Good vs. Evil High (4 page)

Their rivalry drove them to opposite ends of
the earth: one to the southernmost regions and one to the north.
There they would each create a home for adolescents left alone in
the world as they once were. Only those with the greatest potential
to become like whichever brother called them to their home were
chosen.

As their numbers grew, two schools were
born. And the rivalry the brothers shared was passed on to their
students. In honor of their founders, every winter (November
1st-January 31st) the schools get together for a season of
competition, alternating between being held in the north and in the
south. For this one season of the year, the schools and their
founders put their differences aside in the name of sportsmanship,
and more importantly, winning.

November first? That was only a week away. I
sat up and looked at the others, wanting to ask them about it, but
they were all fast asleep.

Looking back at my book, I figured maybe I
should try to get some sleep too. If I was going to meet the
headmaster first thing in the morning, it would probably be worse
if I were falling asleep while talking to him than if I had to
admit I hadn’t read much of the book he wrote yet. And I was pretty
tired. Maybe some of the sleeping medication was still in my
system. Or maybe it was everything I’d been through in the last
twenty-four hours. Either way, I put the book between me and the
back of the couch, stretched my arms over my head for a moment, and
closed my eyes.

Chapter
Five

~ North Haven ~

“Breakfast, dearie,” sang the sweetest voice.
A hand patted my back and I reached up to rub my eyes.

But instead of my hand, I felt a pillow push
against my right eye. I sat up too quickly and bumped into a pretty
young woman with wavy brown hair who was leaning over me. “Oh, I’m
sorry,” I said. Looking around the inside of the jet, it all came
back to me. I reached back and felt around for my book.

“That’s quite all right. Is this what you’re
looking for?” The woman held my book out to me. I realized she had
a soft accent, though I couldn’t figure out what kind.

“Morning, Kristine,” Harmony called from the
other end of the room. She and the others were already sitting at
the table eating.

“Is that bacon and eggs?” I asked. For
breakfast, all we ever got at the orphanage were stale biscuits and
the occasional piece of jellied toast if we were lucky.

“Aye, they are,” the woman said. She sat down
and put her arm around me. “I’m Miss McCree and I look after the
girls in your hall. You’ll be seeing a lot of me once you’ve
settled in.”

Irish! That’s what her accent was, I
realized.

“She’s the best!” Harmony said. “She comes to
tuck you into bed every night and she makes the best brownies and
she helps with homework and studying.”

Miss McCree smiled. “You’re makin’ me blush
over here. It’s an honor to take care of such fine young ladies.
Now why don’t you go have some breakfast, Kristine, before it gets
too cold?”

“All right, thanks.” I practically ran to
that bacon and ate ten pieces when I got there.

“Don’t make yourself sick.” Sassy laughed
from across the table.

“Sorry, I haven’t had bacon in years.”

“Bad orphanage?” Hunter asked.

“That’s putting it mildly.”

“It makes me sick the way people think they
can treat children when there’s no one there to protect them from
it,” Miss McCree said, crossing the room. “You’ll never be treated
like that where we’re taking yah’.” She picked up the half empty
pitcher of orange juice and carried it out of the room through a
door beside the table.

“She grew up in a bad orphanage too,” Sassy
whispered. “She got herself and three other girls out of it, but I
think it was probably worse than yours. There were no signs or
reports of physical abuse on you or the other girls.”

“No one’s ever hit us or anything,” I said,
feeling bad that it might have happened to Miss McCree.

I jumped when I heard five very different
sounds at once. Drums banged, someone began singing opera, a
rooster crowed, techno played, and it even sounded like rain had
suddenly begun pouring over Nadine, who was right beside me.
Everyone reached into their pockets and pulled out their own silver
box, touching the tops and letting them fly up on their own.
“Morning announcements,” Nadine said. “It’s what we usually wake up
to.”

The same woman I’d seen on Harmony and
Roman’s screens came up on Nadine’s. “Good morning, students. I
hope you all slept well last night.”

