The School for the Insanely Gifted

by Dan Elish

  They slept in shifts: Cynthia, then Daphna, then Harkin (who left specific instructions to wake him up if the going got tough). By the time he woke, the little flying car was approaching Europe.

  “What do you say to breakfast?” Harkin asked, stretching as best he could in the small front seat.

  “Breakfast?” Daphna said. “You brought that too?”

  “Nope. But doesn’t Paris have the best bakeries? I’d kill for a croissant.”

  Harkin maneuvered his strange flying machine down around the Eiffel Tower and landed on Paris’s widest street, the Champs-Élysées. Making the transition from pilot to driver easily, Harkin pulled to a halt by a corner boulangerie.

  After such a long flight, Daphna burst out of the car and happily stretched her legs. Inside the shop Cynthia ordered an array of croissants—chocolate, almond, cheese, blueberry, and honey—in perfect French. Though Daphna didn’t generally drink coffee, she joined her friends for a morning cup.

  Watching the day come to life—the early-morning vendors, dog walkers, and taxicabs—Daphna wished that she could stay in Paris a week or more. Billy B. Brilliant, strange antelope men, and maps seemed a lifetime away. Why not stick around for a while and see the sights? With any luck, by the time she returned, the problems of her life in New York would have disappeared.

  Of course, Daphna knew full well that no amount of good food and art museums could set right what was wrong in her life. No, this strange trip was her only hope of finding out what had happened to her mother. While Harkin and Cynthia seemed perfectly willing to linger over a second croissant, Daphna stood up.

  “It’s time.”

  Soon they were soaring up over the city.

  “Next stop, Africa,” Harkin said.

  Africa. Daphna’s spirits soared, reveling in the thrill of flying to such an exotic, exciting place. Maybe they would see some wild animals. Maybe lots.

  As the minutes turned to hours, bad thoughts began to replace good. What if the drawing in the storage bin and the map had been planted by the antelope man as a way to get her far, far out of town? What if he was back in her apartment at that very moment, looking for what he really wanted?

  Daphna peered out the window and allowed herself to be slowly soothed by the beauty of the white clouds below. Soon Harkin punched the longitude and latitude coordinates from the map into the computer keypad on his dashboard. On cue, the GPS began to direct the flying car.

  “The Thunk must lower altitude to twenty thousand feet,” it said.

  “Are we almost there?” Daphna asked.

  “Getting closer,” Harkin said.

  When the flying car poked its nose underneath a layer of cloud at nineteen thousand feet, Daphna was surprised to see the snow-covered peaks of Kilimanjaro beneath them.

  It was hard to imagine anyone living on that snowy mountain. Harkin carefully followed the instructions on the GPS, dropping altitude until the car was only two hundred feet over the snowy terrain, flying head-on into a snowstorm. As the engine strained against the harsh wind, Daphna and Cynthia clutched their seats.

  “You sure we’re in the right place?” Daphna called.

  A massive gust of wind shook the car so hard, Daphna ended up in Cynthia’s lap. Regaining her composure, Daphna looked out the window onto miles and miles of snow. Another gust ripped through the air. The car lurched sideways and began to angle sharply down. Daphna went white.

  “Harkin?” Cynthia asked.

  The boy pulled the green directional lever with all his might. Instead of the car righting itself, its nose dropped even further. As the contraption careened toward the hard ice below, Daphna and Cynthia scrambled to the pilot’s seat and each grabbed a piece of the lever. Together, the three threw all their collective weight into pulling it back.

  “Harder!” Daphna called.

  “It’s not working!” Cynthia cried.

  The snowy ground rushed up to meet them. The wind was deafening.

  Fifty feet.

  Forty feet!

  Thirty!

  Was this the end?

  Twenty!

  Ten!

  Daphna held her breath.

  When suddenly . . . the ground opened up! The wind abated. The sun came out. The next thing Daphna knew, the car had righted itself and was soaring over a lush green valley, about a mile across and a half mile wide. The blizzard raged on either side, but down below, oak and pine trees stretched majestically toward the sky in fields dotted with zebras, gazelles, giraffes, and elephants.

