Afterlife Academy (19 page)

Yes, I know. Apparently I don’t
mean anything to anyone, including my best friend and boyfriend.

“It’s okay.” I want to add that
it’s kind of okay if it did mean something, but I can’t say that to him. God, I
can’t say that to anyone. “Let’s just forget about it.”

“And I’m sorry I was grouchy
with you as well. And I didn’t mean that about washing my mouth out with
bleach, I just lost my temper a bit.”

“I didn’t mean it either,” I
say. “It wasn’t… y’know… that bad or anything.” That’s about as close to an
admission he’s going to get from me.

He grins widely at me. “Okay, so
we’re friends again, right?”

I nod. Because honestly, so far
Anthony has been a better friend than my boyfriend of a year and my best friend
of ten years.

“So, are you okay?” he asks.
“You ran out of class pretty quick again.”

“Fine,” I mutter.

“You know… you kinda look upset.
Your eyes are all blotchy. And please tell me you did not eat that whole cake
by yourself.”

I shrug. “Who cares?”

“I care,” he says vehemently.
“What’s wrong?”

I want to tell him. I really do.
I want to say that I just saw Wade and Sophie going at it in Wade’s bedroom.
But I can’t say it. Not to Anthony. He hates Wade. He hates Sophie. Until last
week he hated me too. He probably still does in a way.

He’d probably run around the
canteen whooping for joy.

Except he wouldn’t because
Anthony isn’t like that.

“What did you see?” I avoid the
subject. “I thought you didn’t want to see your grandma.”

He sighs. “I figured a bit more
time has passed down there now.”

“Did you see her?”

“Yeah. She was at a coffee
morning with her wrinkly mates. She looked okay. A little sad, but she was
okay. She’s a tough old girl, really.”

I nod.

“Now you’ve tried to avoid my
question, what did you see that’s upset you so much?”

“It doesn’t matter,” I say.

But Anthony is still staring at
me. “How is Wade? Still in pain?”

“Something like that.”

“What’s got you so worked up?”
he asks. “Don’t tell me you saw him moving on with his life and having fun or
something without you?”

“Something like that,” I mutter
again.

“Ri…”

“Just forget it, okay?” I snap.
“I’m glad you saw your grandmother. I’m glad everything’s fine for you, but if
you’ll excuse me, I have to get out of here.”

With that I stand up and stalk
outside, leaving my uneaten lunch on the table.

This sucks.

This sucks out loud.

This worse than sucks out loud.

I have to get out of this
school.

This place is ruining my life.

If I can just go back so I can
turn up in school right before the accident, I’ll save Anthony and Wade will
still be mine.

And I’ll do it by myself. If
Wade is screwing Sophie, which he undeniably is, then it’s pretty likely that
he’s not coming to rescue me anytime soon.

But you know what? I don’t need
a man to save me. Especially a man who is humping my best friend just days
after I died.

I’ll go back. I’ll stop their
little tryst.

Except there won’t even be a
little tryst then, because I won’t be dead.

Wade will never want to so much
as glance at another woman again.

But there is one small problem
with my plan.

How am I supposed to find this
so-called exit, when Clare—and apparently a whole group of people who hold
regular meetings about it—haven’t found it yet?

My mind wanders back to
something Caydi said last night.

“
You
could’ve both got yourselves expelled for doing that
.”

Hmm.

I’ve already asked the principal
to let me out and she’s said no. I wonder what the school’s policy would be on
throwing me out?

I don’t have lessons this
afternoon. Instead I have the extremely thrilling one-on-one counselling
session that Eliza Carbonell arranged with Mr Perkins for me.

The only thing on my mind as I
meander towards the old art room, where his office is located, is how much I
have to get out of here.

I can’t stay. I can’t just sit
here and watch Wade and Sophie have it off together.

Wade is mine. He loves me. He
would never cheat on me. Unless I was dead or something. Obviously.

