The Apprentices by Maile Meloy Read Free Book Online Page A

her feet touch the hard floor, so she knew she wasn’t dreaming. The room was quiet and she could hear her own pulse in her ears.
    She was awake, and this was real.
    The countertop was black stone, and there was a shiny, clean rectangle where the tank had stood. She touched the stone. There wasn’t a lot of dust, but there was enough to show that something had been there. There were a few white spots where salt water had dripped and dried. There was another circle of faint dust where her titrating apparatus had stood. But everything else was gone.

CHAPTER 7
The Headmaster
    J anie marched into the headmaster’s office, past the secretary, who looked up and started to say something. Janie ignored her and threw open Mr. Willingham’s heavy wooden door.
    “Where’s my equipment?” she demanded.
    Mr. Willingham, smoking his pipe, looked up at her mildly. “I beg your pardon?”
    “It’s not there! Everything’s gone! That whole heavy tank!”
    “What tank?”
    “
My
tank, for my experiment! You saw it, in the chemistry classroom!”
    “This tank was your personal property?”
    Janie exhaled in exasperation. “No,” she said. “But it’s not about the tank. It’s about my experiment. It’s gone!”
    “So you’re saying there’s been a theft of school chemistryequipment?” Mr. Willingham asked. “That’s a very serious matter.”
    She tried to calm herself down. “You know exactly what I’m talking about, and I want to know where it is.”
    Mr. Willingham set his pipe down carefully, put his elbows on the desk, and interlaced his plump white hands. He rested his nose on his knuckles as if he were thinking. Then he raised his head again. “Here is what I know,” he said. “I know that you are no longer a student of this institution. A door was left unlocked at your request, and now you tell me that the school’s valuable chemistry equipment has gone missing.”
    “It’s not valuable in it
self,
” Janie said. “It’s a glass tank and some beakers and tubes. What’s valuable is what I’d
done
with it.”
    “I see. Well, I think you’ll find in our bylaws that all work done under the guidance of Grayson Academy belongs to the institution.”
    “So you took it?”
    “No,” he said. “I’m merely pointing out the fallacy of your claim to ownership.”
    “But I wasn’t acting under anyone’s guidance! It was my own experiment, done on my own time!”
    “On the school’s equipment and using its resources.”
    “The beakers and the tank?” Janie said. “That’s ridiculous! I bought the other things—the thread and a carton of salt.”
    “So let us be clear,” he said. “You are here to report the theft of some thread and a carton of salt?”
    Janie wanted to scream with frustration. “Why would you
want
it?” she asked, stamping her foot. “I don’t understand!”
    And then suddenly she did understand. A cold flush of adrenaline spread through her body. “Wait,” she said. She could barely breathe. “Mr. Magnusson. He said he’d be the first customer. He said he could use it in the islands.”
    “Did he?” Mr. Willingham asked mildly.
    “You gave my experiment to him!”
    “Why don’t you just begin again?”
    “I
can’t.
It’s taken months to get to this point. You told him I was close, and then he took it away. Or you took it and gave it to him.”
    “I do not broker the dabblings of children.”
    “It wasn’t a
dabbling.
” Her voice was low and unfamiliar, and frightened her. “It was valuable property and you knew it.”
    “I am the headmaster of a large and busy school, Miss Scott,” he said. “Try as I might, I cannot keep abreast of the individual projects of each student in our care.”
    “But you knew about
mine.
”
    “I knew that you would like me to leave the chemistry door unlocked for one week, ending today. I know nothing more. You’re lucky I’m not holding you liable for the loss of the equipment. In fact, I might call the police.” He