The Unexplainable Disappearance of Mars Patel Read online

  Those sounded like someone from another planet.

  “Uh, nice to see you, too, Mars,” JP said sarcastically, but more hurt than anything.

  Toothpick was more direct. “We thought we’d never see you again,” he said.

  “Mars, are you OK?” Caddie asked cautiously. Why couldn’t she sense what he was thinking? All his thoughts were gone. It was just like Jonas.

  “I’m great, Caddie,” Mars pronounced. “Never been better!”

  “Never been better?” JP said incredulously. “How did you get here? Did they kidnap you?”

  Mars motioned them to come with him down the hallway. With reluctance, they followed him, looking at one another in bewilderment.

  “Don’t you love how the walls open?” Mars asked, beaming. “Come on, guys. That’s right. I need you to keep following me!”

  JP, Caddie, and Toothpick lagged behind.

  “What’s happened to him?” JP whispered. “That’s not Mars!”

  “Maybe they’ve brainwashed him, too,” Toothpick whispered. “And he’s now a zombie.”

  “Can we trust him? What if he’s taking us straight to Pruitt?” JP asked.

  Caddie frowned. “Mars isn’t acting like himself. But what choice do we have?”

  “To not follow him!”

  “Odds are better if we stay with Mars,” Toothpick said quietly.

  In front of them, the doors of an elevator suddenly opened.

  “Come on!” Mars called out. “The elevator doesn’t stay open forever!”

  The rest of them shuffled inside. JP was scowling, Toothpick was fidgeting, and Caddie was thinking so hard she almost ran into a wall. Droney hovered next to all of them.

  “Oh, drones are not allowed inside the elevator,” Mars said.

  “He’s mine,” Toothpick said. “I reprogrammed him.”

  Droney made a clicking sound.

  “It’s OK, Droney,” Toothpick said. “We’re not leaving you behind, right?”

  “Slight deviations from protocol are accepted with authorization,” clipped Droney.

  Mars sighed. “Very well. I can make an exception this one time.” He punched some numbers into the wall of the elevator. “OK, everyone, hold on.”

  The doors closed. Suddenly the compartment began to climb, accelerating rapidly up the elevator shaft.

  “H-how fast i-s-s this thinnng?” JP asked. Their fingers were coiled around the hand railings.

  “Pretty fast,” Mars said.

  “It’s a high-speed lift,” Toothpick explained, his voice wavering with the speed. “How fast are we going, Droney?”

  “Fifty miles per second,” Droney answered. “And accelerating.”

  “I think I’m going to be sick,” Caddie said. She closed her eyes, trying not to think about the last meal she’d eaten.

  “Almost there,” Mars said cheerfully.

  “Now eighty,” Droney added.

  “Where are we going, Mars?” JP asked.

  Just when they thought they couldn’t go any faster, the elevator finally began slowing down.

  Slowing, slowing, slowing.

  “The roof,” Mars said as the elevator came to a stop.

  As they stepped off the elevator and the doors closed behind them, they felt the ground shudder. There was shaking everywhere around them. It seemed like the air was shaking along with the building.

  “Why does it keep shaking like that?” JP asked. “If we’re in the middle of an earthquake, I want to know!”

  “Droney?” Toothpick asked. “Was that an earthquake?”

  Droney was not able to confirm. “Lemon, strawberry, or orange soda?” it chirped.

  “What?” Toothpick said, surprised.

  “Must be a glitch,” said Mars. “That’s why drones aren’t allowed in the elevators. The speed jumbles their circuits.”

  “I think they jumbled mine,” Caddie said, her hand on her stomach.

  “Come this way, gentle people,” Mars pressed them.

  “Gentle people?” JP snorted. “I think we’ve entered the twilight zone.”

  Toothpick was looking at Droney, bemused. “Sorry, I guess that elevator malfunctioned your software, D. I’ll take a look.”

  By now the sun was starting to sink in the sky, casting long orange streaks of light across the sound. The outlines of fishing boats dotted the horizon, and in the distance, the crown of Mount Rainier jutted out from a ring of clouds. It was a breathtaking view. Caddie stood for a moment, her heart beating fast. “Look,” she called, pointing.

