The Girl Who Knew Even More

by Commander S. T. Bolivar, III

  “Oh.” Doyle paused. “Well, you’re lucky because it’s baking time. I have to pick up sugar, you know. We’re out. It’s super annoying.”

  “Uh, yeah.” Mattie nodded. “I hate it when that happens too.”

  “Totally,” Caroline added.

  “Bonkers,” Eliot muttered, but everyone ignored him.

  Doyle carefully put down his invisible tray on top of a headstone. “I can’t believe you came back!”

  “We said we would.” Mattie tugged the two fortified burgers from under his sweater and offered them to Doyle.

  The clone carefully wiped his hands on an invisible towel and took the burgers. “Yeah, but people say a lot of things. Hey”—Doyle looked over his shoulder—“Maxwell? Let’s go!”

  The leaves shivered and a branch cracked and Maxwell appeared. Mattie wouldn’t have thought it possible but he was even dirtier than Doyle. The clone’s navy pants were mostly brown. His hair stood up in stiff spikes.

  Mattie peered a little closer. He had no idea what made Maxwell’s hair stand up like that and he was pretty sure he didn’t want to know.

  Maxwell pointed a stick at Mattie. The end was disturbingly sharp. “Who goes there?” he demanded.

  Doyle leaned over and thumped Maxwell twice. The other clone’s head spun around. When it finally faced forward, Maxwell grinned at them. “Hello! Who are you?”

  Doyle sighed. “Sorry. He stands in the rain too much.”

  “Uh, okay.” Mattie edged forward and passed Maxwell a vitamin burger. “We brought you something to eat.”

  Maxwell flicked his spear stick to the ground and grabbed the burger. Mattie and the Spencers leaned against a headstone to watch them dig in. Usually the clones were tidy eaters. They used silverware. They wiped their mouths. Not so much anymore, Mattie noticed, but they did chew exactly eight times.

  Maybe they’re not too damaged, Mattie thought.

  “This is great!” Doyle said, slurping vitamin burger juice off his fingers.

  “It’s something,” Caroline muttered. “I’m not sure I’d call it great.”

  Mattie nodded. Then again, Doyle had been eating invisible muffins and Carter’s leftovers for the past few months, so almost anything had to be delicious at this point.

  “Glad you like them,” Mattie said, a chilly breeze whipping his hair around. Maxwell burped loudly and thumped his chest.

  “Gross.” Eliot waved one hand in front of his face. “I can smell it.”

  The only thing Mattie could smell was rain, but when he looked up, the sky above the cemetery was still bright blue.

  Weird, Mattie thought as that same chilly breeze swirled through the woods again. Moments before, it had been so still. Now the wind was cranking up.

  “Mattie?” Caroline asked slowly. “Do you hear something? It sounds almost like a train?”

  She glanced toward the sky and looked past Mattie. Her jaw dropped.

  “What is it?” Mattie turned and stared. Snaking through the graveyard was a long, thin dark funnel.

  “Is that a cloud?” Eliot asked.

  Mattie went cold. “No! That’s a tornado!”

  “IT CAN’T BE,” MATTIE BREATHED.

  But it was. The tornado snaked toward them, picking up speed. It sucked in a bench, a bush, and the wing off a headstone’s gargoyle. The wing spun into the air and crashed onto the ground. Bits of stone sprayed everywhere.

  Mattie’s eyes bugged. “Run!”

  And they did. The clones dashed into the woods. The Spencers ran for the school and Mattie followed. They rushed through the crooked gate, going as fast as they could across the grass. Leaves whipped past Mattie’s cheeks, catching on his clothes before being sucked behind him.

  “Hurry, Mattie!” Caroline was five strides ahead, now six. “C’mon!”

  Mattie ran faster, huffing and puffing with every stride.

  “You’re going to get sucked up!” she shrieked.

  “I can’t go any faster! I’m short!”

  “That’s no excuse!” Caroline returned as she leaped over a fallen tree branch and powered up the hill.

  Mattie galloped after her. Faster. Faster. His lungs squeezed tighter. He glanced behind him and…there was nothing. The trees had stopped shaking. The leaves had returned to the ground.

  The tornado was gone.

