I looked around the sterile room. Against the far wall was a ginormous shelving unit enclosed behind glass that looked about two-inches thick. Rows upon rows of medical equipment were stacked on the shelves—test tubes, IVs, needles, gauze, and what looked to be surgical equipment.
The floor matched the feeling I got as we entered—cold and gray. I couldn’t believe it when I saw him. Off to the far side of the room sat Mark Masters. Gone was the nose-picking-extraordinaire son of Mayor Masters that I knew. He was pale and a few beads of sweat trickled down his head. Nerves had obviously overtaken him. He rocked back and forth, back and forth, gripping his left arm with the opposite hand.
He looked awful.
As I walked closer to him, he looked up at me, but it was almost as if he looked through me, like he wasn’t registering that I was even there.
“They don’t know that I’m here,” Mark said, continuously glancing back at the door behind him.
“Who doesn’t know, Mark?” I asked.
Silence.
I stepped closer to him. “Mark, who doesn’t know?”
“I just don’t care about not being a weekday. I just don’t care that much.” He turned his head and looked me directly in the eyes when he spoke the next words. “Get them away from me.”
“Mark, you’re not making sense,” Logan said, taking both of Mark’s shoulders in his hands and gently shaking him.
“Get him some water,” I shouted back to Ellie.
She used her cusp power to telekinetically fill a beaker of water and lobbed it into my hand.
“Here,” I said, pushing the liquid into Mark’s face. “Drink this.”
He mechanically reached up, grabbed the cup of water, and sipped. But Mark’s odd behavior continued. “She just doesn’t care!” he shouted. A sip of water obviously didn’t do the trick. He quickly fell right back into his trance.
“Who, Mark? Who doesn’t care?” Logan prompted.
“Move,” Ellie demanded, taking a step forward, another beaker of water tight in her grasp. In an instant, she lurched her hands forward and the water flew out of the glass and into Mark’s face. His head jerked from side to side a few times and then stopped.
“Mark?” we all asked in unison.
“What did you do that for?” he asked, coming back to reality.
“Mark?” Ellie said, placing her manicured hand on his shoulder.
“Oh … hey, Ellie,” he said, as if seeing her for the first time tonight. He took a few long blinks, glanced around the room, and then it was like it all clicked. He stood up in an instant.
“You guys need to get out of here. Now!” he spoke, pushing Logan toward the door.
“We aren’t going anywhere,” Logan said, pushing him right back down into his chair. “You need to tell us what’s going on!” Logan sounded downright mad.
“Where are Sam and Sabrina?” Ellie asked, taking the thought right out of my head.
“They’re here, too. Well, not here, here. But here at N.P.C. Somewhere.” Mark’s eyes darted to the clock above the door—8:57 p.m.
“They’ll be back soon. You can’t be in here when they come.”
“Who?”
“They always come back at nine.”
“Who, Mark?”
“Just get out of here. Hide in that closet,” he said, pointing at a white door with a silver handle on the other side of the room.
“Wait,” Ellie said. “Before we go anywhere, I want to know what’s going on in this …” she shivered, “place.”
Mark’s eyes darted to the clock again. 8:59 p.m. “Go!” he shouted.
That was enough to make us all hurry into the tiny closet—and just in time. As we ducked inside, the beep, beep, beep access sounded. The door to the room unlatched and then clicked back in place. Although everything was a bit muffled, I could make out three voices. Mark’s, a man’s I didn’t recognize, and Mark’s mother. Mayor Masters.
Chapter Twenty
We couldn’t make out what was being said on the other side of the closet door, and there were too many thoughts going back and forth to decipher what was being said. But there was shouting—I was sure of that. And I think it was Mark who was doing the shouting. After what seemed to be at least fifteen minutes, we heard the door open and then click shut. Ellie, Logan, and I stumbled out of the tiny room.
“What was that all about?” I asked.
