Nightmare Academy (28 page)

Elisha, confined to her room, prayed for hope, hoped in God, and did all she could with soap, a washcloth, and a hair dryer to get the grass stains out of her burgundy blazer. Having a vicious brawl on the lawn wasn't good for the Knight-Moore uniform, and she had to please Booker—or at least not make him mad—at the three o'clock meeting.

The door opened, and Cher came in, not at all her usual, bubbly self.

“Oh, Sally! I'm so sorry! I heard about Jerry!”

Elisha was trying to hold herself together, carefully brushing the elbow of her blazer. “We just have to pray they'll let Jerry out and not hurt him—” Her voice broke and she stopped, concentrating on the sleeve of her blazer, trying not to remember the images of Alvin Rogers out of his mind.

“Maybe if Mr. Booker wins.”

“Wins?”

“You know, gets his way, and everybody does things by the rules. Maybe then things can be the way they were.”

“Cher . . .”

“Mariah.”

“Mariah? Can't you just settle on one name?”

“Britney wanted to be Cher, and Madonna wanted to be Britney.”

“Why can't you just be yourself?”

“Why can't you?”

Elisha had no answer for that one. “Good question.” Back to her original thought, “But . . . Mariah . . . I'm not so sure things can ever be the way they were. They were never any particular
way
in the first place. They weren't supposed to be.”

Alice/Marcy/Cher/Mariah sat on her bed, fear in her eyes. “Alex is still mad. He's still talking to Mr. Stern and Mrs. Meeks, trying to get his way, trying to get Mr. Easley back and get rid of Mr. Booker.” She sighed, and then admitted, “But I hope Mr.

Booker wins. Things might still be weird, but at least I'd feel safe.”

Elisha didn't need for Mariah to explain. She felt that way herself. It was a little bizarre, but for all the harshness of Booker's class, there was still a sense of security there, like standing near the edge of a high, precarious cliff, but with a safety railing all around you. You could hate Booker all you wanted, but if you played the game his way nobody else could threaten you. No one else could mock you or strike you. You could set your books and handbag on the floor and trust they would remain there even when you turned your eyes away. Booker was a tyrant, but his class had boundaries, it had order, and many of the kids could sense that. That was why they hated Booker but still showed up for his class every day, in their uniforms. It was one small island, maybe the last, on this whole campus that felt safe. “So would I.”

Mariah jumped up from her bed and started pawing through her dresser drawer. “So one thing's for sure: I'm going to be in uniform!”

Elisha examined her blazer. Not perfect, but it would have to do. Out the window, she could see the roofline of the mansion through the trees.
I won't leave you here, Elijah. God help
me, I
won't leave you here.

The low rumble of the monster machine stopped. Just like that. Elijah sat up from a catnap and listened. The stillness was so total it was scary. He checked his watch. He'd been waiting here for two hours.

Well,
he thought,
this is a fine mess.
Bateman and Chisholm hadn't come back, and he was beginning to think they never would.

He decided to take a much closer look at this room to learn about it. It was only about ten feet long, maybe eight feet wide. The ceiling was a little low, maybe six and a half feet. Only one flat, recessed light fixture illuminated the room. The walls were wood paneling, the kind one sees in cheap motels or outdated restaurants—not very attractive, but definitely more homey than concrete. The floor was bare, white linoleum, a little cold to the touch. He looked under the bed. Clean and bare under there. What about the bathroom?

He opened the door and looked inside. It was a little bigger than a phone booth. You had to squeeze around the sink to get to the toilet. The walls were plain white.

He stepped back into the bedroom.

It was blue.

Whoa, hold on, wait a minute.

He blinked and looked again. Blue. The walls, the ceiling, the floor, even the bedspread, were blue. He waited to see if his eyes would adjust to the light. He looked in the bathroom again, then into the bedroom. It was still blue. He went to the other end of the room and looked back toward the bathroom. It still looked blue from this angle.

He repeated his previous action, stepping quickly into the bathroom and back out again, but the room stayed blue. He felt the walls and floor. Blue paint, blue linoleum. The bedspread was blue on both sides. Even the sheets were blue.

He sat on the bed to think a moment. Was he wrong about the wood paneling? Was his memory out of whack?

Just to be sure about everything, he walked over and tried the door. It
used
to be locked, but it wasn't locked now. The hallway outside was wood paneled, just as the bedroom used to be . . . or just as he
thought
the bedroom used to be.

