Afterlife Academy (8 page)

“Out of what?” Anthony asks.

“Your head,” the woman says.
“What would you have for lunch on a normal day?”

“A turkey burger,” he replies.
“Or sometimes a sandwich I bring from home.”

“And you enjoy that?”

“There’s not exactly a lot of
choice. It’s that or go hungry.”

“What’s the best lunch you’ve
ever eaten? What would you really like to see on a plate in front of you right
now?”

Anthony thinks about that for a
moment.

“Okay, a Sunday roast,” he
finally says.

The demon lady leans down behind
the counter and two minutes later comes up with a huge Sunday roast, complete
with chicken, roast potatoes, peas, parsnips, carrots, Yorkshire puddings, and
gravy. She holds it out to Anthony.

“Bloody hell, where did that
come from?” he asks.

“I told you, we are without the
limitations of the physical world. Is this okay?” She pushes the plate towards
him again and this time he takes it and puts it on his tray.

“It looks amazing, thank you,”
he says. “I have no idea how you did that.”

“Just enjoy the food.” She smiles
at him before turning to me. “And you, my dear? What’ll it be?”

I have no idea what to ask for.

“Er… I’ll have a cheese salad
baguette if that’s possible,” I say.

“Brown or white bread?”

“Um, white, please.”

She reaches down under the
counter and comes up with a cheese salad baguette.

“Anything to drink?” she offers.

“I’d love a cup of tea. You’re
really good at making them—this morning’s one was really nice.”

“No problem,” she says and hands
me a cup of tea.

“And you, Anthony?”

“Erm… Coke, please,” he replies
eventually.

“Thanks,” I say as we go to look
around for a table.

“Riley?” The horned lady puts a
hand on my arm as I go to leave. “Here you go.”

She puts a tub of Ben &
Jerry’s cookie dough ice cream and two spoons on my tray.

I look at it in shock.

“But… How did you…”

“Know it’s your favourite?”

I nod.

She laughs. “It’s Ben &
Jerry’s cookie dough. It’s everyone’s favourite. And don’t worry, you won’t get
fat so just enjoy.”

“Thank you.” I grin at her.

“I promised I’d have something
special for you,” she says. “You come back anytime you want anything. I know
how you girls like to comfort eat.”

I smile at her and follow
Anthony.

We find a table in the corner
where it doesn’t look like we’ll bother anyone and sit down.

“Well, that officially freaked
me out,” he mutters.

“I like her. She’s nice to me.”

“And you don’t see anything
wrong with a demon who can make food appear out of nowhere?”

I shrug as I open my cheese
roll. “There’s something wrong with all of this place.”

“I can’t believe that someone
like you can be decent to someone as unusual as her but you despise me because
I like maths and science.”

“That’s not fair,” I protest. “I
don’t despise you. Not completely, anyway. Besides, you’re different here.”

“Not different,” he says. “You
just haven’t given me the time of day before because you’ve always got your
minions to impress by picking on me.”

“That’s not—” I was going to
deny it but maybe he has a point.

“So, we’re friends now?” he
asks.

I shrug.

“You just introduced me to her
as your friend.”

“Wow, nothing gets by you, does
it?”

He grins and spears a roast
potato.

“Okay, fine. I suppose
circumstances insist that we have to be friends.”

“Well, don’t get too excited, I
wouldn’t want you to strain a muscle or anything.”

“Very funny,” I say.

We eat in silence for a while.

“It must be hard for you,”
Anthony says eventually.

“What?”

“This,” he says, gesturing
around the cafeteria. “You had a lot to leave behind. Your friends, your
boyfriend, your parents, your social standing. It must be difficult to adjust.”

“Yeah,” I admit. “It is. What
about you? It must be hard for you too?”

“Like I said earlier, I didn’t
exactly have a lot going for me back at home. This feels, I don’t know, right
somehow.”

“It feels right to be dead?”

He nods slowly. “Yes, I think it
does. I feel like I belong here. Like I’m meant to be here. Does that make
sense to you?”

