by Elle East
That trip had been one of the best times of my life. Sadly, my dad had already passed away, but my mom wasn’t sick yet and my stepfather wasn’t in the picture so it had just been the two of us. The week in Paris had been perfect. We didn’t have a lot of money so we stayed far out of the city and walked everywhere, but it didn’t matter, it was still amazing.
Mom made it special. She bought us a baguette and brie and we ate it in the shadow of the Notre-Dame. We had gone to see the Eiffel Tower and when I was in the washroom she had bought me the little statue; I was touched because—just like the rest of the trip—we couldn’t afford it.
I held back the tears that threatened to spill.
Just remember you’re doing it for her, I told myself. You can do anything for her.
“Goodnight, Mom,” I whispered into the large, open space. “I won’t let you down.”
Chapter 8
My second day at Crestmoore went much like my first—except worse.
My peaceful sleep was shattered by the end of the world. I let out a scream as I woke up in a deafening war zone. I was so disoriented, and I opened my eyes but I had no idea where I was. It was so loud I couldn’t think. I slammed my palms against my ears to get some relief, but it only helped a bit.
I looked around in a frenzy before looking up and seeing the source of the noise. Huge bells were slowly dancing back-and-forth and emitting the loudest sounds I had ever heard in my life.
It all rushed back to me at once and I understood where I was.
Stumbling out of bed, I desperately rushed towards the table with the earplugs on it. I tripped once on the bedspread that had become entangled around my legs and slammed my knee painfully into the stone floor. Limping, I made it to the table but by the time I’d ripped open the package and shoved the plugs in my ears the bells had stopped.
The silence that followed the deafening roar of the bells was almost just as disorienting, going from one extreme to the other. My ears were still ringing. It took me a couple seconds to realize that that must have been the wake-up bell. Well, it definitely worked, I thought, no way I could sleep through that.
I decided to get dressed quickly and go down to the second floor and wait for Cecily; I remembered that her room was there. I didn’t want to go to the cafeteria alone—and I wasn’t positive where it was, anyway. I rushed around getting ready. I put on my uniform, some tinted moisturizer, a little colored lip balm, some mascara, combed my hair and I was out the door—and ran into a wall of black.
The trash bags. I had forgotten. They were re-stacked again. I did not understand who would be this dedicated to bullying me; it seemed insane that anyone could care about my misery so much that they would be willing to go through all that effort.
I sighed and got to work. I pushed the bags outwards, being careful to be gentle so that I didn’t rip them. Eventually the top one tumbled down to roll to a stop at the top of the stairs. I used the hole that was now in the pile to start clearing the other ones. After about ten minutes I was free. I raced down the stairs, hoping that I hadn’t missed Cecily and also hoping that I didn’t smell too bad like the last time I had had to move the trash.
I walked into the short hall on the second floor. There were only two doors, one said 2A and the other 2B. I had no idea which one was Cecily’s so I decided just to wait for a bit. I didn’t think there was any way that she could have gotten ready quicker than me.
My patience was rewarded because about ten minutes later Cecily came out of 2A. She jumped when she saw me and I apologized.
“No, it’s ok. It’s not your fault, it’s me. Being at this school makes you jumpy,” she said with her hand over her heart.
She really looked spooked, and I felt bad for her that she had to be on edge all the time.
“We have to wait for Ava.” As she said it, I heard the lock of 2B turn and out walked Ava, her long, black braids cascading over her shoulders.
“You guys are hall-mates,” I remarked as we started towards the stairs.
“Yeah, they try to separate the floors by gender,” Ava said. “But on the fourth floor they have Graham and Beth.”
“How many scholarship students are there?” I asked.
“Only nine including you,” Cecily said.
“We are a critically endangered species at this school,” Ava joked. “Hey, listen, we want to apologize for yesterday. We weren’t being very good friends.”
“Yeah,” Cecily agreed.
“It’s ok, guys. Don’t worry about it,” I said.
“We were just scared of getting it ourselves if we were too friendly to you, but that’s not right. Us scholarship students have to stick together. We are all that we’ve got at this school,” said Ava.
My heart warmed. It felt nice to have people on my side after I had felt so alone yesterday.
“Lets make a deal that we’ll look out for each other no matter what,” Cecily added.
“Deal!” I said. “But it’s easier for me to make that deal than you guys. I think I’m the one who’s going to be bullied the most out of all of us.”
“That’s fine,” Ava said. “At least we’ll have each other.”
“That’s right!” Cecily agreed.
My smile lasted only until I reached the bottom of the stairs where some students I had never met before immediately called me “trailer trash”. I was starting to hate this school.
The hallways became a gauntlet I had to get through to go anywhere. It seemed like all the students were already against me. I was tripped, pushed, and called names anytime I stepped into the halls. Having Cecily or Ava by my side didn’t do much to minimize the bullying, but it made me feel like I was less alone. I felt guilty dragging them into it but they pretended they didn’t mind and I was grateful for that.
