The Last Academy (2 page)

I
love watching out the window when a plane takes off. The buildings and cars get smaller and smaller while the earth stretches out bigger and bigger. It’s like looking in a fun-house mirror. My stomach stayed down there on the tarmac in that good, roller-coaster way. After a while, I fell asleep, imagining my intestines dangling down below the plane, like I was a giant jellyfish floating through the sky.

Some guy tapped me on the shoulder. The first thing I knew about him, before I even got my eyes open, was that his hand smelled clean. Like soap.

“Yeah?” I said. I could feel a cold spot on my forehead from sleeping against the window. Pretty sure I had a big, pink mark, too. The plane banked right, and the guts that I
hadn’t left down on the ground shifted around, still trying to figure out gravity.

Early morning sun came in through the windows on the other side of the plane. It was that supersparkly, yellow sunshine that makes you yawn and blink. I could hardly see the guy who’d tapped me. He was a dark shadow with a sun halo.

They are coming with breakfast. Would you like some?
His voice was low and soft and kind of got mixed up with the thrumming of the plane, so I wasn’t sure at first if I had imagined it. The plane corrected, and the sun slid across the cabin. Only then could I make out the middle-aged man in the aisle seat. The seat between us was vacant. On his tray was a plate of anonymous breakfast sandwich. Maybe it was scrambled eggs on a hoagie, but who knows. Also, he had a fruit cup. I was two feet away and it didn’t smell like anything but airplane.

I shook my head and tried to go back to sleep. I heard the breakfast cart stop next to him a moment later and the man murmured. On rolled the cart.

I couldn’t doze off again, though, so I gave up and opened my eyes. Middle-aged guy poked around in his
bowl of fruit, herding a rogue melon square with his plastic fork. He seemed very serious about this business. I got the feeling he had been waiting for me to stop pretending to be asleep.

“Where are you going?” he asked. The plane had a lay-over in Denver.

“California,” I told him. He nodded. “I’m going to high school out there,” I added, because “California” didn’t mean anything at all. I mean, not as an answer.

“You are traveling alone,” he said.

“I’m going to boarding school.” I was kind of irritated to have to explain myself. On the other hand, just saying,
Yeah, I’m alone
, didn’t exactly strike me as an A-plus answer.

The guy stared at me and I stared at him. I know sometimes people say, “skin that looks like leather,” and they mean somebody’s skin is wrinkled and thick and ugly like the hide of a dead cow. But the guy’s skin looked like an expensive briefcase — supple and soft and not what you see on most men in real life. Anywhere beyond the realms of Hollywood or the European yacht set, anyway.

I once watched a show about modern-day mummies. There was a girl mummy they found in South America who had skin like his — she’d been dead forty years but she
mostly looked like she was sleeping. They suspected the mummifier used arsenic to preserve her. That was why she turned gold and how her cheeks and eyelids were smooth. The guy on the airplane reminded me of Mummy Girl. Like he’d been into the arsenic suntan lotion. It was kind of beautiful, I guess. I mean, if you are into expensive-luggage skin or whatever.

He seemed to be waiting for an answer.

“Huh?” I asked. Because I like to sound supersmart.

He continued to look at me. There was a lone grape in his fruit cup. When he spoke again, his voice came in and out with the drone of the airplane. “Is that where you feel you are supposed to go and what you are intended to do?”

I thought he must be a clergyman. But then I decided he wasn’t. He wore an expensive-looking shirt with a narrow collar. The cuffs had real cuff links in them. Not fancy, though. Like he was the kind of guy who used cuff links with all his shirts. Maybe he had a fear of buttons or something. I don’t know too much about man fashion, but he appeared increasingly weird the more I checked him out.

Suddenly, he reached across the seat and pressed his hand flat on my collarbone. I guessed if he’d had a knife, he could have cut my throat before I even moved. My brain
was back there in sixty-seconds-ago land, still only suspecting the guy was odd.