“No,” I say. “Well, yes and no.
I know what you mean but it doesn’t feel like that to me. It feels wrong. It
feels like I shouldn’t be here. Like I shouldn’t be dead and they’ve made a
mistake. To be honest, I’m still not a hundred percent sure that this isn’t a
big practical joke or a reality TV show.”

He laughs. “I don’t think we’re
on
Big Brother
, Riley.”

“Seriously,” I say after a
minute. “Do you think there’s something wrong with me? I mean, I don’t have the
whole grey thing going on for me yet, do I? And people keep looking at me
weird.”

“That’s because you are weird.”

“You’re telling me that I’m
weird? You are the weirdest weirdo I’ve ever met and you think you can tell me
I’m weird?”

He shrugs. “In this world, you
are. Maybe you’re just not used to not fitting in.”

“Yeah, well, you can sure as
hell give me some tips on that.”

“Open the ice cream then,” he
says. “Demon lady didn’t give you two spoons for nothing.”

“What you said earlier,” I say
as we start on the ice cream. “About not having anything to live for…”

“That bothers you, huh?”

“A little bit,” I admit. “You’re
sixteen. No one that age should say things like that. You clearly have a
brilliant mind, and you had your whole life ahead of you—”

“And no one gave a damn.”

“That’s not true.”

“Okay, so if I had died and you
hadn’t, are you telling me that you or anyone you know would have given a
toss?”

I don’t have an answer.
Honestly, no. Maybe it would have freaked me out that a kid from our class had
died, but Wade would have done something cruel like a celebration party to
finally be rid of Anthony and everyone would have laughed about it and thought
Wade was amazing.

I was a horrible person. That
thought hits me like a ton of bricks. Obviously my face falls because Anthony
asks me what’s wrong.

“I could have been nicer to
you,” I say. “I suppose it wouldn’t have killed me to be nicer to everyone.”

“You can’t worry about that sort
of thing now. What’s done is done.”

“What if this is some kind of
punishment?” I say suddenly. “Some kind of karmic payback? I don’t fit in here.
Suddenly I’ve become the opposite of what I was at home. What if the normal
hair and skin colour, the normal pink necklace is some kind of comeuppance for
how I treated people like you?”

“I doubt it,” Anthony says. “You
were never that bad anyway. I heard you tell Wade to stop being cruel to me.”

“Wade crossed the line that
night. He was picking on you about your family and that’s just wrong.”

Anthony shrugs. “Change of
subject,” he says, smiling and pushing the ice cream tub towards me.

I try to smile back but my mind
is still stuck on karma.

I was a horrible person. I
picked on Anthony and others like him to make myself look cool. I’ve never seen
it like that before.

“So, what are you going to do
with yourself this afternoon?” he asks.

I’ve been thinking about that
actually. In lieu of something interesting like shopping, Caydi says there is a
normal library here with computers and Internet access.

“I’m going to do some research,”
I say. “Find out exactly what this place is and what I can do to get out of
here.”

It’s then that a girl walks into
the canteen talking on her mobile phone.

“Oh my god, that’s
it
!” I grab Anthony’s hand in excitement. “Phone!”

“What?” he asks.

I’ve already flung my school bag
up onto the table and am rooting through it trying to find my mobile phone. To
be honest, I hadn’t even looked in this bag when it appeared on my bed, but now
I’ve remembered that my phone was in here. We weren’t meant to bring phones to
our old school, but I was never one to listen to the teachers, especially when
important things like phones were involved. At the end of the day, if they
don’t see it and you put it in silent mode, no one is any the wiser. And if a
teacher does suspect you of texting in class, there are people next to you who
you can just shove the phone into their laps and hold both hands up, looking
innocent.

I’m so relieved when my fingers
eventually clasp round its familiar sleek body that my eyes tear up.

It’s real. Real. A connection to
the real world. To Wade and Sophie and my mum and dad. I can call them on this.

The nightmare is over.

I flip the phone open and am
surprised to see there are no missed calls or a hundred text messages. I
haven’t looked at my phone in over a day. But then again, everyone thinks I’m
dead. I suppose people wouldn’t try to call a dead person, would they? But I
have to get in touch with them somehow. I have to let them know that I’m not
really dead. I don’t actually know what I am, but I do know that I’m stuck here
and it’s not right.

