Nightmare Academy (31 page)

“We've got to hang together,” Alex was saying. “We're the reason this whole academy is here, and if we're one big voice, then those people up in that mansion have to listen to us.”

“Well, what about Mr. Stern and Mrs. Meeks?” somebody asked.

“Who?” came a joking response, and a giggle rippled through the crowd.

“Aren't they on our side?”

“They're staying out of it,” said Alex. “It's just us now. We are the Voice. We are the Future.”

“So who's in charge?” asked Andy, the pool shark.

“Are we gonna vote?” asked Eric, the space game king.

That question brought a wave of hoots and moans. Rory leaned in threateningly and told him, “Hey don't you have eyes? That's already decided.”

Alex continued, “It's time to send a message and tell those people up there what we want.”

“What message?” asked Tonya.

“What do we want?” asked Marvin.

Ideas began to float around the crowd amid cheers, and Brett took notes: more fun time, more access to the food, less homework, no homework, volleyball games that could actually be won, no restrictions on which dorms to sleep in.

“And no more uniforms!” That brought widespread agreement, although some of the girls really liked the outfits.

Warren asked, “So what about Mr. Easley? Don't we want him back?”

Alex looked puzzled. “Who?”

Warren repeated the name slowly, insistently “Mr. Easley. Remember?”

Alex thought for an instant, then shook his head. “Never heard of him.” He gazed around the group and let it be known: “Nobody ever heard of him.”

An eerie forgetfulness spread from Alex through the rest of his loyal followers—and there were many. “Who?” “Easley?” “Who's that?” “You ever heard of Easley?” “No sir, not me.”

“I'm running things now,” said Alex. “We don't need any help.”

Warren pressed the issue—and his luck. “Wait a minute. You really think Booker and Bingham and all those people up there aren't calling the police right now? You think they aren't going to come back with the police or the sheriff or the riot squad? What makes you think they're going to put up with any of this?”

He was hooted down. “That's
your
truth,” said Charlene, and Melinda agreed, “Yeah,” and the crowd picked up the chorus.

“That'll be ten KMs, dude!” Alex shouted, and Warren, immediately surrounded by Rory and his guys, produced the coins and backed away into the crowd.

Alex pocketed the KMs proudly, and shouted, “So who's with me?” He got a rousing cheer, but several kids were holding back and he noticed. “Not good enough.” His hand went to the necktie now bound around his head like a sweatband. “Okay, here's what's gonna happen. You take your tie or your scarf and you wear it like this, or wear it on your arm. You do that, it means you're with us. You don't do it . . . we break your arm.”

Kids started fumbling through pockets, fussing and whining, “We don't have our ties!” “I left my scarf in my room!”

“Find something and find it quick,” said Alex. “No scarf or tie, no games, no fun, and no food.”

“And we break your arm,” said Rory.

Handkerchiefs came out. Shoelaces. Several ran back to their rooms to get a tie or scarf. One kid took off his tee shirt and started cutting and tearing it into strips for one KM apiece. The undecideds began deciding, one headband after another.

“Now you're being just like Booker,” came a single voice in the crowd.

The silence, the sudden chill, began with Alex as he sat on the table staring across the room. Those near him fell silent as well, and then the kids next to them, and then the kids next to them. In less than a minute, the room was dead quiet and electric with tension.

All eyes were on Elisha, who'd made no effort to tie anything around her head or arm or anywhere else.

“I thought I heard you say something,” said Alex.

Elisha looked at all the eyes staring at her and said, “You were the ones making all the fuss about the uniforms, and now you're just making up another uniform.”

Alex made only a little wave of his hand, and Brett and two toughs brought Elisha into the center of the room before Alex's picnic table throne. “Where's yours?”

She looked around the room. Britney, Cher, Tonya, Marvin, Eric, Andy, Roberto, Tom Cruise . . . all the kids she'd known these few days, were now wearing something around their heads. Over in a corner, actually trying to hide behind others, Mariah, her sidekick and roommate, was wearing a rag around her head and looking at the floor.

“We're the group,” said Alex, “and we've decided everybody should wear something to show unity.” Then came the zinger.

“You with us?”

Elisha addressed everyone around her, “You should know where this is going to lead, what it's going to turn into.”

They groaned and rolled their eyes, murmuring and snickering.

“Okay,” said Alex, “what about Jerry? You've got a stake in this: Those people up there have him. You join up with us, we'll put the heat on and get him back.”

