Entering the house, she paused to brush the dirt from her heels, then went up the stairs to the second floor. Adam’s room had been right next to Jeff’s, at the far end, facing the front She moved quickly down the hall, then paused at the closed door of the next-to-last room. She tapped softly. When there was no answer, she turned to leave. But her instincts told her that the room wasn’t empty, so she turned back, tried the knob, and pushed the door open.
Leaning against the wall next to the window, staring off into space, was Jeanette Aldrich.
“Is it okay if I come in?” Brenda asked, feeling as if she’d intruded. “I mean, if you want to be by yourself …”
Jeanette shook her head quickly, almost as if she were bringing herself back to reality, then stepped forward. “No. It’s all right, Brenda. I was just …” She looked helplessly around the room. With all of Adam’s things gone, the closet open and empty, the bed stripped down to the bare mattress, the room had a forlorn look to it.
“You were just remembering,” Brenda said, entering and pushing the door closed behind her. “When I didn’t see you outside, I figured this is where you’d come.” Her eyes wandered over the room. “It looks kind of forlorn, doesn’t it?”
Jeanette nodded briefly. “But at least I can stand to be in it. If his things were still here, I don’t think I could. I haven’t been able to go into his room at home at all yet.”
Brenda perched herself on the edge of the bed. “I know how you feel. After my husband walked out, I could hardly even stand to get in the bed for a week.” Her face colored in embarrassment.” ’Course, I know it’s not the same thing, but the feeling’s sort of the same, you know?”
For the first time that day, Jeanette smiled. “What amazes me is that you know.” She came to sit next to Brenda on the bed. “You’re also the first person who’s actually come looking for me. It seems as though none of my friends want to talk to me. They don’t know what to say.”
“Well, I sure know what that’s like.” Brenda sighed. “After Josh cut his wrists, everyone was real nice, but they sure didn’t want to talk about it. For a few days there, I felt like I’d come down with leprosy or something. But what can you expect? Our kids aren’t like everyone else’s to start with, and when they do things like that, it really throws people.”
Jeanette’s smile faded. “Didn’t it throw you? When Josh tried to kill himself?”
“Sure it did. Scared me half to death. But I had to deal with it, just like I had to deal with every man I’ve ever known dumping me, and I had Melinda to take care of, too. So I brought him here.”
The last of Jeanette’s smile disappeared. “Just as I brought Adam and Jeff,” she said. “And now Adam’s dead.”
Brenda said nothing for a moment, but rose to her feet and went to the window. “I’ve been thinking about what you said before the funeral. About taking Josh home with me.”
“Good,” Jeanette replied. “I suppose you know by now that I’ve decided to take Jeff out of here. From now on, I want him at home with me.”
“I can sure see why,” Brenda agreed. “But I don’t know if I can take Josh out.” She beckoned to Jeanette. “Come here and take a look at this.”
Jeanette, puzzled, got up from the bed and came to stand next to Brenda. Gazing out the window, she saw nothing particularly remarkable. Just a group of kids sprawled on the lawn, talking among themselves.
“You know, I never saw that before,” Brenda said. “From the day he started going to school, Josh never was part of the group. It was like they just shut him out, and every day of his life he was hurting. But he’s not hurting here. How am I supposed to take him away? You really think I should do that to him? Put him back where he was, where everyone made fun of him, and he was bored all the time?”
Watching the scene through Brenda’s eyes, Jeanette was able for the first time since the tragedy to remember past the last two days.
She remembered the years before she and Chet had enrolled their sons in the Academy, when Jeff and Adam had had no friends except each other. And now, with Adam dead—
“Dear God,” she breathed, more to herself than to Brenda. “What am I supposed to do?”
“Well, I sure can’t tell you,” Brenda replied, still watching the group of children on the lawn. “But I know I can’t take Josh away from here, and before you decide to take Jeff out, maybe you ought to wait a little while.” She turned to face Jeanette. “I know how much you’re hurting, Jeanette. And I’ve done a lot of hurting in my life, too. But it gets better. Some days you think you’re just going to die, but every day it hurts a little less. The main thing is not to do something stupid when you’re hurting, that you can’t take back.”
