The Mysterious Case of the Allbright Academy (2 page)

We climbed up another flight of stairs (“Great exercise for the legs!” Allison assured us), and then went down a hall and to the left. She stopped in front of Room 317, turned the knob, and ushered us in. “My humble abode,” she said.

The room was smaller than mine at home, but it was lovely, with hardwood floors and two large leaded-glass windows looking out at the mountains. And maybe it was just because Allison knew she'd be leading a tour and bringing people by, but
her bed was made
—at 8:15 on a Saturday morning! Not only that, but apparently all her clothes were neatly hung up in the famous closet. Yes, in fact, they were! (Allison opened it proudly to show us.)

“
This
,” said my mom, “is without a doubt the tidiest dorm room I have
ever
seen.”

“Oh, well,” Allison said, blushing cutely. “Company coming and all.”

We peered into the spotless bathroom, where
Mom commented on the presence of a tub, apparently a rarity in dorms. Then we were heading back down the stairs, exercising our legs a little bit more.

“It's too bad we don't have time to visit
all
the cottages,” Allison was saying. “Each one is a little different, and they have their own unique features, like darkrooms or language labs—depending on the specialty of the house.”

“What do you mean, the specialty of the house?” Dad asked.

“Well, you know, the artsy kids live in Aster Cottage, and the techies are all in Sunflower. It's not official or anything, but it's pretty obvious.”

“So, what kind of kids live in Primrose?” asked Zoë, who was clearly dying to live there. Then again, so was I. Who wouldn't?

“Well, we're not as easy to categorize, but I'd say we're mostly outgoing, organized types. Active in student government. In fact, I'd bet there hasn't been a student-council president in the history of Allbright who didn't live in Primrose. We're into politics and world affairs. Hence, the newspapers.”

“But how do they know where to put you?” I asked. “I mean, how do they know you're a techie or an artist or a future politician?”

Allison laughed. “Trust me, they know everything about you. Or at least they will by Sunday
afternoon, when they're done with the testing. Just you wait! They'll find out if you have perfect pitch or athletic talent or a gift for languages. They'll spot any learning disabilities you might have, they'll pinpoint your ideal learning style, and they'll know what professions would be best for you—even what college you should go to. It's what makes the school tick. It's what makes it possible for them to give each student an education that is perfectly tailored for him, or her.”

“Specially tailored?” Mom asked, literally stopping in her tracks. “What do you mean, exactly?”

“Just that. If you're talented in math, you get an advanced math program and can progress at your own rate. You're not stuck in eighth-grade math just because you're in eighth grade. And if, say, you're a visual learner, they group you with other visual learners and your classes are taught with that learning style in mind. If you have deficits that show up in the testing, they give you help with them. And whatever special talents you have, they give you all sorts of amazing enrichment opportunities to develop them—field trips, mentors, summer internships, workshops.”

“That is just positively beyond belief!” Mom said. I could tell that whatever doubts she had about sending us to Allbright had now completely vanished.

Allison shrugged and made an apologetic face. “It's true,” she said. Then we were moving again.

“Um, Allison,” Dad said. “Can I assume there are also some
adults
living here at Primrose?”

“Of course!” she said, laughing. “Every cottage has two ‘Mum's' apartments—a girls' Mum and a boys' Mum. They're teachers, mostly, who live here on campus. Some are married couples, some are single. But they act as our advisers and counselors. They look after us, make sure we behave ourselves, dry our tears.” She flashed another huge smile. “So we call them our Mums. Even the guys! Kind of silly, I guess.”

She checked her watch. Obviously we were running slightly behind schedule, so we waved good-bye to the kids in the common room, who were still reading (“'Bye, Allison! 'Bye, visiting family!”), and hiked across campus to the academic area. There we toured the science building (with equipment sufficient to build a spaceship), the arts building (which included painting, sculpture, and ceramics studios, a film-editing room, and a drama wing with costume rooms, storage for sets and props, and a state-of-the-art theater), the gym (with a huge weight room, an indoor track, squash and tennis courts, and an Olympic-size pool), and the three-story library. There were several other general-purpose buildings, each named after a donor—Fisk Hall and
Harrington Hall, that kind of thing. These were where you went for your English classes and foreign languages and history, Allison said.