  “Exactly,” Mars said. “Everyone stop to look at the amazing view.” He shepherded the three of them to the railing. “Have you ever seen anything like it in your life?” His eyes flickered down momentarily to look over the railing. “You wouldn’t be able to see this from Port Elizabeth, would you? Only here, way high up on the roof of Pruitt Prep.”

  Toothpick was the first one to notice the drop. “It’s pretty steep, isn’t it?” he asked.

  “Yes. Yes, it is.” Mars let out his breath. “And I’m sorry, guys, but I have to do this.”

  Before anyone could say anything, they felt Mars’s hands on their backs, pushing hard: first Toothpick, then JP and Caddie at the same time. “No . . . Mars!” Their voices pierced the air as they fell, tumbling from the rooftop toward the earth.

  Then the ground met them sooner than anyone expected. There was a thump as the four of them fell onto a ledge jutting out from under the roof.

  Caddie lay for a moment in a daze.

  “Am I dead?” JP asked. “Am I dreaming?”

  “No, we just fell less than two feet,” Toothpick said. “This ledge broke our fall.”

  Mars who had jumped after them, rushed over. “I’m so sorry, guys. It’s me in the flesh. This is the only place where there’s no camera.”

  “You planned this?” JP said. “Dude!”

  Caddie looked at Mars in awe. All his thoughts were coming back, as if the doors that had been closed were now open. They were good ones: I’m so happy to see you guys; I would never do anything to hurt you; I’m glad you’re OK; we’re a team forever!

  “You’ve never done that before, Mars!” she said.

  “You mean pushed your friends off the roof to save them?” JP asked. “Well, I’ve never been a human slingshot, either. Group hug, guys!”

  Everyone laughed as they leaned in, happy and relieved. For a few moments, everyone was talking at the same time, sharing what had happened so far while Toothpick opened Droney up and reset his circuits.

  “How come I can read your thoughts now and I couldn’t before?” Caddie asked, then flushed. “I missed you too, Mars.”

  “Mind training,” Mars said. “It’s the first thing they teach you here. You concentrate on one object, like the school building, and that blocks out all your thoughts. We have to go through all these training modules.”

  “Training for what?” Toothpick asked.

  “Not sure, Pick,” Mars said. “But mind training was useful. I didn’t want you to read my mind, Caddie, and figure everything out.”

  “What happened in the parking lot, Mars?” JP said. “You never said.”

  “I happened!” From one of the windows, Jonas crawled out onto the ledge. “First the dudes wearing the white suits came for me at school. Then I went back with them, and we got ole Mars.”

  “Jonas! You’re here,” Caddie said. “And you’re normal.”

  “Ha ha,” Jonas said. “Sorry, guys. That was Mars’s idea. When we saw you in the surveillance cameras, he decided we should pretend we didn’t know why you were here and block our thoughts. Otherwise Pruitt would be onto our plan.”

  “What plan?” Toothpick said.

  “To infiltrate Pruitt Prep and find Aurora,” Mars said. “What else?”

  “Did you find her, Mars?” JP asked. “Or LIL?”

  He shook his head. “I didn’t hear back from Lost in London. I don’t have my phone with me. And I haven’t found Au
rora, either. At least not yet. But there are so many kids here, guys. You remember the flyers? I recognize some of them.”

  “Those are the missing kids, then!” Caddie said. “But how did they get here?”

  “Were they abducted? Did Oliver Pruitt lure them?” JP asked.

  “And why do they look so . . . happy?” Caddie wondered. “They don’t act like they were kidnapped.”

  “They are happy,” Mars said. “Wouldn’t you be if you got to be here but you didn’t need to take the GIFT? I can’t figure it out, but it’s like they bypassed the test and now they’re here, training for something big. Not sure what. No one says. But there are literally hundreds and hundreds of kids from all over the world. And I’m sure Aurora is one of them.”

  “Then where is she?” JP asked. “Have you seen her, Jonas?”

  He shook his head. “The White Suits have been keeping an eye on me,” Jonas said. “I can go most places, but I can’t talk to the kids.”

  “Neither can I,” Mars said. “And there’s one wing of the building that’s heavily guarded — they won’t let me go there. But now that you guys are here, we’re going to try. Because why do you think they don’t want me there?”

