The Academy (12 page)

The secretary was staring at him—
suspiciously?
—and he quickly thanked her and walked around the front desk, through the open area behind it and toward room B. Short as it was, he still didn’t like the hallway. He didn’t like the entire office. The counselor, though, seemed fairly normal, and when he knocked on the frame of her open door, she smiled and bade him come in.

“Hello,” she said, extending her hand in greeting. “I’m Ms. Tremayne.”

He wasn’t used to shaking a woman’s hand, but he did so, acutely aware of how slender her fingers seemed, how soft was her skin. He sat down on the chair at the side of her desk.

“How can I help you?”

“I want to transfer out of my seventh-period class.”

“What’s your name?” Ed told her and she typed it into the computer on her desk. “You wish to get out of Woodshop Two?”

“Yes,” he said gratefully.

“May I ask the reason?”

Ed hesitated. “I’d rather not say.”

“I need a reason.”

“There are some bullies in the class. They don’t like me. They’ve hated me since junior high.”

“The instructor should be able to—”

“One of them picked a fight with the teacher today. He’s probably in the nurse’s office right now.” Ed leaned forward. “Look. Mr. Ruiz said it’s fine if I transfer out. He understands and he’s all for it. If you could just help me find another class . . .”

The counselor looked at him for a moment, then nodded. “Okay,” she agreed, and he could tell from her tone of voice that she felt sorry for him. She pressed a key on her computer. “Do you have any preferences? Woodshop’s an elective, so I assume there’s nothing you
have
to take. Is there anything that you
want
to take, anything specific that you’d like to study?”

“What’s available?” he asked.

“Seventh period? Not much.” She swiveled the screen in his direction and he looked over the list of classes. “Not much” was right.

“How about library TA?”

Ms. Tremayne frowned. “You have a solid college-prep schedule. Do you really want to dilute it with a TA position?”

“I’m
not
signing up for Healthy Cooking.”

“You don’t have to have a seventh period,” she pointed out.

“I want the credits. Besides, library should be an easy A. It’ll boost my grade point average.”

“Okay,” the counselor said. “But you’ll need a parent’s permission.”

“Call my mom’s cell.” He gave her the number.

Five minutes later, he was on his way back to woodshop with a transfer form for Mr. Ruiz to sign. He brought it back to the counselor, who gave him another form to bring to Mrs. Fratelli in the library. “Have her return this to me,” she said. “And good luck.”

Ed smiled. “Thank you.”

He walked out of the office into the short dark hall. Across from him was the closed door of the principal’s office. For some reason, he didn’t even want to
look
at that door.

“Ed?” Ms. Tremayne said.

He turned around, faced the counselor.

“You have any problems, you come to me,” she said. “That’s what I’m here for.”

He nodded, smiling. “I will,” he told her. “And thanks again.”

He walked over to the library.

Ed had hung out in the library a lot in junior high, trying to avoid getting beaten up, but since coming to high school, he’d fallen out of the habit. Part of it was the librarian, a cold angry bitch who could have played Miss Gulch in a remake of
The Wizard of Oz
. But part of it was the library itself. Unlike the friendly, single-roomed structure back in junior high, Tyler’s two-story monstrosity was an intimidating building inside and out, a blocky architectural eyesore that stuck out amid the school’s surrounding Spanish-style buildings like a rock among flowers. The interior was dark, with brown brick walls, brown carpeting, tinted gray windows and recessed lighting that was too dim to offer anything more than the most basic illumination. A narrow staircase in the precise center of the library connected the upper and lower floors, which were crammed with high bookcases set too close together. On the upper level, study carrels lined the walls, and on the first floor, several round tables occupied the open area in front of the checkout desk.

Ed stood in front of the closed double doors. So
why
exactly had he decided to work here as a TA? Ms. Tremayne was right. He didn’t need a seventh period. And he could have signed up for photography, which actually wouldn’t have been half-bad.

He stared up at the darkly tinted windows of the library and realized that he didn’t know why he was here. That worried him. Something about the office seemed to have affected his decision making, influenced him, and while he hadn’t felt it at the time and still couldn’t recall it, the results spoke for themselves. He would never have signed up to work at the library if he’d been thinking clearly.

You have any problems, you come to me. That’s what I’m here for.

He could go back to the counselor again, transfer to yet another class. But after a moment’s thought, he decided against that. He wasn’t a brave guy, but he was a curious guy, and he wanted to see how this would pan out. Besides, his thoughts were starting to go off in wacky directions here. Sure, the office had seemed a little strange, but to think he was being
affected
or
influenced,
as though he were in some horror movie, was just crazy.

And if being a TA sucked, he could always transfer.

He pushed open the library door. Despite the dimness, the air felt warm instead of cool. Uncomfortably so. He’d forgotten about that, but it was yet another reason that he didn’t like coming in here.

The study tables were empty, and there was a girl he didn’t know—another TA—installed behind the checkout desk and staring at him. He didn’t see the librarian or anyone else around, so he walked up to the girl and held out his transfer form. “Is Mrs. Fratelli here?” he asked.

An uninflected emotionless voice came from somewhere in the murky area behind the counter. “Is that Mr. Haynes?”

The girl looked at him. “Are you Mr. Haynes?”

