The Boy Who Knew Everything (10 page)

Somehow Mr. Finley did not seem in the least bit sorry, but quite pleased with himself. He was, just as he suspected, a great teacher, and his ability to diagnose Piper McCloud's learning disability was, in his opinion, further proof of this. Without delay he promptly sent a very clinical note home to Betty and Joe McCloud detailing Piper's condition. Needless to say, Betty was fit to be tied.

“There'll be no more gallivanting for you 'less you sits yourself down and learns your lessons.” Betty waved the spoon she was using to stir the soup at Piper.

It was Piper's turn to be appalled. “But Ma…”

“There'll be no buts.” Betty had planted herself firmly and there was no budging her. “Flying is all well and good but schoolwork comes first. And if you don't learn these math lessons like Mr. Finley says, then these goings-on about this farm will stop once and for all.”

With that last comment Betty had Conrad's full attention too. Conrad had long suspected that Piper's mathematical sense was not normal but had never felt the need to place a label on it. As it was, they had an urgent situation that very evening to attend to and Conrad couldn't do without Piper's flying.

“I can help, Piper,” Conrad offered Betty. “I'll make sure she catches up.”

Betty eyed Conrad. “She don't need you doing her lessons for her. Ain't no way that'll teach her anything.”

“No, ma'am,” Conrad agreed. “She needs teaching. I can help do that.”

Betty sniffed suspiciously. “Well, see that you do, or mark my words, all you youngens can stay put.”

True to his word, Conrad immediately got to it. A mine had collapsed in Tennessee, and while they worked through the night saving the miners Piper had more than flying to worry about.

“There were thirty miners down in the shaft to begin with, isn't that right, Smitty?” Conrad asked over the comm.

“That's right,” Smitty grunted, trudging through dirt to get a better view of the terrain.

“So, Piper, we've rescued half of them; how many are left?”

Piper was flying a miner up through the center of a rock that Daisy had busted through. The miner was a heavy guy and unconscious. To make matters worse it was pouring with rain, she was tired, and it was late. “Uh, I don't know.”

“Think about it,” Conrad pressed. “We started with thirty and now half are safe. What is thirty divided by two?”

“Ten?”

“You're guessing. Picture the numbers in your mind.”

“My mind doesn't like the numbers, Conrad,” Piper huffed. The guy she was lugging up to the surface was 210 pounds easy.

“What number multiplied by two equals thirty?”

“I don't know.”

“Sure you do.”

Piper reached the surface and the miner's eyes fluttered open. “You're going to be okay,” she told him.

“Piper, I mean it, answer the question. What is thirty divided by two?”

“Fifteen,” the miner whispered to her.

Piper smiled. “It's fifteen,” she repeated.

“I heard that,” Conrad said.

While salvaging a plane from the Pacific Ocean, Piper practiced her multiplication tables, and as they rescued a pod of beached whales in San Francisco Bay, she worked through word problems.

“I don't get it,” she fussed. “If he picks an apple every mile and walks ten miles why doesn't he have ten apples?”

Piper got out of Jasper's way as he placed his healing hands on the whale she was attending to. Daisy was using her super strength to move the whales into the water and Nalen and Ahmed were causing the tide to rise to make the job easier.

“Because he started with an apple, Piper.” Conrad manipulated his sensors and spoke into the comm. “Myrtle and Smitty, I have an incoming pedestrian on the west side of the beach.”

“Copy that, I have a visual,” came Smitty's response.

“Maybe it's the apples that are confusing me,” Piper said pathetically. “Can he have something else besides apples?”

“Go home, Piper,” Conrad said. “We're almost done here and it'll give you more time to finish up your homework before you go to sleep.”

Piper was relieved. With school and their rescue efforts she had more than enough on her plate. “See y'all back at the farm.” Piper flew away for home.

Daisy, Jasper, and Lily guided the last whale into the water. The team stood together watching them swim away as Conrad monitored their progress with sonar.

