The Academy - First Days (13 page)

I finished climbing the stairs. “My sister ran off somewhere so I
thought it’d be okay to come over.”

Kota’s collared shirt and tie had been replaced by a green
t-shirt. He tilted his head toward me. “How long can you stay?”

“I don’t know. If we spot her walking back, I’ll go. Or before my
dad gets home.”

“Are you sure it’s okay?”

“Aw, come on, Kota,” Gabriel said. His slim fingers encircled my
arm and he pulled me into the room. “If it were up to her parents, she’d never leave
the house. If she doesn’t break out, we’d never see her.”

Kota shifted on his feet as if he was trying to decide if this was
a good idea. It made me wonder if he felt guilty for the day before when I got
into trouble. I searched for the words to help calm his worries, but nothing
seemed right. I didn’t want to go back so I tried my best to smile warmly at
him, hoping he’d understand. He hesitated but took a step back, relenting.

I sat down at one end of Kota’s bed, dropping my book bag on the
floor. Gabriel crawled onto the bed, crossing his legs and pointed to the pile
of papers that he had collected in the middle. “We’ve already got homework. Can
you believe it?”

“I’ve got a lot, too,” I said. “What are you doing for the English
assignment?”

“I’ve already finished that,” he said. He shuffled through the
papers on the bed, picking one out. “It’s more like song lyrics than a poem.”

“Can I see?”

He passed the notebook paper to me. “It’s not good.”

His poem was about a lost princess in a tower and a prince pining
for her from the ground. He threw apples up to her every day hoping she would
eat them and think of him. One day he hit her in the head and she fell from the
tower and she died. The prince felt so bad he took her to a mountaintop where
he held on to her until he froze to death in the night, binding him and her
together forever in ice.

“It’s sad,” I said. “Tragic.”

He grinned. “Girls love that shit.”

“I like happy endings.”

He pulled a face, leaning back on his elbows against the bed.
“Life isn’t always happy.”

“It should be.” I moved to sit back on the bed far enough to where
my ankles were hanging over the edge and my back was up against the wall. Kota
huddled over his desk. “Did you finish yours, Kota?”

“Working on it now, actually.”

“How’s it going?”

He sat up, turning in his chair and holding up his notebook. “I
don’t know. What rhymes with formaldehyde?”

My eyes widened. Gabriel laughed, rubbing his fingers against his
forehead. “Dude, what kind of poem are you writing?”

Kota blinked at us. “It’s about a doctor.”

“Does the doctor fall in love?” Gabriel asked.

“No.”

“Does someone die?”

“Not in the story, technically.”

“What does he do?”

“He performs an autopsy.”

I glanced at Gabriel, sharing a smile with him. I held out a palm to
Kota. “Can I see it?”

Kota’s cheeks turned red and he handed the notebook to me. The
poem had a lot of long words describing the procedures of cutting up a dead
body. It was more like a set of instructions with every other line rhyming. The
gruesome details made my stomach churn. Was this accurate? How did he know how
to perform an autopsy?

“Kota...” I said, not sure exactly how to phrase it.

“I’m not very good at this,” he said. He fiddled with the edge of the
arm on his desk chair. “I’m not very creative.”

I thought about the lines. It wasn’t bad work. It was just too
formal. “May I see your pen?”

He handed it to me. I replaced a handful of words and added in a
few more phrases at the end. When I finished I handed it back to him.

He looked over my notes and smiled, shaking his head. “It’s a
horror piece.”

“You already had most of it. You just needed a change of
perception. A live patient being operated on by a murderer.”

He laughed, pushing his glasses up his nose with a forefinger.
“You’re going to make me sound smarter than I am.”

“What are you talking about?” Gabriel said. “If anything, this
school is going to dumb you down. I’m surprised you went along with this going
in to the public school thing.”

Kota shrugged, sitting back in his chair and using his legs to
rock himself back and forth. “You guys were going. What was I going to do?”

“Personally,” Gabriel said, “I’m regretting we ever started. This
school seems hopeless. I mean you saw the classrooms.”

“The trailers are kind of unusual,” I said, for a lack of a kinder
word.

“And the library,” Gabriel added.

Kota rubbed at his chin. “There isn’t much to the library.”

“And don’t even get me started on lunchtime,” Gabriel said. “I
mean come on. You saw that. There were still kids in line for lunch when the
bell rang.”

“Something doesn’t add up,” Kota said, rubbing a palm at his cheek
and folding his arms over his chest. “And with the problems from the principal
today, I don’t think Mr. Blackbourne and Mr. Hendricks are on the same page
about what they want from us.”

I hadn’t thought about it before but now that they were talking
about it, it did seem unreasonable to put such a thing on the shoulders of
seven students. “Who made the arrangements?” I asked. “Who asked you all to
come into the school?”

“The whole thing was designed by the school board and some of the
administrators,” Kota said. “Technically the principal had the final say, but
he was under a lot of pressure to allow us in. It was basically do it or it
meant his job. He claimed he couldn’t guarantee the safety of ‘spoiled
students’. The school board thought if we could help improve the school
overall, the state would develop a second school nearby to split the
population. They won’t bother to spend money on a school that looks like it
might be a waste of time.”

“But isn’t that what they need?” I asked. I was surprised they
were telling me about this. Then I realized it really wasn’t about the Academy,
but about my own school. It didn’t count so much as an Academy secret.
“Wouldn’t you give money to a school that needed it?”

“You would think,” Kota said. “The only way a school gets
attention is by the quality of the grades and curriculum for the entire student
body and financial interest from state officials in control of school spending.
They’ll only help a school that seems worth investing in, because that’s what
it comes down to. They focus more on middle and high income neighborhoods. It
makes a bigger impact than these poorer districts. Not as many registered
voters here. However, there was a deal struck by a state official. He’s
documented that if Ashley Waters can improve, he’ll give the go ahead to start
building another school.”

