The Academy (14 page)

She glanced back at the van, parked next to Reba’s dad’s Explorer and close to a light-colored Prius. At least there’d be other people walking with her to the parking lot on the way back.

She quickened her step.

At the last minute, she opted not to walk through the quad but to take a longer route around the cafeteria and lunch area. Seconds later, when she glanced between the buildings and saw a small dark form rush past the front of the library, she was glad she had.

There was a noise from the quad that sounded like a box of tools falling to the ground from one of the second-floor windows.

She ran.

Turning the corner, the open door of the multipurpose room, with its warm light and visible crowd, was like a beacon, beckoning her. She stopped running and slowed her pace, not wanting to walk into the meeting out of breath. She was a little surprised at how spooked she’d gotten on the walk here and how absurdly relieved she felt to see other people again. Even other council members.

The meeting was not yet in session. Several of the students had still not arrived, and those who had were scattered about the oversized room. Cheryl, Cindy and Reba were standing by the flag, and Myla headed over to where they were talking.

“What do you think of Mr. Nicholson?” Cheryl asked as she walked up.

She wasn’t sure what they were discussing. “As a teacher?”

“No . . . as a man.”

“Eww!” Cindy and Reba squealed.

“Quiet down!” Cheryl whispered, looking anxiously about.

Myla felt cold. It had to be a coincidence, but she’d had a dream about Mr. Nicholson last night. A nightmare. The PE teacher had been naked and wielding a bullwhip, standing at the front of the gym snapping it at the girls of the school, all of whom were undressed and milling about like cattle. Flecks of blood were flying every which way, but none of the girls seemed to care, not even the ones hit, and only Myla was making any effort to escape as the whipcracks grew louder and faster and Mr. Nicholson started to laugh.

“Reba likes that new kid in band—,” Cheryl explained to Myla.

“Francesco,” Reba said.

“—so we were talking about dating and guys and stuff like that.”

Cindy giggled. “But Mr. Nicholson?”

“Shut up,” Cheryl said. “Conversation’s over.” She walked up to the front of the room, where Mr. Myers, the adviser, was sitting and where a long table had been set up with enough chairs for the entire student council. “The meeting is about to start!” she announced, and everyone took their places. Two council members had still not arrived, but either they weren’t going to show or they were so late that it was not right for the rest of them to wait any longer, and Cheryl picked up the gavel in front of her seat and used it to rap loudly on the table. “I call this meeting of the Associated Student Body council to order!”

Myla glanced at Roland Nevins, sitting on the left side of her. He had a Tyler patch sewn or ironed onto the sleeve of his shirt—an embroidered version of the school logo—and as Cheryl ran through the rules of order, Myla examined it more closely. She’d seen someone else wearing one of those patches yesterday, and she’d wondered then what it meant. “Excuse me,” she said, and though she’d spoken softly and hadn’t meant for anyone else to hear, everyone turned to look at her, and even Cheryl stopped talking. “Why are you wearing that patch?” she asked Roland.

“Principal Hawkes gave it to me,” he said proudly. “It means I’m a Tyler Scout. It is my job, and the job of all sworn scouts, to make sure that the rules are followed.”

“What rules?”

“The rules and regulations specified in the school charter. And if we see infractions, we report those to Principal Hawkes.”

“Oh. Like the Hitler Youth,” Myla joked.

Nobody laughed. Even her friends remained stone-faced, and looking around the room, she felt as if a cold finger were being run over her spine.

“Sometimes,” Roland said, and there seemed to be some sort of hidden import in the grave way he intoned the words, “we are empowered to take care of the problem ourselves.”

“Okay!” Cheryl said, changing the subject, the shift so jarring that Myla nearly jumped. “This is our first meeting, so let’s go over our individual jobs and obligations. Cindy? I expect you to be taking notes on this so you can type up the minutes of our meeting. Next time, you will also need to print out an agenda.”

They discussed their roles and responsibilities for several minutes, Cindy dutifully writing down what each of them said, and then Cheryl tabled the discussion and asked, “Any new business?”

They were all silent for a moment, looking at one another, each unsure of what exactly they were supposed to do.

“I’ve gotten a lot of questions about the cell phone situation,” Myla said finally. “Everyone’s asking me why phones won’t work on campus.”

“Students aren’t allowed to use cell phones on campus,” Cheryl said primly.

“I know that. Which is why I didn’t notice the problem myself. But then I did try to call out, and I couldn’t. . . .”

Even as she spoke, most of the other council members were taking out their phones and checking to see if
they
could call out. Myla did it herself, just to make sure it was still a problem and hadn’t been some freakish fluky thing. She quickly punched in her mom’s number. Sure enough, there was one clearly audible ring, then a much lower, barely perceptible ring, then a quiet click, then nothing.

“Huh,” Cheryl said, looking at her own phone, surprised.

“I know we’re not supposed to use phones on campus, but what if there’s an emergency? Or a national disaster? The phones need to work.”

“Maybe it’s, like, a science project or something that’s interfering with the signal,” Reba offered.

Everyone ignored her.

“I’ll ask Principal Hawkes tomorrow and will get an answer for you by our next council meeting,” Cheryl said.

Myla smiled. “Or you could just tell me when I see you.”

