by Elle East
“Don’t open it,” I whispered to him.
“What? Why?” he asked before realization hit him and his face went pale.
“Grab it carefully and come with me.”
I picked my bag up delicately by the handle and gingerly carried it to the door. I looked back to see Graham staring at his in horror. He was truly petrified, and I felt bad for him. I went back in, gave him my books and then I carefully grabbed his bag with my free hand.
“Come with me,” I whispered.
I was trying to draw as little attention to us as possible. I didn’t want to make it worse by having all the other students laugh at us. I also didn’t want to give the Kings the satisfaction of seeing my fear, but I could feel their eyes on me and I couldn’t help but glance at them for a moment. The smirks on Archer and Brett’s faces made me wish I had been strong enough not to look.
We slipped out of the room and I did a weird speedwalk down the hall, trying to shake the bags as little as possible but also get the hell outside. Graham opened the doors for me and we came out of the school onto a small patch of grass next to the forest.
By now the bags were hissing and moving like crazy and it scared me. I wasn’t particularly afraid of snakes but I think most people are at least a little bit afraid—and if they aren’t it means that they have not evolved properly because some snakes are dangerous and you should be scared of them. I looked at Graham’s face—which was a mistake—he was so pale and sweaty he looked like he would throw up and it made me even more nervous.
I placed the bags in the grass and they started moving on their own. I looked around. I needed something to open the bag with because I didn’t want to get my fingers too close. I couldn’t see anything that would work, but as my eyes passed over the school I saw them.
Staring out the window of the second-floor hallway were the handsome faces of the Kings. They were surrounded by a group of students who were also looking out at us. Anger flooded through me and washed away a lot of the fear. I raised my hands up and gave them two middle fingers.
I saw the subtle look of surprise pass over the King’s faces before they quickly covered it back up with their smirks. Graham looked behind him and saw them too and if it was possible, he went even whiter.
“Whatever,” I mumbled. “Fuck them.”
The only thing I could see that I thought might work was some twigs laying at the base of the trees. I grabbed a long, strong one and went back over to the bags. My heart was racing as I brought the stick towards one of the writhing backpacks. I was able to slip a small portion of the twig into one of the zipper pulls. Taking a deep breath, I carefully started maneuvering open the zipper.
In a flash of black, something shot out of the bag. I jumped to the side to avoid the path directly in front of the opening. The snake barely missed me as it raced off into the woods. I watched its long body slither away and in a second it was gone. The clearing seemed almost unnaturally quiet after the excitement.
It wasn’t over yet though; I had one more bag to do. I went over to my backpack and repeated the action, but stood even farther off to the side this time. My snake took longer to come out, but once it did it was way angrier. It took a strike at me and I had to leap back to avoid its pissed off fangs.
I let out an unconscious yell of fright and I heard Graham let out a little whimper of pure terror.
After the snake had scared the both of us it was satisfied and slithered off after its friend under the trees. I breathed out a sigh of relief. I looked over at Graham.
“You ok?” I asked.
Graham puked in answer. I grimaced and went over to our bags. I gingerly poked them with the stick to make sure there was nothing else hiding inside. They seemed snake-free, so I cautiously picked mine up and looked inside. It was clear.
I did the same for Graham’s bag before handing it to him. He took it timidly and with a weak “Thanks”.
“Want to head to lunch?” I asked, I wasn’t sure what else to do.
“I think I will go back to my room for a bit. I’m not very hungry.”
“But you must be starving, you didn’t eat breakfast anymore,” I said as I motioned to the spot where he threw up, without looking at it.
He laughed weakly and shook his head. I looked up and I could see that other students were still staring down at us but the Kings were gone.
“Assholes,” I mumbled.
“What?” Graham asked.
“Nothing. Want me to walk you back to the Bell Tower?”
“Nah, I’ll be ok.”
We walked back into the school and headed our separate ways.
Chapter 9
I was curious what my first weekend at Crestmoore would be like. I wasn’t really sure what I was going to do with myself. I wasn’t used to having a lot of free time; I hadn’t had a weekend off since the day I turned sixteen and got my first part-time job. I realized that studying would be my new job, but I didn’t really want to stay cooped up in my room all weekend.
