The Extraordinary Education of Nicholas Benedict

  But he didn’t have more time. He had a few hours. And as he looked out upon the crowded, noisy sidewalks, he felt a rising despair. Did he really think he could go investigating even if he had more time? A nine-year-old boy with narcolepsy, alone in the city? What would he do when naps overcame him? What would happen if a car horn startled him to sleep? Whom could he trust to help him?

  No one. He could trust no one. How many people walking down the sidewalk right now had been just like Moray, Breaker, or Iggy when they were young? How many had been like all the other orphans, the ones who lived in fear and treated Nicholas badly because of it? How foolish would he be to think they were any different now?

  Nicholas turned from the window. The prospect of escaping from the Manor suddenly seemed much less appealing—even with the treasure, even with John. Would they really come live by themselves in this huge, daunting city full of strangers? The notion seemed almost preposterous now. He supposed they would need to come to Stonetown to sell the treasure for money—a tricky business in itself, and possibly a dangerous one—but after that, he would want to get far away from here, far away from other people.

  You’re forgetting, Nicholas thought, rubbing his temples. You have no idea where the treasure might be. No idea. No clue. And almost no time left to find any. Indeed, it was beginning to seem horribly likely that he would never find the treasure—that the orphanage would be shut down before he found it, that he would be sent away, and worst of all, that he would be alone again, separated from John and Violet.

  With that hopeless thought, Nicholas looked around him, wondering what in the world to do now.

  All of these books, books in the tens of thousands, and for the first time in his life, he didn’t even feel like reading.

  Nicholas had expected to return to ’Child’s End in the morning, but Mr. Pileus had purchased tickets for the afternoon train. Perhaps the overly cautious handyman had thought they would need more time to conclude their tasks in Stonetown, or perhaps he’d worried about oversleeping, for the morning train departed very early. In any case, he and Nicholas spent several dreary hours sitting on their luggage at the station, then several more on the train, before arriving at Pebbleton station just as a thunderstorm broke loose.

  Rain pummeled the Studebaker as it made its way up the orphanage lane. Lightning fractured the sky. Muddy rivulets streamed across the lane, just visible in the light from the headlamps. Mr. Pileus, when at last he had parked near the Manor’s porch steps, looked ready to collapse with relief.

  And yet as he and Nicholas mounted the steps—they were both thoroughly soaked—Mr. Pileus’s anxiety seemed to return. He kept casting sidelong glances at Nicholas, as if worried he had brought the wrong boy back from Stonetown. And no sooner had they stepped inside than he hurried off to his room, taking his new hat from beneath his jacket and dripping water on the floors.

  Perhaps he had an urgent need to use the bathroom, thought Nicholas, likewise dripping. It was the hour before bedtime, and he could hear loud voices and movement coming from the direction of the drawing room. From the sound of it—the tromping of innumerable feet, the discordant laughter and cries of boys and girls alike—Nicholas deduced that the entire group of orphans had been gathered for some activity or game. He could hear Miss Candace calling out instructions.

  He decided to go straight in. This might be his only chance to see John, and he wanted to tell him to meet in the library that night, so that they could talk. They had deemed inside meetings too risky in the past, but time was pressing, and Nicholas refused to wait for better weather. He just hoped they could manage a quick private word now, among all the commotion.

  Suitcase in hand, Nicholas was crossing the entranceway when Mr. Collum’s office door opened.

  “Ah, Nicholas,” said Mr. Collum, looking him up and down. “I see you’ve arrived as expected, though perhaps not as dry as one might wish. Come along, I’ll let you into your room. You can change out of those wet clothes, and meanwhile you can tell me what you learned at the library. I trust you are writing a lengthy and detailed report, but for now you can give me a brief accounting.”

  “I’ll be delighted to do so, Mr. Collum,” Nicholas said, trying hard to sound sincere. “But if you please, I was hoping to join the others in the drawing room. It sounds like they’re having tremendous fun. May I just duck in there for the rest of the activity? I’ll come straight to your office afterward.”

