Hypergifted
Author: Gordon Korman
Date: 2026-02-03T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Fiction; Humor; Realistic Fiction; Children's Books; Contemporary
Description: Hypergifted From #1 New York Times bestselling author Gordon Korman comes the funny and heartwarming sequel to the word-of-mouth hits UNGIFTED and SUPERGIFTED. School has never been a problem for twelve-year-old super-genius Noah Youkilis—at least not until he gets an admission letter to the prestigious Wilderton University. The last thing Noah wants is to go straight from eighth grade into college. Will his life ever just be normal?! Meanwhile, Noah’s best friend, Donovan, has been looking forward all year to a summer of doing nothing. But when Wilderton allows Noah to bring a friend for the
Publisher: HarperCollins

Dedication

For the Kormaniacs

Contents

1. Cover
2. Title Page
3. Dedication
4. Contents
5. 1: Hypergraduate
6. 2: Hypermisfit
7. 3: Hyperpiggy
8. 4: Hyperbaloney
9. 5: Hypersmitten
10. 6: Hyperpanic
11. 7: Hypercrushing
12. 8: Hyperboring
13. 9: Hyperhelper
14. 10: Hyperjailbreak
15. 11: Hyperextended
16. 12: Hyperpoisonous
17. 13: Hyperfierce
18. 14: Hyperpajamas
19. 15: Hyperwhosis
20. 16: Hypersecond-Banana
21. 17: Hyperbatty
22. 18: Hypermotherly
23. 19: Hyperdisappointed
24. 20: Hypermountaineer
25. 21: Hypercurly
26. 22: Hyperluna
27. 23: Hypernewsflash
28. 24: Hyper32
29. 25: Hypergravity
30. 26: Hyperchampions
31. 27: Hyperbackup
32. 28: Hyperparty
33. 29: Hyperinspection
34. 30: Hyperdelivery
35. 31: Hyperhomecoming
36. 32: Hypergift
37. About the Author
38. Copyright
39. About the Publisher

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Guide

1. Cover
2. Contents
3. 1: Hypergraduate

1
Hypergraduate
Donovan Curtis

Heavy Metal, robot extraordinaire, moved slowly forward, its Mecanum wheels propelling it along the gym floor. With a whirring sound, its lifting forks rose, bearing a rolled white parchment sealed with a shiny red ribbon.

Chloe Garfinkle, IQ 159, accepted her diploma as the students on the bleachers applauded politely. They were basketball bleachers, even though the Academy for Scholastic Distinction had no basketball team—or any sports team, actually. The most rah-rah team here was robotics. That’s why I was part of the Academy’s graduation ceremony even though I was far too dumb to breathe the air at this school. These geniuses could build the ultimate robot, but none of them could drive one. I was the only person with the skills to work the controller, thanks to my long career as a video-game-obsessed couch potato.

Dr. Schultz, the superintendent, finished talking about Chloe’s many accomplishments and called the name of the next graduate. “Abigail Lee.”

Abigail was even brainier than Chloe—IQ 171—not that a few extra points mattered much at this level. Everybody here was at least half an Einstein smarter than me, I reflected as Heavy Metal handed over her diploma.

“Last but not least, we have Noah Youkilis,” the superintendent announced.

In the front row of bleachers, Noah stood up. They seated him in row one because if he’d been any higher, there was a really good chance he might have come down on his head. He wasn’t exactly the most coordinated kid in the world. As it was, he managed to have his left foot hooked around the front rail, so he stumbled onto the floor before righting himself to his usual praying-mantis posture.

Even in a school full of geniuses, somebody had to be the smartest, and that was Noah—IQ 206. Head and shoulders above everyone else, even if he was head and shoulders below them, height-wise. He was my friend too—although you might ask yourself what a guy that brilliant would want with someone like me.

I sent Heavy Metal in his direction, raising the forks a little less for this shorter graduate.

“I have some special news for Noah,” Dr. Schultz continued. “You may have noticed that his diploma is a little thicker than the others. That’s because it contains a high school certificate as well as a middle school one. Our Noah is being graduated from the Academy straight into college.”

Noah’s hand froze in midair, inches from Heavy Metal’s lifting forks. “No-o!”

“Wilderton University, the most prestigious institution in our state, is offering you a full scholarship to be part of their freshman class,” the superintendent went on.

“I won’t do it!” Noah exclaimed. “You can’t make me go to college! What about all that stuff in between? Ninth grade! Driver’s ed! Prom night!”

Dr. Schultz regarded him in dismay. “This is an incredible honor, Noah! Wilderton has never offered this to anyone before. It shows they truly believe how brilliant you are!”

Noah scowled at him. “I’m not brilliant; I’m average!” He added, “Indubitably!”

I tapped the controller in my hands, edging Heavy Metal forward in the hope that Noah would notice the diploma and take it. When the left fork tapped his stomach, he let out a whoop and jumped back.

“Don’t even think about it, Donovan!” he barked at me. “Whose side are you on, anyway? If I touch that thing, I’ll have to go to college!” He turned and stormed away.

What could I do? I followed him with the robot. Dr. Schultz was glaring at me like this was my fault. My one job was handing out diplomas, and I couldn’t even get that right.

The other Academy kids were fidgeting and murmuring uncomfortably. Noah had been given an opportunity any one of them would have jumped at. They were all gifted; some were supergifted. But only Noah was hypergifted, which meant that even a scholarship from a fancy university was no big deal to him.

The one thing Noah wanted more than prizes and honors and scholarships and awards was the privilege of being ordinary. And no hypergifted kid could ever have that.

I think Noah was trying to make a dramatic exit, but he walked into the equipment room by mistake, sending a fusillade of volleyballs bouncing out toward the bleachers. One of them struck Dr. Schultz’s podium, making the sound system shriek with feedback.

“You should have seen him,” I told my parents after school that day. “They had to cut him out of the netting of a field hockey goal. He tied himself up so he wouldn’t have to go to college.”

“Poor Noah,” Mom clucked from the kitchen, where she and Dad were getting dinner ready. “They expect so much from him and it’s just not fair. He may be a genius, but he’s only thirteen.”

“And his mental age is three and a half,” I finished. “That’s pretty young to be living in a dormitory on a college campus, where everybody else is eighteen and older. And who’s going to want to be his roommate? You’d feel like a nanny.”

“I guess a two hundred IQ is both a blessing and a curse,” Dad put in.

“That’s not the worst part,” I went on. “Wilderton wants him to start in the summer semester so he’ll be used to college life by the time things get really busy in the fall.”

“Sounds sensible,” Mom commented.

“Sensible?” I almost howled. “They’re taking his summer! The summer after middle school is your last summer of freedom—nobody expects you to get a job or an internship or to do volunteer work. I’ve made a lot of plans for this summer. Know what they are? One word: nothing!”

Dad emerged from the kitchen, his oven mitts wrapped around a casserole dish. “Not very motivated, Donnie.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” I told him. “See that couch over there—the one opposite the TV? My butt is going to be attached to the middle cushion and it isn’t moving till September. And I have to say I’m pretty motivated about it.”

You couldn’t blame me for having an attitude. Up until three weeks ago, our little house was packed with my sister, her husband, their new baby, and two dogs. It wasn’t just crowded; it was a zoo. Now that they’d moved on to my brother-in-law’s new posting in Europe, this place felt like a luxury Airbnb. It was really going to enhance my summer plans.

My parents placed the tuna casserole and salad on the table, but nobody made a move to sit down and start eating. A worried look passed between them. Something was up.

“What?” I asked suspiciously.

The doorbell rang and both of them ran to answer it. That’s how relieved they were to have the conversation interrupted.

It was Noah, his praying-mantis posture a little stiffer than usual. Beside him stood Mrs. Youkilis, wearing her perpetual careworn expression. Being Noah’s mother was a high-stress job.

“Sorry to disturb you at dinnertime,” Mrs. Youkilis said, seeing the table set. “Noah was hoping for a word with Donovan.”

And before I had a chance to consider what this might mean, Noah aimed a bony finger at the end of a bony arm at the tip of my nose and announced, “You’re coming to college with me!”

I just laughed. “Yeah, I’d be great in college. I barely squeaked through eighth grade.”

“I should explain,” Noah’s mother cut in. “Wilderton University is allowing Noah to bring a friend for the summer semester, so he’ll have company as he adjusts to the college experience. They’d have a job for you on campus, Donovan, while Noah starts classes.”

Job? I repeated the ugly word in my mind. I had absolutely no idea what kind of job an ungifted guy like me would be qualified to do at a university. Probably not the dean of the engineering school. Whatever it was, no way would it be the nothing I’d so carefully mapped out for myself during the next three months.

“Thanks, Noah,” I managed with a manufactured grin. “That sounds like—uh—fun. But I’ve got a lot of big plans this summer and the arrangements are all set. It’s way too late to make any changes now.”

The chorus of throat-clearing from my parents happened in stereo on either side of me. I looked from face to face. Whatever they weren’t talking about before, it was about to come out now.

“Actually, Donnie,” Dad began, trying to sound casual, “this might not be such a bad idea.”

“It is a bad idea,” I assured him. “A very bad idea.”

“The thing is,” Mom said, taking up the tale, “your father and I are celebrating our twenty-fifth anniversary this year. We were thinking of taking a special trip.”

“Really? Where are we going?”

“You’re not going anywhere,” Noah informed me. “They’re going without you.”

I fell silent. If the guy with the 206 IQ said it, it was probably true.

“It would be a second honeymoon for us,” my mother continued. “Our only problem was what to do with you. We couldn’t leave you in the house all alone.”

Why not? I wanted to scream. The couch would still be there, its middle cushion crying out for my butt cheeks. But I already knew the answer: I was the last person anyone would trust to be home alone. I couldn’t say for sure whether I found trouble or trouble found me, but we always came together somehow. I was a trouble magnet. If you left me in charge of the house, you’d come home to find me sitting in the rubble. It wouldn’t be on purpose, but you could count on it.

“When Dean Kendrick asked who I wanted to come with me, my answer was instantaneous,” Noah said proudly. “Donovan Curtis,” he added, in case the stupider people among us weren’t following the conversation.

“It’s amazing how things work out!” Mom exclaimed, giving Noah a big hug and leaving me standing there, unhugged.

Amazing was the word for it. I wasn’t even part of this decision. It was made by my parents—and between Noah and some Dean guy I’d never heard of. By the time the news made it to me, it was already a done deal.

“But—” I sputtered. “But—”

Surely there was some way to fight this thing. Yet every argument I came up with collapsed like a house of cards. My parents in Europe. Our house locked up tight. There was only one possible place for me—at some college with Noah and his big fat ginormous IQ.

It was like waking up in the middle of a chess match to discover you’d already been checkmated.

Dad was practically jolly. “I can’t believe my son is going to an elite university. Well, Noah is and he’s taking you along for the ride!”

Yeah. And the cost turned out to be one summer.

Mine.

2
Hypermisfit
Noah Youkilis

In science, there are four different forces in the universe: gravity, electromagnetism, the strong nuclear force, and the weak nuclear force.

It was pretty boring stuff. When you have a 206 IQ, everything is so simple and obvious that very little can ever surprise you.

But I had a theory. There was a fifth force, one that nobody ever talked about. I called it option vacuum—also known as having no choice. It worked like a vacuum cleaner. Take away all other options and you just get sucked in.

I was going to Wilderton University because what choice did I have? I couldn’t very well start ninth grade with all my classmates because the Hardcastle School District already graduated me out of high school. That was the force propelling me to college.

That’s why I was no longer fighting, even though I really didn’t want to go. It was pure physics. I was just following the fifth force, as we all must. Quod erat demonstrandum.

I tried to explain that to Donovan on the car ride to Wilderton, but he just told me I didn’t know what I was talking about.

“Like that could ever happen,” I said sadly. “I always know what I’m talking about. It isn’t fun, but it’s me.”

Case in point: In the front seat, my parents were singing “Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall” to pass the time. But since each verse only took approximately eleven and a half seconds, I calculated that their song would be finished in just under nineteen minutes. In order to fill the entire two-and-a-half-hour drive, they would have to start at “Seven Hundred Eighty-Three Bottles of Beer on the Wall,” assuming moderate delays for throat-clearing, sneezing, and the occasional deep breath.

I didn’t suggest they actually do that. My mother did not have a lot of patience for my calculations. Like the time I calculated that if I stopped cutting my fingernails, by my fortieth birthday, they’d be well over three feet long. I calculated toenail growth too, but she refused to hear it. And saliva production—well, that was an unfortunate conversation.

To be honest, I wasn’t quite sure how my parents and I were even related. Not physically—I definitely had my father’s nose and my mother’s stick-out ears. But in human thought processes, we were a million miles apart. That was nothing against Mom and Dad. I envied them for being normal. I’d love to sing “Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall” and then be completely surprised when I ran out of bottles before my destination.

I wished I knew less so I could be surprised more.

That’s why I loved YouTube so much. When you click on a random video, not even a 206 IQ can predict what you’re going to see. For example, I just watched a three-legged chinchilla navigate an obstacle course made entirely of Lego bricks. I couldn’t have anticipated it and there was no way to project how it would make me feel. I loved it. I cheered the whole time.

Donovan didn’t have a high IQ like me, but in my opinion, he was more gifted than any of the kids in the gifted program, myself included, because he could be so unpredictable. He was almost like a human version of YouTube.

For example, no one could ever guess what he had brought for an entire summer at Wilderton University. Oh, sure, there were shorts and T-shirts, underwear and socks. But in his duffel bag, underneath the carefully folded clothes his mom had packed for him, was a small electric waffle iron.

I could only marvel at it. “Donovan—why would you bring this?”

His reply? “Nothing about this summer was my idea. Except this—waffles for breakfast.”

I dig further through the clothes. “But you don’t have any waffle mix.”

He just shrugged at that.

“Didn’t you read the student rules they sent us?” I asked. “We’re not allowed to cook in our dorm room. But it’s okay. There’s a cafeteria where we eat all our meals. Maybe they’ll have waffles.”

“Maybe,” he agreed.

But when I suggested that he leave the waffle iron behind, he absolutely refused.

Logic dictated that a waffle iron you couldn’t use was entirely worthless, like a boat anchor with no boat. But not to Donovan.

I had no reason to complain about Donovan’s excess baggage, though. He had just one suitcase. I had six. Plus two computers and four external hard drives since I was a computer science major. I also had gardening equipment so I could transplant three small bushes I grew in our kitchen. I’d developed a genetically modified strain of elderberries that promised to become a nutritional superfood. Mom and Dad didn’t seem too thrilled when I crammed them into the back seat with Donovan and me.

“They block the rearview mirror,” Dad had complained.

“That should be no problem,” I’d informed him. “I calculated that the other mirrors provide complete coverage.”

Another calculation: Dad had 62 percent less patience with my calculations than Mom did. Maybe even 63.

Eventually, we made it to Wilderton University, but, of course, I already knew all about it because I’d researched it. Located in the sawmill town of Conifer, the school was founded in 1829 by Nicholas Wilderton. It was voted the seventh-most beautiful college campus in the United States, although I didn’t see what was so special about it. There were old stone buildings covered with ivy. There were lawns, gardens, pathways, and ponds. There were trees everywhere, mostly towering evergreens. In other words, it looked like most other rural locations. What was the point of skipping high school just to come here?

“What a magical place!” my mother exclaimed. “You boys are so lucky to be here!”

“There’s no such thing as magic,” I told her. “All phenomena in the known world can be explained by science.”

“She just means it’s nice,” Donovan supplied.

We got a little lost searching for Butternut Hall, which was the dormitory we’d be living in. As the car navigated the winding road, Donovan’s face wrinkled into a frown of consternation. “Aren’t there any kids here?”

“These are the kids,” my father supplied. “Remember, this is college. Even the freshmen are eighteen.”

We were definitely the youngest ones here. The only people who didn’t have beards were the girls—or that’s what it seemed like.

“I’ve never felt so out of place in my life,” Donovan half whispered.

I was a little surprised to hear him say that. To me, Donovan was the coolest guy in the world, always at home, always at ease. I was the misfit. I was too smart for the Academy, but I didn’t fit in at regular school, either. Basically, there was one place where I was the odd man out: the universe.

An interesting conundrum began to form in my head: Donovan, who expected to be comfortable most places, felt like an oddball here. But since I was an oddball everywhere, Wilderton University didn’t throw me at all.

Had I reached the point in my life where my misfit status would finally come in handy?

When we found Butternut Hall, Dad pulled up to a back entrance where a few other cars were loading and unloading.

Because it seemed like the friendly thing to do, I introduced myself to the student in the car next to ours, who also seemed to be moving in.

“How do you do? I’m Noah Youkilis, an incoming freshman majoring in computer science.”

He was carrying two beanbag chairs, but he dropped them both to stare at me. “What are you—eight?”

“Thirteen,” I corrected him. “But don’t feel bad. It’s an understandable mistake due to my short stature.”

“You’re in the wrong place, kid,” he informed me. “This is college, not Gymboree.”

“My IQ is two hundred and six,” I explained. “I’m sure yours is much lower. You’re lucky.”

Donovan steered me away from the student, who seemed to be getting angry.

“Don’t be mad,” he advised the guy over his shoulder. “He’s a genius. Which has nothing to do with being smart.”

Between Donovan, my parents, and me, it only took a few trips to transfer our belongings into room 115, which was going to be home for the summer. It was a cinder block rectangle—I calculated 208 square feet—with a small bathroom at one end. There were bunk beds, two dressers, two desks, two chairs, and a tiny refrigerator.

Donovan set his duffel on the lower bunk, took out the waffle iron, and set it in the place of honor atop his dresser, the cord dangling over the side where there was no plug. “There,” he announced. “I’m unpacked.”

My mother was amazed. “Why did you bring that?”

I provided the explanation. “There’s no purpose to it. It’s absolutely random. How uplifting is that?”

At that moment, my father arrived in the room, carrying the last two of my elderberry bushes. “Well, that’s everything. You guys are officially moved in.”

As he set down the clay pots, a single moth took flight from the branches and began to flutter around the room.

Wordlessly, Donovan picked up the waffle iron, opened up the two sides, and slammed them shut on the winged insect.

“I guess it has a purpose after all,” he said, looking mildly pleased.

Thereby proving me wrong—which didn’t happen often to somebody with a 206 IQ.

It was another reason why two people as different as Donovan and me had come to be friends.

3
Hyperpiggy
Donovan Curtis

After Noah’s parents left, we got our campus tour—from Dean Kendrick himself, no less. Dean Kendrick was the number two guy at Wilderton. The top dog, President Aberfoyle, was away on sabbatical right now, which was when big-shot university honchos traveled the world doing educational things or whatever.

Our first view of the dean came when he rolled up to Butternut Hall in a tricked-out golf cart. He leaped out and enfolded me in a bear hug. “Noah Youkilis!” he gushed. “You have no idea how happy I am to welcome you to Wilderton!”

I wriggled loose. “I’m Donovan. He’s Noah.”

Unfazed, he transferred the hug to Noah and repeated his greeting word for word. Noah shrank away, mumbling, “Don’t do that.” He didn’t like to be touched by strangers. Or even by people he knew, come to think of it.

“I think our proud university offers exactly the level of intellectual stimulation you’ve been yearning for,” the dean continued. “I’m not sure you know this: You have the highest IQ of any student who has ever crossed our threshold . . .”

As Kendrick droned on, it began to sink in to me that this guy expected Noah to be the next Shakespeare or Einstein or Elon Musk—and the credit for all that would go to the wonderful dean who brought Noah to Wilderton.

Well, dream on, Dean Kendrick. The poor slob had no idea he’d recruited a “genius” who believed that the highest point in human achievement was YouTube.

The dean introduced us to the driver of the golf cart. “Say hello to C.T. Beldner, journalism student extraordinaire. As part of his senior thesis project, he’ll be chronicling the start of your Wilderton journey, Noah.”

C.T. looked about twenty, with the same sparse beard that so many of the male students seemed to have. As we shook hands all around, the newcomer eyed me suspiciously. Since Kendrick ignored me like I wasn’t even there, my identity became the mystery of the moment. Noah was the genius; who the heck was I supposed to be?

“I’m Donovan,” I introduced myself. “I’m just along for the ride.”

“Are you starting college too?” C.T. asked me.

I brayed a laugh right in his face. “Yeah—that’s funny.”

The tour took a lot longer than expected because Noah kept getting carsick in the golf cart, so every now and then, we had to pull over and take a break. I didn’t have the heart to tell Dean Kendrick that we’d already seen most of the campus while driving around trying to find Butternut Hall. The only difference was this time we got to hear about how most of the buildings were named after guys who died way back before the invention of the wheel.

“Most of the cobblestones on these paths come from Europe,” the dean was explaining. “They arrived in America on ships where they served as ballast. Nicholas Wilderton himself repurposed them for our pathways. Even in the nineteenth century, this university saw the value of recycling.”

From behind the wheel of the golf cart, C.T. shot me a side-eye that was almost an apology for Dean Kendrick’s boring personality. It proved that college students weren’t all that different from middle school kids.

“Of course,” the dean went on, “most of our academic buildings are connected by underground passages as well. You won’t have to trudge through snow during the harsh winter weather.”

“I get claustrophobia in tunnels,” Noah said with a shudder.

“Understandable,” Kendrick put in quickly. “I enjoy a bracing walk on a cold morning.”

It was pretty obvious the dean was determined to be in harmony with his 206 IQ golden boy at all costs. What a creep!

“Is that the football stadium?” I asked, pointing to a gray dome that loomed over the entire east side of campus.

“We’re very proud of our Wild Hogs,” the dean supplied. “They finished sixth in the Cropland Conference last season. Are you a football fan, Noah?”

Noah shook his head. “Professional wrestling is my sport. I watch the videos on YouTube.” He looked a little green, like he was getting carsick again.

“What’s that?” I asked, indicating a barnlike structure set up as a lean-to surrounded by chicken wire.

“That’s the sty, obviously,” the dean replied impatiently. Like why wouldn’t everybody already know that?

“You have a sty?” I persisted. “Like for pigs?”

C.T. laughed. “For one pig, anyway. Porquette lives there. She’s our wild hog—the mascot of our sports teams.” I must have made a face, because he added, “If you’re going to survive around this place, you’d better learn to appreciate this particular lady-pig. The whole campus loves her.” With a finger, he flattened his nose into a snout. “Fine swine—”

“Top of the line,” the dean finished, replicating the snout, which seemed pretty out of place on him.

Noah frowned. “The lifespan of the average pig is twelve to eighteen years. Do you expect anyone to believe that’s the original Porquette?”

“Obviously not.” The dean chuckled. “Every now and then we have to retire a pig and choose a successor. Students from our award-winning Agriculture college make the determination of when it’s time for a new Porquette—or in the case of a male, Porky.”

C.T. got the idea that the Wilderton Wire needed a picture of the college’s smartest new student with its beloved mascot. So off we went to the sty, which smelled like a hundred pigs lived there, instead of just one. I could tell Dean Kendrick wasn’t thrilled with this little side trip. He started breathing through his mouth as we approached the lean-to. I was doing some of that myself.

To my surprise, Noah actually seemed excited at the prospect of meeting Porquette. He gave me his phone along with instructions on how I should video this moment so he could post it to YouTube. And then Porquette emerged from the lean-to, and we got our first good look at the mascot of Wilderton University.

“That’s a pig?” Noah breathed. “It’s more like—a hippopotamus!”

Okay, he was exaggerating, but not by much. Porquette stood almost as high as Noah’s waist and a good forty inches in length. But while Noah was skinny and insect-like, the pig was solid as a boulder. If you drove a car into her, it seemed like the car would suffer more damage than the animal. She waddled up to us and plopped her ample belly into the mud of the sty, sending blobs of dirt and straw in every direction. We all got hit, but it was worth it to see Dean Kendrick with a splotch of filth running down the immaculate crease of his suit pants.

C.T. wanted a close-up of genius and mascot, but Noah was too uncoordinated to get over the fence. So the student reporter had to settle for a shot of Noah straddling the top post, half-tangled in chicken wire, with Porquette looking up at him almost in amusement.

“Let’s keep the tour moving,” the dean suggested, scowling at his soiled clothing. “We don’t want to get bogged down on any one thing.”

It took the three of us to extricate Noah from the chicken wire so we could bid our farewell to Porquette and breathe again. I was no Dean Kendrick fan, but I was happy to get back to the non-pig portion of the tour.

As we were climbing back into the golf cart, I noticed a small outcropping of rock with an image painted on it of a mallet surrounded by stars. I’d seen it a few other places around the campus—on rocks and benches and once even on the side of a building. I’d assumed it was just graffiti, but the same picture was definitely coming up again and again.

“What’s that?” I asked.

Kendrick seemed pleased that I’d noticed. “That’s Wilderton’s secret society—the Society of the Gavel. You’ll notice that symbol all over the campus.”

Noah jumped on that like a dog on a dropped hamburger. “Secret society? What does that mean?”

“All the best universities have them,” the dean explained. “Yale has Skull and Bones. William and Mary has the Flat Hat. Emory has the Order of Ammon. We at Wilderton like to think that the Society of the Gavel is the oldest and most prestigious of them all.”

“But what’s it about?” Noah persisted. “What does the Society of the Gavel do?”

“Nobody really knows,” the dean replied. “Every now and then, a group of old members makes a donation in the name of the Gavel, but we can never be sure, not even of the donors’ identities. Not until they die. They’re buried as Gavelers—and then it’s too late to ask them any questions.”

“How do you apply?” Noah asked eagerly.

“You don’t,” C.T. told him. “They have to recruit you. They say that only one out of a hundred students is ever approached to join the Society of the Gavel.”

C.T. and the dean had no way of knowing this, but I was all too familiar with what was going on. Noah was becoming quiet and focused, his questioning rapid-fire. It was the way he’d reacted the first time I showed him YouTube. When he set his headlights on something, that 206 IQ was relentless until he’d learned everything there was to know about the topic. It looked like the Society of the Gavel was next on the list.

The tour went on for another hour, but it never recaptured Noah’s attention. He wasn’t interested in the student union or the research library or even the state-of-the-art Technology Center. Yet every time we passed a gavel and stars painted on a paving stone or a wall or a broken-down fence, he just about leaped out of the golf cart. C.T. tried to interview him for the Wilderton Wire, but Noah responded to every question with a question of his own about the Society of the Gavel—how they got started, why they chose a gavel as their symbol, and, most important of all, what qualities they looked for in new members.

I could tell Dean Kendrick was becoming a little impatient with Noah’s nagging. “It’s a secret, Noah. That’s why they call it a secret society. If everybody knew about it, it wouldn’t be secret anymore.”

At long last, C.T. steered the golf cart into the driveway in front of Butternut Hall. I wondered if Noah was going to call attention to the three elderberry bushes I’d helped him transplant in a line of shrubs outside the window of our dorm room. But my roommate didn’t bring up the subject. For Noah, if it didn’t have a gavel on it, it wasn’t worth mentioning.

“Well, now you’ve seen our corner of the world.” Dean Kendrick shook hands with Noah, ignoring me once more. “Your first class is at the Technology Center at nine a.m. tomorrow. Let me just say once again how thrilled we are to have you at Wilderton.” And now that Noah was all squared away, he climbed back into the golf cart so he and C.T. could drive off.

“Hey, wait a minute!” I blurted. “What about me?”

“What about you?” he asked, like I was a pesky insect that needed to be swatted.

“I know I’m not in college or anything like that,” I went on, “but aren’t I supposed to have some kind of job here while Noah—you know—does his thing?”

The dean looked completely blank. I experienced a moment of sheer panic. Was this dumb school so anxious to snag Noah that they lied about having a job for me? Tomorrow my parents were leaving for Paris and the start of their second honeymoon. It would be the final touch of this wonderful summer if I was stranded here for months with nothing to do.

C.T. came to my rescue. “Dean Kendrick, didn’t you say that Donovan was going to work in the Explorers Program?”

I clung to it like I was a drowning sailor and this was my lifeline. “What’s the Explorers Program?”

