Nightmare Academy (16 page)

Booker certainly made no friends,
but like it or not it was his hour,
his class, his kingdom.

Elisha held Marcy close to comfort her. “It's all right. We just need to learn the ropes, that's all. Tomorrow will go more smoothly.”

“What was that?” asked Ramon. “The Ten Commandments?”

“How come you both know the same thing?” asked Warren.

Elijah shrugged. “Doesn't everybody?”

“I've seen the movie,” Warren offered.

“Hey,” said Ramon, “there goes Booker now.”

They all followed his gaze. Mr. Booker, with several teachers and staff, was walking toward the big iron gate that separated the campus from the mansion up in the trees. When he and the others reached the gate, Booker entered a code in the lock and the big gate swung open automatically. As soon as they had all passed through, it swung shut again, and the final, metallic clank could be heard clear across the field.

“Just like prison bars,” said Elisha.

“I wouldn't mind a closer look at that place,” said Elijah.

“Don't even think about it,” said Warren. “Somebody already tried sneaking in there and we haven't seen him since.”

Elijah and Elisha each made a point to look normal.

“You mean, one of the guests? One of the kids, like us?”

Elisha asked.

“Yeah. He was . . .” He fumbled a bit as if he didn't want to go into it. “Well, just stay away from there and don't worry about it.”

“But what do they do in there?” Elijah asked.

“It's academy headquarters. Offices and stuff. I think Mr.

Bingham lives up there, and maybe Booker and Mrs. Wendell, the librarian. It's private, that's all. Come on. Let's grab something to eat and then rock out.”

The Rec Center was a huge pavilion wholly devoted to games, amusement, distraction, and sensory overload, and the doors opened at six o'clock every morning. The video arcade rivaled anything the kids might find in the big city, with row upon row of roaring, thumping, off-road-racing, downhill-skiing, snowboarding, bad-guy-shooting, alien-blasting, fighter-jet-flying, body-bashing machines, flashing, beeping, blurping, exploding, a hot-buttered carnival of glittering lights in the semidarkness, a riotous rumble accented with the loud
clack
of pool balls striking each other and the
bock, bock bobock
of air hockey. Above all this was the pounding, bass-driven throb of rock music from the house sound system—and just below it, the roar of the youthful crowd, all yell-talking to each other in bellows, hollers, and shrieks. Everything that met the eye was overstated, from the comic art and blaring movie posters on the walls to the green, purple, red, and blue neon logos, to the bigger-than-life pictures of television, movie, and rock stars in the halls and restrooms. And all the bodies were in constant motion, silhouettes against the lights, rushing, ambling, bumping, drifting from game to game, machine to machine, group to group, like bees between blossoms.

The kids were in their own clothes now, the clothes they'd brought on their backs, although there were plenty of KnightMoore tee shirts, jogging shorts, sweat pants, and other cool sports clothing walking around, available at the Campus Exchange for the right amount of KMs. Now, with different wardrobe choices, the kids could talk with their clothes: Don't mess with me. Don't notice me. I don't care. I'm not different. I'm
really
different. I'm tough. I'm cool. I don't need anybody. I'm available. I'm fat but don't know it. Hey, I don't worry.

Elijah and Elisha decided to split up and mingle, carrying on semi-shouted conversations with anyone who was talkative.

Elijah became the fourth player in a pool game, and managed to jaw with his opponents while they waited for their turn.

“The mansion? That's where all the bigwigs live,” a lanky pool shark named Andy told him, chalking his cue. “We got some kids saying weird stuff about it, but ehhh, you don't have to believe everything you hear.”

“I heard somebody tried to sneak in there and he never came back,” Elijah prompted.

“Yeah, I've heard that.”

“No, you didn't,” said Roberto, watching his shot drop into the corner pocket. “It's just a bunch of talk.”

“A bunch of talk that he didn't hear?” Elijah asked.

“That's right.”

“Yeah, he's right, I didn't hear it,” said Andy.

Marcy introduced Elisha to some of her friends near the vending machines. Britney and Madonna had heard about Elisha's first day in Booker's class, which immediately gave them a common bond.

“You ask me, that mansion's haunted,” said Madonna, leaning on the pop machine as she checked out the boys in the room. “I mean, like, Booker lives up there, so I mean, come on!”

“I wouldn't go up there,” said Britney. “One night we heard somebody screaming—I'm not joking! You don't know what Booker and Bingham and all those people might be doing up there.”

“Did one kid really go up there?” Elisha asked.

“Yeah, first night we were all here. It was some kind of dare, I think.”

“What happened to him?”

“He tried to climb over the wall and he fell inside, and then he screamed, and . . .” She shrugged. “And now he's gone, that's all I know.”

“Madonna?”

She just flipped her hair out of her eyes and took a sip from her pop can. “I don't know.”

“What don't you know?”

She gave Elisha a puzzled look. “What on earth you're talking about.”

“And now he's gone, . . .”

“The kid who went over the wall.”

She scowled and shook her head. “Nobody went over the wall.”

Elisha looked at Britney but Britney had already caught a glance from Madonna. “Well, it isn't true anymore,” Britney added quickly. “I mean, it happened, but now it didn't. Hey! The Booger game's open!”

“Wanna play?” Madonna asked.

“Sure,” said Elisha. “What's the object?”

“What's the object!” Madonna and Britney thought that was funny.

“He got in trouble,” said Eric, a wiry little guy who could talk while shooting alien spacecraft out of the sky. He'd been at this one game for over an hour nonstop. “Got in a fight, so Booker and Stern took him up to the mansion, and I guess he got sent home 'cause we never saw him again. Of course, you gotta remember, that's just my truth. That's the way I saw it.”

“You saw all this?” Elijah asked, watching spacecraft disintegrate into flaming pixels.

“Just in my own mind. It's not true for everybody. But it's a great story.”

“Did you know this guy?”

“Can't say I know anything. Don't know his name, don't know if he even existed—but if he did, I think he was a friend of Alex.”

Elisha was just starting to win at the Booger game when someone nudged up close behind her and asked, “How's it going?”

It was Alex. Marcy Britney, and Madonna turned all giggles.

“All right, I guess,” Elisha answered, tapping away at the control buttons, all the more motivated to concentrate on the game.

“Don't worry about what happened today, you know, with Booker,” he said. “We're gonna even things up, just you watch.”

Elisha, investigating, asked, “And just what did you have in mind?”