The Academy (31 page)

“It seems to me that that’s the case you have to make,” Frank continued. “You need to start compiling statistics, then go to the district and state boards and show them the deleterious effects this charter has had on Tyler High.”

“But these . . . ghosts and things.” Joel seemed embarrassed even mentioning it. “How are they connected with the charter?”

“I don’t know,” Frank admitted. “Maybe they’re not. But it appears that nearly all of you can trace your problems with the school and your unhappiness over what’s happening there to the beginning of this semester. And the only difference between this semester and last is that now you’re a charter school.”

Frank handed Linda the pages he’d printed out, and she passed them around the room. “Look these over when you get a chance. There’s some other information there as well. I’m sure you can find additional data on your own. But from what Linda tells me, the good thing about your situation is that your school is not completely independent. There’s still an affiliation with the district. Which means that no matter how dictatorial your principal gets, there’s still the possibility of going around her or over her head.”

They didn’t get much accomplished at the meeting, but they came away feeling energized and inspired, and on the way home, Linda, for the first time in several weeks, actually felt slightly positive about the future. “I love you,” she told Frank.

He smiled at her. “I love you, too.”

*

It was a series of unusual coincidences that led to Suzanne staying late on Friday, and when she finally closed the door to her room, walked outside and saw how dark it was, she found herself wondering if those “coincidences” had been specifically arranged for just that reason. She’d been thinking a lot about such things lately, and looking at the school through that lens had brought her to a whole new level of awareness.

Suzanne glanced at her watch. Seven fifteen. She was already late. For all she knew, the meeting would be over by the time she drove over to Anaheim Hills, but she was determined to make it to Ray’s house if she could. She’d call from her car and find out. She would have called already, but the phone in her room was dead, and as everyone knew, cell phones didn’t work on Tyler’s campus.

That was another thing that was very suspicious.

The school seemed empty. And creepy. Rather than pockets of shadows, there were pockets of light. She had no idea if the administration was trying to save money or energy, but the place was darker than it used to be, and the change not only had lent the grounds a sinister ambience but seemed to have reshaped the terrain. The trees looked strange, walkways were in the wrong place and buildings seemed forbidding and far too tall. She knew it was an optical illusion, but she almost had the sense that this was not Tyler High, that she’d somehow been transported somewhere else.

It was cold, and Suzanne wished she’d worn a jacket. Shivering, hugging her purse to her chest, she started up the walkway that led through the quad, trying to recall if the rather threatening-looking tree to her right had been there this morning.

A figure emerged from the shadows.

She gasped involuntarily, jumped back.

“Don’t worry, Ms. Johnson. I’m here to help.” The figure walked into a pool of light. It was one of the scouts, a boy in her third-period class named Hamilton Price.

“I’ll walk you to your car,” he said. His voice was flat, unemotional, and seemed more order than offer.

She did not like the idea of Tyler Scouts, nor did she like most of the students who had been recruited to become scouts, and Hamilton’s company was the last thing she wanted right now. But she was afraid to say so, and she found herself nodding in acquiescence as the boy stared blankly at her. “Okay,” she said. “I’m in the faculty lot.”

They walked for a moment in silence. Their footsteps seemed loud in the stillness, but from one of the buildings—

the library?

—she heard other noises as well, low, barely audible sounds that made her think of small animals being tortured. “You’re here late,” she said to Hamilton, trying to engage him in conversation so she couldn’t hear those faint indistinct squeaking sounds coming from the building.

“I was waiting for you,” he said flatly.

She didn’t like that response. As ambiguous as it was, none of its possible interpretations were good.

Suzanne quickened her step. “I’m late for a meeting,” she explained, though there was no reason she should have to explain herself to him. “I was supposed to be there already. They’re probably wondering what happened to me.”

She sounded desperate now, scared, and she willed her mouth to shut up before she made even a bigger fool of herself.

Hamilton said nothing, keeping pace with her.

They’d been passing through the center of campus, and now she led the way through the closed corridor that bisected the math/science building and led to the lunch area. The corridor was supposed to be lit, but only one fluorescent bar on her upper left was on, and it was covered with moths and bugs whose fluttering wings sent manic flickers up the walls. Before them, on the other side, was a world of almost total blackness. Only a strangely moving light inside the cafeteria and the orangish overhead illumination from street-lamps in the parking lot far away offered any relief from the omnipresent gloom.

Suzanne wanted to turn back. It was an intuitive reaction, like that of an animal whose instinct warns it of danger, and if Hamilton hadn’t been with her, she would have hightailed it back to her classroom and spent the night there, sleeping at her desk with all the lights on. But she knew the scout would follow her wherever she went, and she was just as afraid of him as she was of the darkness ahead. The best thing to do was to hurry out to the parking lot, get in her car and drive away from here as quickly as possible.

But what if Hamilton tried to get in the car with her? Or what if he tried to follow her home? At this point, neither possibility seemed that much of an imaginative stretch.

She’d kick him; she’d hit him; she’d rake her car keys across his face. She’d do whatever it took to get away from him. Suzanne was aware of what a bizarre train of thought this was—planning an attack on the student who was escorting her to her car—but desperate times called for desperate measures, and she had no doubts, no qualms, no reservations. Hers weren’t the thoughts of an unstable, unfit teacher but the completely logical stratagems of an ordinary woman in an extraordinary circumstance.