“Oh, yes,” the dean said, snapping his fingers in recollection. “The Explorers Program is a summer camp the university offers for the young children of faculty and graduate students. You’re going to be a counselor-in-training.”

“Congratulations, Donovan,” Noah approved. “You’ll be shaping young minds.”

I made a face. In other words, I was going to be a babysitter. But come to think of it, that was a job I already had.

I would be spending my summer babysitting Noah.

4
Hyperbaloney
Raina Overbrook

Counselors Meeting—8 a.m.

Home base for the Explorers Program was the lobby of the main athletic building, east campus, not far from the football stadium and the pool complex. I made sure to be there at seven-thirty because if you’re not early, you’re late.

The place was totally empty when I arrived. No one else was there, not even the camp director, Mr. Arthur Podborski, who everyone called Mr. Arthropod—a little joke from the biology department. Humor hit differently here in the university world, where everyone was smart and educated.

Anyway, I didn’t mind being first. I needed a little extra time to be alone with my thoughts because this was going to be a big summer for me. I was a full counselor this year instead of just a counselor-in-training. So I’d be in charge of my very own group of campers, even though I was only thirteen.

I was used to everyone around me being older. Both my parents were professors at Wilderton, so I’d lived here my entire life. On campus, even the freshmen were eighteen or nineteen. I had to crane my neck just to look the students in the face. But in the Explorers Program, I’d be working with kids ages six to ten. I’d grown three inches in the last year—they might have to look up to me!

A little closer to eight, the other counselors began to trickle in, but Mr. Arthropod still wasn’t here. That was a little irritating. Camp was scheduled to begin at nine. We’d be meeting our campers in an hour. We needed to get this meeting started so we’d be ready!

Most of the other counselors were college students who were spending the summer on campus. That was another thing about university life. There was always a large pool of students who worked cheap in order to help pay their tuition and expenses. So I was surprised when a boy who seemed just about my age walked into the room. I knew all the sub-college-age kids who lived at Wilderton, but this guy was new. I was sure of it. If he was local, he would have gone to my middle school. Unless he went to boarding school, but he didn’t have the look. He seemed relaxed, laid-back, comfortable in his own skin. For sure, he didn’t break his neck to get here at seven-thirty. Then again, nobody else did that either—and Mr. Arthropod, the head of it all, still hadn’t arrived.

So I walked up to the new kid and held out my hand. “Hi, I’m Raina.”

We shook.

“Donovan,” he introduced himself with a shy smile. He had a rumpled appearance as if he’d just fallen off the back of a moving truck, but I couldn’t help noticing that his teeth were dazzling white and perfect.

“I thought I knew everybody our age on campus,” I told him. “Are you new here?”

“I’m just here for the summer,” he replied.

I nodded wisely. “My folks are professors too.”

“I’m not with my parents,” he explained. “I live in Butternut Hall with this kid from my hometown. It’s kind of a long story. He’s getting a full scholarship—”

I exploded with excitement and cut him off. “You’re here with Noah Youkilis? Why didn’t you say so?”

He shrugged. “It isn’t usually how I introduce myself. Who’s heard of Noah Youkilis?”

Was he serious? The whole campus was buzzing about how Dean Kendrick had convinced Noah to come to Wilderton. Noah had the highest IQ in the state—maybe even the whole country. To land a student as young as Noah, who was as smart as Noah, was a major triumph for our university.

“Are you kidding?” I shot back at him. “Everybody’s heard of Noah! He’s going to be one of the greatest minds of the twenty-first century!”

He showed me the teeth again, smiling wider this time. I got the feeling there was a private joke in there somewhere.

“What’s he like?” I probed.

“He’s one of a kind, all right,” Donovan replied. “Good thing too. I don’t know if the world could handle more than one.”

I could feel my eyes narrowing. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

He shrugged, a gesture that was a perfect match for his appearance. “Nothing. You’ll have to find out for yourself. He is really smart, though. Big brain.”

“Well, where do you fit in?” I persisted.

He heaved a sigh. “I honestly wish I knew.”

I’d only spent a few minutes with Donovan, but this was exactly the kind of cryptic reply I’d already come to expect from him. It gave me the sense that I was allowed to see only half the play I was acting in. But then he went on: “The college said Noah could bring one person along with him and he picked me.”

I was just beginning to think this Donovan guy was kind of a jerk, when that set me on a different path. True, he was a smart aleck who never gave a straight answer. But think about it: Noah Youkilis chose this kid to be his companion for the opening summer of his college career. And that meant Donovan had to be pretty special. It didn’t matter that I couldn’t see it. Noah saw it—and that was good enough for me.

“You two must be very close,” I told him.

He seemed surprised at that, but our conversation was cut off by the arrival—finally—of Mr. Arthropod. He called the meeting to order, acting as if we were the ones who’d kept him waiting—like he hadn’t breezed in twenty minutes late, fifty minutes late for being half an hour early.

“Gather round, people. We’re already behind schedule.” Like it was our fault. “There’s only one rule at this camp: Leave me alone.” There was laughter all around the room, but Mr. Arthropod didn’t crack a smile. “I’m serious about that. I don’t want to hear your problems. What’s so hard about taking a bunch of kids and keeping them happy for one summer? You’ve got world-class facilities here: Pools. Fields. Basketball courts. A half-dozen theaters. Art studios for when it rains. Great food. I’ll be right here if you need me. My advice: Don’t need me. Remember—this is Wilderton. Everything has to be top-notch. Let’s keep it that way. I’ll see you all soon enough—at the Labor Day picnic.”

A dozen people called out questions and the camp director held up his arms for quiet. “You’re not listening, folks. You just broke rule one. I’ll give you a pass on it today because I’m a swell guy, but don’t let it happen again.”

You could identify the people who weren’t used to the camp director’s offbeat sense of humor. They were straight-backed and alarmed while the rest of us were exchanging knowing smiles.

I reached out and tapped Donovan on the arm. “That’s just his way,” I whispered. “He’s a big kidder.”

But Donovan didn’t seem worried at all. It was as if he hadn’t even been listening. What an oddball. How did a guy like that come to be friends with a renowned genius?

Well, it wasn’t my problem. Pretty soon the meeting was over, and we all went to the bulletin boards to get our assignments. The luck of the draw gave me five eight-year-olds: three boys and two girls. It gave me something else too: my very own counselor-in-training. Guess who? Donovan Curtis.

“Oh, it’s you,” we chorused when we realized we were stuck with each other.

But come to think of it, maybe this wasn’t such a bad thing. For sure it was better than getting paired with some stuck-up eighteen-year-old who would try to boss me around even though I was the full counselor and they were just the CIT. Plus if Donovan and I became friends, I’d get to meet Noah! I’d been dreaming of that ever since I heard he’d be coming to Wilderton. How cool would that be?

Our group was waiting for us on the thirty-yard line of the football field. I checked my list. We had Manny, Luna, Claire, Jalen, and Victor.

I recognized Victor already. “That’s Victor the Underestimator,” I whispered to Donovan. “I remember him from last year.”

“Why do they call him that?” Donovan asked innocently.

“Because he always underestimates how long it’s going to take him to get to the bathroom. We have to watch him. Like a hawk.”

I could see Donovan’s skin tightening a little around his cheekbones. Could Mr. Cool finally be revealing a side of himself that wasn’t so laid back and chill?

The main order of business was for each team to come up with a name. We had a large blank poster board and markers so we’d have a sign that would serve as a rallying point for our kids.

Last year, the theme was animals. My group was the Antelopes—Lopes for short—and we prided ourselves on our fast running for all games and races. This summer’s theme was trickier: food. We could see the other signs taking shape on the field all around us: Team Pizza, the PBJs, Taco Tuesday, Burger Nation, the Big Cheese.

“All the good names are taken,” Manny complained. “Camp hasn’t even started and we’re already losers!”

“There’s no winning and losing,” I explained patiently. “We just have to pick a name. What’s your favorite food?”

“I like liver and onions,” Luna offered timidly.

“I hate liver and onions!” Claire countered.

“Watermelon’s pretty good,” Victor suggested.

“What kind of a group name is that?” Manny shot back.

“How about you, Jalen?” I prompted. “Is there a special food you like?”

The blond boy shook his head politely. “Whatever you guys decide is fine with me.”

I looked around the field. All the other groups had picked their names, their signs finished and displayed proudly. Mr. Arthropod was regarding us in annoyance. He didn’t much like holdups either. He considered it a form of not leaving him alone.

Feeling the pressure, I turned to Donovan, who’d been zero help and hadn’t contributed so much as a single peep so far. “Well?” I demanded. “Any suggestions?”

He let out a little snort. “If you’re going to be dumb enough to make people name themselves after food, try baloney.”

I felt a stab of anger. “Come on, Donovan, this isn’t a joke! Do you really think—?”

But suddenly our campers were jumping up and down, waving their arms and punching the air.

“Baloney!” Manny exclaimed. “It’s perfect!”

“No-o!” I tried to reason. “This has to be something we can be proud of. Do you want to spend the whole summer being called baloney?”

“It’s the best name by far,” Claire agreed sagely. “Everybody else just picked some random food, but we’re making a comment. We’re not baloney; picking a name is baloney!”

“But it’s our name,” I persisted. “Once it’s on the sign, we can’t change it!”

“I love baloney,” Victor added. “Thanks, Donovan!”

The group gathered around my counselor-in-training and high-fived him. Nobody high-fived me.

“No problem,” Donovan said with a big grin in my direction.

“Fine,” I sighed. “So what are we going to be? The Baloney Sandwiches? Baloney Squad? I know—how about Baloney Avengers?”

Nope. The five of them grabbed the markers and fell on the poster board, cackling with glee. Two minutes later, our sign was ready for all to see, proclaiming our name: Baloney.

Mr. Arthropod was circling the field, examining the signs from group to group. “The Chicken Nuggets—great name, guys,” he announced into a handheld megaphone. “And here we have Eggs Benedict Arnold—very clever . . . And give it up for”—the camp director stopped dead in front of our poster board—“Baloney? What kind of a—?”

Whatever he said next was drowned out by the cheers of our campers.

Mr. Arthropod pulled Donovan and me aside. “Listen, you two. You’re the youngest counselors here, and maybe you don’t know kids can be kind of pushy. You’re stuck with the name, but we don’t want your group embarrassing the university with anything else smart-alecky. So keep them on a short leash. Remember—the tail doesn’t wag the dog.”

As soon as he was gone, I wheeled on Donovan. “Now see what you’ve done? Thanks a lot for coming up with that stupid name!”

He flashed me the teeth again. “What are you talking about? Look how happy they are.”

Our five campers were marching around the sign, chanting, “Baloney! . . . Baloney! . . . Baloney! . . .”

I had to admit it: Nobody else was having this much fun. The other counselors were looking at us with everything from confusion to resentment. Camp hadn’t even started yet, but Group Baloney was in full celebration mode. What was our secret? Our campers were practically dancing.

Come to think of it, Victor was dancing a little bit too much.

“All right, guys,” I announced. “Let’s take a bathroom break.”

5
Hypersmitten
Noah Youkilis

I began my first official day of college by giving my elderberry bushes their daily 0.375 liters of water. The flowers were mostly gone now, and the fruit was growing in behind them.

Two windows down, a girl peered quizzically at me as I emptied the beaker, making sure the water was shared equally among the three plants.

I smiled at her. “Good morning! I’m watering my elderberries. They look purple now, but the color will darken to nearly black as they approach maturity.” Following Donovan’s advice, I made sure not to mention my age or the fact that my IQ was 206. Donovan felt this would be off-putting to people, even though I wished my IQ could be as low as theirs and I could be ordinary like them.

The head disappeared, and the window slammed shut.

I shrugged into my backpack and set off for computer science class. On the way, I played a little game in my head. Every time I spied a gavel and stars painted on a rock or fence, I would double the molecular weight of boron, which was 10.811 u. I was up to 172.976 u by the time I reached the double doors of the Technology Center. Interesting. I made a mental note to try it with magnesium during my walk to the cafeteria for lunch later.

My first class was Advanced Computer Seminar. Following Donovan’s advice, I walked into the room and announced, “Hello, I’m Noah, a typical student. There’s nothing extraordinary about me in any way whatsoever.”

I didn’t think it worked. I heard a lot of whispering—things like: “That’s him; that’s Youkilis!” along with the number 206. In retrospect, it didn’t make much sense to try to hide my identity. The youngest of them was at least five years older than me. They were adults; I was a boy. In fact, the atmosphere was almost hostile, as if my exceptionality diminished the others or even threatened them.

The only person who was nice to me was one girl. Maybe I should call her a lady. She sat down beside me, put an arm around my shoulders, and whispered, “Don’t worry about them, Noah. They’re just jealous. People have been talking about you for weeks now.”

She said her name was Arlene Pulaski, and she was a nineteen-year-old sophomore from Kentucky. She told me a lot of things, but the truth is I didn’t hear very many of them. I was too busy staring into her eyes and listening to her voice, which was like music. I didn’t think it was going to be possible for me to fall in love. I believed that my brain functioned at such a high level that no emotional response could ever prevent my 206 IQ from operating logically. When I watched a YouTube video where the Undertaker performed his signature move—the Tombstone Piledriver—I was exhilarated, of course, but my mind continued to compute, to analyze, to cogitate. This was different. The entire world became Arlene. She was the answer to every question, the solution to every equation. Even the wind whispered her name, although on some level, I understood that a) wind made no sound, only aeolian tones produced as it blew over objects, causing friction, and b) there was no wind inside the Technology Center.

I could have happily spent the rest of my life in that classroom, gazing at Arlene and blocking out the rest of the world, but at that moment, the professor showed up and ruined everything.

“Good morning. I’m Dr. Menzies. Welcome to Advanced Computer Seminar. In this course—Noah Youkilis!” All at once, his eyes locked on me. “I realized that our paths might cross eventually, but to meet you here on day one? What an honor!”

Oh, great. Just when I was starting to forget the frosty reception from the other students, along came the professor to remind people how different I was and why they all resented me. But this time, I didn’t feel so bad about it because Arlene was there. Just having her at the desk next to mine, knowing she was on my side, made everything better.

She even got the topic off me when she raised her hand and asked Dr. Menzies about the artificial intelligence projects we’d be working on during the summer semester.

“Yes, let’s get right to it,” the professor replied. “As you know, artificial intelligence is an incredibly broad topic. As we speak, AI systems are writing text, creating art, serving as chatbots and digital assistants, programming computers, and performing countless tasks. When you develop your AI system for this class, I want you to always be thinking of what the end use is going to be. Can anybody give me a sense of their ideas so far?”

My hand wanted to go up, but I kept it pressed to the wooden surface of my desk. Of course I had an idea—I had dozens of them. I’d been working on AI since fourth grade. I doubt even Dr. Menzies knew as much about AI as I did. But if I went first, the focus would be back on me again, complete with rumblings about my 206 IQ, and I didn’t want Arlene to have to stick up for me again.

A couple of people spoke about plans for their projects. The ideas were pretty ho-hum, miles behind my own thinking, but I pretended to be interested along with everyone else. And then Arlene raised her hand.

“I’m working on an AI-powered diagnostic tool to help mechanics repair motorcycles.”

“Excellent,” the professor approved. “As scientists, we sometimes have our heads in the clouds, and we don’t think about what our inventions will actually be used for. What could be a more practical purpose than fixing something that’s broken? But what made you think of motorcycles rather than, say, cars or trucks?”

Arlene blushed. “My boyfriend, Gator, rides a Harley, and he’s always complaining about finding a good mechanic. But with the right AI program, maybe he can be his own mechanic.”

Boyfriend?

The devastation was a supernova, a dying star triggered into runaway nuclear fusion. Of course, I should have known from the start that someone as perfect as Arlene would already have a boyfriend. How could I have missed that? A second emotional response overwhelmed my normally logical mind: bitter, churning jealousy. Did this motorcycle-riding Gator person even realize that he was the luckiest human being on the face of the earth?

A thick red haze enveloped my head, obscuring my vision. It took a moment to register that Dr. Menzies was regarding me expectantly and I was the center of attention in the room.

“Noah?” the professor prompted. “Can you tell us anything about what you’d like to work on this summer?”

At that moment, I was so wrapped up in jealousy and disappointment, it was a miracle my mind could function at all. So I reached back and blurted the first thing that came to mind: “I am going to create an AI engine that will get me into the Society of the Gavel.”

The classroom resounded with the laughter of the other students. Even Arlene’s perfect lips formed a tight smile, causing me to suspect that she was suppressing a giggle.

“But surely you understand that’s impossible,” Dr. Menzies told me. “Nobody gets into the Society of the Gavel without an invitation. And nobody can ask for an invitation because who would you ask? The membership is one hundred percent secret.”

“My AI will be able to overcome that,” I promised him. “It will have to crunch millions of terabytes of data, but it will identify current Gavelers who will let me in.”

A babble of protest greeted my announcement. Just the notion that the supersecret Society of the Gavel could be penetrated by a thirteen-year-old was outrageous to these Wilderton students.

“Impossible!”

“It’ll never work!”

“I wouldn’t let that little creep into a phone booth if he was changing into Superman!”

Dr. Menzies rapped on his desk for order. “Settle down, everyone!”

Arlene turned to me, her eyes huge and liquid. “Really, Noah? You think that could work?”

“Absolutely,” I assured her.

But what I really wanted was something that no computer program would ever be able to deliver. Oh, how I wished I could develop an AI system that would convince Arlene to break up with Gator!

6
Hyperpanic
Donovan Curtis

In the picture, Mom and Dad were standing on the observation deck of the Eiffel Tower, clinking champagne glasses with the lights of Paris all around them. After they texted the photo, they called, and I swear I barely recognized their voices. Maybe that’s because there wasn’t any yelling. In the Curtis family, conversation usually required a volume control set on eleven.

“How’s your friend Noah doing?” my father asked.

“I think he’s in love,” I replied. “I hear the name Arlene about eight hundred times a day. I’m not positive, but I think that’s a girl. In that class, it could also be a computer. On the plus side, he says our elderberries are starting to ripen.”

I settled in for a long conversation: Noah in love? What elderberries? And mostly, how are you doing, our darling son, who we abandoned for an entire summer so we could bounce across France on a grand tour?

“Gotta run,” Mom chimed in. “The bus is waiting to take us to the Louvre. Glad you’re doing so well, dear!” Click.

Never mind that I didn’t get to say a single word about how I was doing, because they didn’t ask. They were going to see the Mona Lisa. I was going to see if Victor the Underestimator was going to make it to the bathroom before disaster struck.

But if I had to be honest with myself, this summer wasn’t turning out to be as terrible as I’d feared. It wasn’t the endless weeks of butt-on-couch I had planned, but living in a college dorm was actually kind of cool. Nobody bugged you to take out the garbage or to pick yesterday’s socks up off the floor. Screen time was unlimited, at least until your phone died. You went to sleep when you felt like it. You could even eat potato chips in bed.

The closest thing to parents was the resident assistant. The RA was an older college student who was kind of like a hall monitor for the dorm. Ours was a girl named JoJo, who was twenty-two—although to us, she was the same age as everybody else who lived there: older. We’d only met her once so far, on our first night. We thought she was there to welcome us, but she was actually delivering a warning. Last semester, some kids tried to flush a grapefruit down their toilet, causing a gigantic plumbing meltdown. From now on, the rule was “No citrus, please.” I promised to do our best and shut the door before Noah could bring up the elderberries growing in the bushes around the dorm she was supposed to be in charge of. I wasn’t sure if her duties extended to agriculture.

JoJo ignored us because all the college kids ignored us. They had been sick of hearing about Noah before Noah even got there. That was the university’s fault for making such a big deal out of the middle school genius and his glorious 206 IQ. And the Wilderton students definitely couldn’t figure out what I was doing here. I could barely figure it out myself.

I could tell Noah was a little hurt that the college kids weren’t more welcoming, but I sort of understood. This was their place, not ours. And who would love the idea of a thirteen-year-old shrimp who could think them all into the ground? I was never too jealous of Noah’s big brain. Mostly, I felt sorry for him because he didn’t fit in anywhere. And here, he fit in even less than anywhere else.

The Wilderton freshmen were five years older than Noah and me, which was the same age gap between us and the eight-year-olds in the Explorers Program. Did they see us the way I saw Manny, Victor, Jalen, Luna, and Claire? If they did, no wonder we were outsiders.

Speaking of camp, our meeting place every morning was the football stadium. As I stepped out onto the crowded field, I scanned for our Baloney sign. There it was . . . and there was Raina, looking miserable to be holding it. Man, she hated our group name—almost as much as the kids loved it. And she was never going to forgive me for being the person who suggested it in the first place.

Raina was okay. Her main problem was she took working at a camp way too seriously. She never missed a chance to point out that she was a full counselor while I was just a counselor-in-training. Like I cared.

But for some reason, the kids always turned to me first when they had a question—almost as if I was the boss and Raina was number two. I bet that bugged her. A lot. But it wasn’t my fault—even though I kind of enjoyed it deep down.

Spying me, Manny bellowed, “Donovan!” and the group lined up for our morning high fives. Victor, who was a little clumsy, kicked the sign, and the poster board bumped Raina in the side of the head.

“All good,” Raina declared through clenched teeth. I’d bet she saw stars.

If you went by our schedule, you’d swear we had two weeks of stuff crammed into one seven-hour day. We did a lot, but we never stuck to one activity for very long. Mr. Arthropod called it the Principle of Short Attention Spans. Before anybody would start to get bored, we were always moving on to the next thing.

That morning, we had relay races against Taco Tuesday and the Big Cheese. We came in dead last and Manny took it personally, so Claire cheered him up by trash-talking the other teams. Luna was our best athlete, but she had trouble concentrating because there were wildflowers on the property. She was a major sucker for wildflowers.

Raina tried to get everybody focused with a rousing pep talk, but I’d already accepted the fact that there were no superstars in Group Baloney.

“I guess we’re probably not going to win a lot of ribbons this summer,” I commented to Jalen.

He smiled sweetly. “That’s okay. Winning isn’t everything. I’m just happy being Baloney.”

I liked all the kids, but Jalen was definitely my favorite. He was so laid-back and chill—you could just tell he wasn’t going to cause any problems. That was important in a camp where the golden rule was “Leave me alone.” I wished we had five of him. Claire had a big mouth; Manny was too competitive and got emotional every time the wind blew; Luna had her head in the clouds; and Victor—well, no mystery what his problem was. But at least we had it easy with Jalen.

After the relay races came arts and crafts, where we made lanyards, and Luna created a masterpiece that belonged in a museum. The ropes course at the playground was next. This was all before eleven, when we reported to the pool complex for swimming.

I threw myself onto a deck recliner while we waited for our group to come out of the changing rooms. “It isn’t even lunch and I’m already exhausted,” I commented to Raina. “Why’s it so hard to keep up with a bunch of eight-year-olds?”

“Maybe you’re feeling the pressure of being everybody’s favorite,” she shot back.

“Aw, come on, Raina. If you weren’t so uptight, they would love you too.”

“If I’m uptight, it’s because they’re my responsibility,” she insisted. “I’m the full counselor.”

“Relax,” I told her. “They’re just changing into bathing suits. What could go wrong? There are bathrooms in there, so we don’t even have to stress over Victor underestimating anything.”

She mixed a frown with a far-off look. “Jalen worries me.”

“Jalen? He’s the best kid we’ve got!”

“He’s too quiet,” she explained. “His grandfather is Dr. Aberfoyle, the president of the university. He probably lives this fancy life, surrounded by professors, never having any kid fun. We could make this the best summer he’s ever had.”

“I know exactly what you’re doing,” I accused her. “You’re trying to impress Dr. Hydrofoil by schmoozing his grandson.”

“That’s Aberfoyle,” she corrected. “And I’m not schmoozing anybody. But as Jalen’s counselors, it’s our job to bring him out of his shell.”

“That’s the opposite of what we should be doing,” I argued. “His shell is awesome. It means he isn’t going to give us any problems. I wish we had a shell for every one of them.”

At that moment, the girls came out of the changing room and entered the pool, Claire with a seismic cannonball and Luna one toe at a time. They were followed thirty seconds later by Manny and Victor.

“Hey, where’s Jalen?” I called after them.

Manny didn’t hear me. Victor gestured back in the direction of the changing room.

I sighed. “I’ll check on him.” Bummer—I really wasn’t in the mood to get out of the recliner. It was the nearest thing to the butt-on-couch I had promised myself for this summer.

I entered the boys’ locker room to find it deserted. No Jalen. No anybody.

A dry bathing suit sitting on the bench looked kind of familiar. I checked the waistband. A label had been sewn into it: Jalen A.

I ran like a fool to every exit, figuring he picked the wrong one and locked himself out. I checked the bathroom. No Jalen.

Raina’s words began to circle my brain: Jalen worries me.

I scrambled back out to the pool deck and found Raina. “Did Jalen come out?”

She leaped to her feet. “No! You went into the locker room to find him!”

“Well, he isn’t there!”

“Where can he be?” Raina shrilled.

Full panic. “If I knew that, we wouldn’t be having this conversation!”

Raina did an amazing imitation of a person running in four directions at the same time. I was a little more controlled but no less panicky. We searched the pool deck and even went into the water. Little kids look pretty much alike with their hair plastered to their scalps, so we stared straight into faces. Nobody looked like Jalen.

By this time, Raina was the color of an overripe tomato. “We have to tell Mr. Arthropod!”

“That’s the last thing we should do,” I countered. “What, you want to tell the crankiest guy on campus that we lost the grandson of the president of the whole university? That would be a gross violation of ‘Leave me alone’!”

“But our camper could be in danger!”

“He’s not in danger. He was with us a few minutes ago. How far away could he be?”

The other four weren’t thrilled to be dragged out of the pool before everybody else, but when I explained that we’d qualified for the camp hide-and-seek championships, they seemed pretty gung ho about that.

“Baloney power!” Manny cheered. “Who are we playing? The Big Cheese? I hate those guys!”

“We’re going to kill them!” Claire assured him.

Victor had a question. “How come we’re already in the championship when we haven’t played any games yet?”

“Hide-and-seek is different,” I explained. “Here’s how it works. Jalen is hiding somewhere. If we find him, we’re top seed in the tournament.”

It must have been the right thing to say. The four of them scrambled into their shorts and T-shirts, and off we went in search of our missing man.

“Ready or not, here we come!” bellowed Manny in a voice that would have been loud for an NFL linebacker, much less an eight-year-old.

“What are you going to tell them when we find Jalen and they expect to be presented with the hide-and-seek championship trophy?” Raina asked me as we jogged along behind the kids.

“Well, then we’ll have our missing kid back, so problem solved,” I replied. “We’ll make up some story about how we advanced to the next level, and that’ll be the end of it.”

She seemed like she was about to give me an argument, but she was just too worried. To be honest, I was starting to get a little scared myself. The campus wasn’t too crowded during summer session and the terrain was mostly flat. It shouldn’t have been this hard to spot one wayward camper.

Raina remembered the system of underground passages for when the campus was covered in snow, so we searched for Jalen down there.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are!” Manny’s foghorn voice echoed through the concrete tunnels.

I figured we’d get banned from the campus for disturbing the peace. But there wasn’t a soul around.

“Jalen’s really good at hide-and-seek,” Luna observed with admiration.

Manny nodded. “No wonder we made it to the championship.”

Raina cast me a look that would have melted lead.

When Jalen had been gone over an hour, Raina and I got into a whispered argument about getting our kids some lunch. We were already half an hour late to the cafeteria, which wasn’t going to look good on our performance assessment. But compared with what we might have to tell Mr. Arthropod, that was going to be no big whoop. Even I had to admit that the Jalen situation was approaching DEFCON 1.

“We’ll drop the kids off in the lunchroom and go to the camp office to report what’s been going on,” Raina decided firmly.

It sounded like the right thing to do. As much as facing the music was against my basic principles, I really was freaking out about this kid. Plus I had to admit that Raina knew her stuff when it came to being a counselor. She had seen that Jalen was something to worry about even before we actually had to worry about him.

