Con Academy (11 page)

“Thank you, Mr. Shea.” Mr. Bodkins walks by and takes the stack of papers from my hand, and when I look around at Gatsby again, she's writing something down in her notebook, still not looking at me.

“You didn't have to do that, you know,” I tell her later.

We're sitting in the dining hall over lunch—shrimp quesadilla for me, garden salad for her, along with some kind of veggie burger that actually smells amazing considering there's no meat in it. Through the giant wall-size windows, the last swarms of orange leaves are chasing one another in late-October dust devils. The weather's already changing, tilting into winter.

“What makes you think it was me?” she asks.

“The fact that you know what I'm talking about even though I haven't said it yet. Anyway, it really wasn't necessary.”

“Right,” Gatsby says, taking a big bite of her salad. “Because you had it all worked out.”

“Well, I didn't say
that
 . . .”

“You didn't have to.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” I take a bite of my quesadilla, which is crunchy yet tender and bursting with fresh cilantro, and realize that she's still looking at me. “So why did you do it?”

“What?”

“Write that paper for me.”

She ponders the question, or pretends to. “Maybe I figured you could use a break after ‘falling down the stairs' and busting up your face,” Gatsby says, using air quotes for the little white lie I had tried to pass over her in the library yesterday.   

“I'm not joking,” I say. “You could get suspended for this, or worse. Why would you take a risk like that for somebody you hardly know?”

She looks at me for a long moment and then sits back, crossing her arms. “I wanted to help you. Is that so hard to swallow?”

“I mean, it's just—you're smart, you're funny, you're pretty.” My face is starting to get hot. “Okay, so you work in a library and spend your free time breaking into the rare books when you're depressed, but still . . .”

Now Gatsby's laughing. “You're welcome, okay?” she says, and there's another long silence, one that makes me think maybe I shouldn't have said anything in the first place. “Will?”

“Yeah?”

“What's your secret?”

“What?”

“You know mine. What's yours?”

That stops me, and I just look at her. Suddenly the whole dining hall feels like it's gone silent, and my heart is beating very fast, but Gatsby's merely looking at me with an expression of intelligent curiosity. “What are you talking about?”

“There's something you're not telling anybody, including me.”

I force a smile. “What, you're psychic now too?”

“It's just intuition. I noticed it the first time we talked, and it just keeps getting stronger.” She blinks. “Tell me, what was it like growing up with missionary parents on the other side of the world?”

For a second there's just more silence between us.

“It was lonely,” I say, and a second later, I realize how corny that sounds. But Gatsby doesn't laugh. She doesn't even crack a smile. She just stares back at me.

“Did you have friends there?” she asks. “On your island?”

“Not really.”

“Do you miss it?”

“Let's just say I'm a lot happier here.”

“I'm glad.”

“And I do appreciate your writing the paper.”

“It wasn't that big of a deal,” she says. “I like Hawthorne.”

“Why?”

“He's cool.”

“Said nobody ever, in the history of the human race.”

“You know, the library has a collection of his original letters and manuscripts.”

“Are you sure they're real and not forgeries?” I ask. “Like, not written on My Little Pony stationery or something?”

“Stop it.” Gatsby laughs and punches me, hard enough to hurt. “Look,” she says, “if it wasn't for me, your precious scholarship would already be in jeopardy, so can we agree to move on?” She waits. I'm just looking at her, a little dazed from either her fist or her generosity. “Seriously, though, what
was
it like?”

“What?”

“Ebeye. Growing up there. I can't imagine. I've never met anyone who's lived in a place like that. Did your parents always know that's what they wanted to do?”

I take in a breath to deliver my spiel but I feel my throat swelling up, like I'm having some kind of allergic reaction to my own lie. Gatsby mistakes my silence for reluctance, as if she's overstepped her bounds, and draws back.

“I get it,” she says. “You don't want to talk.”

