The Light Brigade - Chapter 5
"Mr. Turner’s Breakfast Bandit makes amazing food,” said Gabriella, gesturing to a robotic raccoon perched on the edge of the stove holding a spatula. It appeared to be cocking its head at Will.
This is an installment of my new serialized middle grade novel - The Light Brigade. When new kid in town Will finds himself in the midst of a sea of brainwashed middle schoolers, he has to join the Light Brigade, an unlikely group of heroes, to save them. Can he trust the Man Upstairs who guides them with fortune cookie directions? Will he find his place in the Brigade? Will he be able to stop the shadowy New Moon Group from forcing his classmates to collect acorns for a cartoon squirrel until they all collapse? Subscribed? Get caught up here.
The sun was just peeking over the horizon when Will headed out to the Queen Anne. He had told his parents that he was meeting a study group. It’s mostly true, thought Will, we’re just not studying for school.
The paper boy on his bike tossed the morning news on the porch just as Will walked up. A mechanical pigeon flew out of the back of the mailbox and swooped down to grab the paper with its claws. It flew toward the front window, which obligingly opened all on its own, and the robo-bird soared right through. Will shut his now gaping mouth and just shook his head. He doubted he would ever stop being amazed at this house. Did Mr. Turner make all of these things? He certainly does seem the mad genius type, thought Will.
The door opened for him after another full body scan. Will hung his bag with the others on the nearest jackalope and headed to the kitchen, drawn by the smell of bacon. He found that he was once again the last to arrive – everyone was already chowing down on bacon, eggs, and giant blueberry muffins.
“Yeah, you always want to get here early to morning meetings. Mr. Turner’s Breakfast Bandit makes amazing food,” said Gabriella with a full mouth, gesturing to a robotic raccoon perched on the edge of the stove with a spatula in its silver paw. It appeared to be cocking its head expectantly at Will. She swallowed her food. “He wants to know what kind of eggs you want.”
“Uh, over easy, I guess,” said Will, surprisingly uncomfortable at addressing the tiny chef. At his words, though, the raccoon jumped into action, cooking up the most perfect eggs over easy that Will had ever seen. The bacon and muffin were equally magnificent. I need to get one of those for my mom, thought Will.
Mr. Turner finally arrived as the kids were clearing up their dishes (the sink was equipped with starfish that crawled over the plates to scrub them and then squirted water to rinse them off).
“The Breakfast Bandit has really outdone himself today. Thanks for the amazing breakfast,” said Tamara, taking her seat at the island again.
“I’m so glad you liked it, Tamara my dear! Yes, I think the Breakfast Bandit is ticking along just fine. The Lunch Lynx, on the other hand, needs a bit of work still. He tried to give me a sandwich with mashed banana, pickles, and a whole onion yesterday!” His booming laugh echoed through the kitchen. “I think all of yours turned out well, right? Good! I had him make some more for today – we don’t know if the food might still be a danger.”
Everyone had now retaken their seats. “All right – to work!” said Mr. Turner dimming the lights and projecting a bunch of graphs on the ceiling. They looked extremely complicated and meant nothing to Will. “I ran a whole battery of tests on the samples that Austin so wisely gathered for us. There were no unusual chemicals in the samples and fortunately no nanobots this time.” Everyone else gave a sigh of relief. Nanobots? They have had to deal with microscopic robots? What have I gotten myself into? thought Will.
Mr. Turner continued, “The only thing odd that I found was a large quantity of this.” An image of pink squiggles and circles replaced the graphs. “This is a closeup of the meatloaf, but I found similar things in the green beans and mashed potatoes, too. These are cysts from some kind of parasite that seems closely related to toxoplasmosis.” He highlighted the circles with a laser pointer.
“What from what?” asked Gabriella.
“Cysts are kind of like eggs of certain kinds of parasites or bacteria, right?” said Austin.
“Correct you are, sir!” said Mr. Turner.
Will raised his hand. “Isn’t toxoplasmosis that thing that cats get?”
Mr. Turner nodded. “Sure is. It’s a kind of parasite common in cats, and in humans, too, for that matter. It doesn’t usually affect us much, but in some cases it has been known to cause poor decision making and risky behavior.”
“You’re telling me that a cat parasite has brain-jacked all of our classmates?” asked Lily.
“Not quite. It is similar to toxoplasmosis, but it’s not exactly the same. If I had to guess, I would say that someone cooked this one up with some CRISPR gene editing. Still, this little guy is such a simple creature that I would be surprised if it were doing all this alone.”
A look of concern crossed Tamaras’s face. “You mean there’s something else that’s causing this? It’s not just the food?”
“Correct-a-mundo, my dear! My task today is to find an anti-parasitic that will work against this modified bug. Your job is find what else is affecting the other students.”
Great, how are we supposed to do that? thought Will. He had been so sure that they knew what was wrong, that they would be able to help everyone soon. Now it felt like they were back at square one.
Mr. Turner went on, “Messages time! For the whole group, the message from the Man Upstairs is: Listen up! And, Tamara, here is a private message for you.” He pulled a note out of his shirt pocket and handed it to her. “Now, you all had better skedaddle on to school.”
Will headed to the front door with the rest of the group, grumbling to himself about the latest message. Why did Tamara get a secret message? And why did they always have to be so cryptic? It’s like getting a stupid fortune cookie without even getting to enjoy some sweet and sour chicken first, Will thought.
The day passed even more slowly than the one before. As soon as the first bell rang, everyone resumed their feverish nut harvest like their minds were completely blank. Will wouldn’t have thought that he could be bored when the fate of the town rested on his shoulders, but it turns out that being the only conscious person in the room was intensely dull. By the end of third period, he finished his book and was wishing he had brought a longer one. Halfway through fifth period, he decided to take an excursion down to the library.
It was then that he realized what they had missed the day before. He was bopping down the hallway to some song straight out of a sock hop and suddenly froze. The music! The music was new yesterday, and it is sponsored by the New Moon Group. That can’t be a coincidence, can it? He thought for a moment then pulled out his iPod and recorded several of the songs as well as the slogan, wondering if this was what the Man Upstairs meant by ‘listen up.’ Once he was done, he continued his mission to find something to occupy his time.
After retrieving a promising-looking book with a dragon on the cover from the library (he had to check it out himself as the librarian was as preoccupied as everyone else), Will headed back to class. He took the long way so that he could check as many classrooms as possible. Peeking into one of the rooms, he spied Tamara looking at her phone like all the rest. Oh no! Somehow it’s gotten to Tamara, too, thought Will.
He rushed into the room. “Tamara! Are you ok?”
Tamara looked up from her phone, her eyes narrowing. “Of course I’m ok. What are you doing here? You should be in class.”
“I got bored so I went down to the library to find something to read.”
“Well, get back to class, now. You look suspicious acting like that. You’re going to attract attention. The Man Upstairs insists that we work in secret.”
“Fine, I’m going,” said Will, crossing his arms. Who is she to tell me what to do, he thought.
As he turned to go, he saw that Sydney was in Tamara’s class. Just like before, she was glassy-eyed and preoccupied like the rest. But even as he was looking, Sydney began to look strange. Her eyelids started to droop, her hand dropped, and her head tipped back as she slid with a thump to the floor.
“Sydney!” yelled Will, rushing over and shaking her arm. She was breathing like she was in a deep sleep and did not respond at all. “Tamara, come help quick! Something has happened to Sydney!”