The Whites of Their Eyes

by Andrew Clements

Ben pushed the door wide and began examining the outside edge.

  “There!” Jill pointed. “Up there!”

  Above the top hinge on the metal door jamb, there was a black rubber dot, no bigger than a penny.

  Shrugging off his backpack as he pulled out his camera, Ben said, “Give me a boost up!”

  Robert cupped Ben’s foot.

  After two quick pictures, Ben held the camera out to Jill. “Here, and could you get me that ruler from my book bag? Thanks.”

  Using the flat end of the metal ruler like a spatula, he gently pried the dot off the door jamb, and then stepped down.

  The three of them stared at the thing on the end of Ben’s index finger.

  “So . . . ,” Robert said, “if what you told me is true, then someone stuck this sensor up there and closed the door on it. And when the door opened, that took the pressure off the sensor, which activated a tiny switch, and that sent a signal. I’ve heard about equipment that works like that . . . it all seems possible, I suppose. . . .”

  Robert paused, his head tilted to one side.

  “It’s not just possible,” Ben said triumphantly. “It’s all factual.”

  He felt like he’d just rubbed Robert’s face in mud.

  “So,” Robert went on, “if this stuff is true, then someone is getting a signal that this door is standing wide open, right now!”

  Robert grabbed the dot off Ben’s finger and gently stuck it onto the paper on his clipboard. He pulled a dime out of his pocket and covered the dot with the coin. Flexing the spring-loaded jaw of the clipboard, he slid the paper until the dot and the dime were in position, then gently lowered the clip on them.

  “There,” he said. “The door’s closed again!”

  It took Ben a second or two to process everything Robert had done and said. He was pretty impressed, but he wasn’t about to admit it. He just nodded and said, “Right,” as if he would have done exactly the same thing.

  Robert said, “So, are you two gonna to tell me the rest of what’s going on here, or what?”

  Ben looked at Jill, and she nodded at him.

  “Well,” Ben said, “I guess we have to now . . . but first you’ve got to swear an oath that you’ll keep all this a secret—you can’t tell anyone about any of it. At all. Okay?”

  Robert grinned. “Ooh—a big secret oath! Sure thing . . . and then what? Do I get to sign my name in blood somewhere?”

  Ben glared and started to reply, but Jill snapped faster, her voice edged with steel.

  “Ben, I’m sorry. I thought Robert would understand what we’re doing and want to help, but he obviously thinks that everything’s a joke. You were right about him. He sails his fancy boat around and brags about winning races, but he couldn’t care less about the bay or the town or anything. ‘Sure, go ahead, rip down the school! And if the whole coast gets ruined, so what? Big joke—ha ha ha!’”

  Robert was shocked by Jill’s venom, and Ben used the moment. He grabbed the clipboard away and took the sensor and the dime off, pressing them tightly between his thumb and finger. He handed the clipboard back.

  “We don’t need you, Gerritt.”

  Jill wasn’t done. “Just leave, Robert—now. And if you tell anybody what we’ve said about this, we’ll find a way to get you back. We will. Let’s go, Ben.”

  Ben started to leave, when suddenly everything seemed to slow down. Time slurred, and then almost stopped. It was like when he was ten, that instant when a buoy had smacked him in the mouth and chipped off both his front teeth. He saw every motion, each detail.

  Jill’s cheeks were flushed, her lips pressed together into a tight line, her eyes flashing angrily, her hands in tight little fists. She began to turn away.

  Robert was stunned. His eyes jumped from Ben’s face to Jill’s. And as Ben watched it all in slow motion, that smug, sneering mask Robert had always worn crumbled—just dissolved, and then dropped away from his face. Ben saw real emotion in his eyes, and then, instantly, a fierce determination.

  Robert spoke, but it was a changed voice. “Honest, guys—I didn’t mean anything by that. You have to admit it, this whole thing? It seems completely crazy—it’s really hard to believe, it is. Like . . . was I supposed to be ready for some big, serious swearing-in ceremony in the middle of a Saturday afternoon? I mean, c’mon. That was completely bizarre. But I see you’re both really serious about this. I get it now—I do. So . . . yes—I swear that I will keep all of this a complete secret, everything. I want to be in on this, okay? Really, I swear.”