Mark rocked back and forth, back and forth in the chair once again. He was in the same state of mind we found him in when we first entered this creepy room.
Ellie grabbed my shoulder. “What if we head back to Power Academy? I just feel like we need to tell someone about …” her voice trailed off as she looked around the room. “This. Whatever this is.”
We were onto something here, and there was no way we were going back to Power Academy without at least trying to get some answers.
“Water,” I said to Ellie.
Splash! Water dripped to the floor below.
Just like that, Mark snapped out of it.
“Sorry, guys,” he said, shaking off his stupor.
“Well?” I asked. “What did they want?”
Mark fidgeted with the ends of his sleeves. “I shouldn’t be telling you,” he said through gritted teeth. He glanced up at the clock.
“Telling us what?” Logan asked, pushing a piece of hair from his face.
Mark didn’t respond.
“Telling us what?” Logan asked, louder this time.
“They hooked me up to this … this …”
I attempted to read his mind but to no avail. His thoughts just weren’t coming to me.
“They hooked you up to?” Logan asked.
I shot him a don’t-rush-him kind of look.
Getting information out of Mark was proving to be difficult. Mark looked to the rows of test tubes behind the thick glass.
“This machine,” he whispered. “They roll it in and then roll it out, put these needles in my arms, and then …” He paused and swallowed so loud I could hear the spit go down. Two fresh Band-Aids rested in the crease of his elbow. He continued. “Then they ask me to do stuff with weekday powers.”
Ellie’s nose scrunched. “What do you mean, do stuff with weekday powers?” Ellie asked. “You’re a Saturday.”
“And that’s exactly the point!” Mark shouted. “My mother hates that I’m a powerless nobody. I’m not a weekday. I’m not a stupid Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday. I’m just—”
“Mark, we’re here to help you,” I said, placing a hand on his shoulder in an attempt to calm him down. He was rambling. Whatever they were doing to him was so bad that he could barely hold on to a thought. Mark’s words were all over the place.
“Please start at the beginning,” I said, forcing a smile for Mark’s sake.
“Why do you all even care at all?” he asked. “It’s not like you ever gave me the time of day at Nova Elementary or Nova Middle.” He nodded his head toward Ellie. Gosh, that was harsh. But true. I thought back to elementary school and when he had been labeled “the nose-picker of Nova”.
“Digging for gold, are we?” Ellie had asked him a number of times, jabbing an elbow into his side. She had changed over the last year, though. Gone are her mean days.
“I am truly sorry, Mark.” I am, she thought in her head. And I believed her.
“Really, I am,” she said out loud, this time.
And it was enough for Mark to go on, even though I read his thoughts, and he was anything but accepting of her apology.
He shook his head—like he was shaking away the years of torment. “Thank you,” he said, looking down at his hands. There was an awkward silence and then Mark took one big breath. And he began.
“My mom’s crazy,” he began. “She’s been obsessed about me being a weekend forever.” He paused. “Well, obsessed with me not being a weekday is more like it.”
We all kne
w that. In fourth grade, Mayor Masters had made a big deal about Mark being made fun of while all the other weekdays were coming into their powers. She was tired of him being bullied, so she was the one who decided that there would be no power usage in the school system—not for all to appear equal, but for her son to appear equal. Although ridiculous, who would question that decree from the mayor?
Mark stilled and continued, the real Mark returning. “Anyway, mom never understood why only weekends were powerless. She wanted me to have powers just like everyone else.” He chuckled, thinking back to something. “And my aunt even told me that mom tried so bad to keep me from being a weekend. She apparently tried to bribe the nurses to deliver me early so I could at least be born a disappearing Friday.” He frowned. “That was before she was mayor. If she was mayor then, I probably would have been a Friday.”
So it was true. Moms really did go out of their way to give birth on certain days.
I felt so bad for Mark Masters, the nose-picking extraordinaire of Nova. We’d all seen Mayor Masters’s looks of disappointment at times, but she was always so nice to me. To us.
