal. (You know it had to be important if Alex was willing to skip a meal.)
I was the last one to arrive because I had the longest walk. I found them in a back corner, away from where Ms. Turley, the media specialist, has her office.
“Can we start now?” asked Natalie, anxious to hear what he had found.
“Yes,” Alex said.
He had a stack of three dusty library books that looked like they had never been checked out. He read the title of each one as he set them down on the table in front of us.
“Techniques for Converting Electricity from AC/DC to Traction Current, Architecture of Grand Central Terminal,” he said, “and my favorite, Secret Nazi Plots of World War II.”
“Tell me that you’re not starting a book club and asking us to read these,” joked Natalie. “Because I’ve already read Techniques for Converting Electricity, and I found the love story to be completely unrealistic.”
“No book club,” he said. “But there are a couple of things in them that I’d like to show you.”
He started with the book about Grand Central. It was extremely technical and filled with complex drawings, blueprints, and schematics. It showed every detail of the train station. Or so it seemed. Alex pointed out that there was no mention of the long stairway we took or of the deep basement where we’d found M42 and Track 61.
“It’s like they don’t exist,” he said. Then he pointed to a diagram on a different page and said, “Except both of them are listed here.”
He laid it out for us to examine. I couldn’t make much sense of the blueprints, but Grayson instantly understood what he meant.
“This is all wrong,” he said. “They have the room and the platform on the opposite side.”
“I know,” Alex said. “It’s a total fake out. Just like this book.”
“How is the book a fake out?” I asked.
“I don’t think it’s real,” he said. “I’ve searched publishing records, the Library of Congress website, the New York Public Library database; I’ve searched everywhere, and none of them have a record of this book ever being published.”
“But you’re holding it,” Natalie said, “so someone must have published it.”
“I think the government printed a few copies and then smuggled some into Germany during the war,” he said. “I think they wanted to confuse Adolf Hitler.”
This led us to the next book, Secret Nazi Plots of World War II. He said there was an entire chapter devoted to how the Germans wasted months planning an attack on Grand Central.
“They had two targets at the station,” Alex said.
“Track 61 and M42?” asked Natalie.
“That’s right,” Alex answered. “Track 61 was a special platform built for the president for whenever he came to New York. It was hidden for his protection.”
“And M42?” I asked.
Now he referenced the book on electricity.
“That’s even better,” he said. “According to this, M42 was a top-secret room built to hold the equipment that converted electricity into the right type of current to run the trains.”
“Why was that such a secret?”
“Because if a Nazi spy was able to get into the room and dump just a single bag of sand into one of the converters,” he explained, “it would begin a chain reaction that would stop virtually all train travel on the East Coast of the United States. During the war, trains were responsible for moving food, supplies, military troops—almost everything. To think that you could disable all of that with a bag of sand.”
“It’s just like crawfish jambalaya,” I said, thinking about my dad’s cooking lesson. “Just a little hot sauce in the perfect spot can change everything else.”
“So now we know what it was,” Natalie said. “But what happened to it after the war?”
“Converter technology changed,” Alex said. “New equipment was installed in a different location in Grand Central, and M42 was closed for good.”
“If it was shut down for good,” wondered Natalie, “then when did a super-high-tech biometric palm reader get installed?”
“As for that,” said Alex, “I have no idea.”
“I do,” answered Grayson. “It was installed a little more than six months ago.”
All eyes turned to him.
“And how do you know that?” I asked.
“It occurred to me that since the undead can’t leave Manhattan, they would have had to purchase it somewhere on the island,” Grayson explained. “There aren’t too many electronics stores that carry stuff like that, and I buy computer parts from most of them. So I had Natalie e-mail me the pictures of the scanner, and I spent Saturday taking it from store to store to see if anyone recognized it.”
“And did they?” asked Alex.
Grayson nodded. “A friend at a place over in Greenwich Village.”
Natalie looked excited. “I don’t suppose he remembered who bought it.”
“Actually, he did,” Grayson said. “He said that normally he wouldn’t but that he remembered the name because it was so unusual.”
He looked right at me before he continued.
“He said he sold it to a guy named Liberty.”
Suddenly, everything got quiet and all eyes turned to me. Once again, I felt like I was being put in a spot to defend Liberty. I didn’t know what to say.
“I told you we need to be careful about that guy,” Alex said “Zombies simply cannot be trusted.”
I went to defend him, but Natalie beat me to it.
