The Last Academy (5 page)

As I got closer, Jessie said in a gravelly voice, “… bigger than life. He was always t-t-tormenting me, you know? The way big brothers do. I stuttered bad around him. He made me nervous.” She paused. “We were going to a movie. I said, ‘Put on your seat belt.’ Except, I got stuck. I said, ‘S-s-s-s-s-s,’ and I couldn’t get the word out. And he laughed like I’m the funniest stutterer ever and started driving. ‘Put on my what?’ He kept laughing, every time I tried to say it. Finally I shouted, ‘I hate you!’ — that came out fine. He kept mocking me, saying stuff like, ‘If only I knew what you were trying to say, s-s-s-s-sis,’ while I put on my own seat belt.” She shuddered. “He switched lanes on a curve, and the car slid off the road.”

Jessie made a terrible sound. Like she was throwing up and screaming, but with her volume turned almost all the way down so you could barely hear it. Like she was
swallowing it back up before it could get out. If you’ve ever been around someone who’s puking, you know how it can make you gag, too. That’s how it felt to hear Jessie — my heart lurched like it was going to dry heave its guts out.

“The seat belt saved my life,” she said. “Maybe if we hadn’t been fighting, he would’ve put his on, too. The last thing I s-s-said to him was, ‘I hate you.’”

Nora leaned forward and rubbed Jessie’s arm. Then I saw Nora do a double take when she spotted me standing there in the shadows. I felt like a grave robber.

Jessie was oblivious to my presence. She went on. “I dream about it. First the car goes over. The windows shatter glass everywhere, and everything goes black. Then I’m hanging upside down from my seat belt. You know, trapped. But my brother, he’s broken. He’s smashed on the steering wheel. Sometimes I hear him choking, and I see bubbles in the blood that’s coming out. Then my seat belt breaks and I d-d-die, too.”

Nora grabbed a box of tissues for Jessie. I could feel her making sure not to look over and give me away.

Jessie laughed and blew her nose. “In the d-d-dream, the dying part is a relief. The bad p-part is being alive.”

“You’re OK.” Nora hugged her. Jessie bawled for real
when Nora did that. I got the feeling Nora kind of said it to me, too. Maybe she knew I didn’t mean to be there.

I backed away, as silent as the shadows I stood in, and when I was far enough away, I ran.

Back in the bright light of my room, I took out my homework and halfheartedly dug in, still thinking about Jessie. Poor kid, her brother dying like that. I wanted to do something nice for her. Maybe Nora and I could find out who her unknown crush, Mr. Skinny Butt, was and see if he liked Jessie back. Feeling all righteous with that decided, I focused on my assigments.

But soon I nibbled at the end of my highlighter, my Spanish reading assignment forgotten. Something didn’t quite sit right as I thought about how Jessie’d wiggled her eyebrows at orientation. At the time, I’d thought she’d gone twitchy from a crush overdose. But looking back now, Jessie had seemed frantic, like it was crucial I saw who she meant. What if she wasn’t mesmerized by the mysterious Mr. Skinny Butt? What if she’d been frightened?

I sat up straight, stunned. What if she’d meant Barnaby Charon?

Pure paranoia, I decided after a moment. I even laughed at myself for good measure. Except Barnaby Charon had been on campus. At least he’d been there for the formal dinner. But otherwise it was ridiculous. How would she know him, and why would she be afraid of him, even if she did know who he was? Still, it was so easy to imagine him there at the back of the chapel, in the sea of people, scaring Jessie somehow.

I did the rest of my homework with every light in the room on.

That night, when check-in was done and Tamara was sitting at her desk, reading over her homework, I said, “No more guys in our room in the middle of the night, OK?”

Tamara’s mouth dropped open and the bridge of her nose squinched up. For once she didn’t seem half-asleep. She looked like she was somewhere between sneezing and laughing. “What are you even talking about?” she asked.

“Come on, Tamara. I saw them. We could get in serious trouble for that kind of thing.”

“I don’t even know what you’re saying.” Tamara flew out of her chair, throwing her hands in the air as she huffed
into bed. Like she thought I was crazy. Her bald-faced lying pushed me over the edge.

“One of them sat on my bed!” I yelled at her.

“No one was in our room!” Tamara shouted, jumping up.