His fingers slid up my neck, right under my jaw, and wrapped around my throat. Slowly, he pulled me close, his eyes steady on mine. I thought:
This crazy guy is going to kiss me!
And I just about laughed right in his face, because I’d never been kissed and that’d be one freaky story I’d have to tell if anyone asked me about my first time. I could feel my blood pumping fast under the pressure of his fingers.

He didn’t kiss me. Or even come close. His hand squeezed my neck until it was a little hard to breathe. I wanted to push him away, but I couldn’t move a muscle. Then he let go.

My boarding pass lay on the seat between us, next to my purse. I’d tossed it there when I put on my seat belt. But it was at a weird angle and I knew he’d moved it to read my name. He gestured in the general direction of my ticket.

“You could get off the plane in Denver. Go anywhere you want. Once you get to that school, they’ll keep you under lock and key. But now? Right now you are free.” He winked at me and ate the grape. It was a messed-up thing to do.

I grabbed my backpack and my improperly eyeballed boarding pass and got out of there. Or at least, I tried to. What I really did was try to stand up with the seat belt buckled. My hands were sweaty. I had to use two fingers to pull up the lock because I was holding my ticket. The guy’s tray table was still down, blocking me in. He shrugged at me as if to say:
What can I do? We are prisoners of my breakfast.

So I stood up on my seat, walked across the metal arm-rests, and jumped into the aisle.

Think about what I said.

I’m not sure if the guy said that or not when I brushed by him, climbing over him to get away. Or if I’d imagined it.

Some lady a few seats back huffed, all irritated by my chair-stepping lack of civility. I ran to the bathroom and locked the door behind me. A wild-eyed girl with short, dark hair stared at me from the mirror. For a good five minutes, I practiced all the things I was gonna say to that guy when I went back to my seat. He was the one who should be scared. I’d call the flight attendant if he even glanced sideways at me.

When I came back, all three seats were empty. A whiff of soap remained. I turned and peered over the top of my
seat, looking for the guy. I felt like a scared gopher popping out of a hole in someone’s lawn.

He was six rows behind me, talking across the aisle to a curly-haired girl. She nodded at him and laughed, flashing a pretty, gap-toothed smile. She was about my age.
He’s a perv
, I decided, and flopped back down in my seat.

I did think about what the guy said, though. I wasn’t going to change my plan and disappear into Denver, but I was starting a new life. No parents, no Lia, no hometown, no old school. The idea made my heart beat too fast, a sea-sick churn of excitement and apprehension and aloneness and fresh-start-ness shimmering through me one by one, making my skin goose bump. Anything could happen. Anything at all.

C
alifornia smelled like sunshine and ocean and car exhaust. A van waited outside the dinky little Nueva Vista airport. My new school’s name, Lethe, was tattooed onto its side. I climbed in and slung myself into a seat, tired and ready for the journey to be over. The driver seemed to be waiting for someone else. After about fifteen minutes, he pulled away from the curb.

When the van exited the freeway, rows of orange trees blurred by on both sides, making me wonder how isolated from town my new school would be. As the orange groves gave way to foothills, the van slowed and turned into an obscure little drive, mostly hidden under the shade of scrub oaks. There was an unobtrusive sign, with
THE LETHE ACADEMY
in gold lettering.

Slowly, we drove under the canopy of oaks, through
the dappled light. Up and up we went, the engine whining and giving a little shudder now and then. I craned my neck to get my first glimpse of the school, but all I could see were oaks.

Then the van pulled above the tree line. Blue sky broke above us and there was a bright flash of ocean to the west.
The end of the earth
, I thought. My ride coasted to a stop.

We’d come to a small meadow cut into the hillside. The road skirted around it, as if even asphalt could be wary of a place. A rusted iron gate stood, almost hidden in the tall grass. Beyond it were half a dozen scattered old stone blocks. They looked like grave markers. A breeze blew, and the grass bent as if an invisible creature walked through it. I shivered, about to ask why we’d stopped. But the driver was only waiting for the huge wrought-iron gates at the main road to open. When they did, the van picked up speed again, and we zoomed up the last part of the hill. The creeptacular little meadow slipped behind us.

