The Ables (12 page)

“They are,” Dad replied. “They just haven’t finalized everything. Well, they’re still in the early stages of that process. It’s like foreign diplomacy, honey: it takes years.”

“Well, we may not have years anymore,” Mom said grimly. “Not after tonight. They could come for him again, but even if they don’t, he’s going to die someday soon, and we don’t have any kind of plan in place whatsoever to deal with it.”

“Well, I can only do so much, babe,” he said in slight protest.

She paused. “I know, honey. I’m sorry. I’m just so worried about this world and what it holds for our boys.”

“I am too.” He sounded like he meant it. “I’m glad they didn’t get him, but the mere fact that they tried has me concerned.”

“Why?”

“Because it means … whoever it is … they’re planning to do something big that they don’t want anyone to remember.”

That was the last I could hear of their words. I’m not sure if they just sat there in silence or if they were hugging or something.

A half a minute or so later, I heard their chairs scrape along the linoleum floor of the kitchen, which meant they were standing or shifting positions.

I heard Mom speak again. “I better go check on the kids.”

And that was my cue. I darted back to the bed as fast as I could, jumping in and throwing the covers over my head, just in time to hear that familiar noise.

Ooph!

I held my breath so she wouldn’t know I was awake, because I was young enough to still think that worked. I didn’t want her to know that I’d been eavesdropping. It seemed like she stood there over the bed forever, even though I’m sure it was only a few seconds.

Ooph!

I finally exhaled, extremely relieved to have presumably pulled off the ruse.

But sleep wouldn’t come quickly. My brain wouldn’t shut itself down. Not since Dad had told me about my abilities had I been forced to process so much new information in a single day. Between the SuperSim assembly, finding out disabled kids were disqualified, Bentley’s call, and then the news report … it had been a roller-coaster day.

I lay there on my back, facing the ceiling, contemplating what tomorrow would hold.
It could be almost anything,
I thought.

Bentley’s family was rich. I might have mentioned that before, but it’s worth repeating. His father, Jurrious Crittendon, was a member of the board, the governing body of the secret world of superheroes, known as custodians. And the job apparently came with quite a salary.

How rich were they? Well, for starters, our sleepover was held in the guesthouse, which was a whole second house in the backyard behind the first house. In the guesthouse, there were three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a full kitchen, and a game-room-slash-home-theater. It was bigger than my family’s regular house.

The floors in the kitchen were made of marble or some kind of expensive stone, and the furniture was all made out of leather. There was a gigantic movie screen on the wall that everyone gushed about and three full rows of plush theater seats—they even had cup holders on the armrest! The game room had a pool table, a ping-pong table, and even a few old stand-up arcade games. I wanted to live there forever.

The Crittendon family’s wealth was also apparent in the presence of hired help. Bentley said there were two maids, a nanny for Bentley’s tiny baby brother, a landscape guy, a butler, and a personal chef. And those were just the ones that were there every day.

We met Olivia, the nanny, when we first arrived. Thomas, the youngest of Bentley’s three siblings, had already been put to bed, and Olivia was one of our chaperones for the first part of the evening. The other was Ted, the butler. Ted was actually Olivia’s husband, I learned, and wasn’t anything at all like what the movies had told me a butler was supposed to be. I was a little disappointed he wasn’t ninety years old.

Instead, Ted was a pretty young guy, maybe thirty or so. He was more than a butler, really, in that he actually helped Mr. Crittendon with a host of tasks and duties related to work and the home. He was more like a personal assistant, I guess. But he did answer the door when we arrived, and he called us all “sir.” He was peppy and wacky and we liked him immediately.

His wife was lovely as well but very quiet and soft-spoken. The opposite of Ted.

Not once during my entire stay at Bentley’s house did either of his parents make an appearance. I remember thinking that was a little strange, but I also knew they had to be very busy people.

And Bentley seemed right at home in the company of Ted and Olivia. There was a familiarity between them that suggested they spent plenty of time together. I couldn’t help but wonder if some of the tension I’d sensed in Bentley regarding his father had a fairly common cause: maybe he just didn’t get to see his dad all that much.

