Shadows

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 together 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.”

Josh broke into a smile. “Since we’re taking another class, does that mean we can stop doing P.E.?” he asked eagerly.

Hildie made a face of exaggerated disapproval. “No, it doesn’t mean you can stop doing P.E. But it does mean,” she added, as Josh’s face fell, “that we’ll be making some changes in that, too. So as soon as you leave here, I want you both to go to the gym behind the college field house and see Mr. Iverson. I’ll give you a note telling him why you’re there, and he’ll give you some tests and then help you set up a gym schedule that won’t interfere with any of your classes. Okay?”

Both children, slightly dazed by the sudden change in the schedules that had been set up little more than a week ago, nodded silently, and Hildie handed them the note for Joe Iverson, who headed the university’s physical education program. Years ago, working closely with George Engersol, Iverson had designed a special regimen for the children in the Academy, emphasizing individual sports over team activities.

“None of the kids we’re targeting is going to grow up to be a team player,” Engersol had explained even before they’d taken in their first students. “They’ll all be unique kids, and most if not all of them will have had nothing but bad experiences with team sports. If they’re forced into situations where they have to curtail their intellects in favour of someone else’s physical superiority, they’ll only resent it, and I don’t intend for this Academy to be an unhappy experience for any of them. We’ll have a few kids who love baseball and football, but for the most part physical competition just won’t mean anything to our kids. So I want you to design a program that will give them the exercise they need, but not bore them. Is it possible?”

Iverson had nodded. “Anything’s possible,” he’d agreed, and set to work. What he’d come up with was a program emphasizing swimming, which he knew most kids loved to start with, and gymnastics, which, if one was to achieve any sort of proficiency, demanded nearly as much brain power as muscle development. Furthermore, the sports he’d selected for the kids were individual enough that most of them were able to work their P.E. sessions in at their own convenience, merely appearing at the pool or gym when they had time, so long as they put in a minimum of five hours a week.

For Josh and Amy the choice had been easy — an hour a day in the pool was more like playing than anything else.

Now, they left Hildie Kramer’s office and headed across the lawn and out the gate, then turned left into the main university campus, on the other side of which were the field house, a smaller gym, the pool, and the football stadium. Amy gazed curiously at Josh.

“How come they have to change our P. E.? Why can’t we just keep going swimming every day, like we have been?”

Josh shrugged. “Maybe they have something special for the kids in the seminar.”

“But why?” Amy pressed. “What’s dumb old P.E. got to do with artificial intelligence?”

“Who cares?” Josh grinned. “We get new rooms and new computers, don’t we?”

Amy nodded halfheartedly. The new room was great — she was already looking forward to that. But she didn’t really care about the new computer, and the thing with changing her P.E. program seemed stupid. She started to say something else, then changed her mind. After all, Josh didn’t know any more about the seminar than she did, and the other kids in it hadn’t ever said a word.

That, too, seemed weird to her. How come they all acted like it was a big deal? It was just another class, wasn’t it?

Or was it?

Why did she feel that she’d gotten talked into doing something she didn’t really want to do?

Well, it didn’t matter, really. If it turned out she hated it, they’d probably let her quit. After all, so far they’d never made her do anything she didn’t really want to do.

Or had they?

In her mind she began reviewing the days since she’d first come to the Academy, and the way Hildie Kramer had treated her.

Hildie’d always been very nice to her, but in the end-as she had the day she’d run out of her room and hidden in the Gazebo, where she’d met Josh — she’d always wound up doing what Hildie wanted her to do.

And now Hildie and Dr. Engersol wanted her to take this class.

Why?

Joe Iverson grinned at the two children who stood nervously in front of his desk, and slipped the note from Hildie Kramer under the metal clamp of his clipboard. “So Dr. E’s got two more hot prospects for his class, huh?” he asked. Josh and Amy exchanged a nervous glance, but nodded. “Well, then, let’s get started, okay?”

“But what are we doing?” Amy asked. “How come we can’t just keep on swimming, like we’ve been doing? We like swimming!”

Iverson’s brows arched. “Who said you’re not going to?” he asked.

Amy cocked her head. “Hildie. She said you had to do a special program for us. But I don’t see why.”

“Tell you what,” the coach replied. “Why don’t you two go change your clothes, then meet me in the gym. Okay? Then I’ll tell you what we’re going to do.”