Miss McCree came back into the room with her
own flying thing floating in front of her. She came to set a full
pitcher of orange juice in the middle of the table.

“The time is six a.m. There are only a few
morning announcements today. The countdown to Winter Competitions
is at only eight days. Make sure you’re training hard. We want to
beat the Southland Cinders for the third year in a row. Miss
Tripside is very ill, so all math classes will be canceled today
and possibly tomorrow.”

“Yes!” Roman put his fists up in the air.

“A showing of volcanoes will be held in The
Dome Room at six p.m. for any students who wish to attend.

“And finally, Roman Armstrong, Hunter
Bradshaw, Harmony Foxen, Nadine Rodriguez, and Sassy Johnson
successfully recruited Kristine Fayre last night...”

I was horrified to see a picture of myself
appear on the screen. I was really hoping to blend in when I got
there. No chance of that happening now.

Everyone around the table began clapping as
the announcer went on. “...so be sure to say hello if you pass her
in the hallway and make her feel welcome with the rest of us.
That’s all for now. Have a great day.”

The screens went black and began to fold
up.

“Good morning, passengers. This is your pilot
speaking,” Mr. Westhyme said over the intercom. “We’ll be landing
in about fifteen minutes. Please remain seated until we come to a
complete stop. And thanks for flying with us today.”

Sassy and Nadine started laughing. “He cracks
me up,” Sassy said.

“Is that woman on your flying thing real?” I
asked Hunter, since he was sitting across the table from me.

“Connie? Nah, one person would never be able
to keep up with all the students. When she was created she was
named Con, short for convenience. Whenever you get your own con
you’ll address it as Kristine Con, but besides that, everyone calls
her Connie. Con just sounds like an old guy you’d find in a prison
cell.”

“When will I get my own?”

“As soon as we get there. Headmaster’s the
one who gives them to the students.”

“I bet we can see North Haven,” Nadine said,
moving to the windows.

Book still in hand, I followed, not wanting
to have to wait another second to see it. For a minute, we only saw
darkness. The sun hadn’t risen yet. Then we broke through the
clouds and there it was, light pouring from every window and ground
lights surrounding an enchanting castle of ice. “It’s...amazing,” I
said in reverent awe.

To me, this was an absolute confirmation that
it was all real. Until that moment I had to wonder if it was
somehow all a hoax, because it seemed too good to be true. But it
was real, and it was unbelievable.

Roman sat down beside me. “Welcome to your
new home.”

“Thanks, and thanks for coming to get me.
This is even better than being adopted.”

“It is being adopted,” Nadine said.
“Everyone’s like family at North Haven. Sassy and Harmony are my
sisters, Miss McCree’s our mom, and Headmaster’s like a father to
all of us.”

“Aye, ‘tis true,” Miss McCree said.

“Yeah, but not every single person’s like
family,” Roman said, rubbing my thumb with one of his fingers.
“There are still couples.”

It hit me all at once. He was making a pass
at me, and I wasn’t sure how to respond. Having always attended an
all-girls school and having been forbidden by Ms. Wendy to so much
as speak to a boy, this was a first time thing for me. My instinct
was to draw away, since all I’d heard about guys was pretty
vicious. I wasn’t stupid enough to believe it was true about every
single one, but I knew enough to know I needed to be careful. What
if this was the game he played with every girl he recruited? He
was
really cute, though. I planned to ask Harmony about him
later.

“Do you want to go see the volcanic show with
me tonight?” Roman asked me. Harmony and Sassy began whispering at
the table.

“Okay.” I wasn’t sure how I felt about Roman,
but since romance was something foreign to me, I figured I would
learn as I went.

A few minutes later, the jet was landing and
then it was rolling through an opening that led underneath the
castle.

Once we were off the jet, I stopped to look
around for a minute. The walls still looked like ice, but I
couldn’t see through them. I walked over to the nearest one and
reached out to touch it. It didn’t feel cold. “What are these made
of?” I asked.