If you’ve ever driven by a country club your parents can’t afford, then you know what the Lethe Academy looked like. Green lawns sprawled, so perfectly manicured you’d
expect dudes in golf carts to drive by and tee off. Instead, high school students had taken over. A group of them played Frisbee, while others lounged in the shade of olive trees that dotted the campus. Every single kid was wearing shorts, T-shirts, and flip-flops. In California, September still felt like summer. I was way overdressed in my jeans and sneakers.

Beyond the teeming front lawn, all the buildings were stucco with red-tiled roofs, their huge windows flung open. East of campus, I spotted three emerald-green sports fields, chalked dazzling white. To the north, tennis courts, and then a pool, complete with a guy jumping off the diving board. I frowned at it and looked away.

I hopped out of the van and made my way to a white table set up on the lawn. It was marked
REGISTRATION
. The woman manning the table glanced up at me. Next to her sat a stack of cream-colored manila envelopes.

“Hi,” I said, supercool as always. “I’m Camden Fisher.”

“Ah.” The woman smiled and ran her finger down a row of packets, her perfect nails tapping as she went. I peeked under the table at her feet. Flip-flops. She pulled an envelope from the pile, opened it, and handed me a map.

“You are in Kelser House, third room on the south
wing.” She drew a finger across the printed map of the school, down some paths, around a few buildings, to a box labeled
KELSER
. When I nodded that I understood, she gestured toward a large building behind her. “That’s the dining hall, in case you’re hungry. Lunch is on now, until two o’clock.” Flowering vines crept up the stucco, making it seem like some lost civilization’s cafeteria. Faintly, I smelled baking bread.

“Any questions?” she asked.

“Yeah. What’s that little graveyard outside the gates?”

The woman kept smiling, but her eyebrows drew up in that minimalist, Botoxed way that’s supposed to suggest concern. “Right outside the big gate? Honey, that’s not a cemetery.” She laughed, like I was delightful as a kitten with a ball of yarn. “That’s only what’s left of the original schoolhouse. Before they moved everything up here.” I smiled, trying not to let on how dumb I felt. “Let me know if you need anything.”

She handed me the packet and I peeked inside.
Handbook of Rules
, integrity pledge, class schedule, daily commitments, a list of books to pick up at the bookstore. I’d already read everything on their website before I’d left home, including
the 129-page rule book. But I guess it didn’t hurt to have a copy of my own.

Another school van parked behind me, bright-orange and neon-yellow surfboards on the roof rack. Six tan, shirtless guys tumbled out, grabbed their boards, and ran off across the lawn, barefoot and sun-bleached. I probably stared after them too long, but they don’t make surfers in the Midwest. Yowza. Suddenly, I was feeling the slightest bit better about boarding school.

I thought briefly of Kevin Meyers, then shook my head and glanced at the map. Time to go. I walked until I saw glimpses of the green-blue ocean shimmering between the buildings. My stomach tightened. To my right, there was a dorm with twelve identical sets of French doors along one side. The sign said
KELSER
.

Inside was dark and cool, like a cave. I blinked. The place was deserted but I could hear thumping music from behind closed doors. I trailed down one hallway, found the communal bathrooms and the laundry room. There was also a glass-windowed box with an old-fashioned phone inside it, since students weren’t allowed cell phones on campus.

On impulse, I darted into the phone booth and dialed home. It rang once on the other end, like a shot of adrenaline right in my heart. Home. My palms got sweaty.

A girl banged on the glass door. Startled, I jumped and dropped the phone.

“C-c-c-come on, you’ll be late!” she said, laughing.

“What?” I asked, then felt bad for asking, since it had taken her so long to say the first thing. The phone was still ringing. I hung it up. Apparently, I was supposed to be somewhere.

