The Project Read online

  Also by Brian Falkner

  The Tomorrow Code

  Brain Jack

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2010 by Brian Falkner

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in paperback in Australia and New Zealand by Walker Books Australia, Newtown, in 2010.

  Random House and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Falkner, Brian.

  The project / Brian Falkner. — 1st ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: After discovering a terrible secret hidden in the most boring book in the world, Iowa fifteen-year-olds Luke and Tommy find out that members of a secret Nazi organization intend to use this information to rewrite history.

  eISBN: 978-0-375-98350-4

  [1. Time travel—Fiction. 2. Adventure and adventurers—Fiction. 3. Nazis—Fiction.

  4. World War, 1939–1945—Germany—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.F1947Pr 2011 [Fic]—dc22 2010033449

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

  v3.1

  For Graham and Sue

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  PART I: THE MOST BORING BOOK IN THE WORLD

  Prologue

  1. Busted

  2. The Rain

  3. Sandbags

  4. Benfer

  5. Dark Waters Rising

  6. The Vitamin Man

  7. Bad Moon

  8. Dog-Face

  9. Underwater

  10. Black Friday

  PART II: THE DETECTIVES

  11. Godzilla the Squirrel

  12. Vacation

  13. The Library

  14. A Lead

  15. The Gift

  16. Detective Work

  17. The Briefcase

  18. Memory

  19. Werewolves

  20. Just Walking

  21. The Most Boring Book

  22. The Vitruvian Men

  23. Under Arrest

  24. The Good/Bad Cop

  PART III: THE RIVER

  25. Children of the Wolves

  26. The Lair

  27. The Discovery

  28. Princess

  29. The Chamber

  30. No Time

  31. Forty-Four

  32. Powerful Magic

  33. Attacked

  34. Goggles

  35. Easy As

  36. Devastation

  37. A Fact

  38. The Good Man

  39. Corks

  40. The Jaws of Death

  41. The Mouth of Hell

  Epilogue

  Congratulations

  Thanks

  About the Author

  PART I

  THE MOST BORING BOOK

  IN THE WORLD

  In rivers, the water that you touch is the last of what has passed and the first of that which comes; so with present time.

  —Leonardo da Vinci

  PROLOGUE

  This is not the most boring book in the world.

  This is a book about the most boring book in the world, which is a different book altogether.

  This book is really interesting and exciting, and parts of it are quite funny.

  The most boring book in the world, on the other hand, is really, really boring. It’s a real clunker. It’s so boring that if I told you what it was about, you’d be asleep before I got past the introduction. And so would I.

  You might think that your history textbook is the most boring book in the world. But you are wrong. Or you might think that your auntie’s book about dried flowers is the most boring book in the world, but that’s like an action-packed adventure story compared to the real most boring book in the world.

  The most boring book in the world is so boring that only one copy of it was ever printed. The story goes that the guy who was printing the book glanced down and started reading the pages as they were whizzing through the hand-turned press, and it was so boring that he fell asleep and knocked over a lantern onto a stack of paper, which caught fire and destroyed the printery. Only one copy survived. Which is probably a good thing.

  The printer, whose name was Albert, was fired, but he found a cozy little job licking postage stamps at a post office in Moose Jaw, Canada, which sounds like the most boring job in the world, and it probably was, but he said it was still better than printing the most boring book in the world.

  But this book is not about Albert. It’s about the most boring book in the world. And, most of all, it is about me and Tommy, the ones who found the most boring book in the world, and the terrible things that took place after we found it.

  1. BUSTED

  “We would have got away with it if it wasn’t for that drunken squirrel,” said Luke. He managed a grin at Tommy, who was sitting next to him on the hard, slatted bench outside the vice principal’s office.

  As always, in the cold, hard light of the next day, their prank seemed childish and stupid. But this time, Luke had discovered the universal law of vice principals: Those in America had no better sense of humor than those back in New Zealand.

  “Don’t sweat it, dude,” Tommy said. “I can handle Kerr.”

  “Yeah right.”

  Tommy’s dad was a lawyer, and Tommy always thought he could talk his way out of anything. Sometimes he was right.

  Tommy had a coin in his hand and was flipping it up in the air, catching it first on the top side of his fingers, then flipping his hand over and catching it on the underside. “Seriously,” he said. “I’ve been in more courtrooms than you’ve had hot dinners. I’m going to tie this sucker up in so many legal knots that he’ll look like a … a … pretzel.”

  “Someone doing yoga,” Luke said simultaneously.

  “Yep, a pretzel doing yoga,” Tommy said.

  “I hope so.”

  “Just back me up on whatever I say.”

  “No worries about that, bro,” Luke said.

  Tommy flipped the coin a couple more times, then caught it in his palm and made a fist. “How many times?” he asked.

  “How many times what?” Luke asked.

  “How many times did I toss the coin? Get it right, you can keep the coin.”

  “Forty-seven,” Luke said.

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How many of them were heads?” Tommy asked.