  Daphna was the first to regain her poise. She took another glance at the map. “This must be some sort of secret land that my mom discovered. Land this thing, Thunk. We’ve got some exploring to do.”

  Chapter 13

  A Man and His Monkeys

  Harkin maneuvered the Thunkmobile farther down into the valley, circling over a small herd of zebras. Nearby, a family of elephants was out for a morning stroll.

  “In case anyone had any doubt,” Cynthia said, “we’re most definitely in Africa.”

  They certainly were. Two hundred feet over the ground, the car coasted over three hippos taking a swim in a small pond. Two giraffes, chewing leaves off a tree, glanced up as the Thunkmobile cruised by.

  “This is like a game preserve,” Daphna said.

  As if to prove her point, a group of monkeys swung onto the ground from a tree and began to wrestle in the dirt.

  “Very cute,” Harkin said. “But we’ve got a problem, dudes. Lots of animals. No people.”

  Harkin was right. The small car had already reached the far edge of the valley. A few hundred feet ahead stood the jagged side of the cliff. Up above was the raging snowstorm.

  Daphna sighed. But then she noticed something out of the corner of her eye. At the far edge of the valley, a thin line of smoke was circling up from a copse of trees.

  “Last I heard, zebras don’t make fires,” she said.

  The car skimmed the top of a grove of pine and palm trees so thick that Daphna couldn’t see all the way to the ground. Then the forest stopped. One hundred feet down stood a small log home. The line of smoke was coming from its chimney.

  “Bull’s-eye!” Cynthia said.

  “Hold on,” Harkin called. “I’m taking this sucker down.”

  With some fancy maneuvering, he soon had the Thunkmobile safely on ground. Daphna was so eager to get out that she climbed over Cynthia and all but rolled out the door. Soon her friends had joined her on the fresh grass. Though they were surrounded on all sides by a raging snowstorm, the valley air was warm.

  “Check out this air,” Cynthia said.

  Daphna breathed deep.

  “Sure beats mouthfuls of bus exhaust,” Harkin said.

  A firm lump in the pit of Daphna’s stomach grew bigger by the second. Yes, her mother’s map had brought her to this strange place. And yes, there appeared to be a cabin. But how did they know the inhabitant was going to be friendly? Clearly, whoever resided there had chosen to live apart from known civilization. Would he or she appreciate sudden visitors? Probably not.

  On the other hand, if a beautiful valley like this could exist on the side of a mountain that was nearly twenty thousand feet tall, who could say that her mother wasn’t waiting for her inside? In fact, maybe that was why she hadn’t come home? Perhaps she hadn’t been able to scale the sharp cliffs, then hike through the snow to get back to civilization?

  “Well.” Daphna tried to keep the eager hope out of her voice. “Should we go in?”

  “We’ve come a bit too far to turn around without saying hello,” Cynthia said.

  Daphna stood on the front step, facing the solid wood door.

  “It’s your party,” Harkin told Daphna. “Go for it.”

  He stepped back, leaving Daphna alone with the door and a bad case of nerves. There were so many things that could go wrong and so few that could go right. Besides, what were the odds that her mother or Billy B. Brilliant actually lived there? Just as her nerve
was deserting her altogether, Daphna felt Cynthia’s hand on her shoulder. She drew in a deep, steadying breath. Before she could stop herself, she knocked. For a moment, she was silent, listening for the sound of approaching footsteps. But all she heard was the distant chatter of monkeys on the other side of the trees.

  “How can no one be home?” Daphna said.

  It seemed cruel to travel all that way and have the one human occupant of the valley be out.

  “Wait a second,” Harkin said. “The door’s gotta be open, right? Why not walk in and get comfortable?”

  Before Daphna could answer, Cynthia was staring toward the woods, mouth agape.

  “What the . . . ?”

  Daphna and Harkin turned and peered into the thick pines and palms. About one hundred feet away a shape of some sort was moving toward them. At first, Daphna believed it might be a herd of elephants—a frightening thought. When she looked more carefully, she didn’t know whether to laugh or be even more scared. Bounding their way through the forest was a swarm of monkeys—a good forty of them.

