Tap & Gown (3 page)

which means he’s brilliant, too! Tell me all about it.”

“Lydia,” Josh said. “Leave her alone. She’s had a traumatic week. She’s not—”

“Thinking clearly?” I finished for him. “Is that your theory?”

Lydia waved her hand at him dismissively “Shoo. We’re having mushy-wushy girl talk now.”

But Josh was not the type who could be shooed. “Who else knows?”

I lifted my chin. “Whoever wants to.” George, to start with, and probably anyone else who’d ridden back to Eli with me in the van. “It’s no secret.” Did Josh expect me to make a formal announcement?

“I want to hear everything!” Lydia pressed. “Did all this happen before or after … you know.”

Before or after I was kidnapped, she meant. I wondered what else in my life was going to fall under that particular “before or after.” I didn’t want it to be like that.

“We’ve known each other for a while,” I said. “And our feelings just … blossomed.”

“Like fungus off rotted meat?” Josh snarked.

Lydia whirled on him. “Would you get out of here? You’re ruining her story.”

“It’s okay, Lyds,” I said. Josh’s reaction was the one I expected. “We can talk about it later. Tell me all about Spain.”

“Spain was great,” Lydia said. “But I need to hear about your adventures.”

“Specifically, the one where you were almost killed,” Josh added.

Ugh. Maybe I should have gone with Jamie.

At the first society meeting post-Spring Break, the knights who hadn’t been with us on the island tiptoed around me like I was one of the more precious of Rose & Grave’s relics. I suspected that there had been some sort of “don’t grill Amy as to the details of her ordeal” e-mail sent around prior to the meeting.

Probably by Josh, for whom it was all well and good, since he’d gotten the scoop from me already. For all I knew, he’d since drafted an “official version” for the next club newsletter.
Spring Break with
D177—sabotage, kidnapping, and the near-drowning of one of our own! Turn to page 3 for
pictures!

Of course, it didn’t help that tonight I played “Uncle Tony”—society code for the evening’s master of ceremonies. I sat on an elevated dais in the Inner Temple, displayed before my fellow knights, feeling the bumps and edges of the carved wooden back of the Persephone throne through both the wool of my robe and the knit V-neck I wore underneath. After so many months, I could practically read the images through my skin: The series of ridges beneath my right shoulder blade were the grove of trees from which Persephone was snatched by Hades. The sharp point digging into my spine was the root of the pomegranate tree. And the round bump rubbing up against my tattoo was the humped back of the mourning crone Ceres became until her daughter emerged—oh so temporarily—in the spring.

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Poor Persephone. She gives in to temptation for one moment, indulges in one tiny bit of comfort and luxury, and gets trapped in the underworld forever.

I scratched the scabs on my wrists.

“Bugaboo,” Soze said, in a tone that indicated it wasn’t the first time he’d called my name. I snapped to attention.

Right. Dragon’s Head. While the majority of us had been off campus for Spring Break, rival society Dragon’s Head had, in the latest volley of a long-standing war, broken into our tomb again and, what’s more, finally figured out how to infiltrate our most precious sanctuary. They’d come into this very room, the Inner Temple, and … left a note.

Let me repeat: Left. A. Note. Last time we broke into their tomb, we’d hidden one of their most prized possessions—and that was only because we couldn’t figure out how to outright steal it.

Why they hadn’t stolen anything while they were inside ours was the big mystery. They’d been trying to breach this space for decades—and when they finally do, they had nothing better than mail delivery planned? The room had been thoroughly searched, both by the few Diggers who’d stayed on campus for the break and then again when the rest of us came home, and we could neither find anything missing nor anything (like a microphone or a camera) left behind.

But no one really believed that Dragon’s Head went to the trouble of getting in here just to drop off their calling card—least of all me, the target of their ire for most of the semester.

