They had nearly finished their dinner of spaghetti and meatballs, and Alan's mother still hadn't answered his persistent question about why she had appeared in the principal's office in the middle of the school day. Indeed, both his parents were behaving in a rather evasive manner, as if someone had just died in the guest bedroom and they didn't want him to find out.
He wiped his mouth with a paper napkin. "That was good, Mom," he said, pushing himself away from the table.
"I'm glad you liked it," replied Mrs. Powers as she snatched up his plate and slid it into the dishwasher. "Now do your homework, and in about half an hour you and I are going on a little trip."
"Where to?" Alan inquired eagerly.
"You'll see."
It was the most helpful answer he could obtain from her. Anxious to be let in on the secret, he whipped through his math and history problems, and was done by the time Mrs. Powers announced their imminent departure.
"Say hello to her for me," said Mr. Powers as his wife and son departed through the front door.
"Who's he talking about?" wondered Alan.
"You'll see," said his mother, pulling open the car door for him.
He was a patient boy, so he agreed to play the little game. To his surprise, their first stop was C.V.'s house, where the owl boy climbed into the back seat next to him, and Mrs. Oberlin occupied the front passenger seat. Alan felt nervous about being so close to the boy who had spent the day terrorizing the school, but C.V. only smiled at him.
"Don't worry," he said while fastening his seat belt. "I won't use my fear powers on you. I've learned my lesson."
As they drove toward the highway, C.V. filled in Alan on what was going on, at least from his point of view. "I'm going to a special school where I can learn to use my powers for the good of humanity," he explained. "It's like a dream come true. I can finally become a real superhero."
"That's cool," said Alan.
"I'll miss all of you guys," C.V. said fondly. "Especially Muffy. She's a really cool girl, even though she has a hard time understanding me. I guess everyone does."
"Are you saying we'll never see you again?" asked Alan. He was trying to be friendly, but secretly felt that he and many others would be much happier if the boy were left on a deserted island with a few crates of food.
"You'll see me now and then," C.V. answered. "But I'll spend most of my time at my new school."
The half-hour drive was uneventful, and Alan constantly wondered why his mother had involved herself, not to mention him, in the affairs of the strange Oberlin family.
They arrived in front of a modest-sized building marked simply, BALLFORD PREPARATORY SCHOOL. Mrs. Powers and Mrs. Oberlin led the boys into the brick structure, whose interior resembled not so much a school as a laboratory. The hallways seemed almost to be built out of bare drywall, and some areas lacked a ceiling, so that cables hung freely overhead.
Shortly they encountered a red-haired poodle woman who wore a purple dress and a nametag. "Welcome to Ballford," she greeted them. "I'm Dr. Payne, but you can call me Cindy. Which one of you is Charles?"
"That would be me," C.V. replied.
Dr. Payne, mused Alan. A name like that was never a good sign.
C.V. and his mother followed the poodle woman into a room containing rows of chairs, and then Alan's mother led him down another hallway. The people they met wore strained smiles, as if they desperately wanted to appear normal.
"Uh, Mom, where are we going?" asked Alan. "And don't say 'you'll see'."
"There's someone here who wants to see you," Mrs. Powers told him. "Someone who hasn't seen you for a long time."
Before long they were met by an aardvark man who also wore a nametag. "Ah, Mrs. Powers," he said with a vaguely Slavic accent. "She's been asking about you all day. She thinks about little else."
"This is my son, Alan."
The odd-mannered fellow shook hands with Alan, and introduced himself as Dr. Minkowski. "This way," he said, and brought them to a room numbered 28.
"This is your first time," he warned Alan as he was about to enter the security code. "What you are about to experience may confuse or even frighten you, but I promise you will not be harmed in any way."
The doctor's words gave Alan no reassurance. He almost felt as if he was walking onto a spaceship as he and his mother stepped through the padded white door.
It clicked shut behind them, and Alan found himself in the strangest living room he had ever seen. The floor was covered with shag carpet, and several pieces of comfortable-looking furniture were present, but the walls...
The walls appeared to be composed of nothing but whiteboard, and there was hardly a square inch that hadn't been covered with all manner of scrawlings. Some intensely creative person had gone to work with a set of colored markers, leaving behind intricate drawings of people and buildings, entire musical compositions, and row after row of complicated mathematical equations. Alan could barely stop himself from gasping.
From behind a corner appeared a smiling bear girl with wavy blond hair, who looked to be about fourteen years old. She wore a red blouse and slacks, and several shiny rings on her fingers. Her face lit up like a Christmas tree when she laid eyes on Alan.
Just as the boy was about to ask his mother who this strange girl was, a weird, indescribable, almost staggering sensation filled his mind.
He couldn't begin to comprehend what was happening to him. He was still standing on his own feet, gazing at the girl with his own eyes--yet somehow, he was also looking at himself through the girl's eyes. All the questions he meant to ask about her were suddenly answered, as if he had known the answers all along. Her name was Tegan, and she was his sister.
"But I don't have a sister," he tried to say.
It all came to him at once. Ballford was no ordinary school, but an institution for children with special and potentially dangerous abilities, like C.V. and Tegan. His sister had lived here since his infancy, which explained why he didn't remember her. Tegan possessed the most advanced human brain ever known to science, and had mastered every realm of knowledge. Yet she was more than a mere "sponge brain"--she wielded an amazing and terrifying power.
Alan tried to block out the answers flooding into his brain, and reflect on his bizarre condition. He didn't know how it was possible, but the thoughts and feelings of his mother and Tegan were coursing through his mind alongside his own, to the point that he could no longer tell who was thinking what. Tegan had made it happen--she had dissolved the boundaries between their identities. They could hide nothing from each other. They had become a unified consciousness.
It was both shocking and embarrassing. Alan's mind was an open book--his mother could read everything he had been afraid to admit about himself. In addition, he realized things about her that he knew were none of his business. To add to his chagrin, he suddenly knew exactly how it felt to be a 14-year-old girl and a grown woman. Disgust and horror filled his heart, and was shared among the three of them.
No words were exchanged as they mulled over their recent life experiences and enjoyed some peanut butter cookies the school had provided. Tegan was extremely happy to see Alan after so many years, and marveled at how much he had grown and how smart he had become. She described her comfortable but confining existence at the school to him, shared some new results in quantum theory that she had discovered, and explained why it was important for her to remain hidden from the world. Alan found it remarkable that the girl seemed perfectly well-mannered and well-adjusted, at least for someone who communicated by pure thought, in spite of having spent more than half her life in what almost qualified as solitary confinement.
Their visit lasted for about fifteen minutes, by which time Alan had grown accustomed to the collective sharing of their minds. He even loathed it when Dr. Minkowski closed the security door, severing his mental connection with Tegan and his mother. He was alone with his own thoughts again.
Mrs. Oberlin had plenty of questions for Mrs. Powers as they made their way to the school's parking lot, but Alan had none. The situation had been made totally clear to him. He thought it unfair that Tegan would never enjoy a normal life because of her gift, and C.V. might suffer a similar fate, but he saw no way it could be avoided. His sister was fully aware that her unusual powers could be applied to purposes of evil.
As he pulled the seat belt around his waist, his mother turned around and smiled. "Want to get some ice cream, Alan?" she asked.
Alan grinned. "I was thinking the same thing."