“All right, guys,” I announced. “Let’s get some lunch.”

“And risk the championship?” Manny howled. “Never!”

“We can’t let the Big Cheese win!” Claire added. “Those jerks are so full of themselves already.”

“It’s okay,” I assured them. “Eating time doesn’t count against your overall score.”

They regarded me trustingly as if that rule had come straight from the official hide-and-seek Board of Governors.

At that point, we were at the edge of the woods on the southeastern corner of the campus. So by the time we made it back to the bustling cafeteria, it had been nearly two hours since five kids had entered the changing rooms at the pool and only four had come out.

As we stepped inside, I couldn’t keep my eyes from straying down the corridor to the camp office. In just a few minutes, that would be the scene of our big confession to Mr. Arthropod. Even I—a veteran of big confessions—was dreading this one. You didn’t just lose an eight-year-old. But compared to Raina, I was cool, calm, and collected. She’d probably never been in trouble in her entire life. She looked like she was about to lay an egg right there in the lunchroom.

My unpleasant thought was interrupted by Manny’s voice, booming directly into my ear: “Forty, forty, I see you!”

Our campers raced into the cafeteria and swarmed a center table, pointing and cheering. The other kids looked at them like they were nuts.

Raina grabbed my wrist and squeezed hard enough to splinter bone. There, in the midst of the other groups, sat Jalen, munching on a peanut butter sandwich with the crusts cut off.

My instant reaction was to be so mad at this kid that I almost forgot to be relieved that we had him back. Anyway, Raina did the relieved part. She enveloped him in a bear hug that practically smothered him.

I couldn’t get myself to the same forgiving place. “Funny meeting you here, Jalen!” I announced through clenched teeth. “What have you been up to these past”—I checked my phone—“two solid hours?”

“Oh,” he replied airily. “You know.”

“We kind of don’t,” Raina pressed. “Why don’t you give us the details?”

“I was over at the pool,” he explained. “And now I’m here.”

I was starting to admire the little guy. I considered myself a world-class excuse-maker, but not even I would have had the nerve to say that.

“Did we win?” Manny demanded.

“Win what?” Raina asked, mystified.

“The hide-and-seek championship!” Claire supplied in exasperation. She cast a scorching look that took in the other groups around the cafeteria. “In your face, losers!”

“What’s our prize?” Victor asked.

In answer, Jalen reached into the bulging pockets of his shorts and produced two fistfuls of dried garbanzo beans.

Raina and I stared at each other. What the heck—?

“Score!” exclaimed Manny.

Jalen carefully divided his loot among his fellow Baloney-ites, who seemed as thrilled as if they were receiving precious gems.

“Go get your trays,” I said wearily. “Lunch is almost over.”

The four of them ran to the food line. I figured this would be our chance to question Jalen, but he got up and scampered off with them.

“We can’t let him get away with this,” Raina said determinedly. “As his counselors, it’s our job to make sure he knows he can’t just disappear on us.”

“I’m only a counselor-in-training,” I reminded her. “You were pretty clear about that during the eighteen times the subject came up.”

“It’s your responsibility too,” she insisted. “We have to find out where he went today.”

“Well, wherever it was, there were definitely garbanzo beans.”

“Be serious!” she insisted. “It’s the only way to make sure it never happens again.”

I sighed. “You can ask him. But I don’t think he’s going to spill. I know the type. I am the type.”

I had to give Raina full credit for trying. During the afternoon, she cornered Jalen several times and tried to squeeze out of him where he’d gone during his two-hour absence.

His answer: Nowhere special, no place much, here and there, around, and I forget.

He was working the angles! He knew we couldn’t beat the secret out of him. He even seemed to understand that we wouldn’t report him to Mr. Arthropod because of the golden rule of “Leave me alone.” And he had the extra added protection of being the college president’s grandson—a bonus I never had.

But Raina was right about one thing. We had to keep an eye on Jalen. He reminded me more of myself every minute.

And that was a kid who could never be trusted.

7
Hypercrushing
Noah Youkilis

I was concerned about my genetically modified elderberries. It didn’t take a 206 IQ to see that the leaves were turning yellow, which was a sign of leaf spot. This could have been trauma from when I transplanted them from the pots.

I pulled my head back into the room and turned to Donovan. “Do you have any manure?”

“Give me a second to check my suitcase,” he replied. “Nope. Silly me, I forgot to pack the manure. What do you need manure for?”

“It’s not for me,” I explained.

“I hope not.”

“My elderberries need it,” I went on. “It’s more nutrient-rich than the soil outside Butternut Hall.”

“Tell your elderberries they’re going to have to make do,” he informed me. “JoJo didn’t say anything about no manure, but I bet there’s a rule against stinking up the whole dorm. And if there isn’t, there should be.”

He was right, of course. I was always amazed at the way Donovan’s mind worked. It wasn’t high-level, like mine. But he had a simple ability to cut right to the heart of the matter. I envied it because, for all my brilliance, I couldn’t match it.

“I wanted the elderberries to be perfect so I could share them with Arlene,” I said glumly. “Cooked, I mean. If you eat them raw, they induce severe vomiting.”

He frowned at me. “Noah, you have to forget about that girl. She’s a college student and you’re thirteen.”

I sighed. Arlene wasn’t easy to forget.

“Besides,” Donovan persisted, “there are plenty of fish in the sea. My co-counselor, Raina, is dying to meet you.”

“Three-point-five trillion,” I told him.

“Huh?”

“Fish,” I explained. “Scientists estimate there are approximately three-point-five trillion fish on Earth.”

And despite the spectacular biodiversity of our oceans, I was positive none of them could be as perfect as Arlene. But I couldn’t expect Donovan to know that. He’d never even met her.

I hadn’t experienced a crush before, but of course, I’d seen a lot about them on YouTube. Still, I never could have imagined that the reality would be so intense. It was literally crushing, as if the weight of my feelings for her was pressing down on me, like I was on Jupiter, where the gravity was stronger. I could barely think of any other topic—and I did a lot of thinking.

The only way to keep my mind off Arlene was to throw myself into my work. And that was impossible because college courses were so easy—barely harder than my middle school classes at the Academy. The only challenge came from computer science, not because it was difficult, but because the AI system I was creating was dizzyingly complex. It was a quantum leap ahead of anything that existed so far, capable of far more than merely playing chess or writing limericks or generating pictures.

I called it AIDAN, which stood for Artificial Intelligence, Donovan And Noah. Naturally, Donovan had nothing to do with it. I only let him be in the title because he was nice enough to come to Wilderton with me.

AIDAN was loaded onto the massive mainframe computer in the Technology Center, but I didn’t have to go there to access it. I had installed a remote portal on my laptop so I could use the system from anywhere. For the past week, I had instructed AIDAN to suck up every byte of information it could on the Society of the Gavel, crunching and analyzing the data in ways even I couldn’t imagine.

Now I sat down at my computer and typed in a simple instruction: Find active Gavelers who are currently on campus. I hit enter and sat back in my chair to wait for my answer.

Nothing happened for a long time, but I knew that, in the Technology Center, AIDAN was working furiously to obey my command, sifting through a quantity of information that, if it were printed on paper, would form a mountain more massive than Titan, Saturn’s largest moon. The task was so difficult because a secret society published no membership lists. You only found out who was a member when they died. AIDAN had to take in everything it could about those dead Gavelers and then predict who at Wilderton today was most likely to be a member.

Donovan thought I’d fallen asleep. That’s how hard I was concentrating on the blinking curser on the screen. He went to take the garbage down to the trash room, and when he came back, I was still staring.

“Maybe you made a mistake,” he suggested.

I sighed wanly. “If only.”

And at that moment, the curser moved, spelling out two names.

- Darius Marshall

- Edward Zhao

He squinted over my shoulder. “Who are those guys?”

I couldn’t hide my delight. “They’re in the Society of the Gavel.”

“I thought all that was top secret.”

“Nobody can keep a secret from AIDAN.” As I told him about my project, I could see his eyes glazing over about 3 percent of the way through my explanation of how the program worked. It was pretty advanced stuff. I didn’t think Dr. Menzies understood it either.

“So what happens now?” he asked.

“I find Darius and Edward and get them to let me join up.”

He exploded in my face. “I knew it! The minute I saw you staring at those dumb gavel pictures all over the campus, I knew you were going to be obsessed with getting in. What do you care if a bunch of college doofuses want to paint rocks and play secret society?”

“Secrets only exist to be discovered,” I informed him. “Every human endeavor is based on that principle. Plus I really want to be a member. It sounds so cool!”

All the exasperation suddenly disappeared from his face and he snorted a laugh. “I give up. Go water your elderberries. But remember—no manure.”

“You have my word as a Gaveler.”

8
Hyperboring
Darius Marshall

I thought it would be fun to post up at Wilderton for the summer, but it turned out to be a giant yawn. The minute the regular students cleared out in May, the whole campus turned into a morgue—totally dead. The only new blood to come in was a bunch of visiting professors and grad students, the whole vibe being super old. Some of them even brought their kids—so many that the university was running a summer camp to keep them busy.

So there I was, bored out of my skull at the frat house with my roommate, Eddie—the only other Gamma Kappa deluded enough to think this summer was a good idea. During the school year, the frat house was the most happening place on the face of the earth—packed with guys going nuts, twenty-four seven. When it was empty, though, like now, you couldn’t help seeing what a dump it was, with fluff bleeding out of the furniture, dust everywhere, and dirty laundry strewn to the four walls. I mean, we all came to college to get away from our mothers nagging at us to clean up, but this was pretty depressing.

Eddie came down the stairs shambling behind a mountain of empty takeout food containers. He sidled up to the kitchen trash and released his load, but the can was so full that most of it slid off the pile and landed on the floor.

He looked like he was considering picking it up, but then shrugged and looked over at me. “What’s up?”

“What’s ever up?” I returned.

The answer, we both knew, was nothing. Zero ever happened during summer semester. I wouldn’t have complained if Godzilla had come up out of the pond and stomped the campus flat just because it would have been something.

And then there was a knock at the door.

“It’s not locked!” I called, hoping it was a cleaning crew looking for a chance to perform a good deed.

The knocking continued. Eddie seemed too stunned to move—that’s how unusual it was to have an actual visitor during the summer. So I took the extreme step of getting up, crossing the room, and opening the door.

At first I thought no one was there. But then I looked down to see a kid. Not a little kid—I mean, he wasn’t five or anything like that. More like a middle schooler, with Coke-bottle glasses and bad posture.

“Yeah?”

“I’m looking for Darius Marshall and Edward Zhao,” he announced, sizing me up.

“I’m Darius. That’s Edward over there.”

While I turned around to point to Eddie, the kid stepped past me and barged into our living room. “Noah Youkilis,” he introduced himself. “Pleased to meet you.”

That’s why he looked so familiar! Noah Youkilis was the boy genius Dean Kendrick had lured to Wilderton starting this summer.

“Wow,” I commented. “We’ve got a celebrity in our humble abode. I saw the article about you in the campus paper.” Not that I ever read the Wilderton Wire, but this summer was shaping up to be so boring that I was doing a lot of things for the first time.

Noah made a face. “C.T. Beldner isn’t a very good reporter. He wrote a lot about my academic record but didn’t mention a word about my favorite YouTube videos.”

I started to laugh but held it in when I realized the kid wasn’t joking.

“Is it true that Dean Kendrick keeps the old mascot stuffed and mounted in his office?” Eddie asked the newcomer.

“I never saw his office,” was Noah’s bland reply. “I met the new mascot, though. I’m not sure I’m a pig person.”

Noah Youkilis might have been a genius, but if you asked me, he was more than a little weird. “What do you want, kid? What are you doing here?”

He looked me straight in the eye, which required an upward tilt, since I was about a foot taller than him. “I want in.”

“In what?” Eddie asked. “The frat house? Don’t they have you set up in one of the dorms?”

“The Society of the Gavel,” he persisted. “I know you’re both members. I want you to get me in.”

If he’d asked me to pick the frat house up off its foundation and balance it on my nose like a trained seal, I couldn’t have been more flabbergasted. The Society of the Gavel? I was a lot of things, but a member of an exclusive secret society wasn’t any of them. I figured snobby types formed clubs like that just to keep people like me out.

“Listen, Noah,” my roommate began. “I don’t know where all this is coming from—”

At that instant, I had a flash of inspiration. “Anything this important has to be discussed between the members!” I exclaimed, cutting Eddie off.

“I understand,” Noah said solemnly.

We settled Noah on the broken armchair, and I hustled my bewildered roommate into the kitchen for a whispered conference.

Eddie was wide-eyed. “What are you doing, man? Why didn’t you tell me you’re one of those Gavel guys?”

“Of course I’m not!” I hissed. I pointed out to the living room, where Noah sat patiently. “But he doesn’t know that!”

“What’s so great about having some pint-size Einstein think we’re Gavelers?”

“Just follow my lead,” I told him. “And no smiling. We Gavelers are serious people.”

We marched back into the living room. Noah looked so nervous that I almost blew my cover and laughed in his face.

“Eddie and I have talked it over and we decided you just might have what it takes to be in the Society of the Gavel.”

He practically hit the ceiling. “Hooray!”

“But,” I went on, “the initiation is long and grueling. Once you start, there’s no turning back.”

“I-can-do-it-I-can-do-it-I-can-do-it!” Noah promised.

“That’s the gaveling spirit!” I approved. “Now, your first task is . . . take out the garbage!”

He seemed a little disappointed, like he was expecting to be asked to defeat a Minotaur or something.

“The jobs get harder as you go along,” Eddie assured him.

And anyway, our garbage was no small thing. It took three extra-large Hefty bags for the pizza boxes alone. Genius or not, the kid wasn’t exactly Superman. By the time it was over, he was bathed in sweat, huffing and puffing, and covered from head to toe with everything from hoisin sauce to mummified taco meat.

“Good job,” I approved. “Tomorrow—laundry.” I probably should have thought of that first. I’d been cycling through the same four pairs of underwear for two weeks.

He looked up at us, sauce-smeared but determined. “I won’t let you down.”

Eddie nodded. “Spoken like a true Gaveler.”

We fist-bumped and he headed out of the frat house.

“We’re never going to see him again,” Eddie predicted. “If this kid’s as smart as they say, it isn’t going to take him too long to figure out we’re pulling his chain.”

“Just watch,” I said smugly. I wasn’t sure why, but I was positive we were at the start of something epic.

Maybe this summer wasn’t going to be such a waste of time after all.

9
Hyperhelper
Raina Overbrook

Porquette pressed her broad, flat snout against the chicken wire and peered out of the sty at us.

Victor stood, frozen in fear, the marshmallow clutched so tightly in his hand it was half squashed. “I can’t do it. He’ll bite my fingers off.”

“Porquette’s a girl,” I said gently. “And she doesn’t bite. She’ll just stick her tongue out and take it from you.”

Luna made a face. “I don’t do pig germs.”

“Come on, guys,” Donovan prompted. “Somebody feed the pig so we can get away from here and breathe again. All the other groups have done it. Nobody’s lost a finger yet.”

“The other groups?” Manny didn’t like that. “You mean we’re losing?”

“There’s no winning and losing,” I lectured. “We’re just feeding Porquette.”

“Like this,” Donovan added. He reached out, dislodged the sticky marshmallow mass from Victor’s hand, and stuffed it through the chicken wire.

None of us had ever seen Porquette move so quickly. The treat was gone before it ever hit the ground.

“Ha!” cheered Claire. “Nobody feeds Porquette like we do! Baloney power!”

“Baloney power!” chorused the others.

Oh, how I hated that.

On top of it all, Donovan cheered right along with them. He didn’t seem to notice that our campers were way too competitive and needed us to help them turn down the heat a couple of notches. Privately, I’d started thinking of him, not as my CIT, but as my sixth eight-year-old.

“I think I heard somewhere that baloney is part pig,” Jalen put in.

“Don’t say that in front of Porquette,” Donovan cautioned with a big grin.

“That’s all right,” Luna decided. “She doesn’t know our group name.”

“Or even that she’s a pig,” Victor mused.

I tossed the last few marshmallows into the enclosure. “Let’s move on.” This conversation was giving me a headache. I’d been too excited about being a full counselor this summer. I should have known the reality was doomed to be less than perfect.

Our next stop was the soccer field, where we had a game against the Crunch Bunch. As we crossed the campus, all the talk was about how we were going to beat, destroy, clobber, rinse, overwhelm, crush, and annihilate the competition. With every step, Claire’s pronouncements were getting louder and darker, and I could see Manny’s shoulders coming up to envelop his neck as he wrestled with the possibility that we might—God forbid—lose.

We were passing by Fraternity Row when Donovan suddenly broke away from the group and charged across the lawn like a rampaging triceratops was on his heels. He stopped in front of one of the houses—Gamma Kappa. There was a figure perched atop a tall ladder, cleaning dead leaves and debris out of the gutters. Donovan started yelling at him to come down, but the guy on the ladder just kept on cleaning.

I would have ignored the whole thing and let Donovan catch up to us at the soccer field, except that the kids went after him. At this point, they would have followed him to the ends of the earth. He was a terrible counselor, but he was obviously great at inspiring loyalty in the hearts of eight-year-olds.

Throwing my arms up in exasperation, I joined them at the base of the ladder. “We’re supposed to be meeting the Crunch Bunch! How is it our business if some frat guys want to clean their gutters?”

Donovan was really upset. “I wouldn’t trust that kid to step down from a curb, much less hang off the side of a house!” He looked back up at the eaves. “Don’t pretend you can’t hear me, Noah! Get down here this minute!”

Noah? That was Noah Youkilis? What was he doing up on a ladder, clearing leaves?

There had been pictures of him in the Wilderton Wire, but I definitely wouldn’t have recognized the windblown mess at the top of the house, smeared with mud and crushed leaves. He was also smaller than I expected him to be. Or maybe he just looked small because he was so high up. In my mind, he was always ten feet tall because I knew what his IQ was—206. One of the highest ever measured.

Now he was descending the ladder one rung at a time, oozing as much as climbing down. You didn’t need to be as smart as Noah to understand how badly hurt you could get falling from the second story of a house, but I still considered it a sign of superior intelligence.

Donovan turned on him as soon as he reached the ground. “What were you doing up there, Noah? And it better not have anything to do with YouTube!”

Noah’s answer was evasive. “You know I can’t talk about this. It’s top secret—”

At that point, their argument dropped to whispers, so I couldn’t hear much except the occasional word: fraternity, initiation, Darius, Edward, and gavel. I couldn’t make sense of any of that. At Wilderton, gavel could only mean the Society of the Gavel, a secret organization that dated back more than a century. If the Gavelers were recruiting Noah at age thirteen, that would be historic!

I pushed past Donovan and held out my hand. “Hi, Noah. I’m Raina Overbrook. My parents are both professors here. Everybody is so excited that you chose Wilderton.”

“I didn’t really choose Wilderton,” Noah told me honestly. “It’s more like Wilderton chose me.”

“Not to clean the gutters, they didn’t,” Donovan challenged. He added, “This is Raina—that other counselor I told you about.”

“And we’re Baloney,” announced Manny, stepping forward. “Not the food, the group.”

A college-age boy, very tall, wearing a Gamma Kappa T-shirt, came out of the house and frowned at Noah. “Is there a problem?”

“No problem,” Noah said quickly, starting for the ladder.

Donovan grabbed him by the shirt and hauled him back. He addressed the newcomer. “You haven’t got enough insurance on this house to send him back up there.”

The answer came, not from the fraternity guy, but from Noah himself. “You know what I’m doing and you know why I’m doing it. And if you ever become a student at Wilderton, maybe I can get you in too. Wouldn’t that be great?”

I could almost see steam coming from Donovan’s ears. “What do those Gavel guys have to do with cleaning the gutters on this jerk’s house?”

“Hey!” The Gamma Kappa turned on Donovan. “I’ve got nothing against you, pal. Step off.”

Instead, Donovan got right in his face. My CIT was tall for a middle schooler, but the fraternity guy still towered over him. “If you want your gutters cleaned, clean them yourself!”

I wasn’t the biggest Donovan fan, but at that moment, I was proud of him. He was kind of fearless—and absolutely determined to stand up for his friend.

It was a really tense moment. Donovan was practically nose to chest with this college creep. Noah was holding his breath, which made his pale face turn red. Even the campers were wrapped up in the drama—Manny, Luna, Claire, Victor, and—

“Where’s Jalen?”

It was the one thing that could have distracted Donovan from his conversation with the frat boy. His face whiplashed around and he performed a head count, coming up one short. Jalen was nowhere to be seen.

“Oh, he left,” Victor supplied.

“Left?” My voice was like a police siren.

“He said he had somewhere he had to be,” Claire added.

“There’s no leaving in camp!” I shrilled. “You stay with your group! What happened to ‘Baloney power’?” I practically choked over the name.

“He said he’d be back,” Luna explained reasonably.

“When?” I demanded.

A shrug. “When he’s done, I guess. Anyway, what could we do about it? We’re not the boss of him.”

It hung in the air. I was the boss of him. I was supposed to be the boss of all of them. Which meant this was my fault!

Donovan swung into action. “Okay, guys. You know the drill. We have to find Jalen.”

I was beside myself. “This is the second time we let this happen. We have to report it to the camp office.”

“Wait a minute,” Manny interrupted. “You told us that was the hide-and-seek championship.”

“And it was,” Donovan replied as we all broke into a jog up Fraternity Row. “This is better. It’s real life.”

“Ha!” Claire raised a fist in triumph. “The other groups are playing kiddie games and we’re doing real life!”

“Baloney power!” cheered Manny.

As we turned off Fraternity Row onto the main drag, I glanced over my shoulder just in time to see Noah halfway back up the ladder.

10
Hyperjailbreak
Donovan Curtis

Our first stop was the soccer field. It was probably wishful thinking that Jalen had just gone ahead to our match against the Crunch Bunch, but we had to check it out.

Our missing kid was nowhere to be seen.

Raina was losing her mind. “Oh, no! No, no, no!”

I was none too calm myself. But somebody had to keep it together. “Shhh! You’ll upset the kids!”

“They should be upset! One of them is missing!”

“He isn’t missing,” I insisted. “He just doesn’t happen to be here right now. Didn’t you learn anything from last time? He’s a runner. An escape artist. We were so worried about Victor the Underestimator that we took our eyes off Jailbreak Jalen.”

“But what are we going to do-o-o?”

“You have to look at it from a good-news-bad-news standpoint,” I reasoned. “We’ve already had the bad news—he’s gone.”

“What’s the good news?” she asked bitterly.

“The good news he’s going to come back—like before.”

“We’re not even going to look for him?” she wailed.

“Of course we are,” I assured her. “We’re going to wave ourselves all over the campus so when he wants to find us, it’s easy for him. And we’re not going to panic because he is coming back.”

For a few seconds, she actually seemed to be considering it. But all at once, she shook her head vehemently. “No! I’m the full counselor, so it’s my decision. I say we have to tell Mr. Arthropod!”

There was no sense arguing with Raina when she pulled rank like that. “Okay,” I conceded. “Let’s call the ‘Leave me alone’ guy and tell him we lost the grandson of the president of the university. Jalen will probably wander back just in time to see both of us getting fired.”

It was the only thing that could have made Raina see it my way.

We did make one serious mistake, though. When Raina told the Crunch Bunch counselors we were forfeiting the soccer match, she should have kept her voice down.

“Forfeit?” Manny wailed. “We can’t forfeit! Forfeit means you lose!”

“Not when we would have crushed those guys ten-zip!” Claire burst out, joining in the dismay.

“No!” I jumped in. “She didn’t say forfeit; she said For-Fit. Our group is joining the For-Fit Fitness Challenge, which means we earn points toward the camp championship!”

I thought that was quick thinking, but Raina didn’t appreciate it—especially after Manny scolded her for not speaking clearly enough. She was never going to forgive me for being the campers’ favorite.

Part of the “For-Fit Challenge” was we had to run the pathways while searching for Jalen. The kids were having a great time, but Raina and I were ready to pass out. It was a hot day to start with, and when the sun peeked out from behind the scattered cloud cover, the campus was like a sauna. We took a lot of water breaks to make sure we all stayed hydrated. Claire warned us that we were surely losing points in the For-Fit Challenge, which, Manny fretted, could cost us the camp championship.

At one point, Raina got so desperate with all the complaining that she seemed to be just about to tell them that there were no points, no For-Fit Challenge, and not even a camp championship. I stomped on her foot to put an end to that idea. We had enough trouble with one renegade camper. We didn’t need four more.

I was really hoping that Jalen would turn up in the cafeteria at noon, but no such luck. By unspoken agreement, I took Victor and Luna to one side of the lunchroom and Raina took Manny and Claire to the other. That way, no one would be able to count our campers and come up with four instead of five.

By the time lunch was over, Jalen had been AWOL for more than two hours, which was already longer than last time. Our four remaining kids were anxious to get back out there and resume earning points.

As we passed Fraternity Row, I was happy to see that Noah was no longer up on the ladder at the Gamma Kappa house. Now he was at the curb, painting their mailbox.

Raina frowned. “Why would someone with that kind of intellect act like a handyman?”

“He’s pretty quirky,” I explained. “Most geniuses are.”

By the time the next hour had gone by, I felt as if we’d explored the underside of every blade of grass on the Wilderton campus, walked every underground tunnel, passed every painted gavel symbol, peered into every grove of trees. As the afternoon dragged on, I began having Raina-like thoughts: Just because Jalen had come back last time, did that mean there was absolutely nothing to worry about now? He was just a little kid! Anything could happen to him! What if he stepped into a pool of quicksand and his counselors weren’t there to pull him out? Okay, there probably wasn’t any quicksand on campus, but you get the picture. Raina was right. Jalen was our responsibility. We had to do everything in our power to find him and bring him back to Baloney—and for that we needed help.

It got to the point where I actually pulled my phone out of my pocket to call the camp office. My finger was poised to tap in the number when a golf cart came humming along the path ahead. It was Mr. Arthropod, almost as if I’d conjured him up by thinking of him. The kids all waved at him. He ignored them at first but then pumped the brakes and stopped in front of us.

The words We lost a kid were on the tip of my tongue, but the camp director spoke first: “Hi, Jalen. How’s it going?”

“Really good,” came the reply from behind me.

I did a Looney Tunes double take. There he was, standing with the other campers like he’d been there all day: Jalen.

Raina’s jaw was dropped to knee level, her face as red as a tomato.

Where had he come from? Kids didn’t just drop from the sky or materialize out of thin air. The only explanation I could come up with was that Jalen had been waiting in the cover of the hedges in front of the law library. He must have spotted us on the path and stayed hidden there until we passed by, when he could slip into the group as if he’d always been there. With Raina and me out front, scanning the horizon, we wouldn’t have seen him.

Mr. Arthropod was a class-A sourpuss, but he was superfriendly to Jalen. Raina and I smiled and nodded through the whole conversation. But the minute our boss was gone, I was planning a real CIA-style interrogation for Jailbreak Jalen.

I got a little less mad because Jalen truly pumped us up to the camp director. “We’re having a fantastic time. Donovan and Rihanna are the greatest counselors in the world!”

“He means Raina,” Raina put in quickly. “That’s me.”

Mr. Arthropod ignored her. “That’s wonderful to hear, Jalen. Be sure to give my regards to your grandpa when he gets back from sabbatical.” He putted away in the golf cart.

I turned on our wayward camper. “All right, Jalen, I want to know where you were and I want to know now.”

The kid shrugged. “Nowhere special.”

“That’s what you said last time!” I roared. “And if you think you’re going to get away with that again—”

I had a long list of threats saved up, but Raina ruined it by stepping in and being motherly.

“The thing is,” she tried to explain, “we get very worried when we don’t know where you are.”

He nodded understandingly. “That must be frustrating.”

Raina tried a different tactic. “What about your fellow campers? Is it fair to them to miss out on all the fun because we’re always looking for you?”

“We don’t mind,” Manny interrupted. “We’re piling up tons of points in the For-Fit Challenge.”