  His promise hung in the air.

  Ben tapped his tongue against the back of his front teeth. He believed Robert. He almost felt a little sorry for the guy.

  “Listen, Robert, I know this stuff sounds weird. And I also know I’m way too intense about all of it right now. But it is a big deal—a huge deal. And it doesn’t just seem nuts, it really is nuts. I mean, you know Mr. Lyman, right, that tall janitor guy? Well, he’s the spy, the one who’s working for the theme park company. And that’s the same guy who texted me—and then he called my house and woke up my mom in the middle of the night! So I get the weirdness factor. We threw all of this at you fast, but Jill’s right, we really do need some help. So if you mean what you said, you’re in.” Ben put out his hand. “Shake on it?”

  “Absolutely! Yeah, thanks!”

  “And here,” Ben said, holding out the sensor and the dime, “stick this back on your clipboard—my wrist’s about to break from squeezing so hard.”

  Jill shook his hand too. “Ben’s right,” she said. “We’re both kind of insane about this right now. And I’m sorry I said some of that stuff—like, Ben didn’t really say that about your sailing.”

  “Well,” Ben said, “not out loud.”

  They all laughed a little at that, and it felt good to Ben—sort of. After all, he and Gerritt had a lot of history, most of it bad. This was the kid who had been teasing him, competing against him, constantly trying to show him up ever since first grade, both in school and now whenever their sailing club held a race. Still . . . Gerritt probably was about the smartest kid in the whole school, and to have him on their team might make a difference right now. Would it work out? Hard to say—but Ben knew one thing for sure. The team had to get down to work.

  “So,” he said to Robert, “there’s a lot you need to know. First of all, back in 1791 Captain Oakes set up a group of kids he called ‘The Keepers of the School’—that’s from a message we discovered after Mr. Keane gave me this.” He reached into his pocket and then handed Robert the smooth gold coin.

  Robert read the inscription on each side, and Ben and Jill smiled as they watched his face. He was hooked.

  During the next ten minutes Robert got the whole guided tour. They explained how that coin had been passed along from one janitor to the next for more than two centuries. They took him to see the secret hiding place “on the upper deck” and let him examine the big iron key and the list of safeguards. Then Jill showed him a copy of the codicil, the result of solving the “five bells” clue.

  Robert was blown away. “So the Oakester actually planned all this? I mean, this thing with his will—it’s genius! He laid out a big game of chess, and he’s using us to play against his enemies—and if that codicil is for real, he wins! And he’s been dead two hundred years! Incredible!”

  They began walking down the south stairwell. “About that codicil,” Jill said. “We talked to a lawyer, and she said we should only use it as a last resort.”

  “Yeah,” Ben said, “because the Glennley people don’t actually know what we’re up to yet. And if we take that codicil to a judge, it would make the whole thing a huge public fight. Right now, it’s still pretty much us against Lyman.”

  Robert looked at Ben. “So . . . yesterday afternoon, when you had me chase around the school and find Lyman because of that flood in the art room, that was part of this?”

  Ben nodded. “I got detention on purpose, then I broke the faucet. I needed to
search for something in the janitor’s room, and I had to be sure Lyman wouldn’t be there for a while.”

  “Did you find what you were looking for?”

  “Yup. I met a man named Tom Benton at Mr. Keane’s funeral, and he was the janitor here right before Mr. Keane. After I told him what was going on, he asked me to get him his old tackle box from the workshop. When I took it to him, turns out it was loaded with gold and silver coins—old, and really valuable. Mr. Keane had found them somewhere in the school and put them in the tackle box. So, as of yesterday afternoon, we have money in our treasury.”

  “Sweet!”

  The three of them stopped on the landing between the first and second floor.

  Robert cocked his head to one side a moment and narrowed his eyes. “Do you think Lyman knew there were going to be people from the Historical Society here in the school today?”