  “They eat bananas, not people, right?” Daphna asked.

  “Last I heard,” Harkin said.

  The monkeys burst into the yard. Pounding their chests and yelping, they moved in on the children, pinning them against the front door of the house.

  “Sing them part of your one-woman Macbeth,” Harkin yelled to Cynthia. “Maybe they’ll run away.”

  “Funny,” she replied. “I was thinking you should recite your poem.”

  They were trying to keep it light, but Daphna could hear the fear in their voices. What did these monkeys want? To play? Or were they dangerous?

  Once she and her friends were pinned against the door with no escape in sight, the largest monkey of them all clapped twice. The others cackled wildly and stomped the ground with their feet. The large monkey clapped again. To Daphna’s horror, the monkeys broke into three groups, one of which rushed forward arms outstretched, and lifted her over their heads. She was thrown into the air, only to be caught a second later by another group of monkeys that immediately tossed her to a third group. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that Harkin and Cynthia were receiving the same treatment. They were being used as giant human balls in some sort of game. As Daphna and her friends kicked, clawed, and screamed, the monkeys merely passed them around more quickly.

  Until a loud crack—almost like a gunshot—filled the air. A voice boomed:

  “Enough funny business! Give them some room!”

  Daphna fell to the earth on her stomach. Looking toward the voice through a maze of monkey legs and paws, she saw a man standing by the edge of the yard. He was medium height with a long reddish beard. His eyes were so intense, she could make out their color, hazel, from a distance. Along with a dirty flannel shirt and jeans, he wore boots that laced all the way up to his thighs. Most striking was what he held in his right hand: a giant whip.

  “Go!” the man called to the monkeys.

  The animals hesitated, looking longingly at the kids.

  “I said, ‘Go!’” the man commanded.

  When his whip thwacked the ground an inch from the leader, the monkeys scampered as one to the edge of the trees, leaving Daphna and her friends lying on the ground by the front door, frozen with fear. Thankfully, it seemed the man’s wrath was saved for his monkeys. As soon as they were gone, his face softened.

  “You’ll have to excuse my friends,” the man said. “We’re not used to visitors around here.”

  Daphna looked at Harkin and Cynthia and nodded. They rose slowly to their feet, a little banged up and a bit embarrassed, but otherwise none the worse for wear.

  “Sorry to drop in like this . . . ,” Daphna said. Her voice trailed off. What should she say? How could she explain everything that had led them to this moment? After a full day of travel, she couldn’t come up with a single coherent sentence out of the million in her head.

  What happened next didn’t help. The man jerked up his powerful arm. The whip went thwack! against a low-hanging branch, and a single coconut dropped into his hands. He cracked it open on his knee and took a giant drink. Though Daphna found the sound of the whip terrifying, it dawned on her that if the man had wanted to harm them, he probably wouldn’t have stopped for a snack first. Instead of ordering the monkeys to let them alone, he could’ve commanded them to hoist the children into the trees. He might have done anything.

  As the man took a second drink from the coconut, she decided it was time to be brave.

  “I’m Daphna,” she said. “These are my friends Cynthia and Harkin. You can call him Thunk if you want.”

  She reached into her back pocket and pulled out the picture.

  “This is my mom,” she said. “And we think you might be one of the men with her.”

  As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Daphna felt ridiculous. She took another look at the burly, slightly overweight, messy, bearded man in front of her. How could he be one of the thin, handsome guys with her mother?

  Daphna looked to her friends for support. She could tell that they were as skeptical as she was and turned back to the man to apologize. The man tossed the coconut into the woods and reached for the photo. When he looked back up, his eyes had taken on a misty glow. Daphna could have sworn that he was choked up.

  “Heather Whispers is your mother?” he said.

  “Yes. She is.”

  He took a step closer. “How is she?”

  Over the past two months, Daphna had been struck by how quickly her mood could shift. In a matter of seconds, the thrill of the man knowing her mother was replaced by the sadness of her disappearance.

  “What’s wrong?” the man asked. “She’s not well?”

