Her hands trembling, Jeanette flipped quickly through the thesis.
She paused at a chapter heading halfway through:
Barrington Academy: Six Case Histories
As she began reading, she felt a chill in her blood. Was it really possible that six of the Academy’s students had killed themselves in the last five years?
Except that it wasn’t six.
It was seven now, for the research for the thesis had obviously been completed before Adam had died a little more than a week ago.
Jeanette stood quite still at the copier, a strange hollowness forming in her stomach.
She had to read the thesis, had to know what this graduate student had discovered, had to know whether, if she’d seen the thesis even two weeks ago, she might have saved her son.
And yet she couldn’t read it now, couldn’t even scan the chapters.
She waited until her hands steadied. When she had regained some semblance of calm, she began copying the thesis.
Instead of making the usual five copies, this time she made six.
One for each of the jurors on the student’s panel.
And one for herself. Though it violated the rules of the college, she would slip it into her purse and take it home with her that afternoon.
That night she would read it, and try to discover how the Academy could have lost so many students in so short a time.
Amy Carlson was sitting by herself at a corner table of the Academy’s dining room, facing the wall, struggling to force down her lunch. She’d ignored Josh MacCallum when he’d tried to coax her to sit at their regular table, refusing even to answer him as she walked past him with her tray gripped in her hands.
After she left the lab, she’d gone back to her room, slipping unnoticed into the house through the back door and scurrying up the stairs before Hildie Kramer or anyone else could spot her. Once in her room, she’d scooped Tabby up from her pillow, then flopped down on the bed, cradling the cat in her lap, petting it and talking to it as if by heaping affection on Tabby she could somehow make up for the pain that was being inflicted on the creature in the laboratory.
And there she’d stayed until lunchtime. skipping the rest of her morning classes.
But when noon came, she decided she’d better go down to the dining room, even though she didn’t feel like eating. Otherwise, someone — Josh, probably — would come looking for her, and she still didn’t want to talk to him, or anyone else.
So she’d gone down to the dining room, gotten her lunch, but ignored all the rest of the kids to sit by herself, facing the wall and staring at the uneaten food on her plate.
For the first time since she’d met Josh and decided to stay at the Academy, she wanted to go home, to go back to her own room in her own house, where her own cat was waiting for her.
Maybe this evening, after dinner, she’d call her mother and ask them to come and get her. Even going back to public school would be better than staying here, where they tortured little animals!
Amy felt a hand on her shoulder and jumped.
“Amy?” Hildie Kramer said. “What’s happened? Why are you sitting all by yourself?”
Amy stiffened. “I just want to.”
Hildie’s hand dropped away from Amy’s shoulder. For an instant the little girl thought the housemother might leave her alone.
Instead, Hildie sat down in the chair next to her.
“Well, I know something must be wrong,” Hildie said quietly, her voice soft enough so that no one but Amy could hear her. “Dr. Engersol wants to see you in his office before afternoon classes begin. And you didn’t go to any of your classes after the seminar, did you?”
Any licked her lower lip nervously and shook her head. “I–I didn’t stay in his class, either,” she admitted. “They were doing things to a kitty, and I left.”
“Oh, dear,” Hildie sighed. “So that’s why Dr. Engersol wants to see you, is it?”
“I guess.” Amy felt a flash of hope. “Is he going to send me home?” she asked, trying to keep her voice from sounding too eager.
Hildie chuckled. “Somehow I don’t think so. It’s not that easy to get expelled from the Academy. I suspect he just wants to explain what they were doing, and help you understand that the cat wasn’t really being hurt.”
“But it was!” Amy exclaimed, her indignation flooding back. “He was torturing it!”
Hildie’s brows rose. “Torturing it? I can’t believe Dr. Engersol would do something like that.”
“But it’s true!” Amy insisted. Doing her best not to exaggerate, she told Hildie about the experiment and what had happened to the cat. When she was done, Hildie’s expression was every bit as angry as her own.
“If that’s what happened,” she said, “I think it’s just as terrible as you do.”
“But it is what happened,” Amy cried. “Ask anyone, if you don’t believe me! Ask Josh! He saw it. All the boys did. But they didn’t care. They thought it was fun!”
Hildie shook her head sympathetically. “That’s boys for you. I’ll tell you what. I’ll go with you to talk to Dr. Engersol, and we’ll see what he has to say. And if he’s planning any more experiments like that, you and I will call the SPCA. We certainly won’t tolerate abuse of animals in our classes!”
Amy stared at the housemother. “You mean you didn’t know?” she asked.
“Of course not,” Hildie replied. “Now come on. Let’s the two of us go have a talk with Dr. Engersol.”
Her hand clutching the housemother’s, Amy left her untouched lunch where it was. Maybe, after all, things were going to be all right. She’d actually done what she’d said she was going to do, and told on Dr. Engersol, and instead of being mad at her, as she’d been expecting, Hildie was on her side!
But as they left the house and started toward Dr. Engersol’s office, another thought came into her mind.
With Hildie taking her side, wouldn’t Dr. Engersol be even madder at her than he already was?
When they reached his office, on the top floor of the building that housed the artificial intelligence laboratories, Dr. Engersol didn’t seem to be mad at her at all.
In fact, he appeared worried about her. He didn’t even seem angry when she told him she didn’t want to take the special seminar anymore.
“Everything we do seems like it’s being mean to the animals,” Amy said. “And I can’t even think about what we’re supposed to be doing. I just worry about the animals.”
“But, Amy,” George Engersol explained one more time. “We’re really not hurting them. Even the cat we were working with today is going to be just fine. In a month the fur on his head will be all grown out again and he’ll be just like he’s always been.”
Amy’s face set stubbornly. “It’s just not right to hurt poor little animals,” she declared. “And Hildie says I’m right.”
Engersol turned to his administrator. “Is that true?”
Hildie hesitated, then nodded. “I’m afraid it is, George. I had no idea you were wiring up cats in that seminar. You know how I feel about that kind of experimentation.” The two exchanged a long, probing look. “If it’s going to continue,” Hildie said, “I’m afraid I’ll have to resign.”
“And we’ll tell the SPCA on you, too,” Amy chimed in.
Engersol took a deep breath, then let it out. “Well, the two of you aren’t really leaving me much choice, are you? I don’t want to lose either one of you, and I suppose I can find other ways of teaching the class. So we won’t do any more animal experimentation. Agreed?”
Amy hesitated. “Then what will you do?”
Engersol smiled at her. “How’s this sound? Instead of trying to figure out how animals think, we’ll try to figure out how human beings think.”
“How?” Amy asked, her brows coming together suspiciously.