The Extraordinary Education of Nicholas Benedict Read online

  Nicholas gave John a sly look. For some time neither of them spoke. They both knew that a secret had just passed between them, and were pausing to appreciate it.

  Eventually Nicholas broke the silence. “So if you think that about covers things…”

  “I’d say it does!” John said, shaking his head.

  “Then I want to ask you about something I saw Mr. Collum doing,” Nicholas said, and he told John what he’d seen.

  “Really? He was actually doing that?” John glanced around the dining hall. Most of the children were still eating their breakfast. “I can tell you what that’s about—but not here. Too many ears. Let’s go out to the park.”

  The boys carried their dishes into the kitchen, where a sleepy girl plunged them into sudsy water without looking up or speaking a word. Then John led Nicholas through an enormous but sparsely stocked butler’s pantry (a shortcut, he said, though a rather depressing one if you paid attention to the empty shelves), on into a sort of antechamber hung about with raincoats and tattered straw hats, and finally out the back door.

  It was a truly pretty summer morning, with blue skies and a cooling breeze, and the property behind the Manor was just as pretty. “The park,” as John called it, appeared to be exactly that—a big, grassy, wooded area with widely spaced, majestic old oak trees and no underbrush to speak of. From the back door, a stone path led across the grass to a quaint old gazebo, where it then veered westward, toward a long wooden building with a fenced lot behind it that resembled a corral. And so it once had been, as John informed Nicholas, for the building used to be a stable. Now it served as the orphanage schoolhouse, and the fenced lot as a sort of playground.

  “Everybody calls it ‘the lot,’ ” John said. “We’re not much for imagination around here.”

  The property was a lovely place altogether, but not altogether in good repair. The gazebo was in desperate need of fresh paint, and there was no water spouting from the decorative fountain beyond it. Much of the grass in the park was dead and brown, especially between the back of the Manor and the front of the schoolhouse, where so many children had walked, forgoing the stone path. The flower beds that ran along the rear of the Manor must once have been impressive, but now they were barren, with the exception of a few sparse clusters of daylilies and other perennials that had not required new planting and had, therefore, sprung cheerily into the world only to find themselves alone and neglected. If Nicholas had not already known that the orphanage had fallen on hard times, the sad condition of its property would have told him plainly enough.

  John and Nicholas stood near the back door, considering how best to speak in private. They were not the only ones to have ventured outside. A handful of younger boys were playing marbles on a patch of dirt nearby, and over near the gazebo steps sat two exhausted-looking girls with a jump rope, waiting for a third girl to come out and make a game. In the gazebo itself, watching over them all, was a petite blonde woman in a peach-colored gingham dress. She was pacing back and forth with tiny steps, as if her dress were very tight around her ankles, although in fact it did not quite reach her ankles and did not appear tight in the least.

  “That’s Miss Candace,” John said quietly. “The orphanage nurse. I think she’s a bit crazy. Whatever you do, don’t let her give you drops. I don’t even know what they’re for, but she loves to give them. Here, let’s just walk around awhile.”

  The boys began strolling in the direction of the schoolhouse, following the track of dead grass. During free time you could go anywhere in the park, John said, as long as you remained in sight of the chaperone on duty. He pointed past the schoolhouse toward a thin line of trees, hickories mostly, that were much younger and smaller than the towering oaks. “The farm’s just beyond those trees. When you’re on larder duty, you have to go over in the mornings and evenings—there’s a path that cuts through.”

  Nicholas nodded, trying to suppress his impatience. From Mrs. Brindle’s speeches and what John had told him over breakfast, he had already deduced where the Manor’s farm was situated, just as he had known at once that the woman in the gazebo was the nurse. That had been a simple matter of counting, for there were only five adults on the orphanage staff (not counting the schoolmaster, who would arrive in August), and Nicholas had already met the other four.

  Finally, after what felt like ages but was in fact only half a minute, John deemed they were sufficiently out of earshot. “I’ll tell you right off, I think it’s nonsense,” he said, stopping to look back at the Manor. He put his hands on his hips and studied the impressive building. “But obviously Mr. Collum doesn’t think so. Obviously he thinks there really is a treasure hidden somewhere in there.”