And then we were jogging aerobically back in the direction of the admissions building, Allison apologizing for rushing us but reminding us that we didn't want to be late for the testing. When we reached the door, panting a little from the effort, Allison squeezed Mom's and Dad's hands and hugged the twins and me. We thanked her and waved good-bye as she trotted away in the direction of Primrose.

We never saw Allison again after that (by the time we arrived at Allbright the following fall, she was already gone, putting up with small closets at Princeton). But I, for one, never forgot her. She was the perfect Allbright product: smart, beautiful, accomplished, and confident—all the things I longed to be. And I remember wondering if it was the school that had made her that way.

If I got in, would Allbright work its magic on me, too?

A
llbright did its testing in October. Acceptance (or rejection) letters went out in January. But there were always special cases that popped up after that, kids like Zoë who had just been “discovered,” or places opening up because a student moved or got sick or something like that. We were part of this later, much smaller, wave of applicants.

We were separated by grade for the testing, and as I split off from Zoë and J. D., it occurred to me (as it had so often before) how lucky they were, never having to go into scary new situations alone. They always had each other.

And this was definitely a scary situation. I had no idea if I could pass this marathon of tests, or even
what kind of tests they would be. Allison had mentioned perfect pitch; would they ask me to sing? Athletic ability—would I have to walk on a balance beam or throw a ball? I generally did pretty well on standardized tests, but I had a hunch that I was not in the same league with the Allbright kids. Unfortunately, I had fallen in love with the school, and I really, really wanted to get in.

The meeting place for future eighth graders was a small waiting room, kind of like a fancy doctor's office, with nice pictures and expensive furniture, and a second, interior door at the back. Two kids were already there, sitting across from each other in silence, both of them reading.

One was a tall boy with curly pale blond hair. His lashes and brows were that same light color, and his face was pinky white. He was slouched in his chair, legs splayed out, deeply engrossed in a fat paperback. I'm sure he heard me come in, but he didn't bother to look up.

The other was a sporty-looking round-faced girl with curly dark hair pulled back in a ponytail. She had a magazine in her lap, though I realized when I looked at her again that she wasn't actually reading it. She was staring at her shoes in a dejected sort of way.

A couple of beats after I came in, she looked up and offered me a brave smile. I went over and
sat down beside her.

“Hi,” I said, “I'm Franny Sharp.”

“Cal Fiorello,” the girl said.

There followed the usual awkward moment of silence that I always hate. I'm not all that good at making small talk, at least with people I don't know. But I could tell that this girl needed someone to talk to. Since paleface across the way didn't seem interested, that was going to have to be me. I ran through a mental list of possible subjects.

“So, what do you think about all this testing?” I asked. “Weird, huh? I mean,
two whole days
? My dad says even for college they don't do that.”

Cal's eyes sparkled with the threat of tears. “Yeah, I'm afraid it's going to be really hard,” she said. “Being ‘above average' isn't going to cut it. I just hope they need a forward for their field-hockey team. That's one thing I'm definitely good at.”

“Uh,” I said. I didn't want to send her over the edge, but on the other hand, I didn't want her to get her hopes up about the hockey thing. “I heard they don't have team sports here. Just stuff like tennis and golf. ‘Lifetime' sports.”

“Oh, great!” she said, her shoulders slumping. “That is
just great
.”

Since we had clearly wandered onto sensitive ground, I decided to change the subject to something utterly bland and neutral, something that
couldn't possibly upset anybody.

“So, where do you live?” I asked. “Baltimore? D.C.?”

That did it! Now the tears actually started to flow. And all I'd asked was where she lived. Cheez!

Cal pulled a Kleenex out of her pocket and dabbed at her eyes. “I'm sorry,” she said. “I've got to pull myself together. You probably think I'm a nutcase.”

“No,” I said, “but you do seem kind of upset.”