So I have to get back. I can’t
just sit here and watch my life slip away because I was in some stupid
accident. And I have to do it now or there will be no one left. If Wade and
Sophie are planning on getting together, they won’t want me in the middle of
it. Plus, if too much time passes, then maybe I won’t be able to go back to
before the crash. Maybe it will be too far back.

If they won’t let me out of here
the nice way, then I’ll just have to make them throw me out the not-nice way.

So I have to get expelled. I
have no idea how to go about that. I’ve never tried to get expelled before. The
only flaw in my plan is the fact that I have absolutely no idea what their
policy on expelling people is. It’s not exactly something you ask a teacher
about, is it?

The other thing I don’t know is
what actually happens when you get expelled. I’ll have to ask Caydi tonight.
She’s bound to know. The thing is, I don’t want to end up in hell or somewhere.
Not that hell could really be much different to this. Maybe a little warmer.

My mind is racing as I push open
the door of the art block and am surprised to see a row of chairs lined up
outside the door and muted, plain walls with no artwork on them. It looks like
a doctor’s waiting room.

In our school, this block was
home to art, home economics, and textile classes. The walls were lined with
artwork and the place always smelled of cooking. Usually burnt cooking.

I knock on the door and Mr
Perkins’ voice filters through. He tells me to sit down.

I do as he says and think about
trying to get expelled for a few minutes. I try to think about what happened in
my old school. The truth is I can only think of one boy who got expelled back
at home, and that was because he started a punch-up on the school field.

I have no intention of starting
a punch-up.

I also can’t make it look too
obvious. The teachers here are clever. And possibly mind readers. I’m sure
they’ll know what I’m up to if I’m not very careful about it. If I start going
around starting fights for no reason, they’ll suspect something. So I have to
be clever too.

I think about sneaking around at
night.

I could get myself caught
outside again. But to be honest, even though I’m kind of desperate to get
thrown out, being outside last night was really, really scary. And I wouldn’t
have Anthony with me this time, because I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t be up for
getting expelled. I doubt Anthony has ever so much as got a C on an essay, let
alone done anything that might result in expulsion.

The only thing I can think of is
setting off the fire alarm for no reason. That could potentially get me in a
lot of trouble, especially considering the personal connection Eliza Carbonell
has to all things fire related.

But what about detention?

They’re not just going to kick
me out straight away. They’re going to stick me in detention for the rest of
the year.

My thoughts are interrupted by
Mr Oscar Perkins banging the door open and calling me in.

I walk into his room in our old
art class and I’m surprised to see how different it looks. The creativity of
the room has been sucked out by the greyness and the complete doctor’s-office
feel of the room.

There is one huge antique
looking wooden desk at the front of the room. Mr Perkins takes a seat behind it
as I walk in. He tells me to sit down on the giant uncomfortable-looking couch
in front of the desk. The rest of the room has even more uncomfortable-looking
hard plastic chairs and a few tables.

“Hello again, Riley Richardson,”
he says, grinning at me like it is funny to use my full name.

It is not.

“So,” he says when I don’t smile
at him. “Mrs Carbonell tells me you’re finding it hard to adjust to being
here.”

I shrug.

“I can’t help unless you talk to
me,” he says, still grinning inanely.

Don’t help then. Sod off
instead. That is what I want to tell him. But I don’t. Because somewhere in my
brain, I still think you have to be respectful to teachers.

But what’s the worst they could
do? Expel me? Hah.

Nothing’s that easy.

“It’s just very different to my
old school,” I say. “I’m not used to it.”

He nods. “And you miss your
family?”

Yes. Oh God, yes. My family. Mum
and Dad. I’ve been so caught up in Wade that I’ve barely thought about how much
I miss my mum and dad. The thought of them makes something pang in my stomach
and I suddenly feel guilty for not missing them more. They must be devastated.
And I don’t even mean that in the self-important “I was the centre of
everyone’s universe” way that I have before. I mean, no matter which way you
look at it, my parents have just lost their only daughter.

Jeez, I have to be the most
selfish person in the world.

Next Visualisation class I will
use to check on them.

I’m not wasting another
visualisation on Wade again.