“We don’t know what it means,” she said. “There might be a perfectly good explanation.”
Alex snickered and was about to say something, but Natalie cut him off.
“I’m serious,” she said. “We don’t know what it means, but thanks to you guys, we know where to look. If Liberty installed it, maybe he can help us find out what it’s hiding.”
I think
Alex would have protested more, but the bell rang. Unlike the others, who had to get to class after our lunch period ended, I had a study hall and was able to linger in the library and continue my search for the mysterious Milton Blackwell.
I found the books I was looking for in the special collections room, and since my library card had been suspended because of excessive overdue fines, I quietly slid them into my backpack and slipped out the door.
I left the library and walked along the main path that crossed the campus. As I did, I passed a row of smaller buildings that also have Greek names. Zeta is the greenhouse set up for botany class, and Sigma is the art studio. But the most interesting building in the row is known as Kappa Cottage. Originally, this was where the hospital’s chief doctor lived, but now it had been converted into an office and lab for Dr. Gootman.
Dr. Gootman has an open-door policy, and I still had a little time left in my study hall and no desire to actually study, so I decided to drop in for a visit. I stepped inside and had to raise my voice so that I could be heard over the classical music playing on his old record player.
“Dr. Gootman?”
“I’m in the kitchen,” he called out to me.
What had once been a kitchen now served as Dr. Gootman’s own personal mini-laboratory. He was wearing his white lab coat and safety goggles as he molded a lump of clay into the shape of a volcano on the counter.
“Miss Bigelow, what a pleasant surprise,” he said in that cheery voice he always had when he was working on an experiment. “Just fixing up Vesuvius here for the sixth graders.”
He tossed me a pair of safety goggles, and I put them on.
“Already time for the baking soda volcano?” I asked, recognizing the project.
“It’s an oldie but a goodie,” he said.
“Is it as old as the music?”
“This is the Moonlight Sonata,” he said with reverence. “A deaf man wrote this, believe it or not.”
“Actually,” I joked, “that’s not hard to believe at all.”
He leaned forward and gave me the stink eye over the top of his goggles. “Watch yourself, young lady.”
I couldn’t help but smile. Dr. Gootman is as much a mad scientist as he is a principal, and that’s what makes him great at his job. I thought back to the first day I met him and he challenged me to see things not as they appear to be but as they truly are. It’s a method I’ve used countless times since. And it’s the method that brought me to his office that day.
I studied him for a moment and looked past the mad scientist/educator exterior and saw him for what he truly was.
I saw him as Milton Blackwell.
Secrets
It’s easy to get distracted in the old cottage that serves as Dr. Gootman’s office. It seems as though every bookshelf, cabinet, and tabletop is always overflowing with something interesting. But I was determined to keep my attention focused on him so that I could carefully read his reactions.
“To what do I owe the honor of your visit?” he asked as he continued prepping the experiment by pouring some vinegar into a beaker. “Or did you just drop by to mock Beethoven?”
“I’m having trouble with some research I’m doing and was wondering if you could help me,” I said. “Do you know anything about a man named Milton Blackwell?”
I watched his eyes for any hint of recognition, but there was none. Instead, they carefully followed the tiny droplets of red food coloring he was adding to the vinegar.
“Milton Blackwell?” He said it as though it were some foreign language. “I don’t recognize the name.”
I guess it would’ve been too easy if he’d just admitted it. After all, he’d kept his identity secret for more than a hundred years. But I knew what I knew, and I came armed with evidence. I opened my backpack and pulled out the picture that had first given me the idea. It was the one I’d found when I was putting away the old photographs of my mother.
“Maybe you’d recognize him from this picture.” I held it up for him. “It was taken at MIST.”
He studied the picture for a moment and shook his head.
“These goggles don’t make it easy, but he’s turned away from the camera too much for me to get a good look at his face.” Then he added, “It’s a nice picture of your mother, though.”
That’s when I knew I had him.
“Interesting,” I said. “And how did you know she’s my mother?”
Without missing a beat, he replied, “You look just like her, Molly, right down to the mismatched eyes. After all, heterochromia is genetic.”
“That’s true. But I think you recognized her because you’re the man she’s talking to in the picture. The giveaway is how he’s holding his hands clasped behind his back as he leans over to look her in those mismatched eyes. You do that.”
“I do?”
“Yes, you do.”
