Brian Falkner - The Project

Also by Brian Falkner

The Tomorrow Code

Brain Jack

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Text copyright 2010 by Brian Falkner

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Random House Childrens Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in paperback in Australia and New Zealand by Walker Books Australia, Newtown, in 2010.

Random House and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Falkner, Brian.
The project / Brian Falkner. 1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: After discovering a terrible secret hidden in the most boring book in the world, Iowa fifteen-year-olds Luke and Tommy find out that members of a secret Nazi organization intend to use this information to rewrite history.
eISBN: 978-0-375-98350-4
[1. Time travelFiction. 2. Adventure and adventurersFiction. 3. NazisFiction.
4. World War, 19391945GermanyFiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.F1947Pr 2011 [Fic]dc22 2010033449

Random House Childrens Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

v3.1

For Graham and Sue

PART I
THE MOST BORING BOOK
IN THE WORLD

In rivers, the water that you touch is the last of what has passed and the first of that which comes; so with present time.

Leonardo da Vinci

T his is not the most boring book in the world.

This is a book about the most boring book in the world, which is a different book altogether.

This book is really interesting and exciting, and parts of it are quite funny.

The most boring book in the world, on the other hand, is really, really boring. Its a real clunker. Its so boring that if I told you what it was about, youd be asleep before I got past the introduction. And so would I.

You might think that your history textbook is the most boring book in the world. But you are wrong. Or you might think that your aunties book about dried flowers is the most boring book in the world, but thats like an action-packed adventure story compared to the real most boring book in the world.

The most boring book in the world is so boring that only one copy of it was ever printed. The story goes that the guy who was printing the book glanced down and started reading the pages as they were whizzing through the hand-turned press, and it was so boring that he fell asleep and knocked over a lantern onto a stack of paper, which caught fire and destroyed the printery. Only one copy survived. Which is probably a good thing.

The printer, whose name was Albert, was fired, but he found a cozy little job licking postage stamps at a post office in Moose Jaw, Canada, which sounds like the most boring job in the world, and it probably was, but he said it was still better than printing the most boring book in the world.

But this book is not about Albert. Its about the most boring book in the world. And, most of all, it is about me and Tommy, the ones who found the most boring book in the world, and the terrible things that took place after we found it.

W e would have got away with it if it wasnt for that drunken squirrel, said Luke. He managed a grin at Tommy, who was sitting next to him on the hard, slatted bench outside the vice principals office.

As always, in the cold, hard light of the next day, their prank seemed childish and stupid. But this time, Luke had discovered the universal law of vice principals: Those in America had no better sense of humor than those back in New Zealand.

Dont sweat it, dude, Tommy said. I can handle Kerr.

Yeah right.

Tommys dad was a lawyer, and Tommy always thought he could talk his way out of anything. Sometimes he was right.

Tommy had a coin in his hand and was flipping it up in the air, catching it first on the top side of his fingers, then flipping his hand over and catching it on the underside. Seriously, he said. Ive been in more courtrooms than youve had hot dinners. Im going to tie this sucker up in so many legal knots that hell look like a a pretzel.

Someone doing yoga, Luke said simultaneously.

Yep, a pretzel doing yoga, Tommy said.

I hope so.

Just back me up on whatever I say.

No worries about that, bro, Luke said.

Tommy flipped the coin a couple more times, then caught it in his palm and made a fist. How many times? he asked.

How many times what? Luke asked.

How many times did I toss the coin? Get it right, you can keep the coin.

Forty-seven, Luke said.

You sure?

Yeah.

How many of them were heads? Tommy asked.

Twenty-nine, Luke said.

How many tails?

All the rest. Luke smiled.

Tommy flipped the coin to him. Thats freaky, he said. How do you do that?

Dunno, bro.

It was true. He really didnt know. When he was younger, Luke had thought that everybody could remember things like he could and was surprised to find out that most peoples memories were sieves. His memory was a blessing and a curse. In class he would scan the textbook at the start of the lesson and no longer need to concentrate. That led to hours of staring out of classroom windows or doodling in the margins of his workbooks. The boredom also led to some interesting pranks that were hilarious to him and his classmates but that, for some inexplicable reason, his teachers did not find funny.

The door to the office opened, and Ms. Sheck, their homeroom teacher, stood in the gap.

In her early twenties, she observed the strict dress code for teachers at the high school, with a simple skirt, a plain blouse, and sensible flat shoes. But she wore a bit too much eyeliner; there was a suspicious hole in the side of her nose; and her sprayed, clipped blond hair seemed to be struggling to bust out. If students were angry with Ms. Sheck, they called her Ms. Shrek, but she really didnt look anything like Shrek. Luke thought she looked more like Princess Fiona, the beautiful princess (in her non-ogre moments). All of the guys at the school thought she was really hot.

Come in, boys, she said solemnly, but Luke thought he saw her eyes sparkle, just slightly.

Luke took a deep breath and stood up.

Mr. Kerr, on the other hand, was a jelly doughnut. Or at least what Luke imagined a jelly doughnut would look like if it ever became vice principal of a high school. Rolls of fat bulged in places where most people didnt even have places. He always wore a three-piece suit in some kind of vain attempt to conceal the bulges, but it just made them more obvious. A thick shock of red hair added the jelly to the top of the doughnut.