  “Look!” he yelled, slowing. But the Spencers did not stop and they did not look. They were running hard for the school. Mattie flung himself forward, just barely catching Eliot’s sleeve and hauling him around. “Look,” Mattie repeated.

  This time, the Spencers stopped and looked. They’d reached the formerly-overgrown-courtyard-now-turned-tidy-courtyard and Mattie tumbled into the grass, gasping. After a moment, he heaved himself onto his back and stared up at the sky. It was a bright, clear blue. No clouds. No wind. Nothing to hint at what had just happened.

  “That—that—that!” Caroline’s fury made Mattie sit up. She was staring at him, tight-lipped and pale, and for once, her hair really was windswept. Bits of leaves were caught in the curls and Caroline’s dark eyes were wild. “That was a tornado!”

  “Yes,” Mattie managed, still heaving for breath.

  “A tornado!”

  “Yes!” Mattie was sitting down, but his knees were still shaky. That is the thing about adrenaline. It is great to get you away from snakes, tornadoes, and Tupperware parties, but eventually you’re left with wobbly legs and a desperate need to pee.

  “First, clones! Now, tornadoes?” Eliot brushed off his clothes, but it did little good. There were grass stains on his knees and some sort of smear on his sleeve. Eliot examined it closely, sniffed it, and made a disgusted face. “This school is going to be the end of me!”

  Mattie agreed and scratched away the tickling between his shoulder blades. He glanced around, feeling like someone was watching them, but the courtyard was deserted and there was nowhere to hide. The hedges had been trimmed and the grass had been mowed—even the ants were now gone. The stone angel was still there too, but someone had smeared a creepy clown lipstick smile on her. Mattie shuddered as she stared at him.

  “Guys,” Mattie began. “This is like when we had the thunderstorm in the science room.”

  “Yep,” Caroline said, eyes still huge.

  “And it’s like that storm during the photo shoot,” Mattie continued.

  “Yep,” Eliot said, eyes also huge.

  Mattie stared at the Spencers and waited and waited. His friends heaved a sigh. “I see your point,” Eliot added. “But even if it’s true, no one is ever going to believe us.”

  Mattie nodded—and then stopped. Eliot was right: no one would believe them. “Except, when it started raining in History, Lem didn’t exactly seemed surprised.”

  “What?” the Spencers asked.

  “Lem. In history class. He didn’t seem all that surprised by the rain. He seemed more nervous. Didn’t you notice?”

  Eliot shook his head.

  “I was a little busy trying not to get electrocuted,” Caroline said.

  “Well, I don’t think he was surprised—and when you consider the other things Lem isn’t surprised by…” Mattie trailed off, thinking about chipmunk-munching moss and acid desk dissolvers. The Spencers’ eyes widened like they were thinking the same thing too. “Maybe he’s been experimenting with other stuff?”

  “Like weather?” Caroline crossed her arms and glared in the direction they’d come. “No one likes bad weather. Who would want to make a thunderstorm?”

  “I don’t know.” Mattie shrugged. “It’s as good an explanation as anything though. What if Lem or Dr. Hoo or one of the other scientists is behind it?”

  The Spencers went quiet. “Could be,” Eliot said at last, brushing off his jacket sleeve again. “Or, like, Headmaster Rooney has gone from cloning us to trying to kill us.”

  His sister shook her head. “The Rooster wouldn’t be behind this.”

  “How do you know?”

 
“He’s way too perky. This is pretty scary stuff.”

  “I don’t know,” Eliot said, rubbing one hand through his blond hair. “Like I said before, raining ceilings isn’t really creepy or scary. It’s more—”

  “Pointless?”

  Eliot nodded. “Why would anyone want to make it rain indoors? I mean, yeah, it’s bad for the furniture or whatever, but we got out of class. It’s kind of a good thing.”

  In many ways, Eliot was right, but Mattie shook his head. “This is Munchem, remember? They never do anything small around here and whatever they plan it’s never ever good.”

  Eliot nodded. “Well, at least that’s the one thing you can count on.”

  “What do you mean?” Caroline asked.

  “At Munchem, nothing stays secret for long and it always gets worse.”

