“That’s true,” Kate reflected. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone so sad as Milligan, but these two came awfully close. Reynie, do you think — Reynie, what’s wrong?”
The color had drained from Reynie’s face. He stood staring off into the distance, at nothing in particular, and indeed he looked as if nothingness were exactly what he wished to see.
“Are you okay?” Sticky said.
Reynie didn’t answer. He had finally come to understand something that would have seemed obvious had it not seemed impossible: Milligan, the missing agents, Mr. Bloomburg — they had all had their memories stolen.
Once this had occurred to him, a great many puzzle pieces suddenly fit together. When Milligan was captured, he’d thought Mr. Curtain discovered his amnesia, when in fact Mr. Curtain had caused it. That was why Mr. Curtain got so angry when Milligan said his memory was fine. Mr. Curtain had wanted to steal his memory, or wipe it away — or whatever it was that might be done to memories — and then retrain him as a Helper. Just like the other agents. Mr. Curtain had transformed all those meddlesome people into his own private workforce, and they didn’t even realize it.
The Helpers had been programmed to believe that “everything is as it should be.” But you could see it in their eyes. Their lost lives, their lost families — something inside them missed those things terribly.
“Reynie, you’re worrying us,” said Kate. “What’s the matter? Reynie!”
At last Reynie’s eyes focused, and he turned to his friends and told them what he’d just realized.
Kate, Sticky, and Constance stood dumbfounded — struggling, just as Reynie had, to accept that such a thing was possible. And yet, once you believed it was possible, so many things could be explained. It finally made sense how the special recruits, if they’d been kidnapped, could seem so untroubled: They had been kidnapped, all right; they just didn’t remember it. And Charlie Peters! He had seemed so dazed — just like the special recruits on their first day — and then so disturbed when the boys asked him about special privileges. “I can’t say,” he’d told them. He was disturbed because he really couldn’t say — he couldn’t remember!
“This is crazy, but it all seems to fit,” Kate said, pacing on the path. “Except why aren’t the special recruits as sad as the Helpers? They seem pretty happy to be here.”
“Charlie didn’t seem that sad, either,” Sticky reflected. “He got upset, but he wasn’t really sad. It must be different with lacunar amnesia. Maybe —”
“Wait a minute,” Constance demanded. “Back up and say that again in human words.”
“Lacunar amnesia? It means you can’t remember a specific event.”
“That explains it,” Reynie said. “You only get sad if you can’t remember all the things that are dear to you. If you only lose a little of your memory, you just get confused for a while — confused but not sad.”
“That’s exactly how I feel right now,” said Kate. “Who is Mr. Bloomburg, Reynie? Why is he here?”
“He was a school facilities inspector. He’d come around the orphanage every six months or so. Mr. Rutger was afraid of him — afraid he’d find something wrong and the orphanage would have to pay for repairs — but Mr. Bloomburg was a good man. Always laughing, always talking. He chatted constantly with anyone who’d listen. And afterward he’d give the kids ginger snaps. A very friendly, very kind man . . .”
Reynie trailed off. He gazed across the harbor channel toward the mainland, as if by gazing he might somehow get back there, and not just to the land, but to a time when he didn’t know all the things he knew now.
“What was he talking about all the time?” Kate asked.
“His children,” Reynie said.
“Oh,” said Kate soberly.
“He loved them dearly,” said Reynie. “And now look at him, afraid of every child he sees. It’s not even a year since I saw him last.”
Kate was putting it together. “So Mr. Bloomburg came to the Institute to make an inspection, which was never supposed to happen, and he didn’t like what he found —”
“And Mr. Curtain made sure that he never went back,” Reynie finished.
“But how could Mr. Bloomburg forget his children?” Sticky protested. “It doesn’t seem possible. Can it really be possible? Can any of this be possible?”
Reynie made no reply.
“I just can’t believe it,” Sticky said, wishing he really couldn’t.
Of Families Lost and Found
The mood in their meeting that night was subdued: no bickering, no laughter, only a general feeling of grim resolve. Now that the children finally knew some things, they all rather missed not knowing them.
