The Academy (36 page)

Chopping block.

Frank thought of all the other spouses of Tyler teachers who had lost their jobs or been transferred.

Or died.

He paused for a moment. He was not superstitious, but neither was he blind, and especially after that meeting at Ray Cheng’s house, he knew that there were things going on that could not be explained by logic or rationality, aspects of the charter school that defied all reason and edged into what would probably be called the supernatural.

And it was dangerous.

There was no doubt about that.

Was he immune?

Other spouses with far-less-militant wives or husbandshad been beset by tragedy recently, often under mysterious circumstances, yet he and Linda had remained pretty much unscathed. So while it was impossible to say for sure, it certainly seemed as though the two of them were exempt from the worst of it. And while he had no idea why that should be the case, he hoped that it was.

Linda arrived home some time later, tossing a white box down on the floor. “Do you know what that is? Do you want to hear the latest news? We have to wear uniforms, too. The staff. We’ve been told that we must conform to new standards of attire that have been voted on by the charter committee.” She reached down, opened the box, withdrew an orange blouse and a black skirt. “And we’ve been assigned these stylish little get-ups in, as you can see, the beautiful Tyler High School colors!” She threw the clothes down in disgust. “I should have transferrred when I had the chance.”

Frank shrugged. “Told you.”

Linda stood straighter. “No,” she said firmly. “Tyler needs me. And I shouldn’t let anyone chase me away. This is my school, these are my kids and it’s my duty as a teacher to fight for them.”

Frank clapped. “Rousing! Where’s the recruitment office? Where do I sign up?”

“Knock it off.”

“Actually, speaking of Tyler, I found something that might interest you. Before my computer froze up on me.”

“Your computer froze up?”

He waved her away. “Don’t worry. I’ll fix it.” He picked up the top page from the messy stack of papers in front of his printer. “Ta da! Jody Hawkes’ home address.”

Linda seemed confused. “I don’t see how that’s supposed to help. . . .”

“Look at it. At the address. Don’t you see where she lives?”

Linda blinked, looked up. “The school?”

“That’s her home. She lives there.”

“She’s using that as her mailing address,” Linda said. “She doesn’t want people to know where she really lives. Some psychotic, computer-hacking kid with a grudge against her could track her down if her real address was made public.”

Frank shook his head emphatically. “I checked it out. I’m not a complete novice at this, you know. And I do have a few contacts. Her old address was in Brea. A house that she sold three years ago.”

“Three years ago is when she started the process for the charter application.”

“Aha! Since then, Tyler High has been not only her mailing address but her official place of residence.”

“But I’ve seen her leave. After school. I’ve seen her drive away.”

“A screen. Or maybe she was going out to do some shopping. Or buy dinner. Or see friends.”

“She lives there,” Linda said, stunned.

Frank nodded.

“I need to call Diane and tell her.”

“I’m wondering if it’s even legal. That’s a school, not a house, and I don’t think it’s zoned for residential use. There’s probably someplace where we can file a complaint. A city agency, maybe even the school board.”

“I’ll be honest. The thought of Jody Hawkes living alone on campus, sleeping on some cot that she hides away during the day, is damn near the creepiest image I can think of.”

“But it’s information that we might be able to use.
Why
is she there? Is she homeless after a nasty divorce? Is she crazy? At the very least, this brings up troubling questions about her mental and emotional stability.”

Linda nodded slowly. “You’re right. It’s creepy, but it might be used against her.”

“Do you want me to find out if there’s some way we can get her out of there?” he asked. “See if we can force her to move?”

“That wouldn’t affect her position. She’d still have her job.
And
she’d be pissed off. Let’s just sit on this and wait, use it when we need it.”

Frank was glad. He would have been happy to help her, but he really needed to get back to his own work. If he couldn’t dislodge this virus soon, he was going to have to find another computer, use his backup disk and then try to re-create what he’d done this morning. He pointed to the uniform box and grinned. “Fashion show later?”

“Drop dead,” she told him.

Laughing, he returned to his computer.

*

“Line up!”

Like well-trained military recruits, the students moved quickly across the band room, stood next to one another in a row against the wall and remained unmoving, legs together, arms at their sides. This had become a recurring ritual, repeated throughout the day in several classes, and they were getting good at it.

Mr. Carr walked back and forth in front of the line, hands behind his back and holding his baton. Several students flinched as he passed by. Mr. Carr used that baton not just for conducting but for other things as well, and they knew it.

“Your blouse is untucked, Miss Kennedy.”

Regina Kennedy quickly tucked in her blouse.

“Zip up, Mr. Palua.”

Orlando Palua zipped his zipper.

The teacher stopped in front of Christy Pham. “Is that a regulation bra?”

The girl nervously nodded her head. “Yes, Mr. Carr.”

“Let me see.”

Christy unbuttoned her blouse and held it open, revealing an orange brassiere.

“A-cup?”

“Yes, Mr. Carr,” she said, embarrassed.

With a slight smile, he walked on. He stopped at the end of the line in front of Jim Dudley, who stared at him defiantly. Mr. Carr remained in place, maintaining eye contact for what seemed like an eternity. Jim refused to look away.

“All right, Mr. Dudley, pants down.”

“You can’t—,” Jim started to protest.