As I looked at the beaten-up Mark sitting in front of me, it was obvious she was anything but nice. I could only imagine how hard she was on poor Mark. Did his mom even love him?
“So what does this have to do with this …” Logan glanced around the room, “place?”
Mark looked toward the cement floor. “They’re experimenting,” he said, barely audible.
The whites of Ellie’s eyes grew larger. “What do you mean, experimenting?” It sounded like something right out of a science fiction movie.
“Wait … but Headmistress Larriby said you’re doing some sort of internship here?” I asked.
“Obviously, that’s a lie,” he said, looking me square in the face. “My mom’s been telling lies to everyone.” He shook his head. “She actually convinced my dad that I was sent to London to a special power school, where my sister Maggie actually went years ago. See,” he said, lifting his hands in exasperation. “Even Headmistress Larriby thinks I’m here for some internship. And don’t even get me started on that awful Fluxnut guy.”
“So, Mr. Fluxnut knows about this too?” I asked.
“Yes, he’s the one keeping tabs on all of you,” he said, his eyes darting to the clock.
Now Mr. Fluxnut’s creepiness was making sense. The whole acting thing was probably just an excuse to keep an eye on us. Not an eye for protection, though.
“Anyway, they come in here, and inject me with this … this … stuff,” he said, pointing at the vials in the locked glass cabinet behind him.
“And what does it do?” Logan asked.
“Mom thinks it’s supposed to give me weekday powers.”
I couldn’t quite grasp what he was saying. Supposed to give him powers. How could that even happen? You had to be born on a certain day, in Nova, to have certain powers. How could that stuff actually give you a power?
“How would that even be possible? You’re born with your weekday ability, silly. It isn’t something that can just be given to you.” Ellie had once again taken the though right from my head.
“Don’t you get it?” Mark asked, his eyes growing wider, if that was even possible. “My mom has literally gone crazy. And now she thinks she can take other people’s powers and stuff.”
“So what has she done with the missing weekdays?” Logan asked.
“Wait. Go back.” I hesitated, thinking about what Mark had said. “What do you mean, ‘taking people’s powers’?”
I shook my head. I had never heard anything like this. If you’re born in Nova on a certain day, you are born with certain powers. You have those powers forever. Nobody can “take” them from you. And nobody can just “give” them to you.
“I still don’t get it,” I said.
Logan grabbed my hand and looked me in the eyes. “I think I do.” He looked past Mark and at the glass cabinet. “Nova Power Corporation.” His voice was barely audible. “They don’t do anything to help us with our powers. They create our powers.”
“He’s right,” Mark chimed in, rubbing his arm.
“No. I was born on a Thursday, so I was born to read people’s minds,” Ellie said.
“You’re wrong,” Mark spoke cautiously. He pointed to the cabinet behind him and at the tubes filled with some sort of liquid.
“Oh my gosh,” I exclaimed. I walked closer to the locked cabinet and pointed at the letters labeling the tubes. The first cabinet was labeled M. The next with T. Then W, Th, and finally, F. This couldn’t be true.
“I think you get it, Poppy,” Mark whispered. He tapped on the glass. “They gave you your powers.”
Chapter Twenty-One
“And now she wants to experiment on those people she took. My mom’s crazy, you guys.” Mark turned away from the vials of weekday power and sat back down.
Nothing made sense. If this was true, then my whole life was a lie. Really, everyone’s life in Nova was a lie. Our teachers taught us since the first grade that in our perfect magical town, you had a power based upon the day of the week you were born. And if that wasn’t true, then what else have we been lied to about? I just couldn’t wrap my mind around what Mark just revealed to us.
“So when you were born, you were injected with a different serum based upon the day of the week.”
“But the meteors—”
Mark’s shaking voice cut Ellie off. “Are you even listening to me, Ellie? There was no meteor,” he said. I wanted to know, no, needed to know more, but we didn’t have time to ask him any more questions.
