Louise needed to find a way to fight this mental monster that had been lurking inside of her, poisoning her.
She reached out and caught Jillian’s hand for courage. Jillian squeezed her hand hard. She hated the idea that Jillian may have been hurt just as badly by that year but she had never noticed. At least her twin had found a better way of dealing with it.
Louise forced herself to smile. It felt so faked; she was sure she must have been grinning like an evil mad scientist out to take over the world. Skipping did help a little to let her feel strong and brave.
Miss Gray used the voice. She looked up when they walked into the art room and her voice came out all squeaky with that “oh, little puppy, you’re so cute” tone. “Jillian! Louise! Those dresses are darling.”
And then awareness of who exactly they were caught up with the cuteness, and her look changed to slight alarm. “Jillian. Louise. What are you two doing here so early? And why do you have your dog with you?”
“He matches us!” Jillian said as if it explained everything. She managed to seem unfazed that Miss Gray was in the classroom far earlier than they had expected. Louise’s heart was jumping in her chest out of nervousness.
“Yes, I see, but why are you here so early?” Miss Gray had apparently decided to tackle one issue at a time.
“Our class had a job printing on last night.” Louise pointed toward the Annex. “We wanted to see if it completed correctly and move the item to our class locker before the seniors come in.”
“And the dog?” Miss Gray asked.
“His name is Tesla!” Jillian purposely misunderstood the question. “Miss Gray, we remembered that we forgot about Hook’s hand.”
This was the complete truth. Louise had only thought of it the night before as they got their parents to sign Jillian’s permission slip for the stage-fencing lessons. Part of the fight involved Peter chastising Captain Hook for unfairly using his hook.
Jillian pulled out her tablet and moved to corner Miss Gray. “His left hand needs to be large enough to be easily seen as a hook by the audience. It needs to give the impression of a weapon, so it needs some point to it without it being dangerous to Iggy or anyone he might swing at. It also needs to be lightweight since he needs to carry it the entire play. We’re not sure, though, how to make it without making Iggy’s arm seem super long.”
As Jillian pinned Miss Gray down by sketching out the all-important hook, Louise took Tesla into the next room. Thankfully Mr. Kessler hadn’t arrived yet, so the Annex’s lights were still off. Weak morning sunlight filtered in through the wall of windows. On the top floor of the school, the art rooms looked out over the distant Hudson River. Louise left the overhead lights off and hurried to the 3D printer. The screen was reporting the job completed.
Her hands shook as she opened up Tesla’s onboard storage compartment and took out the fake generator. She set it down on the nearest table. As she took her hands away, she was filled with the certainty that she had put it in the wrong place. She snatched it up and then started to put it down, farther from the table’s edge so it couldn’t fall. It felt even more dangerous, but now that she was paying attention, there hadn’t been any chance it could have fallen from the first place she put it. She slid it forward. When the fake generator teetered on the very edge, the uneasiness disappeared.
She frowned at the precariously balanced fake. That didn’t make sense.
The hallway door was flung open and Mr. Kessler stormed in, flipping on lights. “Stupid freaking steps.” He was panting as if he had just run up all twelve flights. “If I wanted a Stairmaster workout, I’d get a gym membership.”
He hurried to his desk, logged onto his desktop, and quickly pulled up several windows, muttering, “Come on, come on.”
What should she do? It was obvious he didn’t realize she was in the room. She hadn’t gotten the real magic generator out of the printer. The fake was sitting out in plain sight. She was going to get caught! Should she try and hide the fake, or hope that Mr. Kessler didn’t notice that there was something still in the printer?
In the art room, Jillian did something that made Miss Gray raise her voice.
Kessler looked up, saw the open door, and hissed in surprise and anger. He jerked around to stare at her, the hiss becoming an explosive “Shit! What are you doing in here?”
“Me?” she squeaked as she slid sideways, blocking the view of the printer since she couldn’t shove the fake back into Tesla without being caught. “I was just getting our job out of the printer.”
“You’re not supposed to be here alone. You shouldn’t even be here with that big ape of a teacher. And what the hell is that thing you have in there?”
“You took it out?” Even as she said it, Louise remembered that the status light was still on, which it wouldn’t be if he’d taken the generator out of the printer.
“I checked your code with the teacher-access option.” He kept coming like a freight train without brakes. “The school board has made it clear that it will be my head on the chopping block if a kid used the printer to make bombs, drugs, or porn. Drugs or porn? What a complete joke.”
Louise backed up until she was pressed against the printer, stunned and dismayed. What could she say? The magic generator was just the tip of the iceberg. Alone, it would probably seem harmless. The danger to their plans was anyone digging deeper into their activities. The scope of their plans would probably stay unfathomable even with the generator’s discovery, but it would mean that they were watched closer and every action questioned.
“I took it out already.” She pointed a trembling finger at the fake.
“I don’t know what the hell you were trying to make, but this isn’t a holographic projector like—” He started to reach for decoy generator.
There was a sudden loud roar, and the world shuddered. The fake toppled from the table. Louise squeaked in surprise, reaching out to catch it and then jerking her hands back as she realized that she wanted it to fall, wanted it to break. Her heart leapt and jerked as Mr. Kessler nearly caught it. It tumbled in his fingertips and crashed to the floor, smashing into dozens of pieces.
“Oh no!” Louise cried as she was filled with the sense that something horrible had just happened. “What was that?”
All the lights flickered and then went out, leaving them in the dim morning light. Outside, a dozen car alarms wailed and smoke billowed up from somewhere below. Mr. Kessler froze in place, staring at all the broken plastic littering the floor.
She hurried to the window and looked out.
Twelve stories down, people were littered on the ground like a collection of dolls ravaged by the neighbor’s dog. The twisted wreckage of a large box truck sat burning. An explosion had gutted the building across the street, revealing an interior twisted beyond recognition as the façade tore away. Paper drifted like autumn leaves in the black oily smoke.
Mr. Kessler joined her at the window, mouth working but nothing coming out. Finally he managed to force out. “No. No. This is wrong. What could have happened?”
“Warning,” Tesla said in his little Welsh schoolboy voice. “A bomb has been detonated within the city block where I’m currently located. Warning: a ten-alarm fire has been reported within the city block where I’m currently located. Warning: a 911 call reporting multiple injuries has been made from the building where I’m currently located. Initiating emergency response.”
Louise had no clue to what “emergency response” might be, but it didn’t sound good. Tesla probably could drag her out of the building and back home. Most likely, though, it would be safer to stay in the Annex. . She squeaked as she remembered what she’d been in the middle of. Oh no, the magic generator was still in the 3D printer!