Nightmare Academy (29 page)

There was an ominous
quiet in the room

Samuel was wearing a black tee shirt with a heavy-metal rock band image on the front.

Brett's friends from dorm D—including Tom Cruise—were wearing their uniforms, but in any wrong way they could think of. Some had their blazers on backward. Some had blazers above the waist, but jogging shorts below. Marvin, the one Booker had scolded and fined for not having his shoes, was in sandals.

And every one of them was wearing his tie around his head.

Like Alex. He was standing in the back, arms folded, flanked by Rory and his guys, dressed in jeans and a clean, bloodless tee shirt. He still looked battered, but he looked proud. He was waiting.

The room was full now. Full and quiet, like a gang of friends waiting to surprise somebody.

At one minute to three, they heard familiar footsteps approaching. The door opened, and Mr. Booker burst into the room with his usual, regal flair. His gait slowed, however, as he looked about, until he came to a full stop halfway up the center aisle. From the center of the room, with a fist on his hip, he slowly turned, studying the crowd, taking note, meeting any eye that dared to return his gaze. He nodded and raised an occasional approving eyebrow whenever he saw a uniform, but any approval he might have granted was obliterated by the rage and disgust building in his glaring eyes and reddening face. He drew a breath as if he would say something—

Then he saw his privately paid cops all standing with Alex, headbands made from their ties, and he actually flinched, visibly shocked—more shocked and disturbed than Elisha had ever seen him. Seconds passed, and he could say nothing—something else Elisha had never seen. He just stood there staring at Alex, with quick little glances around the room. Elisha knew he was counting uniforms and non-uniforms. She'd already made a quick count herself and knew the news was bad. Booker was receiving that bad news right now, in deadly little doses.

Finally, Alex spoke. “It's over, Booker.”

Booker found his tongue, addressing Rory and the cops. “Gentlemen, we had an arrangement.”

Rory shrugged and nodded toward Alex. “He's got friends with keys to the cash box. He cut us a better deal.”

Stern and Meeks,
Elisha thought.

“You can't do this,” Booker argued, and his voice sounded weak.

Alex walked forward, flanked by Rory, Tom, Jamal, and Clay, the Big Four. “Can't? You say I can't?”

“You . . . you can't!”

“I say I
can.
You know how it works, Booker! Come on. Let me hear you say it.”

Booker was actually scared! He was backing up the aisle while Alex and his guys kept coming at him. “I'm sure we can reach a consensus here, a fresh viewpoint . . .”

Booker conceded, noddinq quickly.
"Power. It's, it's all about power.”

Alex made a little beckoning gesture right under Booker's chin. “Come on. Say it.”

“I don't—”

“SAY IT! What's it all about, Booker?”

Booker conceded, nodding quickly. “Power. It's, it's all about power.”

Alex gleefully completed the slogan, tapping his chest. “And now . . . I have it.”

They'd reached the front of the room. Booker was hemmed in against his desk. He cried out to the rest of the kids, “Are you going to let this happen?”

Tonya was the first on her feet. “We don't
respect
you any­more!”

The whole room exploded in yells, taunts, jeers. The non­uniforms were all on their feet, shaking their fists in the air, cursing Booker, filling the room with deafening noise. “No Respect! No Respect! No Respect!”

The uniforms were looking about, wide-eyed, hesitant, undecided—it was all so sudden, so brazen, so frightening. Some stood to keep from being different. Some sat, not knowing what else to do.

Alex and his toughs, egged on by the crowd, alive with new energy and madness, grabbed Mr. Booker and dragged him down the aisle toward the door. Alex had Booker's yardstick in his hand, waving it about like a trophy—and like a threat, which excited the crowd even more. As they went outside, the rest of the toughs followed, and then the mob, non-uniforms rushing, uniforms carried along—rushing, crushing, thundering and hollering—out the door like water through a breached dam.