  YES, INDEED, ELIOT WAS RIGHT: things can always get worse. This is a good thing to keep in mind especially when dealing with your own life and especially, especially when dealing with anything at Munchem Academy.

  But even if you aren’t dealing with Munchem, it still applies. You broke your leg? Well, you could’ve broken your neck. You forgot the code to unlock a bank’s supersecret security system? Well, you could’ve…Actually, no that’s really bad and would probably get you caught by the police.

  In fact, Eliot Spencer’s experience at Munchem Academy is probably what led him to believe escape plans are always—always—worth the effort and life is too short not to get the computer you want.

  But Mattie and the Spencers weren’t thinking about any of those principles as they made their way to the cafeteria for lunch. The friends turned at a stone bust of Mr. Larimore and walked down a set of stairs lined with paint cans and hammers. Munchem’s renovation was still going strong and someone—probably Doyle—was going to find those and use them. Mattie didn’t know exactly what Doyle would use hammers and paint for, but he was sure the discovery wouldn’t go well for anyone.

  “We have to tell Carter,” Mattie said as Olga Higgins stared him down. “He’ll know what to do.”

  “Like what?” Eliot asked.

  “Dunno. That’s why I’m going to ask him.”

  Mattie and the Spencers followed some fifth graders through the heavy double doors and into the high-ceilinged cafeteria. It was crowded as ever and they had to wait for the upperclassmen to finish picking out their food.

  Last term, Munchem meals were closely supervised by teachers. Mattie was always careful to select healthy food and he was even more careful to make sure the teachers saw him selecting healthy food. This term, the scientists-turned-teachers didn’t seem to care what the students ate. They just wanted to see the students’ reactions.

  Salads were replaced with pills, chicken nuggets were now streamlined for “even faster eating!,” and the ice cream was fortified with sixty-two “necessary nutrients.” Only no one seemed to know what those nutrients were or why one of them (or perhaps all of them) made a few of the students burp bubbles for days.

  It did make the scientists very excited though.

  Mattie considered his plate of freeze-dried and vitamin-charged hamburger. There hadn’t been any problems with it before, but there was always a first time. He pushed his way through the crowd to join Eliot and Caroline at the closest table. Dr. Hoo and Lem stood along the far walls, watching the kids with careful interest and holding tiny voice recorders close to their mouths as they whispered observations.

  Eliot surveyed his lunch as Mattie sat down next to him. “I can’t decide if Munchem food has gotten better or worse.”

  “Definitely worse,” Caroline said, impaling a round brown ball with her fork and holding it up for closer inspection. “I don’t even know what this is.”

  “Maybe that’s for the best.” Eliot took a big bite and thought about it for a moment. “It’s chewy—like the rubber they make Barbie doll legs out of.”

  Caroline groaned. “I hate Barbie dolls. They set impossible expectations.”

  “Totally,” Eliot continued, still chewing. “I mean, heads do not come off that easily in real life. Seriously.”

  Caroline ignored him and turned back to Mattie. “Are you going to find Carter?”

  “Yeah.” Mattie stood on tiptoe and looked over the crowd. There was Maxwell. There was Doyle about to spit on Maxwell. There was Lem shaking his pocket recorder.

  Oh. There’s Carter, Mattie thought. His brother was two tables away, nodding and smiling at an eighth-grade girl. She had pale hair and long, thin fingers tipped in hot pink. Mattie had never seen his brother agree with someone so much.

  She must be fascinating, Mattie thought as he walked closer. He tapped his brother on the arm. “We have to talk.”

  Last term, Carter would’ve ignored him, but now his brother heaved to his feet. Carter jerked his head for Mattie to follow him. They retreated to a deserted corner of the cafeteria and Carter leaned one shoulder against the wall.

  He took a big bite of his apple. “Okay. Talk,” he said, chewing.

  “Something’s going on. First, we had a thunderstorm in History—like, in History. It was inside our classroom.”

  Carter stopped chewing. “What?”

  Mattie repeated everything, and this time, added, “I think someone’s experimenting with Munchem’s weather.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe it’s an experiment gone wrong. Maybe it’s an experiment gone right! Who knows? It’s bad though. We could’ve died in that tornado and the clones are still out there and someone could find out what we did last term.”

