Of Breakable Things (16 page)

“I’m sure they’ll talk about appropriate behavior at the haunted house,” Kaleb replied. “You know, that we shouldn’t really be acting like ghosts.”

Alex analyzed the best angle to chip away at her pumpkin’s dangly tooth. In a way, it kind of resembled Jack Bond. “Isn’t the point of a haunted house to scare people?”

“In theory,” Kaleb said. “But the real purpose of the Mansion of Morgues is kind of reverse psychology. If the haunting is considered a joke in this town, our presence is safe.”

“A joke?”

“I guess the more suitable word is
scapegoat
. Some towns are infamous for supernatural activity, usually because there’s some lingerer hanging out and scaring people. Like our very own Parrish. Moribund has never been one of those towns. And ironically, the largest population of spirits in the United States is only a few miles away. The area is only known for superficial Halloween haunting. Pretty good diversion, if you ask me.”

“Ghosts pretending to be people pretending to be ghosts.” Gabe pushed aside his pumpkin and opened a book. “I wonder if we’ll get Chase back before then. They’ve kept him for a long time.”

Alex remained quiet on the subject. She’d been speaking with Chase regularly in her dreams, and he was still less than optimistic that his release would be soon. When she felt his presence in her mind, a distance remained. The previous night, for instance, her dreams had placed her in a rowboat, stretched out on her back, staring up at the clouds. When Chase entered the dream, his voice couldn’t have been more than a few feet away. She imagined he was in a similar boat, arms crossed behind his head, smiling at a sky as blue as his eyes. She asked him then, as she always did, when she would get to see him. He said
when they were done using him
, and she’d been too afraid to ask what he meant by that.

Kaleb picked out a sharper knife. “Romey told me this morning that he’s been cooperative. But that’s all. I think she’s missed him more than we have.”

“Weird,” Gabe said, “He’s been nothing but a pain since he got here.”

“What would a mother hen do without anyone to mother?”

The air around Jonas began to crackle softly. “Are you okay?” Alex whispered, but Jonas didn’t look at her.

“So, have they fixed the numbering on the classrooms yet?” he asked the group.

Kaleb groaned. “You know, that’s what they get for making every single door in every single hallway of the learning center look exactly the same. I’ve gotten so used to walking into the classroom for sociology that I should just take the aptitude assessment and get the credit for it.”

Gabe grinned. “I’ll do your homework for a week if you pass it.”

Kaleb twirled his knife through his fingers, considering the trade.

“At least the numbering prank was funny,” Gabe said. “The fountain and the lure birds? Not so much.”

“Don’t forget the furniture on the roof,” Kaleb added. “That one was pretty good. Oh, and the Bonds tied up in the broom closet.”

“I guarantee the broom closet was no prank. That was just a typical afternoon for the Bonds.” Gabe looked at his brothers meaningfully. “By the way, I heard another newbury blaming
us
the other day at the ball fields.”

Kaleb shook his head. “Whatever. They can’t prove anything.”

Alex picked the pumpkin guts from her fingers. “Blaming you for the pranks? Why?”

“Because for one, the pranks started right after we arrived here,” Kaleb answered. “For two, Chase was running around campus acting a fool and being as inconspicuous as the Hamburglar. For three, we haven’t been the targets of any of the pranks. That just looks incriminating.” He lowered his voice. “I heard why everyone was freaking out about the fountain on the day Alex arrived. It was contaminated with copper. If it had filtered into the air while we were all sleeping, everyone would have woken up completely stoned.”

“Doesn’t sound so bad.” Jonas stabbed his knife into the pumpkin repeatedly. He twisted and turned the blade until finally, grinning, he spun around the pumpkin to show Alex the carving of his name.

“That’s like sniffing household products, moron. It could have killed our minds, depending on how much was used.”

That quieted Jonas.

“Where would someone get copper? The only person in the school who might have a stash of it would be Professor Duvall.”

“Somehow I doubt her guilt,” Gabe said. “Although, Jack, Calla, and Reuben do live in Brigitta.”

Professor Duvall continued to openly ridicule the trio for any shortcomings they exhibited in class. She had a difficult time with Jack, however. He never missed an answer and never let her treatment faze him.