But I didn’t have time to dwell on thoughts like that because there was entirely too much fun to be had and too much to talk about regarding the SuperSim.

Everyone was there: Bentley, Henry, James, Freddie, and me. And Donnie, of course. I’m sure he hadn’t received many more sleepover invitations in his life than I had, so I was pretty confident he would enjoy himself.

We played ping-pong for a while—well, everyone but James and I played ping-pong, even Henry. We ordered pizza from a place in Freepoint called Jack’s, and it was quite possibly the best-tasting pizza I’d ever had. The whole night was fun. Everyone laughed and carried on like it was a party. It was one of the first such experiences of my life, actually. Between moving all the time and being blind, my life just hadn’t produced many memorable social encounters with people my own age.

I was beginning to feel like I was part of a group. And I soaked it in.

After a couple hours of food and games, our adult chaperones turned in—they were staying in one of the guesthouse bedrooms for the night to keep us honest.

“Hey,” Bentley volunteered, “You guys wanna see my workshop?”

“You have your own workshop?” Henry asked.

“Sure. It’s really just a spare room in the basement my dad let me turn into a workshop for whenever I’m building or tinkering with something.”

“You mean like an inventor?” I asked, curious to know more about what an uber-genius like Bentley would attempt to invent.

“Yeah, sure. I guess. I don’t know, I just build stuff. Most of it’s junk … doesn’t work. I started when I was younger, mostly just taking things apart to see how they worked. But it wasn’t very long before I started trying to build my own things.”

“Um,” I said, clearing my throat, “I definitely want to go. Count me in.” I was 100 percent on board with this little field trip, already dreaming of the laser guns and rockets I was sure Bentley was building.

“Yeah, me too. Let’s see this workshop,” Henry said, still acting a little skeptical.

Freddie and James didn’t take any convincing after that, and Donnie never did. Bentley gave James some idea of where the room was in the main house—and where that was in relation to our position. We all put our hands out in the center of the group, and then …

Ooph!

… we were there.

“That was awesome,” Freddie giggled. Not everyone had a mother who could tele-port, so it was the first trip for some.

“See, what did I tell you?” James bragged. Then, quietly to Bentley, he added, “This is the right room, right?”

“Yes,” Bentley said, a smile in his voice.

Everyone took in the room quietly for a few moments, while I wondered what it looked like. Henry was the first to speak. “Jeez, Louise, Bentley. This place is amazing!”

“Yeah, well, what can I say? My dad’s loaded. I try my best not to make a big deal out of it.”

“You do a fine job at that, because I had no freaking idea until tonight,” Henry marveled. “You’re, like, richer than the president!”

“I doubt that,” Bentley said. “Anyway, this is it. Over in that corner is the chemistry set-up. I play with electrical stuff over there.” He was obviously giving a standing tour of the room, pointing out the various areas as he went. It was easy enough for me to tell which area was where just by how the direction of his voice changed as he moved his head.

He continued, “Robotics shares space in this corner over here with my woodworking stuff—I don’t do much of that anymore. And then behind you is my brainstorming corner.”

“Whoa,” Freddie gasped, “you have a pinball machine?”

“It’s the same one they have at Jack’s,” Bentley said, trying to make it seem less special.

But Freddie wasn’t having it. “Yeah, but this one isn’t at Jack’s. This one is in your freaking house, man! That’s incredible.” He quickly paused to sneak in a puff of his inhaler before continuing. “Man, I don’t think I’d ever get any work done if I had a pinball machine in my workshop.”

“It’s only there for when I need to take a break and get my mind off something for a while. That happens a lot, though,” he added.

“So let’s see some of these inventions already,” I said, ready to get this show on the road.

“Oh, no,” Bentley said, “I never show anyone my inventions.”

“What?!” Henry was outraged. “You brought us all the way up here to show us where you invent stuff, but we don’t get to see any of it? You gotta be kidding me!”

“They suck, honestly,” Bentley argued. “Almost none of them work. It’s embarrassing, okay?”