“Are you feeling okay?” Thorndike asked me. She and Angel exchanged glances. “Maybe tonight wasn’t the best time for you to be Uncle Tony.…”

“I’m fine.” I turned to Soze. “You were saying?”

“I wanted to know your thoughts on my proposal. You were the one who bore the brunt of Dragon’s Head attacks last month.”

And he apparently thought my condition too fragile to put up with anything else.

Soze’s theory, from what I understood, was that the letter they’d left—“It’s not over, Dragon’s Head”—was not, in fact, a belated Valentine’s Day card, but rather, a notification of cease-fire until each society had completed the tap and initiation process this spring. Apparently, this was standard society M.O., like armies not attacking on holidays.

Though from what I knew of history, armies had great success attacking on holidays, when people were the least prepared. Just ask George Washington. Or Anwar Sadat.

“I think it’s risky,” I said at last. “I don’t trust Dragon’s Head at all.”

“But historically—”

“Historically,” said Thorndike, “society pranks were just that. Pranks. But that’s not what we’ve been dealing with lately, is it?” She glanced at me.

I bit back a sigh, tempted to stand and scream,
My name is Amy Haskel and I’m a kidnap victim.

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Can we all just get over that now?

“I’m not discounting any of that,” Soze said. “However, the fact remains that we don’t have time right now to concentrate on a feud, and neither do they. The tap period is upon us.”

“So we can either take their word at face value,” said Angel, “or spend time and resources we can’t spare distracting us from tap.”

“Which may,” said Big Demon, “be their idea all along, seeing as how we usually compete for the same juniors.”

I couldn’t argue with that. And I was sure, were Poe here, he’d probably be saying the same thing. “So we leave this mess for next year’s club to clean up?”

“The feud has been going on for generations,” said Puck. “We’re not going to end it before graduation.”

Everyone could agree on that, and when no one came up with any more objections, Soze spoke again.

“I’d like to get this settled, and move on to new business. I’ve got not one, but two theses to finish this month. So, how about we call it a day and talk about tap?”

Bond raised his hand. “I motion that, barring any new evidence, we table the feud with Dragon’s Head and assume they are doing likewise.”

The motion was seconded and passed with astounding alacrity. Soze wasn’t the only one with a thesis coming due. Visibly relieved, our secretary began handing out little booklets, bound in heavy, faded card stock, curled with age and as soft as felt beneath my fingers. The pages were thin, yellowed typing paper, the text uneven and clearly hand-typed (complete with corrections). The title page read “TAP

PROCEDURES” over a red, hand-stamped symbol of Rose & Grave. How many decades of clubs had been using these same books, these same procedures? I wondered if Josh had spent any time going through each one, crossing off the word “men” in favor of more gender neutral terms.2*

“The time line is as follows,” Soze said. “We choose a preliminary tap list, which may, in fact, be larger than our actual tap list, and then, over a period of three weeks, we winnow this group down with the help of meals, parties, and formal interviews. During these activities, the potential taps should remain not only unaware of the society’s identity, but also of the true nature of the events.”

“Please,” scoffed Juno, who, over Spring Break, had cut her curly hair into a fetchingly short, ready-for-prime-time coif. “I know I wasn’t on campus for this last year, but are any of you saying you honestly had no idea why some random senior had suddenly befriended you and popped up everywhere you went?”

“You’re right,” said Graverobber. “I knew exactly what was going on.”

“I knew it was a society courting me,” Angel said. “But I also knew the Diggers didn’t tap women, so I had no idea what to think.”

“I thought you just came to the parties as a selling point for us,” Graverobber said to her with a leer. She ignored him.

“To tell the truth,” said Puck, “I found the whole following-around thing a little off-putting. Dude really
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cramped my style.” Lil’ Demon, sitting closest, jabbed him. “What?” he complained. “It’s true.”

Soze cleared his throat. “At the conclusion of all this merrymaking, we pick our tap list, and a few alternates, in case a tap, for some reason, chooses to reject us when we show up at their door.”