Ten minutes later, when the two children emerged from their respective locker rooms and entered the empty gym, they found Joe Iverson waiting for them. “Mostly what we’re going to do right now is see what kind of condition you two are in,” he told them. “I don’t know if Hildie explained this to you, but Dr. E’s not just teaching you in his seminar. He’s studying you, too.”

Josh frowned suspiciously. “Studying us how?”

Iverson laughed out loud at the expression on the boy’s face. “Well, it’s not like guinea pigs,” he replied. “But he figures that since the brain affects practically everything in the body one way or another, you kids should be different from kids whose IQs are in the more normal range. So he tries to keep track of everything about you, not only mentally, but physically, too. What I’m going to do this morning is weigh you and measure you, take your blood pressure and pulse and all that kind of thing, then give you some exercises and check your blood pressure and pulse again.”

“Are you going to take blood?” Amy demanded. “I hate that, when the doctor sticks a needle in my arm.”

Iverson chuckled. “No, I’m not going to do anything like that. Mostly, all we want to do is see how your bodies react to a little exercise, okay?”

Though neither of them quite understood exactly what Mr. Iverson was looking for, they let themselves be weighed and measured, and have their pulses and blood pressures checked. Then the exercises began.

They did push-ups, as many as they could. Amy gave up after only fifteen, but Josh managed twenty-five.

Next they ran in place for ten minutes, then did a series of jumping jacks.

After each round of exercises, Iverson once more recorded their pulse rates and blood pressures.

“Okay, just one more thing in here, then we head for the pool.” He pointed toward a thick rope, knotted every eighteen inches, that was suspended from a ring attached to the ceiling. “Which one of you is going to be able to climb that the fastest?”

Amy gazed up at the ceiling, at least thirty feet high. Did he really expect her to climb the rope all the way up there? Just the thought of it gave her a queasy feeling in her stomach. “Wh-What if I fall?” she asked.

“How are you going to fall if you don’t let go of the rope?” Iverson countered.

“But what if I do?” Amy pressed.

“That’s what the mats are for. If you think you’re going to fall, don’t go any higher. Just come back down. Okay?”

Amy’s eyes shifted to Josh. He suddenly remembered how terrified she’d been the first day he’d been here, when they had to climb down the zigzagging stairs to the beach. “It’s okay,” he said. “Just don’t look down.”

Amy stared at the rope but made no move to climb it. Josh, realizing she was too scared even to try it, finally stepped forward and grasped the rope in his hands. He yanked on it a couple of times, then ran forward, swinging himself off the floor. “It’s fun,” he told Amy. He stopped swinging, then started up the rope, wrapping his legs around it so most of his weight was taken off his arms. Slowly, he began climbing up toward the ceiling.

“Be careful,” Amy called out when he was halfway up. “Don’t fall!”

“I’m not gonna fall!” Josh shouted down. “It’s neat.” He worked his way up to the top, slapping the ring with his right hand before grinning down at Amy. “I did it!” he crowed. “I made it all the way.”

“Come back down,” Amy pleaded.

Laughing, Josh started back down. When he was still ten feet from the floor, he let go of the rope, dropping down to the mat and rolling over to break the fall. Amy, startled by his sudden descent, screamed out loud, but quickly cut it off. “You did that just to scare me,” she accused as Josh scrambled to his feet.

“I didn’t, either,” Josh protested. “I just did it ’cause it was fun. Go on. Try it.”

Amy eyed the rope once more, then finally gripped it. Tentatively, she tugged at it, half hoping that it might break right now and come tumbling down from the ceiling.

It didn’t.

At last, taking a deep breath, she started climbing, pulling herself up and wrapping her legs around the rope, moving her hands from knot to knot in quick motions, as if she might fall if she released her grip for more than a moment.

Josh was right. It wasn’t so bad.

“I’m doing it!” she yelled, and, forgetting Josh’s warning, peered down at him.

A wave of dizziness swept over her. Her eyes widened in fear.

“Don’t look down,” Josh called again. “Look up!”

Struggling against her terror, Amy forced herself to look up, but now the ceiling, too, seemed far out of reach.

When she tried to lower herself, her sudden panic wouldn’t let her release the rope.

“I can’t do it,” she wailed. “I can’t get back down.”