  Nicholas’s heart skipped. He thought he must not have heard John right. “A treasure? Are you serious?”

  “Apparently Mr. Collum is. I thought he sort of half believed it, maybe, but from what you say, it sounds like more than that.” John scratched his head thoughtfully and started walking again. “He called me into his office last week to ask if I’d heard any odd rumors. He hasn’t been here long, see, and I’ve been here over a year. He thought I might know some things he didn’t. He made it all sound like he was just curious. He wanted to know if any of the children believed in silly things like ghosts and monsters, or mysterious treasures and secret hiding places, and so on. At least that’s what he said. But he went on a long time about the treasure and the hiding places, which did make me wonder.”

  “What kind of treasure?” Nicholas asked. They were walking at an easy pace toward the back of the park, yet he suddenly felt short of breath. “Do you have any idea what he’s talking about?”

  “It just so happens I do,” John said. “For one thing, on his very first day here, Mr. Collum ordered everyone—staff and kids alike—to go looking for every scrap of paperwork they could find. He knew that the last director, Mr. Bottoms, had scattered financial records all around the Manor—in desks and cubbies, lying on top of windowsills, you name it.”

  “Why on earth would he do that?” Nicholas asked.

  “Because he’d found out he was going to be investigated, and he wanted to make it as hard on the inspectors as possible. What he didn’t realize was that they already had enough evidence to arrest him. He’d gone to all that trouble for nothing. And he did go to a lot of trouble—the records he left scattered everywhere had all been falsified. Stacks and stacks of notebooks and ledgers, all of it rubbish. It took Mr. Collum a week to go through it all, and every day he just got more upset.”

  Nicholas tried to imagine being desperate enough to take such extreme measures. What kind of director let himself get into such a pickle? “Mr. Bottoms sounds like a piece of work,” he observed.

  “He might be one,” John said, “but the real trouble was that he never did one. He started out foolish and lazy and ended up foolish and crooked. I guess that’s the way it is with some people. Not Mr. Collum, though. You have to hand it to him—he’s worked hard. He took this job thinking he’d fix all the problems, and he’s tried like the dickens. But things were worse than he’d realized. There was almost no money left. He had to cut the staff’s pay, so they all quit. He managed to hire new staff, but they aren’t exactly crackerjacks. I think mostly they’re people who needed a place to stay and would work for pennies.”

  “How do you know all this?” Nicholas asked.

  John shrugged. “Mostly from being here and paying attention, though some of it comes straight from Mr. Collum. He seems to trust me, though I’m not sure why. Maybe because I keep my nose clean. Anyway, a few times when I’ve been helping file paperwork in his office, he’s gotten upset about something Mr. Bottoms did—he’ll open a folder, look through it, and then his face will go red and he’ll just pop. He’ll go on and on about Mr. Bottoms and all the problems here and how much is expected of him and so on. Then he’ll go out to the front porch and smoke his pipe, and when he comes back in, he goes right back to work as if he’s never said anything.”


  “And what do you say to him?”

  “Are you joking? I don’t say a word. He doesn’t want to hear anything from a kid, not even a kid he trusts.”

  The boys had reached the back of the park, where the grass gave way to undergrowth, and the trees grew much more densely. The park was bounded by real woods. The thick trees rose up a high, steep hill, almost a small mountain, whose crest could not be seen from below. Nicholas could hear a woodpecker at work somewhere in the trees far above them, and his mind returned to the image of Mr. Collum in the drawing room, tapping and listening.

  “So the orphanage has a terrible money problem,” Nicholas said, looking up into the rising woods, “and Mr. Collum would love to find a treasure to solve it. I understand all that. But why does he think there’s a treasure to find?”

  “Last week,” John said in reply, “Gertrude McGillicuddy was looking for sewing supplies in an old bureau in the basement. She dropped a thimble or something, and when she got down to look for it, she discovered a sort of secret drawer under the bureau. And when she looked inside the drawer—”

  “She found that ledger!” Nicholas cried, suddenly understanding. “The one Mr. Collum’s looking at all the time!”