By the time Elisha and Mariah got outside, the mob had surrounded Booker. He was trying to run, tripping, falling, and crawling on the ground, trying to get up, knocked down again, crawling again, covering his head with one arm as Alex and the Big Four kicked, poked, slapped, and shoved him, and as members of the mob got their licks in. Some of Rory's toughs came running from the cafeteria with cases of stolen pop, spreading the cans through the crowd. The kids shook the cans and then popped them open, spraying soft drink all over the deposed teacher, cheering wildly with each blast.

Warren and his friends followed at a distance, stunned, confused, speechless. Other kids in uniforms stayed close to the building as if hoping they could blend unseen into the walls.

The new Britney and Cher, though in their uniforms, jumped right in with the mob, getting in a kick or two and ecstatic when they got cans of pop to shake up.

Mariah was wailing and crying, and Elisha just held on to her to keep her from losing it altogether.

Oh! Here came the other teachers and staff: Fitzhugh, Johnson, Bateman, Chisholm, and even Mrs. Wendell the librarian, running from different directions, shouting, waving their arms, making threats.

“Stop this!” Chisholm yelled, totally indignant. “Stop this at once!”

“Aren't you ashamed of yourselves!” shrieked Ms. Fitzhugh.

“Who's going to clean up this mess?” Johnson demanded.

But the kids were a mob now, beyond words, beyond threats, beyond control. They enveloped the teachers, attacking, slapping, punching, spraying pop then hurling the cans, without reason, without mercy. Chisholm ducked, his arms over his head as pop cans bounced off his body Ms. Fitzhugh caught a can right in the face, breaking her glasses. Mr. Johnson threw a few punches, but the toughs throwing punches back were bigger than he was.

Then came the turning point, and Elisha saw it happen. She saw it when Chisholm's expression went from outrage to terror; when Booker, tattered, bruised, and soaked with soft drink, bolted and ran for the iron gate; when kids around the field and against the buildings, seemingly on the same cue, began tearing off their burgundy blazers and whipping their ties and scarves around their heads.

The universe had flip-flopped. The adults were not in charge. They were running for their lives, heading across the field toward the big iron gate, Booker in the lead, Chisholm following, Bateman running and helping the limping Ms. Fitzhugh. Mrs. Wendell had kicked off her shoes so she could run—Tonya found one of them and threw it at her. Johnson lagged behind the others, heroically giving the kids a target for their blows and pop cans so the others could escape.

The gate swung open. The adults ran faster than Elisha could even envision an adult running—all out: no dignity, no reserve, no grown-up attitude. They were just plain
running.

Elisha became very aware of her uniform and Mariah's. She tugged on Mariah's arm. “We'd better get out of here.”

As they stole quickly toward their dorm, they could see the gate closing behind the fleeing grownups just in time to save their lives. Alex was leaping in the air, jubilant. The kids were cheering. Others, once wearing blazers, were running to join the celebration.

Mariah was wailing in terror as Elisha pulled her along.

Their world was suddenly different, but
not
better.

12

BOTH/AND,
EITHER/OR

E
LIJAH COULDN'T FIND HIS BEDROOM CELL. Whatever hallway led back to it was gone. He was confused by corners, arches, and doorways he'd never seen before. Every door was unlocked, but not every door went anywhere. Some opened on a blank wall. Another door opened on the same hall he'd left as if he'd never left it. At the end of a hall—while it was the end of a hall—he found a door that led to a small indoor courtyard, paved with flagstone, about thirty feet square, with potted plants in the four corners and a three-tiered fountain in the middle of the ceiling. The water was falling up, splashing into a circular, upside-down pond. He reached up—or down—and let the water splatter against his hand. It was wet. It was real.

He was bewildered and amazed. It was an incredible illusion, but a commentary as well.
Both/and,
he thought. A room both right-side up and upside down.

It
had
occurred to him not to move around and see what might happen, but up until now, curiosity had kept him moving and getting more and more lost—as if
lost
were the correct term for it. It was one thing to wander in a fixed, unchanging environment like a forest. It was another to have the environment wander around
him.
But would it continue to wander if he didn't move?

Okay,
he thought,
I'll sit still for a while. The fountain is fascinating
anyway.

He found a concrete bench against the wall, tested it first with his hand, and then sat—