The Academie (14 page)

After dinner—which was great except
for the tofu that was still a little hard to get used to, we sang
“Happy Birthday” to Bryan. Right before he blew out his eighteen
candles, he looked at me in such a way that I blushed bright
red.

As his parents handed over a present
that turned out to be book reader already loaded with his favorites
and others they thought he’d enjoy, I felt bad that I didn’t have
anything for him. “I didn’t know what they’d let you take back with
you,” I explained.

“
It’s fine.
This
is what I wanted.”
I felt his hand on mine, and for the first time I really looked
into his eyes.

“
And find your
center,”
Shara said.

No…please just a few more
minutes…

“
So, how did it go
tonight?” she asked as I opened my eyes.

“
Better,” Stevie
said.

“
Yeah. Good.”

It wasn’t a lie. I’m just not sure it
was meditation.

18.
the stable atom

“
Miss Thompson?” I looked
up from the things I was stashing away to move on to my next class.
Sergeant Conrad, my Developmental Writing instructor was addressing
me from the front of the room. “I’d like to see you before you
leave.”

Out of all my instructors, Conrad was
the most tolerable. Unfortunately, his class bored me to
pieces.

I approached his desk with
uncertainty. Surely, I couldn’t have bombed the last assignment.
The material was years beneath my ability.

He waited for the room to clear before
he began. “It’s become clear to me already that you don’t belong in
this class.”

“
Yeah, I had a rough night
the day before the placement exams and…”

“
I suppose you are aware
that we don’t usually move students from one class to another
mid-semester.”

“
So I’ve
heard.”

“
However, given your
family, I’ve asked Major Gray to make an exception.”

“
My family?”

“
Yes, Matthew of course.
You are his sister, aren’t you?”

“
What does Matt have to do
with this?”

“
Well, he is perhaps our
finest student at this institution. He is, quite frankly, the
epitome of what we are looking for in an Academie student. I was
quite surprised to find you here in my class given your
relationship, but as I said, it’s become clear that this is not
where you belong.”

“
Thank you. I
guess...”

“
Major Gray has approved
my request. You will begin Sergeant Roke’s Advanced English class
on Monday. Room 212 at 2:30.”

I scribbled it down on my notepad.
“Advanced English?” This was a quite a leap. Ruby, I knew, was in
an Intermediate English course.

“
I’m sure you’ll do quite
well there. The course will be able to challenge you in ways we
both know that you are not getting here.”

“
So, I guess you want this
back then?” I said, pulling out my
Introduction to Basic Writing
text.

“
Yes, you won’t need it
anymore,” he said, taking it from me. “Oh, but you will need this.”
He pulled a paper from his desk.

“
What’s this?”

“
Your assignment for
Monday—for Roke’s class.”

“
Oh. Thanks.” I glanced at
it.

Sergeant Roke’s Advanced
English

First paper assignment

A paper?
I had to write a paper for Monday?
In Conrad’s class we’d been diagramming
sentences.

“
Good luck.”

I forced a smile and headed out the
door.

“
You were moved?” Ruby
asked at lunch.

Stevie looked stricken. “We’ll still
have our other classes together,” I said, trying to console her. “I
think it was a mistake anyway.”

“
Na, I always knew you
were too smart to be in there.”

I smiled.

“
What makes you think it
was a mistake?” Ruby asked.

“
Conrad said something
about my brother. And—get this—they moved me to
Advanced
Writing!”

“
Well, well, well. You’ll
be in my class,” Robert said. He’d joined us for every meal since
the previous morning.

“
Two-thirty with Sergeant
Roke?”

“
That’s the one.” He
smiled.

“
So we have a paper due
Monday?”

“
Right, don’t fret it.
It’s only a five pager.”

“
Five pages!” I hadn’t
read that far into the assignment sheet. “There’s goes my
weekend.”

“
If you need help, you
know where to ask,” Robert said.

“
Thanks.” His friendliness
made me a bit uncomfortable, but he seemed harmless. Besides, I
might actually need his help.

“
So, when exactly do these
weekend mixers begin?” Stevie asked.

“
Yeah, why haven’t we
heard anything about them yet?” Shara added. She’d also been
joining us regularly for meals, but she often appeared in a quiet,
Zen state, taking in the conversation rather than actively
participating.

“
Well, ladies, a teacher
told me that they are keeping the information close to the hip
until the weekend comes, so students don’t lose their heads over
it. They’d like us to focus on our studies during the week. I
expect they will make the announcement in our living quarters
tomorrow morning.”

Sure enough, as we were preparing
ourselves the next day, Dorm Sergeant Garret made an announcement.
“Today you’ll have the opportunity to participate in a number of
social and recreational activities.” Her voice bellowed over the
sound of the girls shuffling in the bathroom and at their bedside.
“These activities are a privilege granted to deserving students. If
you cannot behave properly at these events, you will join me here
for the day. If you choose not to participate in the activities,
your options are to spend the day here or in the library. The first
activity begins after breakfast.”

I looked at the clock.
Half-past seven.
How about that? They
actually let us sleep in an hour on weekends.

“
So what is the activity?”
Stevie asked as we gathered for our morning meal.

“
I heard we are going
outside,” Ruby said.

“
For real?” I had almost
forgotten there was outdoor space inside the fence.