“Yeah,” she admitted. “Sorry. It's just that when you asked where I lived—well, the fact is, I don't really live anywhere. My dad's in the Foreign Service, and so we've lived all over the world—Hong Kong, Jakarta, Colombo. I know you probably think that sounds really cool, but trust me—it's not easy starting over all the time in a new place with new people. You kind of lose the energy for it after a while.”

“Actually,” I said, laughing, “I know
all
about that, minus the exotic places. With us it was more like Cincinnati and Minneapolis and San Diego. I kid you not, for almost my whole life we've moved every single year. And yeah, it does get really old. My brother and sister and I actually went on strike to make Dad quit consulting and take a permanent job in Baltimore.”

She nodded, then got that sad look again. “But,
see, you have a sister and a brother. And you probably have a mom, too,” she said.

That took me aback a little. “Well, yeah,” I said.

“All I have is my dad. And the last two years he was stationed in Sri Lanka, so I boarded at the American Embassy School in New Delhi. I only got to see him in the summer and on school vacations. That was bad enough, but
now
he's being transferred to Goristovia, and he says it isn't safe there…” She started sniffling and fished out her Kleenex again. “I'm sorry,” she said. “You don't need to listen to all this.”

“Yeah, I do. Quit apologizing.”

“You're nice,” she said. “Thanks. I'm not always like this, really.” I reached over and patted her arm.

“So, anyway,” she said, “last week Dad announces that he wants me to go here, because they have a summer program, and you can even stay here over Christmas break if you need to—and, well, I just totally lost it. I feel…I feel…” She took a deep, shuddering breath and buried her face in her hands.

Abandoned, I thought. Cheez Louise, what was her dad thinking? About his job, apparently, and not his kid.

I looked across at the pale-faced boy to see if he was listening. He was still hunched over his book—except that now he had this kind of irritated expression on
his face, like our conversation was making it hard for him to concentrate.

Since I knew he wasn't looking, I stuck my tongue out at him. I found this strangely satisfying.

“What makes it even harder,” Cal was saying, “is that this job is a promotion, a really big deal for him. And if he can't find some place to put me, then he'll have to turn it down. They'll probably give him some stupid paper-pushing job in D.C.—and this is a guy who speaks, like,
seven
languages. If his career is ruined, it'll be all my fault.” She was crying again.

“Oh, Cal!” I said, and reached over and gave her a hug. She hugged me back, really hard. After about a minute of this, I could tell from her breathing that she was starting to calm down. Then, just before she let go, she whispered into my ear, “Is that kid staring at us?”

“No,” I whispered back. “He's totally oblivious. A really good book, apparently.”

“
Moby-Dick
!” she said, then leaned back and raised her eyebrows.

We locked gazes.

“No way!”

“Yes, way!”

It passed through my mind just then—okay, I know this sounds kind of mean—but I thought maybe he had brought that book along to impress the admissions people. I was busy wondering why I
had taken such a sudden dislike to this kid—who was, after all, just minding his own business and enjoying his book—when the door opened and a fourth student came in.

He stopped in the middle of the room, just as I had done, and looked around to assess the situation. The pale one continued to act like he was the only person in the room, whereas Cal and I greeted him with friendly smiles. We were clearly his best bet.

He came over and sat down next to me, leaning forward so he could talk to Cal, too. “Hi,” he said, “I'm Brooklyn—and yes, I was born there. Brooklyn Offloffalof.”

I had no idea what was going through Cal's mind at that moment, but I, personally, was busy ordering myself not to stare. Brooklyn, you see, was drop-dead gorgeous, with caramel skin, hazel eyes, and a head full of literary dreadlocks. (In case you've never heard of literary dreadlocks—which I'm sure you haven't, since I made them up—they are the short kind, which I associate with writers and artists and filmmakers. The long kind I call Rasta dreadlocks; they are for hippies and reggae singers. Both are subsets of my general theory of serious hair, which I will not bore you with right now except to say that Brooklyn's hair was plenty serious. You could easily picture him, in about fifteen years, as the coolest professor on the Harvard campus.)