  “You guessed it,” John said. “I could tell right away it was something special—or at least that Mr. Collum thought it was. From the moment Gertrude brought it to him, he started behaving differently. Sort of… well, agitated, I suppose, and preoccupied. And it was the day after he got that ledger that he asked me about treasures and hiding places. So I think we can put two and two together.” He gestured toward the Manor. “We’d better head back that way. Miss Candace is getting worried—you can tell by the way she hops on her toes and shakes her head.”

  Nicholas caught his arm. “But wait! When I asked if you knew what this treasure business was about, you started out saying ‘For one thing.’ I take it that the ledger is the one thing. So what’s the other thing?”

  “You really don’t miss a beat, do you, Nick?” John said with a wondering look. “Well, I wasn’t trying to keep it a secret. Here, let’s walk and I’ll tell you.” They ambled toward the Manor again. Nicholas could see Miss Candace leaning over the gazebo rail peering in their direction with an anxious frown, as if she couldn’t see them very well. Perhaps she needed spectacles.

  “I used to hear my parents talk about it,” John said. “They would see something in the papers that would remind them, and one of them would say, ‘Did anyone ever find out about the Rothschild inheritance?’ And the other would say, ‘Not that I know of. Still a mystery, apparently.’ Naturally I asked them about it.”

  Here John fell silent for several paces, and Nicholas, though he was burning with impatience, knew better than to prompt him. He could tell that John was thinking about his parents. Nicholas had never known his own parents, so he did not know what it felt like to lose them. But he had known plenty of orphans who could remember their parents perfectly well, and he had long since learned to recognize when they were missing them and feeling sad.

  When John began speaking again, whatever amusement or good feeling he had accumulated over the course of the morning had clearly evaporated. He was not terse, exactly, nor did he sound particularly gloomy. But Nicholas sensed the difference in his expression and his tone. He was simply quieter and more matter-of-fact. “You know who the Rothschilds were, Nick?”

  “Sure, Mrs. Brindle told me about them.”

  “Well, a long time ago,” said John, “shortly after they were married, Mrs. Rothschild inherited some money. Her father had been pretty wealthy, almost as well off as Mr. Rothschild, and she was his only living relative. It was in all the papers, with headlines like ‘The Rich Get Richer,’ and that sort of thing. As far as anyone knew, she never spent any of that inheritance—she didn’t need to—and yet it was never accounted for.”

  “How do you mean, ‘never accounted’?” Nicholas asked.

  John shrugged. “After Mr. Rothschild died, there were lots of people keeping track of where his fortune went, and apparently the money didn’t add up. Some of it went into starting the orphanage and setting up a fund to keep it running, and a lot of it went to charity. But if you included Mrs. Rothschild’s inheritance—which should have become part of Mr. Rothschild’s fortune—there ought to have been more money than there was. As far as people can figure it, her inheritance just… disappeared.”

  “So it’s an actual mystery!” Nicholas said, and he laughed. The mere notion of a hidden treasure was enough to put him in a good mood, but the idea that he might actually find it had put him in very high spirits indeed. “How much did Mrs. Rothschild inherit, exactly?”

  “I can’t say exactly,” John replied, “but I remember my parents said it was in the millions.”

  Nicholas stopped in his tracks. “Millions?”

  “That’s what they said. That’s why it was such a big deal.”

  Nicholas’s mind started spinning madly. He had suspected that this “treasure” might be some thousands of dollars. After all, that would be enough to solve quite a lot of problems. But millions of dollars? That was a different sort of treasure entirely. With millions of dollars—with even one million dollars—a boy like himself could leave orphanages behind forever! No more bullies, no more Mr. Collums, no more sleeping in upstairs dungeons! Why, with millions of dollars and a mind like Nicholas’s, anything was possible! Anything!

  John had stopped walking, too, and was looking back at Nicholas expectantly. “Well? What do you think?”

  “I think I want to get my hands on that ledger,” Nicholas breathed.

