Case File 13 #2 (14 page)

“Considering that the oldest surviving building in California is Mission San Juan Capistrano, which was built in 1776, this can't be nine hundred years old,” Angelo said. Nick was impressed that his friend could even talk. His throat felt like he'd swallowed a handful of sand.

The headmaster gave a wheezy laugh that freaked Nick out. Even standing beside his dad in the middle of the day the guy was seriously eerie. All the more so when you knew he had Cody hidden away somewhere. “This one is too smart for his own good,” he said with a strange accent Nick couldn't place. All of his s's sounded like z's, his w's and f's sounded like v's, and his d's sounded like t's. “This castle was built by one of my long dead ancestors. It was rather famous until it fell into disrepair. I had it shipped here and reassembled stone by stone.”

“That must have cost a small fortune,” Nick's father said. He held out his hand. “Daniel Braithwaite.” Nick wanted to warn him about the electricity, but managed to bite his tongue.

“Dr. Franz Dippel.” The pale man shook Mr. Braithwaite's hand, and Nick was surprised to see there wasn't so much as a spark. Maybe he could turn the power off and on. “And these must be the miscreants who broke into my school.” He turned his pink eyes on Nick, Carter, and Angelo. “I must say, you gave my students and me quite a scare,” he said with another wheezy laugh.

“
You?
” Carter sputtered. “We scared
you
? When I saw you shocking that body in your lab, my teeth chattered so hard, I sounded like a woodpecker.”

The headmaster's eyes narrowed for a moment, his face hardening into an expression that looked much closer to what Nick remembered from Sunday night. The expression disappeared so quickly Nick wondered if his dad had even seen it. When he turned to check, he saw that his father was frowning at Carter. “My son and his friends seem to think they saw something strange happening in your school,” he said. “But that's not why we're here, is it boys?”

“No,” Nick mumbled. “We're here to say we're sorry for trespassing in your school.”

“I'm sorry,” Angelo said. “We shouldn't have nosed around.”

“Yeah. I'm sorry too.” Carter rubbed a hand across his jacket and Nick was pretty sure he was checking on his cookies.

“Well,” Dr. Dippel said with a smile that looked totally fake to Nick, “no harm done.” He reached into the pocket of his suit, which looked like something a man might have worn in Europe in the 1800s, and pulled out a pair of glasses with one broken lens. “Do these belong to one of you?”

Angelo eased forward. “They're mine.” Nick could have sworn the doctor smirked as Angelo took his glasses while being careful not to touch the headmaster's fingers.

“Why don't you let me take you on a tour of the school?” Dr. Dippel suggested. “Perhaps things will look at little less ‘strange,' as you say, in the light of day.”

Nick glanced at Angelo. How could the headmaster let them inside the school knowing what they would see?

“No way,” Carter whispered. “If we go in, we'll never come out.”

“Would you boys like that?” Mr. Braithwaite asked.

Nick drew a deep breath. This was his chance to show his dad what they'd seen Sunday night. And maybe they could figure out where the headmaster had taken Cody. Unless Carter was right and it was some sort of trap.

“Let's go in,” Angelo said.

“Okay,” Nick agreed.

“Come, come.” Dr. Dippel held open the front door. As Nick entered the school, he felt like he was walking into a nightmare.

“Over there,” Nick said, pointing to the first door they had entered Sunday night.

“Of course,” the headmaster said. “Go anywhere you like.”

He was sure that the brain would be gone. But it was still on the table. “See,” Nick hissed to his dad.

Mr. Braithwaite leaned over to look in the jar. “Is this real?” he asked like a kid in a candy shop.

“Yes, of course,” the headmaster said in his strange accent. “Most schools have only pig or cow brains to study in anatomy class. This was a gift to the academy from a good friend at a large university in London.”

“That is so-o-o cool,” Mr. Braithwaite said.

Nick couldn't believe his dad was that gullible. Didn't he understand this brain hadn't come from London, but had been stolen from a cemetery or hospital right in their own hometown? “How do you explain the kids' books?” he demanded. “Don't tell me you have little kids learning how to read and studying brains at the same time.” Let him explain his way out of that.

Dr. Dippel steepled his fingers in front of his face. “I am afraid my students are not from America. In their home country they are very advanced. In English, they must learn, as you say, like the little children.”

“I want to ask them some questions,” Carter said. “Especially Jake.”

The headmaster stuck out his lower lip. “Jake?”

“You know. Seven feet tall. Wide as a dump truck,” Carter said. “He's kind of hard to miss.”

“Ahhh.” Dr. Dippel smiled. “Boleslav. A large boy to be sure. I am afraid he, along with all my other students, have gone home for the break.”

“And where would that be?” Nick asked.

Dr. Dippel smiled even wider. “Transnistria. You have heard of it?”

Nick hadn't. Even Angelo seemed unsure. “Is it somewhere near Ukraine?” he asked.

“Very good,” the headmaster said, with a clap of his pale hands. “What would you like to see now?”

Nick had a feeling Dippel would have an excuse for everything. And sure enough, the operating tables were for dissecting frogs and snakes. The lab where they'd seen blue fire was for advanced electronics. Even the body they'd seen on the table was nothing more than a robot the kids had been working on as a school project.

The headmaster led them through every room in the school. There were no hidden dungeons or cells. Nothing that looked even slightly questionable or dangerous. By the end, Nick was beginning to think they'd made a mistake.

“If you don't mind my asking,” Nick's dad said when they returned to the front of the school. “What happened to your jaw?”