“Shut up!” someone yelled from far away.

I stood, too. We were like two gunslingers ready to draw. After a moment, Tamara lost the standoff. Her face crumpled, and she gave me a scared glance, not at all like herself.

“Look, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, but not like she meant it. Instead, it was like she was pleading with me not to make her admit those boys had been there.

I didn’t understand. I wasn’t even sure Tamara understood. But it was clear I’d won. “Fine,” I muttered. Uneasy relief flooded through me. She slumped onto her bed. I grabbed my toothbrush and stomped off to the bathroom. When I came back, Tamara was burrowed under her covers. Our fight hung heavy in the air, like high humidity. Nobody said anything. I crawled into bed and stared at the ceiling, unable to sleep.

I
might have won the big showdown about the presence of boys in our room, but after that, Tamara began conducting a series of guerilla attacks to even the score between us. I came back to our room once to find my dirty underwear not in my hamper, but hanging out on our patio, sunny-side up.

Yanking them down made my face burn — an admission in front of everybody that they were mine. A pack of passing sophomore boys howled with laughter. Stuff like that made it a lot easier to just spend more time in Nora and Jessie’s room.

Nora had this wild confidence I totally coveted. Once, I heard these two mean girls say, “Nice hair,” as they passed her. Of course, these two girls had perfect hair. Of course, Nora looked like she’d stuck her finger in a light socket.

“Nice face.” Nora laughed, not a stumble in her step as she walked by. She was smart, too. If you asked her a question about a homework assignment, she would say, “Check out page ninety-five.” Sure enough, you’d find a bold heading and a paragraph with the answer. The best part about her was she wasn’t the type to brag about all the stuff her brain knew.

One morning, when I showed up at her room, she said, “Wanna see something cool?” It was Sunday, which meant campus was pretty much deserted. It was amazing how a boarding school could become a ghost town on the weekend. People got up early and hitched rides down to town, or they slept late.

“Sure,” I said. Nora loped off without another word. I had to jog a little to keep up with those supermodel-long legs of hers. She’d already been scouted for the spring track team.

She took me to the theater. The place was a giant cavity of dark emptiness. The drama class had been rehearsing for the winter play, and a bunch of sets were scattered on the stage. I’d been helping paint them after school, so I was pretty familiar with the place. Nora got up on the stage, turned, and pointed at the lights hanging off the ceiling,
about two and a half stories up from where we stood. A control room was also hidden up there.

“That’s where we’re going,” she said.

The curtains hid a narrow doorway, and behind it, a spindly flight of stairs. We went up maybe fifty steps to a loft that overlooked the theater. A metal spotlight stood in the corner, with its head tipped down as if it were sleeping. Everything else was painted flat black. The walls sloped at strange angles, making the path cramped. I headed for the control room. Nora pulled me back. She pointed at our feet, to a square opening tucked under a domed bulge in the wall. It looked like an air duct.

“Follow me.” Nora got down on her knees and crawled into the hole. The space didn’t look big enough to fit her, but she disappeared. I hunched down to take a look.

The painters hadn’t bothered with black paint very far into the tunnel, which went back about three feet and then made a ninety-degree turn to the left. I didn’t like it, but I crawled in. My shoulders brushed each side. My body cut off the light from outside.

I was going to get stuck. The thought made my palms go clammy. No one would hear me yelling until Monday morning, most likely. I didn’t know off the top of my head
what the penalty was for getting caught while sneaking into a secret corridor. But I assumed it wasn’t going to be a pat on the back and a big thumbs-up. When I inhaled, I swear my ribs touched the sides of the walls.

“When you feel my hands, I want you to stop, OK?” Nora sounded close. I wiggled around the corner and put my hand down on Nora’s hand instead of plywood.

“OK.” A tiny light came on and I saw Nora’s head and shoulders. Behind her, a small room. “It’s tricky here — the ground is about four feet down,” she said.

I kind of birthed myself out of the tunnel and onto the floor below.

“Quiet!” Nora hissed.

We were in an unfinished space of some sort. The motif was shiny silver and pink cotton-candy insulation. Part of the floor had plywood on it; the rest was just open beams. Nora waved a penlight over a rumpled blanket and a couple of old throw pillows the color of dust.

