The Tell-Tale Start (3 page)

“We tried keeping you together in classes, separating you, punishing you, praising you, even letting you teach the advanced material from time to time,” he continued, his voice softening. “I know you two haven’t had it easy since your mother and father were…” He searched for a delicate phrase.

“Lost in space?” Edgar suggested.

Mr. Mann nodded. “Yes, that was very sad.”

It
was
sad. Everyone in America knew the story. Mal and Irma Poe, the boys’ parents, had been brilliant and dedicated rocket scientists. But seven years before,
while making last-minute adjustments to the Bradbury Telecommunications Satellite in the payload section of an Atlas V rocket, they lost track of the countdown and were accidentally launched into space. Their absence on the ground was not noted by Mission Control until after the satellite was in orbit. NASA apologized, but there was no bringing them back. On some clear nights, their orbiting tomb was a visible pinpoint of light among the background of stars.

Since then, the twins had lived with their aunt Judith and uncle Jack Poe, who were good and loving guardians, even if they were largely oblivious to the unusual workings of their nephews’ minds.

“Do you boys want to know why we’re expelling you?” Mr. Mann asked.

They were curious—but they didn’t expect much in the way of a good explanation.

Mr. Mann stood and cracked his knuckles. “I’m expelling you because you cheated on your academic evaluation tests!”

“Cheated?”
the boys asked, incredulous.

“Yes, and your cheating will throw our entire school district’s otherwise outstanding test results into a questionable light with the state authorities,” Mr. Mann
said. He picked up a stack of papers from his desk, shuffling them mindlessly. “It’s unforgivable. And considering your previous disciplinary record, it’s the last straw. You’re out for good. Done.”

Confused, Allan and Edgar looked at one another. They didn’t cheat, ever. Why would they? They didn’t
need
to cheat to get good grades.

“We don’t know how you did it,” Mr. Mann continued, dropping the shuffled papers back on his desk. “We put you at opposite ends of the school and gave you the tests at the same time—and you still missed the same three questions out of a possible six hundred. Do you have any idea of the odds against this? Millions to one.”

“The only explanation is that those questions must have been inaccurately worded,” Allan said.

“Otherwise, we’d have both missed zero,” Edgar added.

“I don’t want to hear your critique of the test!” Mr. Mann snapped. “I want to know how you cheated.”

Obviously, he didn’t understand how things worked with Allan and Edgar, whose knowledge was always identical, however far apart they were. Two boys, one mind—one mind, two boys. But Edgar and Allan thought it very unlikely that the principal could ever grasp the matter. So they sat back in their chairs and grinned. If
they were going to be expelled, then they might as well have a little fun.

“We must be diabolical geniuses,” they said, “to pull off a maneuver like that.”

“Exactly,” Mr. Mann said, missing the irony.

The boys raised their dark eyebrows. What was to be done about someone this dense?

“So does being expelled from the district mean we can join the French Foreign Legion?” Allan asked the principal.

“Can we finally run for Congress?” Edgar inquired.

“Can we start working as brain surgeons?”

“Do you boys take nothing seriously?” Mr. Mann snapped.

“We take breakfast seriously,” Allan answered with utter sincerity.

“It’s the most important meal of the day,” Edgar said.

Mr. Mann gave them a hard look.

But beneath their joking, there
was
something the boys took seriously about this—they’d miss being around their friends and classmates (and even a few of their teachers). And the timing couldn’t be worse.

Next Monday was Halloween, their favorite holiday. Every year since kindergarten, Edgar and Allan had come
to school dressed as one or another of their great-great-great-great granduncle’s characters (ax-wielding madmen, ominous ravens, skeletal grim reapers…). Now that tradition would be broken. They would have launched an impassioned plea to stay in school if at that moment they had not been distracted by a small, redheaded man who suddenly emerged from a shadowed corner of the office.

Had he been here all along? If so, he must have been standing very still, the boys thought.

He wore a well-tailored suit and a skull-shaped earring, and as he drew near, they realized he was even shorter than they were (and they were somewhat small for their age). When he smiled, his teeth flashed a blinding white.

“My name is Mr. Archer, boys.”

“Nice earring,” they answered without sarcasm. They liked skulls.

Mr. Archer nodded. “I wore it especially for you two.”

The boys glanced over to Mr. Mann, whose eyes had gone shifty.

“Leave us,” Mr. Archer instructed the principal. “We require a moment’s privacy.”

Mr. Mann looked surprised. “You’re asking me to vacate my own office?”

“Exactly,” Mr. Archer said.

Mr. Mann slunk out of the room without another word, closing the door after him.

The boys turned back to the little man. They couldn’t help admiring his style.

“Are you from some kind of reform school?” Allan inquired.

“Egad, ‘reform school’ is such an outmoded term.”

Actually, the boys could think of few things more outmoded than the word “egad,” a slangy exclamation introduced to the language more than three hundred years ago.

“My institution is oriented more toward research than education,” he continued.

Institution
?

“You’re not talking about a…
mental
institution, are you?” Edgar asked.

