Afterlife Academy (15 page)

“Wade nearly died,” I say. “I
think he saw this place. I think he knows better than some Goth brother.”

This time it’s her that’s silent
and it’s my turn to apologise.

“Sorry,” I say. “I know we’re
all in this together and everything. I just miss everyone so much that it’s
messing my head up. I can’t sit here and say ‘Okay, I’ll never see them again
and it doesn’t matter,’ because it does matter. I miss Wade when he’s off
school for a day. I can’t just accept that I’ll never see him again.”

“It does get easier,” Caydi
says. “I know you won’t believe me at the moment, but it does. Time heals all
wounds.”

“Wade is going to come,” I say.
“He misses me too. I know he does. I can’t just sit here and wait for him.”

Caydi sighs again from the bunk
above me and I can almost hear the unspoken “whatever” in her voice.

“I was on the Internet the other
day,” I say casually. “I read that there might be a way out.”

The bed creaks as Caydi leans
over the side and stares down at me.

“It’s a rumour,” she says
eventually. “Clare is very into it. She’s convinced that there’s a way to get
back home. Some people think different things. There are so many rumours because
nothing is certain. People think that it’s a vortex and you step into it and go
to heaven. Others think that the only way to get into heaven is to graduate.
Some say that if you fail you’ll end up going to hell.”

“What do you think?” I ask her.

She shrugs. “I don’t know. I’ve
heard that if there is a way home, it will take you back to before whatever
happened to you so you can change it. I like to think that’s what happens when
you graduate, but I don’t know because once people leave here, it’s not like they’re
going to pop back to confirm it either way.”

“And if there is a secret exit?”

“Good luck finding it,” she
says. “I don’t think anyone ever has so far.”

“What about the girl who
disappeared? The one they mentioned on the forum?”

Caydi shrugs again. “Nice girl,
well-adjusted. Probably graduated, but like I said, we’ll never know.”

I sigh.

“Don’t worry about it, Riley,”
Caydi says. “It will get easier, you’ll see.”

She’s asleep soon after, but I’m
not.

I can’t help but think about
what she just said.

An exit. Possibly to go back to
before the accident. I could stop myself getting killed. I could stop Anthony
getting killed. I could stop Wade getting hurt.

I would do anything to go back
to before all this happened.

I have to find that exit.

I don’t know where or how I
intend to start looking for the way out. It can’t exactly be in the middle of
the school with a flashing neon “Secret Exit” sign above it, can it? It must be
really well hidden. But I figure that gives Anthony and me a better chance to
find it because we know the school better than most of the other students,
seeing as it’s where we went when we were alive.

I want to get on that forum
again but I’m afraid of using the computers in the library in case the
librarian is in there. I went in one lunchtime the other day just to look
around, and she watched me with her beady eyes until I left again. I wish the
suitcase they magically transferred over here on my first day had my laptop in
it. That would have been so much more helpful. Although I have no idea if there
is any kind of Death World Wi-Fi here.

CHAPTER 18

I find Anthony at breakfast and tell him about my plan.

He’s less than impressed, to say
the least.

“Riley…” he starts as we sit at
our table and start eating our chocolate croissants (me) and toast (him).

He doesn’t seem to know how to
continue the sentence.

“We have to do something,” I say
quietly. I don’t know what the policy on eavesdropping is in this school but
considering that every adult here seems to know my name and everything about me
without me telling them, I’m keeping my voice down. The last thing I want to do
is attract attention.

“Look,” I whisper. “We have to
get out of here. Do you know there’s a rumour that if you fail you go to hell?”

“Eliza Carbonell said that you can’t
fail. If you don’t graduate you just have to keep trying.”

“Yes, but who knows if that’s
true or not?”

“She’s the headmistress, Riley.
Of course it’s going to be true.”