They were through the corridor. As with the quad, this part of the school grounds looked unfamiliar to her, strange. She squinted into the gloom. On the west side of the lunch area, where the outdoor basketball courts were supposed to be, she saw what appeared to be a swing set, a slide and monkey bars. Instead of black asphalt, the ground was white sand.

Hamilton saw where she was looking. His voice, when he spoke, was a dull monotone: “That’s where the dead kids play.”

Her heart nearly stopped. She wanted to see Hamilton’s face to determine whether he was joking, but she had the feeling that he wasn’t, and she was too scared to check. She kept walking, picking up the pace, knowing that if all went right, she would be at her car in two minutes, three tops.

Except she couldn’t see the lights of the parking lot anymore. There was no sign of any illumination in the murkiness before her. It was possible that a fog had rolled in, but although it was cold, it was not damp, and that seemed a slim possibility. She slowed her pace so as not to trip over unseen obstacles, and as her eyes adjusted, she thought she could make out shapes in the dark ahead.

She squinted.

In front of her was the playground.

Where the dead kids play.

That was impossible. She turned, this time toward the classrooms, or where she thought they should be, but there was the playground again: the swing set, slide and monkey bars.

And children were playing on them.

Suzanne started to run. She didn’t know in which direction she was going, didn’t know where the parking lot was, didn’t know where
anything
was. All she knew was that she had to get out of here, had to get away from the school. Now.

From somewhere in the night she heard the sound of laughter. It was children’s laughter, although it was anything but innocent, and it seemed to come from all directions.

Ahead of her was the playground again, and she turned to her left and ran as fast as she could—

But there was the playground again, and she turned in another direction and—

There was the playground again.

She stopped, frustrated and frightened, sobbing. Hamilton was still by her side. She was afraid to look at him, but she could feel his presence next to her, his shoulder pressing against her own. The playground seemed closer this time, and though the figures cavorting on its equipment were little more than shapes slightly lighter than the surrounding blackness, she could see that some of them looked more like teenagers than children. Some of them might have been high school students.

“Your car is gone,” Hamilton said in his robotic voice.

She heard him through her sobs, and though she tried not to believe him, she did.

“You’d better tell the principal,” he added.

“No!” Suzanne screamed. She pushed at the scout and ran as fast as she could in the opposite direction. He didn’t follow her, and there was no playground before her this time, but the darkness grew heavier, more dense and claustrophobic, and within seconds she was all alone in a world that was jet-black and featureless. “Help!” she cried, screaming at the top of her lungs.

“Help me!” Her voice died and went nowhere, as though the sound was absorbed by the gloom.

“Help!” she sobbed.

But the figure that emerged from the murk and took her hand was not there to help her.

And when she saw its face and felt the coldness of its touch, she could not even scream.

Eighteen

It had been a long time since Myla had hung out with Rachel Jackson-Smith. Since freshman year, probably. So it was a big surprise when her old friend came over near the end of lunch and asked if she could sit down with her. Brad had just left to drop some books off at the library before the bell rang, and Myla was reading over the minutes of the last student-council meeting to make sure all her objections had been typed up and were part of the record, when she heard a tentative “Hi.” She looked up to see Rachel standing there in her usual jeans and a T-shirt, holding the straps of a backpack in her hands. She’d gotten new glasses sometime in the past few years, but other than that, she looked almost exactly the same as she had in ninth grade.

Myla couldn’t remember the last time she’d actually talked to Rachel. What’s more, she didn’t know
why
she no longer talked to Rachel. The two of them had met during freshman orientation, and that first year at Tyler they’d been inseparable. But as sophomores, for some reason, they’d made other friends and gone their separate ways. Now Rachel was an editor on the school newspaper, the
Tyler Gazette,
and was getting quite a reputation for her fearless reporting, going up against the administration, the athletic department and a number of other sacred cows.

Even though she no longer hung out with her, Myla admired her.

“How’s it going?” Myla asked once Rachel sat down. “Haven’t seen you around for a while.” She winced inwardly, embarrassed by her own banality.

Rachel wasn’t much better. “I’ve been around.”

They were awkward with each other at first, pathetically trying to reconnect by bringing up the most generic subjects possible, but when the bell rang and Rachel made no move to leave, Myla had an idea that there was something on the other girl’s mind, some reason why she wanted to talk.

“Do you . . . need something?” Myla asked tentatively.

“Listen,” Rachel said. “Can you get off this period? I mean, you’re on student council. Can you write yourself a pass or something? Because if you can’t,” she added quickly, “I can. As an editor, I can write passes for my reporters, and I can do it for you, too.”

“Why?” Myla asked.

Rachel was silent for a moment. “It’s hard to explain,” she said finally. “I think I’d rather show it to you than tell you about it.”

“But what
is
it? And why me? I don’t understand. You want me to skip class to . . . see something?”

Rachel sighed. “Let me ask you something. Have you noticed anything
strange
about Tyler this semester, since we became a charter school?”