“How’d you find this place?” I whispered.

“I was in the sound room last night and I heard voices. I came back later to explore and found it. I think other kids use it sometimes to hang out or whatever.”

“What were you doing up here at night?” I asked.
Students were allowed to be in classrooms or the theater — anywhere, really — during any part of the day we weren’t confined to our rooms. It wasn’t like she was breaking any rules. It was just … weird.

“I was making out with Thatch Haskell in the sound room,” Nora replied.

After a moment I managed to close my mouth. Thatch was a chunky freshman who would tell you how he was named after his infamous pirate great-great-great-something or other, and not after unsightly lawn problems. Then he would laugh and say, “You know, Blackbeard?” But mostly people only gave him a blank stare, because there was no way Thatch was more parts swashbuckler than he was lawn care.

I could not believe I was actually living in a world where guys like Thatch were making out when I was sitting in my dorm room like a dork. Sadly, the closest I’d ever come to a guy kissing me was on the airplane with Barnaby Charon, with him in the role of Señor El Creepo.

“Does Thatch know?” I gestured at … whatever this place was.

“Why would I tell him?” Nora scoffed, apparently insulted by the question. I didn’t have an answer for that.
It seemed weird to swap spit with someone but not swap secrets. Maybe Thatch was a bad kisser.

“It’s a secret room!” Nora giggle-whispered. “I had to tell someone!” She got a weird smile on her face. “I want to put a door on that passageway. With a latch and a lock.”

Of all the things I guess she could have said, I didn’t expect her to say that. “What about the other kids who use the place — the ones you heard last night?” I asked.

“What are they gonna do? Tell?” Nora smirked.

“They’ll be mad.” I was grasping at straws. I knew there was a good reason not to do what Nora was talking about, but I couldn’t quite make my point.

“Mad at who? For all they’ll know, the faculty boarded it up.” Nora grinned at me. “I’m doing it. Are you in or out?”

“In,” I said. Nora had chosen me for her secret room adventure. It was like being inducted into the Illuminati or something.

“Good, because I need your help,” she said. “You work with the drama teacher, right? I want you to take his keys and make a copy of them.”

I thought about it. “Why do we need the keys exactly? I mean, you’re going to buy your own lock.”

Nora smiled at me. “If we have those keys, we can unlock the theater and sneak in here in the middle of the night if we want to. We could bring guys up here, anything we wanted. No one could keep us out.”

Why are you really doing this?
I wanted to ask.

Except, there, in the darkness of that strange room, I heard it, faint, barely anything. Someone yelling Nora’s name, banging on a door.
Let me in!
An icy shiver slid down my spine. I knew the sound wasn’t coming from down in the theater. There was something weird about the room. The smile on Nora’s face melted away, and she went green. I thought for sure she must have heard it, too.

“What was that?” I demanded.

Nora shook her head, her color seeping back. “For a minute, it looked like you had long hair. You didn’t, did you?”

“Let’s blow this place,” I said.

“Sure.” Nora made like a dog shaking off water. “But you’ll do it, right? Get a copy of the keys?”

I nodded. But I didn’t know if I was telling the truth or not.

L
ate October brought the Santa Ana winds. Hot, dry gusts swept through campus every afternoon and into the night. They howled around the corners of buildings and raked stray leaves into tiny cyclones. It was like the ghosts of September were being cast out, wailing through campus as they left. Or like an invisible prankster blowing everybody’s skirts up.

On the way to formal dinner later that Monday, the wind swirled around me, trying to nudge me off balance. I was decked out in silky black pants and a cream shell. I had even put on some makeup.

It was all for nothing, I discovered as I walked inside and checked the seating assignment. Mark Elliott was not at my table. I saw him across the room, sitting next to Brynn. We hadn’t talked much since I’d bailed on her at
Mr. Graham’s. When she saw me, a slow, dangerous smile crept across her red-glazed lips. She leaned over and whispered something into Mark Elliott’s ear.

I waited for him to glance at me, horrified of what it would mean if he did. But he only shrugged at Brynn and went back to eating, and I crumpled into cinders of relief and disappointment. It was Brynn who smirked at me. She mouthed something that looked a lot like,
Jealous?
and winked. I couldn’t tell if she was being nice with an edge … or mean with a grin. Putting on my game face, I smiled brightly back.