“This whole place was built with something
similar to marble, several times stronger, though,” Mr. Westhyme
said. He shut the side door to the jet and locked it. “Has to last
forever, you know. I think I’m gonna go get some shut-eye for a
little while. You kids think you can get Kristine settled in
okay?”

“She’ll be fine,” Harmony said. “I’ll take
you to Headmaster and wait outside. For today, you’ll be shadowing
me, so I’ll make sure you get where you need to be.”

I was kind of relieved, because that meant I
wouldn’t be left alone with Roman later that night.

The others began moving toward the one place
in the wall I could see through. It looked like part of a circle
poking out of the flat wall and going up through the ceiling. Roman
pushed a button beside it. “Come on, you two. The rest of us have
to get to class,” he said.

Harmony and I got to the others as we heard a
whizzing sound and watched the round glass slide away in front of
us. We all stepped into a big glass elevator.

“Welcome back, Hunter, Roman, Harmony, Sassy,
Nadine, and Kristine. Where can I take you?” Connie’s voice came
from up in the ceiling somewhere.

“Everyone needs to get to their rooms—except
for Kristine and me,” Harmony said. “We need to see
Headmaster.”

The glass door slid shut and we zoomed upward
too fast for me to see much, and then we stopped on a carpeted
level with lots of girls in white suits or pajamas walking around.
To my left and right I saw more of the glass elevator shafts. Girls
were climbing into a few of them.

“We have reached the girls’ living quarters,
destination of Nadine and Sassy,” Connie said. The door opened,
letting the two girls off.

Then we zoomed up another level, where I saw
exactly the same thing, except that it seemed to be inhabited only
by boys. “We have reached the boys’ living quarters, destination of
Hunter and Roman.”

“Bye,” Hunter said before climbing out, but
Roman stopped in front of me.

“I’ll see you tonight.”

I nodded and then he was gone and we were
going up again.

Faces and hallways zoomed by for a few
seconds and then we began to slow down. “Approaching the highest
level available to this elevator. Please exit and go to your right.
Take the elevator at the end of the hallway up to Headmaster’s
Tower.”

Harmony and I stepped out of the elevator,
but I don’t know if you could call what we stepped into a hallway.
It was more like a wide-open expanse with fluffy rugs, pillows, or
chairs placed here and there, all empty at the moment.

“What’s this floor for?” I asked as we began
walking.

“It’s just a quiet corner in the west wing, a
place where kids can come to study or think or be alone.”

I looked out the windows but still saw only
darkness.

We reached the end of the hallway and found
two elevators. Harmony pushed the button in between the doors.

“What about Roman? Is he like that with all
the new girls?” I asked, hoping she wouldn’t think I was into him
and tell everyone about it, because I was pretty sure I wasn’t.

“Nope. I’ve never seen him like that with any
girl, actually. When they showed that footage of you during class,
asking for volunteers to go get you, I thought his eyes would bug
out of his head. He didn’t even ask Miss Tripside if he could go
before he ran from the classroom for Headmaster’s office to
volunteer.”

“What footage?” I didn’t realize video
footage of me even existed.

“
Apparently there’s a bank close to
your orphanage. Headmaster got some footage of you walking by. It
must have been taken by one of the outside cameras. They also
showed that school picture of you in the corner of the
screen.”

The glass elevator on the right came shooting
upward and stopped in front of us. I wondered why Connie didn’t say
anything as we started going up, but figured if everything was
connected to one system and it always knew where each of us was and
where we were going, she probably knew where to take us.

“Me and Sassy and Nadine have been talking
about how we needed a fourth roommate, so we volunteered too,”
Harmony said. “Hunter just likes to get out of North Haven
sometimes. He goes to get a lot of recruits.”

“What happened to your last roommate?” I
asked.

“There’s not a last roommate. Kids get put in
rooms with vacancies and with kids of the same age as they come in.
We’ll all leave school at about the same time and then new girls
will take our old room one at a time until there’s four.”

The thought made me sad. I didn’t want to
leave, ever.

“We have reached Headmaster’s Tower,
destination of Harmony and Kristine,” Connie said as the door slid
open.