“How often does that happen?” asked Lucky.

“In the past? Almost never,” said Angel. “The way my father tells it, usually the knights are able to weed that element out before Tap Night. It’s rare for Rose & Grave to get an answer on Tap Night that isn’t

‘Accept.’”

I wondered how the society managed that while simultaneously keeping their identity and purpose a secret and would have interrupted again to ask, but Soze was getting a distinctly impatient look on his face. If his theses were in that much trouble, maybe he shouldn’t have spent the last two weeks gallivanting around Spain with my roommate.

“But with the kind of year we’ve had,” he went on, “I can’t make any guarantees. I think we should have at least two alternates.”

“Who chooses the alternates?” asked Juno.

Soze took a deep breath. “That’s Rule Number One. We
all
choose
all
the taps. Every decision made from here on out must be a unanimous choice. Who we tap, why we tap them, and most of all, how we go about it.”

Robed heads nodded all around the Inner Temple. Of course. The whole point of this society was to create a sense of unity and camaraderie among its members. Why wouldn’t we all have to agree on this, our most important task? But how could fourteen such different individuals ever agree on not one, but fifteen people to tap?

“So in the interest of ease and consistency, I move that we follow the pattern set by last year’s club, which builds upon the traditions of the order. The tap list should be composed of persons who most match the demographics of each of the current knights.”

“Including gender?” Thorndike asked.

“Yes.”

“I oppose.”

Soze rubbed his temples.

“Uncle Tony recognizes the opposition of the Knight Thorndike,” I said.

She stood. “Such a motion would forever lock the male-to-female ratio of the society into uneven terms.”

“So what else is new?” asked Kismet. “We’ve already locked it into uneven terms on the basis of race and sexuality, if we’re honestly required to ‘tap our own demographic’ It’s a completely stupid system.”

“The alternative,” argued Juno, “is to see people of your own mind-set become unrepresented in this
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group.”

“So now you’re in favor of affirmative action?” asked Lucky.

“I’m in favor of protecting what’s mine,” Juno replied.

“I think it all works out,” said Angel. “Can anyone here argue that we haven’t tapped the right people for this club?”

Everyone got very quiet, and I studied the gavel in my hand. If they were going to name names, it would almost certainly be mine. I was never supposed to be a member of Rose & Grave. I hadn’t attended their parties and events. Instead, I was a last-minute substitute when my big sib, Malcolm, got into a fight with the girl he was supposed to tap.

“It’s easy for you to make that point, Angel,” said Thorndike. “Rich, white, East Coast legacies are in no danger of losing slots in this society. You’ve already got one of each gender in this club.” She pointed at Puck. “Do you want this club to be permanently two-fifths women?”

“What would be fair to you, Thorndike?” Soze asked. “Seven of fifteen?”

“How about eight?” asked Lil’ Demon. “That would match more with the actual demographics of Eli.”

“I think the number of women we have is just fine now,” said Graverobber.

“No,” said Thorndike with a sneer. “You think we’ve got too many.”

“That too.”

“My problem isn’t with the numbers,” said Bond. “It’s with the restrictions. I can easily make an argument that the proper replacements for ourselves are not necessarily of the same gender, just as they were not last year. Every woman in this room was tapped by a man who thought that, in all other respects but gender, she would carry on his legacy within the Order.” He shrugged. “Why don’t we do it like that? Tap according to merit, and worry about the gender and other demographic breakdowns as a secondary concern?”

Cue another half hour of rigorous debate. This did not bode well. If we couldn’t even agree on how we were going to pick the taps, how in the world would we ever agree on whom we’d pick? I recalled Poe’s description of last year’s deliberations. He claimed to have argued against the inclusion of women until his voice gave out. Was this how it worked? The person with the energy to debate the longest was the one who won? The knight willing to browbeat the others into little puddles of mental and physical exhaustion got his or her “unanimous” vote by default?