This Isn't What It Looks Like (18 page)

“And how do you expect me to do that?”

“I don’t know… go juggle or tell jokes or chase your tail or something. You’re a jester, right?”

The Jester opened his mouth to reply but remained silent. He sensed Cass might have already gone, and while it was one thing
to be
perceived
as talking to yourself, it was quite another actually to do it.

He took a breath and then boldly stepped forward.

“Soldiers! Salutations!”

The dozen closest soldiers reeled around, drawing their swords. The beagles ran toward him in a pack, yapping madly.

“Who goes there?” shouted the Commander.

“What—? Who—? Nobody!” cried the Jester, jumping to and fro to keep the beagles from sinking their teeth into his ankles.
“I mean to say, ’tis I who go there! You see, here… I… go!”

The soldiers laughed.

“Look, men—the King’s jester! More lately the King’s prisoner!” shouted a young soldier. “And now he is the beagles’ dinner!”

“What happened, Jester?” shouted another. “Why did you reject our hospitality? Was the dungeon floor too hard for your liking?
The food too cold?”

“Oh the floor was fine, and the food, too,” the Jester offered, moving aside just as a beagle was about to bite into his shoe.
“It was the prison guards—their smell offended!”

“You’re a cocky one to joke when you are surrounded by so many men!” snarled the Commander.

“Men? And yet you tie up a lady?” The Jester gestured toward Anastasia, who was shaking her head in disbelief. Evidently,
she didn’t think the Jester was helping her cause.

“Do not worry,” replied the Commander. “She will not be tied for long. It is only her head the King wants. We brought this
platter special—”

He raised his hand in the air and a younger soldier ran up with a silver platter. “We are instructed to bring back her head
sitting on it. Perhaps there is room for yours as well.”

“My head would be honored to be in such noble
company. But please do not face her toward me. I fear she will bite off my nose—if these beagles do not get to it first.”

The Jester grinned at Anastasia, who glared back with ferocity. Indeed, it looked as if she might bite the Jester if she could.

H
ear ye! Hear ye! Attention, all lords and ladies, brave knights and beautiful maidens, the Renaissance Faire is just a month
away. After your day of frolic and revelry, come for a royal repast at your local Medieval Days Family Restaurant!”

It was Glob and Daniel-not-Danielle, dressed as not quite medieval, not quite Renaissance, not quite modern-day heralds, in
green tights and jester hats. They held plastic trumpets in their hands and wore sandwich boards over their shoulders advertising
Medieval Days Family Restaurants:

It’s not just for dinner,
it’s joust for dinner!

Kids walking by on their way into school snickered and jeered.

“Nice tights!”

“Are you supposed to be lords or ladies?”

“Laugh all you like, dudes—they’re paying us a hundred bucks each to do this, plus free soda all day!” shouted Glob, holding
up a can. “What part of
mucho dinero
don’t you understand? And what are
you
getting for wearing your old, smelly jeans? That’s right—the big zero.
Nada!
”

“Will you stop shouting? You’re just making it worse,” whispered Daniel-not-Danielle, who was busy arranging his dreadlocks
so not a centimeter of his face showed to passersby.

“They’re not going to like it when they see what I write on my blog,” grumbled Glob. “I’m going to live-blog Ren-Faire, and
none of them will escape my wrath!”

“They don’t care about your blog, man.”

“Do you know how many direct hits I had last week? Like, thousands,” replied Glob, outraged. “Hey, Max-Ernest, you want in?
I’ve got another one—” Glob pointed to an extra sandwich board leaning against the wall, a pair of green tights hanging over
it.

Max-Ernest shook his head violently and kept walking.

“Fine. See if I ever offer you a job again!”

Max-Ernest had returned to school with a sense of dread.

Benjamin had been his only hope for saving Cass. And now he knew that Benjamin was their worst enemy. According to Yo-Yoji,
Benjamin had been Dr. L’s student at the New Promethean Academy. And now he was a spy—a mole—for the Midnight Sun in their
very own school.

Given the choice, of course, Max-Ernest would have avoided ever seeing Benjamin again—or school, for that matter. But even
if he couldn’t get inside Cass’s head, her voice was always in
his
, telling him not to give up, to remember the Terces Society and the vows they had made to protect the Secret.

Why, Max-Ernest wondered frequently, does she have to be just as bossy in my imagination as she is in real life?

At this very moment, he was having a silent conversation with Cass that went something like this:

C:
Don’t let Benjamin out of your sight. If the Midnight Sun went to the trouble of training him and planting him in our school,
he won’t give up so easily.

M-E:
How am I supposed to tail Benjamin? As soon as I get near him, he can read my mind!

C:
Just concentrate on different thoughts. Pretend that you don’t know about him. That you’re still friends.

M-E:
But I don’t even know how to be friends. I was never friends with anybody.

C:
Oh, you weren’t?

M-E:
You don’t count.

C:
Thanks a lot.

M-E:
You know what I mean.

C:
No, I don’t. And I think Yo-Yoji would be pretty insulted to hear that, too…. All I know is, you better find out Benjamin’s
next move before he finds out yours.

M-E:
Easy for you to say. You’re just lying there doing nothing.

C:
Doing nothing?! You mean in a coma? You want to trade places?

“You should try to keep it down when you talk to yourself, Max-Ernest. You don’t want people thinking you’re crazy, do you?
Not that they don’t already…”

Max-Ernest spun around. Opal, the new school secretary, was standing in front of him, hands on her hips, laughing at him.
Or at the very least grinning all the way up to the big mole on her cheek.

Max-Ernest hadn’t seen her since she’d set him up, making him walk into the principal’s office without
knocking. What was it that looked different about her today?

