The Ability (Ability, The) (19 page)

“I—I didn’t,” said Philip, surprised and a little confused. “It’s just, I didn’t hear any ringing.”

Ms. Lamb considered this for a moment. “Well, you obviously weren’t paying attention. Right,” she said, looking up, “the rest of you can stop now. You—yes, you—tell me what was on the list.”

Lexi closed her eyes. “Ummm, scissors, a candlestick, an apple, and a paper clip.”

“And . . . ,” said Ms. Lamb.

Lexi hesitated. “That’s all.”

“No, that’s not all. You, freckles, what else?”

Rex looked nervous. “A truck and the sun?”

“Correct. Good. At least I have one person in this class useful for something.”

Rex looked thrilled. He turned to Lexi and grinned.
“Oh yes, ha-ha! I am Rex, reader of minds; you can bow to me now.”

Lexi curled her lip and turned away from him, disgusted. To Chris’s surprise, Ms. Lamb made no comment.

“Now we’ll try this again with the same people looking at the list on the opposite page, but this time you are going to try to block the person the moment you hear the ringing in your ears.”

Philip straightened his jacket and looked down at the page opposite. Once again Chris was able to see the list immediately.

“I can’t hear anything,” said Philip, staring intently at the page.

“That’s because I’ve already done it,” whispered Chris, looking apologetic.

“Again? I haven’t even picked what I’m going to use for my block yet.”

Chris shrugged, then looked up to see Ms. Lamb looking over at him with a disapproving stare.

“Talking again? I suppose you’ve finished, have you?”

“Umm, yes. I didn’t mean to, but I had already done it before Philip started blocking me.”

“You’re supposed to use the block,” said Ms. Lamb to Philip.

“But . . . but . . . I didn’t hear anything again. I hadn’t even started reading the list.”

“Have you seen this book before?” asked Ms. Lamb, staring at Chris.

Chris reddened. “No, honestly, I haven’t. I don’t know what’s going on.”

“Well, if you think you’re so clever, maybe you can come up here and do a demonstration.”

Chris sunk back in his seat. “I’m sorry, I’ll—”

“I
said
, get up here.”

Chris stood up from behind his desk and walked over to where Ms. Lamb was standing.

“All of you can stop now,” said Ms. Lamb, and the rest of the class looked up. Chris stood awkwardly, shoulders hunched.

“I don’t like cheats. It’s pointless and a waste of everybody’s time,” said Ms. Lamb, addressing the class.

“But I didn’t cheat,” said Chris, shocked.

“Well, we’ll soon see about that. If you’re so brilliant, then I’ll expect you’ll have no problems reading my mind before I block you. You have one minute to find my least favorite color. That will be in the Dislikes building which is next to—”

“Fears and Phobias,” said Chris.

“Fine, begin,” said Ms. Lamb, irritated.

Chris looked at Ms. Lamb and tried to ignore the hair that lined her upper lip. He looked at her temple, and immediately he imagined himself in a room with a door up ahead. He walked straight across to the door, opened it up, and saw he was standing on an empty street lined with buildings of various sizes and colors. Streets led off in all directions, but Chris, having memorized the map, knew exactly where he was going. He raced ahead, out of habit looking both ways as he crossed the street, and down another main road toward an enormous green building that stood in the center of a group of buildings ahead of
him. He reached it and looked up to see a sign above the door that read
DISLIKES
. Chris hurried inside and entered a room full of filing cabinets lined up in rows. Chris rushed along them, checking the white label on each one.

Food . . . places . . . transport . . . people,
said Chris to himself, noticing how large the
PEOPLE
cabinet was.
Ahhh . . .
He stopped at a small, one-drawer filing cabinet labeled
COLORS
and opened it up. Inside was a single folder, which he opened up. A cloud of orange exploded about him.

Excited with his success, Chris rushed out to return to Reception, when he spotted the sign above the building next to him:
FEARS & PHOBIAS
.