  Carter’s eyebrows pushed even higher and Mattie took a breath. “We have to do something,” he said finally. Carter took another bite of apple. He chewed slowly.

  Mattie leaned closer. “We were almost electrocuted in the thunderstorm and the tornado tore a wing off a stone angel. Think what it could’ve done to us!”

  “I don’t know what you want me to do. It’s not your problem. Let it go.”

  “It is our problem! Dad isn’t here to stop it, so we have to! The company could get blamed.”

  Carter shrugged. “Would serve him right. Look, Mattie, Dad thinks I’m horrible.”

  Mattie wilted. “You’re not.”

  “I know that. You know that. But Dad doesn’t—and if he thinks I’m horrible, fine. I’m going to be horrible. I’m going to take care of me.”

  Mattie had never felt so small. “You’re not going to help, are you?”

  “Nope. Business is busy, and I have things to do.”

  “Things like feeding the clones I hope.”

  Carter waved one hand. “Yes, jeez. Look, Mattie, you want help becoming who you are? I’m all there. You want to save Dad? You’re on your own.”

  And then Carter walked back to his table and Mattie really was alone. Slowly, Mattie made his way back to the Spencers and flopped into his seat.

  “Carter doesn’t want to help.”

  Caroline frowned. “Surprise, surprise.”

  “What now?” Eliot asked.

  The three friends stared at one another. No one could think of why you would create tornadoes. No one could think of how Larimore Corporation could use them. And even more importantly, no one could think of how any of the Larimore scientists would create tornadoes in the first place.

  Unless… Mattie shook himself. He took a deep breath, forcing himself to say: “What if someone did something to the machine?”

  Eliot paled. “The”—he dropped his voice—“the cloning machine?”

  “Is there any other machine I should know about?”

  “No! Impossible!” Eliot paused. He was thinking hard and Mattie knew this because thinking hard always made the skin between Eliot’s eyebrows pleat and his mouth scrunch up. “Well…” Eliot said at last.

  “Exactly.”

  They all looked at one another. Caroline sighed. “You know what that means?”

  “What?” Eliot asked.

  Mattie frowned. “We have
to check the basement.”

  WELCOME TO MUNCHEM ACADEMY’S INFAMOUS basement. Well, not the infamous basement—not yet—but welcome to the meadow that leads to the trapdoor that leads to the ladder that leads to the steps that lead to the basement. Confused? So was Mattie.

  “I know the door is around here somewhere,” he muttered, peering closely at the grass. It was a good night for sneaking around. It wasn’t too cold or too hot and the bitten-in-half moon cast just enough light across the meadow so Mattie didn’t stumble. Well, he didn’t stumble much.

  “Oof!” Mattie rubbed his shin. By this point, he’d run into a nest of field mice, a long black snake looking for the field mice, and now an old tree stump hidden by the spiky overgrown grass.

  “Maybe we’ve gone too far?” Caroline asked.

  “No way.” Mattie ran his hands through the long tufts of grass. It sent clouds of gnats into the air. Some of them drifted past Mattie. The rest headed for his eyes and nose. Mattie sneezed and then sneezed again. “The door has to be somewhere close.”

  The Spencers agreed. In fact, the three had been looking for the trapdoor for the better part of twenty minutes now. This was the trouble with hidden doors. They didn’t want to be found.

  Or one of the troubles. The others were gnats and overgrown weeds with thorns.

  “You don’t think the repair team could have buried it or something?” Caroline asked, grimacing down at her thorn-pricked thumb. “Like, destroyed it during some of the renovations?”

  Mattie gulped. He hadn’t thought of that. “Do you remember seeing any of the workers over here? Any of the bulldozers or cranes?”

  The Spencers shook their heads. “But that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen,” Caroline said.

  “You’re very cheery,” Mattie told her.

  Caroline smiled. “I try. You know we don’t have much time,” she added.

  Another cheery observation, but it was also true. Mattie kicked at a bit of rock, thinking everything over. “We could go in through Rooney’s closet,” he suggested. They’d accidentally discovered the basement’s other entrance last year while hiding from the teachers and looking for a book possibly called the How to Be Good Manual (long story). Hidden behind coats, the small door led straight down to the basement and the basement’s cloning machine.