“Unless you’re auditioning for the part of the jester? You know I could probably get you onstage at the Renaissance Faire.”

Max-Ernest felt himself blush. “Very funny.”

How much had she heard? He hoped desperately that he hadn’t said anything aloud about the Terces Society or the Secret.

“Oops—what’s that I hear?”

The bell was ringing. The second bell. The one that meant first period was starting.

Opal looked at her watch in that exaggerated way people sometimes do. “Tsk-tsk. Looks like you’re going to be a little late.
I hope you have a note from home.”

“Um… not really.”

“Well, you better come to the office after next period. We’ll see what the principal, that is, Her Majesty, has to say about
this.”

Max-Ernest stared. It was so unfair. Had the secretary not stopped to talk to him, he might very well have made it to class
in time.

He was about to protest when his attention was diverted by an unexpected sight: Benjamin Blake talking to Amber.

Just the two of them. Alone.

They were standing between the administration building and the cafeteria. The space was very narrow and usually only populated
by ants and the occasional rodent. Obviously, they had chosen it for the privacy. Only good luck had made Max-Ernest glance
in their direction at the right time, and he was determined to take full advantage.

He had to get rid of the secretary quickly. That much was clear. But how was he going to spy on his schoolmates without being
seen himself?

“OK, I’ll come by after class,” he said, edging out of their sight line.

“Good. I’ll see you then,” said Opal, studying him. She seemed to have noticed his change in attitude.

“Yeah, see you.” He started turning, as if he were going to head for class, when she stopped him.

“Oh, Max-Ernest, I’m sorry, can you do me a favor? I just did my nails and they take
forever
to dry. Would you just reach into my bag and get a tissue out for me?” She opened her large black patent-leather purse for
him, her fingers spread wide so that her newly applied fingernail polish wouldn’t smear on anything.

Impatient, Max-Ernest felt around for the tissues.

“It’s right there under my compact—that’s that little mirror there,” said the secretary helpfully.

The mirror in question was hinged and would, Max-Ernest recognized immediately, make a perfect spy tool.

He closed his right hand around the mirror while at the same time picking up the package of tissues with his left. (Every
once in a while, when he was doing a magic trick or was engaged in a spy operation, the experience of having to do two things
simultaneously for his parents so many times came in handy.) With any luck, the secretary wouldn’t notice the compact was
gone. And he could slip it back into her purse when he went to the office later.

It’s just borrowing
, he heard Cass’s voice conveniently reassuring him.
Not stealing
. Besides, this was the woman who pulled a prank on him for no reason the day they first met!

The secretary smirked, delicately pulling a tissue from the package without letting her nails touch anything. “Thank you,
Max-Ernest. And tie your shoelace, please!”

Max-Ernest nodded in acknowledgment, then headed in the direction of his class, not bothering to fix his shoelace. When he
was satisfied that the secretary would be safely behind her desk, he reversed
course and crept back toward the administration building.

Sidling up to the building and keeping as much of himself hidden as possible, he held out the compact and moved the mirror
around until he could see Benjamin and Amber. They were still deep in conversation.

The last time he’d seen them together had been when Amber had told Max-Ernest’s fortune. It hadn’t seemed then that they’d
remembered each other. But looking at them now, Max-Ernest had the sense that they knew each other very well after all.

There was just enough of an echo reverberating between the stucco walls for Max-Ernest to hear their whispering:

“You were trying to look into her mind, right?” Amber was asking. “Why? What did they want you to find?”

Benjamin shrugged. “It doesn’t matter because I didn’t find it.”

“Come on—they never tell me anything,” complained Amber.

“Well, then, why would you think I could tell you?”

“Please.”

“Why do you want to know so badly?”

“ ’Cause I hate not knowing a secret.”

“Then you’re very close.”

“What does that mean?”

“Oh, nothing,” said Benjamin smugly.

“Ugh—I hate you!” cried Amber. “After that whole fortune-telling thing nobody likes me anymore—I totally ruined my reputation
for this. I should at least get to look into the monocle!”

Amber reached for the monocle, but Benjamin turned away, preventing her from taking it.

“I’m not allowed.”

“So what? Like Dr. L is ever gonna know.”

“Something tells me he’ll know. Especially when he gets the monocle back.”

“Please please.”

“Why do you want to see it so badly?”

“So I can see what’s in your mind and know what you were looking for in Cass’s. Why do you think?”

The monocle, all along it was the monocle! Max-Ernest thought excitedly. He had assumed Benjamin’s telepathic power was internal,
that it was Benjamin’s own unique talent at work, that Benjamin alone could see into Cass’s mind. But if his power resided
in the monocle, then anybody could be a mind reader—anybody who got hold of the monocle, that is.

Even him.
^*

While Max-Ernest was speculating about how to get the monocle out of Benjamin’s hands, Amber lunged for it. In less than a
second, she was holding it up to her eye.

Resigned, Benjamin folded his arms and looked at her. “Well, what do you see?”

“Nothing. It’s just like looking through plain glass. If you were just tricking me, I’ll be so mad…. No, wait. I see… I see…
everybody. Everybody in school! Teachers. Students. Everybody. How cool is that? It’s like I can see through walls…. Wow,
with this thing I could control the whole school—I mean, not that I don’t already….”

Suddenly Amber’s grin turned into a frown. “Why is Veronica talking to Naomi? I didn’t say she could. I hate Naomi, not that
I’m a hater, I’m not…. Wait, never mind about Veronica….” Amber pointed in Max-Ernest’s direction. “I think there’s somebody
behind that corner spying on us,” she said, lowering her voice, but still audible to Max-Ernest.