Lost in Cyberspace (11 page)

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Authors: Richard Peck

BOOK: Lost in Cyberspace
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“Moms are,” Aaron said.
“Who was the King of England in Phoebe's time?”
“George the Fifth,” Aaron said.
“That's him. He's dead, right?”
“1936.”
“I figured. Phoebe was upset about that. And she's not too pleased about sitting at the table with us for meals. She says it isn't proper. But cabbage tastes better than it smells. A little. Phoebe cooks. For tonight she's fixing toad-in-the-hole.”
Aaron looked up. “Actual toad?”
“That's what we were afraid of. But toad-in-the-hole is just an English term for sausages in a batter, microwaved. We're having jam roly-poly for dessert.”
“Sounds like a month's worth of calories,” Aaron the herbivore said. “But hang in there. I'll sign out of my morning classes. Mr. Headbloom will cover for me. By noon I might have some solid progress to report.”
As soon as we got to school, Aaron headed toward the media center. “Come on,” he said. “We've got some time before homeroom.”
“Aaron, read my lips. I told you I wasn't going near the Black Hole again.”
“You want Phoebe to get back?” he said. “Your mom's going to figure out Au Pair Exchange didn't send her. It's just a question of time. And the Vanderwhitneys are going to wonder where she is. She could lose her job at that end, you know. Besides, I've got a lot on my mind and too many digits in my head. We're in this together, Josh.”
“Aaron, you don't even remember those digits you entered when Phoebe suddenly turned up. You were winging it, right?”
“I'm closing in on a breakthrough,” he said, not answering. “I'm on the brink of finding a bidirectional fiber. I'm on the threshold of pinpointing a foolproof three-dimensional fax. You've heard of multicultural? I'm about to be multichronological. I'm—”
“Aaron, your problem is you can get us into trouble, but you can't get us out.”
We were strolling past Mrs. Newbery's desk. She was already at it. “Just a moment, Aaron,” she said. We froze.
She handed over a Xeroxed sheet. “This is the last reference to the Vanderwhitney family I can find for you in the 1920's New York Times
Index,”
she said, “except for an obituary, which is a real downer.”
“Appreciate it, Mrs. Newbery,” Aaron said, cool as a cucumber. “This will be a big help for our Parents' Night report next week.” We strolled on toward the Black Hole, taking our time. The BOTH COMPUTERS DOWN sign was still on it.
Inside, we looked over the sheet. You could see the date on this one—November 1929:
Palatial Home of Late Osgood Vanderwhitney to
Serve as Wing of New Huckley School
The Huckley School that has already acquired the properties of the Havemeyer, Huckley, and Van Allen families is proposing to purchase the home of Osgood Vanderwhitney from his estate.
The house, called the most tasteful built in the city during 1921, has recently been the residence of Osgood Vanderwhitney and his son Cuthbert, aged fifteen and now at boarding school. Osgood Vanderwhitney's tragic death has shaken the social and financial communities. See obituary for details of his leap from the window of his Wall Street office following the recent Market Crash.
“What's all this?” I said.
“Osgood Vanderwhitney took a dive,” Aaron said.
“I see that. But why had he been living in this house with just Cuthbert? That would make anybody jump out a window. What happened to Mrs. Vanderwhitney? What about Lysander? You don't suppose Cuthbert ...”
The Black Hole was dead silent. We glanced around. “Maybe little Lysander vanished without a trace,” Aaron said in a spooky voice.
“Phoebe—”
“Phoebe wouldn't know yet. It would have happened after she ... came here.” Aaron gazed down at the floor like there could be a small body buried there. Bones now.
“A rich kid disappearing would have made The New York Times,” I pointed out.
“Not necessarily.” Aaron's imagination was really on the move now. “The Vanderwhitneys might have covered up the crime to save Cuthbert and their reputation. They could have said Lysander went off to boarding school. Why not? He was probably way smarter than Cuthbert.”
“Knock it off, Aaron.” When you get right down to it, he's really safer working at the computers than when his mind starts wandering. The bell for homeroom went, and so did I.
“Skip lunch and be here,” Aaron said.
 