Jeanette was silent for a moment, and when she finally spoke, her voice was steady. “You mean the way Adam did?”
Brenda shrugged. “I wasn’t really thinking about Adam right then, but I guess that’s what I mean. And I guess I don’t think you ought to make Jeff pay for Adam’s mistakes, either. You know what I’m saying?”
Jeanette hesitated, then nodded. “I think I do,” she said. “And it’s funny. It’s almost exactly what Jeff told me on the way to the funeral.”
Brenda’s lips formed a wry grin. “Well, you know what they say: ‘Out of the mouths of babes …’ ”
Jeanette took a deep breath. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s go down and have a glass of lemonade, since they aren’t serving anything stronger. And then I’d better tell Jeff he can stay here after all.” As they left the room, she took Brenda’s hand in her own. “I really am glad you came,” she said. “If you hadn’t, I’m not sure what I would have done.”
“You’d have done the right thing,” Brenda told her. “Maybe not right away, but you’d have figured it out. After all, if we’ve got kids as smart as Josh and Jeff, we can’t be too stupid, can we?”
As she started down the stairs with Brenda, Jeanette heard herself laughing out loud. A few minutes ago she hadn’t been at all sure she would ever laugh again.
“Jeff?” Josh asked.
Jeff turned to look at him, and for a minute Josh wondered if he should even mention the strange sounds he’d heard the night Adam had died. But the more he’d thought about it, and the more he’d thought about the peculiar note he’d seen on Adam’s computer, the less sense the whole thing made. Even though he’d talked to Hildie Kramer and Mr. Conners about the note, they hadn’t seemed to understand what he was saying. Of course, he hadn’t told them about hearing the elevator running when it wasn’t, because he knew they’d laugh at him for having fallen for Jeff’s ghost story about Eustace Barrington. But Jeff had acutally seen the note, and maybe …
He made up his mind. “What do you think really happened to Adam?”
Brad Hinshaw, who was sprawled next to Jeff, looked up. Jeff’s eyes changed slightly, as if a curtain had dropped behind them. “What are you talking about?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Josh said. “It’s just—Well, all he said in the note was that he was going somewhere. To a better place. He didn’t say he was killing himself. I mean, what if he was just running away?”
Brad groaned. “Come on, Josh. He got hit by a train, didn’t he? I mean, we just went to his funeral, didn’t we?”
Josh felt himself reddening. “But what if it wasn’t Adam at all? What if it was somebody else? They could have switched bodies or something, couldn’t they?”
Jeff Aldrich got to his feet and started away.
“That was really cool, Josh,” Brad said. “If you’re so smart, how could you say something that stupid in front of Jeff? Jeez!”
Josh scrambled to his feet and hurried after Jeff. Catching up to him, he grabbed the older boy’s arm. “Jeff? I—I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything. I was just—Well, I was just wondering about the note, that’s all.”
Jeff stopped, his eyes meeting Josh’s. “You’re lying,” he said. “There’s something else, isn’t there? Besides the note.”
Josh’s toe dug into the ground in front of him. “I—I heard the elevator, too,” he admitted, certain that Jeff would burst out laughing. When the other boy said nothing, Josh went on. “It was just like you said—I could hear it, but it wasn’t moving.”
Jeff’s lips twisted into the strangest smile the younger boy had ever seen. “Then maybe that’s what happened,” Jeff told him. “Maybe Adam isn’t dead at all. Maybe Eustace Barrington came back from the grave and took him away. And maybe, sometime when you’re least expecting it, Adam himself will come and tell you what really happened.”
Josh, stunned by Jeff’s words, dropped his arm.
Jeff Aldrich, the smile still on his fece, turned and walked away.
• • •
Late that night, Hildie Kramer went into George Engersol’s private office, closing the door behind her. Engersol glanced up, nodded to her, then finished the file he was working on. A moment later he put the file away, leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest.
