“I warned you it was going to hurt,” she said softly.
“What’s all this really about?”
“Sorry for the mumbo jumbo, Will. You’ll understand eventually. Or you won’t.” She gave him back his hands. His palms already looked less inflamed.
“Thanks for clearing that up. How’d I do on your test?”
“I don’t know,” she said, smiling like she had a secret. “Why don’t you ask the Mystic Eight Ball?” Robbins held up the black tablet in front of him. A photo-real 3-D image of an eight ball appeared on-screen. “Go ahead.”
Will lowered his voice in a parody of concentration. “Did I pass the test?”
Robbins gave the tablet a shake. The “Eight Ball” revolved and revealed a small window on its opposite side. A miniature white tile floated into view: Looking good!
“There you go. So sayeth the oracle,” she said, sliding the tablet back into her bag. “I have one last question of my own, Will. Nothing to do with the test.”
“Shoot.”
“Aren’t you absolutely bored to the edge of living death with high school?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She smiled. “Let’s go talk to Mom.”
“I represent the most academically accomplished college preparatory academy in the country,” said Robbins as she typed commands into her laptop. “That you’ve never heard of.”
“Why haven’t we heard of you?” asked Belinda West.
“I’ll address that in a moment, Mrs. West. I think you’ll appreciate the answer.”
Dr. Robbins opened her laptop until it lay flat on Barton’s desk. A multidimensional image of thick cloud cover projected into the air about three feet above the screen, like an impossibly detailed children’s pop-up book. Barton and Rasche stood back in amazement.
As they all watched, the point of view circled above the clouds and then descended into them. As the clouds thinned, a stately array of buildings on vast green lawns surrounded by thick woods appeared. They floated down toward this astonishingly conjured world, swooped suddenly lower, and leveled off. They flew toward the campus above a long, straight entrance road lined with towering trees. As they passed over a gate and guardhouse, Will caught the glow of illuminated letters engraved on an impressive stone facade:
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THE CENTER FOR INTEGRATED LEARNING
“We’re offering Will a full scholarship,” said Robbins. “Completely on the merits. We’ll include travel, living expenses, textbooks, and supplies. This won’t cost your family a dime.”
“Where’s the school?” asked Will.
“Wisconsin,” said Robbins.
The simulated flyby continued. They glided over classic ivy-covered stone halls connected by wide symmetrical walkways. Beyond the central campus, they passed over a huge retro-style field house. An outdoor all-purpose stadium. Stables and riding rings. Fields for a variety of sports, including a golf course.
“What’s the catch?” asked Will.
“There’s only one,” she said. “You have to want this, Will. The Center opened its doors in 1915. You haven’t heard of us because we value privacy. We never look for or encourage publicity. That’s one of the ways in which we protect our students and our reputation. But I assure you all the best colleges and universities in the world know who we are. Our graduate placement into those institutions has no equal. Among our distinguished alumni, you’ll find fourteen senators, a vice president, two members of the Supreme Court, nine Cabinet members, seven Nobel Prize winners, dozens of leaders in business and industry, and several foreign heads of state. To name just a few.”
The tour continued over a large meandering lake tucked back in the nearby woods. The trees were ablaze with spectacular fall colors. A big rustic boathouse sat on the shore. A tall, twisting Gothic-looking structure—almost a castle—occupied a craggy island in the center of the lake. Then the “camera” withdrew up into the virtual clouds and the image faded from view.
“That was … like … magic,” said Rasche, his mouth agape.
“Bear in mind, magic is the name we’ve always applied to tomorrow’s technology,” said Robbins, “when we see it today.”
Dr. Robbins turned to Will and his mother. “No one applies to the Center. You have to be invited.” She pulled an oversized packet from her briefcase and handed it to Belinda. “We think you’ll find everything your family needs to make an informed decision in here. Take your time. We know you have a lot to think about.”
Barton chimed in. “And you can certainly be excused from class for the rest of the day to get started if you like, Will.”
“I do like,” said Will.
Everyone chuckled politely.
“All of my contact information is there,” said Robbins, packing up her notebook. “As you go through your process, please don’t hesitate to call with any questions or concerns you might have.”
She shook Will’s hand again and headed out.
“Dr. Robbins?” asked Will.
She stopped at the door. “Yes, Will?”
“What’s your first name?”
“Lillian,” she said, amused. Lillian Robbins knew how to leave a room, and now she did, briskly.
After a few minutes of predictable fawning from Barton and Rasche, Will left the office with Belinda. An intuitive flash went through his mind as they walked down the empty halls:
I won’t be seeing this place again.
Dr. Robbins was right: He had an avalanche of things to think about, hundreds of questions piling up in his mind. But none were more troubling than the one that had snared his soul the moment his mom had walked through Barton’s door that morning. He’d initially tried to dismiss it as an insane distraction. An off-kilter headtrip cooked up by the compounding weirdness of the day.
But now that they were alone, it was worse. Much worse. And it wasn’t going away.
He glanced at his mother. Still wearing an insipid smile and those damn dark glasses. She saw him look at her and gave his hand an excited little squeeze.
Wrong. Completely wrong.
As he left for home with someone who looked and sounded exactly like Belinda Melendez West, the question was, Why did he have the feeling this wasn’t the same person he’d said goodbye to two hours ago?
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NO PLACE LIKE HOME
This was her, but at the same time it wasn’t.
What about her makes me feel this way? Will couldn’t put his finger on it. It was a subtle feeling, but it gripped him like a python.
This was his mom’s car, no doubt about that. The old beater Ford Focus she called the Green Machine, down to her macramé back support and the floating compass on the dash. He felt below his seat and found the plastic In-N-Out cup he’d stashed there two days earlier.
“Well, I just don’t know what to say, Will,” she said, hands fluttering on the steering wheel. “I mean, if this isn’t the most amazing thing ever.”
Looked like her and sounded like her … but that wasn’t the right thing for her to say. She should be worried about how this test result came about. Asking him why he’d gone against their instructions and drawn attention to himself this way. That would have been the first thing she said.
Will kept his eyes forward, afraid she’d see the creeping terror on his face if he looked directly at her.
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#14: ASK ALL QUESTIONS IN THE ORDER OF THEIR IMPORTANCE.
“Are you all right?” he asked.