I stare at the screen for a
moment. To be honest, even I’m surprised to see a signal. I wouldn’t have been
surprised if there wasn’t one. Who knew T-Mobile’s coverage would stretch so
far?

I scroll to my phonebook to call
Wade first, but as I look through it I realise that all the names are blacked
out. They’re still there, but there’s a grey line over them. I click on Wade’s
name, but a big “No Signal” notice pops up on the screen.

Damn it.

I jab at the phone some more.
Every name in my directory is blackened out. There are five full bars of
signal, but when I press call, the no signal notice comes up.

Great.

I bet they don’t have a Nokia
repair shop here.

“Who are you trying to call?”
Caydi asks. She and Clare are standing next to our table.

“My boyfriend,” I say.

“Living?” Clare asks.

“Obviously.”

“You won’t get a signal,” Caydi
says.

“I’ve got a signal,” I tell her.
“It just won’t call out.”

“It won’t call the living
world,” she explains. “The signal is the Death World signal. You can only use
your phone to call people here. I’ll show you.”

She reaches down and takes my
phone, punches in a few numbers, and hands it back to me. “I put my number in,
try to call me.”

I scroll down my directory again
and sure enough, the name “Caydi” is in full colour, in amongst all the
blacked-out names.

I press call and Caydi’s phone
starts ringing in her pocket.

Damn it.

“So I can’t call Wade,” I say,
defeated.

“Sorry to disappoint you.”

“What are you even doing trying
to call the living?” Clare asks. “Didn’t you listen to a word Mr Bosenak said?
You’re not supposed to contact them.”

“What does it matter?” I say.
“Apparently I
can’t
call them, so what’s the
point?”

Both girls shrug.

“Do you know of a way?” I ask
suddenly. “Do you know of a way I could talk to Wade?”

“No,” Clare says abruptly.
“There is no way.”

But I don’t believe her. She
quickly glanced at Caydi, so quick you would have missed it if you had blinked.
And she was way too abrupt. That makes me think she knows something. If they
won’t tell me, then I’ll just have find out for myself.

CHAPTER 9

The library is above the main hall, just like it is in our
normal school. The only person in there is a librarian, furiously stamping
books behind the desk. At least that much hasn’t changed. She barely glances at
me as I walk over to the row of computers on the left side of the room. The
librarian continues working away behind the desk and pays no attention to me,
so I sit down at the farthest computer and switch it on. No matter what some
stupid Ghost Law textbook says, maybe I can email Wade. I might not be able to
get a phone signal, but they can’t stop me sending an email. I hope.

The computers are different
here. If I thought the computers in our school were old and clunky, then these
are almost fossilised. They run an operating system that I’ve never heard of.
It’s probably a Death-World-only thing.

Eventually the computer boots up
and I open the Internet browser to log in to my email account. I type in the
address but all I get is a “Cannot Find Server” notice. I try a different one
and I get the same thing. Damn it. I try Google. Again it says that it can’t
find the server.

This is bloody ridiculous.

I look at the desktop of the
computer and find the Outlook client. I have to try contacting Wade. I open it
up and start a new email. It won’t have my name on it, but I’ll have to tell
him where I am and explain how wonky things are here.

As soon as I start typing, I
realise I have no idea what to type. How do you tell someone that you’re dead
and stuck in a school that looks just like your own but is actually for dead
people?

Instead I just type a quick
note.

Wade,

I know you won’t believe me, but it’s Riley. Some really weird
things have happened and I can’t explain it now. Please just let me know that
you’re okay and that you get this email. I’ll write again soon.

Miss you and love you, babe.

R.

.xxx.

I type in his address and hit
send.

Before I’ve even had a chance to
read the error message that pops up, the librarian is standing right behind me.

“Miss Richardson, that’s a
prohibited address.”

I’m startled by how quickly she
can move. She was behind the desk across the room not three seconds ago. I spin
around to look at her.