Mr. Archer laughed and shook his head no. “We’ve been observing you boys for a long time,” he continued. “And we’ve concluded that this is the moment to take control.”

“Control of what?”

“The two of you.”

“Hey, nobody controls us,” the boys snapped in unison,
wondering if they might have overestimated the skull earring as a sign of the man’s good character.

“Boys, boys, boys,” Mr. Archer said, holding out his small hands in a reassuring gesture. “What I meant was control of your case.”

“We’re not a ‘case,’” Allan said.

“OK, perhaps that’s not exactly the right word either,” Mr. Archer admitted, his eyes narrowing.

“Maybe you should go back to school to study vocabulary,” Edgar suggested.

Mr. Archer’s face froze, like a mask, and he fixed the boys with a glare. How could such a small man suddenly seem so big? “Don’t mistake my organization for the PTA, boys,” he said with a growl.

Edgar and Allan kept silent.

Then Mr. Archer smiled, suddenly friendly again. “Do you boys like science experiments?”

They looked at each other. “Yes, particularly messy ones,” they answered cautiously.

Mr. Archer nodded. “Egad! Indeed, we’re very ‘messy.’”

He moved quickly toward the boys as if to shake their hands, but instead removed something shiny from his jacket pocket—tweezers! In a flash, he reached up and plucked several hairs from each of their heads.

“Ouch!” they shouted, jumping away.

He slipped each sample into its own small plastic bag and tucked the bags into his jacket.

The boys started toward the little man, their faces set in identical expressions of anger. But before they got close enough to snatch back the bags of hair, the office door burst open.

It was Mr. Mann, followed by their uncle Jack and aunt Judith.

“Mr. and Mrs. Poe have arrived a few minutes early,” Mr. Mann announced apologetically as he bustled in.

Mr. Archer turned toward the trio of adults and froze. After a moment, he murmured, “Excuse me,” and without another word disappeared out the door.

Gone.

“That was Mr. Archer,” the principal said to Uncle Jack and Aunt Judith. “Pay him no mind. He’s, um…a school custodian.”

“
Custodian
?” the twins exclaimed, their scalps still stinging.

Mr. Mann brushed past Edgar and Allan to stand behind his desk. “Mr. Archer’s profession is neither here nor there, boys.”

“Mr. Mann, we’re not here to talk about a custodian,”
Uncle Jack snapped. He cleared his throat and began to roll up his sleeves, something he did whenever he was nervous, angry, or both. “Edgar and Allan may create a stir from time to time,” he admitted. “But they never really hurt anybody.”

“No?” Mr. Mann replied. “What about the time their computer hacking knocked out the electrical grid for the entire city of Baltimore?”

“That was accidental,” the boys answered.

“And since then we’ve forbidden them to use computers or cell phones,” Aunt Judith added.

“This isn’t about computers.” Mr. Mann said, shaking his head ruefully. “It’s about cheating on their standardized test.”

A tell-tale vein in Uncle Jack’s forehead began to pulse. “These boys aren’t cheaters!”

Mr. Mann cleared his throat. “Allow me to express my regrets that it’s come to this,” he said. “Please sit down, Mr. and Mrs. Poe.”

Neither Uncle Jack nor Aunt Judith sat. Instead, they took up positions on either side of their nephews.

“As a retired schoolteacher, I understand a lot about standardized testing,” Aunt Judith said. The boys had always considered her “a good egg” (and not only because
of her shape). Usually her eyes were kind and her voice soft. But now her eyes had narrowed, and her voice had an edge. “As my husband said, these boys do
not
cheat.”

“Well, their answer sheets indicate otherwise,” Mr. Mann said.

“That’s because we’re
identical
!” the boys said in unison.

Mr. Mann shook his head. “This has nothing to do with your appearance,” he said.

He just didn’t get it.

“So what are you proposing, Mr. Mann?” Uncle Jack asked, his patience clearly strained.

“They’re kicking us out of the whole school district,” the boys answered.

Uncle Jack stared at the principal.
“The whole school district?”

Sheepishly, Mr. Mann nodded. “Until we can make other arrangements.”

“
Other arrangements
? It sounds like you want to send our nephews, the smartest students your district has
ever seen
, to some kind of reform school!”

“We don’t like that terminology,” Mr. Mann answered.

Uncle Jack glared at Mr. Mann. “We don’t like
anything
about it, whatever you want to call it. And you can
bet we’re going to talk to the superintendent first thing tomorrow morning!”

Aunt Judith put her arms around the boys. “Let’s get your things and get out of here,” she said.

Edgar and Allan had never been more proud of their aunt and uncle.

Later in the car, the twins leaned over the front seat.

“Trust us, Uncle Jack and Aunt Judith, we’re the victims of some kind of treacherous fix,” Edgar said.

“Yeah, it has something to do with an ‘institution’ dedicated to messy science experiments,” Allan continued.

“And unauthorized hair removal,” Edgar added.

Uncle Jack and Aunt Judith merely shook their heads—over the years, they’d heard too many tall tales from their nephews.

WHAT THE POE TWINS DID NOT KNOW…

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