“I can’t wait to rub it in when we win the camp championship,” Claire added.

“And he always comes back,” Luna added.

“You see?” Jalen beamed. “It’s all good.” He reached into the pockets of his shorts and pulled out two handfuls of toothpicks. And just like the garbanzo beans last time, he shared them with his fellow campers, who seemed delighted to be getting a prize.

Raina heaved a sigh. “All right, everybody. Let’s get going. If we hurry, we can still make the scavenger hunt.”

And everything went back to normal. As the afternoon went on, Raina and I each tried to worm the truth out of Jalen a couple of times, but it was a lost cause. He was completely disciplined, sticking to his nonanswers. He’d been “around,” doing “nothing much” for “a while.” It was a classic stonewall.

In a weird way, he was turning into my role model, breaking all the rules and getting away with it. I could learn from this kid! Maybe I wouldn’t have spent so much of my thirteen years in trouble if I’d had the iron will of Jalen Aberfoyle.

But the mystery was eating at me. There were only two clues: garbanzo beans and toothpicks. There had to be a connection.

But what?

11
Hyperextended
Noah Youkilis

I was absolutely convinced that my AIDAN system was going to revolutionize artificial intelligence in much the same way that the WWE revolutionized sports entertainment. I even began to think of it that way—AIDAN as an AI gladiator, flexing cybernetic muscles, wielding a gleaming championship belt.

Of course, AIDAN had no physical presence, and therefore could never flex or wear a belt. It was a program, albeit an incredibly powerful one. It existed only on the mainframe of Wilderton’s computer system in the Tech Center. What was so groundbreaking about AIDAN was not so much its ability to think as its ability to learn.

Ever since I’d fed it its first trove of data—the contents of first Donovan’s phone and then mine—the system had been gobbling up vast chunks of the internet at breakneck speed. I chose Donovan as a starting point because he was brilliantly average—or averagely brilliant. While the other students were training their projects on calculus, string theory, and the complete works of Shakespeare, I knew that the key to developing a useful AI lay not in mastering the difficult but exploring the ordinary.

“You just might be onto something, young Noah,” Dr. Menzies commented when I explained it to him.

Of course I was onto something. I was always onto something. I was actually incapable of not being onto something. But I kept my mouth shut because Arlene was there, and I didn’t want her to think I was a show-off—another thing it was hard not to be when you were me.

She put her hands on my shoulders and looked deep into my eyes. “I knew you’d nail it.”

The feeling that came over me could not be explained by any field of science. Maybe buoyancy, because at that moment, my feet weren’t touching the floor. And then she spoiled it by telling me her boyfriend, Gator, bought a new crankcase filter for his motorcycle. That brought me back down to earth with a thud.

What did Gator have that I didn’t have? Besides fourteen additional inches of height, a wiry beard, muscles, tattoos, and a Harley with a brand-new crankcase filter? Was Gator on the verge of becoming a member of the Society of the Gavel? No, he was not. Well, technically, he could have been, since the organization was secret. But the odds were infinitesimal!

When I was a full Gaveler, I’d have something a tall, bearded, muscled, tattooed, crankcase-filter-owning Harley rider could never match. Of course, I wouldn’t be able to break the secrecy oath and tell Arlene about it, but she’d probably know. We Gavelers had an aura.

Darius and Edward said I was doing great, and I was well on my way to membership.

“Really?” I experienced a rush of excitement that academic achievements never gave me. “When do you think I’m going to be in?”

Darius looked around the Gamma Kappa house. “Well, the windows haven’t been washed in a long time. It definitely won’t be before that’s done. And we haven’t even started on the party deck.”

“Party deck?” I echoed.

Darius nodded. “Got to have one. Tell him, Eddie.”

“It’s a deck,” Edward supplied. “In the backyard. For, you know, parties. And, uh, hanging out.”

“And when that’s built, I’m in?” I asked eagerly.

“It’s the final challenge,” Darius confirmed. “You wouldn’t believe how many candidates made it all the way to the deck but then pooped out.”

I walked away from the Gamma Kappa house with my head held high. Others had failed, but Darius and Edward had faith in me.

I worked out the plans during the walk home. It was simple structural engineering—the platform had to be strong enough to hold up all the weight that might be on top of it. Doing the math for all that was kindergarten stuff—at least it was for me. When I was in kindergarten, I designed a model of a simple atomic bomb for show-and-tell. It was the only circle time project in history ever to earn a visit from the National Security Council.

I was anxious to get started right away, but there was a problem. Wood was really expensive. When I computed the amount I was going to need for my plan, I didn’t have enough money.

I decided to start with just the support posts to show Darius and Edward what a worthy Gaveler I was going to be. I wouldn’t be able to build the rest of it until I’d convinced my parents to give me a boost in allowance. It was logical that college life would be more expensive than middle school, so I didn’t anticipate a problem with them.

The next day, when the lumber company delivered my order to Butternut Hall, I realized I had another problem: How would I get all this stuff to Gamma Kappa house? There were four big support posts plus the sledgehammer I’d need to thump them into the ground. The hammer alone weighed twenty pounds.

So I called C.T. Beldner, the student reporter, and promised him an exclusive if he gave me a ride to Fraternity Row. Twenty minutes later, he pulled up in one of the Wilderton golf carts.

“What’s all this for?” he asked, helping me load the lumber into the back seat of the cart.

“I can’t tell you.”

“Are you pledging the frat?” he persisted. “And all this is part of some kind of initiation?”

“Incorrect.”

We got into the cart and C.T. started the electric motor. “This isn’t much of an exclusive,” he complained. “You’re not telling me anything.”

“Sorry, but it has to be that way,” I apologized.

Although he was disappointed, he was really gracious about it. He helped me unload the lumber behind Gamma Kappa house and even held the first post while I wielded the sledgehammer.

In retrospect, I knew exactly what was happening, yet I couldn’t stop it. A sledgehammer has a long handle to give extra momentum to the heavy head. So when I swung it up in the air, it kept on going, pulling me over backward. A split second after I hit the ground, there was a resounding clang as the sledgehammer smashed into the hood of the golf cart.

I jumped up right away to take in the sight of C.T. staring in horror at a sizable dent in the metal hood of the cart.

The back door of the house flew open, and Darius and Edward came running out.

“What’s going on?” Edward demanded. “Noah, what happened?”

I had to be honest, but I couldn’t talk about the Society of the Gavel in front of C.T. So I just said, “I mishandled the sledgehammer.”

“Look what you did to the golf cart!” C.T. raged. “How am I going to explain this when I turn it in?”

“It was all physics,” I supplied. “Force, momentum . . .”

Darius and Edward managed to get C.T. calmed down. Since he was using the cart as a reporter for the Wilderton Wire, he wouldn’t be responsible for any damages. Even so, when he drove off, he was still pretty rattled.

When he was gone, I faced the two fraternity brothers. “I’m sorry. I wanted to get a start on the party deck. I’m just so eager to be a Gaveler.”

Darius regarded me in disapproval. “That’s not how it works, Noah. You can’t jump to the end by doing the last thing first.”

I was devastated. “Did I hurt my chances?”

“We’ll put in a good word for you,” Edward promised. “But you’ve got to do it our way from here on in.”

“I will,” I assured them. “And thanks for being so understanding.”

What great guys! They even moved my lumber and sledgehammer next to the house so it would be there when the time came to build the deck for real. It was going to be an honor to be in the same secret society as these two.

The sun was already setting as I slogged home and let myself into our room at Butternut Hall.

Donovan waved at me from his bed, where he was on the phone. “Listen, Raina. I vote we play a four-one defense from now on. One of us covers the other four and one of us sticks like glue to Jailbreak Jalen . . .”

I sat down at my desk and tried to stretch out my shoulders. I was aware of a sharp pain in my exterior deltoid muscles. I must have hyperextended them when the sledgehammer dragged my arms backward. I was going to have to get a lot stronger if I wanted to be ready to build that deck when the time came.

“Fine—I’ll take Jalen first,” Donovan was saying. “We can switch every hour. Unless he’s got a transporter from Star Trek, if he runs, we’ll be right on top of him . . .”

At that moment, he let out a terrible groan. Shocked, I glanced over to see if he was all right. He looked completely normal, still chatting with Raina. No way could that sound have come from Donovan. It was the agonized lamentation of a soul in torment.

Then it came again. This time I knew it wasn’t Donovan. It wasn’t anything in this room. It was coming from outside.

I ran to the window and threw open the sash. The next groan was close enough to rattle my molars. I looked down and beheld a sight so upsetting that I momentarily forgot the awful noise. My elderberry plants had been destroyed, the branches crushed, the berries gone!

“Who could have done such a terrible thing?” I cried aloud.

In answer, a terrifying pair of dark eyes squinted up at me.

12
Hyperpoisonous
Donovan Curtis

“. . . Well, okay,” Raina complained over the phone, “but I hate that we have to spend so much energy on one kid when there are five in our group.”

“Donovan!” came an urgent call from Noah at the window.

“I get it,” I told her. “But like it or not, we’re stuck with Jalen and we have to prevent another jailbreak.”

“Donovan!” The voice was sharper and higher pitched.

“I’ll be with you in a sec,” I called.

“I need you right now!” he practically squeaked.

“Gotta go.” I hung up and joined him at the window. “What gives, Noah? What’s so important that it can’t—?”

What I saw in the broken bushes nearly stopped my heart: the slitted eyes, the pointy ears, the flat snout, the curly tail—

“Porquette?” I gasped. “What’s she doing here?”

“She—she ate my elderberries!”

As a longtime veteran of being in trouble, I immediately switched into self-defense mode. “That’s not our problem! The university’s supposed to keep her penned up. It’s not our fault she got loose!”

At that moment, Wilderton’s mascot let out a long rolling burp and collapsed on top of what remained of the elderberry bushes, grunting in misery.

“It’s all my fault,” Noah moaned. “I did this!”

“No, you didn’t,” I insisted frantically. “All you did was look out the window!”

Noah turned to me, his face a mask of horror. “Uncooked elderberries are poisonous to humans, not to pigs. But I modified their genetics. What if I created . . . a pig killer?”

“Don’t say that!” I snapped. “Porquette isn’t dying! I’m pretty sure she’s getting better! Look—she’s about to get up and zoom back to her pig house!”

Porquette heaved another burp, rolled onto her back, and lay there, little feet waving in the air.

“I only wanted to make the berries grow faster,” Noah quavered. “How was I supposed to know they would kill Porquette?”

“Stop saying that!” I exclaimed. “She’s not dead! She’s plenty healthy enough to go die someplace else.”

“What are we going to do-o?”

I had to face facts. Noah was going to be zero help. A 206 IQ looked great on a school record. But it was pretty useless when its owner was immobilized with panic. If there was going to be a plan of action, it had to come from me.

We went down to the basement of Butternut Hall and got one of the move-in carts. Then we rolled it around to the spot under our window where Porquette lay.

“Where are we taking her?” Noah asked.

“Anywhere but here,” I replied. “Far enough away that nobody connects our elderberries with how sick she is.”

“And we just leave her there to die?”

I shook my head. “We’ll make an anonymous call to the athletic department and tell them where to find their mascot.” Noah was a picture of misery. “Listen, Noah, everyone on campus is in love with this dumb pig. ‘Fine swine, top of the line’—you hear it twenty times a day. If people think we poisoned her, who knows what they’ll do to us? We have to protect ourselves!”

Noah nodded, his complexion practically gray. “What do we do next?”

We took the side off the cart and tried to roll Porquette onto the flatbed. We couldn’t budge her. Not even close. It was like trying to move a mountain.

“Come on, girl,” I rasped, straining with all my might. “Help us out a little bit.”

And—amazingly—the pig seemed to understand. As we heaved, she wriggled her big pink body just enough for us to push her onto the cart.

“Good girl!” I approved. Now all we had to do was wheel her far enough away that she could be somebody else’s problem.

But just as we were about to set off, Porquette looked up at me with liquid, almost human eyes full of suffering, and I was lost. The strategy popped before me like a soap bubble, and I only knew one thing: We had to help her.

“Change of plan,” I told Noah. “Is your big brain smart enough to save a dying pig?”

Noah’s eyes were wide with amazement. But he said, “I can try.”

Even out in the open, Porquette didn’t smell like a bouquet of roses. But inside the tight corridor of Butternut Hall, you had to multiply that by ten.

Luckily, Wilderton was pretty empty during the summer semester, so no one was around to witness our struggles rolling the move-in cart up the wheelchair ramp and into the dorm. The last thing we needed was to run into JoJo halfway to room 115. What would we tell her? Oh, this is my cousin, visiting from Poughkeepsie. Anyone on campus would recognize the famous Porquette on sight.

My heart didn’t start beating again until the door of our room had closed behind us.

Porquette raised her giant head, took in her surroundings, and spat up a little onto the cart.

Noah was grossed out. “Eww! Eww! We can’t keep her here!”

I had a brainstorm. “The bathtub!”

We wheeled her into the bathroom next to the tub. We didn’t have the strength to lift her over the side. But like before, she sensed what we were trying to do and aided our pushing by scrambling with her short, fat legs. She tumbled over the edge in a drumroll of hoofbeats and settled onto the smooth acrylic bottom, groaning softly in exhausted complaint.

“She hates it,” Noah mourned.

“I’m not too thrilled about it myself. It wasn’t exactly my ambition to be roommates with a big stink.”

Then I got a flash of inspiration. I turned on the shower and brought a spray of warm water down on our new houseguest. I was worried about Porquette’s reaction, but she actually seemed to enjoy it. Her piggy eyes closed and she relaxed against the surface of the tub. Even better, the barnyard smell subsided almost immediately. I turned off the tap and the water trickled down the drain.

“Now what?” Noah asked.

“Now you take your 206 IQ out for a spin on the internet,” I replied. “We need everything there is to know about taking care of a sick pig.”

I was pretty resentful of the fact that Noah was able to sleep like a baby that night. He lay curled up in his bunk, mumbling scientific formulas while I tossed and turned.

I couldn’t take my eyes off the closed bathroom door. Just the thought of what was on the other side of it was enough to give me stomach cramps. What if Porquette didn’t like confined spaces and came blasting out to attack us?

When I finally dozed off, I woke up again to the sound of Noah snoring. Only it wasn’t him. It was grunting coming from the direction of the shower.

I got out of bed and tiptoed over to the bathroom door. It took a lot of courage to open it a crack and peer inside. Porquette was still there—still in the tub, munching on some of the salad we’d snuck her from the food hall last night. Noah had come through like the master researcher he was, so we now knew exactly what a pig should eat: fruits, vegetables, bread products, and grains. It wasn’t easy walking home with my pockets full of apricots and six raisin bagels jammed in my underwear. The cafeteria ladies gave us some strange looks, that was for sure.

There was one more problem: I had to use the bathroom and I was shy to do it in front of Porquette, her being a girl and all that.

“Go to sleep,” I whispered, and the pig closed her eyes. There was something highly intelligent about our third roommate. Maybe she had the porker equivalent of a 206 IQ.

I did my business and went back to bed, where I finally got some decent rest until morning. We ran the shower on Porquette again and this time it was absolutely necessary. You’d think the mascot of an elite university would be toilet trained, but no. Luckily, everything went down the drain, including what was left of last night’s dinner.

“How long do we have to live like this?” Noah asked in a horrified tone.

“Only till Porquette gets better,” I promised. “Then she’s going straight back to her sty-sweet-sty.”

“She doesn’t look better to me,” Noah commented glumly. “And how come she eats so much? My research shows that porcine creatures, when ill, have depressed appetites.”

“Pigs never have depressed appetites,” I shot back. “That’s why they call them pigs.”

It was an argument that could have gone on all day. But I had to get to work and Noah had class. I put him in charge of getting Porquette’s lunch and maybe giving her another shower, depending on the smell situation. I’d take over porker duty as soon as camp was over.

I was a little late getting to the football stadium, so I ran to join our group under the Baloney sign.

“Sorry to keep everybody waiting,” I puffed. “What’s our first activity?”

Luna regarded me like I was an ax murderer. “How can you talk about activities at a time like this?”

I was stymied. “We always talk about activities.”

My eyes traveled from face to face to face. They were all just as distressed as Luna.

Raina shot me a sharp look. “The kids are pretty upset, Donovan. Haven’t you heard?”

“Heard what?”

“Porquette is missing!” Victor wailed.

“She wasn’t in her sty when the Ag school came to feed her this morning,” Raina went on. “People have looked everywhere. She’s just gone!”

“Well—uh—” I almost offered, I’m sure she’ll turn up. But how could I be certain of that? Porquette was poisoned. She might have been dying. So I said, “Maybe it’s not that bad.”

I thought Raina was going to jump down my throat and come out with my tonsils. “Not that bad? Porquette is more than just a mascot! She’s who we are! Fine swine—”

“Top of the line,” the campers chorused, pushing up their noses.

As Raina raged on, it sank in that she was even more agitated than the kids. She was the child of two professors, born and bred on the Wilderton campus. To her, Porquette was family.

For a wild instant, I was tempted to blurt out the truth—that Porquette wasn’t lost at all. She was wallowing in a bathtub in room 115 of Butternut Hall.

Still, another truth was dawning on me, a darker one. When I took in the tension in the stadium—not just from Raina and the kids, but from the other groups, the other counselors, even the university staff—I knew I didn’t dare tell the truth.

If anything terrible happened to Porquette and the cause was traced back to our elderberries, Noah and I would instantly become public enemies one and two here at Wilderton.

13
Hyperfierce
Darius Marshall

Summer at Wilderton might have been low-key, but there was nothing relaxed about the atmosphere on campus today. People were freaking out, and could you really blame them? Porquette—mascot of the Wilderton Wild Hogs—had gone missing.

Don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t one of those rah-rah school spirit guys. We Gamma Kappas couldn’t have cared less if the Wild Hogs went undefeated in the Cropland Conference or went 0 and 12 and got humiliated by a Pop Warner team. Porquette was different. She was more than just a sports mascot. She was our symbol. Her face grinned out from the tuition bills our parents paid twice a year. You couldn’t take three steps on campus without seeing her meaty profile on a sign somewhere. And one day, when we graduated—are you there, God? It’s me, Darius—her snout-print would be in the wax seal of the diplomas we received. Fine swine, top of the line.

The normally sleepy campus was alive with students searching for Porquette, poking bushes with sticks and calling her name. Alumni were driving from hours away to help comb the surrounding woods in case Porquette had wandered off and couldn’t find her way back. Even Gwendolyn Aberfoyle, the wife of the university president, was out on one of the golf carts. I saw her myself on my way back from the cafeteria.

“We should get out there too,” Eddie told me. “If we find Porquette, we’ll be legends in this place!”

“They’re all wasting their time,” I scoffed. “You think a three-hundred-pound pig just disappears? If she was still on campus, someone would have spotted her by now. Face it—she’s been pig-napped.”

Eddie was wide-eyed. “By who? IHOP?”

I snorted a laugh. “That’s a year’s worth of bacon right there. But seriously—if Porquette got kidnapped, there’s only one name that pops into my mind: Pershing Union.”

Eddie’s eyes widened in wonder. Pershing Union College—known to everyone at Wilderton as Pee-yew—was just on the other side of Conifer, about fifteen miles away. They were our archrivals. The two schools had been kidnapping each other’s mascots since before World War I. And it had nothing to do with good, clean fun. We hated them and they hated us.

“I bet you’re right!” he exclaimed. “We should go over to Pee-yew and get her back.”

I shook my head. “It wouldn’t work. You think they’re holding Porquette on their front lawn? We’d never find her.”

Eddie was distraught. “You mean we give up?”

“No. We kidnap their mascot and engineer a swap.”

He nodded. “It makes sense. We’re going to need a plan, though. Those Pee-yew guys are nasty. If they catch us breaking into their field house, we’re dead.”

“I’m not worried about that at all,” I informed him.

He was aghast. “Are you nuts? Their football team might be there for summer workouts. They’d murder us!”

I smiled. “Maybe they’d murder us. But they’d never dare touch . . . a thirteen-year-old kid.”

I sent the text a little before midnight:

Gaveler Alert! All hands on deck.

Meet us outside your dorm in ten minutes. TOP SECRET!

“What if he doesn’t come?” Eddie asked, wheeling his old VW off Fraternity Row and onto the main campus roadway.

“Are you kidding?” I chortled. “Noah? He’d dance naked down Fraternity Row if he thought it would get him into the Society of the Gavel.”

He looked a little reticent. “What’s he going to do when he figures out we’re not in it either?”

“It’ll never happen,” I promised.

“Yeah, but isn’t he supposed to be some kind of Einstein?”

“That’s the problem with these geniuses. They don’t believe they could ever be wrong, so when they get an idea in their big brains, they stick with it.” I pointed. “Look—there he is!”

Sure enough, the VW’s headlights illuminated a slight figure with bad posture waiting in front of Butternut Hall. We pulled over to the side of the road, and Noah clambered into the back seat.

“Oh, thank goodness,” he said breathlessly. “When I saw ‘Gaveler Alert,’ I didn’t know if I should come because I’m just a trainee. But if I stayed home, what if I missed out on something important and hurt my chances? But on the other hand—”

If Noah ever got a real chance at the Gavelers, he’d better hope they didn’t have a “No blabbermouths” rule. “Chill out,” I tossed over my shoulder. “You were supposed to come. This is going to be your biggest challenge so far.”

“You can depend on me,” he assured us.

But when I told him about our plan to grab Pee-yew’s mascot and trade him for Porquette, he got this weird stricken look on his face, like he’d swallowed a bowling ball and he was on the verge of barfing it up again.

“Problems?” Eddie asked him.

“No problem,” he said in a high-pitched voice. “It’s just that—how can we be so sure these people have Porquette?”

“They’re not ‘these people,’ ” I said bitterly. “They’re Pershing Union, a two-bit reform school full of backstabbers and jerks. Everything bad that happens here is their fault. If it rains on Founders Day, it’s because they salted the clouds. The chances that anybody besides them has Porquette are zero percent.”

“Actually, according to probability theory—”

I cut him off. “Zero percent! Now, let’s all shut up and save our strength. We’re driving into enemy territory.”

Noah kept quiet for the rest of the twenty-minute ride, but I could tell that he was really upset about something. Eddie noticed it too. He kept glancing at the rearview mirror, and we shared some nonverbal communication about what might be on the kid’s mind. But there was no turning back now. Worst-case scenario, he’d chicken out on us, and we’d have to kidnap the mascot on our own. But I was pretty sure I could convince him that the Gavel thing was worth it.

We entered the campus and passed the statue of General Pershing. The Gamma Kappa brothers put a prom dress on him every year, but now was not the time for that. We had serious business to attend to.

Luckily, Pee-yew was just as dead as Wilderton in the summer, and now, after midnight, the campus was deserted. We ditched the car in the maintenance lot and popped the trunk. There sat a duffel bag containing hockey equipment: visored helmet, chest protector, shoulder and elbow pads, reinforced pants, shin guards, and heavy gloves—everything except the skates and stick.

“What’s this for?” Noah asked.

“Safety first,” I told him.

We suited him up. The stuff was a little big, but it would serve the purpose nicely—to protect him from a mascot that maybe wouldn’t want to go with us. Last but not least, Eddie handed him the empty duffel bag, which we would use to hold our captured prize.

Noah could barely move in all that gear, so we had to gently prod him along as we approached the field house on foot.

Eddie brought bolt cutters, but as it turned out, the main door just swung wide and we scrambled inside. We passed two locker rooms, a weight room, and a museum of team pictures and trophies. It was an obstacle course of sports equipment—stationary bikes, tackling dummies, boundary markers, and what seemed like enough netting to cover the entire campus.

We finally found it at the far end of the building: a wire mesh enclosure that went about halfway up to the ceiling. There was a faint barnyard scent—although nothing like the smell our Porquette could generate. A sign hung on the wire: DANGER: LIVE ANIMAL.

There was a door, but we lifted Noah right over the fencing and set him down in the pen.

“All right, kid,” I said. “Go get him.”

Noah looked mystified from the depths of his mask. “Where is he?”

I gestured to the corner of the enclosure where a mangled dog bed sported the name HAL. Slumbering there, half obscured by puffs of fuzz, lay an odd-looking creature about a foot long. At first glance, it was almost skunk-like in black and white. But it was larger and more like a weasel. The top of its body was stark white from its flat head to the tip of its tail.

Noah let out a cry of alarm. “It’s a honey badger, the fiercest animal in nature!”

Before I could holler “Noah, look out,” Hal was streaking across the enclosure, emitting a loud noise somewhere between a grunt and a rattle. In a flash, the honey badger scrambled up the shin guards, flailing at the padding with long, sharp claws. Terrified, Noah keeled over backward and Hal sprinted the length of his body and went straight for his face, biting and scratching at the plexiglass visor.

Eddie and I reached down, grabbed Noah by the shoulders, and lifted him up and over the wire fencing. We probably would have ended up bringing Hal with him to attack all three of us. But at that moment, Noah’s now-shredded Wild Hogs hockey jersey fell off. It dropped to the floor of the cage and the honey badger dropped with it, growling and snarling, looking for something to fight. All it found was the duffel bag. In about five seconds, the aggressive animal had torn it to ribbons. If we had tried to contain Hal in that thing, we would have been clawed to death in the car before we’d made it as far as the statue of General Pershing.

“Let’s get out of here!” Noah wailed.

Eddie and I exchanged a look. Who were we to argue with an actual genius? At this point, there was nothing to be gained by hanging around. Pee-yew might have been a worthless third-rate school for losers, but you had to give them credit. Their mascot was a match for anyone—even Godzilla.

We burst out of the field house to be greeted by another piece of bad news. A white campus security car was headed our way, blue light circling.

“Run!” howled Eddie, and we kicked into high gear—at least two of us did.

Noah wasn’t the greatest athlete in the world to begin with and he was hampered by the bulky hockey gear. The last thing we saw as we jumped into the VW was Noah in the hands of a uniformed Pee-yew rent-a-cop.

We didn’t have to deal with the disturbing scene for long. Eddie stomped on the gas, and we were out of there.

“What are they going to do to him?” Eddie wheezed.

“He’ll be fine,” I insisted as we whipped past General Pershing and headed out onto the main road. “If he’s such a genius, let him talk his way out of it.” Like there could ever be an explanation for going after a honey badger while dressed like one of the New York Rangers.

We never actually made the decision to turn around. It was more like Eddie took his foot off the accelerator, and we coasted to a stop on the outskirts of Conifer. And when we got going again, we and our guilty consciences were heading back toward Pershing Union. We had gotten Noah into this mess. It was our responsibility to get him out again.

Once we were back on campus, Eddie killed the headlights, and we crept back toward the field house, driving across the grass instead of the well-lit road. Noah stood meekly by the rent-a-cop, who was on his phone. The security car was parked not far away, blue light still twirling.

I dug around the glove compartment and came up with a string of unused firecrackers and a book of matches. Eddie killed the engine and we rolled up to a spot about fifty feet behind the car.

I jumped out of the VW and, staying low, scampered through the pulsing blue glow. I lit the wick and tossed the string in through the open window of the security car.

A series of seven loud bangs in rapid succession shattered the quiet of the night. Shocked, the rent-a-cop ran over to his vehicle, and I ran to Noah. Eddie started the VW and screeched up to us. I stuffed the bewildered Noah into the back seat, jumped in after him, and pulled the door shut. Eddie stomped on the gas, and we took off.

“You came for me!” Noah exclaimed in a quavering voice.

“Of course,” I gasped. “Gavelers never give up on each other.”

Eddie’s nervous eyes were on the rearview mirror. “Don’t look now, you guys. We’ve got company.”

I peered out the back window. The security car was on our tail, coming up fast. The rent-a-cop was at the wheel, grim, determined, and really ticked off.

He gained on us, honking his horn, until we sailed through the gate. Then, once we were off campus and out of his territory, he fell away. I was able to start breathing again.

“What if he read the license plate?” Noah worried.