At noon I swung by the Havemeyer House lunchroom and bought us a couple of tuna salads on pita bread and some Snapple.
When I passed through the BOTH COMPUTERS DOWN door, Aaron was hard at work. “I'm practically there. I've got a lock on that time Phoebe came from. My technology is really beginning to catch up with concept.”
I gave him a tuna pita, but he didn't have time for it. “Look, yesterday I entered these digits, combined them with a graphic, and—”
“You zeroized.”
“That didn't get me anywhere. If I change that last digit to this—”
It was like the room imploded. Fire flashed. Both computers wobbled. Snapple went everywhere. I grabbed for Aaron, but he stayed where he was. All his red hair was standing up. Air seeped back into the room.
But we weren't alone.
“You two again,” a high voice barked. “Who do you think you are?”
Aaron and I spun around.
Cuthbert Vanderwhitney was standing there. We'd only seen him with his feather headdress. His hair was cut in a Dutch boy style. His pudgy fists were on his knickered hips. His freckles glowed in full color, and his lower lip was out a mile.
Aaron's head dropped on his chest.
“What have you done with Lysander?” I said, because Aaron had me totally psyched.
Cuthbert scowled. “I beat him up regularly. It keeps him in line.”
“But—”
But it wasn't near 1929 yet. Cuthbert looked the same as the last time we saw him. He'd still be about fourth grade, though he was as big as me, bigger than Aaron.
His eyes crackled. His feet in high-top shoes were planted wide. He wore long argyle socks, corduroy knickers, and a weird velvet-looking jacket with gold buttons and a big white collar. A wide tie circled his bulging neck.
“You're trespassing. And it's not your first offense. My papa will have you thrown out.” He noticed Aaron's tuna pita. He grabbed it up and smelled it. “I don't eat this,” he said, and threw it against the wall.
The pita stuck where it hit. The wall hadn't been there in his time. Cuthbert stared. “What have you done with my house? We're Vanderwhitneys, you know.”
Aaron was recovering. “Let me put it in a nut-shell for you, Cuthbert,” he said. “You've cellular-reorganized three-quarters of a century ahead of your time. Your family's house is a school now.”
Cuthbert trained mean, beady eyes on Aaron. “Liar, liar, pants on fire,” he said.
Which was probably his favorite saying.
“It's true,” Aaron said. “Believe it.” With Cuthbert you have to be firm.
“Aaron, for pete's sake,” I muttered, “send him back.”
“If it's a school,” Cuthbert said, working this out, “who's in charge?”
“You mean like the headmaster?” I said.
“Buster Brewster,” Aaron said, and he had a point.
“Harrison K. ‘Blackjack' Brewster from Ninety-second Street?” Cuthbert's eyes narrowed.
“No, Buster's probably his grandson or something. Maybe a great-great nephew. Who knows?” Aaron said. “Just stand right there, Cuthbert.”
Aaron turned to the computers and started entering digits. Four, five ... I was braced. But I looked around at Cuthbert because I really wanted to see him dissolve.
He was already gone.
“Aaron.”
He looked around. “Hey, I didn't even—”
The Black Hole door was open. Cuthbert had walked out. He was at large in Huckley School. The bell rang, so lunch was over, and it was time for History. You can't sign out of that because Mr. Thaw's the teacher.
 