Friday night I stayed at home, reading, but on Saturday I needed to get out of my room and go outside. I took a walk around the grounds but it was hard to avoid other students and I stuck mostly to the woods. The trees were quiet and the forest was dark. It was getting cool, and I had to wear my black school uniform pea coat. I had never been much of an outdoorsy girl, living in a massive city and all, but I felt relaxed being by myself in nature.
In the evening Cecily invited me to Simon’s room to watch movies with the other scholarship students. Apparently it was a tradition that they did every weekend because they couldn’t go to parties or drink by the water like the other students—it was too dangerous for them to go outside so they stayed in and hung out to watch movies and eat a lot of junk food stolen from the dining hall or bought from the small commissary.
Around eight o’clock I went down to the third floor. It was already almost completely dark outside, and that combined with the dim lights made the building feel like a haunted castle. As I stepped off the stairs onto the landing, I could hear laughter coming from one room. I smiled and then went over to knock.
Simon answered the door. He had a big smile on his face and his cheeks were rosy.
“Come on in!” he said, stepping to the side and shutting the door behind me once I was safely inside. “Welcome to my humble abode. We were just about to start the movie, can I get you anything? We have chips, pop, candy, coffee, tea, um, instant ramen…”
“Could I get a pop?”
“Sure!”
He went over to a little mini fridge that he had in a corner and threw me a drink. All the other scholarship students were there, gathered on Simon’s couches or sitting on the carpet. They all welcomed me enthusiastically, and I waved back. It felt nice being a part of this little group of outcasts.
Cecily waved me over and patted the seat beside her on one of the couches. I had been inside Cecily and Ava’s rooms already so I wasn’t surprised by what Simon’s looked like. All the scholarship rooms were well-decorated, large and spacious. They were similar to mine except mine was twice the size so all the furniture seemed very spread out while their rooms seemed cozy by comparison. I took a seat next to her, opened my pop and settled in.
“Manuel figured out a way to bypass the school’s internet filters so we can download any movie we want,” Cecily explained to me as she took a big handful of popcorn from the bowl in her lap. “Every week we vote on which movies we want to see the next weekend and Manuel downloads them.”
“Which one are we watching now?” I asked.
“That horror movie that just came out. The one with the cows and the wardrobes—I forget what it’s called.”
“I wanted to see that!” I said enthusiastically. “How did you guys get it? I thought it was still in theaters?”
“Magic.” Manuel waved his hands around the laptop he was setting up on the coffee table.
“It’s already out,” Ava laughed. “Came out a couple days ago. Manuel is g
ood, but he’s not that good.”
“Am so!” he said indignantly.
“My mistake,” she laughed.
Manuel finished setting it up then came to sit on the floor next to Beth—whom I suspected he had a little crush on. Seeing the way they giggled together with their heads close made me a bit sad. It made me think of Dean and that just reminded me that I hadn’t heard from him in almost a week. I guess he wasn’t as into me as I had hoped. Oh well, I tried to convince myself that it was just a small disappointment instead of a major one but I knew I was lying to myself.
Someone dimmed the lights and then the movie started.
I had a great time. We laughed when Alexi, one of the guys from the first floor, would yell at every little jump scare and then pretend he wasn’t scared. Ava made fun of the movie with me and Cecily even joined in sometimes. The movie turned out to not be very good, but it didn’t matter; it was still the best time I had had at Crestmoore by far. I felt accepted and like I had friends.
After it was over they put on a second one. About half the group didn’t want to watch the second movie which was a romantic comedy, and they went over to Simon’s table to play board games. I wanted to join the group at the table because I wasn’t really a romantic comedy type of girl but Ava and Cecily stayed so I decided for this time that I would stay too, but next time I would play because I loved board games.
When the second movie was over, it was almost midnight and that meant curfew. I didn’t think any of the teachers would come walking around the Bell Tower to make sure that we were all in our own rooms but the scholarship students had to be extra careful; we were on thin ice as it was at the school, so that meant that we obeyed all the rules perfectly—even when it didn’t matter.
