Jeff Aldrich, the smile still on his fece, turned and walked away.
• • •
Late that night, Hildie Kramer went into George Engersol’s private office, closing the door behind her. Engersol glanced up, nodded to her, then finished the file he was working on. A moment later he put the file away, leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest.
“All right,” he said. “How bad is it?”
Hildie smiled. “Not bad at all. The Lowensteins are pulling Monica out of school, and I can’t talk them out of it. But she’s the only one. All the rest are staying, including Jeff Aldrich.”
“Not bad,” Engersol replied. “We can live with it. But it means my special seminar is now short two students. I have two candidates in mind, but I’d like to hear your recommendations first.”
Hildie didn’t hesitate at all. “Josh MacCallum and Amy Carlson,” she said. “They’re both nearly perfect. Two of our brightest students, and both of them have the intellectual and psychological profiles we’re looking for.”
Engersol smiled. “Very good, Hildie. Those are exactly the two candidates I had in mind. Rearrange their schedules for them to start tomorrow.”
As Hildie left his office, Engersol reviewed the files of the two students one more time. He agreed. They were perfect for the seminar.
Josh MacCallum. indeed, had already attempted suicide once.
If he did it again, and succeeded, no one would think a thing about it.
13
Josh MacCallum and Amy Carlson sat nervously on the bench outside Hildie Kramer’s office. The house was quiet, for the rest of the kids had already headed for their first classes of the day. But during breakfast Hildie had come into the dining room and instructed the two of them to come to her office at the beginning of the first period. Josh and Amy exchanged an apprehensive glance. For his part, Josh was convinced he was in trouble. Deep trouble: Jeff must have told his parents what he had said yesterday afternoon after the funeral, and Mrs. Aldrich must have called Hildie. But what was so wrong with wondering if maybe Adam hadn’t really killed himself? And Jeff hadn’t been mad at all — in fact, Josh thought, it seemed Jeff had believed him.
Amy, though, thought they’d been summoned by Hildie Kramer for a different reason. “I bet our moms decided to take us out of school,” she said. “I bet they talked to Monica’s folks, and now they’re going to make us go home, too.”
Josh had stared speculatively at the empty chair at the next table, which Monica Lowenstein had habitually occupied until this morning. He shook his head. “How come grown-ups always start acting weird? Monica wasn’t going to do anything. She thought Adam was really dumb to kill himself. And it can’t be that, anyway. If my mom was going to take me home, she’d have done it yesterday. Besides, she told me she’d decided not to. And your mom and dad didn’t even come to the funeral, so how could they have talked to Monica’s folks?”
Amy made a face at him. “Haven’t you ever heard of the telephone?”
“That’s dumb,” Josh replied. “Monica’s folks probably don’t even know where your folks live.” Amy had made no reply, but instead poked disconsolately at her oatmeal. “Maybe we’re really not in any trouble at all,” Josh suggested.
“Oh, sure,” Amy said, scowling at him. “Did you ever get called to the principal’s office when you weren’t in trouble?”
For that argument, Josh had no reply at all. The two of them had sunk into a dejected silence for the rest of breakfast. Nor had it helped when the other kids had begun teasing them as they left for their various classes.
“See you later,” Brad Hinshaw had called. “If you’re still here!” Laughing, he’d shoved his way through the front door into the bright morning sunlight, while Josh and Amy perched on the bench outside Hildie’s office, the relative gloom of the large foyer doing nothing to improve their mood.
Finally the door to Hildie’s office opened and Hildie herself stepped out to usher them inside. “Well, look at the two of you,” she said, smiling at them. “From those long faces, you must have done something I haven’t heard about yet!” As Josh and Amy eyed one another nervously, she burst out laughing. “If I’d known you were going to worry yourselves to death, I wouldn’t have said a thing at breakfast. I’d have just stopped you on your way to class. Now come on in.”
Warily, the two children followed Hildie into her office. For some reason both of them felt vaguely relieved when she didn’t close the door. Hildie, noting their response, smiled to herself. Long ago she’d discovered that all the kids got nervous when she called them in for a closed-door conference. It was as if they instinctively knew that a closed door meant some kind of dressing-down. Conversely, she’d also discovered that the simple act of closing the door was enough to strike terror into the heart of the occasional troublemaker.
“I was talking to Dr. Engersol last night,” she told them, settling herself into the chair behind her desk as Josh and Amy perched anxiously on the couch. “With Monica leaving school, there are two vacant places in his seminar. He and I both think you two are ideal candidates to take their places.”
Josh felt a quick thrill of anticipation, remembering Jeff telling him a week ago about the seminar, but refusing to talk about exactly what they were doing. All he knew was that it involved computers — something he’d loved since the first moment he’d seen one, when he was only five — and that only a few kids in the school were allowed to be in it.
The smartest, most talented kids.
Adam and Jeff Aldrich, and Monica Lowenstein, and a few others.
Jeff. What about his place? Was it possible that he was coming back to school after all? He voiced the question even as it came into his head, and Hildie’s smile broadened.
“He’s coming back tomorrow,” she told him. “Which should make you happy, right? He’s your best friend, isn’t he?”
“Except for Amy,” Josh replied. “Is he still going to be in the seminar?”
“As far as I know.”
“But what’s it about?” Amy asked. “None of the kids who are in it ever talk about it.”
“Well, it’s hardly a big secret,” Hildie replied. “Basically, it’s a class in artificial intelligence.”
Josh’s eyes widened. “Wow. You mean like in teaching computers how to think?”
“Exactly. And since both of you seem to have remarkable abilities in math, we think you’d fit in very well.”
Amy looked uncertain. “I don’t really like computers,” she said. “All the games are kind of dumb, once you’ve played them a couple of times. I mean, it’s always the same stuff, over and over again.”
“And why do you think it’s always the same stuff?” Hildie asked.
Amy looked puzzled by the question, but Josh saw the answer instantly.
“Because all a computer does is put things together the way it’s told to. It can’t figure out anything new, because it can’t think like people can.”
Amy’s brows knit as she concentrated on the idea. “But how could a computer ever think like a person?” she asked.
“That’s what the seminar is all about,” Hildie explained. “Most of what Dr. Engersol is trying to do is learn how people think. In a way, our brains are like computers, but there’s a big difference. Somehow, we manage to put all the data in our heads together and come up with new ideas. Computers can’t do that. A lot of people think that if we can figure out just how our brains come up with new ideas, we might be able to design a computer to do it, too. That’s what artificial intelligence is all about”
“But what would we be doing?” Amy asked.
Hildie shrugged. “Dr. Engersol will have to explain that to you. But I can promise you, you’ll like the seminar. Everyone who’s been in it loves it.” She smiled ruefully. “Unfortunately, I don’t think I understand it enough to know quite
“I don’t know,” Amy said, fidgeting on the couch. “Do I have to take it? What if I don’t want to?”