A quick look might be useful,
thought Chris, then ran in through the front door and opened the bottom drawer of the first enormous filing cabinet he came to. He took a bulging folder out of it. As he opened it carefully, a scene appeared before him. He saw Ms. Lamb at a table, on her own, crying in the middle of a desolate gray landscape. The words “Being Lonely” appeared above, hovering.

Chris grimaced uncomfortably, closed the folder quickly, and rushed back out onto the main street, back to Reception, where the sound of Ms. Lamb singing “London’s Burning” filled the room. Chris walked straight through and out the door into a bright light. He squinted, then opened his eyes to find he was staring Ms. Lamb directly in the eyes. He looked away quickly.

“Pathetic . . .
pathetic
,” said Ms. Lamb. “You didn’t even try. Not so easy when you don’t have a book to cheat with is it, young man?”

Chris opened his mouth to speak, but Ms. Lamb raised her hand to stop him.

“I don’t want to hear your excuses. You have to look into my mind and try to access it to gain the information we’ve asked you for. If you can’t even enter the Reception area, then you really are wasting your time in my lessons.”

“But I already did,” said Chris.

“No, you didn’t. What do you take me for? I can hear when you’re using your Ability by the ringing in my ears.”

“I did!” said Chris, getting annoyed.

“Fine, then, what is my least favorite color?”

“Orange,” said Chris defiantly.

A flash of confusion crossed Ms. Lamb’s face. “A lucky guess, of course. Sit down.”

“And you’re most scared of being lonely,” added Chris in anger, immediately regretting the words as they left his mouth.

Ms. Lamb stared at Chris, her face turning red with a combination of embarrassment and fury. “You—you—how
dare
you?”

Chris heard the gasps from the other children, but he didn’t dare to look round.

“Get out, all of you. Take your manuals and practice for tomorrow’s lesson.”

Chris couldn’t get out quickly enough. He grabbed his manual and rushed out the door. He waited at the foot of the hill in the Dome, and the other children appeared moments later. As soon as they saw him, they burst into laughter and Chris, in spite of the trouble he knew he was going to be in, started laughing too.

While the pupils of Myers Holt enjoyed afternoon tea discussing their think-tank lesson where they had learned to drive a car using only the power of their minds, property developer Richard Baxter was sitting in his brand-new four-wheel drive, parked in the middle of a vast construction site, which—if today’s meeting went well—was to become his largest development project yet. Baxter looked around at the cranes and bulldozers and imagined them being replaced by the enormous concrete tower blocks that were going to make him a
very
rich man, as long as he could convince the planning office to sign on the dotted line.

“You’re a winner,” said Baxter, looking at himself in his rearview mirror. “You’re a winner, you’re a winner, you’re a winner,” he repeated under his breath, fastening
the yellow hard hat under his chin and grabbing his briefcase. He stepped out onto the dirt floor beneath him and strode out purposefully toward the group of people talking amongst themselves in the distance, not noticing the two identical boys ducking down behind the steering wheel of the bulldozer next to him.

“Good morning,” said Baxter, as he approached the group of people. “Baxter, Richard Baxter,” he said, shaking each person’s hand with a vicelike grip. “Thank you for coming down today. I’m sure the changes we’ve made will impress you.”

A stern woman with a clipboard under her arm nodded. “Perhaps you could start by showing us around,” she suggested.

“Of course, of course . . . Sheila,” he said, reading her name badge. “Why don’t we begin here. At the moment we are standing in what will be the lobby of the Baxter Building, the largest of the five towers. As you suggested, we have now reduced the number of apartments from seven hundred to six hundred—a considerable reduction, I’m sure you’ll agree.”

A young man stepped forward, scribbling something in the notebook he was holding. “Mr. Baxter, as far as I can work out, that still means that the apartments won’t allow enough space for a kitchen.”

Baxter dismissed this comment with a wave of his hand. “I think you’ll find kitchens are out of fashion these days—young people want fast food and takeout; they don’t want to be slaving over a hot oven for hours. But,” he added quickly, noticing the look of concern
on Sheila’s face, “we have allowed for a counter in each bathroom that is big enough for a small microwave and a toaster. So . . . problem solved,” he said, grinning.