Eddie brayed a laugh. “This old piece of junk burns so much oil that there’s nothing but black gunk back there. You couldn’t read that plate with a telescope.”

It was almost two a.m. when we pulled up in front of Butternut Hall to drop Noah off. He was exhausted after his ordeal and so were we, to tell the truth. The whole point of this ruse with the Society of the Gavel was to suck Noah into making our lives easier. Tonight, somehow, the wheels came off that plan. Sure, we put the kid to work, but we had to work twice as hard to rescue him.

Before he got out of the car, he lectured us on a thousand and one reasons why you should never try to kidnap a honey badger and how no amount of hockey equipment could ever make you safe from one. He told us their scientific name was Mellivora capensis and that in the wild, they had been known to take on cobras and lions—and win.

“Yeah,” I finally agreed. “I guess we’re going to have to figure out a different way to get Porquette back.”

At the mention of Porquette, Noah got really weird again. Not that Eddie and I were complaining. At least it got him to shut up about honey badgers.

But it made me wonder: This kid didn’t think Pershing Union had anything to do with Porquette’s disappearance. If Noah was as smart as everyone said, maybe we should be listening to him.

He was definitely right about honey badgers.

14
Hyperpajamas
Noah Youkilis

I put on a brave face as Darius and Edward drove off that night. I actually stood in front of Butternut Hall and waved until the car disappeared into the darkness. But it wasn’t easy.

I tried to tell myself that what I’d just experienced was like a YouTube video in real life. There was a really famous one about honey badgers. Only tonight had been a lot different from watching something on a screen. The correct word for it was terrifying. I needed to study that—but not now. I’d wait until my heart rate dropped below my IQ score. I was still pretty rattled.

I relaxed a little as I walked down the hall to room 115—until I remembered that the bathroom was now the unofficial home of Porquette. I once read an article that said today’s college students were more stressed out than ever. I definitely agreed, even though the article hadn’t mentioned anything about pigs who were suffering from elderberry poisoning.

No sooner had I inserted my key in the lock than the door was thrown open. There stood Donovan, eyes blazing.

“Where were you?” he demanded. “I thought you took off to saddle me with that!” He inclined his head toward the closed bathroom door.

I was stunned. For all my 206 IQ, it never once crossed my mind that I could get away from the Porquette conundrum simply by leaving. Sometimes there was a simplicity and directness to Donovan’s thought processes that went beyond genius. I knew this because I was the genius they went beyond.

“I was out,” I explained. “With Darius and Edward.”

He looked me up and down, taking in the scratched and shredded pads that still covered most of my body. “Where? At a hockey game? Looks like you lost.”

“There was a honey badger involved,” I admitted.

He just stared at me.

Since Donovan already knew that Darius and Edward were my ticket into the Society of the Gavel, I was able to give him some of the details of what had happened at Pershing Union.

He looked alarmed. “And you never told them Porquette’s in our bathtub?”

I was offended. “Of course not. I went through a lot to keep our secret! You’re welcome, by the way.”

Donovan heaved a sigh. “Noah, you’ve got to stay away from those two Gamma Kappa creeps. All they want from you is a free housekeeper. That’s bad enough, but tonight they could have gotten you killed. If that mascot had gone for your face—”

“He did,” I put in. “We had to throw away the visor. It was so scratched I couldn’t see through it.”

“The point is they’re not Gavelers. They’re just using you for what you can do for them. They can’t get you into the Society of the Gavel, because they’re not members either.”

“They have to be,” I insisted. “AIDAN identified them with ninety-nine-point-seven percent probability. AIDAN is proving to be even more capable than I expected. Dr. Menzies said it’s by far the most powerful AI system in Advanced Computer Seminar.”

My confidence in AIDAN must have made me raise my voice, because at that moment, there was a disturbance from the direction of the bathroom—scrambling sounds accompanied by loud grunting.

We rushed over and threw open the door. The mascot’s small feet were clattering around the bottom of the tub, but she seemed to lack the strength to get herself upright. Donovan ran the shower, and the cool water seemed to calm the pig down. I brought the garbage bag we used to store her food and she gobbled down a couple of kaiser rolls and a hunk of cabbage from the salad bar at dinner. Pigs were supposed to eat vegetables, but Porquette was a bread fiend. She could inhale a French baguette in the time it took to say “ooh la la.”

Donovan was nervous as we watched her feasting. “She must be really sick.”

“But then wouldn’t she be losing weight?” I wondered.

A sharp knocking made us both jump.

“Noah?” called a girl’s voice. “Donovan? Everything all right in there?”

It was JoJo, the RA. Donovan never lost his cool. We closed up the bathroom and answered the door.

“Gotta keep it down, guys.” JoJo yawned. Her eyes fell on me in my battered sports equipment. “New pajamas?”

“I—I—I—” I stammered.

“He was trying on his hockey stuff,” Donovan supplied.

She nodded. “There are better things to do at two in the morning—like sleeping. Good night.” And she shuffled back toward her room.

Relief flooded over both of us as we relocked our door. That was a close one.

Donovan had to help me out of the hockey pads because Darius and Edward had fastened the Velcro really tight.

“Why are you so obsessed with the Society of the Gavel, anyway?” he asked me. “A bunch of pictures on rocks. So what?”

“They’re secret,” I replied. “The only way to find out what makes them so special is to become a member.”

“How do you know they’re special?” he challenged. “If you want to see who’s special, try looking in the mirror. What are the odds that even the best of those Gavel geeks is even half as smart as you?”

He was missing the point, of course. There were plenty of ways to be special that had nothing to do with intelligence—WWE wrestlers who were like twenty-first-century titans; YouTubers with millions of subscribers; even someone like Donovan himself, who could be special through his sheer ordinariness.

Taken one by one, the Gavelers might not have been special at all. They had made themselves special just by the fact that they were Gavelers.

And if they could accomplish that, why couldn’t I?

15
Hyperwhosis
Donovan Curtis

Camp was different in a post-Porquette world.

Of course, it wasn’t post-Porquette for me. I knew exactly where the missing pig was—and I would have given a lot for her to be anyplace else.

But for the rest of the Wilderton community, their darling mascot was missing. And that changed everything.

There was no laughing. No jokes. No good-natured teasing. Oh, we still had our sports, our games, our activities. We went swimming and to arts and crafts. Our daily schedules weren’t any less jam-packed. But we went through them with grim businesslike determination. We played a soccer match because that’s what it said on the paper. And when the ball got kicked out of bounds into the trees, players from both teams went after it. Finding the ball took about eight seconds, but there was a twenty-minute delay while everybody searched for Porquette in an area that had already been well searched by Wilderton’s grounds staff.

One time, when we scored a goal, I made the mistake of cheering, “Isn’t this awesome?”

Group Baloney made a point of letting me know how awesome it wasn’t.

“Winning is fine and all that,” Luna lectured me. “But some things are more important.”

Things like having your pig handy.

I tried again. “Come on, guys. This is supposed to be a camp, not a funeral parlor! Where’s your Baloney spirit? Baloney power!”

They left me hanging.

“What were you thinking?” Raina chewed me out as we trudged to the cafeteria for lunch. “None of us are going to forget about Porquette. And bringing up funeral parlors—not smart. Our kids are trying to believe that their mascot is alive and well.”

I could vouch for the fact that she was alive. Well was a trickier question. There was nothing on the internet about elderberry poisoning for pigs. That was the problem with Noah’s science. It was so cutting edge that Google hadn’t heard about it yet.

The lunchroom was too quiet. All you could hear were eating noises and the occasional clash of cutlery. No laughter. No shouts. No counselors snapping at their charges to settle down. That was another thing about post-Porquette life at camp: There wasn’t much misbehavior. Claire didn’t pick fights with the other teams. Manny stopped losing his cool. Even Victor the Underestimator left plenty of time to make it to the bathroom. You’d think Raina would have been happy about that. She wasn’t. It was just too odd.

No one could keep their eyes off the mountain of uneaten ham sandwiches in the food line. Nobody would take one anymore—as Manny put it, “just in case.”

“Oh, come on!” I exploded. “Porquette’s not dead! And even if she was, do you think she’d be a ham sandwich already?”

I finally shut up when Raina kicked me under the table for upsetting the kids again. None of them actually sobbed out loud, but I could see tear tracks down Luna’s delicate cheeks.

There was one aspect of camp that hadn’t changed at all. Right after lunch, Jalen disappeared as we were waiting for the kids to come out of the bathroom station.

This time it didn’t cause so much as a ripple. Not even Raina seemed too upset.

“He’ll be back,” she said confidently. “Let’s just go through our afternoon and let him find us.”

And we did. Our biggest concern was that someone would notice we were one camper short. If reports of that somehow trickled up to Mr. Arthropod, that would count as a serious “Leave me alone” violation.

We shouldn’t have worried. The other groups were just as upset and distracted as Baloney. And anyway, thanks to occasional dentist appointments, stomachaches, and family trips, it wasn’t that unusual to be down a kid. It didn’t ring any alarm bells that it happened to us more often than to anyone else.

Sure enough, late in the afternoon, when we got to arts and crafts, he was already there, working on the wallet he intended to give to his grandfather, the university president. At this point, Raina and I didn’t bother to ask him where he’d been or why his pockets were full of marbles, which he shared with his fellow campers.

“Any sign of Porquette?” Victor probed anxiously.

Jailbreak Jalen shook his head. “And I kept my eyes out the whole time.”

Which meant exactly one thing: Wherever Jalen was going during these disappearances, we could rule out room 115 of Butternut Hall.

The dorm should have been the one place I could decompress. For obvious reasons, though, it was even more stressful than camp.

I exchanged mumbled greetings with Noah, who was doing homework on his laptop, and let myself into the bathroom to check on our houseguest. The smell level was a little high, so I knew Noah must have been lost in thought on some project. Normally, he was pretty good about showering her off a couple of times while I was at work.

And then I saw it.

As usual, Porquette lay on her side in the tub, grunting quietly and nibbling at a few stray lettuce leaves. On the vast expanse of her flank someone had drawn a sweeping spiral shape in thick black Magic Marker.

“Noah! Noah, get in here!”

A second later, Noah was at my side. “What is it?”

“That’s my question!” I snapped. “What happened to the pig?”

“Oh, that. That’s a Fibonacci spiral.”

“A what?”

“Fibonacci was the most famous mathematician of his time,” Noah explained. “He created the Fibonacci sequence, where every number is the sum of the two numbers before it—one, two, three, five, eight, and so on. Graphing the sequence creates the Fibonacci spiral, an image renowned in the fields of science and mathematics . . .”

“Noah, you’re killing me!” I exclaimed. “Skip ahead to the important part. Like why is it on our pig?”

He seemed surprised by the question. “Because of you.”

“Me?” I was thunderstruck. “I told you to draw a Fibo-whosis on Porquette?”

“You correctly suggested that it might be time to doubt my path into the Society of the Gavel through Darius and Edward. And you further noted that the Gavelers, whoever they may be, are, in all likelihood, less special than me.”

I just stared at him. “So?”

“So the conclusion is obvious.”

“It isn’t obvious to me!” I sputtered.

“I’m creating my own secret society—the Fibonacci Society. I won’t have to worry about getting in. I’m already in. The Fibonacci spiral is our symbol.”

“Yeah, but why did you draw it on Porquette?” I asked.

“Pure logic. The Fibonacci Society is secret. If I drafted the symbol on paper, that paper could fall into the wrong hands. But since Porquette is also secret, it was clearly the safest place to put it.” He took out his phone and snapped a picture of the spiral design on the mascot’s flank. “Now I have a digital copy.”

“Aw, Noah,” I whined, “what is it with you and secret societies? You didn’t need the gavel guys and you don’t need this.”

Noah was deep in thought. “The challenge is going to be attracting new members without giving up the secrecy. How can I recruit people without telling them what they’re being recruited for? It’s a paradox. I’ve got AIDAN working on the problem, but so far, AI hasn’t provided a solution.”

“I can’t believe Porquette just lay there and let you draw a Fibo-whosis on her,” I commented resentfully. “Every time I go near her, she tries to headbutt me in the stomach.”

“I just talk to her,” Noah replied. “It sort of calms her down. And she’s a really good listener.”

“Come on,” I chided. “I hope your 206 IQ doesn’t honestly think it’s having a conversation with a pig.”

Noah fixed me with his sincere gaze. “Porquette may not understand my spoken language, but animals have a sort of emotional intelligence. They pick up on sensory cues, like body language, facial expressions, and tone of voice.”

Well, I guess Porquette and I had at least one thing in common: She didn’t understand a single word that came out of Noah’s mouth.

And neither did I.

16
Hypersecond-Banana
Dean Kendrick

To be the dean of an elite institution like Wilderton was an enormous responsibility. And this year, that burden was doubled because President Aberfoyle was away on sabbatical.

Twenty-two thousand students and all their complaints, requests, disappointments, challenges, and demands landed squarely on my desk. My days lasted until eight or nine o’clock at night, even during summer semester, with most of the campus in vacation mode. I was being worked half to death. Again and again I asked myself: Was it worth it?

The answer always came back yes. Yes, because higher education was in my blood. Yes, because I believed in the ideals of our beloved founder, Nicholas Wilderton. And mostly yes, because old man Aberfoyle was bound to retire pretty soon and I was next in line for the job of university president, with its generous salary and luxurious first-class travel. It was so close that I could almost feel the glove leather of Aberfoyle’s cushy office chair on my overworked backside. All I had to do was wait—and make sure nothing went wrong before then.

Which was why I had very little patience for Dean Kugelmas of Pershing Union when he called me that Saturday.

“Kendrick, I hate to tell you this, but a group of your students tried to kidnap our mascot, Hal, last week.”

At that moment, my secretary was showing C.T. Beldner, the student reporter, into my office. I held up one finger to C.T., indicating I’d be with him shortly. Into the phone, I said, “That’s interesting, Kugelmas, because our mascot went missing just about a week ago.”

“Well, I wouldn’t know anything about that,” Dean Kugelmas told me. “But my security people recovered fragments of a Wilderton hockey jersey. And they had a brief encounter with one of the culprits—a boy of about twelve or thirteen. Didn’t I read you had that young genius Noah Youkilis on campus this summer?”

It was the last thing I wanted to hear. Amid all this kerfuffle about Porquette’s disappearance, the one thing that had gone right this summer was Noah. According to Dr. Menzies, the boy’s AI research was nothing short of groundbreaking. If he could accomplish this much at age thirteen, the sky would be the limit for his future. And I would be the one who’d brought him to Wilderton.

But did this call mean he was nothing more than a juvenile delinquent, playing cruel pranks and risking his potential?

“I’m sure you’re mistaken, Kugelmas. There are a lot of thirteen-year-olds in the world. This could have been anyone. It could have been—” And there I drew a blank, because I didn’t know any other thirteen-year-olds. “Good day.”

I hung up and turned my attention to the journalism student. “Thanks for coming in, C.T. I have some ideas for future articles about Noah. I think you should focus on his work in AI.”

“Actually,” said C.T., flipping open a notebook, “I was hoping to get a comment from you on the Porquette situation. That’s what everybody on campus is talking about these days.”

Alarm bells went off in my head. Obviously, no reasonable person could blame me for Porquette’s disappearance. But when you were on the cusp of a major promotion, you wanted everything to run smoothly. And losing the school’s beloved mascot was not smooth. Especially this one. Fine swine, top of the line—it sounded great at a pep rally. But the truth is all that school spirit could turn sour in the blink of an eye.

“Let’s choose a different topic,” I suggested diplomatically. “I prefer to keep things light during summer semester before things get serious again in the fall.”

The young reporter didn’t appear happy. “It would be bad journalism to ignore it. Step into any classroom, any dorm, any lab, any food hall—you must hear what people are talking about!”

To be honest, he had just listed all the places I liked to stay away from. Mingling with students was bad for my blood pressure. “Enlighten me,” I said aloud.

“They’re trying to figure out what happened,” C.T. explained earnestly. “Did Porquette get out of her pen and wander off? Was she kidnapped by another school? Is this a prank gone wrong by some fraternity? Or even a secret group like the Society of the Gavel?”

“Absolutely not!” I said firmly. “I may not approve of the secrecy, but the Society of the Gavel has a record of support for the school that goes back more than a century!”

“That’s exactly the kind of thing our readers need to know,” C.T. approved, scribbling in his notebook. “Now, can you tell us about the search? How much progress has been made?”

I took a deep breath. What did he expect me to tell him? That the police were scouring back roads for a pig carrying a stick with a bundle of belongings on the end of it? That Interpol was monitoring the airports?

I tried to be tactful. “We’re still hopeful that we’ll get her back. If not, I’ll direct the Ag school to select a new Porquette—or Porky.”

C.T.’s eyes grew as wide as saucers. “You mean you’d give up on her?” In spite of his beard, at that moment, he looked like a heartbroken five-year-old. “What if we bring in a new mascot and the old one comes back?”

I leaped to my feet, suddenly unable to bear even another second of this conversation. I strolled to the window to take in the predictable sameness of my office view. The honeysuckle hedge. The white oak tree that was the oldest organism on campus. Beneath it sat a flat rock, painted with the well-known symbol of the Society of the Gavel.

I blinked. There was something else on the stone surface, drawn next to the gavel and stars. It was a black line, beginning in a tight spiral that quickly opened into a loose one. It was simple and, for some reason, hauntingly familiar—although I couldn’t remember ever seeing it before on campus.

What was that thing?

17
Hyperbatty
Noah Youkilis

“I have to confess something,” I whispered. “I’ve got my first date with Arlene today and I’m a little nervous.”

For major life events like this, it was important to have a close friend to confide in.

“You know how it is,” I went on. “I want everything to be perfect.”

The response was a low, rumbling oink. I patted Porquette on her peach-fuzz hide and she resettled in the bathtub, her cloven hooves scratching at the acrylic. The mascot was a good listener, but she could get restless when she wasn’t feeling well, which was always lately. The poison of the elderberries had to be gone from her body by now. But how come she wasn’t getting better?

There was a knock at the door. “Noah? You in there?” The door opened a crack and Donovan peered in. “JoJo says there’s a girl outside looking for you.”

I gave Porquette a farewell pat. “Gotta go. That’s my date.”

Donovan was amazed. “Date?”

“I have plans with Arlene,” I informed him. “We’re going out. And she needs my help with her biology project.” I squeezed past him out of the bathroom.

“How come the pig knows more about your love life than I do?” Donovan asked.

“Because she doesn’t judge,” I replied readily. “She just supplies support.”

He wrinkled his nose. “That’s not all she supplies. I think it might be time for another shower.”

Uh-oh. Porquette was a wonderful confidante, but she was also a source of unpleasant smells. That was not optimal for a dating situation. I made a mental note to air myself out before getting into the car. I picked up Arlene’s gift and placed the small package in the pocket of my cargo shorts.

“Well,” Donovan said dubiously, “have a good time.”

“Thanks.”

At the first sight of Arlene, standing by her little Mazda convertible, I thought I was going to faint. She looked so beautiful, so perfect, that the thought of doing something wrong and losing her was pure tragedy. Not that I necessarily had her in the first place. We were in class together every day and she never mentioned anything about breaking up with Gator.

“Hi, sweetie. Hop on in.”

She always called me sweetie. I called her Arlene. You’d think that a 206 IQ would have been able to come up with a better pet name than that. I was coming to learn that the world of dating had absolutely no relation whatsoever to the normal. It was a place where none of the other laws of science applied, so I was constantly lost at sea.

Not that I hadn’t prepared. Last night, I’d watched four hours of YouTube videos with dating in the title. But as soon as we started driving, my research deserted me and all I could see was her auburn hair dancing in the wind.

Since I was completely tongue-tied, it was a good thing Arlene was chatty. “Everybody’s talking about your AIDAN these days. I was telling Gator about it, and he seemed really impressed . . .”

I absorbed that like a physical blow. Obviously, Gator was still in the picture. I racked my brain for a way to change the subject. Maybe I should give Arlene her gift now. I even reached for the pocket of my cargo shorts where the pastry box was hidden before changing my mind. No, that made no sense. She was driving and in no position to appreciate a present so perfectly suited to her needs.

Later—when I was helping her with her biology project—would be the perfect time. I’d convinced the zoology lab to let me have a desiccated specimen of a vampire bat. The small body was dehydrated to preserve it. But when you spread out the papery wings, the entire physiology was visible, even organs as tiny as the brain and pancreas.

But that was later. Now we were going out for Froyo. I explained how this was an excellent idea because the live probiotic bacterial cultures in the yogurt supported gut health. She laughed and said I was hilarious. When Arlene smiled, it was like the sun breaking out from behind the moon after totality during a solar eclipse.

Then, when we were sitting outside Scoop Dreams with our desserts, I noticed a brownish splotch on the sleeve of my T-shirt—and my cone was vanilla!

Oh no! Was it pig poop? How could I have left myself open to this when I’d known I was going out with Arlene? I aimed a nonchalant sniff in the direction of the stain. I didn’t smell anything. But I’d been living with Porquette for so long that my nose might have become desensitized to pig smells.

I finished my cone, but I was unable to enjoy it or even taste it. I couldn’t get my mind off that terrible splotch on my shirt. Next we were heading to Arlene’s place to work on the project. If that blob was what I suspected it was, there’d be no way to mask the smell indoors!

As we walked back to the parking lot, my eyes locked on the decorative fountain in the courtyard of the plaza. It was my best hope to clean myself up before it was too late. Just a little splash was all I needed.

As we passed by, I tried to lean over the rail into the spray, but the droplets were hitting my arm just below the elbow, a few inches short of the stain. In a last-ditch effort, I pressed my hip against the lip of the fountain and heaved with all my might.

The next thing I knew, I was tumbling over the edge and into the fountain, sleeve and all. There was a cry of shock from Arlene. She reached over and hauled me out until I stood, dripping, beside her. In that instant, all those YouTube videos about dating came back to me. This wasn’t in any of them.

“Sweetie, what happened?”

I checked my sleeve. Clean!

“It must have been an inner-ear imbalance,” I explained. Donovan would have been proud of me. He was my role model at making excuses.

She took my hand and began pulling me toward the parking lot. “Let’s get to my place so we can dry you off!”

My wet shoes squished all the way to the car.

Arlene didn’t live in a dorm like me. She lived in a real apartment, off campus.

She introduced me to her roommate, Claudia. “This is Noah. Isn’t he adorable?” In a whisper, she added, “He’s a genius!”

Claudia looked pretty doubtful.

I had to put on Arlene’s floral bathrobe while she threw my wet stuff into the dryer. When I opened the bathroom door, the first thing I saw was Claudia picking something up off the carpet.

“What’s this?”

That was when I recognized the pastry box. It must have fallen out of my pocket when Arlene took my clothes down to the laundry room.

I shouted a warning: “Don’t open that!”

The screaming was like something from a horror movie—or at least from the trailers that were posted on YouTube.

Then Arlene came running in and, instead of calming Claudia down, she started screaming too, so it was coming in stereo.

“No, no, no!” I waded right in. “This is perfectly harmless and it’s an excellent specimen. It’s my gift to Arlene—for the project.”

Claudia’s eyes were wide. “You gave her a dead bat?”

“Well, it used to be dehydrated,” I explained, “but I fell in the fountain and it got hydrated again. It’s still dead, though. It can’t hurt you.”

Eventually, it all got straightened out and the screaming stopped. But Arlene couldn’t use the specimen now because it wasn’t preserved anymore. I offered to take it back to the lab and have it desiccated again, but she said no.

Arlene forgave me, but it was obvious to both of us that the mood had been blown. We were both pretty quiet on the ride back to Butternut Hall—and it had nothing to do with the wind in her hair.

I thought back to one of the videos I watched last night. It was called “Relationships Are Complicated.”

Donovan was out when I finally got back to room 115—another disappointment. I’d been looking forward to getting his opinion on how my date had gone. He was always a good sounding board for real-life events. And today had felt as real-life as anything I’d ever experienced.

I poked my head into the bathroom to check on Porquette. The sick mascot shifted her position in the bathtub to peer quizzically up at me.

“Thanks a lot,” I couldn’t resist saying, although I was pretty certain a pig wouldn’t know what to make of sarcasm. Porquette was perceptive and intelligent, but it would have been pointless to try to explain that her cleanliness habits had led me to distrust the stain on my T-shirt—which had prompted me to lean into the fountain, which had led to all the disasters that followed. That kind of cause-and-effect analysis would be out of reach for any animal, even a dolphin or a chimpanzee. They’d never be able to understand the shame of walking into the zoology lab and returning their vampire bat in a Ziploc sandwich baggie.

For me, there was only one antidote for this kind of dark mood—science. I had to throw myself into my work.

I sat down at the desk, opened my laptop, and entered my credentials to log onto Wilderton’s mainframe computer. Once I was in, I called up my AI project, AIDAN.

A message came back: PROGRAM NOT FOUND.

I tried again, but the message was the same: PROGRAM NOT FOUND.

Frowning, I logged out of the mainframe and logged in again, this time hacking in under Dr. Menzies’s identity. Same result.

Alarmed now, I ran a quick remote diagnostic on the Wilderton system. Everything came up normal. For confirmation, I even did a test run of Arlene’s project, GATORGAB. It worked perfectly, proving that nothing was wrong with either the mainframe or my own laptop.

There was only one logical conclusion: AIDAN was gone.

18
Hypermotherly
Arlene Pulaski

My boyfriend, Gator, isn’t much of a romantic. When it comes to bringing presents, I always end up with either flowers or chocolates. I used to get frustrated at how uncreative he can be.

I will never make that mistake again. Not after looking into that gift box and seeing a dead vampire bat staring back at me.

It was the mouth that got to Claudia—wide open, fangs ready to drink blood. For me it was the wings. Sure, the creature was dead, but I could almost feel those spiny, papery horrors flapping against my skin.

When you get a bad gift, you’re supposed to tell yourself it’s the thought that counts. But this was really stretching things a lot.

Of course, Noah was an exceptional case. With an IQ so high, who could even guess what was going on inside that remarkable brain of his? I was almost tempted to believe that he was right and everyone else was wrong—that a dead bat really was the ideal gift.

And it was—for the biology assignment Noah had envisioned. In a way, it was incredibly thoughtful—and not just hideous, nightmarish, gruesome, and disgusting.

“He was trying to help,” I explained to Claudia. “I was struggling for a topic and he gave me one. He had no way of knowing I’d already picked capybaras.”

“You’re making excuses for him,” Claudia accused me. “You’re nineteen years old. Why do you need this middle school kid in your life?”

How would I ever be able to explain it to her? My life as Gator’s girlfriend was a blur of motorcycle rallies and tractor pulls and football tailgates and UFC fights. And I liked those things. Honest, I did. But . . .

I’m smart. I get great grades in school. I was valedictorian of my graduating class. I was accepted into the science department of an elite university. To my eyes, though, Noah was someone absolutely unique in the world. His thought processes were so elevated that none of the rest of us could imagine how his mind operated. His research in AI was astonishing. Even Dr. Menzies was struggling to keep up. To know a person like that—to talk with him; to work alongside him; to be his friend—was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

In most other ways, though, Noah was like a lost puppy. Any kid his age would have a hard time fitting into college life. But I got the feeling that Noah had a hard time fitting into any life, whether it was middle school or Wilderton. He was just too different. Maybe it was my motherly instinct, but watching him flounder broke my heart. Like when the salad place in the student union ran out of romaine lettuce, he drew a nutrition chart explaining why the iceberg kind was inferior. He was right; he was usually right about everything. On the other hand, why didn’t his intelligence let him see that the poor kid at the cash register wasn’t a wizard who could make romaine magically appear out of thin air? Or the medium salsa at Chipotle? Or the pepperoni pieces that were flat, not concave? How could someone who understood so much about the world be so completely clueless about how ordinary life worked?

I only had one class with him—Advanced Computer Seminar with Dr. Menzies. Even though he was the star of the class—light-years ahead of the rest of us—he was awkward around the other students. We were older and more mature, so it was no wonder he couldn’t relate to adult topics like car insurance or dating or student loans. But when the subject turned to the disappearance of Porquette, he couldn’t handle that either. He would actually leave the room when there was any discussion about the mascot. Like he was too tenderhearted even to consider what might have happened to her.