“If there’s even a chance that
there might be a way out of here, we have to take it. And I think there is
because the thread I saw on the Internet has been closed down a few times. We
both know that there’s no smoke without fire, so I have to believe there’s a
way out, otherwise no one would care what a few kids are discussing on the Internet.”

He looks at me sceptically but
doesn’t say anything.

“And we have a huge advantage
over everybody else here because we’ve already been at this school for years. I
know of quite a few nooks and crannies, you know, the kind of place they’d hide
big swirling vortexes, and—”

“Yeah, you only know of them
because of all the times you used to hide instead of going to class,” he says.

“Look, the point is that we have
an advantage that no one else has. We already know this school.”

Anthony sighs and rolls his
eyes. “So what do you propose we do?”

“Well, we have to look around,
don’t we?” I say quietly.

“You don’t think anyone will
notice us poking around the place? Whatever it is you expect to find isn’t just
going to be in the middle of the gym, you know? It’s going to be hidden if it
exists at all.”

“So it’ll be a challenge. Don’t
you even want to try?”

He shrugs and chews up another
mouthful of toast.

“Not even for me?” I flutter my
eyelashes and try to look helpless.

“That might work on the football
captain, but it won’t work on me,” he says, but it’s obvious that his resolve
is weakening.

I grin at him.

He sighs. “Fine. When do you
want to do this?”

“Tonight,” I say immediately.
“The sooner the better.”

“Don’t you think the buildings
will be locked at night?”

I hadn’t thought of that.

“We could climb out the
windows,” I say. “Meet me at lunchtime and we’ll sort out a plan.”

“I don’t have to meet you. We
have class together this morning.”

I groan. “I can’t believe we’re
dead and we still have to go to school. That sucks even more than being dead.”

Anthony laughs. “You should be
glad it’s not maths.”

I pull my schedule out of my bag
and stare at it.

“Redemption,” I read out loud.
“Redemption class. What do you think that is?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know, but it
sounds more interesting than Ghost Laws.”

“That’s not difficult,” I say
and he laughs again.

I like seeing him laugh. I
especially like making him laugh and smile. It’s so weird because Anthony has
been in my form for the whole five years we’ve been at the same school back at
home, and I think I can honestly say I have never once seen him smile, let
alone laugh. That thought causes a pang in my chest because I know I am partly
responsible for making Anthony such an outcast back there and making him so unhappy.

“Stop thinking so loud,” he says
and I look up from where I’d been staring at the pattern on the table.

He’s still smiling that cute,
lopsided smile as he takes a sip of his coffee, and the sight of it makes my
heart thud in my chest.

“What?” Anthony asks.

“Nothing,” I say. “Just thinking
how weird it is to be here at our school but for everything else to be so
different.”

He nods.

“Like you,” I say carefully.
“You’re different here. Happier.”

“No one treats me like shit
here,” he says and that makes my heart thud again but not in a good way.

“Sorry,” he says. “I wasn’t
getting at you. You’re not the only person who didn’t like me. No one liked me,
but I didn’t exactly make it easy for them to. I never made friends or talked
to anyone. I never made an effort to fit in. My life at home was so weird that
I figured it was easier to just fade into the background and not draw attention
to myself. Who cared if people wanted to make fun of me…”

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I should
have gotten to know you rather than just picking on you. I do realise that now.
If we went back, I would change things. I’d make sure that no one treated you
the way they used to, if that’s what you’re worried about or anything.”

He shrugs. “I’m not.”

I nod like I understand, but I
don’t.

I want to say something else to
him. I want to say that I do understand because I know both his parents died a
few years ago and after something like that happens, you probably don’t care
whether a few kids at school make fun of you, but the buzzer rings for first
class and I end up not saying anything.

CHAPTER 19

Redemption class is in what used to be our History
classroom. Let’s hope redemption is slightly less snore inducing. The teacher
is already in there when we arrive. Anthony and I take a seat together. We sit
at the desk I used to share with Sophie. It freaks me out to be sitting here
with Anthony instead of Soph. Anthony usually sits at the desk behind us and we
spend most of the class plotting what horrible thing to do to him next.