“Anybody from the school show up yet?” he asked, unaware of the three-ring circus going on in my head.

“No.” I checked my watch. “It's three minutes to nine.”

“You nervous?” Cal asked, and I noted that, despite her mottled cheeks and bloodshot eyes, she now looked remarkably cheery.

Brooklyn shrugged.

“Not even a little bit?” I asked. “They're getting ready to test us within an inch of our lives!”

“True, it's excessive. But I figure, if they don't want me, then I shouldn't be here. I'm happy enough at the school where I am—though I think I'll probably get in. They invited me to apply.”

“They
invited
you to apply?” Cal asked, astonished.

“He's being recruited,” said a voice from across the room. “As am I.”

The pale one had spoken!

Of course he had been listening to us all along, every single word, but he hadn't felt the need to say anything till now, when he had the chance to show off.

“Whoa!” Cal said, turning to me with a panicked look on her face. “Are you being recruited too?”

“Sorry, no,” I answered. “I'm just an ordinary mortal.” As soon as I said it, I knew I'd been rude,
and I turned to Brooklyn to see if I'd offended him. I wasn't sure, but I didn't think I had.

Brooklyn has this way of looking at you that I can't exactly describe—and I've had plenty of time to think about it since then. He doesn't smile much—not the big toothy kind of smile anyway. He just gets this little amused curl around the corners of his mouth. At the same time, he looks you right in the eye in this calm, sure way. You feel like he can see inside you, all the way down to your bones. It's creepy, and thrilling, and very, very attractive.

“I'm sure you'll do fine,” he said. “Both of you.”

Was that a snicker I heard just then, coming from the other side of the room? Or was the pale one having sinus trouble? Judging from his downcast eyes and satisfied grin, his sinuses were just fine. I shot him a dirty look, which unfortunately he didn't notice.

Just then (at the stroke of nine), the rear door opened and a cute redhead in a blue suit came out, her heels making brisk, businesslike clicks on the tile floor. I was pleased to note that she had serious hair. I was surprised to note that she was carrying a plate of brownies.

“Morning, kids,” she said, very chipper. “I'm Evelyn Lollyheart, assistant to the headmistress here at Allbright. But this weekend, I'm in charge of you rising eighth graders. I'll be getting you started
on your tests. There'll be lots of to-ing and fro-ing over the next two days, so I'm sort of the traffic cop.”

I was just thinking that she looked kind of like Agent Scully on
The X Files
, only maybe not quite that pretty, when she began offering the brownies around like some hostess out of a fifties sitcom.

The pale one shook his head. “No, thanks,” he said.

“Oh, come on—Prescott, is it? I thought so. Really, you've got to try them. The brownies are an Allbright tradition.” He reached out reluctantly and took one.

Then Ms. Lollyheart came over to us. “You must be Cal, right?” she said—and she actually
winked
! I kid you not.

“Oh!” Cal said, like she had suddenly gotten the point of some joke. “Hi!” And she flashed Ms. Lollyheart a huge smile.

I'm sure I wasn't the only person in the room who wondered what that was all about. Cal told us later that her dad and Evelyn Lollyheart had been friends back in their college days. Mr. Fiorello had recently gone to his twentieth reunion, where they ran into each other. She started telling him about this amazing school where she worked, and she made it sound so great that he started asking her more and more questions, hoping that Allbright
would turn out to be the perfect place to dump his daughter while he went off to Goristovia to encourage democracy and try to avoid getting blown up.

“Believe it or not,” Ms. Lollyheart said, “the brownies are actually healthy. Chock full of vitamins and minerals and fiber and antioxidants. No sugar, of course. Dr. Gallow's special recipe, the crown jewel of Allbright's nutrition program. We always welcome new students with the brownies. And you're Franny, right? And Brooklyn, of course.”

We all agreed that the brownies were delicious—even Prescott, who despite his original reluctance had scarfed his down and was now licking his fingers. And really, who could possibly resist a brownie at nine in the morning?