  “I’m sure he knew,” said Jill. “When the school secretary came to let my mom in, she said she had to come herself because the janitor was out of town for the long weekend.”

  “Good,” said Robert, “because that means we can go and disarm all the other doors, and if Lyman gets the signals before we put the squeeze on the sensors, he won’t think it’s weird that other doors were being opened.”

  “Actually . . . ,” Ben said slowly, “I think we should let Lyman think that his system is still perfect.” He pointed at the sensor on Robert’s clipboard. “Let’s get something small and black like that, and stick it back in the same place on the northeast door. The door’ll still look like it’s protected, but we’ll be able to get in and out without setting off an alarm.”

  Robert nodded, and with a half smile he said, “I have to admit it, Pratt—that’s a decent idea.”

  “How about we disarm one other exit and put up a fake sensor there, too,” said Jill, “so we have a backup door? Maybe the exit on the south side of the Annex walkway?”

  “Another decent idea,” Robert said.

  They walked down the last ten steps to the first-floor hallway near the office. The most direct route to the Annex causeway would have taken them past the janitor’s room, so they went the long way around to avoid the grown-ups. But just as they got to the last corner near the art room—

  “Jill? Can you hear me? We’d like some help carrying these tools now. Jill?”

  “Coming, Mom.”

  They all changed direction.

  “Well,” Jill said, “we can fix that second door some other time. But maybe we can put up a fake sensor on that one door before we leave.”

  “Already got it figured out,” said Ben. “Some black electrical tape and the scissors on my Swiss Army knife, and I’ll be all set. I saw tape on the workroom bench yesterday.”

  “Nice,” said Jill.

  Walking into the janitor’s room, Ben was sorry to see all the antique tools removed from their places on the wall. It was a great collection, close to a hundred different tools. They’d been protected by thick plastic cases, and now they were spread out all over the floor and the workbench.

  He bent down and picked up a heavy block plane. The body of the thing was a solid chunk of bird’s-eye maple. The iron was a little rusty, but it still looked plenty sharp. Someone had made this tool with great skill, taken good care of it, and used it hard for many years. It was like holding part of a person’s life in his hands.

  Ben’s eye was drawn to some marks on the back end of the plane—two letters formed by holes punched into the wood: JV. Instantly Ben knew. He was holding one of John Vining’s tools. He was the ship’s carpenter who had sailed with Captain Oakes, and later he had drawn and designed every bookcase, every doorway, every bit of woodwork in the school. And then the master carpenter and his helpers had done the work themselves.

  He took a quick look at a dozen other tools—they were all initialed.

  “Hey,” Ben said to Jill, “John Vining, the carpenter who made the drawings for the school construction? These are all his tools!”

  Robert jumped in. “Vining? He’s one of the people I’m featuring in my report—hey, we are still doing our reports for Mrs. Hinman, right? Because I don’t want all my work on this stuff to go to waste.”

  “Of course we’re doing our reports,” Jill said. Lowering her voice, she asked, “So is there anything you know about Vining that might be useful for our other project? Vining must be the one who built all the hiding places for the safeguards. I’ve been meaning to go to the town library to do more research. Anything you can think of?”

  “Hmm . . . not really. But I’ll work on that.”

  “Can I have everyone’s attention?”

  A short man with white hair and a large nose stood at the doorway to the loading dock. “Please bring the tools out to my van one at a time, and use extra caution with the sharp ones. When everything’s loaded, we can meet at the Historical Society building over on Bay Street.”

  As the kids and the other volunteers carried the tools out, the man arranged each one on a quilted moving pad until he ran out of space. Then he laid on a new pad and started a fresh layer. By the time they were almost done, there were nine layers.

  Ben was glad everyone was so careful, but he hated seeing the big blank space where the tools had hung for the past two hundred years. Although . . . they’d be right back there on the workroom wall in just a few weeks—if all went well.

  That seemed like a very big “if.”

  Ben took the roll of electrical tape from the workbench and slipped it into his pocket. Then he excused himself to go use the washroom.