The girl had perfect skin the color of creamed coffee, and moss-green eyes. She swung open the phone booth door. Carefully, she said, “Th-the welcome orientation’s mandatory, and it s-s-starts in two minutes.”

“But — my bags,” I protested, gesturing to the heap at my feet.

“Leave them in the c-common room,” she told me. “It’s s-safe. I’m Jessie,” she added, and grabbed my arm. “Let’s g-go.”

The orientation was held in the chapel. We filed in, past rows and rows of wooden bench pews. The whole western-
facing wall of the building was stained glass. The designs were abstract, with nothing that might look like a cross or a crescent or a star anywhere. The glass was rigged on casters so the entire wall could slide open and let the breeze in. Right then it was cracked two feet open. I got the idea that right around sunset, with the light coming in, the inside of the chapel would look like a disco ball.

Jessie and I sat together. Well, technically, Jessie was sitting, but she twisted and turned, like a hyperactive puppy on a car ride.

“Nora!” she called, after a minute. She waved to a tall, frizzy-haired girl in neon-blue running shorts who was standing by the chapel doors. The girl’s face lit up and she loped down the aisle toward us. Girl had legs like a gazelle and she walked like a runway model. “My roommate,” Jessie said to me. Nora plopped down in the row behind us. All that grace dissipated, and she became supergawky, all kneecaps and elbows. She smiled hugely.

“I’m Nora,” Nora announced.

“Camden,” I answered. My palms were clammy. It had been so long since I’d needed to make new friends. I thought of Lia, then pushed the thought away. Around us, the rest of Lethe’s three hundred students streamed in the
doors and filled the benches. A few adults found spots, but even more stood lined against the back wall.

“Greetings, everyone,” a man dressed in standard-issue teacher wear said from the chapel’s stage. “Welcome, freshmen, to the Lethe Academy. I am Dr. Falzone, dean of students. To our returning upperclassmen, welcome back! I have a few announcements to make. The first formal dinner of the year is tonight. Make sure you attend.” He wagged a knowing finger at a group of older boys, who laughed. Dr. Falzone gave them a wink and said to the rest of us, “If you have not done so already, your assignment for this afternoon is to read your official rule book and sign your integrity pledge. They are due at dinner. It’s a point a day if they’re late. If you don’t know what a point is, better read your official rule book.”

I’d already read, online, how points were part of the school’s penalty system. You got five points for cutting a class, two points for being tardy. Each point equaled an hour of hard labor on the weekend work crew. If you got twenty points in a year, the school had grounds to expel you.

Dr. Falzone went on. “And lest anyone forget, curfew for underclassmen is ten
P.M
., ten thirty for seniors. That means you check in. At your curfew time. With your dorm head. In the dorms. If you do not know who your dorm head
is, his or her name is listed in your information packet. Everybody got that?” He smiled, eyebrows lifted. Nobody said anything. Down came the eyebrows, and Dr. Falzone added, “The floor is now open for general announcements. Anyone?”

Some students raised their hands. Dr. Falzone called on them one at a time, and they stood to make their announcement. Lost wallet, one kid said. Student council meeting, another mentioned.

I glanced around, and spied a stone marker set into the floor at the head of the chapel. I made out the name “Kirk,” along with two dates, etched into it. According to the school’s website, Mr. Kirk had founded Lethe, so I guessed it was a dedication stone. While I was pondering, Jessie nudged me, her body tensing like she’d recently been electrified.

“Look at that guy. No, not now. Don’t l-let him s-s-s-see you. Look! He’s staring right at me.” She scrunched her eyebrows at someone behind us. Jessie had super-expressive eyebrows. I turned to take a gander.

There was … I don’t know … only about three-quarters of the entire school population sitting behind us. I whispered, “Who?”

She repeated the eyebrow thing, but with more energetic
twitching. No one caught my eye. I shrugged. Jessie groaned at my incompetence.