“No,” I say, “it's just that—”

“—he doesn't know where to start,” a voice says to my right, where Andrea has materialized with her lunch and a stack of books. “Right, Will? That's what happens when you're raised by missionaries. All that humility starts backing up in your system until it floods your brain.”

Gatsby turns and regards her coolly. “Hey, Andrea.”

“Hello, Gatsby.” Andrea sips her coffee. “Happy Monday.”

“Thanks,” Gatsby says, and she's already getting up, gathering her tray. “I'll see you later, Will?”

“Definitely,” I say, as Andrea settles down next to me, emanating a kind of smugness that doesn't even require visual confirmation.

“Well,” she says. “
That
looked cozy. Sorry to interrupt.”

I roll my eyes. “Please.”

“A word of advice, Will. Don't get too close to her. I wouldn't want you to start believing your own lies—especially since you've already tipped your hand to Brandt. Secrets don't last long here.”

“Noted.” I regard her unemotionally. “Did you want something?”

“As a matter of fact . . .” Andrea opens her backpack and pulls out a leather-bound planner. “I just wanted to go over our little event calendar together.” She opens the book to November, where the box representing the twenty-second is circled in red pen. “Now, as you recall, our arrangement ends the week before Thanksgiving break. Today is October 28, which means we've got almost four weeks to get Brandt to hand over fifty thousand. You still want to go through with this?”

“Why?” I say. “You want out? Is being Brandt's pet floozy not paying off like you hoped?”

“Oh my.” She smiles. “You really have no clue what you're doing, do you?”

“Watch me,” I say.

“Believe me,” Andrea says, “I am. So far I've seen you get beat up and thrown out of Casino Night for cheating. Is that your full repertoire, or did you learn any other tricks down in New Jersey?”

“You have no idea.”

“You're a hoot, Will.” To my surprise, when she smiles again, the delight on her face looks genuine. “No matter how this all comes out, you've already made my year
so
much more interesting. Thank you for that.”

“So glad I could be here to amuse you.”

“Oh, you do.”

And it isn't until Andrea leans over to peck my cheek that I realize Gatsby hasn't left the dining hall yet—she's still standing by the door, watching us. Then she turns and walks away.

T
HE NEXT MORNING
I'
VE GOT MY ALARM SET EARLY
so I can make it to class without running, but something totally unexpected happens—it snows.

Climbing out of bed, I draw back my curtains to discover a lunar landscape, the campus already covered by a thin but steadily growing layer of white. Thick flurries come whipping down through the branches as the wind blusters along the walkways.
This is crazy,
I think. Down in New Jersey it almost never snows before Thanksgiving.

“Classic early nor'easter,” Epic Phil is telling everybody when I get to the dining hall, delivering this news with such authority that you almost expect to see a satellite map behind him. “Freak system must've blown in off the ocean overnight. We haven't even played the Homecoming lacrosse game yet.”

There's an excited buzz among the students here, a sense of building anticipation that I don't quite understand. People are filling thermoses with coffee and hot chocolate and carrying their trays out of the cafeteria with them.

“So you think this qualifies?” somebody asks.

“Are you kidding?” Phil says. “This
definitely
qualifies.”

“Qualifies for what?” I ask.

He's about to answer me when the entire dining hall falls silent. Dr. Melville walks in, moving to the front of the room with a stiff-legged sense of purpose. I've already been here long enough to know that he doesn't often appear in the dining hall among the students. Right away, I start wondering if this might have something to do with Gatsby and me sneaking into the rare books room over the weekend. What if somebody saw us coming out? I look around the room to see if other authority figures are here, but I don't spot any. Off in the corner, Andrea is cuddled up on Brandt's lap, the two of them watching the proceedings with sleepy-eyed amusement. If Gatsby's here, I don't see her.

Dr. Melville ascends to the lectern at the front of the dining hall and holds up his hands, which doesn't seem to be necessary since the whole room is still noiseless. “Some weather we're having,” he says. This statement brings a mystifying burst of cheers and applause. Everybody's watching the head of the school now, and Phil leans over to me and whispers, “If he puts his hat on, it means classes are canceled for the day.”