“All right,” he said. “How bad is it?”
Hildie smiled. “Not bad at all. The Lowensteins are pulling Monica out of school, and I can’t talk them out of it. But she’s the only one. All the rest are staying, including Jeff Aldrich.”
“Not bad,” Engersol replied. “We can live with it. But it means my special seminar is now short two students. I have two candidates in mind, but I’d like to hear your recommendations first.”
Hildie didn’t hesitate at all. “Josh MacCallum and Amy Carlson,” she said. “They’re both nearly perfect. Two of our brightest students, and both of them have the intellectual and psychological profiles we’re looking for.”
Engersol smiled. “Very good, Hildie. Those are exactly the two candidates I had in mind. Rearrange their schedules for them to start tomorrow.”
As Hildie left his office, Engersol reviewed the files of the two students one more time. He agreed. They were perfect for the seminar.
Josh MacCallum. indeed, had already attempted suicide once.
If he did it again, and succeeded, no one would think a thing about it.
13
Josh MacCallum and Amy Carlson sat nervously on the bench outside Hildie Kramer’s office. The house was quiet, for the rest of the kids had already headed for their first classes of the day. But during breakfast Hildie had come into the dining room and instructed the two of them to come to her office at the beginning of the first period. Josh and Amy exchanged an apprehensive glance. For his part, Josh was convinced he was in trouble. Deep trouble: Jeff must have told his parents what he had said yesterday afternoon after the funeral, and Mrs. Aldrich must have called Hildie. But what was so wrong with wondering if maybe Adam hadn’t really killed himself? And Jeff hadn’t been mad at all—in fact, Josh thought, it seemed Jeff had believed him.
Amy, though, thought they’d been summoned by Hildie Kramer for a different reason. “I bet our moms decided to take us out of school,” she said. “I bet they talked to Monica’s folks, and now they’re going to make us go home, too.”
Josh had stared speculatively at the empty chair at the next table, which Monica Lowenstein had habitually occupied until this morning. He shook his head. “How come grown-ups always start acting weird? Monica wasn’t going to do anything. She thought Adam was really dumb to kill himself. And it can’t be that, anyway. If my mom was going to take me home, she’d have done it yesterday. Besides, she told me she’d decided not to. And your mom and dad didn’t even come to the funeral, so how could they have talked to Monica’s folks?”
Amy made a face at him. “Haven’t you ever heard of the telephone?”
“That’s dumb,” Josh replied. “Monica’s folks probably don’t even know where your folks live.” Amy had made no reply, but instead poked disconsolately at her oatmeal. “Maybe we’re really not in any trouble at all,” Josh suggested.
“Oh, sure,” Amy said, scowling at him. “Did you ever get called to the principal’s office when you weren’t in trouble?”
For that argument, Josh had no reply at all. The two of them had sunk into a dejected silence for the rest of breakfast. Nor had it helped when the other kids had begun teasing them as they left for their various classes.
“See you later,” Brad Hinshaw had called. “If you’re still here!” Laughing, he’d shoved his way through the front door into the bright morning sunlight, while Josh and Amy perched on the bench outside Hildie’s office, the relative gloom of the large foyer doing nothing to improve their mood.
Finally the door to Hildie’s office opened and Hildie herself stepped out to usher them inside. “Well, look at the two of you,” she said, smiling at them. “From those long faces, you must have done something I haven’t heard about yet!” As Josh and Amy eyed one another nervously, she burst out laughing. “If I’d known you were going to worry yourselves to death, I wouldn’t have said a thing at breakfast. I’d have just stopped you on your way to class. Now come on in.”
Warily, the two children followed Hildie into her office. For some reason both of them felt vaguely relieved when she didn’t close the door. Hildie, noting their response, smiled to herself. Long ago she’d discovered that all the kids got nervous when she called them in for a closed-door conference. It was as if they instinctively knew that a closed door meant some kind of dressing-down. Conversely, she’d also discovered that the simple act of closing the door was enough to strike terror into the heart of the occasional troublemaker.
