The Academy (18 page)

The front door opened, and he nearly jumped out of his skin. It was his parents. His mom put down her purse while his dad closed and locked the front door. They both looked tired and demoralized.

“Where were you guys?” he demanded.

“Don’t ask,” his dad said.

“We were in an accident,” his mom responded. “Or at least we thought we were in an accident.”

Ed frowned, confused.

“It was by your school,” his dad explained. “We were late to begin with because some jackass had slashed both rear tires on the Buick. Had to get towed to Sears and get two new ones. Cost me a damn fortune. Last time I’m taking my business there. On the way back, there was some kind of construction on Madison, so I took a shortcut down Grayson. Right in front of your school”—he shook his head—“this kid ran out into the street.
Right
in front of the car. I swerved, but . . .”

“We hit him,” his mother said.

“Or we thought we did. I mean, we heard the bump,
felt
the bump, and I slammed on the brakes and jumped out, but . . . there was no one there. Nothing there. Not even an animal or a rock or a branch or . . . anything.”

“We saw that boy, though,” his mom emphasized. “He ran right in front of the car, a foot away from us, and we hit him.”

“We
didn’t
hit him,” his father said, annoyed. “He wasn’t there. There was no one there.” He looked bewildered. “There wasn’t even a dent on the fender.”

“But we felt it.”

His dad nodded. “We felt it.” He exhaled deeply. “Anyway, that’s why we’re late. I pulled over, walked up and down the block, even knocked on a few doors to see if any of the neighbors had seen anything. Nothing.” He grimaced, turned to his wife. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore. What’s our plan for dinner?”

As he watched his parents trudge tiredly toward the kitchen, Ed saw, out of the corner of his eye, the flashing red light of the answering machine, and he couldn’t help thinking that their holdup had been intentional, that everything had been a setup, that they had been delayed because someone had
wanted
him to hear that angry, threatening recording.

But why? What point did it serve? And why go to so much trouble for such a small pointless thing?

He didn’t know, but he believed it.

And it scared him.

*

“I’m not lying, dude! It’s the truth!” Ed kicked a dead leaf on the sidewalk in frustration. The leaf crumpled into tiny brown pieces.

Brad shrugged his shoulders, not sure of what to say.

“I believe you,” Myla said quietly.

Brad looked at her in surprise. Ed’s story was completely ridiculous. Maybe he did really believe it had happened, but that just meant that he’d been half-asleep or on medication or . . . something. Because what he’d described was impossible. A prerecorded message did not have angry prerecorded follow-ups. And there was no way the principal had sat there calling Ed and
pretending
to be a recording.

“I got that same message,” Myla said. “About Back-to-School Night.”

“Everyone did. But there was no recording of Principal Hawkes swearing at the people who hung up.” Brad looked at his friend. “Sorry.”

“I
heard
it. And it scared the shit out of me.”

“Look,” Brad said, “I’ll admit that there’s something weird going on at this school.”
Haunted
was the word he had in mind, although he was afraid to say it aloud. “But it’s the school, not the people. And not the principal. I mean, she’s . . . she’s . . .”

“She’s what?” Ed prompted. “She’s the person in charge of this freaky place. And her job title does not guarantee that she’s not a psycho. There are plenty of doctors, lawyers and fine upstanding members of the community who turned out to be thieves, murderers or worse!”

Brad smiled. “Or worse? What’s worse than a murderer, Ed?”

“You know what I’m talking about.”

Myla fixed Brad with a hard stare. “After what we saw, you’re telling me you’re still not open-minded enough to believe that what Ed said happened?”

Ed frowned. “What did you see?”

“You didn’t tell him?”

“I guess I forgot,” Brad said. But of course he hadn’t forgotten. He’d been avoiding that hallway ever since, even in the daytime, and he was wary of every locker now, including his own. But just thinking of talking about it, even to Ed, made him feel stupid, and the truth was that he’d been embarrassed to mention it.

Both Myla and Ed were staring at him.

“You’re right,” he said. “You caught me.” He turned to Ed, told him what had happened when he and Myla had stopped by the school after their date.

“Fuck howdy! And you wouldn’t believe that I got a threatening message from the principal?”

“Well, I just couldn’t see how it could work. I mean, I know the school has the cheapest-ass equipment possible, and it didn’t seem like it could redial the same number with a different message when it was programmed to send the same recording to everyone.” The explanation sounded lame even to himself.

“Yet ghosts could fly out of a locker and chase you off campus?”

“Yeah,” he said weakly.

“That makes a lot of sense.”

Brad smiled. “I should move to Missouri.”

Myla dropped her voice as a group of jocks walked by. “You heard about the art class, didn’t you?”

Ed grinned. “I sure did.” He nudged Brad with his elbow. “I wish I would’ve signed up for art this semester.”

“No one’s supposed to know this, but Sean Bergman tried to kill himself over the weekend. He’s in Fairview right now, under observation. That was his mom they drew.”

“How do you know this?” Brad asked.

“I got an e-mail yesterday. Everyone on student council did.” She looked at him significantly. “From the principal.”

“And that’s supposed to mean . . . ?”

“Think about it.”

“Why does the student council get told stuff like that?” Ed asked. “What are you guys supposed to do about it?”

“You’ve got me,” Myla admitted. “Ask Principal Hawkes.”

“I’d rather not.”

Brad was still confused. “So the principal’s responsible somehow?”