Aaron and I ran into each other. Then we ran out the door. We streaked past Mrs. Newbery, but so had Cuthbert. The hallway outside was full of middle-school guys in Huckley dress code.
“It won't be hard to spot him,” Aaron said. “He's dressed like Little Lord Fauntleroy.”
“And what if we don't?” I said. “He was trouble enough in his own time.”
“We'll get him,” Aaron said, looking everywhere.
“Before History?” I said. “Because I don't think so.”
Aaron skidded to a stop at the door of Mr. L. T. Thaw's classroom. “It's hopeless with all the halls full of people.”
“What if some teacher finds him before we do?” I said. “Some adult. Then what?”
“Look,” Aaron said, “do you feel like cutting History?”
“No way,” I said. We slid into our seats a second before the bell rang.
“Ah, Zimmer,” Mr. Thaw said from the front of the room. “An unexpected pleasure to see you here on time.” We were up to James A. Garfield, twentieth president of the United States, assassinated in 1881.
The time dragged worse than usual. I tried to pretend that Cuthbert was a bad dream. What Aaron was thinking was anybody's guess. Fifteen minutes, twenty, we were almost halfway through the period.
The door opened. Mr. Thaw looked at it and froze. You'd think he was seeing President Garfield being shot right out there in the hall.
Cuthbert strolled in.
His hands were on his hips. His necktie was tied in a large bow, and there were gold buttons down his front.
Everybody stared because he looked like an exhibit from the Museum of the City of New York. They thought Cuthbert might be curriculum.
“Awright,” he said in his piping roar, “keep your seats. Is Buster Brewster in here?”
Mr. Thaw swayed.
“Who wants him?” Buster reared up out of his desk in the middle row.
Buster got a good look at Cuthbert right down to his knickers. The Dutch boy hair. The white collar. The big perky bow tie. The velvet jacket.
“What a wuss,” Buster said.
Cuthbert stalked down the aisle. Now he and Buster were nose to nose. Both their necks bulged.
Up at his desk, Mr. Thaw was turning to stone.
Buster couldn't figure out Cuthbert, so he was off guard. “Who do you think you are?” Cuthbert bawled in Buster's big face.
People were getting under their desks. You don't talk to Buster like that. “You're not so tough,” Cuthbert bellowed. “And I was here first.”
Buster's mighty fists were clenching.
But Cuthbert brought up a powerhouse uppercut and flattened Buster's nose. Cuthbert's left hook had come out of nowhere. Buster went over backward, sprawling across the desk of the kid behind him. Frederick “Fishface” Pierrepont sits behind Buster. But Fishface was already under his desk.
Buster was flat on his back with his legs in the air. Blood was splattered all over his dress code. But he made a comeback. He lunged at Cuthbert. Grabbing for his neck, he got a handful of big white collar instead.
But Buster was off balance before he began. Up came Cuthbert's right fist, also out of nowhere. The sound of knuckles against nose practically echoed. And Buster's face was rearranged one more time.
Buster crumpled.
By then we'd made a big circle around them. Six or eight desks were on their sides. Mr. Thaw unfroze. He's not too steady on his pins anyway. Now he was shaking like a leaf.
Buster was lolling there on Fishface's desk, and you could see his tongue. Cuthbert with his collar on sideways was reaching for Buster's throat.
“Cuthbert!” Mr. Thaw howled in an ancient voice. “Unhand him at once!”
It was too much for Mr. Thaw. His old knees gave out, and he slumped to the floor. It looked like our history teacher might be—history. He was out cold at least.
The whole room was up for grabs. A boys' school is always about
this close
to a riot anyway. Fists went up all over the room. Quite a few people were beginning to settle old scores. More desks went over. Fishface Pierrepont burrowed out from under his. “I'm calling 911,” he piped, and rocketed out of the room.
Aaron rose up. Cuthbert was staring down at Mr. Thaw's sprawled shape. Aaron got Cuthbert under an arm and ran him out of the room and down the hall. Classroom doors were beginning to open all the way to the media center. Inside we got lucky because Mrs. Newbery was at lunch. The three of us raced into the Black Hole and banged the door shut.
The tuna pita was still on the wall. The floor was sticky with Snapple.
“Never laid a finger on me,” Cuthbert said. He was blowing on his skinned knuckles. “Those Brewsters always were yellow.”
“Aaron,” I said, breathing hard. “Send Cuthbert back. Like now. Whatever it takes.”
Aaron moved over to the computers, ready to give it a try.
17
Phoebe's Question
Both screens began to fill up with formula. Aaron took his time. Then he was doing some fancy finger work on the keyboard. The screens glowed and pulsed. The ceiling lights dimmed, then surged. One of the fluorescent tubes up there burned out.
But I never took my eyes off Cuthbert. His hands were on his hips, and his high-tops were planted on the floor. Then between one nanosecond and the next, he was nothing but air space. I was looking straight through where he'd been at the tuna pita on the wall.

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