“Then I guess there are at least two of us who do,” he said, “because I wasn’t at this school when your mother attended MIST. I’ve only been here for fifteen years.”
“It’s true that Dr. Gootman has only been here for fifteen years,” I said. “I looked it up.”
I reached into my backpack and pulled out an old yearbook that I’d taken from the library. I opened it to the faculty section and held it up for him.
“But there was a Mr. Pax who taught chemistry while my mom attended,” I said. “This is him.”
Once again, he gave no hint of recognition as he looked at the picture.
“He’s rather ordinary-looking,” he said. “Why are you showing me a photo of Mr. Pax?”
“Because he’s you,” I said. Then I began to hold up more yearbooks. “And so is Mr. Speranza, who taught physics in 1959, and Mr. Wissenschaft, who was selected Teacher of the Year by the class of 1940. Congratulations on that by the way. I’m sure you deserved it.”
One by one, I stacked the yearbooks on the corner of a nearby table.
“The names and the subjects they teach change,” I continued, “but aside from a beard here and a mustache there, the face stays the same.”
Even confronted with this evidence, Dr. Gootman kept his cool and remained focused on the volcano experiment before him.
“And these pictures of average-looking men who are vaguely similar in appearance to average-looking me somehow lead you to believe that I’m Martin Birdwell?”
“Milton Blackwell,” I corrected. “And, actually, the yearbook pictures only tell me that you’re undead. By the way, you look great for a guy who must be pushing a hundred and forty. No, I connected you to Milton and the Unlucky 13 with the photograph of my mother.”
I held it up for him again.
“The man standing next to you is your cousin Jacob, who passed away on Halloween,” I explained. “I recognized him when I saw him on the news. At first, I thought it was because I’d seen his photo as one of the Unlucky 13. But when I came across this picture, I remembered that I’d also seen him here on campus . . . with you. It was about a week before he died.”
This time, there was a slight flicker of reaction, a hint of sadness in his eyes.
“I’m really sorry about what happened to him,” I added. “It was terrible.”
He looked at me as he considered what he was going to say next.
“You need to be careful, Molly.” He held a box of baking soda in one hand and the beaker of vinegar in the other. “On their own, baking powder and vinegar are harmless. But if they’re mixed . . .”
He poured them both into the volcano, and within seconds, the resulting chemical reaction started spewing out of the top like lava.
“. . . they can be volatile. Information is like that too. Some secrets should remain secrets.”
“But if I remember the experiment correctly,” I said, recalling the demonstration he’d made to my class when I was in sixth grade, “if they’re mixed properly, they can help make cookies.”
I pointed at the fresh batch of cookies cooling off on the opposite counter. H
e looked at them and then at me and smiled faintly. “And you’re looking to make cookies?”
I reached over and grabbed one from the counter. “I’m certainly not trying to make a volcano.”
He picked up one for himself and took a bite as he thought for a moment.
“Jacob wasn’t looking to make a volcano either,” he said. “That day you saw him, he’d come to warn me because he was worried about me. Protecting me is what got him killed.”
He stared at the photograph for a moment, and it dawned on me that he probably didn’t have many, if any, pictures of his family.
“If you’d like, you can keep that,” I offered.
He looked up at me and seemed genuinely touched. “I’d like that very much.”
He walked over and placed it on his desk. Then he took another bite of his cookie as his mind raced in a thousand directions.
“Milton Blackwell.” He said it again, only this time he let it slowly roll off his lips. “It’s been so long since anyone’s called me that, I barely recognize it.”
I plopped down in the comfy chair in front of his desk and rubbed my hands together in anticipation. I had so many questions to ask him about the Unlucky 13, Marek, MIST—everything.
Then the bell rang.
“No,” I moaned as I turned to the clock and saw it was time for sixth period. “This can’t be. I can’t go to Latin. Not now.” I turned back to him. “Can you write me a pass for this period?”
“Of course I can,” he said with a laugh. “But I won’t.”
“You won’t? But . . .”
“No buts. You need to go to your class and learn Latin, and I need to make a volcano erupt for a bunch of sixth graders.”
“But what about my questions?” I pleaded. “I have many, many multiple-part questions.”
“I’m sure you do,” he said. “But they’ve waited for more than a hundred years—I think they can wait until after school.”
I took a deep breath and tried to compose myself.
“Okay,” I said as I reluctantly got up and headed to the door. “I’ll see you after school.”
“Why don’t you bring your friends along?”
“Really?”