But wait. He didn't remember the hallway having wood paneling. He remembered bare concrete, pipes, wires, tubes, mechanical sounds, an electric hum, dim lighting.

Did he come this way in the first place? Had he gone through a different door?

He looked back in the bedroom again. It was still there, still blue. He opened the door widely, then removed his blazer and placed it at the bottom of the jamb to keep the door from closing all the way. Keeping an eye on the doorway, he stepped slowly and carefully into the hall. Nothing changed.

He ventured down the hall. He did not remember coming this way, or going past these doorways on either side. Were they more bedrooms—or cells—like his? He tried one of the doorknobs.

The door opened. The room inside was dark. He felt inside for a light switch, found one, and flipped the light on.

It was a bare little room with a chair and table. On the table was a burgundy blazer. There were grass stains on the elbow and shoulder, and a torn seam down the back. He drew closer, unable, unwilling, to believe it.

The tears, scuffs, and grass stains were unmistakable. His six KMs were still in the inside pocket. He quickly checked the opposite pocket. A crumpled sheet of notebook paper was still there, the paper upon which he'd written the navigational coordinates he'd calculated. He unfolded it, and read his own hand­writing:

45 degrees, 6 minutes N

120 degrees, 10 minutes W

They were not the coordinates he remembered. No, no, the latitude was 47 something . . . the longitude was something like 115 . . .

He sat in the chair to think, afraid to move another step.

It's a head trip,
he thought.
They're messing with my mind. This
is what they did to Alvin Rogers. But how are they doing this?

Directly in front of him, through the open door, he could see the hallway. It no longer ran to the left and right, but extended straight ahead, as if this room were at the very end of it. It had pink-flowered wallpaper, white wood trim, and a beige carpet.

At a quarter to three, Elisha and Mariah were ready, uniforms cleaned and pressed, hair neatly done, hearts . . . hopeful? Yes and no.

“I just don't want to be afraid anymore,” Mariah said as they walked toward Booker's classroom. “I mean, people are good. The kids are good. But they do things that . . . well, that
aren't
good. I don't know why. But I never know what to expect, and I just want to feel safe.”

“I just don't want to be afraid anymore,"
Mariah said . . .

Elisha checked her watch. They had just a few minutes to spare, maybe just enough to say . . . something, anything. She stopped and touched Mariah's shoulder, getting the wide-eyed little blond to look her in the eye. “Mariah, I have to tell you something. If everybody on this campus shows up in a uniform and agrees to follow the rules, then we might be safe for a while. Maybe our rooms will be safe. Maybe I can talk to somebody in charge and get Jerry out of the mansion. But you have to understand, if Mr. Booker and all the other teachers keep teaching there's no right or wrong and all the kids keep believing it, then there's nothing to keep all the trouble from starting up all over again. If there's no right or wrong, then all Mr. Booker has is that yardstick until someone comes along with a bigger yardstick. Do you understand what I'm saying? We're buying some time, maybe, but that's all.”

“But people are good. Everybody'll do what's best.”

“Is that what you've seen?”

Mariah found no words, but just started walking again.

They hurried down the sidewalk, just as other kids were doing. There were plenty of uniforms around. Britney/Cher and Madonna/Britney were looking sharp, and so were Warren and his friends, but . . .

No. Elisha's heart went sick.

Ramon was wearing a sleeveless tee shirt, jeans, chrome necklace, and an arrogant smile.

Brett was wearing jeans and untucked flannel shirt.

Rory and his gang—Booker's
cops
—were wearing whatever they wanted, and all of them were wearing their ties—as headbands.

“What's happening?” said Mariah, the fear back in her voice.

Elisha couldn't believe what she was seeing. “I don't know.” She didn't say it but thought,
Something terrible has happened.

They went into the classroom. Because all the students were showing up in the room at the same time, the place was getting quite full. All the desks were taken, even Elisha's, and kids were standing around the sides of the room. Elisha and Mariah found a spot against the rear wall and tried to blend. There was an ominous quiet in the room. No joking, no talking, hardly any looking around. Elisha could see fear in many of the faces—fear of speaking, fear of questioning, fear of the next minute.

Rory, Jamal, Tom, Clay, and ten other guys—all of them toughs—were lined up against the back wall, some with arms folded, some with thumbs perched in their pant waists, commanding respect and fear simply by how they looked back at everyone.

Tonya was quite casual, in ragged denim shirt and feeling good about it.