It was 7:55, and just as the entry bell clanged, Robert said, “I’ve got something for you guys, and for me, too.”
He glanced toward the doorway—Wally wasn’t in sight. Reaching into his backpack, he pulled out three iPads.
“I know this seems kind of over the top, but I got the cheapest ones available with the least amount of storage. But I did pay a little extra to get cellular connectivity along with the Wi-Fi. Plus, I bought a really fast portable Wi-Fi hotspot device with about six hours of battery life, so we can set up our own private network if we need one. And when you two were taking your sweet time getting back here, I opened a Bluetooth connection to the new camera and uploaded all the pictures I took of the post in the hallway, and all the other photos we’ve got too. So we can each study them. And we all have access to a secure cloud storage space too—touch the app called Notes, and you’ll see some instructions and the password for that. These things also take pretty good pictures and movies. And you can text, and there’s also video conferencing if we need it. I mean, I know these aren’t absolutely necessary, but . . . portable communication matters a lot right now, don’t you think?”
Jill held out her hand right away, and Robert passed her the one with the blue cover. “Great!” she said. “But, of course, when this work’s done, we’ll sell them and put the money back into the trust account.”
“Oh, absolutely!” said Robert.
Ben had to hide a smile. Jill was getting very comfy with the idea of buying whatever they needed. She hadn’t batted an eye last night about spending twenty-two million dollars to shut down the Glennley real estate attack, and neither had Robert. That whole plan was moving ahead, and the lawyer was meeting Tom Benton and Mrs. Keane at the bank this morning to sign some papers.
Robert handed him the iPad with the gray cover. He flipped it open, and the screen lit up. There was a keypad labeled ENTER PASSCODE.
“What’s the code?” he asked.
“Four letters,” Robert whispered, “k, p, r, s.”
“Nice!”
Jill frowned as she tapped in the code. “But . . . what do I tell my mom? ’Cause we can’t leave these at school, and she’s gonna find this thing at home, I know she will.”
Ben had wondered the exact same thing, and he got it. “Just tell her the truth—it’s on loan to you as part of a grant from Edgeport Bank and Trust . . . in support of our Oakes School history project. And if she’s got a problem with that, she can call Mr. Rydens at the bank!”
Robert grinned. “Good one, Pratt!”
Jill smiled too. “And really, we could tell that to anybody here at school who asks where we got them—but . . . is having this at school even allowed?”
“Are you kidding?” said Robert. “You need to read the town newspaper more often. The school department’s gonna give one of these to every single kid in fourth through twelfth grade next year—spending Glennley’s money, I bet. There are rules about when and how they can be used, but it’s already okay for a kid to have an iPad at any school in town.”
Ben had the photo app open, checking out the pictures of the post—the images were so clear, and he knew how to make the screen do what he wanted it to. One afternoon while his mom had shopped at the Burlington Mall, he’d spent almost two hours at a store messing with the display models. But having one of his own to use? It was great, except . . .
“Hey, guys?” he said. “We’re gonna have to watch our time with these things.”
“Right!” Jill said. “This is a tool, not a toy—so, no goofing off, no downloading games or music. Okay?”
They all nodded, but their eyes never left the screens.
Then Robert said, “Except Pratt has permission to download a beginner’s sailing simulator to get ready for our race on Saturday—he’s gonna need all the help he can get!”
“Ha-ha, very funny. You need to put up your own website, Gerritt—How to Flip an Optimist onto Your Head in One Easy Lesson!”
Ten minutes later the clang of the homeroom warning bell pulled them back to reality. Ben was first on his feet.
“Well, I have zero ideas about what a brass post that looks exactly like wood has to do with us finding a safeguard—and I’ve studied every single picture we’ve got. You guys see anything?”
“Um, I was looking at the iPad instruction manual in the books app,” Jill said. “But I’ll check out the photos during homeroom.”
“Better not,” Robert said. “You pull that out, and there’ll be a crowd, and then you’ll have to start explaining . . . which is just my opinion, of course,” he added quickly. “I’m sure you’ll handle whatever comes up.”
Ben said, “See you guys later. And thanks, Gerritt—this was a good move.”
He could have walked the short way to homeroom, but Ben went out of the library and turned left, walked past the office, and then went along the hall by the janitor’s room—the same route he’d taken yesterday when he was whacking each post.
He didn’t see Lyman or Wally, so he took a good look at the fourth post from the art room. Nothing unusual at all.
Walking on, he counted his steps to the door of the art room—thirteen . . . so at around three feet per stride, that meant the posts were about twelve feet apart—seemed right.
He tried to visualize what was on the other side of that hallway wall, because there wasn’t a classroom there between the janitor’s room and the art room. And he knew that the janitor’s room didn’t extend that far along the hallway. Even though the art room sort of made an L shape, it certainly didn’t extend back twenty or thirty feet . . . .
And then it hit him. He felt stupid not to have realized it sooner. Because in the art room, in the back corner of the L, there was a door.
He’d seen it standing open plenty of times, seen the gray metal racks with the wide rolls of colored paper, seen the stacks of easels, seen all the shelves loaded with twenty different kinds of paper, large plastic canisters of tempera paint, bags of clay, bottles of glue—lots and lots of shelves that ran back toward the janitor’s room wall.
And then another thought! It was so simple it was almost stupid—walls have two sides, and so do thick posts! So it was entirely possible that the other side of post number four would be visible on the other side of the hallway wall!
Walking into homeroom, Ben’s heart was thumping out a double-time march. Some way, somehow, during the next fifty-seven minutes, he was going to visit the art supplies room.