Cragbridge Hall, Book One: The Inventor's Secret (18 page)

“Of course you did,” Carol said with a dreamy sigh.

“Focus, Carol,” Abby said. “What was your idea?”

“We’ll unlock it from the inside,” Derick said.

“That’s ... brilliant,” Abby said with a fake smile that quickly faded. “But we’re all out here.”

Derick didn’t answer. He lifted a set of sensors from inside his pack. “I’ve got a little part of me in there dying to get out.”

Carol gasped. “You are brilliant. We can get married whenever you want. You’ve proven yourself.” A thought occurred to her. “But how did you get the sensors out?”

Derick told the story. Carol leaned in. “Oh, I could just kiss you over and over again,” she said. Abby pulled her back by her ponytail. “Ouch. It was just for congratulations.”

“We haven’t done anything yet,” Derick said. “Let’s duck in here.”

The three of them stepped into an empty zoology room. All of the other students had gone to lunch. Derick sat down and put on his sensors.

“Wait,” Carol said. “Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. I just realized what we’re doing. We’re trying to figure out this puzzle or whatever that your grandfather gave you, and that’s fun and everything, and of course Derick has eyes that make me melt like snow in Waikiki, but ... but ... but we could get into some seriously serious trouble for messing with an avatar. I mean, we could be thrown into jail and forced to eat terrible food, and end up talking to ourselves for hours and hours at a time, in a cell with no windows, or posters, or anything to look at. And we’d finally get out when we’re old and wrinkled and all we can do is input boring data onto huge sites about the sizes that certain loafers are available in, and about the different flavors of Chapstick people can buy.”

“Carol,” Abby started, “You have to understand that—”

“No,
you
have to understand that this isn’t okay,” Carol said. “I mean, I tried to be nice to you. I’ve been picked on too. I’ve been underestimated too, but this is too much.” She started walking toward the door.

“Wait, Carol,” Derick said.

She stopped and turned to face Derick. “Don’t even ask me to stay. I know you’re gorgeous, but I won’t risk all of my hard work for this, or for you. There are other amazing, knee-weakening boys in this school. I can think of three off the top of my head, maybe even four. No, wait—five.”

“I wasn’t going to ask you to stay,” Derick said.

“You were going to say that I’m right, and then you’d join me for a nice lunch for two in the cafeteria?” she asked hopefully. “I’ve forgotten the other five boys already. And no offense, Abby, but we could meet up later.”

“No,” Derick said. “We can’t tell you what this is all about, but I can tell you that it is important enough for us to take this risk.” Derick paused, choosing his words carefully. “People we love ...” He stopped and started again. “Listen, you don’t have to help us, but please don’t tell anyone about what we’re doing.”

Carol looked at him, then at Abby. “I won’t,” she said. “Unless I get busted walking out this door. Then you’d better run.” Carol opened the door and disappeared down the hall.

“Should we go through with it?” Abby asked. She couldn’t help but remember Mr. Hendricks’s lecture on Blackbeard and the price for breaking the rules. Plus, the punishments were much more severe for stealing an avatar than for breaking the rules to use the Bridge. “We won’t be any good to Mom, Dad, or Grandpa if we’re kicked out of here, sitting in jail.”

“Too late,” Derick said. “I’ve already got the sensors. There’s no turning back. You could leave, and if I’m busted, I’ll just tell them I did it on my own.”

Abby looked back at her brother. “No. I’m staying. I’ve been thinking about why my access was denied. I think it’s because whoever we’re up against knew that I had a locket, and somehow they knew I’d logged into Grandpa’s journals. They were trying to stop me—to stop us. We’ve got to do this. We’d better get started.”

• • •

Derick looked through small monkey eyes. The past two times he had logged on, he’d taken several moments to get used to his small body, but in this case, he knew he didn’t have a lot of time. He got up and stumbled over the top of the other monkey bodies, knowing they weren’t alive to feel any of it.

Derick felt pain in his shin.

“You just hit a desk,” Abby said. “I’m not sure what the avatar is doing, but out here, your real body is in a biology room, and you can crash into things. Try to remember that we don’t have the same equipment out here as you do in the lab. Your body is moving all over this room.” Derick could hear her moving desks out of the way to give him more space. He moved gingerly over the last few monkeys.

“I need a running start—that way.” He pointed toward the wall. “Am I clear?”

“Yeah,” Abby said. “But you only have about twelve feet until you hit the wall.”

“That should be enough,” Derick said. The monkey ran and jumped onto the railing at the same time Derick’s body nearly jumped right into the wall. The monkey shimmied across the metal bar until he reached the door. Derick imagined Abby was working hard to keep desks out of his way.

He pulled down on the handle and it opened from the inside. Yes!

He walked through a second door and out into a hallway. He was out.

“Very impressive,
rapaz,
but your little joyride is over.”

Derick recognized the voice of the last person he wanted to hear: Rafa.

20

Monkey on the Run

Derick pushed the button on the back of his neck and let the monkey go limp. He blinked several times to see Rafa standing in front of the door.

“Sem vergonha,”
Rafa said and shook his head. “I hope you liked your time here at Cragbridge. Don’t know why you wasted it.”

“Wait,” Derick said as Rafa activated his rings—surely to call a teacher or guards or someone who would make sure that the Cragbridge twins would be expelled.

“My grandpa is missing,” Derick blurted. “Someone kidnapped him and my parents, and we’re trying to find them.”

“I’ve heard about their disappearance, but ...” Rafa looked confused. “How would stealing a monkey avatar help you find them?”

Derick looked over at Abby.

“We might as well tell him everything,” Abby said. “Or else we’re gone, and then we won’t be able to help at all.”