  Daphna spilled the entire story, starting with her mother’s crash and going through the appearance of the antelope man to the discovery of the map. By the time she finished, she was trying her best to choke back sobs but losing the battle. The man stepped closer, as if unsure whether to comfort her or not. Daphna looked at the ground, realizing that she had bared her soul to a complete stranger. It was humiliating. She swallowed back her tears.

  “She’s not here, is she?” Her voice trailed off.

  The man shook his head. “I’m afraid not.”

  Daphna’s chest tightened. Just because she had been expecting the news didn’t make it any easier to hear. She felt Cynthia’s arm on her shoulder. Daphna took a moment to control her emotions.

  “And the picture? Neither of these guys is you, are they?”

  Daphna fully expected the answer to be another letdown in a string of disappointments. Instead, the man smiled, revealing a full set of surprisingly small but white teeth. “In younger, thinner, less hairy days, yes. That’s me, sitting next to your mom.”

  “You’re Billy B. Brilliant?” Harkin asked.

  At the mention of the name, the man’s eyes registered the slightest trace of surprise. Then he pulled at his right sideburn and smiled again, this time as if he was bemused by an old memory. “Billy B. Brilliant!” he whispered. He shook his head in astonishment. “Nobody’s called me that for years!” When he met Daphna’s eyes again, he was smiling. “Forgive me, but I’ve been rude. You’ve had quite a trip. Come in! Come in!”

  Chapter 14

  Laptops in the Lab

  My real name is Marcus Bean,” the man said, moving toward the cabin. “But you can call me Billy, if you’d like. Billy B. Brilliant was a silly name your mother came up with for me one night in college. I called her Cassandra P. McFuzz, just like it says on the picture.” Billy laughed—a warm, mellow chuckle—and pushed open the front door. “Sorry I haven’t had time to straighten up. As I said, I don’t get many visitors. And don’t worry about my monkeys. I have a strict ‘no chimp’ policy inside.”

  Billy disappeared inside his house, leaving the door wide-open. Daphna expected the inside to resemble the outside, a charmingly old-fashioned cabin, where a fireplace was used for heat and to cook. In short,
the perfect home for a messy guy with a beard and a whip. When Daphna stepped into the foyer, she couldn’t believe her eyes. Before her was an enormous room. There was a quaint fireplace off in the corner, but the rest of the space resembled a modern laboratory. The room was filled with rows of computers—hundreds of them, laptops and desktops of all shapes and sizes and colors—blinking, whizzing, and whirring. Four giant monitors hung down from the ceiling in the center of the room. Wires, bolts, duct tape, discarded keyboards, and computer chips littered the floor. While the outside belonged to a quaint past, the inside belonged squarely to the future.

  “Door!” Billy growled. “Shut, if you please!”

  The door moved by itself and closed with a gentle click.

  “Lights!” he barked.

  Though Daphna didn’t see any bulbs, the room grew instantly brighter.

  “Whip!” he commanded.

  A hook descended from the ceiling, grabbed his whip, and placed it in a sheath on the wall.

  “Unreal,” Daphna said. Any remaining embarrassment for the way she had bared her soul outside vanished in the wake of the new wonders around her.

  “Not bad,” Harkin said.

  “I’ll say,” Cynthia said. “You could make a killing doing special effects for Broadway shows.”

  “Could be,” Billy said with a nod. “Now who’s hungry? You all look half starved!” He wheeled around to face the far side of the room, where a giant computer monitor was now hissing out a plume of pink smoke. “Harrison! Lunch all around!”

  A panel in the wall slid open, and a man in dress pants, white shirt, and bow tie walked gracefully into the room.

  “Very good, sir,” Harrison said to Billy. “What would you like?”

  “Oh, just whip us up something good,” Billy said. “For four people.”

  The man bowed. “Very good. Lunch for four. Right away.”

  It wasn’t until Harrison was walking out of the room that Daphna noticed the neat row of staples on his neck and the bolt by his ear.

  “Wait a second,” she began. “Is he . . . ?”

  Harkin completed the thought.