Kaleb held the tip of his knife to his mouth in thought. “What about the Darwins? Do you think they might have had access to the minerals? They spend an awful lot of time with Duvall.”

Alex peeked over her pumpkin. Skye Gossamer was sitting with the Darwins, attracting stares from the adjoining table of boys. She was like a rose among their sharp, thorny exteriors. Tess’s arms were crossed in defiance; apparently she shared Jonas’s views on involuntary labor. Linton Darwin, on the other hand, had crawled off the bench to kneel on the table in order to carve his jack-o-lantern at the right angle. Xavier Darwin, the oldest, pretended to stab himself in the stomach with his knife until he noticed Alex and the Lasalles staring in his direction, and then he sent his pumpkin flying across the room to land with a sickening splat against the wall behind Alex’s head.

Gabe flicked a seed from his shoulder. “Maybe Duvall knows something we don’t.”

The groan of heavy doors interrupted the happy chatter in the Hall. The Bonds entered the room, shuffling quickly down the aisles, Calla with her chin down and Jack with his held high.

“Speak of the devils,” Kaleb coughed.

The Bonds held their hands behind their backs like inmates entering a prison. Linton began flicking seeds in their direction. Xavier looked sour. He was probably upset he’d already wasted his pumpkin on the Lasalles.

“They should have just walked through the doors without opening them. That would have drawn less attention.”

Everyone in the hall, even the chokers, seemed to be sliding down the benches, suddenly needing more space than before. Alex could swear she even saw the arched lamps leaning closer to the tables, shrinking away from the duo. She made a point to wave them over, despite Jonas’s objections through gritted teeth.

The Bonds took a seat next to Alex, and Kaleb shook his head in astonishment. For a moment, she worried he would jump on the ridicule bandwagon, but Kaleb seldom allowed others to steer his course. He set down his knife and rested his elbows on the table. “How did you two get away with showing up an hour late for Grandiuse?”

“It wasn’t by choice,” Calla replied in a soft tone of embarrassment. She moved over to make room for Reuben, who had barreled over to the table, leaving behind a trail of pumpkin innards and desperation.

“I wonder which closet they were locked inside this time,” Jonas said quietly to Alex.

Jack, ignoring his usual withering effect on the world, rubbed his freckled hands together. “I love carving pumpkins!”

Kaleb handed him a knife. “Here. You sure do know how to catch a crowd’s attention.” His tone was almost admiring. “Where were you guys?”

Alex cringed, hesitant to hear their response.

“We had to clean up a bit of graffiti.”

Jonas bent forward to see them better. “
You
vandalized something?”

Jack didn’t look up at them. “No. We just volunteered to clean it up.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Because the words were mean,” Calla replied. “And they were about us.”

Alex felt the pang of pity. Written words were so much harsher than spoken. Ink had the power to marker one's esteem. In the ninth grade, someone had tagged her locker with the word
slut
. Just because she was friends with the boys. She could still picture the thick, red lettering, and how the tail of the
S
swiveled across the adjoining lockers. She’d never seen Chase so angry. He was there to save her then, but who did the Bonds have to save them? “We would have helped you wash it off.”

Jack shrugged carelessly. “Probably another prank.”

“We were just talking about the pranks. But what’s the big deal? Why is the city so concerned about a bunch of jokes?”

“Rules here aren’t broken,” Jack explained.

“Hence Chase’s removal,” Gabe said to Alex. “If rules are broken inside the city, rules can be broken outside the city. And that’s dangerous. It really isn’t tolerated at all. This world is successful due to order. They say carve pumpkins, we ask how many. They say yell boo, and we ask how loud.”

“The pranks are being viewed as a form of protest,” Jack added. “That’s why they are being taken so seriously. They want to know who might be objecting to how things are run around here.”

An irritable voice interrupted their conversation. “Silence, please!” Professor Van Hanlin stepped forward and lifted his hands. A gust of arctic air blew through the room. “Time is up!”

Jack stuck out his lower lip in disappointment.

“I’ve got this,” Madame Paleo said, practically shoving Van Hanlin off the stage. When she smiled, her nose took up her entire face. “Movers! Please remove the pumpkins from the tables. You’ll find space for them up front.”