“You guys, they’re coming back soon,” Mark said, breaking my train of thought. The clock over his shoulder read 9:55 p.m.
“How often do they come for you?”
“Every hour,” Mark said. “But it doesn’t matter. These serums won’t work on twelve-year-olds, but she keeps trying anyway. She’s crazy!”
“Mark. You have to tell us where she is taking the cuspers who’ve disappeared!” I said with urgency. For a moment, the huge bomb Mark dropped on us about his crazy mom and the even crazier origins of our weekday powers distracted me. But even with everything we’d just heard, we had to find Sam and Sabrina—especially if what Mark said about his mom experimenting on them was true.
“What are cuspers?” Mark asked.
“You know—weekdays with two powers.” Ellie said, twirling a few strands of hair around her fingers, like that piece of information was the most normal fact in the world.
I could tell by the look on Mark’s face that he had never heard that term before. How could he not know what a cusper was, especially considering that his own mother was a one? That was another confusing part of this whole situation; why was Mayor Masters targeting cuspers, anyway?
Mark gestured toward the door. “All I know is that they’re keeping weekdays in the basement to …” he swallowed. “To experiment on them. But you have to get out of here. Now! Before they come back.”
“But how do we even get to the basement?” I asked.
Mark’s eyes darted to the lanyard and keycard suspended from my neck.
“Oh!” Of course.
“And I’m coming with you,” he said, unemotionally.
No one objected. We needed him to lead the way.
“I overheard some of the N.P.C. guys talking about special weekdays and that’s how I know where they are,” Mark said as we made our way through the windy labyrinth of hallways once again. “Sometimes, I pretend to be really out of it so they say stuff in front of me, not realizing I’m just storing all that information to use at some other time.”
“Like now,” Ellie said cautiously, probably because of the way he snapped at her a little bit ago.
He stopped and looked at her. “I never thought you’d be the one to help.”
I smiled. Mark was smart, which was why he could help us now.
He put both hands up, gestu
ring for us to stop. “Okay. So around the corner is a door that leads down to the basement. There are guards there now. I might not have any magical powers, but I can distract them so you can get down there. Please be careful. I don’t know what they might do to you if you’re caught or if they find out I helped you,” he said, his voice growing quiet. Who knows what they were doing to poor Mark, or what his own mother would do.
“Now go stand behind there.” Mark motioned to a large sculpture of a meteor crashing into the Earth, Nova’s town symbol. I cringed at the deception.
Total joke, Ellie thought to me.
“It’s show time,” Mark said with a wink. And as fast as he bounced out of his little trance earlier, he slipped right back into it.
I peeked out from behind the statue just in time to see him run into a wall. “Where am I?” Mark asked, disoriented. His loud voice bounced from wall to wall. “Where am I?” he yelled, louder this time. Surely one of the guards heard him.
“He’s a natural actor,” Logan said as we watched him smack face first into another wall. Heck, he almost had me convinced that he was lost. If he were attending Power Academy, he would definitely have a role in Mr. Fluxnut’s production.
And then they came. Two security guards with N.P.C. hats rounded the corner, stepped up to Mark, and grabbed him by the elbows.
“This way, young man,” the short, round one said as the three of them disappeared down the hallway.
We ran to the giant metal door that those guards were protecting. The top of it read N.P.C. Personnel Only. Trespassers will be punished. If trespassing meant that we would find our friends, too bad. We were going.
Ellie tapped my shoulder. “Um, Poppy? Don’t you see that sign?”
“We’ve been trespassing for the past hour. I don’t think it really matters at this point.” One quick swipe of my dad’s card and the door opened, leading to a series of metal steps.
“To the dungeon,” I said under my breath.
“I’m not so sure about—”
“We got this far, Ellie. We might as well keep going,” Logan said.
Poppy Mayberry, Return to Power Academy Page 9