  Mr. Collum frowned. “I’m afraid you can’t join the activity in such a state, Nicholas. You’re a sodden mess. You might catch a chill. Come now, change your clothes and let us talk. There will be other activities.” He dropped a heavy hand on Nicholas’s shoulder to guide him toward the stairs.

  Nicholas wriggled away. “Please, Mr. Collum! It’s been such a dreary trip. Can’t I go in there even for a minute? I’d like to say hello to John.”

  “Nicholas!” said Mr. Collum sharply. He took a deep breath, composing himself, and continued in an even tone. “It is disrespectful to wheedle and argue, Nicholas. Please refrain from doing so.” He hesitated, looking at the stairs, then shook his head. “Come into my office a minute.”

  Biting his lip, Nicholas followed the director into his office. Mr. Collum had said “a minute,” after all, so perhaps he did not intend to keep Nicholas long. What was more, he seemed troubled, and Nicholas suddenly realized that something was going on—something had happened—and he would probably be wise to find out what it was.

  “Have a seat, Nicholas.”

  Nicholas frowned and sat down. Mr. Collum had never invited him to sit before.

  “I have some happy news,” said Mr. Collum in a tone of false cheer. Seating himself behind the desk, he reached into a drawer and took out his pipe, which he inspected as if searching for flaws. He cleared his throat, and without looking up, he said, “John Cole has been adopted.”

  Nicholas stopped breathing. The walls of the office began to pulse in his vision like the chambers of a heart. “What… what did you say?” He whispered the question so faintly he did not even hear it himself.

  Mr. Collum glanced at him and quickly looked back at his pipe. “It is the very best news for John, I’m sure you will agree. Of course, we are all extremely sorry to lose him. You know how highly I thought of John, and you told me yourself that he was your… only friend.” He coughed, stood, and began rummaging among the papers on his desk, as if looking for something.

  “But how—?” Nicholas looked down at his hands, which had begun to tremble, and he clasped them tightly together to still them. “How did this happen?”

  Mr. Collum, obviously agitated, continued to riffle through the papers. “This is an orphanage, after all, Nicholas. I was contacted by a couple hoping to adopt a responsible boy of John’s age, a hard worker and a good boy, preferably one who had lost his parents only recently, so that he understood from experience how to get along in a family household. John was the clear choice—indeed, the only choice—and so I invited the couple to meet him. They did, and they liked him at once, and as I had already drawn up the necessary papers, the adoption was managed efficiently and quickly.”

  Realization hit Nicholas like a slap. Suddenly he was on his feet. “And you sent me away! You knew this was going to happen, and you made sure I was out of town! Why would you do that? Did you think I’d ruin his chances? He was my friend, Mr. Collum! My friend! And I didn’t even get to tell him goodbye!”

  Mr. Collum looked at Nicholas with a mixed expression of warning and concern. “Calm yourself, Nicholas. Do not do something that you’ll regret. I arranged matters this way for your own good. I knew that John was your friend and that parting would be painful. It was better this way. A clean break.”

  Nicholas gripped the edge of Mr. Collum’s desk, trying to steady himself. If he had been strong enough, he would have picked it up and thrown it at Mr. Collum. Instead, he stood there shaking, telling himself to breathe slowly, breathe slowly, breathe slowly. His eyes stun
g with tears.

  “You should try to be happy for him,” Mr. Collum said quietly. “He’s been taken into a good family. Not wealthy, by any means, but he will be secure, and I know he will be appreciated.”

  Something about Mr. Collum’s condescending tone made Nicholas lose what little control he’d gained, and banging his hands on the desk, he shouted, “I appreciated him as my friend! And you didn’t even let me say goodbye! It wasn’t better this way, Mr. Collum—it was the worst possible thing you could do!” His tears were flowing freely now; he tasted them as they streamed into his mouth. “You know nothing about children, Mr. Collum! Nothing! Children aren’t numbers! You can’t just add them and subtract them and expect everything to come out right!”

  Mr. Collum, shocked, took a step backward. Nicholas could see his jaw clenching and unclenching, and his right hand was squeezing his pipe as if to crush it. “I—I hardly know what to say, Nicholas. You must realize that you are in serious trouble for speaking to me in this way. You will have to be punished. I understand that you are upset, but that does not excuse you.”