“They'll clear the bay in thirty minutes,” Conrad reported. “Well done, team. Pack up, move out.”

Five minutes later the beach was empty, with no evidence that they had ever been there. As Conrad surveyed the scene one last time he noticed a strange red pebble in the sand. Leaning down, he picked it up and held it between his fingers, watching the way the moonlight made it shimmer and glow. Although he had an encyclopedic knowledge of geology, this specimen was like none he had ever seen before. Strangely enough, he'd found two others just like it in the last three weeks: one by the entrance to the collapsed coal mine and the other near a bomb site. Wrapping his fingers tightly around the stone, he held it in his fist and disappeared into the night.

 

CHAPTER

14

It was the middle of the night and J., as only J. could, had silently gathered Piper and Conrad to the barn without rousing another soul on the farm. Conrad immediately noticed that J. was more agitated than he'd ever seen him, his skin gaunt and pale, as though he'd been without sunlight for months.

After shedding his backpack, J. had drawn them close together and hunkered down, his face inches from Piper and Conrad, his voice low and urgent.

“There is a place that is hidden and no one can get to. Only those who live there know about it. I have learned that in this place everyone is like us and yet everyone is completely unique. In this place you can be exactly as you were meant to be—your specialness is deeply celebrated. The people know true peace and happiness, surrounded by beauty and contentment. It's paradise; no one wants for anything and everyone is given everything that they could ever need. Your days are filled doing the things that your heart yearns to do; if you need to learn something a teacher will help you; if you want to try something different every new opportunity is given to you. No one will ever hurt you again. No one will make fun of you and you will not have to hide. You will be safe and free. And not just free for a while, but free forever.”

J. paused. Piper's blue eyes were as large as saucers as she drank in the wonder of such a place. Conrad, on the other hand, had skepticism knitted tightly into his eyebrows.

“We should go there.” J. got to his feet and reached for his backpack as though it was already decided. “We should go tonight.”

“And where, pray tell, is this
paradise
?” Conrad's voice dripped with sarcasm.

“I don't know,” J. admitted. “Well, not specifically, anyway. But I've narrowed it down and with all of your help we could get there in no time.”

“This is ridiculous. We're not going,” Conrad said firmly.

“Why not?” Piper turned on him.

“Tell me this, J., where did you find out about this ‘paradise'? Hmm?”

“I have my sources.”

“That's not an answer. I want a name. Who told you?” Conrad planted his feet.

J. shook his head. “It doesn't matter who—”

“Answer my question!”

“You wouldn't understand—”

“I understand more than you know.
Who?
”

“Letitia Hellion.” J.'s eyes were on fire. He was in the business of exposing secrets, not revealing them. “She is my sister.”

Piper gasped.

The air around them turned dense and charged with electricity.

Conrad shook his head, then snorted as though he had suspected something like this, or worse, all along. Turning to Piper, he gestured with his hands as though to say,
See! Just like I told you. This guy is crazy.

“Dr. Hellion is alive?” Piper was in shock.

“After you saw Letitia fall from the sky, Piper, someone saved her. She can't remember who. She has memories of this place—she says that she lived there and she wants to go home.” J. confessed this information in a pleading voice. He needed Piper and Conrad; he needed to help them and save them, and now he needed them to help his sister. He wanted Piper to understand.

“Where is Dr. Hellion now?” Conrad demanded, suddenly concerned that she might be close by.

J. hesitated, not wanting to tell but knowing that Conrad would accept nothing but the truth. “Area 63. It's a secret government prison for the criminally insane.”

Conrad let out a low whistle. “Wow. Why am I not surprised? She sounds like … a credible source.”

“She's different now,” he said quietly.

J. had not fully appreciated what horror the name Letitia Hellion struck in Piper McCloud's heart, and the rest of the kids too. They had suffered under her control at her evil school and she had done them all great harm, which was not easily forgotten. Piper turned her back on J. and walked away. J. felt the sting of her rejection in his core.