  “Twenty-nine,” Luke said.

  “How many tails?”

  “All the rest.” Luke smiled.

  Tommy flipped the coin to him. “That’s freaky,” he said. “How do you do that?”

  “Dunno, bro.”

  It was true. He really didn’t know. When he was younger, Luke had thought that everybody could remember things like he could and was surprised to find out that most people’s memories were sieves. His memory was a blessing and a curse. In class he would scan the textbook at the start of the lesson and no longer need to concentrate. That led to hours of staring out of classroom windows or doodling in the margins of his workbooks. The boredom also led to some interesting pranks that were hilarious to him and his cla
ssmates but that, for some inexplicable reason, his teachers did not find funny.

  The door to the office opened, and Ms. Sheck, their homeroom teacher, stood in the gap.

  In her early twenties, she observed the strict dress code for teachers at the high school, with a simple skirt, a plain blouse, and sensible flat shoes. But she wore a bit too much eyeliner; there was a suspicious hole in the side of her nose; and her sprayed, clipped blond hair seemed to be struggling to bust out. If students were angry with Ms. Sheck, they called her Ms. Shrek, but she really didn’t look anything like Shrek. Luke thought she looked more like Princess Fiona, the beautiful princess (in her non-ogre moments). All of the guys at the school thought she was really hot.

  “Come in, boys,” she said solemnly, but Luke thought he saw her eyes sparkle, just slightly.

  Luke took a deep breath and stood up.

  Mr. Kerr, on the other hand, was a jelly doughnut. Or at least what Luke imagined a jelly doughnut would look like if it ever became vice principal of a high school. Rolls of fat bulged in places where most people didn’t even have places. He always wore a three-piece suit in some kind of vain attempt to conceal the bulges, but it just made them more obvious. A thick shock of red hair added the jelly to the top of the doughnut.

  Kerr’s office was dominated by a huge, ugly wooden desk in the center of the room. The corners of the desk were carved knobs that looked like clenched fists, and the panel in the front was vaguely skull-like in design. The desk was in the middle of a bright circle of light created by four small ceiling-mounted spotlights. Two of the lights shone in Luke’s eyes, as if he were a spy under interrogation. Ve haf vays of making you talk! he thought.

  Kerr was examining a book—the book, Luke saw and cringed a little. It had been their English assignment, but after seven attempts, he had given up trying to read it. The remains of the duct tape were still attached to the bottom and spine of the book, covering part of the title so that it said The Last of the Mo. Kerr leaned forward and slammed the book down right in front of them, one corner jutting out over the edge of the desk, pointing right at Luke. He and Tommy both stared at it.

  Kerr glowered at them from under thick orange eyebrows. “Sit,” he said.

  They sat.

  Luke reached out and straightened the book so that it lined up with the edge of the desk. Kerr looked him in the eye, and Luke quickly glanced away.

  “Was it worth it?” Kerr asked.

  “Sir?” Tommy asked with an expression of utter innocence.

  “Was it worth it?” Kerr repeated.

  Luke began, “I’m not sure what—”

  “Tell me why I shouldn’t call your parents right now. Tell me why I shouldn’t call the police.”

  Luke drew in his breath sharply and caught Ms. Sheck’s eyes.

  “I don’t think there’s any need for the police,” she said.

  Mr. Kerr shot a glance at Ms. Sheck as if she had no right to interfere, but the edges of her mouth curled up into a smile, and even he couldn’t bring himself to stay angry with her.

  His eyes fastened themselves firmly back on Luke. “I don’t know what they let you get away with in New Zealand,” Kerr continued, “but in America we have certain standards of behavior that are expected of our students.”

  Luke considered telling him that he had once been suspended from a school in New Zealand for a “certain standard of behavior” but decided that it wasn’t quite the appropriate moment.

  Kerr continued. “You have caused this school a lot of embarrassment. You could have been killed.”

  It wasn’t clear which of those two he considered worse.

  Kerr started to go on, in the way that vice principals do. Some words filtered through, such as reckless, impulsive, and bad influence, but the rest of it seemed just to wash over Luke as if Kerr were speaking a foreign language. He kept nodding his head, though, and looking sorry.

  It had been a simple enough prank, involving the statue of the school founder, a toilet seat, a roll of toilet paper, a roll of duct tape, and a copy of The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper.

  Isherwood High was a well-regarded private school founded by a Civil War hero named Jacob Isherwood. A fancy, life-size statue of Isherwood astride his horse sat on a high pedestal out in front of the school. Isherwood was striking an action pose, with one hand on the reins, his rear end raised off the seat, his other hand trailing out behind him as the horse galloped into the distance.

  It was Tommy who one day said, “It looks like he’s just wiped his ass.” But it was Luke who thought of the prank (during a particularly boring history lesson) and convinced Tommy to do it.