If only they had proof of what they knew! But all they had was their word, and the word of children, they knew, amounted to nothing. If the authorities wouldn’t listen to Mr. Benedict, they certainly wouldn’t listen to children. Reynie and the others could argue all day that Mr. Curtain was erasing people’s memories, that dozens of government agents were being held captive on Nomansan Island — but they couldn’t begin to explain why it was all happening, and without proof, no one would help them try to find out.
“If we could lay our hands on that journal,” Kate had said, “do you think that would be proof enough?”
“Fat chance,” said Sticky. “Mr. Curtain always has it with him.”
“Anyway, even if we stole it and convinced people to read it,” said Reynie, “they’d think it was a hoax. Mr. Curtain’s messages have made sure of that.”
“At least we could read it,” Kate said. “You know it’s chock full of information, and some of it might be exactly what Mr. Benedict needs. . . .” She sighed. “But you’re right, swiping it would be too risky. I wish we could do something, though.”
“We’re doing all we can, aren’t we?” Sticky said. “We’re telling Mr. Benedict everything we know.”
“Speaking of that,” said Reynie, “we should send our report. There’s a lot to tell.”
So much to tell, in fact, that Sticky was complaining of a blister on his finger by the time he’d finished the report. A few minutes later a reply flashed from the mainland trees:
What has been lost may yet be found. Have hope.
“Is he saying he has hope,” said Constance irritably, “or is he telling us to have hope?”
“Either way,” Reynie said, “I think he believes those people might be able to get their memories back. Maybe he thinks he can find a way to do it. That’s a pretty hopeful thing, isn’t it?”
“Assuming we can stop whatever Mr. Curtain’s up to,” Sticky said.
Constance stood up. “You’re not helping my hopefulness, George Washington. I’m going to bed.” She frowned at the ceiling, then looked at Kate. “I’ll need a ride.”
After the meeting was adjourned and the girls had gone, Sticky and Reynie climbed into their bunks. Reynie hardly felt like sleeping, but he did need to calm down and clear his thoughts, and so lying in his bunk he turned to his usual method. He wrote a mental letter:
Dear Miss Perumal,
Every time I think of poor Mr. Bloomburg and his family, my mind returns to you. How would your mother — whom I know you love so much — feel if you just suddenly vanished from her life? It is an awful thing to consider. She loves and depends upon you, and I know you depend upon her, too. I never think of you without remembering your mother, too.
With these thoughts on my mind, I had a strange feeling earlier tonight. Looking around at Sticky, Kate, and Constance, I wondered how I’d feel if one of them disappeared. Sometimes Constance drives me crazy, but now I can’t imagine being here without her. I can’t say for sure, because I have no experience, but — well, is this what family is like? The feeling that everyone’s connected, that with one piece missing the whole thing’s broken?
Reynie paused in his letter to consider. Of the four of them, Sticky was the only one to have a memory of family life. Was it worse for him, Reynie wondered,
to have felt loved and then rejected? Or was it worse to have always felt alone? Kate said she had no memory of her dead mother, nor of her father who abandoned her. And Constance — well, they knew almost nothing of Constance, but Reynie had the feeling that she, too, had never known a family.
Reynie’s mind went back to his last night at Mr. Benedict’s house. It seemed so long ago now, yet he remembered it with absolute clarity. Much like tonight, he had felt too worked up to sleep, and despite the late hour he had slipped quietly out of bed and crept down to Mr. Benedict’s study. Mr. Benedict had welcomed Reynie to sit up with him if he had trouble sleeping; and obviously he’d quite expected Reynie to do so, for when Reynie arrived, a cup of hot tea was waiting for him on Mr. Benedict’s desk. There was even a little jar of honey (and judging from the way Mr. Benedict’s papers stuck to his fingers as he worked, he had already been into it himself).
“You have a question for me?” Mr. Benedict said, as Reynie sat down.
Reynie laughed. “How do you always know?”