Mr. Dippel touched the bolts on either side of his face. “War of Transnistria. A terrible thing. A bullet went from one side to the other, shattering my jaw and cheekbones in many places. The physicians placed screws to hold in place. Now I must eat much of, what is it you say here? Jell-O, I think?”

“I'm sorry to hear that,” Nick's dad said. “And I think we've learned a valuable lesson. Not to judge people who are different from us. Don't you agree, boys?”

Nick and his friends nodded.

Dr. Dippel laughed his odd little laugh. “And I will remember to lock my doors.”

Thanksgiving was usually one of Nick's favorite holidays. It didn't have the gifts of Christmas or the costumes of Halloween—which was his all-time favorite holiday—but it had lots of good food, no school, and great parades on TV.

This year, though, all he could think about was Cody. It was crazy how you could go from fearing someone to worrying about them in less than a week. But that's exactly what had happened. He phoned the bully's house so many times Cody's grandfather threatened to call the police if he heard from him again.

“I'm sure he'll come back once he realizes Dr. Dippel isn't going to press charges for breaking into his school,” Dad said.

“I hope so.” Nick poked listlessly at a turkey leg. But inside he knew that wasn't going to happen. Nick had no doubt something bad had happened to Cody. But there was nothing he could do about it except check the news and worry.

Finally his parents got so sick of him moping about the house that they ungrounded him, with the provision that he not go anywhere near Sumina Prep. That wasn't a problem. Nick had no desire to even see that building again. While the headmaster appeared to have explained everything away, Nick still had a strong feeling there was more to the school—and the doctor—than met the eye. But he had no proof.

Angelo's mom must have felt the same way as Nick's parents, because Friday afternoon, Angelo called to say he was no longer grounded. “You want to meet at the library?” he said. “Since it's still raining outside and all.”

Nick wasn't fooled by his friend's casual attitude for a minute. “You want to go see Mr. Blackham, don't you?” Bartholomew Blackham was a reference librarian with an open mind and an unusually broad knowledge of the supernatural. He'd helped the boys out before, when Nick turned into a zombie.

“Well,” Angelo admitted, “I
have
been doing a little research while I've been stuck at home. And I think Mr. Blackham might be able to answer some questions for us.”

“Awesome,” Nick said, feeling a slight ray of hope for the first time in days. “What about Carter? Do you think his parents will let him leave the house?”

“Are you kidding? He's driving them crazy, bugging his sisters and fighting with his little brother. They'd probably pay him to go.” Angelo paused. “Would it be okay if I invited the girls too?”

“Totally. The more brains we have working on this the better.” As soon as he hung up the phone Nick grabbed his coat and backpack and headed for the door. “I'm going to the library,” he called on his way out.

“Have a good time,” his mom said, looking up from her crossword puzzle. “And find something to read that
isn't
about monsters.”

“I'd recommend
Gone with the Wind
. Or possibly
Little Women
,” Dad said from the table, where he was examining the remains of his plane he'd crashed on its first flight. “The only thing better than a good tornado story is one about undersized female wrestlers.”

Mom wrinkled her nose and Nick laughed. Closing the door behind him, he pulled his jacket over his head as he ran to get his bike. By the time he reached the library, Angelo and Carter were waiting for him in the lobby. Angelo was wearing his long black coat again and for the first time Nick recognized how much it looked like the one Mr. Blackham had been wearing the last time they saw him. Maybe Angelo had chosen it for that reason.

“Did you bring any leftovers?” Carter asked, eyeing Nick's backpack. “I could really go for a cold turkey sandwich with cranberry sauce.”

Nick rolled his eyes. “Oh, yeah. I always bring leftovers to the library with me.”

A few minutes later, Angie, Tiffany, and Dana strolled through the front doors. Nick wondered if they'd all been together when Angelo called or if they just planned to make their entrances at the same time.

“Any word from Cody?” Dana asked.

“Nothing,” Nick said. “And the police still aren't doing anything about it.”

“I can't believe his grandparents aren't even worried,” Tiffany said. “It makes me want to go over there and whack them both upside the head.”

Angie turned to Nick. “I heard you told your dad about what happened.”

Nick tapped his foot on the floor, leaving wet shoe prints on the lobby carpet. “It was probably dumb.”

“Actually,” Angie said, “it was probably the smartest thing any of us have done since this whole thing happened. But thanks for not telling about us. My mom would have grounded me forever if she knew why we were really at the mortuary.”

Nick shrugged, feeling suddenly embarrassed. “It's no big deal . . .”

“Are we just going to stand around?” Angelo tapped his notebook against his legs. “I want to see what Mr. Blackham has to say about all of this. He must have heard about the stolen bodies.”

“Yeah. I want to meet this mystery man,” Dana said. “I've been to this library hundreds of times and I've never heard of any Mr. Blackham.”

Carter laughed. “You'd remember if you saw him. He looks kind of like an older Neo from
The Matrix
.”

But when they headed toward the back of the library, where Mr. Blackham worked, a gray-haired woman stopped them at the reference desk. “Can I help you?”

“We're here to see Mr. Blackham,” Angelo said.

“I'm afraid he's not here.” The woman examined a book, wrote something on a paper, and placed the book on a rolling cart. “Why don't you try again next week? He should be back by them.”

“This is kind of important,” Nick said. “Do you have a number we can reach him at?”

The librarian picked up another book, then spotted a tear in one of the pages and clucked. “I'm afraid he's out of the country. Some sort of last-minute trip.”

Nick frowned. Next week could be too late for Cody.

“Is there something I could help you with?” the librarian asked.

“I don't think so,” Angelo said. “This is the kind of problem only he knows about.”

The woman put down her book and really looked at the six of them for the first time. “Was he expecting you?”