Cheryl banged her gavel. “Next item.”

“I’m not sure this is within our purview . . . ,” Roland began.

Purview?
Myla thought.
Awfully big word for Roland Nevins.

“But I think—I mean,
we
think, me and the other scouts—that there need to be a few more restrictions set in place for ASB-sponsored activities. We need these events to be successful, so we need to make sure that they’re not disrupted or sabotaged by . . . well,
you
know the kinds of kids I’m talking about.”

There were nods all around, though Myla was frowning.
She
didn’t know.

“We could tie it to parent volunteer hours,” Cindy suggested. “Kids whose parents volunteer a certain number of hours by the time of the dance or the Harvest Festival or whatever it is can go; otherwise they can’t.”

“I’m thinking an increase in ASB fees,” Cheryl mused. “I think forcing students to purchase an ASB card to attend events, and charging, say, a hundred dollars in ASB fees in order to get the card, should pretty well weed out the riffraff.”

“No,” Myla said firmly. “Discriminating against poor kids is not a good way to . . . to . . .” She shook her head. “I don’t even know what you’re trying to do. It sounds like you want to keep certain students away from things that should be open to everyone.” She looked to the adviser for support, but Mr. Myers was staring blankly at the far wall, seemingly oblivious.

“I think what Roland is suggesting,” Cheryl said, speaking slowly and enunciating clearly, as though talking to someone with comprehension problems, “is that the dances we put on, the Harvest Festival, the play, whatever, would be more successful, and more fun for those participating, if we restricted attendance to students who really
wanted
to be there.”

“The people who want to be there
are
there,” Myla argued. “The ones who don’t aren’t.”

“That’s not a foolproof plan,” Roland said.

Cheryl agreed. “We need additional safeguards.”

The discussion devolved from there into proposals for instituting exclusionary policies on a whole host of subjects. Myla stayed out of it, but none of it seemed ethical or even legal to her. For one thing, she didn’t think the student council was supposed to be making rules or passing resolutions that applied to the whole school like actual laws. And for another, although she still wasn’t sure exactly whom these rules were aimed at, they definitely seemed discriminatory. She kept stealing glances at Mr. Myers, but the adviser appeared to be paying no attention whatsoever to what was going on.

It was nearly ten o’clock when the meeting was finally adjourned, and Myla walked back to the parking lot with Reba. They both waved good-bye to Cheryl, who headed in the opposite direction toward Grayson Street.

“Mr.
Nicholson
?” Reba said after they were out of earshot. “That was kind of creepy.”

Myla nodded. She’d been thinking the same thing. “It was,” she admitted.

“That guy weirds me out, to be honest with you. And Cheryl thinks he’s sexy or something?”

Myla glanced to her left, past the lunch area to the gym and the locker rooms. On the adjoining lawn, light shone from an open doorway or window, creating an elongated rectangle on the grass.

Mr. Nicholson’s office?

A chill tickled the back of her neck.

It had to be a janitor, cleaning up after hours. She tried to remain focused on the parking lot ahead, but her eyes glanced once more toward that rectangle of light, and she imagined the PE teacher in there, naked, as he had been in her dream, beating a cowering group of female students as drops of their blood speckled his body with each crack of his whip.

She started walking faster.

Reba kept up. “I don’t like to be here at night,” she said. “Especially this year. It seems different. Have you noticed that?”

Myla quickened her pace. “Yes. I have.”

Something sighed in the bushes to their right.

By the time they reached the parking lot, both of them were running.

*

After dinner and a movie, they’d gone to a park to . . . park. Not the most original idea, and one that at least one other couple at the far end of the lot had also had, but Brad had been thinking about it all night—through the enchilada plate, through the Steve Carell flick—and it was the goal toward which he’d been working all evening. Last year, they’d made out a little, but something seemed to have happened over the summer. They were more comfortable with each other, less inhibited, and as soon as the ignition was off, Myla took the initiative and kissed him with the sort of hungry passion he’d always dreamed about but had never before experienced.

Now his hand was down her unzipped jeans, pressing against the outside of her obviously moist panties. Breathlessly, she pulled back, pushed his arm away and began to zip up.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. “What is it?”

“Nothing.”

He leaned in once again. She gave him a quick kiss, then pushed him firmly back. “That’s all,” she said.

He was understanding—frustrated but understanding—and he leaned back against the driver’s-side door and watched while she buttoned her blouse, although he couldn’t help letting out a self-pitying sigh, hoping she’d feel sorry for him and relent.

She did not.

Their make-out session had left both of them thirsty, so on the way back, Brad pulled into the drive-thruof a Taco Bell and ordered Myla a Sprite, himself a Pepsi.

Myla was text messaging in the seat next to him, and she closed her phone, looking up. “Could you swing by the school before you take me home?”

“Why?”

“Just for a second,” she said.

“We spend all week there. We were there yesterday, and we’ll be there Monday. We deserve to have the weekend off.”

“I want to see something.”

“What’s going on?” he asked suspiciously. “Something’s up. Who were you texting?”

“I need to see something, but I’m afraid to go by myself.” She flipped her eyelashes in a show of exaggerated girlishness. “Unless I’m with someone big and strong like you.”

He laughed. “You’ve got the wrong guy.”