“Dude.” For a twelve-year-old, the word “dude” can often be the most serious way to start a sentence. “You’re a kid. You’re twelve. I bet your failed inventions are better than most grown-ups’ successes. Give yourself a break. You’re supposed to be watching cartoons and playing flag football.”

“Not with
my
legs,” Bentley reminded us, somewhat somberly. It made me realize how left out he’d probably felt most of his life … just like me. Where I’d turned to comic books and stories, he’d turned to inventing and building things on his own. His inventions were probably more personal … more private than we had initially thought.

“Are there any that work that you’d let us see?” I asked, hoping for a compromise.

“Well, my eco-friendly bug zapper works,” he said, suddenly less concerned. “I guess I could show you that one.” He walked as briskly as he was able toward the sidewall, and I heard a door open. A few seconds later, the footsteps returned as he rejoined us in the center of the room. “Here it is.”

I presume he held it up for the others to see while he spoke to point out the features. “It uses these little modified LED lights here, which I altered to mimic the same kind of light you see in a traditional bug zapper. But then, instead of zapping them, I decided to let Mother Nature take care of it. So all we have here are these little light strips, which you apply to the corners and eaves of your house outside—you know, where spiders live. The moths and mosquitoes are attracted to the light and end up flying right into the spider webs. No mess, no fuss, all solar powered.”

It sounded impressive, that’s for sure.

“That’s pretty, cool, I guess,” Henry allowed, not sounding like he meant it. “What else you got?”

“Well, let’s see,” Bentley responded before walking back over to the closet again. It must have been a walk-in closet, because he went all the way in and closed the door, no doubt to keep us from following him. A moment later he returned.

“Robot fire hydrant,” he declared joyously. A round of oohs and aahs followed from the sighted kids to a level appropriate for something called a robot fire hydrant. Any invention that started with the word “robot” was going to impress this audience.

“What does it do?” Freddie asked.

“Puts out fires, duh,” Henry said.

“Actually, no. Putting out fires is the one thing it definitely does
not
do … it’s actually started a few fires, to be honest. The fire hydrant is just a disguise. It’s like a remote-controlled car, only instead of a car, it looks like an authentic fire hydrant—at only one-tenth the weight of a real hydrant.”

“Why would anyone want a remote-controlled fire hydrant? It’s not like they do anything special, you know … like a car or something.”

“Well, it’s designed for surveillance, I guess. The idea is that you could put a camera in there, and then it would be a pretty versatile thing, right? Because fire hydrants are everywhere … so it would never look out of place. And people never pay attention to those things, so there’s little danger of anyone discovering the camera.”

It probably wasn’t the most specific surveillance device ever conceived, but I had to admit it had a certain level of coolness to it. I’d never really built anything in my life, and certainly, never a working robot.

“So, it works?” Henry asked.

“Yeah, I just have to put a camera or microphone in there, and it’s a fully functioning spy robot. The remote even functions up to one hundred yards away.”

“Hm,” Henry said, not convinced it was cool.

“Hey,” Bentley protested, “I made that thing when I was nine, okay? That’s not too shabby, even if I do say so myself.”

“I suppose,” Henry admitted. “What else you got? What about some of the ones that don’t work?”

“Oh, I have lots of stuff in that pile. A customizable digital bumper sticker, an electronic flower I was trying to make for my mom, about a half dozen versions of a time machine, and a toaster that’s incapable of burning toast—except that it doesn’t work properly, which basically makes it a normal toaster. There’s a bunch more, but we won’t be looking at any of those yet. I’ve already bent my rules enough for one night.”

“Aw, man,” Freddie groaned.

“No laser guns?” Henry asked hopefully.

“No, Henry, sorry,” Bentley said. “No laser guns. Not yet, at least.”

“Well, as long as you’re considering it,” Henry said, trying to find some optimism. “I guess that fly trap thing was pretty cool.”

Bentley smiled—I could hear it in his voice. “Thanks, Henry, that really means a lot to me.” He was a grouch, but as long as Henry was honestly trying to be nice, we tried to see the glass as half full, even if he frequently knocked it over. “Hey, you guys wanna see something really cool?”