  Nicholas, recovering from his outburst, had fallen back into his chair and covered his face with his hands. He was trying his hardest not to break into uncontrollable sobs.

  There was a silence, and then Mr. Collum said, “You may take the night to get hold of yourself. Tomorrow morning we shall discuss your library trip. No doubt you will feel better after a good night’s sleep. Also,” he muttered, again looking at the papers on his desk, “you may be comforted to know that John wrote you a letter. He pressed it on me before he left, and begged me to give it to you.”

  Nicholas was staring at Mr. Collum through his fingers. “A letter? He left me a letter?” He lowered his hands, then thrust one of them forward demandingly. “Well, where is it? Give it to me!”

  Mr. Collum scowled at him. “Manners, young man! You are only making things worse for yourself with such impudent behavior.” He looked back down at his desk, still scowling. “The letter is yours, however, and you shall receive it as soon as I locate it. I cannot fathom what’s happened. I was exceedingly careful to leave it right here”—he tapped the desk before him—right on top of these papers, where I could find it easily. Look beneath my desk, Nicholas. Do you see a sealed envelope with your name on it?”

  Nicholas dropped to the floor. There was nothing. He leaped to his feet. “When did you leave that letter there? Are you sure you left it there?”

  “Of course I’m sure!” Mr. Collum snapped. “You are not to interrogate me, Nicholas! I placed the letter there this very afternoon, right after we had all gathered in the entranceway to see John off.” He was speaking to himself now, not to Nicholas, as he tried to remember exactly what had occurred. “Yes, that’s when John gave me the letter, and I sent the other children off to their chores, and I came in here and set it down.”

  Nicholas felt his stomach turn. “You mean, the other children saw John give you the letter? And they heard him tell you to give it to me?”

  This time it was Mr. Collum who banged the desk. “I said that is enough, Nicholas! Enough with the questions! Enough with your impertinence! Be silent and let me think a moment!”

  But Nicholas had had enough, too, and rising once more to his feet, he cried, “You can think all you want! I already know what happened! You left the letter out where anyone could find it! And then at some point you left your office unlocked—maybe you thought you could just step over to the bathroom for a minute without troubling to lock the door. Maybe you had your precious ledger with you, so you weren’t worried about losing anything important.”

  Mr. Collum, shocked yet again, gaped at Nicholas. “My… precious ledger?”

  “But that ledger isn’t everything, Mr. Collum!” Nicholas yelled, jabbing his finger at the director. “I can tell you that much! And for all your talk of Mr. Bottoms being so reckless and irresponsible, take a look at yourself! You sure go to a lot of trouble to lock a little boy into his room each night, and to lock all the rooms with valuable things in them, but you left your own office door unlocked today, didn’t you? Didn’t you!”

  Nicholas could see from Mr. Collum’s expression that his words had struck home. Not waiting for the director to collect himself—he was pale and quivering with anger—Nicholas wiped his eyes, grabbed his suitcase, and turned on his heel. He paused at the doorway. “You can forget any report on the Rothschilds,” he said without looking back. “You’re never going to get it. Never.” And then he hurried out, slamming the door behind him.

  In the drawing room he found all the orphans standing in disorderly rows, wheeling their arms about like windmills. Miss Candace stood before them, demonstrating the maneuver and talking about the virtues of daily calisthenics. She seemed completely unaware, though Nicholas saw it plainly enough from the doorway, that the Spiders kept “accidentally” slapping the children nearest them as they circled their arms, then winking at one another and snickering.

  “Moray!” Nicholas screamed, so loudly that it hurt his throat.

  Fifty faces turned in unison to stare at him. The arms froze. Miss Candace stopped talking and blinked at Nicholas in surprise. Clearly, she thought something was wrong with him, barging into the drawing room with wet clothes and puffy, red eyes, his teeth beginning to chatter.