Sheila nodded and looked down at her clipboard. “And what about the green space we asked for?”

“Ahhh, yes! Well, I think you’ll be very pleased to hear that we have incorporated a multiuse park area for the residents. Baxter Park will bring nature back to urban living,” he said grandly, reciting the line he had been practicing all morning. “Children will have the use of a swing, and there is even a park bench for people to sit on.”

“One swing and a park bench for more than five thousand people?” asked the young man. Baxter curled his lip at the interference.

“Yes, well, perhaps we could double that,” said Baxter, placing his hand on Sheila’s arm. “So I’m sure you’ll agree that we have taken your concerns seriously. Now all you have to do is to sign here, and we can all be on our way. I’m sure you must be very busy.”

Sheila hesitated. “Well, yes, I suppose . . . ,” she said. “Do you have the papers?”

“Of course,” he said, tapping on his briefcase. He walked back over to his car and placed his briefcase on the hood. He smiled to himself as he pulled out a pen and a piece of paper and laid them out in front of him. “Now if you just sign . . . ohhh,” he said, turning to see that Sheila had somehow managed to transform herself into a clown with full makeup. He shrank back, terrified.

“Why . . . why are you dressed like a . . . clown?” he whispered, his eyes wide.

“Mr. Baxter! I find that rather insulting,” said the clown, looking down at the enormous yellow buttons on the front of her oversized red jacket.

“You—you know,” said Baxter.

“Know what?” said the clown, tilting her head so that the tip of her conical hat pointed toward him, the frown that was painted on her face curling farther downward.

“That . . . that I’m scared of clowns,” cried Mr. Baxter, and he began to whimper.

“Mr. Baxter, are you okay?” asked a voice. Baxter looked over and saw that the young man was also dressed as a clown and, looking round, that so were the other people in the group. The clown who had spoken walked over to him, his curly orange wig looming nearer.

“Stay away,” he said, putting his hands up to his face and pressing his back into the front of his car.
“Stay away!”
he shouted.

“Mr. Baxter, I don’t think you’re well,” said the female clown, leaning over toward him.

“Aaargh!”
cried Baxter, pushing the clown backward. He started to run, but the rest of the group closed in around him.

“Mr. Baxter, I think you need to sit down,” said an old clown with a large single tear painted on his white face. He took Baxter by the arm.

“Get off me!”
screamed Baxter as he pushed the old clown backward to the ground.

“What do you think you’re doing?”
demanded the clown in the green wig as he helped the old clown up to his feet.

Baxter looked around at the growing group of clowns surrounding him and realized with horror that he was
trapped. He put his hands up to his mouth and screamed as loud as he could.

“SOMEBODY HELP ME! I’M SURROUNDED BY CLOWNS!”

A large clown that Baxter hadn’t noticed stepped out suddenly from the crowd, his enormous purple shoes causing him to waddle as he strode toward him. Baxter looked up and saw the clown’s red nose and black-rimmed eyes staring down at him.

“Mr. Baxter, I think you need some help,” said the clown sinisterly.

“Oh, oh . . . oh . . . please don’t kill me,” whispered Baxter, beginning to hyperventilate.

The clown’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not going to kill you; I just want to help you, Mr. Baxter. Don’t be scared,” said the clown, raising his arms. Baxter saw the giant yellow gloves coming toward him and, with pure panic sweeping over him, he realized that the clown was about to strangle him. Baxter’s very worst fear of coming face-to-face with a killer clown now appeared to be a reality. He staggered backward as the clown approached him, and he bumped into the crowd that encircled him. Baxter turned round and saw what appeared to be hundreds of colorful conical hats and white faces with painted frowns looking at him. The clowns all watched as Baxter screamed and began to run around in a circle trying to escape, until finally he collapsed on the ground, sobbing.