  Nicholas was eager to discuss the treasure more, but no sooner had John told him about the Rothschild inheritance than he felt the heavy, irresistible shade of sleep drawing down on him. Saying more would have to wait.

  Early on, Nicholas had come to think of his different kinds of sleeping spells as “naps” and “collapses.” This spell in the park, fortunately, was one of his naps. At the first hint of drowsiness, he sat down on the grass. “Sorry,” he muttered, and he tried asking John to look out for him, but already he was too sleepy to form words. He lay back. He had a vision of green leaves and blue sky, and then of John’s face wearing an expression of something like sympathy (though perhaps it was just contemplation), and then a black curtain was drawn over everything, and he saw nothing more.

  Fifteen minutes later he awoke to the sound of distant voices. Sensing that he was alone, he sat up and looked around, frightening a bunny that had ventured out from under the gazebo and was grazing nearby. It bolted back through a hole in the latticework. There was no one in sight. He could tell from the voices, however, that the girls had gathered inside the schoolhouse and the boys were in the side yard. The Crafts and Skills activity must be getting under way. Nicholas brushed off his clothes, steadied himself, and hurried around the corner of the Manor.

  The side yard was a stretch of ground, perhaps a hundred paces wide, that occupied the space between the Manor and the bordering woods to the east. In the morning sunlight, Nicholas absorbed all the details of the shapes he’d seen the night before: the garden, which must be Mr. Griese’s herb garden, was carefully tended, with bright yellow and orange marigolds planted around it; the crumbling old stone well had a padlocked wooden cover secured over its opening, no doubt to prevent accidental drownings; and the dilapidated wooden structure beyond it, with the spade leaning against its door, was surely Mr. Griese’s gardening shed. Nicholas took in these details with a glance. His main focus was the line of boys streaming in and out of the Manor’s side door like a colony of ants.

  Chattering and fussing as they worked, the boys were carrying out tools and depositing them upon a number of makeshift tables arranged between the side door and the well. Mr. Pileus stood among the tables, attempting to direct traffic, but his reluctance to speak rendered him fairly useless, and there was a great deal of jostling and colliding. Two boys were kneeling in the grass, pickin
g up the tools they had dropped, and Nicholas saw two others sucking on scraped knuckles. Several of the boys saw Nicholas approaching and quickly glanced away again, as if they were afraid to look at him.

  John Cole, who had just set down a box of scrap metal, spotted him and called out, “Hey, Nick! We’re bringing stuff up from the basement.” He lingered at the table, apparently clearing out space for more things. When Nicholas came over, John added under his breath, “Don’t go down there. The Spiders are waiting for you.” And he went back inside before Nicholas could reply.

  Now Nicholas understood why no one else wanted to look at him. They didn’t dare. If they gave the trap away, even accidentally, the Spiders would punish them for it. This surely applied to John as well, so Nicholas went straight to work at the tables, sorting the tools from the materials, trying to give the impression he was actually busy in the yard and not just avoiding the basement. He didn’t want anyone to guess he’d been warned. Everything had been placed on the tables willy-nilly, so there was plenty of work to be done. Mr. Pileus saw what he was doing and nodded with approval. Nicholas relaxed. For the moment, anyway, he was safe.

  He was also beginning to enjoy himself. Nicholas had never seen so many tools, much less been allowed to use any. With such a store of tools, a skilled person could easily cut, grind, fasten, bolt, pin, solder, weld, or smelt anything that came to mind. Nicholas was fascinated. He was hardly a skilled person himself, but with every tool he touched, a vision formed in his mind of what might be accomplished with it. The only trouble would be learning how best to operate man-sized tools with boy-sized hands.

  With keen interest, Nicholas considered the scrap metal, the files, the jigsaw. He had a key to make, and he needed to find the best way to do it. In his pocket he had the wax mold, about the size and shape of a small bar of soap. He almost hadn’t risked bringing it. He had studied the key’s impression so carefully, memorizing its every groove and dimension, he’d thought he might not even need it. But he had tucked it into his pocket just in case. Later he would melt away the evidence.