“Which is why this is stupid. There’s not a lot worth saving. They
might as well build two new schools. And the mismanagement is terrible. I feel
like we’re wasting our time,” Gabriel said. He stretched out a leg over his
homework, tipping his foot to nudge my leg. “If it weren’t for you, I’d be
asking Mr. Blackbourne if we could drop this whole thing.”

His attitude surprised me. They could leave if they wanted? Would
they if they were pushed out at all or felt it was too much? “You don’t have to
stay for me,” I said softly. “I mean, if you feel it’s that bad.” I didn’t want
to be so demure about it. They were my only friends in the school. Even so, it
just seemed silly to stay because of me. If I had the choice, would I have
stayed? I could only imagine what the Academy was like but I knew it had to be
better than Ashley Waters.

“We’re in for the year,” Kota said. “We promised we’d do our best
for the school and that’s what we’ll do. We agreed to this. We’ll stick it out.
We don’t get to give up just because it’s complicated. Mr. Blackbourne’s plans
weren’t made lightly, so there must be something we can do.”

So it was Mr. Blackbourne that was officially in charge. Mr.
Blackbourne made the arrangements. Did he call Victor out of the class? I bit
my lower lip, talking about Mr. Blackbourne only reminded me of secrets I
couldn’t ask about and what I had to do tomorrow. “Maybe we should make
something for lunch tomorrow so we aren’t stuck with vending food. There might
not be anything left tomorrow.”

“I think there’s a loaf of bread downstairs,” Kota said, standing
up. He held out a hand to me. It took me a moment to realize he wanted me to
take it. I sucked in a breath to summon some courage and put my hand in his. He
grasped it as I stood up, letting go when I was standing. A passing thought in
the back of my mind was somewhat sorry he released me. “Unless you mean you
want to cook something.”

“I suppose I could,” I said, putting a finger to my lower lip. It
seemed kind of weird to make something and I couldn’t imagine what to fix.

“Hold up. Are you telling us you can cook?” Gabriel said. He swung
his legs around and stood up next to me. “I have to see this.”

“Who doesn’t cook?” When it came to my family, unless I wanted
dinner from a can every night, my sister and I learned how to cook. I couldn’t
remember not being able to at least make scrambled eggs or spaghetti as needed.

“Luke and North can,” Gabriel said. “It doesn’t happen often.”

“If you can read, you can cook.” I crossed the floor, heading to
the stairs. I glanced over my shoulder at them. “Ready?”

Kota shot a look at Gabriel. Gabriel smirked. “I might be able to
use the can opener.”

Within a short amount of time, taco soup simmered in a pot on the
stove. The boys managed to cut onions and opened cans. They stood back and
watched as I cooked up ground beef, added beans and vegetables and different
spices and put it all together.

“There,” I said, wiping my brow with the back of my hand as I
stirred the pot. “Kota, you’ve got dinner for tonight. What you don’t eat,
stick into a thermos. We’ll take some plastic cups and spoons and bingo.
Lunch.”

Gabriel hovered over my shoulder. He stuck his finger into the mix
and yanked it back to put into his mouth. “He might not have leftovers,” he
said, licking his finger. “I’m gonna stay for dinner.”

He attempted to reach into the pot again and I playfully swatted
at his hand. “You’re going to eat it all before it’s dinner time.”

He pouted and the way the bottom lip curled melted my heart. It
was adorable. “Don’t be so cruel, Sang. You didn’t tell us you could cook and
now that you’ve made something and it smells really good, you won’t let me
taste it.”

“You’re going to burn your fingers,” I said. “It’s hot.”

“I’ll live. It’s just a finger.” He threaded his hand around my
side with a pointed finger aimed at the pot. I pushed his arm in a panic,
worried he really would burn himself. He grasped my wrist. I laughed, dropping
the large wooden spoon into the pot. I tried to wrestle my arm away. He
captured my other hand, and collected my wrists together against his chest.
“You’re in trouble now,” he said, grinning.

“What?”

I heard the spoon getting picked up behind me. I twisted against
Gabriel’s hold in time to see Kota dip the spoon into the soup and taking a
sip.

“Kota!”

He smiled, putting the spoon down into the pot again. “It smells
good. It’s making me hungry.”

I groaned and wrenched my hands from Gabriel, playfully pointing a
finger in the direction of Kota’s bedroom. “Alright guys, out of the kitchen.
Let’s go get homework done before you eat it all.”

It took more coaxing but I managed to get the guys back up the
stairs. I set the stove on low so the soup could simmer for a while.

We gathered back in Kota’s room and got to work. I was on my
stomach on the floor, writing in a notebook for the English assignment. Kota
was at his computer desk and Gabriel was half asleep on Kota’s bed.

Thudding footfalls came from the stairs. Victor popped his head
up. His cheeks flushed when he spotted me on the floor, but it didn’t distract
me from the bright bruise on his face or the gash at this cheek.

“Victor!” I jumped up off the floor in probably an undignified
manner. I crossed the room as he stood by the stairs. The closer I got, the
worse his injuries looked. “What happened?”

“Training,” he said quietly.

My fingers hovered in the air close to his face, only I was too
afraid to touch him as it looked painful. The gash at his cheek had already
started to crust over. The bruise was a purple mess, splotching across the side
of his face and along the start of his jaw by his ear. “With what? A bear?”

He shook his head. He turned to Kota. “I didn’t think she would be
here.”

Kota nodded, standing up. “It’s not important. Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” he said. His fire eyes settled on me, a quiet smolder.
“I’m sorry, Sang.”

I swallowed my heart in my throat and my eyebrows nearly popped
off the top of my forehead. “Sorry? For what?”