Whenever I was getting bullied, it always seemed like the Kings were around, not doing the dirty work themselves but instead standing off to the side watching and smirking. I was growing to hate their stupid, sexy faces—and it pissed me off that I couldn’t stop myself from thinking they were hot.
They were all tall, muscled and cocky, with those stupid little smiles and perfect white teeth. It became painfully obvious that the school was their world, and they were in complete control of it. I hated to admit it, but they were definitely the rulers, the Kings, and I was at their mercy.
My classes weren’t much better than the hallways. People shot spit balls at my head, which was disgusting. They volunteered me to answer the questions that the teachers asked, questions that I would have no way of knowing. In one class someone even passed me a note that asked me if the rumors were true, did I used to be a dog prostitute to make enough money to feed my drug addiction. I looked back at the person in disbelief but they just shrugged and smirked. Behind them I could see Brett was staring at me with silent intensity. He wasn’t smiling.
When the day was over I dragged myself up the stairs to my room. I wearily moved the trash bags that had of course been re-stacked and went inside. I was absolutely exhausted, not just from the relentless bullying but also the course work. Due to the insanely high academic standards of the school I was already behind even though it was only the third day. I would have to spend all my free time studying, which was fine because I didn’t have a TV or a phone and I couldn’t go anywhere without being harassed, so barricading myself in my room every evening to study would not be a big sacrifice.
I took a shower and then sat down at my desk. I plugged my laptop into the monitors. I had stolen some cookies from the dining hall which I placed next to my computer, unwrapped the napkin and started eating.
I desperately needed to study but I couldn’t help myself and went to my email. Ever since they took my phone I had been contemplating different ways of getting in touch with Dean. I no longer had his number because it was in my phone and I had no idea what his email was. The wifi at the school was restricted so students weren’t allowed access to social media sites. In desperation I had contemplat
ed emailing the detective, who had given me his work email address, and asking for Dean’s but that seemed way too weird—“Oh, hey Detective Serious, this is Maddy, I’m like super into your hot son so could you please pass along his private email. K, thanks, bye :D”
I shook my head and closed my email.
Maybe I could find him by searching? I typed “Dean Smith New York” into the search engine and not surprisingly I got a ton of hits but nothing relevant. Why did he have to have the most nondescript name in the world? I wondered in annoyance.
I sighed and pulled up my Biology coursework in resignation. After about half an hour I realized that I had absorbed no information at all, Dean still distracted me—there was no way I was going to let some guy derail my academic career. I signed back into my email and typed out a quick message to the detective. I told him I didn’t have my phone and that the only way he could communicate with me was through the school internet which was definitely monitored. I sent it off and felt better. I could study now. If Dean really wanted to contact me, he would eventually ask his dad about why I hadn’t been responding to his texts.
Satisfied, I went back to studying.
I hoped he tried to contact me. I could use a supportive… friend? Crestmoore was turning out to be a lot harder than I thought it would be. I hadn’t even started figuring out a plan to find out what the Kings were up to—I hated that I now called them “The Kings” just like everyone else at the school. My memories of my friendship with them were slowly fading and being replaced with memories like the cruel smiles on their faces as they watched some random kid push me and call me names.
Focus, Maddy, I told myself as my thoughts kept drifting away from mitosis and towards boys. I took another cookie, shoved it in my mouth and focused on concentrating.
By the time midnight rolled around I was satisfied with the work I had done. I might just graduate with decent marks after all, I thought, proud of myself. I closed my laptop and got ready to sleep.
Before getting into bed, I barricaded the door again with the chair—which I realized would become my nightly routine to help me sleep soundly. I was about to climb under the covers when I remembered—the earplugs! I didn’t want to have another terrifying wake-up like this morning—I was pretty sure that had taken a couple years off my life.
After I had put the earplugs in and turned off the lights, I climbed back into bed. I turned over and touched the Eiffel Tower.
“Goodnight Mom,” I whispered before immediately falling asleep.
The rest of the week went much like the first couple days. Kids were mean to me and somehow the Kings always seemed to be around when it happened. The other weird thing was that all the other students knew about me, even if they were in different grades.
Whenever I was getting bullied, a huge group of kids would turn up to watch and take part. None of them were allowed cell phones, so I didn’t know how the Kings always managed to be there at the exact right time and the exact right place, but I chalked it up to some sort of asshole intuition.
Besides the relentless bullying, I was actually starting to do ok in my classes. The work was hard, but I was slowly catching up thanks to my lack of social life and full-evening cram sessions.
The other scholarship students and I were slowly becoming friends. They were all very skittish and had the tendency to run away from me whenever the spit balls started flying—and then apologizing for it later. I didn’t blame them, but it was a struggle not to be at least a bit resentful. Cecily and Ava were better than the other scholarship students at standing by me and I was starting to really like them.
Ava was funny as hell. She was sarcastic and her pop culture references were on point. Cecily was cerebral and kind, but every once in a while when she let down her guard she was just as clever and sarcastic as Ava—and it was even more funny because it was unexpected. I started to really enjoy hanging out with them and they were starting to feel like my friends from back home.