  They had set out late the previous night and met up at school. By the time they had finished, a copy of The Last of the Mohicans was perched in Isherwood’s forward hand, as if he were reading it. His rear hand, close to his butt, held a roll of toilet paper, and a toilet seat had been attached to the saddle. The proud statue of the school’s founder had been turned into a toilet, and the hero of the Civil War was now reading a book on the can as he galloped into infinity.

  They were laughing and climbing down from the statue pedestal when the security patrol drove onto the school grounds. They froze, hoping not to be noticed.

  That was when the squirrel, drunk on acorn juice—or maybe it was just the stupidest squirrel in the world—had tripped over its own feet in a nearby tree. It landed on Luke’s back, and he leaped off the pedestal with a yell, catching the end of the toilet paper roll in his mouth on the way down.

  It unrolled as he fell, twisting out behind him like a parade-day streamer.

  Luke hit the ground and froze, with a mouthful of toilet paper and a terrified squirrel clinging to his back. At that point, as his dad would say, the shoop shoop really hit the fan.

  The next morning, a hundred cell phone cameras snapped the statue, toilet paper and all. By lunchtime it was all over Facebook.

  But they would have got away with it, if not for that drunken squirrel.

  A fleck of foamy spittle appeared at the corner of Kerr’s mouth, and Luke watched it bubble and bounce around with each word.

  “We had no choice, sir,” Tommy said with an air of wounded dignity when Kerr stopped for breath.

  “No choice?” Kerr raised an eyebrow. It looked like a furry orange centipede had just crawled up his forehead.

  “No choice,” Luke affirmed.

  “It’s our religion, sir,” Tommy said.

  Another centipede joined the first. “Your religion.”

  “Yes, sir.” Tommy nodded. “We belong to the Seekers of the Wandering Goat.”

  Luke nodded with him. “The Wandering Goat.”

  “You, be quiet.” Kerr eyeballed Luke for a second, then turned to Tommy. “Do you boys seriously think you can get away with a prank like this by claiming to be followers of some phony religion?”

  “Freedom of religion, sir,” Tommy said. “Under the First Amendment, we cannot be persecuted for our religious practices.”

  “The Seekers of the Wandering Goat …” Kerr picked up a file from his desk and leafed through it. “The last time you used this excuse, you were the ‘Keepers’ of the Wandering Goat. Explain that.” He glared at Tommy as if to say, Gotcha!

  Tommy froze and started going a slightly off shade of white.

  Luke jumped in. “The goat escaped.”

  “It escaped.”

  “The goat,” Tommy agreed.

  “Yes, now we’re the Seekers of the Wandering Goat,” Luke said.

  “I guess we weren’t very good keepers,” Tommy said.

  “So where is this goat now?” Kerr asked with a sideways glance at Ms. Sheck, who was clearly trying not to laugh. She pulled her face back into line with an effort.

  “If we knew that, sir, we’d be the Keepers of the Wandering Goat again,” Tommy said.

  “Or maybe the Finders of the Wandering Goat. We haven’t decided yet,” Luke added.

  Kerr pi
cked up the book again. “It seems to me that you went to a lot of trouble just to avoid doing your book project.”

  “Reading sucks,” Luke said without thinking.

  “Luke!” Ms. Sheck said.

  “I don’t think we should be forced to read a book that we don’t like, sir,” Tommy said. “And this is the most boring book in the world.”

  “Hey, that’s just not true.” Ms. Sheck took a step forward, raising her hands as if defending herself. “It’s an American classic!”

  “They could use it to cure insomnia,” Luke said.

  “And in hospitals instead of anesthetic,” Tommy said.

  “It starts a little slow, but it turns into one of the greatest adventures of all time,” Ms. Sheck protested.

  Kerr picked at a fragment of duct tape on the spine of the book. “I don’t care whether you think it’s boring or not. There is just over a week till summer vacation. So this is now your summer project. You have to read it and write a report on it, due to me the first day of school next fall.”

  “It’s a human rights issue,” Tommy said.

  “Human rights?” Kerr almost sighed.

  “It’s our right not to die of boredom,” Tommy said.

  “It really is the most boring book in the world,” Luke said, still staring at the book in question, duct tape and all.

  “Yes, sir,” Tommy said.

  “Okay. Let’s say I accept that,” Kerr said.

  Luke risked a quick glance at Tommy, whose mouth had dropped open. This was too easy. Even Ms. Sheck was looking at Kerr with narrowed, confused eyes.

  Kerr sprang the trap. “Now all you have to do is prove that it is the most boring book in the world.”

  There was a long pause. Tommy and Luke looked at each other. Kerr smiled triumphantly from behind the desk.

  “How exactly would we do that, sir?” Luke asked.

  “That’s up to you. You prove it, and I’ll let you choose another book to read for your project. And I’ll accept your crazy Keepers of the—”

  “Seekers,” Tommy interrupted.

  “Seekers of the Wandering Goat story. I’ll give you till Tuesday. But if you can’t, then I will see to it that you spend your summer break reading the book, and I’m going to come down on you like a ton of bricks for the statue thing.”