  It took him only a few minutes to fashion a good replica of the door sensor—a small disk made from six circles of black vinyl tape. It was sticky on one side, smooth on the other. He walked around to the northeast door, opened it, stretched up on his toes, and pressed the black dot onto the same spot where the sensor had been. It looked perfect.

  Back in the janitor’s room, the job was done and the work party was breaking up.

  “Hey, Ben, Jill,” Robert said, loud enough for Jill’s mom to hear. “How about we meet at the big beech tree tonight after dinner—maybe around seven? Toss a Frisbee around or play Wiffle ball? What do you think?”

  “Can I, Mom?” Jill asked. “I’ll be home before nine.”

  “I’ll be walking home to the marina that way too,” said Ben.

  “Sure, that’ll be fine,” Mrs. Acton said. “Sounds like fun.”

  Robert caught Ben’s eye, and Jill smiled at each of them.

  As the man who owned the van removed the wooden wedge that had kept the loading dock door open, Ben spotted another small black sensor up high on the metal frame. The door wheezed shut, and he imagined Lyman getting a signal: All doors closed, locked up tight, safe and sound.

  Ben hated to admit it, but he was impressed with Robert all over again. Meeting tonight for a game on the school grounds? That was brilliant.

  Because they all knew they weren’t going to be playing Wiffle ball—it was going to be more like hide-and-seek.

  And Ben agreed with Jill’s mom. It sounded like fun.

  CHAPTER 6

  Genius at Work

  They sat on the low granite step in front of the northeast door of the school. They didn’t look like burglars, just three kids eating Popsicles. But Ben was on high alert, noting every detail of their surroundings.

  It was 7:35. Deep shadows stretched across the grounds of the school, but it was still fairly bright—and just seventy feet away, joggers and couples and small family groups strolled along the harborside walkway that passed in front of the school. Getting inside was going to be a challenge.

  Ben held the one key he needed in his left hand—he’d removed it from the large key ring. He finished his Popsicle, then casually stood up on the granite step and faced the door. Leaning in close, he pretended he was peering through the glass into the hallway, but both hands were busy. He unlocked the door, pulled it open half an inch, and slipped his Popsicle stick into the crack
.

  Ben sat back down on the step between Jill and Robert. The door was primed for action. Now it was just a matter of being patient, waiting for the right moment.

  About five minutes later, it came.

  A kid yelled out, “Hey, it’s the big boat again!”

  Ben got to his feet and stared, along with the dozen or so people out along the harbor walk. Bounding along on the strong easterly breeze, a three-masted schooner hove into view, flags and pennants flying. It was at least a hundred and fifty feet long, and Ben noticed it was Bermuda-rigged—one tall sail on each mast, plus two jibs hung from forestays running down to the bowsprit. It was a beautiful sight.

  People clustered along the seawall, waving and calling out to the crew and passengers. Jill and Robert stood beside Ben, all of them caught up in the fun of the moment.

  From fifty yards offshore the shrill notes of a bosun’s pipe skittered across the water, and the schooner came about smartly. Taking the wind straight across her beam, the boat ran north along the shore, and a small wake curled off her bow. And that’s when the mainsail came into full view.

  Ben stopped smiling. Orange lettering marched across the broad canvas:

  The three of them stood there, stunned and silent, while the sloop gathered speed.

  “Okay,” Ben said through his teeth. “Let’s get to work.”

  As the crowd along the waterfront pointed and waved and cheered, the Keepers disappeared from the school’s doorstep, Jill first, then Robert and Ben. They were all inside, and the door clicked shut.

  “Hey, look!” said Robert, and he sprinted around the corner toward the library. “I’m running in the halls! Ha, ha—this is great!”

  “Yeah,” Ben called to him, “but we’re here to work, so let’s make a plan.”

  Robert sprinted back and screeched to a stop. “Listen,” he said, panting, “before we get started, I had this really great idea, and I’ve got to go check something out—would that be okay?”

  “Sure,” said Ben, but he was sort of annoyed. This didn’t seem like the new-and-improved Robert, the helpful, humble Robert, the one who had taken an oath a few hours ago. No, this was more like the old Robert, the pushy one—the one who would just love to take over and run the whole show.