“I was talking to Dr. Engersol last night,” she told them, settling herself into the chair behind her desk as Josh and Amy perched anxiously on the couch. “With Monica leaving school, there are two vacant places in his seminar. He and I both think you two are ideal candidates to take their places.”
Josh felt a quick thrill of anticipation, remembering Jeff telling him a week ago about the seminar, but refusing to talk about exactly what they were doing. All he knew was that it involved computers—something he’d loved since the first moment he’d seen one, when he was only five—and that only a few kids in the school were allowed to be in it.
The smartest, most talented kids.
Adam and Jeff Aldrich, and Monica Lowenstein, and a few others.
Jeff. What about his place? Was it possible that he was coming back to school after all? He voiced the question even as it came into his head, and Hildie’s smile broadened.
“He’s coming back tomorrow,” she told him. “Which should make you happy, right? He’s your best friend, isn’t he?”
“Except for Amy,” Josh replied. “Is he still going to be in the seminar?”
“As far as I know.”
“But what’s it about?” Amy asked. “None of the kids who are in it ever talk about it.”
“Well, it’s hardly a big secret,” Hildie replied. “Basically, it’s a class in artificial intelligence.”
Josh’s eyes widened. “Wow. You mean like in teaching computers how to think?”
“Exactly. And since both of you seem to have remarkable abilities in math, we think you’d fit in very well.”
Amy looked uncertain. “I don’t really like computers,” she said. “All the games are kind of dumb, once you’ve played them a couple of times. I mean, it’s always the same stuff, over and over again.”
“And why do you think it’s always the same stuff?” Hildie asked.
Amy looked puzzled by the question, but Josh saw the answer instantly.
“Because all a computer does is put things together the way it’s told to. It can’t figure out anything new, because it can’t think like people can.”
Amy’s brows knit as she concentrated on the idea. “But how could a computer ever think like a person?” she asked.
“That’s what the seminar is all about,” Hildie explained. “Most of what Dr. Engersol is trying to do is learn how people think. In a way, our brains are like computers, but there’s a big difference. Somehow, we manage to put all the data in our heads tog
ether and come up with new ideas. Computers can’t do that. A lot of people think that if we can figure out just how our brains come up with new ideas, we might be able to design a computer to do it, too. That’s what artificial intelligence is all about”
“But what would we be doing?” Amy asked.
Hildie shrugged. “Dr. Engersol will have to explain that to you. But I can promise you, you’ll like the seminar. Everyone who’s been in it loves it.” She smiled ruefully. “Unfortunately, I don’t think I understand it enough to know quite why they love it, but they do.”
“I don’t know,” Amy said, fidgeting on the couch. “Do I have to take it? What if I don’t want to?”
“Well, I’m sure if you don’t want to, Dr. Engersol will understand,” Hildie told her. “Of course, you probably won’t get to move down to the second floor, but it’s entirely up to you.”
“The second floor?” Amy asked, her interest suddenly engaged. The rooms on the second floor were much larger than the ones on the third, which had originally been the servants’ quarters when the mansion had been built. “Why would we get to move downstairs?”
Hildie smiled as if it should have been obvious. “It has to do with the seminar. All the students in Dr. Engersol’s class are issued special computers, and the rooms on the third floor are just too small. And since Adam’s room, and Monica’s, are empty …” She left the bait hanging. As she’d been certain would happen, both Amy and Josh snatched at it.
“Could we move downstairs today?” Amy asked eagerly. “This morning?”
Hildie chuckled. “You can move right now, if you want to,” she told them. “Does that mean you both want to join the seminar?”
The two children agreed eagerly. Hildie took two pieces of paper out of a file folder that was already lying on her desk. “In that case, here are your new schedules. Starting tomorrow, you’ll both be going into the new class first period. Amy, you’ll be moved into the mathematics class that meets at two, and I’ve put you into the same one, Josh.”