“Why?”

“First snowfall of the year is always Tray Day.”

“What's Tray Day?”

“Now, I'd heard we were supposed to get some early flurries . . .” Dr. Melville is saying, and the crowd goes quiet again. “But I was still quite surprised when I went out this morning with my yardstick”—he holds it up and everybody draws in a breath—“and it looks like I'll need to wear this.”

He reaches down beneath the podium and pulls out a big fur-lined, Mad Bomber–style hat, then places it on his head. The entire dining hall explodes with laughter and more cheers. People jump out of their seats, hooting and whistling, and a chant starts going up from the back of the dining hall: “Tray
Day,
Tray
Day,
Tray
Day
 . . .”

“What's Tray Day?” I shout at Phil.

“Head out to Monument Hill,” he shouts back. “You'll find out.”

Monument Hill occupies the northernmost part of campus, an alpine slope covered in white, and by the time I get out there, half the school is already here. Even the faculty has joined in—I see Mr. Bodkins and Dr. Melville and my French instructor, Mademoiselle Lafitte, standing off to the side in ski parkas and mittens, sipping from steaming thermoses and watching the snowball fights, near collisions, and wipeouts. Collie Morgenstern is here snapping pictures for the school's newspaper,
The Connaughton
Call.
The snow is more than sufficient for sledding, and I'm at the top of the hill when my phone vibrates in my pocket. It's a text from Uncle Roy, and I can practically hear him growling the words:

Flight east canceled due to blizzard in Boston.
Arriving tomorrow, weather permitting.
When are you moving back to civilization, kid??

“Hey, Will.” I look up and see Andrea walking over with her lunch tray. She drops it, takes a seat, and pats the open spot in front of her. “Want to ride down with me?”

“A little snug for two, isn't it?”

“Not if we sit close.”

“I'll pass.”

She sticks out her tongue, catches a snowflake on it, and licks her lips. “You know, Will,” she says, “just because we're competing with each other doesn't mean we can't have a little fun along the way.”

“Yeah, well, I'm heading back to the dorm. I'm way behind in U.S. Diplomacy, and—”

“Blah blah blah,” she says. “Come on, tough guy. Go big or go home.” She nods at my tray, which is still tucked under my arm. “I'll race you. First one to the bottom wins. Unless you're scared.”

I look down the hill. It's a long way to the bottom, and the incline is so steep that half the kids are wiping out before they make it to the halfway point.

I'm still deciding when I hear a scream—not a scream of excitement, but one of pain, followed by an eruption of laughter. When I look toward the sound, I see Brandt literally standing on top of a younger kid, most likely a freshman. The kid is face-down and Brandt is jumping on his back with his snowboard, pounding him into the snow. Brandt's pals are gathered around, yukking it up. Everybody else is just standing there with the blank-eyed gaze of bystanders at a car crash.

I act without thinking.

The snowball is in my hand before I even realize I've scooped it up. After packing it tight, I cock my arm and throw it as hard as I can. Usually my aim isn't great, but for some reason this particular throw is perfect, and it drills Brandt so hard in the back of the skull that it knocks him over.

I grab my tray and take a flying leap down the hill.

The lunch tray doesn't handle at all like an actual sled, so I can't steer, and I'm already going way too fast, careening down among kids climbing up the hillside. The sound of snow is hissing in my ear, and wet, cold flakes are flying into my nose and sticking to my eyelashes. Somebody's built a ramp, and I go shooting off into space, airborne for long enough that I hear a voice shout,
“Whoa!”
Then I come crashing back down to earth with a rib-shattering slam, landing at the bottom of the hill in a pile of tangled arms and legs.

A flash goes off in my face as somebody takes my picture, and then the pain follows, gallons of it, trickling in slowly at first, and then faster. I groan and lift my head in time to see a crowd gathered around me. People are laughing. A gloved hand reaches down and yanks me to my feet.