I had to admit that the other college kids didn’t exactly go out of their way to make him feel welcome. They felt threatened by his brilliance—the same way Gator didn’t like to hang out with my Wilderton friends. I would never mention Noah to Gator—he might think I was comparing him to a 206 IQ. Claudia mentioned Noah once, but I quickly stepped in and changed the subject. That had been a close one.

I thought Dr. Menzies was going to cry the day Noah told the class that AIDAN had disappeared from the Wilderton mainframe. It was such a breakthrough—the talk of the entire computer science department. And now it was gone.

But beneath all the tsk-tsk sympathy, there was a lot of gloating from the students. The boy genius had finally been knocked down a peg or two.

“Now he’ll find out what life is like for us knuckle-draggers,” I overheard someone commenting in a corner of the lab.

“You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” I told him. “All of you. Him being smart doesn’t take anything away from the rest of us. He may be the kid, but you’re the ones acting like children!”

I got so emotional that I actually choked up a little. That was when it really began to sink in how much Noah Youkilis had gotten under my skin. He was more than a genius to admire or a young kid to protect. He was my friend. And a dead vampire bat in my living room was a small price to pay.

Now these jerks were tearing him down just because they were jealous. Maybe Noah wasn’t mature enough for college, but they weren’t mature enough for kindergarten!

The one person who seemed all business about this was Noah himself. He rushed from station to station in the computer lab, pounding keyboards, the picture of concentration. We just hung back, watching. Even Dr. Menzies became a part of the audience, enraptured by the master at work.

It went on for over an hour. By the time he faced us, his glasses were fogged from the sheer heat of his efforts.

“I’ve got it,” he said at last. “I’ve figured out what happened to AIDAN.”

“What?” I asked, looking from face to face among my classmates who’d been so threatened by Noah. Could one of them have been rotten enough to have sabotaged his project?

“I programmed AIDAN with self-protection protocols,” Noah went on. “But I left it up to its AI to determine the best way to do that.”

We all stared. What kind of answer was that? What was Noah talking about?

Only Dr. Menzies was starting to clue in. “You’re not saying—” he began.

Noah nodded gravely. “I think AIDAN deleted itself.”

19
Hyperdisappointed
Raina Overbrook

Remember May?

That was my favorite month. The weather was warm, but not hot and sticky yet. I was finishing up middle school with straight A’s. I was looking forward to my summer job—not a counselor-in-training, but a full counselor for the first time.

The tulips were up; the buds were popping; the days were getting longer. The whole world was coming alive with the possibilities and potential of a new season.

And now that it was here, all I wanted to do was dig a hole and crawl into it until winter.

What a disappointment! The dream job—leading a group of happy kids through their best summer ever. I should have known when we ended up Baloney that we were doomed from the start. Why didn’t I put my foot down when Donovan came up with that awful name?

Not that it would have changed anything. The reason our group wasn’t having much fun was the reason none of the groups were: Porquette. We played the same games, competed in the same sports, participated in the same activities. But we were just going through the motions, acting out what Mr. Arthropod put on our daily schedule. I used to roll my eyes when my parents told me Porquette was the heart and soul of the entire campus. Not anymore.

The Jalen situation wasn’t making things any easier. He was still disappearing at least three times a week. Forgive me, I even tried to use the missing mascot to convince him he needed to stay put.

“These are the times that we really have to stick together,” I reasoned. “You know, keep up our Baloney spirit.” My face still twisted every time I said that name.

“Oh, yeah, definitely,” he agreed.

“What if Porquette comes back and you’re not here to see?” I went on. “You’ll be the last to know.”

“Someone will tell me,” he replied confidently. “I have connections.”

In other words, he was upset about Porquette, too, just not enough to let it interfere with his side plans, whatever they might be.

That day, he vanished for nearly three hours before resurfacing near the high jump pits with his pockets full of uncooked penne pasta.

We were facing the Choco-Squad in some track-and-field events, when I saw that one of our opponents—a big boy with a shock of bright red hair—kept staring over at us, his expression intense.

Victor noticed it too. “What’s that guy looking at?”

“Uh-oh.” Manny was worried. “What if everybody hates us?”

Claire stood up, chin stuck out. “Let’s go find out.”

I sat her down on her seat. “I’m sure he’s just being friendly.”

During the break between the high jump and the relay races, the curious kid came over to our side.

Claire came off the bench, ready to block his way, but he strode past her and past Manny too. He walked right over to Donovan. “Hey—you’re that guy.”

Donovan looked amused. “Could be. I’m definitely a guy.”

“No,” he said. “I mean the guy from the video.”

My counselor-in-training shook his head. “I think you’ve got me mixed up with somebody else. I haven’t been in any videos.”

“It looked just like you,” Red Hair insisted. “You were wearing this heavy snowsuit. And you were climbing a mountain.”

Donovan laughed out loud. “You’ve definitely got the wrong person. I’m not the mountain-climbing type. If it was a napping-on-the-couch video, I might believe it was me.”

The kid went back to his own side, but he kept peering over his shoulder at Donovan. To be honest, I was surprised Donovan hadn’t tried to take credit for it, whatever “it” was. That was his style—to luck into the easy route and be admired, whether he deserved it or not.

He might have been the biggest disappointment of all. Okay, it wasn’t his fault that I’d had visions of a counselor-in-training who would be my partner this summer and would learn the ropes from me. That definitely wasn’t Donovan. He didn’t learn the ropes from anybody. Donovan didn’t do ropes. He just showed up and did the absolute bare minimum. And for some reason, everybody loved him for it.

Me, if I stood on my head and spit nickels, I couldn’t get anybody’s attention. Donovan was different. There was something about him that people just liked. Even me. I liked him, despite the fact that he drove me crazy. Besides, there was no way someone as brilliant as Noah Youkilis would be best friends with Donovan if he wasn’t a good person. I’d only met Noah that one time, but in those few minutes, I could feel the intelligence and strength of character emanating from him. You could bet there would be logic and purpose behind every move he made.

After track and field, as we headed for the student union, Donovan stopped dead in front of a bench by the side of the path. A gavel symbol had been painted on top of the picnic table, but next to it, in much fresher paint, there was a new drawing: a spiral, tight at the core and opening up into a sweeping curve.

“They’re all over the campus,” I told him. “Nobody knows what they mean.”

“It could be a new secret society,” Jalen suggested. “Like the Gavel, only cooler.”

“Maybe it’s not even new,” Victor mused. “But it’s so secret we’re only finding out about it now.”

“Hurry up, you guys,” Donovan prodded. “Let’s get to the snack machines before there’s nothing left but the healthy stuff.”

That was all Manny needed to hear. He led the stampede to the student union.

Once in the building, our campers raced among the vending machines, jamming in coins and pulling out treats. It was the last part of our day before we assembled back at the football field for pickup.

“Hey, look!” Claire piped up through a mouthful of potato chips. “There’s that picture again!”

She was standing by the bulletin board, which was dotted with notices about tutors available, volunteers wanted, apartments for rent, and kittens for adoption. Prominently placed at the center of the board was what looked like a sign-up sheet, with signature lines one through forty. There was no written explanation of what this enrollment would be for. The only clue: At the top of the page was that swirling spiral symbol we had just seen outside on the picnic table.

“It’s the new secret society!” Luna exclaimed.

“It’s nothing,” Donovan said firmly. “Come on, let’s go.”

“Wait a minute,” Manny protested. “Maybe I want to sign up.”

“Absolutely not,” I told him. “What kind of empty-head posts a sign-up sheet that doesn’t even tell you what you’re signing up for?”

Donovan shot me a strange look I couldn’t identify except that it seemed to convey five or six different emotions at the same time.

That might have been the most annoying thing about Donovan of all. Why did he always seem as if he knew a whole lot more than he was letting on?

20
Hypermountaineer
Donovan Curtis

There was no denying it. Porquette wasn’t getting better. If anything, she was getting worse.

We hardly ever heard the sound of her hooves scraping against the bathtub anymore, which meant she wasn’t even trying to get up or move herself around.

“This is bad, Noah,” I said nervously. “How much longer can we wait before we take her to a vet or someone who can help?”

Noah looked scared and I didn’t blame him. The entire campus had spent the past three weeks losing its mind over the missing mascot. People had been squirming down culverts and into crawlspaces searching for her. If we had to admit we’d been hiding her all this time, there was going to be a mass butt-kicking in the quad—with our butts as the main target. Especially when the word got out that it was our elderberries that had poisoned her.

“I’m not convinced,” Noah countered. “A poisoned pig wouldn’t have any appetite. Porquette’s eating up a storm. Aren’t you, girl?”

In answer, Porquette wolfed down another sourdough biscuit.

It was hard for a guy like me to debate an actual genius. I was freaking out because the mascot didn’t look right, but Noah actually did his research. A sick pig refused to eat. A sick pig lost weight. That wasn’t Porquette. In fact, the bathtub seemed to be getting smaller, which could only mean Porquette was getting bigger.

“Okay, explain this, then!” I reached around Porquette’s massive flank and pointed to her stomach, which was redder than the usual gray-pink of her skin and seemed swollen.

Noah placed his hand on her belly. “An infection would be warm to the touch. Porquette’s skin is cool.”

It was an argument we had three times a day—one that Noah should have won easily. There was only one sticking point: If Porquette was so healthy, why wouldn’t she get up out of our bathtub?

You could still see the Fibonacci spiral on Porquette’s flank, although the Magic Marker had faded due to the frequent showers that made the bathroom livable. Noah had created a cardboard stencil of the design that he was using all over the campus. Every night after dark, he went out with the stencil and a can of white spray paint. His goal was to put one of those spirals everywhere he found the sign of the Gavel.

“By the way, I saw your sign-up sheet in the student union,” I told him.

He regarded me eagerly. “How many names were on it?”

“None,” I replied. “How many did you expect? It doesn’t say what you’re signing up for.”

“Well, if I put that, it wouldn’t be a secret society, would it?” Noah reasoned. “The Fibonacci spiral speaks for itself. It’s one of the most famous symbols in math.”

“Well, if your new club attracts everybody around here who’s as smart as you, you could hold your meetings in a closet.” I stood up. “I’m going to the cafeteria to get some chow. Want anything?”

“See if they have any bagels for Porquette. But no poppy seeds. They don’t agree with her.”

“Gotcha.”

It was only about a ten-minute walk to the cafeteria from Butternut Hall, but it was getting more uncomfortable every day. People were starting to stare at me. Their wandering eyes would light on me and suddenly lock on. Some did double takes, looking away and then back in a hurry. What was going on? Did I have a giant zit? Was my fly open? Was my shirt inside out?

I ducked into a bathroom for a quick wardrobe check. All clear. But as soon as I got back out there, it started again. People nudged each other, gesturing in my direction.

“That’s him,” I heard someone whisper.

My first instinct was to go full panic. They knew about Porquette living in our bathtub. But if that was the case, people wouldn’t just point and stare. Campus security would bust down our door and rescue their mascot. So it had to be something else.

As I walked through the door to the cafeteria, a college kid high-fived me. “You’re a beast!” he said with genuine admiration.

“Uh—why?”

But he was already gone.

I snagged a sandwich, snuck four whole-wheat bagels into a to-go bag for you-know-who, and sat down at a small table. I had just stuffed my mouth with the first bite when Raina burst in and stood blazing down at me.

“You’re some piece of work, you know that?”

I had a full mouth, so I had to chew and swallow before I could defend myself. “What did I do this time?”

“You lied.”

The fear resurfaced for a moment, and I had to reassure myself: I might not have been the most honest guy in the world, but I didn’t actually lie that much. When I played fast and loose with the truth, it was usually more about what I didn’t say than what I did. For example, I definitely never told anybody that the number of pigs living in my bathtub was zero. And luckily, the subject didn’t come up in a lot of conversations.

“Lied? About what?”

“You told that camper you never climbed a mountain,” she accused.

“And I never did!”

She slapped her phone onto the table in front of me. A video was playing—a steep slope covered in ice. The caption read: YOUNG CLIMBER CONQUERS EVEREST. A figure in a bright orange wind-suit hammered a piton into the ice and heaved himself up on it. He wore spiked crampons on his feet and he was connected to a rope by a body harness. A howling wind buffeted him, blinding him to his surroundings.

He reached into his hood and pulled his oxygen mask aside to take a high-altitude breath.

I gawked. I goggled.

It was me.

I mean it wasn’t me, obviously. But it was my face! How the heck did it get to Mount Everest?

Raina paused the video with a piston-like finger. “What do you have to say about that?”

I struggled to keep my cool in front of her. “Nothing! Because it isn’t me!”

“Of course it’s you. Look—you can even see that scar over your left eyebrow!”

I squinted through the blizzard on the screen. She was right! That scar was left over from a Rollerblading accident in seventh grade. “I know it’s my face, but it isn’t me!” I insisted. “Don’t you think I’d remember if I did a nothing little thing like climbing Mount Everest?”

“That part I believe,” she assured me. “You’ve never been to Everest. But have you been to some cheesy video joint where they’ll help you make a phony clip to post on social media to show everybody what a big hero you are?”

I looked at her, stunned. It was bewildering enough to see a video of yourself halfway around the world, in a place you’ve never been, doing something you’ve never done. The last thing I was expecting was to have Raina accuse me of faking the whole thing. I knew she wasn’t exactly my biggest fan. She never missed a chance to remind me that I was only a counselor-in-training, not a full counselor like her. She was the ultimate Wilderton insider, the daughter of two professors; I was only here because I knew Noah. But to have her call me a fraud really hurt.

“It must be somebody else.” My voice wasn’t as strident as I’d expected because I was so taken aback. “Somebody that just looks like me.”

She waved the phone under my nose to make sure I could see the frozen picture of me on Mount Everest. “Right,” she said sarcastically. “Definitely somebody else.” And she stormed off.

I pushed my chair back from the table but stayed rooted to the spot. A few of the college kids were looking at me. I couldn’t be sure if it was the argument with Raina that had attracted their attention or the fact that they recognized me as the star of that viral mountain-climbing video.

I didn’t even blame Raina or that camper or the college students for thinking that was me. I thought so too. It was me—except for the fact that it couldn’t have been. Conquering the world’s tallest mountain wasn’t the kind of thing that just slipped your mind.

So who was that in the video? Whoever it was looked exactly like me, right down to the scar on the eyebrow. Did I have a cousin somewhere who could be my twin? There was only one source for that information.

Sticking the rest of my sandwich in the to-go bag with Porquette’s bagels, I left the cafeteria and found a secluded bench along one of the paths. I sat down between the fading gavel image and the bright white Fibonacci spiral, took out my phone, and dialed my dad’s cell number.

It took a few seconds for the call to get through. Then I heard the long beep of a European ring tone, and finally my father answered. “Hi, Donnie!”

The sound was terrible, like I was talking to somebody in the middle of a hurricane. “I can hardly hear you, Dad!” I exclaimed into the phone. “Is it windy where you are?”

Mom’s voice came on the line. “We’re in a hot-air balloon over the Loire Valley!”

“It’s beautiful here!” my dad added.

“Uh—nice,” I said. “So the reason I’m calling is—do I have a cousin who looks exactly like me?”

The French wind blasted through the phone while they thought it over.

“I don’t think so,” my mother replied finally. “Why would you ask something like that? Is everything okay at that university?”

“Everything’s fine.” Okay, sometimes I did lie—but only because the truth was too complicated for a long-distance call to a hot-air balloon. “It’s just that there’s this video—the guy looks exactly like me. I mean, I don’t have a twin brother you didn’t tell me about, right? And you never had me cloned or anything like that?”

My dad laughed. “You’re a funny kid, Donnie.”

“We don’t miss home, but we miss you and your sense of humor!” Mom added.

Then another blast of wind broke the connection. Either that or my own parents hung up on me.

21
Hypercurly
Darius Marshall

The spot on the ceiling was shiny wet. The plaster was crumbling and the ancient wallpaper was coming away at the corner. There was no question about it. The Gamma Kappa house roof had a leak.

Eddie was mystified. “Didn’t we just clean the gutters?”

“We didn’t clean the gutters,” I reminded him. “Noah cleaned the gutters. And he did it the way he does everything else—badly.”

“Yeah.” A distant nostalgic grin appeared on Eddie’s face. “He did his best and his best was always, you know, garbage. It was a miracle he didn’t fall off the ladder and land on his head.”

“How could somebody so smart be so clueless at life?” I added, shivering a little as a water droplet fell down the back of my neck. “I miss the little guy. It was fun having him around.”

Eddie was convinced that Noah was ghosting us because he was sore about the time we sent him in there with Hal the Honey Badger at Pee-yew. I thought there was a simpler explanation. With his IQ, sooner or later, he was bound to figure out that neither of us was a member of the Society of the Gavel. Maybe we’d never know the reason. In the end, it didn’t matter. Noah had moved on.

“I guess we can kiss our party deck goodbye,” Eddie mourned, peering out the window to the backyard where four posts lay, still waiting to be hammered into the ground. A colony of termites had already moved into one of them.

Life was pretty boring at the frat house without Noah around. I wasn’t just saying that because we had to do our own laundry and take out our own garbage. We didn’t do those things anyway. But a kid like Noah got under your skin. Girls were impressed when we showed them the New York Times crossword, done and dusted, and Noah always knew the really hard words.

“I guess we were pretty rotten,” I sighed. “We should find the kid and make it up to him.”

Noah practically lived in the Tech Center these days. I’d read about it in the Wilderton Wire. Something had gone wrong with his big AI project, and he was burning the midnight oil trying to straighten it out.

“Would you believe I’ve never been in this building before?” Eddie said as we let ourselves in the Tech Center entrance.

“Sure, I believe it,” I replied readily. “It’s for smart people. I haven’t been here either.”

This being Sunday, the building was deserted, but we found a lone light burning in a small computer lab near the back. There was Noah, swiveling between notes, screens, and keyboards, his skinny fingers just a blur as he typed.

“Noah—buddy! How’s it going?”

“Fine,” Noah replied automatically, never breaking his concentration. This must have been the genius showing through. We’d never seen it beyond truly sick crossword answers, but the kid was a machine, impossible to distract.

Eddie and I exchanged a look. It was time for an intervention. We had to save Noah from his own brain before he ended up even more bent over than he already was. Flanking him on either side, we literally lifted him from his seat and marched him to the door and out of the building.

At first, we thought Noah was going to yell at us. But when he spoke, his words were “Thanks, guys. I needed that.”

“It’s okay to be smart,” I told him, “but you don’t want to overdo it.”

“I always overdo it. I’m just built that way.” He seemed pretty glum about it. “My biggest problem is excellence.”

“It’s not as big a problem as you think,” Eddie said kindly. “Remember when you cleaned our gutters? Not excellent.”

I took a shot at it. “You know, we’d still love to have you in the Society of the Gavel. You were really close when you dropped out.”

“That’s okay. I’m not interested in being a Gaveler anymore. Anyway, there’s a new secret society that’s even better.”

“Really?” As far as I knew, the Gavel guys had been at Wilderton since the days of the dinosaurs.

Noah stood up and gestured toward his spot on the bench. “Look!”

The Gavel symbol was there. And next to it, in fresher paint, was another drawing—a spiraling line. I’d been seeing it around campus for a while now, but I’d never given much thought to what it might mean.

“What is it?” Eddie asked.

“It’s so obvious!” Noah exclaimed.

And that’s when it came to me. What was the biggest thing on everybody’s mind at Wilderton? There could be only one answer: our missing mascot!

“It’s Porquette!” I blurted. “That symbol is the curly tail of a pig. The Society of the Curly Tail must know what happened to Porquette!”

“No!” Noah howled, horrified. “It’s not a pig’s tail! It’s a Fibonacci spiral!”

“A Fibo-what?” Eddie echoed.

“The Fibonacci spiral comes from graphing the Fibonacci sequence! Everybody knows that!”

Before I could respond, the roar of an unmuffled engine drowned out any attempt at conversation. A gleaming Harley-Davidson motorcycle came hurtling down the path and screeched to a halt right in front of our bench. A hulking biker clad from head to toe in black leather swung a leg off the seat and stood opposite the three of us. He pulled off his helmet, revealing a bearded face, purple with rage, and said the last thing we expected: “I’m looking for Noah Youkilis.”

“Me?” Noah asked in surprise.

The response only seemed to make the guy even madder. A vein on his throat bulged, distorting the crocodilian tattoo on his neck. “You think I’m stupid enough to believe a little kid like you is moving in on my girl?” He turned on Eddie and me. “Which one of you is it?”

“Listen, you’ve got the wrong guys,” I protested. “We don’t even know your girl.”

“Yes, we do,” Noah piped up.

“Quiet—” Eddie muttered under his breath.

But Noah could not be stopped. “You’re Gator, Arlene’s boyfriend.”

“I’ve got nothing against you, kid,” Gator informed him. “If you tell me which of these two clowns I’m looking for, you can walk away from this.”

“You know, you should be careful how you treat Arlene,” Noah warned. “She’s a lady.”

There was a moment in every horror movie where the victim waits just a second too long so that when the monster turns, it’s already too late. That moment was almost here. Gator was losing patience with Noah’s lecture. It was impossible to know whether he would turn on Eddie or me first, but one thing was sure: I couldn’t wait around to find out.

I spun off the bench and hit the path running. At that, I was half a step behind Eddie, who must have been thinking exactly the same thing. We were brothers in more than just a frat. We were brothers in not wanting to get our butts stomped by a crazed biker. It didn’t matter that we were 100 percent innocent and had never even heard of this Arlene person. The name of the game was self-preservation.

“Hey!” Gator came after us, his heavy motorcycle boots making the ground shake—at least that’s how it felt when you were the object of the hunt.

We heard Noah’s creepy little voice hollering, “Come back! It’s not them! It’s me!”

Eddie steered us in the direction of the woods. No one was going to find us there. Wilderton was our home turf. Still, we kept on running long after Gator’s angry shouts had faded away.

At last, we slowed to a walk.

“Why was Noah trying to take the rap?” Eddie gasped. “Does he want to get himself killed?”

I shook my head. “Maybe he was paying us back for saving him from getting arrested at Pee-yew. Anyway, the kid was never in real danger. No jealous boyfriend ever had to worry about Noah.”

Eventually we came out of the woods in front of the student union and decided to go in for a couple of water bottles. Running for your life was thirsty work.

We pulled our drinks out of the machine by the wall of bulletin boards. Eddie saw it first—a sign-up sheet with that spiral symbol Noah had showed us on the bench outside the Tech Center.

“You know, that really does look like a pig’s tail,” I commented. “I’m pretty sure it’s some kind of message about Porquette.”

“But what message?” Eddie challenged. “It doesn’t say anything.”

“Only one way to find out.” I stepped up to the bulletin board, took the pencil that was hanging on the end of the string, and signed my name on the first line.

I handed the pencil to Eddie. He looked a little reluctant, but he signed too.

“We may have been fake Gavelers,” I announced. “But we’re totally legit in the Society of the Curly Tail.”

22
Hyperluna
Donovan Curtis

The beanbag struck the board at exactly the right angle, slid up the slope, teetered there for a second, and then dropped down the hole.

Group Baloney celebrated, cheering “Baloney power!” and exchanging high fives. Didn’t it figure? After half a summer of stinking at everything, our kids finally found something they were good at. Spacey, delicate Luna turned out to be a cornhole master. No, seriously. She barely missed a shot. All the kids were pretty good at it—and even when they couldn’t find the hole, Luna could always be depended on to knock their beanbags through with a perfect throw of her own.

Five-on-five cornhole had become the hottest game in the Explorers Program, and Baloney was wiping up the competition at camp. We skunked Taco Tuesday by twenty points and left the Candy Crushers in our dust. Today’s match-up was a close call until Luna, with impossible wrist action, knocked in misses from both Victor and Manny, all while pushing an opposing beanbag away from the hole. Now Baloney was pulling away from A la Mode, building an insurmountable lead.

“You mess with Baloney, expect the wurst!” Claire crowed out her latest trash-talking catchphrase.

Manny tried to bellow “Baloney power!” but he’d lost his voice half an hour ago.

“We’re really good,” Victor added. “I can’t believe we’re actually good.”

Even Jalen seemed to be pretty excited about our winning streak.

Raina jumped on his enthusiasm. “See how much fun it is when we stick together as a team?”

“Oh, yeah,” Jalen agreed. “Like always!”

Either he didn’t get her not-so-hidden message or he was misunderstanding on purpose.

“Nice try, Raina,” I told her in a low voice. “But if you’re expecting to get through to Jailbreak Jalen, forget it.”

“Why do you always have to be so negative?” she complained. “Don’t you see how great this is for our kids? Camp’s been such a downer since Porquette disappeared. To see the kids happy and excited again is amazing!”

“I’m glad to see you’ve rediscovered your Baloney spirit,” I said sarcastically.

She made a face. “I admit that I still don’t love the name. Fine—if the kids are happy, I’m happy. One thing this summer has taught me is when you find the fun, you hold on to it. Maybe we’ve got some oddballs. Maybe one of our kids is a runner. Maybe we’re all worried about Porquette. But this cornhole thing is a gift! To them, it might as well be the Olympics. And if you spoil it with your lousy attitude, I’m never going to forgive you.”

That hurt, especially after she accused me of faking that climbing video. Was I ever going to be perfect enough to satisfy Raina? Or would she keep on chewing me out for things I hadn’t even done? I never asked for this job in the first place. I was only here as a favor to Noah. He was the one with a future at Wilderton. Me? I’d be starting plain old high school in the fall. If I never saw this campus again—and Royal Princess Raina—it would be too soon for me!

But as soon as the thought had crossed my mind, I realized I was lying to myself. I liked Raina, no matter what she thought of me. Well, maybe liked was too strong a word, but I admired her and her dedication to this job and our campers. Which was the only reason I didn’t get right in her face at that moment. For one thing, I could have told her that one of the main reasons the kids were standoffish to her was that they thought she wasn’t very nice to me.

Instead, we stood side by side watching the cornhole match unfold, cheering our campers like this really was the Olympics, and gold medals and national pride were hanging in the balance.

When I saw the golf cart out of the corner of my eye, I groaned inside. That was never good news. It was either Dean Kendrick, which could mean something was up with Noah, or Mr. Arthropod, coming to complain that he hadn’t been left alone enough. But when the driver unfolded himself from behind the wheel of the small vehicle, I saw it was C.T. Beldner, that student reporter from the Wilderton Wire. I waited for Noah to get out of the passenger side, but C.T. was alone. That was weird. The reporter was interested in the thirteen-year-old genius, not the ungifted sidekick. Was the Wire doing an article on the Explorers Program? I couldn’t imagine that a cornhole league for eight-year-olds would get much interest from college students.

To my surprise, C.T. walked straight up to me. “Got a minute for a few questions?”

“You mean about Noah?” I asked.

In answer, he tilted his phone. The image on the screen was one that I was heartily sick of looking at: Me, freeze-frame in the blizzard, high up on Mount Everest.

“I’ll be right back,” I said to Raina.

“We’re working,” she reminded me. “This game’s almost over. Then we’re due at the pool.”

Everything I did got the Overbrook Seal of Disapproval. I couldn’t please her if I went to the United Nations and brokered world peace.

“Yeah, but—” I gestured toward C.T.

“We have an unpredictable camper,” she added with a meaningful gesture in Jalen’s direction. “We need all hands on deck.”

“I—” I looked over at my picture frozen on C.T.’s phone. It wasn’t me, but who was going to believe that? I had to set the record straight. “I’ll be right back.”

And with that, I deserted my furious co-counselor and headed over to the golf cart to join the student reporter.

“I guess Noah isn’t the only superstar in Butternut Hall,” he greeted me.

I had a mini panic attack. For a second there, I thought he’d somehow figured out we were hiding Porquette in our bathtub.

“You didn’t tell me you were a mountain climber,” he added, and I realized he was talking about the Everest clip.