Besides, I’m not sure I want to
see what he’s doing. If I’m going home, to before the accident, to before
things went so badly misshapen, then the thing with him and Sophie won’t have
happened yet, and even I can forgive something that hasn’t really taken place.
I don’t need to see them together again.

Not that I don’t have a
full-colour rerun playing in my head at all times.

“We understand it’s difficult to
adjust,” Mr Perkins is saying.

If I hear that patronising,
useless line one more time, I am going to do something I’ll regret.

Unless they expel me for it.
Then I won’t regret it.

“Look,” I say suddenly. “I don’t
need a bunch of dead old fogies telling me ‘oh we understand, it’ll get
easier’. I need some actions. I need my life back. If you lot want me to fit in
so badly, stop being a bunch of patronising old farts and really understand. I
don’t want this. I don’t want to be here. I didn’t want to die. I didn’t want
to see my boyfriend humping my best friend’s leg, but—”

Oops. I didn’t mean to say that
out loud.

Even Mr Perkins looks stunned.

“I’m sorry to hear about that,
Riley. It must be very upsetting.”

Arrgh. What part of patronising
old git didn’t he understand?

“At least you have a friend
here,” he says after a few minutes silence. “Mr Marsden,” he clarifies when I
stare at him blankly.

Honestly I don’t know what I
would have done without Anthony here. He’s been like a rock. And suddenly I
realise that if I am going to go ahead and try to get expelled, I’m going to
have to leave him here.

I’m one hundred percent positive
that he won’t be up for my plan.

I’m sure he wants to get out of
here as much as I do, but trying to get expelled is just not in Anthony’s
nature.

If we found the exit, we could
both jump in together and it wouldn’t get us in any trouble.

He’d come back with me then.

But if I can get myself expelled
and go back to before the crash and Anthony doesn’t come with me… What does
that mean? Will he still be there at home because technically he won’t have
died until Wade kills him, which I intend to stop? Will he remember any of
this? Will he remember me? Or will he not be there because he is dead and
ultimately here, no matter how far back I go?

I don’t like this.

I don’t want to leave Anthony
and yet I can’t stay here.

He’ll never go for trying to get
himself expelled. I know he won’t.

“You seem very distracted today,
Miss Richardson,” Mr Perkins is saying.

“Sorry,” I mumble.

“It’s okay. I understand that
it’s not the best day given what you’ve seen this morning. Would you like to
talk about it?”

“Not really,” I admit.

“Okay, well how about we
schedule another appointment for a nicer afternoon, hmm? I’ll see if I can’t
rustle up some chocolate biscuits and we’ll have a nice little chat. How does
that sound?”

Sounds like I’m not going to be
here that long.

“That would be good,” I say
instead.

“Wonderful,” he hands me a
little appointment card with a date for next Friday afternoon on it.

“See you then, Miss Richardson,”
he says as I go to leave.

No, you won’t, I think.

No, you won’t.

CHAPTER 23

I was right about one thing. Anthony baulks at my plan.

“Are you insane?” he asks
calmly.

“No, just desperate.”

It’s not like we had an argument
about it or anything, but I stormed off and went to talk to Caydi instead. She
was slightly more supportive in a “You’re insane. I don’t even know if they
can
expel you” way.

“I have to try something,” I
tell her. “I can’t just sit here and…” I can’t tell her about Wade and Sophie.
“I just have to go back. I can’t let things end like this.”

“So you’ve finally given up on
the idea of Mr White Knight riding in to save you?”

Considering he’s screwing my
best friend? Yeah, pretty much.

“I guess so,” I say instead
without elaborating.

I even know what I’m going to do
first. I don’t know if it will be good enough to get me expelled, but it’s
bound to get me in trouble. And trouble is the best place to begin.

I lie awake until just after two
o’clock when I’m pretty sure that everyone else in the school will be fast
asleep and then I sneak out of the room, creep down the hallway, and pull the
fire alarm.

I know it’s juvenile. I know
it’s the oldest trick in the book.