I had never been a social butterfly; I was the kind of person who found a few good people and those were my friends for life. I missed my friends from home and though we emailed back-and-forth it wasn’t even close to being the same as seeing them every day, but having Ava and Cecily made Crestmoore not as bad.
“What did you get on the quiz?” Ava turned to ask me after scowling at her own paper.
“Ninety-six percent,” I whispered back.
“What?! How?? That was soo hard. I only got a seventy-eight. That’s basically failing,” she said dejectedly as she sunk down into her seat. “What did you get, Ces?”
Cecily looked down at her paper and made a face before answering, “Only eighty-nine.”
It was Friday, the last day of my first week. We were in chemistry class and after I had pulled an all-nighter on Wednesday I had managed to pull off a decent mark on the Thursday quiz.
Crestmoore’s class schedule was six courses per day per student, and it was the same every day, except a couple courses were full year so you alternated those. My schedule was:
Class 1: English
Class 2: Chemistry
Class 3: Math
LUNCH
Class 4: History and Gym (alternated)
Class 5: Biology
Class 6: Business and an elective (alternated)—I had chosen Art as my elective.
“My all-nighter payed off,” I said, then pretended to be smug by smiling and wiping my shoulder off.
They both laughed.
“Can’t pull all-nighters every night, New Girl,” Ava teased.
“Oh yeah? Watch me,” I said. “I never sleep.”
“I wouldn’t be able to sleep either if I had smelly garbage seeping under my door every night,” Cecily said.
Ava and I looked at each other before we burst out laughing. It was always so unexpected and hilarious when Cecily stooped to our level.
“Whatever,” I teased. “At least I’m on the Royalty’s radar, they don’t care about you guys at all.”
“They care about you because you are like poor poor, I’m just poor. That’s not something to brag about,” Cecily deadpanned.
We all burst out laughing again. The teacher shushed us and we put our hands over our mouths to hold it in.
Class ended and the three of us went into the hall. Some student I had never met before pushed me and called me “Trash”, just the usual. Ava and Cecily walked me to my math class even though neither of them were in it, before they both left for History together.
I walked in and took my seat at the front of the class with Graham.
“What’s up, Maddy?” he asked as I sat down.
“Not much. How about you?” I asked.
“Same old, same old. I’m trying to figure out a calculation that will allow cars to run on one-fifth of the gas that a standard engine requires.”
“Wow,” I said. “You do you. That would be revolutionary if you can figure it out.”
“I know. I just got to get it right before I go public, you know?”
“For sure,” I said.
The kids at this school were so different from the ones back in East Heights High. The ones at my old school were worried about getting pregnant before graduation or getting caught for dealing drugs, while the students at Crestmoore were worried about solving world crises. I liked that I didn’t have to talk to my best friend Tiffany about how her boyfriend was being an asshole and that, yeah, she probably needed to take a pregnancy test. I enjoyed talking about renewable energy solutions and Shakespeare. These kids were like me and I felt at home when they got my references to music from the seventies. These nerds were my people.
The teacher, Mr. Bertrand, stepped to the front of the class and started the lecture. Everyone quieted down, and that was when I could hear the sounds that turned my stomach. It was some lame girls laughing at Brett and Archer’s lame jokes. I rolled my eyes and tried to ignore them.
Wherever I went and in every class that I had with the Kings, I got to witne
ss the disgusting show that their fans put on whenever the Kings were around. The laughing, the hair flipping, the boobs being subtly squished together—as if we didn’t notice—it all pissed me off, and it pissed me off that it pissed me off. I didn’t want to care about the Kings, but I couldn’t seem to help it. The pathetic groupies that hung off their every word disgusted me. The guys I had known had been better than that, but they now seemed to take advantage of it.
From what I could gather, Archer and Grayson were dating multiple groupies—or if they weren’t dating them, they were at least pretending to be interested in multiple girls. Brett was harder to read. He wasn’t without his fans but he was the strong silent type and no matter how much female attention he received he remained focused on our classes. It was weird.
The other scholarship students had told me that Brett was top of the class with Archer in second but sometimes he pushed into first. I wasn’t surprised about Archer getting top marks; he had always been competitive and always wanted to be the best in the class—it was something that had bonded us when we were younger; I wanted to be the best too and that friendly competition had forced us both to be better.
Brett on the other hand hadn’t been that dedicated to academics when he was younger. He’d been more into sports, more of a jock. Classes came second to the field for him, so it surprised me to hear that he was beating everyone else’s marks—especially at a school as competitive as this with its insanely smart students. I begrudgingly admitted that it impressed me—but only to myself, there was no way I’d ever give Brett the satisfaction of knowing that.
Class went by quickly and when lunchtime came, I was happy because I was starving. I picked up my backpack and paused. It felt heavier than normal and I thought I could hear a quiet hissing sound coming from it. I looked over at Graham who was reaching for his.