After dinner, everybody had to go listen to a pipe organist play in the chapel. According to the program, the music was supposed to be “uplifting and hopeful.” But I wasn’t sitting anywhere near Mark Elliott or Jessie and Nora, so the only thing I hoped for was the end of the presentation. Instead, the organist went fifteen minutes over schedule. It was all I could do not to groan out loud and slip off the pew onto the floor.

By the time we were excused, the last remnants of the sunset were inky black clouds whipping across a fiery orange sky. Grit got in my eyes as I walked out the door. What a waste of makeup. What a waste of a secret room
where I could go kiss someone. I was going to be a dateless wonder the rest of my life.

As I trudged back to the dorms, Nora linked her arm through mine. “I got the lock and hinges yesterday in town. Wanna come to my room and see?” she whispered.

“Sure.” I sighed. Jessie caught up with us and linked arms with Nora. The wind howled and Nora laughed, happy.

She gave me a quick, warning look, so I knew we couldn’t go check out the hardware after all — she hadn’t told Jessie about our secret. So I said, “You guys wanna come to my room?” We hardly ever went there, because Tamara and I were still in a barely civil standoff. Punctuated with occasional swearing and unfulfilled urges on my part to scrub a toilet or two with her toothbrush.

I started to knock on my own door when we got back, but I stopped myself: Tamara waltzed in unannounced when I was changing, when I was two inches from the mirror checking for zits, and when I was trying to sleep. I didn’t see why I should give her the courtesy. So I walked in without knocking.

Tamara, Brynn, and Sasha the junior were hunched over my desk, doing something. They froze like three raccoons caught raiding a trash can.

My guts went sour.

“Hey, guys, what are you doing?” Nora asked, her voice too perky and loud.

“Don’t tell them. They’re lame,” Tamara told Brynn, in a laughing kind of way that didn’t feel like a joke. They were on my side of the room, using my desk, in my personal space. I never went through Tamara’s things. And what had Tamara just said about being lame?

“Get out of my stuff,” I said.

Not one of them moved. Tamara smiled a huge, sharky smile. All of the sudden, I couldn’t breathe. Lia had smiled like that right before she’d pushed me into the Jacuzzi.
And then they’d all laughed at me.
Thinking that, I saw red. I’m not even kidding. I’m surprised I didn’t blow a blood vessel right there. I couldn’t let that happen to me again.

I made the space between me and her disappear. Tamara and Brynn leaned together, blocking whatever was on my desk.

“Beat it.” My roommate rolled her eyes, smirking at her friends like I was a big, stupid joke. “We’re busy.”

There was no way I was getting kicked out of my own room.

I heard someone say, “Wow. I bet Miss Andersen could
figure out whose desk this is, you snot waffle. Why don’t I call her in to sort it out?”

Turns out it was me talking.

That’s about when everything stopped and everybody gawked at me. Brynn took a small step away from Tamara. Their shoulders parted. There was a cardboard game box on my desk.

Sasha said, “Oh, take a pill. It’s my stuff. Tamara’s desk was covered in junk.” She picked up the box and shoved it under her arm. It was a Ouija board.

Sure enough, Tamara’s desk was covered with a diorama she was doing for English. Homework was scattered all over her bed. Every possible surface on Tamara’s side of the room was occupied. I got a sinking feeling in my gut.

“Did you call me a … snot waffle?” Tamara asked. Nobody paid attention to her.

“What’s that?” Jessie gawked at the game box. Me, too. I’d heard about Ouija boards before, but never actually seen one.
Speak with the Spirit World!
was written on the front. Disembodied hands floated above a wooden board, fingers touching a plastic triangle. The board had an alphabet and numbers on it, and also symbols and words like “yes,” “no,” and “farewell.” It looked spooky.

Brynn smiled at us, eyes sparkling. “Mr. Kirk is buried under the chapel, y’all — you’ve seen the memorial plaque, right?”

It seemed entirely likely and also completely unbelievable that the school’s founder could be buried under our feet where we just listened to an hour of boring pipe organ music. Outside, the wind scraped around the corners of the dorms, howling and whistling before dying down again.

That’s when everything started to happen fast.

“When are you going?” Nora asked. Jessie added, “Where are you going?”

