The School for the Insanely Gifted by Dan Elish

sprinted past the statue of Ignatious Peabody Blatt to another staircase by the back entrance that led down to the science labs.
    Down, down, down, she went, the telltale hisses and burbling of scientific experiments growing in intensity. Daphna glanced down one hall to see a student soldering an arm onto a robot. The distinct aroma of cinnamon wafted from another of the labs. Perhaps some student was making the world’s largest apple pie? Or was the cinnamon being used as a surprise ingredient in a new face cream?
    Who knew?
    With a deep breath, Daphna took in the rich scent and kept running. Now wasn’t the time to think about what her fellow classmates were creating. Daphna needed someone to bounce ideas off of right now.
    On the fourth floor beneath the lobby, she cut onto a white corridor that rapidly slanted downward toward a row of student offices. Through a small window, she saw Wilmer Griffith frantically writing equations on a blackboard. A room down, a young girl—no older than first grade—was knitting fur onto a mechanical dog. A room after that, Jean-Claude Broquet was busy translating the American Constitution into Medieval French. Then there was Wanda Twiddles. In her office, she was hanging upside down from a bar on the ceiling, studying the underside of a giant model suspension bridge.
    Daphna hurried past one final door with an ominous sign over its window:
    BEWARE: VERY LARGE GRASSHOPPER!
    Then she was there: Harkin’s office.
    â€œHey, Daph!”
    Running toward her down the hall came Cynthia, dressed in her usual torn jeans, boots, and cardigan sweater.
    â€œMy one-woman Macbeth is finished,” she cried. “I decided to have Banquo’s ghost do a rumba with Macbeth—which might be hard, since I’ll be playing both parts, but I’ll pull it off. If I don’t get this thing on Broadway soon, I think my head will explode.”
    Daphna laughed. “That’d be dramatic.”
    â€œI know, right?” Cynthia said. “What’s the deal with Gum-Top? Is Harkin ready for us?”
    Before Daphna could answer, another voice called out—this time from inside the office.
    â€œWho goes there?”
    â€œIt’s us, Harkin,” Cynthia called. “Open up!”
    The door swung open, and Daphna peeked inside. Pieces of machinery—insides of cars and motors—lay strewn on the floor. On the opposite wall stood a shelf overflowing with books, mostly on engineering. To the left of the front door lay a simply enormous tome entitled One Million and One Ways to Change a Spark Plug .
    The vast array of books and stray engine parts was nothing compared to what stood against the far wall. Daphna thought it resembled the Thunkmobile without the wheels. A series of interconnected pipes rose out of a large metal box, then twisted almost all the way to the ceiling in a series of increasingly small figure eights. Every few seconds, a puff of purple smoke whooshed out of the pipe closest to the door with a loud clang while a steady, thin stream of green smoke hissed out of the pipe farthest away.
    Harkin was hunkered over his desk. Wearing a one-piece jumpsuit and a thick pair of metal glasses—his work attire—he was inspecting what appeared to be a small, rectangular piece of cardboard with a pair of tweezers. At first he was so engrossed by his work that Daphna thought he had forgotten about them. But then he suddenly looked up.
    â€œI really should keep this secret for Monday,” he said. “Even from you. But I just can’t resist.” He held up the cardboard. “I did it. Meet Gum-Top! The computer that you chew.”
    Daphna was stunned. Had Harkin really done it? Turned an idea first floated as a joke in first or second grade into a reality?
    â€œMy cocreators are skeptical,” Harkin said, scolding them with a waved finger. “You doubt the work of the Thunk.”
    Daphna shook herself. “No, no. I