Derick nodded in agreement. He began to tell Rafa about the last twenty-four hours. He told him about the locket, the message from their grandfather, and how they visited his house, but he wasn’t there, and neither were their parents. Abby told him about the clues and the message to check the Watchman.

Rafa listened closely. “How do I know that you didn’t just make up that entire story?”

“Why else would we do this?” Abby asked. “Why else would we risk our grandfather’s reputation?”

“I’m not convinced,” Rafa said. “You seem like the type of kids who would think it would be funny to send a monkey running through the commons.”

If Carol had been there, Derick was sure she would have laughed, and then apologized for laughing. Then she’d say something like, “But it
would
really be funny.”

Rafa eyed them. “There is only one way to know,” he said. “Follow me.” He turned and opened the door. “And don’t bother running. I have enough evidence against you.”

The twins followed Rafa across the hall and back into the avatar lab. They went up into a large room with several log-in stations that had suspension systems and several large monitors. Rafa locked the door behind them.

“Let’s hook you up,” Rafa said, motioning toward one of the stations. As Derick approached, Rafa turned on one of the monitors. “Send your monkey in, and we’ll watch and see what happens in the tower. If there is something there to do with your grandfather’s secret, then I’ll know you’re telling the truth. If not, this is your last day at Cragbridge, and perhaps your last day of freedom for a while.”

Derick nodded.

“Now you must know as you begin,” Rafa added, “that you are the only one on the register. If something happens to that avatar,
you
are responsible. I am only here as an observer, and perhaps as an enforcer, depending on what we find.”

Rafa double-checked Derick’s connections. “Whenever you’re ready, I’ll open the door.”

Once again, the monkey came alive. This time, Derick heard sounds through the speakers. Life was in stereo. He imagined that Rafa and Abby could see what he saw through the monkey eyes on their monitors.

Derick’s avatar ran through the open door and into the room they were in. Through his monkey eyes, he looked at his own body moving in the suspension system. The sight was completely surreal. He looked ridiculous moving without going anywhere. He also looked like a giant—
fee fi fo fum
huge.

He ran the avatar, scampering across the room, then jumped onto a seat, a desk, and finally onto the long windowsill along the far wall. Derick heard his little monkey breathing over the speakers. He rapped on the glass and looked back at his sister.

Abby looked at Rafa, who nodded. She unlatched the window. “Good luck,” she said. The monkey responded by sticking one thumb up in the air.

Derick’s avatar ran along the edge of the roof and around the corner. Rafa and Abby could only watch on the monitor now.

Derick moved across the shingles and up toward the peak of the roof. Once there, he had to stop to get his bearings. He soon spied Watchman Tower and began to run toward it. He moved his monkey legs as fast as he could. He needed to get this over with before someone else discovered them and things got worse.

The monkey skidded to a halt at the edge of the roof. He looked down at a forty-foot drop to the ground below.

Derick could hear Abby back in the lab. “Oh, we didn’t even think he’d have to cross there. At least, I didn’t think about it.”

The monkey turned back the way he had come.

“Are you going to go back down and across the ground?” Derick heard Abby ask. “It seems like someone would see you that way.”

No sooner had she asked that than Derick turned the monkey again, sprinting toward the edge. If his skills had been more advanced, maybe he could have used both his arms and legs to push his body forward, but he didn’t know how to. He could simply run, and he needed as much speed as he could get for that. He had to get onto the roof of the next building over.

“Don’t!”
Rafa shouted.

But Derick leapt into the air, spreading himself out and reaching toward the neighboring roof.

He heard Abby’s whisper, “Please make it. Please make it. Please make it. Please make it.”

Derick hit the edge of the other roof, pain surging through his chest. His monkey hands managed to grab the overhang. Derick struggled to breathe, the wind knocked out of him as he dangled forty feet in the air. He could hear the monkey’s grunting and gasping echo through the room.

In a few moments, he had his breath back, and he managed to scramble onto the roof.

Abby exhaled long and hard.

“If you hurt that avatar, Derick, you’re as good as gone from this academy,” Rafa warned. “They’re each worth more than all of our educations combined.”

Derick acted as though he couldn’t hear Rafa. Sure, the monkey may have cost a fortune, but it wasn’t worth more than the lives of his parents and grandpa. The monkey moved across the other roof and approached the bottom of the tower. He began to slowly climb, putting his little fingers into the edges of mortar between bricks. He felt less sturdy than he thought he would with each grab.

“Remember,” Rafa said into his microphone, “your body weighs less, so you don’t have to hold up as much. And you can use your tail for balance.”

Derick had to concentrate hard to curl his tail beneath him, against the wall, but with a little practice, it felt like a third leg. He climbed slightly faster.

“I’m impressed,” Rafa said. “Using a tail isn’t easy. That isn’t what I was thinking of, but it seems to work.”

Derick lost his grip on his left hand and groped madly to keep from falling. He managed to stabilize himself at the last moment. A few more feet, and he reached one of the small windows. His slim frame easily slipped through the opening.

“Good work, Derick,” Rafa said. “And now we find out if your talent is wasted.”

Derick’s eyes took a moment to adjust to the darker room. It was small, only about six feet wide, and the inside walls were made of the same stone as the outside. It was easy to picture a watchman looking out over the entire area. Derick couldn’t help but imagine that if he were in the tower when someone attacked, he could probably get off some pretty good shots—like a sniper.

“I don’t see anything,” Rafa said through the speakers.

“Give him a few minutes,” Abby pleaded.

As Derick moved the monkey to the center of the tower, metal blinds slid down over the windows. Darkness swallowed the room. Derick heard a voice.

“I’m sorry that it was so difficult for you to get here, but it was for a calculated purpose. This secret is important enough that I must take precautions. The secret must go only to those with determination and the right intentions, and under the right circumstances.”