His counselor must have called to announce that he was coming. “Yeah. Ed Haynes. I’m going to be a TA.”

The girl showed not a flicker of interest.

“Send him back to my office,” the voice called.

Ed’s eyes had adjusted to the darkness, and he saw now that behind the counter was what looked like a large alcove containing three walls of metal shelves on which were piled various books. Two empty pushcarts stood next to the shelves on the right. In the wall without shelves was a door, and although the door was closed, it was clear that this was where the voice was coming from.

“Mrs. Fratelli is expecting you in her office,” the girl said, gesturing toward the door. She pulled up a section of the counter that revealed itself to be a gate.

Ed walked past her. “I know,” he said. “I heard her.”

The girl frowned at him, but it was a reaction he was used to, and he didn’t really care. Something about the bland officiousness of the TA annoyed him, and he could tell right now that the two of them were not going to be friends. He just hoped that there was another student working here this period, someone he could get along with who might make the hour more fun.

He knocked on the closed door.

“Come in,” Mrs. Fratelli said.

The librarian’s office was small and cramped and cluttered, but what his gaze focused on was a framed soft-focus photo on top of the paper-strewn desk. It was of Mrs. Fratelli. Her hair was teased out, she had on way too much makeup . . . and she was wearing nothing but a lacy red bra and thong.

“May I have your transfer form?”

He looked up from the photo into the hard, severe face of the librarian and
he
saw that
she
saw where he’d been looking. He was embarrassed but pretended not to be, handing her the form and waiting for her response.

“You wish to be my TA?” she asked suspiciously.

“Yes,” he lied.

Mrs. Fratelli glanced at the page, paused for a beat, then signed on the bottom line.

She gave him a cold mirthless smile. “Welcome to the library.”

Eight

Frank forgot to set the alarm, and they both awoke late, scrambling to get dressed and out of the house, although for Linda it didn’t really matter, since it was a staff development day and there’d be no kids on campus.

Or at least she
thought
it wouldn’t matter.

But, like everything else, in-service days had changed since they’d become a charter school, and the previous lackadaisical attitude toward attendance was no longer in evidence. Instead, Bobbi was installed at a table outside the doorway of the Little Theater, where she noted each staff member’s arrival time and issued name tags to all who entered. She clicked her pen, as Linda approached, looking down at the list before her. “Name?” she asked, as though the two of them had never met before.

“Jesus Christ . . .” Linda started to push past her.

“Hold on a sec.” Bobbi quickly sorted through the last few squares of clip-on plastic atop the table. “Here you go.”

“I’m not wearing a name tag,” Linda said.

Bobbi grew indignant. “You have to! It’s mandatory!”

“I’m not going to. It’s stupid.” She walked into the building, leaving the secretary—
administrative coordinator
—sputtering behind her.

Not everyone was here, but most of the staff was, and she grabbed a seat in the back row next to two of the PE teachers, trying to be as unobtrusive as possible. On the stage, Jody was standing in front of a podium, talking into a microphone. Linda frowned. The podium was new, and not only was it adorned with elaborate carvings, but portions of it were embossed with gold and silver. The principal’s voice, she noticed, was coming out of new state-of-the-art speakers.

Linda looked around the room, trying to find Diane. The two of them had put in a request for a mere twenty additional ninth-grade textbooks due to the large influx of freshmen this semester, but Jody had turned it down, citing a scarcity of funds. “We might be able to get those books for you later in the year,” she told them, “but the charter committee needs to go through our budget more carefully and determine our priorities. We have a fixed amount for the entire year; we can’t just go back to the district and ask for more.”

Apparently, though, there was enough money in that still-fluid budget to buy a fancy new podium and speaker system.

Priorities.

The principal was talking about the benefits of working for a charter school as opposed to a traditional public school, emphasizing the academic freedom that such an arrangement offered, and stressing that controlling a budget at the school rather than the district level would leave more money for pay raises and various incentives. Linda shook her head. What was all this for? Hadn’t they been through it already? Tyler
was
a charter school. Jody didn’t have to keep selling them on the idea.

Although maybe she did.

Looking at the expression on the principal’s face, Linda saw a desire—no, a
need
—to convince the rest of them that they were part of the greatest and most important movement in the history of education. She was trying to create converts. She didn’t want them to just work at the school; she wanted them to
love
it, and she wouldn’t be happy until every last one of them expressed their undying loyalty to Tyler High.

There was nothing scarier than a true believer.

Linda sat quietly, listening. Before the school got charter status, Jody’s statements in meetings had been blessedly brief, but now she was going on and on, and Linda wondered if they were in for some sort of Castroesque filibuster.

The principal continued talking, but gradually the tone of the speech changed, became less promotional and more confrontational. Removing the microphone from its stand, she stepped away from the podium and began pacing the stage. “By law,” she said, “in order to maintain our charter status, we must improve student achievement as measured by standardized tests. Granted, we will not be up for renewal for another five years, but we must establish a workable plan to reach this goal. As I see it, and as the committee has discussed, there are two ways for us to boost Tyler’s overall average. We can work hard to bring up the test scores of as many students as we can, particularly those at the lower end of the scale. Or”—she stopped pacing and smiled—“we can weed out the academically challenged and force them to transfer to another school, thus retaining only the most high-performing students.”