Robert cleared his throat and adjusted
his glasses. “Well, I may have heard from a certain Dorm Sergeant
Kavasic, that there are games.”

Shara set down her fork. “What kind of
games?”

“
Icebreakers.”

“
What’s that?” Stevie
asked, scanning the group to see if she was the only clueless
one.

I poked at my eggs. We did icebreakers
at college orientation. It was more fun than I thought it’d be and
I made some friends, but I wasn’t in the mood for it today.
“Icebreakers are ‘get to know you’ games.”

“
Oh. Well, that should be
fun.” Always the optimist. It’s what I liked about Stevie. I
watched her glance around the room. A wide grin spread across her
face.

“
Some people you’d like to
get to know?” I asked.

She blushed.

Robert smiled and shook his
head.

“
Okay, so icebreakers in
the morning. Then what? Any more news from your sources, Robert?” I
asked.

He grinned. “Nothing yet, but I’m
working on it.”

The icebreakers were worse than I
expected. Rather than introduce me to new people, they reacquainted
me with people I’d known in high school—people I was trying to
forget I was in school with again. Not that they were bad people.
It’s just that I thought that I’d moved on. Seeing them reminded
me: I hadn’t.

Lunch was uneventful, unless you
consider tacos with mushy shells appealing. I still hadn’t figured
out how others seemed to be enjoying the food when I found most of
it repulsive. On the upside, I was losing weight—not that I really
needed to. Mostly I survived on chocolate milk and Cheerios. It
wasn’t much, but it was something. And I found ways to stash extra
Cheerios in my stuff to help when I got hungry between
mealtimes—which is inevitable when you’re living off
cereal.

At the end of lunch, Fitness
Instructor Fratelli stood with a megaphone to direct us to our next
activity. “This afternoon has been designated for
sports.”

Oh, no. Not
that…

“
Several games will be
played concurrently.”

“
Concurrently?”
Stevie whispered.

“
At the same time,”
Robert whispered back.

“
If you want to play
baseball, meet at the south entrance to the cafeteria.” She pointed
to a Sergeant I didn’t recognize, who waved his hand in return. “If
you want to play flag football, meet by the north entrance.”
Another Sergeant responded as she pointed. “If you want to play
volleyball or basketball, meet me on the courts.” She pointed
behind her.

Were they serious? Tacos
for lunch and sports for the afternoon? It was my own personal
hell.

“
What are you gonna do,
Allie?” Ruby asked.

“
I don’t know. Nothing
sounds good. Not a sports person, remember? Well, I didn’t hear
them mention fencing…”

Ruby smiled. “That’s a shame. I’d like
to see the skills you’ve been bragging about.”

“
I could kick all your
butts,” I said, grinning.

“
Come on, Allie. It will
be fun,” Stevie said. “And we might get to meet more people.” She
glanced around the room again.

“
Stevie, Stevie, Stevie…”
Robert shook his head.

“
What?”

He smiled but continued to shake his
head.

“
I think I may go back to
the dorm,” I said.

“
Me too,” Shara
added.

“
You too?” Stevie looked
pained.

“
I don’t believe in
competition.”

“
Fine.” Stevie turned to
Robert. “Where are you headed?”

“
I’m gonna have to agree
with the ladies on this one. This looks like a good time for me to
get some studying in.”

“
Seriously?” She looked at
Ruby. “You’re going to play, right?”

“
Of course. I’m thinking
volleyball.”

“
Me too!”

“
Well then, I guess we’ll
see you all at dinner,” Ruby said, picking up her tray.

I waved them off. “Enjoy.”

Stevie smiled, grabbed her tray, and
followed Ruby out the door.

“
Well ladies,” Robert
said, giving us a bow, “enjoy your time off.”

“
See you at dinner.” I
turned to Shara. “So, what do you think you’ll do for the next
couple of hours?”

“
I was thinking about
reading. We could meditate first though, if you want.”

“
I’m in. I really don’t
have any other plans yet, and I could use to clear my head.”
Or fill it with a certain someone…
“Think Garret will throw a fit if we are there
but not studying?”

“
Doubt it. She acts tough,
but if you don’t make trouble I’ve noticed she doesn’t seem to
care.”

We placed our trays on the conveyer
for cleaning and headed up to the dorm.

I grabbed a blanket on the way to
Shara’s bunk area. “So, is the only way to meditate to focus on
clearing the mind?” I asked as we laid our blankets on the
floor.

“
No, there are a variety
of practices. Some focus on the breath, others on a mantra. The one
I have been practicing lately focuses on balancing yin and
yang.”

“
Yin yang. That’s the
symbol with the two tadpole things, right?”

She half-smiled and nodded. “The Tai
Chi symbol. It’s an ancient symbol, representing the duality of
nature. The belief is that there are two forces operating in
nature: the yin, which is the positive, male side, represented by
the white on the Tai Chi symbol, and the negative, female side,
represented by the black side.”

“
This sounds like Sunday
School—women are bad because Eve ate of the forbidden
fruit…”

“
Oh no, it’s not like
that. Negative, in this case, isn’t bad. It’s good.”

I gazed at her, confused.

“
Think of it more like the
protons and electrons in an atom. A stable, uncharged atom has an
equal number of protons and electrons. Neither is better and both
are necessary to create a stable atom.”

“
Okay…”

“
That’s what you want to
strive to be: the stable atom.”