  “Who has the letter?” Nicholas demanded, his voice cracking. He wove through the other children to get to Moray, near the middle of the room. He stopped inches away from the sneering bully and dropped his suitcase, narrowly missing Moray’s oversized feet. “Is it you? Or is it one of your leeches?” He shot angry looks at Iggy and Breaker, standing nearby. They both seemed impressed by Nicholas’s audacity—but they were also smirking with evident satisfaction.

  Moray crossed his arms and stood looking down at Nicholas like a Rottweiler pestered by a yipping terrier. “No idea what you’re talking about. You’re in my space, though.”

  “Nicholas,” Miss Candace said. “Come here and let me look at you. What’s the matter?”

  “Leave me alone!” Nicholas shouted at her. “Nothing’s the matter with me except I want my letter back!”

  Miss Candace, looking frightened, hurried from the room to find help. Nicholas did not appear to notice. He stood with his chest heaving and teeth chattering, his hand extended as if he truly expected Moray to comply with his demands. He could hardly see straight, could hardly think of anything except getting back John’s letter.

  Moray watched Miss Candace leave, then broke into a grin, feigning a look of sudden understanding. “Oh, that letter! The letter from John! Sure, I remember now!”

  “So give it back, Moray! Give it back or you’ll be sorry!”

  Moray pretended to look troubled. “But we can’t give you that letter back, Big Nose. I mean, golly, I’d love to, but we sort of burned it, didn’t we, boys?”

  Iggy and Breaker chuckled.

  Nicholas’s eyes were stinging again. Slowly he lowered his hand. He could see that Moray was telling the truth. He bit his lip, trying not to cry. He had no idea what to do.

  “Naturally, we read it first,” Moray said with a shrug. “Lots of interesting stuff. Too bad you’ll never know any of it. We know, but you don’t. Get it?”

  Moray’s words seemed to come from the end of a tunnel, for Nicholas had given up, he’d lost control, and now he was crying, weeping, sinking to his knees. Moray put a foot against Nicholas’s shoulder and gave a slight push. Nicholas had no strength in him to resist. He toppled over onto his side, curled up, and continued to sob and sob.

  “Everyone look at the big future-teller!” Moray shouted triumphantly. “I guess he didn’t see this coming, after all!”

  Nicholas, rocking back and forth in an agony of humiliation and despair, wished, for the first time in his life, that his emotions would send him to sleep. He didn’t think he could bear them any longer.

  And then, in the next moment, he didn’t have to.

  When Nicholas awok
e, he was alone in the drawing room except for one other child, the younger boy named Oliver, who stood in the doorway watching him with wide eyes. Nicholas sat up, his head aching and his throat raw from crying. He looked bleakly at Oliver. “Well? What are you doing here? Where did everybody go?”

  “To get ready for bed,” Oliver said. “Mr. Collum said I’m to watch you and let him know when you wake up.”

  Nicholas got shakily to his feet. He felt as if he had been taken apart and put back together again with all his parts in the wrong places. Everything seemed to hurt. Nothing seemed right.

  Oliver lingered in the doorway. He seemed to want to say something else, but Nicholas, in his misery, was only vaguely aware of the boy’s presence. At any rate, he didn’t care about anything that anyone said. He was leaving. He picked up his suitcase, considering his next step.

  “They were lying,” Oliver whispered, and Nicholas looked at him. “The Spiders, I mean. They didn’t read that letter.”

  Nicholas thought about this. Yes, that seemed right. He dimly remembered Moray’s tone, and it had been noticeably false. He shrugged. “I know,” he said. “I mean, I realize that now. Doesn’t matter.”

  Oliver glanced nervously up and down the passageway and edged further into the room. “It doesn’t? I… well, I just thought that it might. So I wanted you to know, in case it did. They—they made me get the envelope for them. I’m sorry. I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t know they were going to burn it. They made a lot of us watch. They were saying that this is what happens if you try to cross them. And then they made Caroline dump the ashes out behind the gardening shed, even though it was raining.”

  Nicholas shrugged again to show his lack of interest. He didn’t want to think about the Spiders anymore. He wanted Oliver to leave him alone. But Oliver stayed, looking at him expectantly. And even in his desolate mood, Nicholas could not quite suppress his urge to understand things, to understand and explain.