“Not exactly,” Myla said. “But she knows about this art class—she must have approved it—and even though Sean tried to commit suicide, she’s still not shutting it down. She doesn’t even care.”

Ed slapped a hand on his shoulder. “There’s your principal. That fine upstanding citizen.”

“Hands off, homo.” Brad moved away from him.

“Cheryl wants us to keep the Sean thing quiet,” Myla said. “I think she just feels privileged that Mrs. Hawkes is e-mailing us. She doesn’t want to rock the boat.
I
think we should let everyone know. Especially parents. If they put pressure on the school . . .”

“Tell the school paper,” Brad suggested. “I could talk to Brian—”

“Don’t tell anyone!” Ed said. “We’ve got naked moms here. We don’t want to put a stop to that!”

They both looked at him.

“Fine,” he said. “Fine. I’m the asshole. I’m the dick. Do whatever you want.”

Traffic was getting thick as students hurried past in both directions. Brad didn’t have a watch, but he could tell that it was almost time for the bell to ring.

“The whole fucking place is going crazy,” Ed said. He pointed to where a group of day laborers was digging up a section of lawn on the edge of campus. “And what’s with this wall they’re putting up? Did Hawkes e-mail you about that?”

“No,” Myla said. “We got a special presentation, complete with a computer rendering of what the school will look like after it’s done. Apparently, there’s been a lot of vandalism and graffiti this year, and the administration decided to put up the wall to keep troublemakers out of the school on nights and weekends. And to discourage truancy during school hours. It’ll be a lot harder to ditch if we’re all locked in here.”

“It’s going to be like a prison,” Brad said.

“That’s what we told her. Even Cheryl complained about it. But they got some architect to design it, and there’s going to be new landscaping, and it’s supposed to blend right in.”

“How tall’s it going to be?” Ed asked.

“Nine feet, I think.”

“Oh yeah. That’ll blend right in,” he said sarcastically.

“Break it up here!”

Brad jumped at the sound of the voice. Ed and Myla did, too, and there was a chorus of laughter as Todd Zivney and two of his tough friends moved in on them. “What are you talking about?” Zivney demanded.

“Your mom,” Ed said.

Zivney shoved him, nearly knocking him down. “We’re here on official business, asshole.” He pointed to the Tyler patch on his sleeve. “It’s against school rules for you to make fun of the school on school grounds.”

“Lot of ‘school’s in that sentence,” Ed noted.

One of Zivney’s friends moved forward, but Brad blocked his way. “What do you want?”

“It was reported to us that you were talking trash about Tyler.”

“Yeah. So? It’s a free country.”

Zivney grinned. “Not here, it isn’t.”

“I’m on the student council,” Myla announced. “I’m the vice president. I outrank you.”

“Oh yeah?” Zivney sneered. His friends laughed.

The bell rang.

“Yeah,” Myla said. “And, believe me, I’m going to report this harassment.” She used a finger to push against Zivney’s patch. Hard. He winced but tried not to show it. “If I have anything to say about it, you’re going to be kicked out of the scout program so fast your head will spin.”

“You
don’t
have anything to say about it,” Zivney told her, but he and his friends were already leaving, heading to class. He pointed at Ed as he backed up. “This isn’t over.”

“Funny. That’s just what your mom said.” He ducked behind Brad, but the three scouts had turned away and were halfway down the hall.

Brad punched his friend’s shoulder. “What are you trying to do? Get me killed?”

“At least we know one thing,” Myla told them.

“We’d better start being careful about what we say in public.”

There was no time to talk further. The hallway was nearly empty, the second bell was about to ring and, saying quick good-byes, the three of them hurried off to their respective classes.

Spanish was boring, as usual, although the next class, math, was anything but. Brad and Ed arrived at almost the same time and saw Mr. Connor carefully writing the word “DEATH” on the blackboard in big block letters. As the class filled up and the bell rang, the teacher continued to write, augmenting his white chalk letters with red chalk horror-show blood that dripped from the cross-stroke of the T.

Finally, Mr. Connor turned to face them. His cheeks were red, his forehead was sweaty and the front of his light blue shirt was stained with a spreading Rorschach of perspiration. He smiled humorlessly and looked at each of them with bulging too-wide eyes. Using the piece of red chalk still in his hand, he pointed to the word on the board. “
Death,
” he said. “If it were up to me, that would be the punishment for every student who does not get a hundred percent on my tests.” He glanced wildly around the room.
“That means all of you!”
he screamed.

As unobtrusively as possible, Brad looked sideways. Ed, already doing the same, widened his eyes slightly to acknowledge the craziness of what was happening.

Mr. Connor leaned forward. “If I had my druthers, each and every one of you would be slit open, crotch to gullet, and left to stare at your innards as you died.” He straightened, put down the piece of chalk, ran a hand through his hair to straighten it. “But, fortunately for you, our school charter forbids it.”

The law, too,
Brad wanted to say, but he was afraid to move a muscle, let alone speak up. He stared straight ahead.

“I don’t think you realize how lucky you are to be attending a charter school. Our charter not only protects you. It grants you rights and privileges far beyond those afforded students in other schools. If this were an English class, I would have you write essays on what the charter means to you and have you tell me how grateful you are. But,” he said, and once again there was a hint of wildness in his eyes, “this is an algebra class. Algebra Two. And the charter mandates that you learn a specific curriculum this semester.” He started to pace in front of the blackboard. “The problem is that you have so far demonstrated neither the aptitude nor the ambition to master that curriculum. You are a spectacularly mediocre class.”