“I’m not sure,” Mr. Benedict admitted. “Perhaps it’s a matter of empathy. I know that if I were you I’d have questions.” He scratched the top of his head with one of his pencils. “Though come to think of it, perhaps it’s a matter of odds. You seem the type always to have questions. Thus at any given moment, it’s a safe bet for me to assume you have one.”
“I was wondering if you ever wish you had a family,” Reynie sputtered. He hadn’t meant to speak so directly, but once he’d begun to ask it, the words just tumbled out.
Mr. Benedict nodded. “Certainly when I was your age I did. But not anymore.”
Reynie wasn’t sure whether to be comforted or depressed by this revelation. He’d been wondering how it would feel for him to grow up without relatives. “You . . . you grew out of it, then? You stopped wanting it?”
“Oh, no, Reynie, you don’t grow out of it. It’s just that once you acquire a family, you no longer need to wish for one.”
Reynie was caught off guard. “You have a family?”
“Absolutely,” Mr. Benedict replied. “You must remember, family is often born of blood, but it doesn’t depend on blood. Nor is it exclusive of friendship. Family members can be your best friends, you know. And best friends, whether or not they are related to you, can be your family.”
Reynie had drunk up those words like life-saving medicine. Even though the next morning he would leave on a dangerous mission, even though he knew something terrible was coming down the pike, those words of Mr. Benedict’s had made all good things seem possible. Reynie had gone to bed thinking of the people he might one day — if everything turned out all right — consider a part of his family.
And now, lying in his dark room at the Institute in an altogether different mood, Reynie finished the letter he had begun to one of those very people.
At least I had you, Miss Perumal, if only for a while. Maybe you weren’t my family, but you were the closest thing I had — maybe that I’ll ever have. And now things are awful and seem likely to get worse, and I worry that I’ll never have the chance to tell you what it meant to me. . . .
“Reynie?” whispered Sticky from the bunk below.
Reynie cleared his throat. “Yes?”
“Were you having a bad dream? It sounded like you were crying.”
Reynie wiped his eyes. “I just . . . just can’t get over what he’s done to those poor people.”
“I know,” Sticky said. “It’s maddening to think what might be in that journal of his — to think there might be something we could use to stop him . . . but I know there’s no way we can lay hands on it.”
Reynie sat bolt upright. “Sticky!”
Sticky nearly fell out of bed. “What? What is it?”
“Maybe we’re looking at this the wrong way,” Reynie said. “Maybe we don’t have to lay hands on it!”
Tactical Cactupi
The last class was dismissed into a perfect fall afternoon. Blue skies, cool temperatures, the subtlest of breezes. The sun seemed to rest upon a distant hilltop like a giant orange on a giant table.
On the plaza, Mr. Curtain sat in his favorite spot, gazing off toward the bridge, reading a newspaper with a look of satisfaction, occasionally making a note in his journal. A few students had gathered at the edges of the plaza and in the rock garden, passing the time before supper. As always, they gave Mr. Curtain plenty of room. No one dared go near him while he was working — which is why so many jaws dropped when Reynard Muldoon was spotted walking toward him. Did the new kid not know any better? Was he just dying for a visit to the Waiting Room? No student had ever approached Mr. Curtain on the plaza before.
Reynie guessed this, which is why his breath came so short. But keeping his shoulders squared and one hand behind his back, he did what no other student dared to do. He approached from the front, knowing he would have only one shot at this; his plan would be spoiled if Mr. Curtain turned his chair. “Mr. Curtain, sir?”
Mr. Curtain glanced up, his lenses gleaming like polished chrome in the sun.
“Sorry to bother you,” Reynie said quickly. “But I couldn’t help noticing that your book has a lot of dog-eared pages. I must say I was surprised.”
Mr. Curtain seemed unsure whether to be angry or incredulous. “You’re surprised I have pages to which I often refer?”
“Oh, no, sir! I’m surprised nobody has ever given you a suitable present.” Reynie showed Mr. Curtain what he’d been holding behind his back — a fistful of thin blue ribbons. “Book markers! I thought they should be special, so I asked a laundry Helper for some sash material — I’m sure you recognize that shade of blue — which she cut into ribbons and sewed up nicely along the edges.” Reynie held out the ribbons, which were indeed elegantly stitched. “I hope you like them.”