Jack and Calla stood up with a half dozen other newburies, and the Hall became silent except for the whishing of jack-o-lanterns racing to the front of the Grandiuse. They hovered outside a door adjacent to the stage where Madame Paleo stood, directing their paths like an air traffic controller.

Alex couldn’t contain her astonishment. “How do they do that?”

Jonas smirked. “Says the girl who demolished cement. It isn’t magic, just brainpower. You transferred energy, probably from fear, but who cares? Telekinetics is just pushing your own energy into some other object.”

Gabe picked up his pencil and dropped it, frowning. “Yeah, I’m definitely not talented enough yet to
move
anything. I can close my eyes and see it in my head, but I don’t think I believe it enough to make it happen.”

“Those of you standing,” Paleo continued, “please head outside to practice telekinetics. If a guest at the haunted house doesn’t seem terrified enough, I’ve found that objects flying across the room seemingly of their own accord will usually do the trick.”

“Sweet.” Jonas sat up straighter. “They’re giving us the haunted house assignments.”

Gabe held out his pencil again, staring at it intently. When he let go, it fell to the table. “Jack, I didn’t realize you knew telekinetics.”

Jack nodded, took Calla’s hand, and walked off with a faint glint of smugness in his eyes, while the Darwins booed loudly from the legacy table. Alex glared at them and caught Linton flicking more pumpkin seeds, which bounced off of Jack’s head like misguided raindrops. Her adrenaline tweaked in anger and began to cartwheel in violent circles within her mind. She squeezed her eyes shut to escape her dizziness, but it only made it worse. She shook her head and pictured herself pulling away from the friction, and thankfully it released.

The room filled with gasps, and Alex opened her eyes to find Linton’s bench flipped over and his feet up above his head. Every spirit with the misfortune of sitting near him had also tumbled backwards. Alex’s head pounded.

Had she done that? She could barely hear Jonas over the sound of gongs crashing in her head.

“I wonder why they didn’t pick you to go with the movers.”

“Huh?” she asked, massaging her temples distractedly.

Jonas pointed to the front of the room where Jack was exiting.

“How come Jack and Calla aren’t a part of that little clique, then?”

Jonas snickered. “Have you met the Bonds? Jack isn’t exactly the class president.” He paused, watching Alex. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” The pressure in her head became a dull ache. She glanced at Linton guiltily.

Van Hanlin narrowed his eyes and the lights brightened around him. “Enough foolishness. Please listen carefully for your name and direct yourself to the appropriate mentor.”

Madame Paleo stepped in front of him again. She had a pencil behind one ear and a director’s clapboard in her hand. She beamed importantly. “For those students on my list, please remain here in the Hall and migrate to the back of the room. We will be using the stage to reenact murder scenes from history, which will be performed throughout various rooms in the house while the guests venture through.”

Kaleb was the only familiar name to be called.

Alex waited while the professors announced several more groups. Gabe left with the newburies who would train to be “stalkers.” It was difficult to imagine sweet Gabe pursuing guests and pretending to be an axe murderer. By the time Van Hanlin took the stage again, only a handful of students remained, Alex and Jonas included. He led them outside, where he sliced the air with this arm, dividing the group in half. He was quiet for a moment, assessing his students. His eyes came to a rest on Alex and lingered there.

“Each year we have to shake things up a bit,” he began. “Perhaps the scariest aspect of the house this season is actually
outside
of the mansion, because the guests are going to think they’re lost. They will be chased through the woods, where we will be guiding them through a predetermined course.”

Skye raised her hand. “What will we be hunting them with?”

“Weapons.”

“That’s nothing new, is it?”

“The chase? No. The difference this year is that invisible spirits will track them as well, filling their heads with whispers. You will use voice boxes,” said Van Hanlin, holding up a small device. “They operate with the use of Voix stones. I want the whispers to come from all around them: left, right, above, below. That should scare them all the more. If a guest strays, use the voice box to get them back on track.”

“How do we know they’ll listen to us?” Jonas asked.

Alex pictured herself floating after some kid running in the wrong direction with his arms flailing above his head. That would be just her luck.