The Ability (Ability, The) (27 page)

“I don’t know, I think Pedro’s onto a winner,” said Rex, grinning. “I’ll help you. How about, ‘Violets are red, roses are blue, I hope your leg rots and the other one too.’ ”

Lexi laughed.

“Rex! He’ll definitely get expelled if he writes that!” said Daisy, looking horrified.

“It’s okay, Daisy—I’m not desperate enough to take Rex’s advice yet,” said Chris, looking back down at the piece of paper in his hands. He sighed. “Then again, I might have no choice. . . .”

“I assist you,” said Sebastian. “I have been perusing much poetry in recent times.”

Chris shrugged. “Okay, I’m desperate. What have you got?”

•  •  •

That afternoon, after a game of soccer in the garden, the children filed into the classroom for Sir Bentley’s lesson. Chris went up to the teacher’s desk and handed the letter to Sir Bentley, who opened it up and started to read it as Chris stood by his side, looking mortified.

“Dear Ms. Lamb, I am very sorry I hurt your leg. To show you how sorry I am, I wrote you a poem.”

Sir Bentley looked up at Chris and raised his eyebrows before looking back down and reading the poem out loud.

“‘O how I regret the pain you suffered, the hurt that I caused you.

The sorrow for my actions flows, like the ocean, from me to you.

Be this the start of pastures new, a Spring to follow Winter.

I hope you’ll soon be fully healed and running like a sprinter.’”

Sebastian smiled and raised both thumbs up to Chris, as Sir Bentley continued to read on.

“ ‘I hope that you get well soon. I promise that from now on I will work harder and not get into trouble again. Yours sincerely, Christopher.’ ”

Sir Bentley looked up. “I hope you mean it.”

“I really do, sir,” said Chris.

“Very well. It’s clear you put some effort into it. I’ll pass this on to Ms. Lamb. Now, sit down—I want to have a word with all of you.”

Chris took his seat and listened as Sir Bentley gave them a stern lecture, not dissimilar from the one he had been given earlier that day, about taking care when using the Ability.

“. . . and that’s all I want to say about that. Let’s forget all the nonsense of this morning and get on with your training—we have work to do. Today’s lesson is, perhaps, the most important one in preparing you for the Antarctic Ball—assuming you need to use your Ability at all there.”

Sir Bentley walked over to the mind map painted on the wall.

“This, as you all know, is the map of a person’s mind. As you’ve learned, you can retrieve information from it and place suggestions in the person’s current thoughts to make them do or think whatever you want. It was believed, for a very long time, that that was the extent of what you could do to somebody’s mind. Some countries experimented with trying to kill people using the Ability, but with no success at all. It seemed that the moment that somebody tries to suggest a person do something that could kill them, the person’s survival instinct kicks in automatically and provides a complete block. That, as far as we know, is still the case, although not much research has been done about the Ability in a very long time. However, we did find out that while a person couldn’t be killed using the Ability, they could be damaged for life—such as what happened to Cecil Humphries.”

“Please can you define ‘damaged’?” asked Sebastian.

“I mean you can manipulate the mind so that you fill Reception with whatever you want and then destroy the
rest of the information in the mind. The person’s brain is tricked into believing that it’s still functioning, because their Reception is still filled with thoughts, while the rest of the person’s thoughts and memories are completely destroyed.”

“Wow!” said Rex. “That’s amazing!”

“Amazing, yes,” said Sir Bentley, “but also terrifying. The powers that you have can damage a person for life. That’s exactly what happened to Humphries, Richard Baxter, and Lady Magenta. And it’s completely irreversible. Their Receptions were filled with whatever each one of them was most terrified of—which means whoever did it accessed their Fears and Phobias and used the information to leave them in a permanent state of terror. It’s an extremely complex technique—one which we call Inferno.”

“Why Inferno?” asked Chris.

“Because to destroy the rest of the person’s mind—once you have filled their Reception area with whatever current thought you want—you then visit every building of the mind and set fire to it until the whole mind has been effectively burned down.”

“Are we going to learn how to do that?” asked Rex enthusiastically.

“No, Rex, you’re not.”

“Ohhh,” said Rex, disappointed.

“But you are going to learn how to stop it from happening. Unfortunately, this won’t be a practical lesson—there’s no way that we can replicate the effect to let you practice—so I will teach you how to do it, and you’ll have
to listen carefully. If you do ever have to use what you’re learning today, then it will be while somebody is already using Inferno, and you will have minutes, maybe even seconds, to stop them.”

Sir Bentley spent the next hour guiding them round the map, teaching them how to stop the process of Inferno by attacking the person who was using the Ability and replacing their current thought with suggestions to stop what they were doing. He also explained how to stop the process in the mind of the person being attacked (if it wasn’t possible to see who was carrying out the attack) by meeting the attacker in the victim’s mind and forcibly removing them from where they were, using a complicated system of blocks and suggestion. It was a long lesson, in which Sir Bentley loaded them with information as they all listened attentively. At the end he handed them each a set of printed sheets with diagrams and step-by-step instructions for all of the scenarios he had discussed.

“Commit these to memory,” said Sir Bentley, as the children leafed through the pages. “You never know—this information may save somebody’s life.”

As London entered the coldest December on record and snow and gale-force winds caused havoc above ground, the children of Myers Holt picnicked daily under the blue skies and gentle heat of their man-made environment. Their lockdown had made little difference to the children, who ran free around the garden and swam in the warm waters of the pool at every opportunity they had.

