Ridley Pearson - Steel Trapp: The Academy

The brightly lit lower-level corridor stretched out ahead of him, impossibly long, like some kind of throat, offering no place for Steel to hide.

Steven Steel Trapp had walked the same corridor only once, two months earlier, while being given a guided tour by an upperclassman, a Fifth Form studenta high school junior by the name of Walker Glasscock. But he could recall with perfect clarity each door, every name on the plastic plates to the left of the doorsWRESTLING, A/V, DANCE, TRACK COACH, FOOTBALL COACH, MECHANICALS, etc.not only the layout but the exact number of chairs in any of the rooms hed seen on the tour. For that matter, he could remember the items on a Whiskey River dinner menu hed chosen from two years earlier, the prices and the phone number of the restaurant, and the nameChloeof the waitress whod served him that night along with his mother and father. He suspected his uncanny memory skills were responsible for his winning admission to Wynncliff Academy.

Remember, his father had said when dropping him off, if you dont like it, you can come home. But I want you to

give it until Thanksgiving before deciding, Steel had finished for him. I know, Dad. Youve told me that seven times.

Seven?

That was the seventh, yes.

His father didnt challenge the accuracy of his sons memory. Neither did his teachers. In fact, it had been a teacher whod given him the nickname Steel because young Steven had a mind like a steel trap. He never forgot anything. He was something of a freak, but hed come to live with it. He learned not to show off or misuse what his mother called his gift. Showing off cost friendships, and lost friendships made him lonely. Hed learned the hard way.

Here at Wynncliff he would have to be careful. Other kids typically resented his ability. Teachers were intimidated by him. It wasnt going to be easy.

But presently he wasnt thinking about any of that. Because presently some big kid was chasing him, and he desperately needed a place to hide.

He didnt have to think to recall thingsthey were just there, always available, in the front of his mind, correcting his decisions the way eyeglasses corrected a persons vision. His recall was as fast as Google. That was why he took the fourth door on the right without reading CUSTODIAN on the plate. He quietly pulled the door shut and wedged himself behind some broom and mop handles. The closet was the size of a phone booth, a giant sink occupying nearly half of it.

He wasnt exactly sure what hed seen, but now he didnt want to find out. Certainly not on the first day of school. He would later discover that a sign had blown over due to the strong and endless winds that streamed across the hilltop school. Northeastern Connecticut was all rolling hills and forests, broken by a few orchards and even fewer farms. It was the strangest location for a schoolso far from everything. Hed already heard a rumor that the schools sports teams never played home gamesonly away games, as if its location were being kept secret.

A man named William Bromfield Wynncliff had decided to build a compound of white-trimmed brick buildings in a cleared field on top of a Connecticut mountaintop, 117 years earlier. The location seemed more suitable for a wind farm than a school. And it had been the wind that had blown over a sign reading: GYM CLOSED. DO NOT ENTER. WILL REOPEN AT 12:00 P.M.

So Steel hadnt seen the sign. His objective had been to put his gym clothes into his assigned locker. It hadnt occurred to him that by arriving to the gym so early he might end up interrupting something. It hadnt occurred to him that by keying in a code on the buildings security pad to gain entrance, he might be violating a school rule. The kid who had toured him around the campus on his previous visit had used the codeand Steel remembered it, just as he remembered everything. Having a security lock on the gymand some of the other buildingshad been a curiosity to Steel at the time, but he hadnt said anything. Now, instead of going back to the administration building and asking questions, he simply let himself in, figuring this was how it was done. Hed entered the lobby and, upon hearing voices, had opened the gym doors.

What hed seen had momentarily paralyzed him: four boys, posed down on one knee, facing four mannequins across the gym. There was a coach standing slightly behind them. All four boys were holding long stainless-steel tubes to their mouths. On the coachs cue, they fired darts at the mannequin targets.

No! the coach said loudly. Its not enough to simply hit the target. These arent spitballs! The darts must be fired with enough force to result in the injection! Without that, the effort is useless! The idea is to render your opponent unconscious.

Blowguns? Steel wondered. How cool is that?

He gasped, drawing attention to himself, but wasnt embarrassed to be seen: he would sign up for Blowguns 101 in a nanosecond. He had no way of knowing that because of the lighting he was only seen in silhouette; he assumed they got a good look at him. But he hoped not, as the coach shouted, Whos there? Stay where you are! For a moment Steel didnt process what was going on, didnt realize he was in a closed practice. Then the tension in the coachs voice registered.

When the coach spoke to the boys, saying, Well? Go get him! Steel stood frozen for a second as one of the boysa big guystood and came toward him at a full sprint. At that moment he regretted using the security code to let himself in. He regretted allowing himself to be seen. More than anything, he wanted to do the right thing, given the situation.

He took off running.

The idea of an upperclassman pursuing him, on the first day of school no less, sent Steel leaping onto and sliding down the staircases metal hand railing. He rode the next handrail to the facilitys lower level. The kid hadnt tried the rail; he stayed to the stairs, buying Steel a few precious seconds.

From there hed faced an instant decision and had gone left, because his photographic memory had delivered perfect recall of the layout from his prior tour.

A janitor closet.

He kept perfectly still inside the sour-smelling closet, his chest burning, his ears ringing, his body rigid in a giant knot.

The sound of footfallshad he actually seen them firing blow darts? he wonderedsped past the door, then returned in his direction. He heard a nearby door open and close. Another. A third. Moving steadily closer. He pushed his back into the corner, the dozen broom and mop handles covering him like a lean-to shelter. He held his breath.

The door swung open.

A hand slapped the wall for a light switch, but raked the broom handles into a noisy complaint, missing the switch. Steel did not breathe. The door shut, and the footfalls continued one door to the next.

At last, there were several long minutes of silence.

The pursuit had stopped.

He dared a peek out. An exit sign beckoned at the end of the long hall.

He ran for it and sneaked outside, taking a deep sigh, his lungs filling with the clean, crisp, hilltop air.

He was glad to be free, but more pressing was his recollection of the four boys firing darts at dummies, for he couldand didreplay it in his mind exactly as hed seen it.

Why would a schoolany schoolteach kids how to fire blowguns? And why did they care if he saw it, unless it was something they werent supposed to be doing? And if they werent supposed to be doing it, then why had a man been coaching them? None of it made any sense.

And for once, for perhaps the first time in his life, he did not trust his own memory.