  “’Cause Aurora is there,” Toothpick said. “Good thinking, Mars. So how do we get in?”

  “I know most of the access codes,” Jonas offered. “They’ve put me in training the whole time. Flight simulators, combat training, coding, hacking, virtual-reality terrain exploration. Nobody is telling me why, but I guess they think I’m good at that stuff.” He shrugged good-naturedly. “And yeah, I guess I am. But I can help you, Mars, with the codes, if there’s a door you need opened.”

  “Caddie, can you sense where Aurora is?” Mars asked.

  “I’ll try, but I’ve never been good with her,” she said.

  “Most people aren’t,” JP said. “And if you need anyone or anything busted, I can do that.”

  “Droney’s fixed now so he can help with layout,” Toothpick said. “Including the secret corridors. Right, Droney?”

  “Affirmative,” Droney responded.

  Mars blinked. “I swear, your drone even sounds like you, Pick. All right, guys, let’s go!”

  One by one, the five of them crawled back through the window Jonas had left open.

  Once everyone was inside, Mars paused for a moment to regard Toothpick’s drone. “Let’s see what you can do, Droney. I’m trying to access the west wing auxiliary chamber. Any chance you know how to get there quick?”

  Droney clicked and whirred. “I can show you the way,” it said. “Follow me.”

  All of a sudden it clicked rapidly several times.

  “Why is he doing that, Pick?” Jonas asked. “I thought he was fixed.”

  “He is,” Toothpick said. “That’s the sound Droney makes when he’s making a system alert.”

  “System alert?” Caddie asked.

  “Yeah. Like, danger ahead,” Toothpick said.

  They looked down the dark hallway where Droney was hovering a few feet ahead of them. Should they turn back or keep going?

  “Who’s in?” Mars finally asked. “We can’t stop now.”

  “Geez, Mars, do you need to even ask?” JP asked.

  Droney clicked.

  “Droney says he will lead us,” Toothpick said.

  “Caddie?” Mars asked.

  Caddie could feel everyone’s thoughts waiting for her approval, too. It was strange how things had changed in a few days. Mars had always been the leader before he disappeared. Now . . . was she one, too? “Since when has danger stopped us?” she said.

  As they continued, JP whispered, “It sure does feel good to be following one of your stupid plans again, Mars.”

  “My stupid plan?” Mars asked. “What about slingshotting you into the school?”

  “That was stupider,” Caddie said. “But it worked.” She frowned. A headache was starting to grow. She hadn’t had one since the day Mars disappeared. It surprised her now, the sudden intensity of it. She wondered if she should say anything or wait until she knew more.

  “Great minds think alike, Cads,” Mars said.

  “I’ll say,” she said. The pain was jabbing at her. It was getting hard to ignore. “Mars . . .” Her voice came out as a whisper. The headache was getting stronger. Like the one she’d had at the assembly. No. Actually, this was worse. “Mars . . .” she tried again.

  Mars hadn’t noticed yet. They had reached an intersection of hallways, and he wasn’t sure where they were anymore. Meanwhile, Droney was clicking and whirring like crazy.

  “Caddie, are you OK?” JP asked suddenly.

  “My head,” she said weakly.

  “Lean on me, Cads,” JP said. “Something’s wrong with Caddie.”

  “Droney, too,” Toothpick said. “He’s on hyper-alert. Something is seriously —” He stopped.

  Before he could finish, an entire wall slid open before them. Then came a deafening roar.

  “It’s that’s thing!” JP shouted.

  In the hallway, the howling creature seemed even larger than before. Its legs were covered in thick fur and its multiple eyes bore down on them like a spider looks at its prey before striking.

  Jonas leaped forward. “Let’s see if my combat training helped!”

  “Jonas, no!” Caddie called out.

  With one swift thrust, the creature batted Jonas out of the way, sending him crashing into a wall. He fell into a heap on the ground.

  “Jonas!” JP exclaimed. “I’m coming for you!”

  “Nobody move!” The voice was sharp and familiar. The creature instantly retreated as golf-ball-size pellets of food were hurled its way and it commenced eating ravenously.

  Dazed, the kids turned around toward the familiar voice.