Chris had never enjoyed school as much as he was enjoying his time at Myers Holt, and he didn’t let himself dwell on what would happen when the year was over—he felt confident that by then everything would be different. Occasionally his mind would also wander back to his old life, but it was a good feeling—although there had been only a few brief phone calls with his mother, he was sure
that she would be doing better now that the bills were being taken care of. He felt relaxed and confident for the first time in his life, and even Ms. Lamb’s return—a bloody bandage wrapped tightly above a brand-new pair of identical turquoise boots—couldn’t dampen his happiness at finally finding himself in a place where he was worry-free and surrounded by a group of people that he could actually call friends. It was the first time in his life that he was able to say that, and in spite of all their differences, he couldn’t have wished for a better group to be a part of.

Daisy’s initial homesickness had disappeared, and although Rex still had the ability to reduce her to tears with one of his comments, Chris admired the way that she wouldn’t have a bad word said about him, or anybody else, for that matter. Sebastian’s English, although still stilted despite his vast vocabulary, had greatly improved, and he had become quite a fan of Shakespeare, quoting sonnets at the girls, which caused Daisy to blush furiously and Lexi to hit him round the head with a book. This was to the great amusement of Rex, who preferred to try to impress the girls by using his Ability to trip them up, levitate books out of their reach, and lock them in their bedroom when they were running late for classes. Yet, as annoying as Rex could be, he was also able to reduce them all to hysterical laughter with one of his uncannily accurate impressions of their teachers or—their favorite—of John and Ron: As Ron, Rex would jump out when they least expected it, doing ninja impressions, and as John, he would sing country songs about Fifi the poodle and pretend to cry. It was for this ability to keep them all smiling that they
had developed a soft spot for him—though none of them would ever have admitted it.

Chris, for the first time since his mother had taken the phone call about his father seven years earlier, felt truly happy.

The two weeks after Sir Bentley’s talk with them were filled with lessons and information about every possible eventuality that they might face at the Antarctic Ball. Some of the lessons had been practical and better than any computer game that Chris could have imagined. In their think tanks they had navigated their way around a strangely deserted London, battling enemies hidden in dark alleyways and abandoned buildings, rescuing people hidden within burning buildings, and taking control of speeding vehicles leaving crime scenes. Their lessons with Ms. Lamb were far less action-filled, but with the exception of Ms. Lamb herself were just as interesting, as they all learned how to navigate one another’s minds. The fact that they had to use themselves to practice on was unsettling at first, but their increasing confidence in using blocks was reassurance enough that nobody would be finding out anything they shouldn’t be, and they all were soon comfortable enough letting their fellow pupils run around their minds in races to find specific pieces of information while their heads exploded with the sound of the ringing in their ears.

It was during one of these lessons that Ms. Lamb finally revealed to them their particular strengths. Philip and Daisy were Data Gatherers and would be used for any task that required them to remote-view. Lexi and Sebastian were,
to no surprise of any of them, Suggesters—their strength was in controlling people and objects.

“And the other two,” said Ms. Lamb, not looking at either Rex or Chris, “are Mind Accessers—if the situation arises, you will be the two who will enter people’s minds to extract information or to block Inferno.”

Ms. Lamb spoke dismissively, as if this were a footnote barely worth mentioning, but they all knew that this was the most difficult of all the roles, and Chris couldn’t help but feel thrilled at Ms. Lamb’s obvious discomfort at having to acknowledge this out loud. Rex and Chris turned and grinned at each other.

•  •  •

“You should all be afraid—very, very afraid,” said Rex as they all walked out of the classroom. “I am Rex the Mind Accesser, and now everyone will have to do exactly what I want—ha, at last! Philip, I suggest you go to your room and get me one of those chocolate bars that your mum sent you.”

“And I suggest you stop talking, Rex,” said Philip, smiling.

“You’re just jealous of my amazing powers. What did Ms. Lamb say you were, Einstein? Oh, yeah, that’s right—a geek,” said Rex.

Philip was about to respond with a quote about how geeks rule the world, when they were interrupted by John, who was waiting for them, with Ron, in the Dome.

“We need your help. Can you all come with us—it won’t take long,” said John.

Curiously, they all followed John and Ron, who led
them round the back of the hill to the playing field by the swimming pool.

“We need you to settle a bet,” explained John, leading them over to a large crate filled with small, colorful plastic balls.

“What kind of bet?” asked Chris.

“Do you want to explain, Ron?”

Ron nodded and folded his arms. “The scenario is as follows. We’re at war. We’re leading a team of men across open terrain, when—
pow!
”

They all jumped.

“
We’re under attack!
Suddenly we’re being fired at from all sides; our men are falling all around us; we need to get to safety to mount a counterattack. There’s an unoccupied building up in the distance. We need to get there before we get hit. Question is, who would get there first—me or John?

“Me, of course,” said Ron, not waiting for an answer.

“And that’s where I disagree, Ron,” said John.

“Disagree all you like, John; it won’t make you right.”

“So what do we have to do?” asked Rex, eager to get started.

“Well, John reckons that using live ammunition is a bit risky in here. Probably because he knows he’s going to lose.”

“Just get on with it, Ron,” said John.

“We need one of you to time us. The rest of you will use that mind-power thing that you’ve got—”

“The Ability?” asked Daisy.

“Right, your Ability, to make those plastic balls hit us as hard as you can while we cross the pitch to get to the flag
over there,” continued Ron. He pointed to a stand with a red flag at the far end of the grass. “The first person to reach the flag wins. So will you take part in our little bet?”

“Yes!” they all replied immediately.

“Excellent,” said Ron. “Remember, hit us as hard as you can.”

Daisy, who had volunteered to be in charge of the stopwatch, stood at one end of the pitch. The rest of them lined up along the edge of the pitch, piles of plastic balls at their feet.