Cher, who used to be Britney, came forward with a spare scarf, a pretty red one. “Here, Sally. You can wear this. Come on.”

Elisha took it, holding it in her hand. There was silence. Waiting.

She could still see Elijah's last look at her over his shoulder. She could remember her promise not to leave him here. She considered what he could be going through, and she almost cried.

“What's it going to be?” Alex prodded.

“Join us,” said Cher.

“Come on,” said Ramon. “We'll show 'em!”

“Jerry . . .” She felt like a liar and a coward not using his real name. “Jerry would have to bow to you. He'd have to say you're right, and he won't do that. And neither will I.” She handed the scarf back to Cher. “Thank you.”

All eyes were on Alex. Brett asked him, “So what are you going to do?”

Alex was looking through the crowd at Warren, who stood silently, out of the way, but still wore no headband. “Give her something to think about.”

It took four tough guys to drag Warren out of the building and hold him while Rory and Clay brought cans of paint from the tool room. With wild yells and whoops, they threw him on the grass and doused him with the paint, throwing in some brutal kicks while they were at it. Alex made sure everyone remained in front of the Rec Center and watched, especially Elisha.

“Unity,” he said. “That means we find the traitors, and we deal with 'em. And . . .” He wrinkled his brow as if trying to remember something. “Who was that guy she was talking about? Anybody ever heard of Jerry?”

All the kids looked blankly at each other, asking each other. No one had a clue.

“Right. Feels true to me.” He handed Elisha a push broom and told her loud enough for all to hear, “Keep the floors clean, and the toilets, too, and maybe we'll give you a break.” Then he told her quietly and up close, “And I'm doing you a real favor. Better remember that.”

Elijah was outdoors, or at least, he thought he was. There was a sky above him—sometimes. There was soft earth below him—sometimes. The temperature was strangely warm, the smells all wrong, the sounds—it was so noisy out here! He heard wind in the treetops, but didn't feel it. He was in the middle of a forest, but couldn't touch it. When he walked forward, he went backward. He couldn't close his eyes for very long because the dark hurt them.

He didn't know how he'd gotten here, whether through a door, or a curtain, or around a corner, or perhaps by waking from a dream only to enter another one. Looking in all directions, he saw only the forest, but no doorways, no portals of any kind. Left and right, north and south, rotated around him, first one direction, then the other. Shadows shifted as if the sun were rambling aimlessly around the sky.

The earth had been level enough to stand on, but suddenly, with only his feet to tell him, the level ground became a hill. He lost his balance and fell against a tree, but the tree didn't stop his fall. He rolled on the ground as if down a hill, until the ground or gravity or his tumbling senses changed again and he rolled back
up
the hill, unable to stop himself.

The wind was rushing high above. Rushing. Rushing. Rushing.

Bruised, dizzy, nauseated, he went limp, trying not to move, not to add any effort or energy to this tumbling universe around him. His body kept moving anyway, rolling, then crawling, then walking, forced to find earth beneath it or a handhold above, or even the next breath of air.

The wind kept rushing, rushing, rushing.

He clamped his eyes shut. The glare of the darkness hurt them, but he held them shut and tried to think, tried to find any sensible thought, real sensation, or unjumbled memory. Every nerve, every sense told him the earth had become a raging sea around him. He tried to shut it all out, tried to dig for a word, a thought, a memory.

The Lord is my Shepherd,
he thought, amazed that the words were still intact somewhere in his spinning, crazed head.
I shall
not want.

He tried to speak the words out loud, but the wind carried them away before he could hear them.

The wind rushing, rushing, rushing.

He was falling again. He opened his eyes and saw tree branches whipping toward him. They slapped him, scratched him, lashed him. He tumbled, spun, crashing through them. He grabbed a limb; it tore loose from his hand. His body smacked into another, slowing his fall enough to grab on. His feet flew past him, and he was dangling in space—the sky below him, the ground above—feeling a new terror: There is no stopping when you fall into the sky.

He was falling again.

The Rec Center was in full swing, the lights flashing, the music pounding, the games gobbling KMs.

Elisha kept the broom moving, constantly dodging the running, ambling, dancing, kicking feet, gathering up candy wrappers and pop cans that fell out of the dark like snowflakes. A few cans were tossed directly at her; some of the feet purposely kicked cans away from her broom so she had to go after them. Sprayed pop and spittle were soaking through her shirt. She kept moving, kept working, kept ducking danger—