Seeing that Piper was unreachable, J. turned back to Conrad. “Conrad, Conrad, listen to me. First of all, my name is Jeston. And I have more information for you.” He scrambled to pull a file out of his backpack, placing it in Conrad's unwilling hands. “This is about your father.” J. opened it quickly and flipped through the pages. “Did you know that your father was abandoned when he was twelve? It's true. Look. The police found him wandering by the side of the road. He carried no identification and had no memory of who he was. They placed him in foster care and no one ever claimed him. Then when he was sixteen he ran away and they were never able to trace him again. Not that they tried very hard.”

J. flipped through the pages and Conrad's brow furrowed as he looked at the police reports and foster home evaluations.

“He hired people to pretend to be his family, and he has a mysterious benefactor who has been guiding his political career.” J. pointed to specific passages and photographs excitedly.

With a tremor in his hands Conrad absorbed this strange twist. “But…” He looked to J. “When did you get this information?”

J. paused. “A year ago.”

“And you're only telling me now?” Conrad slammed the file shut. “What other information are you withholding? What else do you know?”

“But I already gave you good intel on your father. You have to understand—”

“I understand all too well.”

“This is so big, there is so much—”

“
Stop
. Stop treating us like children. We are not going with you to this place and we will not help you. I can speak for all of us when I say that we aren't going to be put back into another prison, even if this one has been given the name ‘paradise.'” Conrad crossed his arms over his chest. “You should leave, J. You aren't welcome here anymore.”

J.'s shoulders deflated. He glanced toward Piper, but her back was still turned away from him and she couldn't or wouldn't face him. With great reluctance, he swung his backpack over his shoulders, and it suddenly felt so heavy his body heaved with the effort it took to hold it up. He turned to go.

“If you won't come with me, you should know this.” J. paused at the door. “You are all in the greatest danger. Your father knows where you are, Conrad, and he knows what you are doing. You are interfering with his plans and he will use every means at his disposal to stop you. All of you. Under no circumstances can you continue with these missions or … you will not like what will happen next. That is all I can tell you because it is all I know.”

J. turned himself invisible and walked out the door.

Piper swung around to face Conrad, her eyes flashing with fear.

“What are we going to do, Conrad?”

Conrad ran his fingers through his hair and exhaled in a long, measured blow. “We're going to embrace our fears,” he said simply. “Let's get some sleep.”

 

CHAPTER

15

On the third day trapped inside the attic of their house, the Kaiser family had finished the last of their food and water. By ten in the morning temperatures were hovering above one hundred degrees and the two children lay on the floor quietly, too hungry and tired to play or even talk. Mr. Kaiser had stopped listening for helicopters or boats; none were coming.

When the dam above Shady Grove mysteriously broke open they were among the very few lucky ones. Their house was on a small hill at the edge of town and they had just enough time to run up the stairs, and were fortunate enough to have an attic. On that first day they sat in a state of euphoria, cataloging the various ways, both large and small, that fate had smiled down on them and saved their family; like how they happened to all be at home; how Katy skipped soccer practice to go to a birthday party; how Timmy spent the morning in bed because he wasn't feeling well instead of going over to his friend Jack's house.

What luck, they said to one another. What incredible luck.

On the second day inside the attic restlessness set in and conversation revolved around the rescue efforts. Would they be sending food soon? Would there be rescue boats or helicopters? How much longer would it take? Mr. Kaiser had been trained for situations like this in the police academy, but without the proper tools he was unable to break a hole through the roof and they were trapped. At noon the two protein bars that Mrs. Kaiser had kept in her purse were finished, and the bottle of water from Katy's gym bag was drained. There was nothing left.

When she thought the children were sleeping Mrs. Kaiser whispered urgently to her husband.

“Why's it taking so long? Where's FEMA and the Red Cross? The kids need food and water now. We can't last much longer.…”