The Despairing Tribulations of a Doomed Boy

Chapter 2

Wednesday

Mr. Detroy's arrest did irreparable damage to the school. The front windows were fixed in a few days, and the paint was cleaned up before anyone noticed it. But There was a gaping hole in Mr. Detroy's history class that wouldn't go away. And the constant news reports had parents pulling their children from the school by the dozens.

The day after the arrest, the school held an assembly first thing in the morning. The principal gave a few words apologizing for having hired a rogue anomaly. Otto wasn't sure if he was apologizing to the students, the faculty, or the row of law-enforcement that was standing in the back of the auditorium.

Then the arresting officer stood up to talk. She introduced herself as Chief Detective Escher Koi and explained that it was her job to keep the students and teachers safe from potential threats. “I know a lot of you are very upset about what happened yesterday,” she said. “I can see that Mr. Detroy was a widely loved teacher. But that doesn't negate the fact that he put everyone here in danger—even if he never pressed his own nose-button. Let me ask you a question: How many of you have pressed someone else's nose-button without their permission?”

Detective Koi paused and waited to see hands go up. The students looked nervously around at each other. A few sheepishly poked their hands up next to their faces.

“If anyone had pressed Mr. Detroy's button—as a joke, or by accident, or in anger—the repercussions would have been serious and irreversible. When anomalies hide themselves like Mr. Detroy hid, they put us all in unknown danger. That is why it is so important to report any possible rogue anomalies. I'm not looking to hurt anyone. I'm here to help and to keep the public safe.”

“What's happening to Mr. Detroy?” A student cried out. A murmur ran through the crowd. A few of the law-enforcement officers started moving forward to stop anything before it started.

Detective Koi held up her hands to calm the crowd. “Mr. Detroy is being well taken care of. He is under law-enforcement custody and awaiting trial for fraud.”

The students moved restlessly in their seats. The assembly, which had begun as an uncomfortable formality, was becoming increasingly unstable. The principal got up quickly to begin dismissing the students and teachers by homeroom classes.

There was a substitute waiting in Mr. Detroy's classroom. She was a grey haired, purple nosed lady with a perpetual frown made deep with wrinkles. She narrowed her eyes at anyone who was late and spent the first half hour of class explaining that she had been a teacher for 30 some odd years and would not put up with any misbehavior.

Nobody made a fuss. It was the quietest class that Otto had ever been in. The only sound was of Lancret sobbing quietly at the front of the classroom—her head on her desk.

The cafeteria was quiet at lunch time. Otto met up with Ruskin at the door and the two walked through the line together.

“Do you think anyone else is going to be found out?” Ruskin asked with a bit of a suppressed grin.

“What?”

“Come on, you know there's gotta be others hiding around here,” Ruskin said. “I hear they work in packs.”

“What are you talking about?” Otto asked, genuinely confused.

“The rogues. I hear they have an underground network that works in groups. Where there's one, there's many. I bet the law-enforcement are going to start searching the whole school for them.”

Otto's face grew white. He tried to come up with something to say, but wasn't sure he could pull it off without sounding suspicious. Ruskin looked up at him with a full grin on his face like he was enjoying the idea of a school wide search. Otto managed a shrug then added, “I don't know,” for good measure.