  “Sorry — someone let Muffin out of the room before feeding her,” he said.

  Standing a few feet away was a man in a white suit and dark-framed glasses, wearing an impenetrable smile. It was Mr. Q.

  Mr. Q, what are you doing here?” asked Mars.

  “And that wolf-spider’s name is Muffin?” JP asked incredulously.

  “She’s actually genetically related to a microscopic tardigrade,” Mr. Q said. He walked a few paces toward Muffin, who was still devouring her pellets. “Only much larger. Plus, she’s been crossbred with a wolf for agility and strength. Which means she’s got amazing survival skills, JP.”

  “Yeah, like for what?” JP asked hotly.

  “Oh,” Mr. Q said archly. “Everything.”

  Muffin let out a burp.

  “You still haven’t said why you’re here,” Mars said. “You’re always showing up when somebody’s in trouble. Maybe you’re the reason we’re in trouble in the first place.”

  “It’s because you work here, don’t you, Mr. Q?” Caddie demanded. “That’s why you’ve been following us. You work for Pruitt!”

  At this, the tardigrade rose to her full height and emitted a piercing yowl.

  Caddie felt herself wanting to shrink back, but she stood her ground.

  Mr. Q held his hands up to soothe Muffin. “There, there.”

  “You mean you’re on Pruitt’s side?” JP sputtered. “And here I thought you were cool, like the only grown-up who was looking out for us.”

  “All those times in detention, you were bringing us cookies,” Toothpick said, “and you said we were good kids? You were playing us.”

  “Listen, everyone. It’s complicated,” Mr. Q said. “I was looking out for you. But it’s bigger than you think.” He turned to Mars. “I really thought you had me figured on the boat that night.”

  “I knew something was up with you,” Mars said. “I don’t get it. What do you want from us? Why bring me here? And where is Aurora? No one ever answers that.”

  From down the hallway came a groan.

  “Guys,” JP said. “I think Jonas is really hurt.”

  Jonas was struggling to turn over. “That was a doozy,” he murmured.
>
  “He’ll be OK,” said Mr. Q. He reached for the wall and pressed some buttons on a keypad, which seemed to be attached to an intercom. “Hi. Send over a team to Hallway 2C. We’ve got a student down.”

  Within a minute, two medics in white suits arrived with a first-aid kit and a stretcher.

  “Take our pal Jonas down to infirmary,” Mr. Q told them. “Get him fixed up.”

  “You got it, sir,” said one of the medics.

  Caddie looked on in dismay.

  “So you’re working with the White Suits?” she asked. “Unbelievable.”

  “No, Caddie,” Mr. Q said. “They work for me. And for Oliver, of course.”

  The medics laid out the stretcher. “On the count of three,” one of them said to the other.

  “Don’t touch him,” JP said angrily.

  “Easy, JP,” Mr. Q said. “We’re not going to hurt Jonas; we’re going to heal him. He’s too valuable to lose.”

  “Too valuable to lose,” Caddie murmured. Her attention had shifted to the tardigrade. She was still immense, fully armored, and scary, but in her multiple eyes, Caddie sensed an intelligence and purpose. The tardigrade was watching her, too.

  Mr. Q noticed this soundless exchange. “I think Muffin likes you, Caddie,” he said wryly. “And by the way, you’re all too valuable to lose. Why do you think you’re here? You, Mars, Toothpick, JP, and Jonas? You might have noticed by now that you have special powers that get dialed up on Gale Island. That’s by design. This island was made to bring out the best in everyone.”

  “But why, Mr. Q?” Mars asked. “What does Oliver want with all of us?”

  By now the two medics had lifted Jonas off the ground and were slowly carrying him down the hall. “We’re getting to that, Mars,” Mr. Q said. He pressed another button on the wall, and a door opened to reveal a room. “Jonas is going down to the infirmary, and Muffin wants you to wait in there.”

  “Wait?” Caddie asked. “Wait for what?”

  “We’re not going inside any room,” JP huffed, “not until —” Muffin lunged, and JP let out an uncharacteristic shriek. “Call off your pet spider,” JP said fiercely. “Or I can’t promise what I’ll do next.”

  “JP,” Mars said. “It’s OK. I don’t think we have a choice.”