Instantly, Joe Iverson shinnied up the rope until he was right beneath her. “It’s okay,” he told her. “I’m right under you. Just put your feet on my shoulders. Hang onto the rope and stand on me. Okay? Can you do that, Amy?”

As Josh watched from below, Amy’s right leg relaxed slightly and her toe touched the coach’s shoulder. A few seconds later she was straddling his head, her hands still clinging to the rope. As he felt her weight being transferred to his own body, Iverson spoke again. “That’s right, Amy. Just stand on me. I’m going to start down, and you just steady yourself with the rope. And don’t look down, okay?”

“Uh-huh,” Amy managed, her voice strangling in her constricted throat.

A moment later they were back on the floor. Joe Iverson reached up, grasped Amy’s weight in his strong arms, and swung her down to the mat. “There,” he said. “Safe. See? We made it.”

Amy, her face pale, stood trembling in silence for a moment as the panic slowly released her from its grip.

“You okay?” Josh asked, watching her anxiously.

Amy nodded. “I couldn’t do it,” she said. “When I looked down, I just got all dizzy.”

“It’s okay,” Joe Iverson assured her. He made a note on the clipboard, then patted her reassuringly on the back. “It’s just a little acrophobia. Why don’t you two go put on bathing suits and meet me at the pool. You can swim a few laps, and then we’ll be done. Okay?”

Amy nodded gratefully and hurried out of the gym.

But twenty minutes later, when she climbed out of the pool after having swum five lengths, her fear returned.

“Ever gone off the high board?” Joe Iverson asked.

Amy stared up at the diving board that loomed three meters above the surface of the pool. She shook her head.

“Want to try it?”

Amy shook her head again, her eyes moistening with tears just at the thought of having to climb the ladder, then walk out to the end of the narrow board.

“Come on,” Iverson urged. “Just try it once. If you can’t do it, you can’t. But you really ought to try.”

“She’s scared,” Josh said from the pool, where he was hanging onto the gutter, kicking gently as he treaded water. “How come she has to go off the high board?”

“She doesn’t,” Iverson told him. “But if she doesn’t try, how is she going to get over being scared of heights?”

“Maybe she won’t,” Josh challenged. “Aren’t you scared of anything?”

Joe Iverson’s first impulse was to reprimand Josh for being insolent, but then he remembered the instructions he’d been given by George Engersol. “I’m not interested in turning these kids into athletes,” the Academy’s director had insisted. “I want them to get all the exercise they need, but it’s their minds I’m primarily interested in. So don’t start acting like a drill sergeant with them. If one of them gives you a problem, tell me about it, and I’ll take care of it. But most of these children are already terrified of coaches. They’ve been treated like weaklings and klutzes all their lives, and their self-images have suffered for it. I won’t tolerate that here.”

Iverson, though he thoroughly disliked Engersol, hadn’t bothered to argue, for he’d already been told by the university’s president to do whatever Engersol wanted. “You’d be amazed at the funding he’s bringing in for that program,” Jordan Sanford had told him. “Just do what he asks, and let him worry about the kids. Believe me, he knows what he’s doing.”

So now, instead of reprimanding Josh, Iverson only shrugged his shoulders, made another note on his clipboard, and sent the kids to take showers.

Retreating to his office, Iverson switched on his computer terminal, called up the permanent records of Josh MacCallum and Amy Carlson, and began entering the data he’d collected in the last hour. Though it meant little to him, he supposed George Engersol had some use for it all.

An hour later, in his office, George Engersol called up the same records that Joe Iverson had been looking at sixty minutes earlier. Tapping quickly at the keyboard, he began studying the data the coach had entered.

What intrigued him most was the notation on Amy Carlson’s record that she seemed to suffer from acute acrophobia.

She’d been unable to climb the rope in the gym, and outright refused even to attempt the high diving board.

Apparently, her phobia was more pervasive than he’d thought when he’d watched her make her way down the stairs to the beach ten days earlier.

As he thought about it, an idea began to take shape in his mind. Perhaps there was a way to fit Amy’s phobia into his seminar.

He leaned back in his chair, the idea developing rapidly. The more he thought about it, the more he liked it.

Whether or not Amy Carlson would like it remained to be seen. But of course, what she — or any of the other students — liked, was of no consequence to him at all.

The only thing that mattered was how he could use them.

And he’d just discovered a perfect use for Amy Carlson.