“Don’t tell them,” Tamara said. “You heard — they squeal.”

My face felt hot. I was a squealer now?

“That wasn’t me,” Jessie said. “
I
don’t squeal. You can tell me.”

“We’re sneaking out,” Sasha said. “Two
A.M
. in the chapel. We’re doing a séance over his grave.”

“Don’t they lock that place up at night?” I asked.

“Shut up, squealer. You’re not invited.” Tamara tossed her beautiful hair.

Sasha considered me for a moment. “You stay here and protect your precious desk, Frosh.”

“I’m going with you,” Jessie said. We all stared at her, shocked. Jessie never broke the rules. And she didn’t hang out with upperclassmen.

“Why would you think you can go? I don’t even know who you are,” Sasha said coolly to Jessie.

“You’re gonna let me use that board because I’ve got someone I want to talk to. Someone I can’t call on the phone.” Jessie didn’t stutter at all.

Sasha tapped a finger on the box, like she was considering. “Who?”

“My brother.”

“When?”

“Over the summer.”

Jessie’s eyes were shiny and red. Her hands were fists, and her body leaned forward, like an angry dog on a tight leash. My stomach twisted as I remembered overhearing Jessie’s confession. She must’ve wanted to change those last words to him enough to try something crazy. Finding out her brother had died only a few months ago made it way worse, somehow.

Lia’d told me once that you could use a Ouija board to invite the dead to talk to you. But when you rolled out the welcome mat, she claimed you didn’t know who was
going to show up. Maybe you got a lonely old grandma ghost who only wanted someone to talk to. Or maybe you got something that would pretend to be a small child but was really a demon. And you might be able to call them, but that didn’t mean you could make them leave. If you believed in Ouija boards and spirits and that sort of thing, she said. I didn’t. But I didn’t
not
believe, either.

Sasha nodded. “All right. You can come.” Jessie’s lips curled up like she was making a smile, but she didn’t look happy. “We meet at the bushes by the back entrance to the chapel. Two
A.M
. If you get caught, you’re on your own. Bring a blanket.” She pointed two fingers — her index and middle in a witch’s fork — toward me and Nora. “Not you two. Just her.”

Sasha lowered a finger so that I was the only one she continued to point at. “And if we get busted, I’m going to know it was you. And the last thing I do before I get expelled? Is get up during announcements and tell everybody that you were the one who ratted us out. You’ll never have a friend here again. Don’t think I won’t do it, either, squealer.”

I stood there, shaking and silent. I was completely humiliated. How had things gotten so messed up so fast?

“What about me?” Nora asked.

“What about you?” Sasha replied. She threw her coat over the Ouija board and tromped out of our room.

“Come on, Brynn,” Tamara said. Brynn gave me a small smile and left with Tamara.

You knew Brynn was like that
, I told myself, angry that it stung so bad.
She’ll go wherever the fun is.

When they were gone, I said, “I’m sorry about your brother.” Jessie was still standing there, straining against her invisible leash. “Hey, don’t go, all right?” I added, taking a deep breath to calm down my shakes. “Those girls are stupid. I mean, can you imagine? Running across campus in the middle of the night? They’ll probably all get caught. And come on. Did you see that board they had? It was from Parker Brothers. Those guys make Monopoly.”

Jessie didn’t look at me. I reached out and touched her arm. She jerked away. Tears spilled down her cheeks. “Leave me alone,” she whispered, and ran out.

Nora shrugged at me in half an apology as she turned to go. Jessie was her roommate. Nora had to make sure she was OK. Then I was alone.

Stupid jerk roommate. Stupid Brynn. Stupid school
. I hated
everything, the whole campus, all of Nueva Vista. Throw in the whole state of California for good measure.

On impulse, I dashed out of my room to the dorm phone and shut the booth’s door behind me. I meant to call home, but it was Lia’s number I dialed. I don’t think I even realized my mistake until she picked up.

“Hello?” she said, like she’d done a hundred thousand times before. My heart lurched. I missed Lia like crazy, but I didn’t trust her anymore. And the truth was, I couldn’t bear to tell her what had happened and risk her laughing at me, too. Instead, I covered the mouthpiece so she wouldn’t hear me cry, and listened to her breathe until she hung up.