Mr. Curtain was taken aback. He was flattered, it was true, yet his expression clearly showed that he agreed with Reynie, that he rather thought someone should have given him such a present before now. It was a proper attention that had been lacking. “Thank you, Reynard,” he said with a tight nod. “An appropriate gift indeed, from one young scholar to his superior. I shall put them to good use.” Mr. Curtain returned to his newspaper.
“Sir?” Reynie said. “Aren’t you going to put them in?”
Mr. Curtain grunted impatiently, his expression darkening. The boy was a nuisance. And yet the nuisance had flattered him, and the ribbons would be useful. His expression softened a little. Finally he sighed and set aside his newspaper. Flipping his journal back to the first dog-eared page, he slipped a ribbon inside. He was beginning to turn the page when Reynie said, “What exactly is that book, sir?”
Mr. Curtain paused. “It’s a journal, Reynard. Every great thinker keeps a journal, you know.” He returned to his book-marking.
“I must say, it’s an awfully big journal.”
“What better place to record ‘awfully big’ ideas, eh?” said Mr. Curtain, which was just what Reynie had thought he would say. “Now, Reynard, no more interruptions. I have a great deal of work to do.” Mr. Curtain flipped to the next dog-eared page.
“Sir? One last question?”
“A very last question, Reynard,” Mr. Curtain said, looking up. “Go ahead.”
“Why are you always gazing off toward the bridge?”
“Ah, I suppose it does appear that I’m looking at the bridge,” Mr. Curtain said with a smile. “In fact I’m gazing fondly toward one of my greatest accomplishments — the tidal turbines. I trust you know about the turbines?” Reynie nodded. “I thought so; they’re quite famous. They are an extraordinary invention, you see, and part of the great tradition.”
“The tradition, sir?”
“Do you not recall my mentioning my homeland’s admirable tradition? I was referring to the great conquest — the conquest of the sea. Holland claimed much of its land from the sea, you know. Dikes and polders, my boy! Nothing in the world less controllable than the sea, and yet the Dutch found a
way to control it. And now, in my own way, I have done the very same thing. My turbines capture the ocean’s infinite energy, which I use for my own purposes. Is it not remarkable?”
“It’s the most remarkable thing I’ve ever heard,” Reynie said, equally impressed by Mr. Curtain’s remarkable vanity.
“No doubt,” said Mr. Curtain. He clapped his hands together. “But enough delay. Even greater things lie ahead, Reynard, much greater things, and we must waste no time achieving them.” He began paging through the rest of his journal, inserting the ribbons.
Mr. Curtain was turning the pages with disheartening speed, but Reynie dared not interrupt again. Instead he allowed himself one glance — and a brief one, at that — behind Mr. Curtain, toward the hill path leading up beyond the dormitory. A short distance from the bottom, the path curved around a large potted cactus. Nothing unusual about this — there were many such cactuses set along the Institute paths — but this particular cactus seemed to have several arms. A cactupus, Reynie thought with an inward smile.
“There,” said Mr. Curtain, holding up the journal, with the ends of ribbons sticking out here and there. “Satisfied?”
“Oh, yes, sir,” said Reynie, though in truth he was disappointed. He could see many dog-eared pages remaining. (He would have liked to bring more ribbons, but the timid Helper had given him all the sash material she could spare. She’d been afraid to disappoint him but terrified to give him more.)
“You’re quite welcome,” Mr. Curtain replied, as if it were Reynie who’d been given the present and not himself. “And now you may leave.”
This time Reynie needed no urging. He hurried off the plaza and across the rock garden, where several students gaped at him, surprised to see him still alive. He even seemed to be happy. Then Reynie reached the path and hurried uphill toward the cactupus.
Constance stood high above on the hilltop, keeping a lookout — actually doing what she’d been asked to do, which was promising. Behind the cactus, Kate was on her hands and knees, and Sticky stood precariously on her back. He was peering through Kate’s spyglass, which he had steadied atop a high cactus branch.
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