“It isn’t me,” I told him. “I know it looks like me, but it isn’t.”

“Come on,” he chided. “Why would you want to hide something like that? Wilderton has a thirteen-year-old genius and his roommate is a famous daredevil. You shouldn’t be hiding in Noah’s shadow. Our students need to know about you.”

“I’m not a daredevil—”

C.T. swiped the Everest picture aside and a new video began to play on the phone. Some guy stood on the roof of a building, buffeted by high winds. He ran to the edge and leaped off like he was Superman or something. Just before he pulled his parachute, he swooped past the camera and—

It was me! I had just taken a flying leap off nothing less than the Burj Khalifa in Dubai—something else that had never happened.

Before I reached the ground, the video ended and a new one began. This time I was dressed in a parka, mushing a dog team across the high Arctic. And that morphed into a diver in a shark tank menaced by a great white that could have swallowed a Smart car. Close-up on the scuba mask: me again.

“It can’t be me,” I barely whispered.

“Don’t be so modest,” he persisted. “You can’t tell me it’s not you. It’s you to the life!”

“Don’t you think I’d want to take credit for this stuff if it was true?” I exploded. “I’d be the greatest showboat in human history! My face would be on cereal boxes!”

“So why won’t you let me tell your story?” he demanded.

“Because it’s not true! I can’t prove that guy isn’t me, but you’re going to have to take my word for it that he isn’t!”

C.T. was disapproving. “If you’re trying to keep a low profile, it was a pretty dumb idea to post all those videos on social media.”

“I didn’t do that either,” I pleaded. “I don’t know who put them out there. Probably the real guy—the one who looks so much like me.”

On the phone, another clip—this one of me bungee jumping—came to an end only to be replaced by something else. It wasn’t me this time. It was a large pig, seen from the side, prancing through a field of daisies. Drawn in Magic Marker across the flank was the Fibonacci spiral.

C.T.’s eyes bulged. “Is that Porquette?”

“How should I know?” I babbled. “All pigs look alike!”

He frowned. “And what’s that symbol supposed to mean? I see it all over the campus.”

At this point, my head was absolutely spinning. It was weird enough to wrap my mind around all those videos starring the me who wasn’t me. But this? Porquette as the grand finale? And what was she doing outdoors in a field of flowers when I knew for a fact that she was poisoned by elderberries and didn’t have the strength to climb out of our bathtub? The video couldn’t be old, because Porquette had the Fibonacci spiral drawn on her. That was new. In its own way, it was just as impossible as me on Mount Everest.

One thing was clear. I had to get the attention off Porquette—and the only alternative was the strange symbol on her flank.

So I blurted, “I think it might be a club. There’s a sign-up sheet in the student union.”

C.T.’s eyes rose to his hairline. “A new club?”

That was when the cornhole match ended, and I was called away to join the celebration.

23
Hypernewsflash

THE WIRE: WILDERTON UNIVERSITY’S DAILY NEWSPAPER

PORQUETTE ALIVE!!!

Stunning Video Offers Proof of Life . . . and Opens a New Mystery By C.T. Beldner, Staff Reporter

Porquette, where are you?

For the past three weeks the entire campus has been asking that question. Now, finally—after rumors of kidnappings, assassination attempts, and all manner of skullduggery—our first particle of real news. A video has surfaced online showing our mascot very much alive and well.

The clip, which has appeared on several major platforms, shows Porquette enjoying herself in a field of English daisies. Professor Milton, chair of Wilderton’s geography department, insists there is no such place in our local topography.

The only other clue is a strange pictogram on Porquette’s side—a tight spiral expanding into a sweeping arc. The image will be familiar to Wilderton students. It appears widely around campus, usually in places where the emblem of the Society of the Gavel has been drawn. Could this be a new rival secret society here at Wilderton University? There’s a sign-up sheet on the bulletin board in the student union—and it bears that symbol. It contains not a word of explanation. You just have to know.

“It’s the Society of the Curly Tail,” claims Darius Marshall of the Gamma Kappa fraternity, whose name was first to appear on the sheet.

“We don’t know where Porquette is,” puts in his housemate Edward Zhao. “But if anybody does, it’s these guys.”

According to Wilderton’s bylaws, once the university’s mascot has been missing for thirty days, it automatically triggers the search for a replacement. Dean Kendrick has acknowledged that the policy is still in force today. Yet many on campus believe that as long as our mascot is alive—and the video proves she is—Porquette is irreplaceable. Because of her, we are all wild hogs. Fine swine, top of the line.

Will she come back to us? Only time will tell.

Time and, perhaps, the Society of the Curly Tail.

24
Hyper32
Noah Youkilis

32. What an excellent number. You don’t have to be a genius to wrap your mind around 32, but there’s enough to it to keep a genius happy. When I look at 32, I see all the prime factors—2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2. Two to the fifth power. And 32 in binary is written as 100,000. What could be simpler or more elegant?

But the main reason why 32 was my new favorite number was this: There were 32 names on the sign-up sheet for the Fibonacci Society.

A lot of people thought I was proud of my 206 IQ, or getting into college at thirteen, or all the prizes and fellowships I’d won over the years. But I actually didn’t care about any of that stuff. I cared about this. My secret society was a hit. What could be more satisfying than that?

Even Darius and Edward signed up and they were in the Gavel, the greatest secret society of them all. To be honest, I wasn’t sure whether it was possible to belong to both. The Fibonacci Society was so fresh out of the package that I hadn’t decided on a lot of the rules. Did you have to give up your Gavel membership before we’d let you in? I was still a little ticked off at the Gavelers because I wasn’t accepted yet, even after I’d cleaned the gutters at Gamma Kappa house—and that was no small job.

The real dilemma was how did you let people into a secret society without making it un-secret? There were a lot of real secret societies in the world—the Gavel, Skull and Bones, Red Dragon, the Seven Society. But those had been around for decades, sometimes centuries. It didn’t say anywhere what they did when they were first starting out. With the Fibonacci Society, I was just going to have to wing it.

“Wing what?” Donovan demanded when I asked his advice. “There is no Fibonacci Society, just a bunch of pictures on rocks and benches. It’s a total non-thing.”

As much as I appreciated Donovan’s opinion, this irritated me a little. “Everything is a non-thing until someone breathes life into it—whereupon it becomes a thing. Would thirty-two people sign up for a non-thing?”

“They didn’t sign up for your thing,” he argued. “They’re convinced the Fibo-whosis is Porquette’s tail.”

“Everyone knows the Fibonacci spiral,” I insisted. “That would be like not recognizing the shape of a triangle or a circle or globular cluster M13 in the constellation of Hercules.”

“To them, it’s a pig’s butt,” he retorted. “They think they’re joining the Society of the Curly Tail.”

As if on cue, a warbling, drawn-out sound came from the bathroom. Porquette’s groaning had become more frequent lately—and it seemed to be getting louder.

“That’s the downside of secrecy.” I had no hard evidence of this, but it seemed logical. “New recruits never have complete information until they actually become members.”

“Complete information?” Donovan threw up his hands. “How about no information? Your thirty-two new members totally believe your secret society is all about Porquette! They only joined because they think they’re getting their mascot back. Everybody on campus is talking about it. The curly-tail guys kidnapped Porquette as a stunt to introduce themselves to the world. And the worst part of that isn’t that it’s wrong—it’s that it’s half right! You do have Porquette—just not for the reasons they think. And if this leads to us getting found out, your thirty-two members are going to come after us with torches and pitchforks!”

I had to admit this was beyond my understanding—and I understood practically everything. “And this is happening because the Fibonacci spiral reminds people of a pig’s tail?”

Donovan nodded. “That plus the video.”

“Video?”

“There’s a video going around on social media,” Donovan explained. “Porquette walking through flowers. You can see the spiral you drew on her side.”

I was stunned. “That flies in the face of all logic! Yes, I drew the symbol on her, but there was no video and she hasn’t left our bathroom since! It has a zero percent probability factor!”

Porquette punctuated this with another painful snort from the tub.

“Yeah, well,” Donovan began, “it wouldn’t be the weirdest video that’s popped up on the internet lately—”

He was interrupted by a sharp knock at the door.

“JoJo!” Donovan hissed at me. “Get in the bathroom and keep the pig quiet.”

But then a voice—definitely not JoJo’s—called, “Noah? Are you in?”

I opened the door. There in the hallway, looking extremely out of place, stood Dean Kendrick. I didn’t know what to say, so I just stood there while he stepped past me into the room.

Donovan, who’d made it 90 percent of the way to the bathroom to calm Porquette, froze in his tracks and came back to help me greet our visitor. “Hi, Dean Kendrick,” he said in a voice that made me marvel at its casual tone. “How’s it going?”

A low gurgling noise came from the bathroom. Donovan and I recognized it as a burp from Porquette, but luckily, the dean didn’t notice. “This is very homey,” he commented, surveying the room. “Nice work, Noah.”

“Am I in trouble?” I asked. “I’m sure Dr. Menzies told you my AIDAN project deleted itself.” In all honesty, I was less worried about that than I was about Porquette behind the bathroom door. If Dean Kendrick found her there, no statistical analysis could put the possibility of catastrophe any lower than 99.9 percent.

“That’s what I came to discuss,” he told me. “I want to assure you that Wilderton is more than just your university. We’re your family. And families stick by each other through thick and thin.”

There was another pig burp, so I rambled on. “I feel bad about it. You gave me this great scholarship, found a job for Donovan, and everything I worked on disappeared into a puff of smoke.”

“Family,” the dean repeated, although he sounded a little more pained. “We have total confidence in you, Noah. I wanted to deliver that message in person.”

Donovan shot me a pointed look. He always talked about how the gifted kids were cut a lot more slack than the regular students. Here was another example of that.

“Well, I’ll let you both get on with your evening—” As Dean Kendrick opened the door, his gaze fell on a hockey gauntlet, scratched and bleeding padding, sitting on my dresser. “May I ask—have you by any chance had the opportunity to visit Pershing Union this summer?”

I was utterly frozen, but Donovan leaped into the conversation. “That glove belonged to the guy who lived here before us. He must have been a hockey player.”

“Ah, yes.” The dean was almost out the door when Porquette let loose a groan of misery that nobody could miss.

My eyes locked with Donovan’s in a flash of pure dread. Were we found out?

Donovan clutched his jaw and groaned in imitation of the noise from the bathroom. “Ohhhh, this toothache! It’s been bugging me all day!”

Dean Kendrick stepped outside. “Student Health Services has a dentist every Wednesday. You can make an appointment in the morning.” And he was gone.

Donovan collapsed onto his bed. “We can’t live like this much longer.”

The next time I visited the sign-up sheet in the student union, all fifty signature lines were full. Additionally, names were scribbled on the back and also on an extra paper that had been stapled to the bulletin board: 113 applicants in all. Not an elegant number like 32, but still something to be proud of.

But the question of what my next move should be was becoming more and more complicated. For example, how many of these signees should be let into the Fibonacci Society? Surely not all of them. If too many people were in on something secret, there’d be nobody left for it to be secret from.

So I’d have to pick and choose. I didn’t know any of these names. I didn’t know any of these students. I’d have to interview 113 applicants to determine if they had Fibonacci status. And what exactly would that be? What traits made a person Fibonacci-worthy?

I was coming to realize that a 206 IQ would take you only so far. I might have been capable of high-level thinking, but I was only one person. An undertaking like this was going to require legwork. I couldn’t do it alone. I needed help.

Obviously, my first choice should have been Donovan. But I already knew he was a big, fat no. From the very beginning, he’d thought the Fibonacci Society was a bad idea.

There were only two other people I could rely on. Darius and Edward were the first two names on the sign-up sheet, which meant they had plenty of enthusiasm for getting in. Better still, they were Gavelers, which meant they knew what secret societies were supposed to be like. There could be no better choice for Fibonacci members two and three than a pair of full-fledged Gavelers. They could be my lieutenants. Best of all, I knew exactly where to find them—Gamma Kappa house on Fraternity Row.

I almost walked right past the place. The Greek letters over the front entrance had been covered by a bedsheet with a messy version of the Fibonacci spiral spray-painted across it. Curious. The windows were open, and loud music was pounding out into the campus.

I knocked on the door, but nobody answered. After a while, I let myself in. There was a serious party going on. I knew this because I recognized it from videos I’d seen on YouTube. There were about thirty college students packed into the living room, dancing or lounging on the couches, eating pizza and snacks. As I stood there, somebody cut the volume on the music, and in the sudden silence, everyone chorused:

“All hail
the curly tail!”

Then the music came roaring back and the chaos continued.

It was hard to move because the house was crowded and all the gyrating bodies were so much bigger than me. I finally found Darius and Edward in the kitchen in the middle of a competition to see who could swallow the largest dollop of whipped cream in a single gulp. There were seven contestants, faces smeared with white. Those who weren’t choking were laughing as if nothing had ever been so funny.

I marched into their circle and hollered, “I have to talk to you!”

My answer was a blast of whipped cream that struck me right between the eyes. For a moment, the whole world went white.

I wiped the foam off my glasses and tried again. “It’s really important!”

Eventually, Darius dragged me into the laundry room, where it wasn’t quite so loud.

“What can I do for you, little man?”

Where would I even start? Donovan had been right all along. No one had joined the Fibonacci Society. They all thought this was the Curly Tail! And Darius and Edward were just as deluded as everybody else!

I looked up at him, trying to take him seriously, even though his eyebrows were frosted with whipped cream. “This is all wrong!”

“You’re just young,” Darius tried to explain. “When you get to be our age, you’ll appreciate a killer party—”

“Not the party!” I interrupted. “The whole thing! It’s not the Society of the Curly Tail! It’s the—”

He held up his hand in a stop gesture, and it was obvious his mood had changed. “Listen, boy genius. You’ve been here a bunch of times. Did you see any parties? Hear any music? Wear any whipped cream?”

“No—”

“No!” he echoed, cutting me off. “What you saw was Eddie and me, bored out of our skulls, trying to survive a dull summer on a campus that was totally dead. Look at us now: action everywhere—and this house is the center of it all. And it isn’t because we ordered pizza and bought a few cans of whipped cream. It’s because of the Society of the Curly Tail!”

“But there is no Society of the Curly Tail,” I protested.

“There is now,” he growled. “And anybody who says there isn’t had better say it someplace else.”

It was then that I realized that Darius and Edward could never be part of the Fibonacci Society because they didn’t take secret societies seriously. They had to know that the Curly Tail wasn’t real, but they didn’t care so long as it was making them popular. That was shallow and we Fibonacci people were above that.

It took a long time for me to get out of the house, since I had to make my way through the dancers again. I took a pretty ferocious elbow to the head and somebody smeared pizza in my hair, but the worst I suffered today wasn’t anything physical.

I’d lost control of my own secret society.

25
Hypergravity
Raina Overbrook

Luna was our spaciest camper. It wasn’t unusual for her to wander off following a butterfly or to lie on her back seeing pictures in the clouds nobody else saw. But put her in the middle of a cornhole match and she was 100 percent locked in.

Her hand cocked back, and when the beanbag was released, it was a guided missile. It traveled the distance to its target on a frozen rope, struck the ramp dead center, and slid straight through the hole. It was a sure thing. She never missed.

Our kids mobbed their teammate and hoisted her up on their shoulders. She was a wisp of a girl, and yet she had single-handedly carried Group Baloney through this quarterfinal victory over the Hot Tamales in the camp cornhole playoffs.

“Hey, Tamales!” Claire sneered in the direction of the losing side. “How’re you feeling now? Not so hot, right?”

“In your face!” added Manny.

I couldn’t help noticing the big smirk on Donovan’s face. He should have been reminding our campers about how to be good winners. Of course, that would mean he had to be a good winner himself—and I had a feeling he was anything but.

On the other hand, I had to cut him a little slack because it was so nice to see the kids happy and enthusiastic again. Even when they chanted “Baloney power!” it didn’t bother me so much anymore. In fact, it was starting to sound kind of catchy. It meant camp spirit, and that was what being a counselor was all about.

Cornhole mania was changing everything for Group Baloney. Okay, that plus the news that Porquette was alive and well and would probably be back at Wilderton soon. A new secret society called Curly Tail had her hidden away. They were waiting for just the right time to bring her home. The anticipation on campus was at fever pitch. And not just with the kids in the Explorers Program. The Curly Tail was an even bigger hit with the college students. They had to take down the sign-up sheets in the student union because they were so filled with names. And even after they posted an Admission Closed notice, that didn’t stop people from writing their signatures directly onto the cork of the bulletin boards.

My parents and their friends on the faculty considered it terrible that the Society of the Curly Tail was using the mascot as a publicity stunt. But most younger people thought it was pretty cool that this new group had found a way to come out of nowhere and instantly be important at Wilderton. And as long as Porquette was being properly cared for, where was the harm? There was none—just a lot of excitement at a time on campus that was usually pretty sleepy.

Our opponents in the semifinal were our old rivals, the Crunch Bunch. By this time, word of Group Baloney’s cornhole prowess had spread through the whole camp. But the Crunchers were no slouches, and they showed zero fear, even when Luna sank her first two shots.

The tone of the game became clear early on. Luna was the best cornholer by far, whereas all five Crunchers were pretty talented with a beanbag. So we were superstar-plus-four matched against a lineup that was consistent from top to bottom.

Luna worked her usual magic, but she was only one player. The Crunch Bunch opened a lead. Baloney stayed close, but try as we might, we couldn’t pull even with our opponents. It was the first time since the tournament had begun that we just couldn’t get into a cornhole rhythm.

“We’re going to lo-o—ose!” Manny moaned, stretching it into a much longer word.

“Not to the Crunchers!” Claire gritted through clenched teeth. “Never!”

The game was on interruption so Victor could have a bathroom break, sprinting across the campus, outpacing the fastest runners in the fifty-yard dash nearby.

Even chill, calm Jalen seemed on edge. “It would be really bad to come so far and lose in the semifinal.”

“It isn’t over yet,” I offered weakly, trying to sound encouraging.

Inside, I was torn. As a counselor, this was the perfect opportunity to teach the campers an important life lesson about sportsmanship and dealing with disappointment. But all I could think of was that the progress we’d made was going to melt away and we’d be a sad sack group again.

In desperation, I looked over at Donovan, hoping he’d deliver a pep talk, some comfort, something. Even though I was the full counselor, he was the one they turned to for big-brotherly advice.

He was on his phone in a video coma, scrolling through those phony clips starring himself as a “daredevil.” At least a million miles away.

That did it. I was never going to forgive him for this. I didn’t care that he was full of himself and selfish, and didn’t appreciate that no one less than Noah Youkilis had brought him to an elite university. He was abandoning our campers when they needed him most. For that, he was dead to me.

When the match resumed, Baloney dug in and fought hard, thanks to Luna’s heroics and some pretty fair shots from Jalen and Claire. We closed the gap, but it wasn’t enough. We were down to our final shot, trailing by a single point, and our chances looked grim.

Manny had already given up. Unable to face defeat, he flipped his T-shirt over his head so he wouldn’t have to watch us go down in flames. The others had the courage to keep their eyes uncovered, but it was pretty obvious they had zero hope as Luna took her place at the line.

She had one throw left, but the shot was a killer. Three Cruncher beanbags circled the hole. It would be impossible for Luna to score herself without knocking in one of the enemy bags too. In other words, even if she hit this, we would still lose by a point.

As soon as the beanbag left her hand, I could tell that she’d thrown it too far, and it was going to be a complete miss. There was an “Aaaaaah” from our campers and the Crunch Bunch as the projectile sailed past the hole and landed with a dull thud on the section of ramp just above it. Our kids winced in almost physical pain as the Crunchers broke into cheers. And then—

Gravity.

Slowly—agonizingly slowly—Luna’s beanbag oozed backward and dropped through the hole.

Baloney was in the final.

Lunch that day was a celebration. We toasted Luna with water and apple juice, congratulating her on “the most amazing, stupendous, fantastic, epic, colossal, and totally great shot in cornhole history.” Manny made a little speech, but when he reached the part where we almost lost, he got so emotional that he had to run to the bathroom to get himself under control. Claire predicted that we’d win the final by a thousand points. Luna herself was distracted by the progress of a caterpillar moving up the wall and missed most of the conversation.

I sat back in my chair, drinking it all in. This was what I’d dreamed of the moment I’d learned I’d be a full counselor: My campers—happy, excited, united. And even if we didn’t win the final game, we’d still have this incredible accomplishment to share, this awesome feeling to remember.

The one black cloud in this brilliant sunny sky was Donovan. Sure, he joined in the toast and offered a few words of congratulation. Mostly, though, he was still glued to his phone, obsessing on his career as a fake hero.

“There’s still an hour to go before the final,” I commented as we sent our campers to wash up after lunch. “How are we going to get them through a whole arts and crafts period when all they can think of is beanbags and cornhole?”

It brought a disinterested “Mmmm” from my counselor-in-training. His eyes never left the small screen.

The kids rejoined us—Claire, Manny, Victor, Luna, and . . .

“Where’s Jalen?” The words were already out of my mouth before I took a second to reflect on what they might mean.

No. Oh no. Please no. Not today. Not now!

“He wasn’t in the bathroom,” Victor reported.

The seriousness of the situation penetrated even the cocoon around Donovan. He leaped to his feet, scanning the lunchroom urgently. Not a sign of Jalen.

“He’ll be back in time for the game, right?” Claire asked.

“Of course,” I told her.

The one thing we had going for us was that the kids weren’t panicking—at least not yet. In their minds, whenever Jalen disappeared, he eventually came back.

I knew better. The championship game started in fifty-seven minutes. Jalen’s absences were always a lot longer than that. You can’t play five on five when you’ve only got four kids. We would have to forfeit—and Group Baloney would be devastated. Even if Porquette came home and the rest of the summer went without incident, all the campers would remember would be this.

Donovan grabbed me by the shoulders. “Take the group to arts and crafts!”

“Where are you going to be?” I shrilled, struggling to keep the hysteria out of my voice.

“I’ll be back!”

He pounded across the cafeteria and flew out the door.

26
Hyperchampions
Donovan Curtis

Oh-man-oh-man-oh-man-oh-man-oh-man!

When Group Baloney turned out to be a cornhole juggernaut, I always knew the one thing that could sink us would be Jailbreak Jalen. But when the playoffs started and we kept on winning, Raina and I figured Jalen was on board just like the others. We let our guard down, and look where it had gotten us. If we couldn’t produce all five kids in time for the championship game, we were toast.

I couldn’t let it happen.

I exploded out of the building, sprinting thirty feet before it dawned on me: I had no idea where I was going. That had always been the problem with searching for Jalen. The campus was enormous and the chance of tracking down one eight-year-old when you didn’t have the first clue what direction he might have taken was pretty much zero. We’d never found him. Not even once. He’d just come back. But with the championship game less than an hour away, we didn’t have time to wait.

That was when I saw it. In the soft earth around the air-conditioning compressor outside the cafeteria were two shallow tire tracks just about the right size to be made by—a scooter? I went over to investigate.

Definitely scooter tires—and also a small hole, possibly from a kickstand. A scooter—maybe even one of those electric ones. That would explain how he was able to disappear so quickly.

We were in charge of Jalen all day, but we never knew how he got to and from camp. Did he arrive by scooter and then hide it so he could use it for transportation in his escapes?

I had no proof, but one thing was clear: In this emergency situation, it was all I had to go on.

I traced the tire treads from the dirt to the paved path. Because it had rained last night, it was easy enough to see that the rider had turned north. I began to jog along the route, picking up speed as my confidence grew. I ran past Fraternity Row and past the roadways that led to Butternut Hall and the other dorms. The tire marks disappeared after half a mile or so, but I had to have faith I was on the right track. At this point, there was only one direction the scooter could have been going.

I’d never been to this part of campus before. It was beautifully landscaped—not the woods that surrounded most of Wilderton, but a real neighborhood, and a ritzy one at that. The homes weren’t mansions, but they were older, gracious and elegantly maintained. At my house, a tree root had been coming up through the driveway for two years, crumbling the blacktop, and Dad still hadn’t called the repair guy. Here, you got the feeling that if anything went wrong, it would be fixed within the hour.

The name on a mailbox caught my eye: Overbrook. Raina’s house! This must have been the neighborhood where the professors lived. I followed the street farther. I didn’t recognize any other names, but that didn’t mean much. I wasn’t a student here. Raina’s parents were the only professors I’d heard of.

At last, I came to the biggest house of all—gray stone, covered in ivy. My heartbeat doubled. The name on the mailbox was Aberfoyle, and that rang a bell in my head the size of Big Ben. It was Jalen’s name, but the house could only have belonged to his grandfather, president of the entire university. On the corner of the lawn, propped on its kickstand, was an electric scooter. I was right!

I hesitated. As far as I knew, President Aberfoyle was away on sabbatical all year. That’s why that Kendrick clown was in charge. So who was Jalen visiting here? Surely his grandfather hadn’t entrusted his keys to an eight-year-old with an invitation to stop by anytime.

I approached the house gingerly and peered in through the picture window.

It was a formal dining room with a breakfront and an oval table in dark wood. Six people were sitting around it, playing cards—five little old ladies and one eight-year-old boy.

I blurted, “Jalen!”

Everybody looked up. A couple of the old ladies screamed. I think they thought I was a burglar.

There was a mad scramble and Jalen opened the front door to bring me inside. “This is Donovan, my Baloney counselor. Donovan, meet my grandma and her poker club.”

“Poker club?” My eyes locked on the table. It was set up for poker. At each place was a pile of plastic bottle caps, the “stakes.” In the center was another pile, the “pot.”

I thought back to Jalen’s many absences. He’d always come back with his pockets full of toothpicks, or dried beans, or marbles. I’d spent hours racking my brain, trying to figure out what it meant. And all this time, the answer had been in this house, at this table—his poker winnings.

I turned to Jalen. “This is where you’ve been going? To play poker?”

He didn’t even try to deny it. “And I’m good, too.” He indicated his own seat at the table, which had by far the largest collection of bottle caps.

His grandmother spoke up. “We thought he had to be cheating, because he always won. But no. I guess he just has a knack for separating people from their stakes.” She said it almost proudly.

“Jalen, you have to come back to the group,” I pleaded with our wayward camper. “We’ve got the cornhole finals in half an hour. And if we haven’t got five players, we have to forfeit.”

“Jalen, honey”—Mrs. Aberfoyle addressed her grandson—“have you been ditching your camp group every time you’ve come here?”

Jalen must have decided it was better not to answer that question. “Sorry, Grandma. Gotta go! Oh, wait.” He rushed to the dining table and filled his pockets with his share of the bottle caps. Then he returned to me. “What are we waiting for? We’ve got a cornhole championship to win!”

I almost didn’t want to leave. It seemed to me that Jalen was about to get a chewing-out from his grandmother that he richly deserved. But the clock was running out on Baloney, so we had to get back to the final game.

With all the old ladies waving, Jalen took off on the electric scooter, with me sprinting behind him. Now that his scooter secret was out, Jalen rode right up to the sports field, where a cheering Claire, Manny, Victor, and Luna greeted him. Instead of throttling the little maniac!

I roared up thirty seconds later, panting and sweating, my lungs on fire, more dead than alive. Raina was there, her face frozen into an inscrutable mask.

“Those electric scooters are faster than they look!” I rasped.

It was impossible to read her expression. But who was I kidding? If it was something I did, it was probably wrong. I took too long; I cut it too close; I tore a giant rift in the space-time continuum.

She threw her arms around me and hugged me so hard I thought she was trying to finish me off. “You did it,” she whispered in my ear. “You said you’d do it, and you did it.”

If she didn’t let go soon, I was pretty sure I might pass out.

While I caught my breath—and it took a while—Luna single-handedly dismantled our opponents, the Dill Pickles. It was a lot more one-sided than our squeaker in the semifinal. The others did well too, but we almost didn’t need them. It was a beatdown.