“Pants down! Now!”

“No.”

“Do you want detention?”

At this, Jim paled slightly. He looked down the line at his fellow students for help, but they were all staring straight ahead, afraid to even watch the scene. After a brief pause, Jim unbuckled his belt, unfastened and unzipped his pants and pulled them down to his knees.

“All the way,” Mr. Carr said. “Underwear, too.”

The boy did so, and the teacher motioned for him to turn around. Moving awkwardly, the bunched pants making it difficult for him to maneuver, Jim waddled in a circle until he was facing the wall. Mr. Carr crouched down, examining the orange briefs on which black letters spelled out JOHN TYLER HIGH SCHOOL. He stood angrily and grabbed the student’s shoulders, whirling him about. Jim nearly fell over but managed at the last second to maintain his balance. “Hey!” he objected.

“Your underwear is dirty,” the teacher spit out.

“Yeah. So?”

Mr. Carr leaned forward. His voice was low and menacing. “When you don’t wipe your ass properly, when your
shit
defaces the great name of Tyler High, you are showing disrespect to me, to the other teachers, to your fellow students, to everyone who is involved in trying to provide for you the highest-quality education in the country! Do you understand me?”

Jim snickered. “Yeah.”

“What are you laughing at?” Mr. Carr’s face was red with anger, the veins in his neck practically popping out. The knuckles of his right hand, gripping his baton, were white. “Do you even realize the seriousness of your offense?”

Jim Dudley was back to his usual cocky self, threat of detention or no. “Skid marks happen.”

Mr. Carr hit him with the baton, a hard blow across the side of his neck. Jim cried out and fell sideways, his feet still tangled in his pulled-down pants. The teacher hit him again. And again. And again. On the head, on the arm, on the leg. The baton was drawing blood, and Jim was screaming obscenities as he tried simultaneously to scramble to his feet, pull up his pants and ward off the blows. He managed to grab the baton from the band teacher, and Mr. Carr stepped back and allowed Jim to stagger to his feet—

—before kicking the boy in the stomach with all his might and sending him slamming into the wall behind him. There was a crack, as of a stick breaking, and suddenly Jim collapsed onto the floor. His eyes were wide open, the whites visible, and a trickle of blood leaked out of his slack mouth.

Mr. Carr picked up his baton, smoothed back his hair. He looked down the line at the unmoving students. “Too bad he tripped,” he said flatly. “Isn’t it.”

The kids glanced at one another.

“Isn’t it?” he roared.

They nodded, scared. “Yes!” “Yeah!” “Yes!” “It sure is!”

“Go to the office and tell them to call the police,” he told Christy Pham. “We have a dead kid here. The rest of you? Grab your instruments and start practicing.”

*

Diane no longer sent students to the office.

She didn’t want them to be given detention.

She’d been written up for that—punishment was encouraged in this new school order—but it was not a stance she was willing to modify. She no longer trusted the school administration, and if there was any discipline to be meted out to her kids, she would do it herself.

She’d learned that lesson the hard way.

There’d been more behavioral issues than usual over the past few weeks. She didn’t know if students thought they could get away with more these days, if she, specifically, was being targeted because she was perceived as weak and ineffectual or if there was just a general mood on campus that was ugly and belligerent, but in more than one class, she had students who consistently challenged her authority and acted up. Finally, she’d had enough, and after Nathan Whitman not only showed up fifteen minutes late for third period but threw his textbook against the wall when she informed the class that they were to read one of the stories in it, she wrote up a referral and sent him to the office.

He did not return for two days.

Diane would have thought he was suspended, but there was no mention of that on the roll sheet, and when she went into the office during her free period on Tuesday and spoke to his counselor, Ms. Tremayne, she learned that he had been given detention.

“Detention?” Diane said. “He’s been gone since Monday!”

The counselor looked uncomfortable. She closed the door to her office. “Detention is . . . different than it used to be,” she explained, and Diane could tell from her voice that she did not approve. “The charter committee has redefined the term.”

It certainly had. As it turned out, there was no more detention hall, that temporary and occasional requisitioning of one of the library’s meeting rooms where poorly behaved students were punished by being forced to either sit in silence or do extra work for a specified period of time. There was instead the Penalty Space, a previously unused classroom that had been converted into a series of eight holding cells for students with discipline problems. Each cell was windowless and contained no furniture. Students could be placed in there indefinitely.

“So it’s like solitary confinement?”

“Not exactly. There’s someone in there with them.”

“Someone.”

Ms. Tremayne nodded. “It’s a new position created by the principal and the committee: punishment facilitator.”

“What does that mean?”

The counselor nodded meaningfully at her closed door, presumably toward the principal’s office across the hall. “I’m not allowed to say.”

“Do the students’ parents know about this?” Diane asked.

The counselor cleared her throat nervously. “They are informed.”

Diane frowned. “What does that mean?”

“I’m not trying to be evasive. It’s just that the principal and the charter committee have made it clear that discipline and punishment are the exclusive province of the administration. Teachers are not supposed to be involved at all, beyond issuing the initial referral. In fact, it’s more than a rule—it’s in an addendum to the charter itself.” She dropped her voice. “I may be breaking several rules right now by even having this conversation with you.”