Directly behind us, a wizened old teacher in a plaid button-up shirt and red bow tie leaned forward. “Shut … it,” he whispered. Jessie glared at me. Like it was my fault.

“Mark Elliott!” Dr. Falzone called on a student with his hand up.

The guy stood and said, “Yeah. Men’s lacrosse tryouts will be on the far field Friday, three thirty. Varsity and JV.”

No exaggeration: The guy making the announcement was the biggest heartbreaker I had ever seen. I guessed he was an upperclassman, definitely an athlete, with thick, sandy-blond hair and an angular face. A couple of girls giggled, and he smiled quizzically at them. It was like he didn’t know he was gorgeous. “Uh, hi,” he said to the gigglers, which only made them giggle more. “Bring your gear,” he added, and sat down. My heart was beating faster.

When no more hands were raised, Dr. Falzone dismissed us, saying we could return to our dorms to unpack and get ready for dinner.

Everybody got up. Jessie elbowed me. Hard. “What?” I nearly yelled at her. Mr. Bow Tie gave us a displeased smirk, picked up his briefcase, and got in line to exit the chapel.

Nora stuck her tongue out at the teacher’s back and then leaned toward us. “What’s up, Jessie?”

“I’m not going to p-point at him!” Jessie said. Her tone implied I had asked her to stick her finger in a pot of honey and go slap a bear.

“Point at who?” Nora asked.

“Him! Right. There,” Jessie practically whimpered behind her hand, eyes huge.

I searched again for her mystery guy. All I saw was a bunch of huddled adolescent butts, crammed together, moving toward the exit.

“Yeah, cute,” I said, my mind still mostly on the lacrosse team hunk. “Either of you going back to the dorm?”

“Gotta go meet my advisor,” Nora answered. Jessie didn’t reply. She was scowling at the butts.

Back at Kelser, I managed to find the door marked with a brass “3” and the nameplates
TAMARA STRATFORD
and
CAMDEN FISHER
. Inside, my new roommate, Tamara, was curled up in her fluffy, pale pink bed. She poked her head out of her duvet burrow and gave me the once-over. I wondered if she’d missed orientation.

“’Sup,” she said. She kicked her legs out from her comforter and sat up. One thin arm adjusted her pillow. She looked like a toothpick in a nest of cotton candy.

“Hi,” I said back. “I’m Camden.”

“Yeah,
I know
,” she answered. Her hair belonged on the cover of a trashy romance novel — dark auburn, rolling curls past her shoulder blades. But her face was sharp and mousy, her brown eyes dull, and she was built like a coat hanger.

As for our room, the far end had a French door. The inside was like a weird mirror image: two twin beds, two standing wardrobes, and two small desks. My side of the reflection was completely barren. Bald mattress on a metal frame, abandoned closet. Tamara’s side was cluttered, her closet so packed it didn’t close, her desk covered with pencil caddies and laptop cords. It looked like she’d lived here for years already.

“Well …” I said into the silence. “Guess I’ll get my stuff and start unpacking.” I turned to the door, kind of desperate to end the awkwardness.

“Are you going to be
noisy
in here?” she demanded.

“Very,” I shot back, and went to find my luggage in the common room. I couldn’t tell if we were being funny or mean. When I came back with my bags, Tamara was gone.

Since I’d read ye olde rule book, I knew formal dinner was all about dressing up, guys pulling the seats out for the girls, and everybody remembering to put a cloth napkin in their laps.

And on a rotating schedule, each student was assigned to waiter duty. It was supposed to keep everybody from thinking they were too privileged or something. Basically, it meant eating early with the kitchen crew, getting a quick review on which table we’d tend, and receiving an old white coat from the kitchen’s closet. Lia’s mom was a caterer, so I knew the basics: Serve with your left hand, clear with your right. Anyway, that’s what I was doing at the very first formal dinner of school. Doling food out to my fellow classmates. Because I am awesome lucky is why.