The celebrating began even before the match was over. As soon as it became clear that Baloney would be victorious, our campers started bouncing like they were on pogo sticks, hugging each other and exchanging backslaps and high fives. Now that it was obvious that losing was no longer a possibility, Manny sat down on the grass, put his head in his hands, and cried. And when Baloney was crowned the winners, Claire shook hands with the other team and told them all, “Good game.” That might have been the biggest miracle of all.

Group Baloney, grand losers of the Explorers Program, were finally champions. And even if we were never even halfway decent at anything else again, we would always have this moment.

Mr. Arthropod himself rolled up in his golf cart to present us with our blue ribbons. Leave it to him to decide that cornhole was important enough for him to break the “Leave me alone” rule. Our kids dissolved into a dogpile on the grass, leaping on top of each other.

As we watched, I felt Raina’s hand steal into mine.

Unbelievable. For the entire summer, I couldn’t do a single thing right. And now she was giving me total credit for the cornhole championship.

I intended to take it too, whether I deserved it or not.

Who knew if it would ever happen again?

27
Hyperbackup
Dean Kendrick

The Ag school at Wilderton maintained its own farm. Not on campus, thank God—between the fertilizer and the livestock, the stench would make the place unlivable. The farm was four miles west of the university on a two-hundred-acre property originally owned by Nicholas Wilderton himself.

“Here they are, Dean Kendrick,” called Wendy, a senior in Agricultural Studies. She was the student showing me around today. “Take your pick. They’re all mighty pretty.”

To my eyes, they were the least pretty creatures in nature. University history was hazy on exactly how we ended up the Wild Hogs when there were far more dignified animals available, like the stag, the peregrine falcon, and the wapiti. I surveyed the muddy enclosure. In the summer heat and humidity, I could almost see the smell lines from some cartoonist’s imagination. And the seven pigs looked exactly like Porquette. Male, female, it didn’t matter. No one was going to notice the difference. They were equally hideous—massive, lumpy body, no neck, squinty eyes, big dumb ears, flat piggy snout.

“All pigs look alike,” I admitted. “There’s no homecoming queen in the bunch.”

Wendy bristled, and I regretted allowing my low opinion of farm animals to slip out to a young person who was at Wilderton devoting her life to them. So I added, “You’re the expert. Why don’t you choose for me?”

She walked up to one of the creatures—an absolute dead ringer for all the others. “Here’s your winner.”

“Great,” I commented without enthusiasm. “And do we have a Porquette or a Porky?”

She seemed disgusted that I couldn’t tell the difference. “Porky, of course. We’ve been calling him Smiley, but I’m sure he won’t mind the name change.”

“Sorry I’m late!” That student reporter—C.T.—came high-stepping over, plotting his route carefully so his white sneakers wouldn’t sink into the mud and worse. “I got here as fast as I could. What’s so important?”

“I’ve got a scoop for you,” I informed him. “Meet the new Porky.”

His mouth dropped open. “You’re replacing Porquette? You can’t do that!”

“Last time I checked, I was the one sitting in the dean’s office. Porquette has been gone for weeks. The football team will be back on campus soon for their summer workouts. Life goes on. And it’s my responsibility to ensure that this university has a mascot.”

“We have a mascot,” he insisted. “Porquette! You can’t have Porky while Porquette’s still alive!”

“We have no proof of that,” I stated flatly.

“Yes we do—the video! The Society of the Curly Tail has her! She could be back any day!”

The Society of the Curly Tail. I’d been hearing that nonsense for a while now—that a secret student group was holding Porquette, waiting for the right moment to release her. And typical of college kids, they’d built up these Curly Tail people to the level of outlaw folk heroes, like Robin Hood and his Merry Men. That made me the Sheriff of Nottingham.

No. I wasn’t buying it.

“The decision has already been made,” I said firmly. “I expect a picture of Porky on the front page of the next Wire.”

In answer, C.T. made a show of powering down his phone and putting it away in his pocket. “I won’t do it. It’s bad journalism.”

“How do you figure that?” I demanded.

“Let’s say I publish a picture of Porky and the very next day, Porquette comes back. It’ll divide the whole campus. There’ll be Porky people and Porquette people, and no one will know who the real mascot is.”

That might have been the most ridiculous thing I’d ever heard. But C.T. had a point, even if it wasn’t the one he’d been trying to make. If we somehow ended up with two mascots, it would definitely be blamed on me. It wasn’t a risk I was prepared to take.

Before I debuted the new pig, I had to make sure these Curly Tail characters weren’t hiding the old one somewhere at the university.

I took out my own phone and dialed the director of Wilderton’s security service. “I want a full campus search,” I told him. “Every dormitory, classroom, lab, basement, closet, and crawlspace. If Porquette is being hidden somewhere, I want her found.”

28
Hyperparty
Darius Marshall

How did I ever think summer semester was going to be boring?

This was the greatest time I’d ever had—at college or anyplace else.

Gamma Kappa house was the center of the universe on campus. A constant stream of people came in and out at all hours. The music never stopped. DoorDash vans had to line up to make deliveries. It was a blur of faces and dancing and action, a twenty-four-seven party.

Thanks to the Society of the Curly Tail.

Who were those Curly Tail guys? Beats me. And this was the important part: I didn’t care.

All I’d ever seen was a sign-up sheet in the student union and a bunch of piggy tails graffitied on walls and benches. But was I ever glad I’d had that weird impulse to put my name on line one. Because nobody else had a clue about the Curly Tail either. So when they wanted the scoop, there was no one to ask but Eddie and me. Everybody thought we had a direct line to the people who had Porquette. We were like the president’s inner circle or some rapper’s posse. We didn’t have to know anything. We just had to act like we did.

The best part was we weren’t even lying. Of course Porquette was out there. We saw her on video. Somebody obviously had her. Were they planning to bring her back soon? No idea. Personally, I was rooting for them to stretch it out a little longer, because Eddie and I were having the time of our lives.

So when Eddie first came up with the idea to hold a big rally to bring Porquette home, I was skeptical. “We’ve got a good thing going here, man,” I argued. “Why rush it? Once the porker’s back in the sty, nobody’s going to need the Curly Tail anymore. We’ll be out of business and back to twiddling our thumbs for excitement.”

“Yeah, but it’s starting to wear a little thin,” he countered. “I overheard a couple of girls saying that we don’t really care about Porquette. We’re just using it as an excuse to throw massive ragers. We need to make it look like we’re working hard to get her back.”

He had a point. In college life, it was never just “a couple of girls.” They’d tell their friends, who’d tell their friends, and before you knew it, the whole campus was turning against you.

So we put up posters and handed out flyers. We called it the Never Forget Porquette Rally, set for the second of August at three o’clock in the main quad.

The news spread around Wilderton like mono. Even the commuter students and the kids who lived off campus promised to be there on the second. It was a show of loyalty that would make any pig proud—if pigs were smart enough to understand the concept of loyalty. Anyway, Eddie and I were proud enough for the whole school. And the nonstop party at Gamma Kappa house was twice as amazing as before.

When the second of August rolled around, the quad was already a mob scene an hour and a half before the rally was supposed to start. The crowd filled the square and spilled out onto the surrounding lawns. These guys from one of the other frats had ordered five hundred novelty pig snouts and were selling them for ten bucks a pop. It seemed like half the people there were wearing one. They were oinking and snorting and honking. The whole atmosphere was high-energy, raucous, and fun. This was what college should have been like—not classes and exams and graduating and having to get a job. Everyone was having an awesome time.

Scratch that. Almost everyone.

He was so much shorter and scrawnier than the college students that I didn’t see him until he was standing in front of us.

“No, no, no!” Noah exclaimed in that sharp, high-pitched voice of his. “This is all wrong!”

“How’s it going, Noah?” I greeted him. “Nice day for a rally, huh? Hope you put on sunscreen.”

“Are you guys behind this?” he demanded. “You have to stop it!”

Eddie gestured at the throng surging all around us. “This is bigger than any two people. How could we stop it?”

“You know how to get things done,” the kid insisted. “You’re Gavelers.”

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that,” I told him. “We’re not Gavelers. We were just goofing around. Sorry about that.”

Noah seemed stunned. “But—my AI picked you two as the most likely Gavelers on the whole campus.”

Eddie shrugged. “I guess artificial intelligence isn’t the same as—you know—intelligence.”

“Anyway,” I added, “we’re Curly Tail guys now and that’s one hundred percent legit. Look around you—everybody’s here!”

As if on cue, Arlene Pulaski slipped through the crowd and bent low to throw her arms around Noah. “Sweetie! I’m so glad you’re here to support Porquette!”

Noah didn’t reply. He couldn’t take his eyes off her companion, the hulking Gator, whose bushy beard and mustache literally exploded from behind his plastic pig snout.

Gator grinned sheepishly. “Sorry about the little misunderstanding before. Arlene explained everything.” He put one tattooed arm around Eddie and the other around me. “We’re all bros now.”

Noah looked uncertain. “Uh—that’s nice.”

Arlene gave him another hug. “Great to see you, Noah. Let’s hope we get Porquette back soon. Fine swine—”

“Top of the line,” chorused Eddie, Gator, and I.

Arlene and her boyfriend melted into the crowd.

Noah regarded us, his eyes open and sincere. “You have to believe I have information you don’t. There’s no Order of the Curly Tail and they don’t have Porquette. I can’t tell you how I know. I just do.”

“All right, smart guy,” I challenged. “If there’s no Order of the Curly Tail, who shot the video?”

He frowned at me. “Video?”

I whipped out my phone, opened the app, and played the clip of Porquette, tattooed with the Curly Tail symbol, marching through the daisies.

Noah was thunderstruck. “Impossible!” he whispered. “Inconceivable!”

“The proof is right in front of you.”

The video ended and Porquette was replaced by one of those action clips featuring Noah’s roommate. In this one, he was barreling down a ski-jump ramp, executing a double somersault into a perfect landing.

Noah had a high IQ, but no one could fake that level of astonishment. I thought he was going to keel over dead right there in the quad.

“Get it together, kid!” I exhorted. “You’re not going to tell me you don’t know about your roommate’s videos!”

“Videos?” he managed in a squeaky voice. “As in more than one?”

And right there, with the pre-rally raging all around us, I ran him through the clips, careful to point out the view count on each. The one on Mount Everest—the most popular—had been watched over fifty thousand times.

Noah looked unsteady on his feet. I probably could have knocked him over with a puff of breath. “Of course,” he mumbled absently. “It’s so obvious!”

“Your roommate’s a pretty famous guy, you know,” Eddie supplied.

“I—I gotta go!” Noah turned on his heel and fled into the crowd.

Which was fine with Eddie and me.

We had a rally to run.

29
Hyperinspection
Noah Youkilis

There were times I hated my 206 IQ because I understood everything, anticipated everything so entirely that I was incapable of experiencing surprise.

This was not one of those times. I was astonished, stupefied, flummoxed, gobsmacked. How could I not have thought of it? All those dozens of hours in the Tech Center working to restore my project, and never once did it cross my mind! How could I have been so blind?

I was already shouting “Donovan!” as I burst into Butternut Hall and scrambled down the corridor to room 115. I was so overwrought that I couldn’t perform the simple operation of inserting my key into the lock.

At last, Donovan opened the door and dragged me inside. “Keep quiet, Noah!” he hissed. “I finally got Porquette settled down. She’s having a bad day—the worst so far!”

I lowered my voice, but I was bursting with excitement. “Donovan, why didn’t you tell me about those videos?”

“Because they’re all fake,” he shot back. “You think I’ve been to Mount Everest? That’s not me! None of them are me!”

“Well, I know that.”

He frowned. “Really? So would you mind letting me in on the news? I’ve been calling my parents, asking if I have a secret twin.”

“The videos aren’t real,” I explained. “They’re generated by artificial intelligence.”

“Why would AI make videos about me?” he demanded.

I went back to the beginning. “Remember when I thought my AIDAN system deleted itself? Well, it didn’t. It disguised itself on the Wilderton mainframe so it would look like it was deleted. And it began to generate content based on the first images it had—pictures from our phones. That’s where it got Porquette with the Fibonacci spiral. And that’s where it got you.”

Donovan digested this for what seemed like a long time. Finally, he said, “I wouldn’t take a 206 IQ if someone gave it to me as a present.”

I knew what he meant by that. “It can be a burden at times,” I admitted.

“You’re lucky I didn’t understand most of what you just told me because I’m pretty sure I’d be really ticked off about it,” he added.

At that moment, there were sudden sounds of wild activity coming from the hall. Donovan and I rushed to the door and peered outside. Our college neighbors were scrambling around the corridor, carrying a variety of items—toaster ovens, fish tanks, candles, hot plates, electric blankets, and armloads of fireworks.

“What’s going on?” Donovan called into the commotion.

JoJo provided the answer. “Dorm inspection coming. If you’ve got anything that’s against the rules, you’d better hide it.”

She ducked just in time to avoid being clobbered by a full-size lizard terrarium with a bearded dragon peering out through glass.

We retreated into the room, shut the door gently, and locked it.

“Anything that’s against the rules,” I mused aloud.

“Like a five-hundred-pound sick pig the whole campus is looking for,” Donovan said through gritted teeth. “That definitely counts as against the rules.”

I felt tendrils of panic encircling me. “What are we going to do?”

“Well, she’s too big to hide under the rug,” Donovan reasoned. “So we’re going to have to get her out of here.”

“Yeah, but then what?” No one was better than Donovan under pressure, but this strategy didn’t lead anywhere. Even if we succeeded in taking Porquette out of the building, we’d still be standing in broad daylight with a contraband animal who would be hard to overlook and even harder to explain.

Donovan had an answer for that too. “We’ll do what we should have done ever since your dumb elderberries poisoned her. We’re going to get her the medical attention she needs.”

“A vet? How are we going to take her to a vet?”

“The Wilderton Ag school runs a farm just a few miles up the road. Surely somebody there must know what to do with a poisoned pig.”

I should have had the intelligence to evaluate his plan, pinpoint the flaws, and refine it to perfection. But with a dormitory inspection hanging over our heads, there was no time for that. Donovan sounded confident. That had to be enough for me.

First, we headed down to the basement for a move-in cart. That was how we’d gotten Porquette into our room so it made sense that we could use it to get her out. As we passed a window, we could see restless residents hanging out on the lawn around Poplar Hall, the nearest dormitory to ours. The inspectors from campus security must have been right there. There was no question Butternut would be next.

Luckily, the hubbub in the hall had died down, so we had no trouble rolling the cart into room 115. We pushed it into the bathroom. Porquette watched us through piggy eyes, grunting and moaning softly.

“Never mind, poor girl,” I soothed. “We’re going to get you all fixed up.”

“Don’t make any promises you can’t keep,” Donovan warned. “How the heck are we going to get her out of there?”

The problem was a vexing one. On the way in, we’d tipped up the cart to get her into the bathtub. We obviously couldn’t tip up the bathtub to get her into the cart.

Donovan climbed into the tub, leaned in with his shoulder, and put everything he had into pushing Porquette. Standing beside the cart, I pulled with all my strength. The mascot didn’t budge. She might as well have been set in concrete.

I spoke directly into the pig’s ear. “We can’t move you on our own, girl. It’s a matter of weight ratios.”

“Great,” Donovan panted. “Now we’re explaining science to a pig.”

Whether she understood the science or not, Porquette began to scrabble at the side of the tub with her hooves. And once she got her front end over the edge, Donovan and I were able to help her heave her bulky body out of the tub and into the cart. There she lay, exhausted, oink-gasping into the canvas fabric of the cart.

“She’s hyperventilating,” I worried. “She’s never done that before. This is bad!”

“All the more reason to get her to the farm.” Donovan ripped down the shower curtain and used it to cover our payload.

The cart was heavy, but on level carpet, it rolled fine. As we made for the main entrance, Donovan caught a glimpse of the inspectors marching across the grass from Poplar Hall.

“The back door!” he hissed, and we changed direction.

We got out in the nick of time, struggling to heave the cart up a half step at the building’s service entrance. Butternut Hall had not been designed for pig smuggling.

Moving our load along the cobblestone paths was a lot harder than the smooth floors of the dorm, especially when the ground began to slope gently upward. I had to join Donovan in pushing from behind. Pretty soon we were both bathed in sweat.

The grunting and mewling coming from under the shower curtain was enough to break my heart. I lifted up the covering and peeked inside. Porquette’s round belly was even more distended than usual, and bright red in color. It was obvious she was in terrible pain. I felt responsible. My elderberries had done this to her!

“This is all my fault,” I mumbled.

“Keep pushing,” Donovan ordered. “We’re almost to the top.” He paused, brow furrowed. “What’s that noise?”

We crested the rise and looked down into the main quad. The rally was in full swing. Considering this was summer semester, the turnout was impressive. There must have been four hundred people swarming the square, waving signs and chanting.

“We want Porquette! . . . We want Porquette! . . .”

“It’s the Never Forget Porquette Rally,” I explained.

He stared at me. “And you didn’t think that was worth mentioning?”

“It’s frustrating for me too,” I defended myself. “All these people think the Fibonacci spiral is a curly tail.”

“Is your IQ two-oh-six or just six?” Donovan demanded. “Now we have to march Porquette through a whole rally that’s supposed to be about her!”

He was so mad that he let go of the cart to wave his arms at me. That was when the slope pulled the cart away from both of us and started it on a bumpy journey down the hill.

30
Hyperdelivery
Donovan Curtis

“Grab it!” I cried, lunging for the cart. The handle was just beyond my grasp.

All we could do was chase the cart as it jounced down the slope. It wasn’t moving very fast, but by the time I caught up with it, there was just no stopping it. Noah probably understood the formula for how much strength was required to put the brakes on a five-hundred-pound rolling pig. All I knew was it would take a lot more than any one kid.

I pressed the rubber soles of my sneakers into the cobblestones in an attempt to slow the cart. It ripped my shoes clean off, leaving me running in my socks, Noah scrambling behind me, just out of reach.

The rally was getting closer, the chant echoing in my ears: “We want Porquette! . . . We want Porquette! . . .” Oh, man, their prayers were about to be answered—the hard way!

College students scattered as the runaway cart bulldozed its way into the crowd. One front wheel came up against a curbstone and snapped off. The unbalanced wagon wobbled and tipped over, spilling its load onto the soft grass. There lay the missing mascot, reclining on the shower curtain.

“Porquette!” The cry was torn from dozens of throats.

Shock gave way to revelation, which turned at last to joy. They’d held a rally to bring back Porquette, and here she was—and in record time too.

“It’s Porquette!”

“Fine swine, top of the line!”

“Those two kids brought her back!”

“That one’s Noah Youkilis!”

The sudden rush of elation faded quickly as the hundreds of rally-goers got a closer look at their beloved mascot. Porquette was obviously in pain, lying on her side, unable to get up. Her belly was bloated and tomato red. And the sounds coming from her, mixed with rapid breathing, told the story of a creature in torment.

“What’s wrong with Porquette?”

“Did those two kids hurt her?”

“Why does Noah Youkilis hate Porquette?”

Expressions turned from joy to concern to anger—and that anger was directed at Noah and me. We were the ones with Porquette, so whatever was wrong with her had to be our fault. C.T. Beldner stepped out of the crowd and began snapping pictures of the suffering mascot and the two culprits who’d made her that way.

Amid all the faces, my eyes picked out one—Raina. Her disappointment washed over me like a direct hit from a high-powered water cannon. I’d always known my hero status with her was temporary, but I hadn’t expected it to expire so fast.

Suddenly, Porquette began to writhe and squeal. In spite of the trouble we were in—and it had to be a lot—I felt flattened by pure guilt. First, we poisoned her with our elderberries. And just to save our own skin, we hid her away until it was too late to save her.

That was when the first piglet popped out, dropped to the shower curtain, and lay there, wriggling.

Noah and I exchanged a look of amazement. Porquette hadn’t been poisoned and she’d never been sick. All this time she’d been pregnant!

“We’re a father!” I croaked.

“Well, actually—” Noah began.

His explanation was drowned out by a roar of excitement from over four hundred throats.

Porquette wasn’t finished yet. Less than a minute later, the second piglet hit the shower curtain, followed by a third and then a fourth. Each new birth drew a fresh “Oooh!” or “Aaah!” from the rally-goers.

There were six piglets in all. Several Ag students ran out of the crowd to tend to mother and babies. One of them ripped down the Never Forget Porquette banner and used a corner to clean off the newborns. Almost immediately, the piglets cuddled up to Porquette and began to nurse.

I turned to Noah. “I guess a 206 IQ can’t tell the difference between a sick pig and a pregnant one.”

He beamed. “The world can still surprise me. First AIDAN and now Porquette. Do you realize what this means? I don’t know everything.”

He seemed really thrilled about it, but I wasn’t impressed. When it came to not knowing things, I was a grand champion.

31
Hyperhomecoming
President Aberfoyle

I was getting too old for this job of university president.

My sabbatical was fascinating, but travel and living out of a suitcase was for much younger people than me. By the time the limo dropped me off, I was pretty well played out. I needed a sabbatical from my sabbatical.

Perhaps it was time to think about retirement. Dean Kendrick had done an excellent job in my absence. I’d be leaving Wilderton in good hands.

I stepped inside the house and set down my bags, hungry for the peace and quiet of home.

A babble of excited voices exploded into the hall. What on earth? It couldn’t have been a homecoming party. I was two days early.

I rushed to investigate the disturbance. My dining room was a mob scene. My wife, Gwendolyn, was there, with several of her friends. But there were also nine children—six young ones and three adolescents. I recognized my grandson Jalen and the Overbrook girl, the daughter of two faculty members.

A spirited poker game was in progress, with dried lima beans as stakes. A mound of hundreds of them covered the table.

“Arthur!” Gwendolyn exclaimed. “Welcome home! Meet Baloney!”

“Baloney?”

It took some explaining, but I finally got the gist of it. Jalen’s summer camp group had somehow become regular players in my wife’s poker club. Jalen introduced me to Claire, Manny, Luna, and Victor, and to the older kids, Raina, Donovan, and Noah.

“Noah!” I repeated in recognition. “You’re Noah Youkilis. Dean Kendrick has been sending me updates on your remarkable achievements in artificial intelligence.”

“My AIDAN system went rogue for a while,” Noah admitted, “but I corrected the problem as soon as Porquette revealed it.”

“Fine swine, top of the line,” murmured half a dozen people around the room—and I admit to being one of them, complete with the nose push. I’d been doing it since I was a freshman here, back in prehistoric times.

“And thanks to that, Donovan has his own fan club on YouTube,” Noah went on.

Donovan held his head. “Don’t remind me.”

I addressed Noah’s roommate. “On behalf of the university, I want to thank you for coming here to support your friend. But I suppose you’ll be leaving us at the end of the summer.”

“Actually,” Noah began reluctantly, “I think I’ll be leaving you too.”

“Really?” That was a blow. Having Noah here was a major feather in Wilderton’s cap. “May I ask why? You’ve more than proven that you belong.”

“Oh, the classes are supereasy and all,” Noah agreed. “But I don’t think I’m ready to live on my own without Donovan. I was only here a couple of months, and I almost got eaten by a honey badger. It’s just that—I guess I’m a little immature for my brains.”

“That’s very clear thinking, Noah,” I approved. “I’ll have to discuss it with your parents, but I’m sure we can design a very workable remote learning plan for you. You can start at home and gradually transition to spending more time on campus as you feel comfortable.”

Raina spoke up. “You can stay with my family while you’re here,” she added, blushing. “Donovan’s going to be visiting a lot.”

Gwendolyn stood up. “It seems like it’s all set, then. Let’s have tea. I’ve baked some lovely elderberry scones.”

Two loud snorts of laughter escaped from Noah and Donovan.

Kids today. What was so funny about scones?

32
Hypergift
Donovan Curtis

My folks came back from their second honeymoon in Europe. They said they didn’t want to, but they did anyway.

Dad blamed it on me. “We had to get home to pick up our son from one of the top colleges in the country. Otherwise, we’d still be on the Champs-Élysées, at a sidewalk café.”

“Admit it, Mom,” I teased, packing up the last of my stuff, including the waffle iron, which hadn’t been used once—at least not to make waffles. “You guys missed me.”

“Of course we did,” my mother admitted. “But we were just so happy to know that you were having a meaningful experience at Wilderton.”

Oh, sure. We didn’t shower for six weeks because there was a pig in the bathtub, thanks to the elderberry experiment. Noah practically melted down the entire Wilderton computer system and made me a fake video star in the process. And my summer job became chasing after a missing kid, who turned out to be at his grandmother’s house.

On the other hand, if none of it had happened, I never would have gotten to know Raina. So I guess I was having a meaningful experience after all.

Noah appeared, carrying a shoebox full of envelopes. “Here’s the last of our snail mail from the front desk.”

I riffled through it. It was all for him. He was the registered student. There was no solid proof I’d even been here. Story of my life.

Noah insisted that we stop by the sty to say goodbye to Porquette and the piglets. I stayed in the car. I’d already had my fill of pig exposure for one summer. JoJo said the university would send us a bill for all the hoof scratches in the bathtub. I already had an answer for that. Wilderton gave us one pig and we gave them back seven. So call it even.

On the drive home, Noah went through his shoebox of mail, which was mostly junk. “Why are there so many credit card applications?” he wondered. “All the college students I met complained about being broke.”

“Maybe the banks want to lock in future customers,” my mom suggested.

He opened the last letter, a blank envelope bearing just his name and no return address. I could see his grip tightening on the paper as he read the contents printed in a simple font on a plain white page:

Dear Noah Youkilis:

We the Society of the Gavel search for the most extraordinary people to join our hallowed order. You have been deemed worthy. Think long and hard before accepting this offer. The way of the Gavel is a commitment for life . . .

As he read, his shoulders hunched, his head came down. He turned his body away from me for privacy as he began to tremble with excitement.

. . . The Gaveler’s existence is one of absolute secrecy. You may discuss your membership with no one. If you accept this responsibility and honor, tear this letter into 256 pieces and flush them down the nearest toilet. So must it be.

Let the crack of the Gavel echo throughout the world!

Suddenly Noah looked up from the letter and bellowed, “I have to go to the bathroom!”

“We’re almost home,” Mom told him. “Another twenty minutes or so.”

“I have to go now!” Noah exclaimed. “Look—there’s a gas station! Pull over! Pull over!”

With a squeal of tires, we swerved into the station lot. Noah barely waited for the car to come to a stop. He was off like a shot, scrambling across the pavement, the paper waving in his hand. His expression was pure purpose and pure bliss.

Dad peered at me through the rearview mirror. “Is he always like that?”

“No,” I deadpanned. “Sometimes he can get weird.”

“What was in that letter that set him off?” my mother wondered.

I shook my head. “I couldn’t see.”

And I was telling the truth. I didn’t see the page that Noah was trying so hard to keep from me. But I knew exactly what it said—because I wrote it.

I didn’t have a hope of understanding what it was like inside a superbrain like Noah’s. But it was pretty clear that his biggest disappointment this summer was not getting into the Society of the Gavel. Even his AI couldn’t figure it out. It was the only goal that had eluded him.

Now he was in. At least, he thought he was. And the beauty of it was the whole business was so secret there was no way to tell the difference—not even for him.

It was the one thing an ungifted guy like me could do for a genius.

About the Author

GORDON KORMAN published his first book at age fourteen and since then has written more than one hundred middle grade and teen novels. Favorites include the New York Times bestselling-gifted series, Slugfest, Old School, and the Masterminds series. Gordon lives with his family on Long Island, New York. You can visit him online at gordonkorman.com.

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Copyright

Hypergifted. Copyright © 2026 by Gordon Korman. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins Publishers.

Without limiting the exclusive rights of any author, contributor, or the publisher of this publication, any unauthorized use of this publication to train generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies is expressly prohibited. HarperCollins also exercises their rights under Article 4(3) of the Digital Single Market Directive 2019/790 and expressly reserves this publication from the text and data mining exception.

first edition Cover art © 2026 by David Miles

Library of Congress Control Number: 2025937687

Digital Edition FEBRUARY 2026 ISBN: 978-0-06-342932-1

Print Edition ISBN: 978-0-06342929-1

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