“Want to move?” Anthony whispers
in my ear.

“No.” I shake my head at him,
but secretly I’m thinking how sweet it is that he noticed something was
bothering me.

“Ahem,” the teacher coughs when
we’ve all sat down. “Hello again, everyone. For the benefit of our new arrivals…”
She turns directly to Anthony and me. “Hello, I’m Mrs Brown.”

This strikes me as odd because
our History teacher’s name was Mr Brown, but they’re probably not related, what
with this one being dead and all.

“Excuse me,” I say, putting my
hand up politely. “You’re not related to Mr Brown, by any chance?”

I don’t know if she thinks I’m
being sarcastic or too nosy or something because she fixes me with a death
glare. “No, I am not,” she replies rather snappily. “If you would kindly mind
your own business and allow me to continue teaching this class.”

Yikes. I try to sink further
into my seat.

“Nice one, Ri,” Anthony hisses
almost inaudibly in my ear.

“As I was saying…” Mrs Brown
casts another unsavoury look in my direction. “Those of you who are new, welcome
to Redemption class. You know what redemption is, I assume?”

Anthony, teacher’s pet as usual,
sticks his hand up in the air. “It’s making up for what you’ve done wrong.”

Suck-up. It’s one of the reasons
no one ever liked Anthony back at home. He’s always the person waving his hand
around in class every time the teacher asks a question. He makes the rest of us
look bad.

“Yes, Anthony,” Mrs Brown is
saying. “Now if we could all pay attention please, Miss Richardson.”

Ugh. How do they even know when
your mind is wandering? This all-knowing, half-psychic teachers thing is
totally freaking me out. They know who you are before you do. They know when
you’re not paying attention. They know when you try to send email to a
different dimension. They know everything.

Back home, teachers rarely
noticed if you fell asleep in class and definitely didn’t notice if you skipped
completely.

I hate this place.

Mrs Brown is talking again. “A
large part of being dead is the ability to reflect on your life. As a dead
person, it is important to use hindsight to understand what was wrong in the
life you led before. You are all here for a reason, no matter how much some of
you may be fighting against that.” She is staring right at me as she says that.

“Part of our job is to make you
better people, and what better way is there to become a better person than by
learning from your past mistakes? This class offers you the opportunity to
relive some of your less-than-perfect moments and to make the most of your
death by making amends for some of the less-than-desirable things you did in
life.”

“Can we change things?” I ask.
“Can we change the way our lives were? Can we change the way they ended?”

“No,” she says simply. “This is
not about changing the way you lived, it’s about realising your mistakes. Call
it good karma, if you will. Your progress in this class can go a long way
towards your graduation. I suggest you all pay attention. Especially you, Miss
Richardson.”

Jeez, what have I done to her to
make her hate me so much? I only asked if she was related to our history
teacher.

She picks up a stack of exercise
books off her desk, then and starts handing them out. Two blank ones land on
the desk in front of Anthony and me. “Put your names on them,” she snaps at us.

Urgh. I hate her already.

I look around as the teacher is
still handing out the books and realise that there is a different group of
students in this class. Caydi and Clare aren’t here, for a start. Maybe they
have it at a different time. Or maybe they already passed this class. But there
are other differences between this and the other lessons we’ve had so far.
There’s quite a distinct age range. Most of the classes I’ve had have been with
people who are in my year. But here there are kids much younger than us. A few
kids who can only be in Year Seven. A couple of Year Eights and Nines. I can’t
help but wonder why. I notice Jody from our group-therapy class is sitting at
the back and I smile at her but she frowns at me.

“Something bothering you, Miss
Richardson?” Mrs Brown asks, looking none too happy.

Great. I’ve done it again.

“I was just wondering why
there’s such an age spectrum in here compared to other classes? If you don’t
mind my asking,” I add politely.