I was sure all the other students at the school didn’t care about dumb rules like curfews. They were probably out drinking somewhere on the island, having crazy parties and doing dangerous things like swimming in the middle of the night—all the things that were the exact reason why the curfews existed in the first place. However, us poor kids, who were just watching movies and playing board games, we were the ones who went back to our rooms before the stroke of midnight.
I knew no teachers came this far into the school at night because I had snuck a peek a couple times down the hallways after dinner. A few staff members stayed in the student accommodation buildings, which weren’t attached to the main building, but most teachers lived in “the Village” which was just a cluster of houses a little ways down the road from the school. Once everyone was done in the dining hall for the night, the scholarship students were the only ones left. Being by ourselves in the giant old building, knowing that the rest of the student body hated us, was scary. I asked Cecily and Ava how they slept and they said they also barricaded their doors at night.
We all left Simon’s at the same time. I walked up the stairs with Graham, Beth and Manuel. Manuel lived across the hall from Simon on the third floor, but he wanted to make sure Beth got home safely. At the fourth floor I said bye to everyone and continued up to my room.
When I got to the top of the stairs, I saw that someone had re-piled the garbage, like they always did, but this time I found it even more unnerving. It was supposed to be just us scholarship students here at this time of the night, but someone else was sneaking in here with us and that bothered me way more than the garbage did.
I quickly moved the garbage bags and got into my room. I immediately locked the door behind me. I didn’t like being out in the hall because it made me feel watched. I quickly wedged the chair under the door handle and took all the cutlery that I had been stealing from the dining hall and placed it right at the bottom of the door, so that if someone came in, there was no way I would sleep through all that noise even with my ear plugs on.
I looked over at the clock on my wall and when I saw the time I rushed over to my side table. I just barely got my earplugs in before the clanging of the bells, to mark midnight curfew, started. I put my hands over my ears to muffle the sounds even more. I was almost getting used to the terrifyingly loud bells.
I wasn’t tired yet. It had been such a good evening that I was still wide awake and smiling. I decided that doing my History reading would help put me to sleep. I went over and flipped open my laptop. The first thing that popped up when I signed in was that I had a message. I opened it and my heart started to beat faster when I saw who it was from.
Hi Maddy,
I hadn’t heard from you for a couple days so I asked my dad about it and he gave me your email, hope you aren’t pissed. Just wanted to see if you were doing all right and make sure those dull, preppy school kids hadn’t killed you yet with boredom. Hope you haven’t forgotten about me because I could never forget about you.
Dean xx
I realized I was grinning like an idiot. Butterflies were fluttering in my stomach as I re-read his message over and over.
Hope you haven’t forgotten about me because I could never forget about you.
I didn’t want to be too presumptuous, but I think he kind of liked me. I did a little happy dance in my seat.
There was no way I would be able to sleep for a while. Excitement was flowing through me as I tried to figure out what to write back. My first week at Crestmoore had been hell, but reading Dean’s message made it seem not as bad.
Chapter 10
My second week at Crestmoore was much like my first—except even worse.
When the second weekend rolled around, I was practically salivating for a break from the relentless bullying. I thought the students would soon tire of me and move on to something else but if anything the bullying was continuing to increase in intensity. The Kings seemed determined to make me break. At least one of them was in most of my classes and I could feel their cold eyes on me as one of their minions would execute a new torture.
At the beginning of the week someone had stuck gum in my hair during Biology. I didn’t even notice until Archer had walked by and told me in his commanding voice that it looked like a bird had shit on my head. Confused, because I hadn’t been outside that day, I reached up and that was when I found the hard lump wedged into a mass of my dark waves, right near my scalp. I was pissed because I had to go to my next class with the back of my head looking like a tangled rat’s nest.
Little did they know that I was well aware of how to get gum out of my hair without cutting it. I had always had long hair and as a kid I had been kind of careless and gotten gum stuck in it many times. My mom would carefully spend an hour brushing it out because I would be crying and telling her I didn’t want to have to cut it out. By about the third time it had happened she had a good technique down and could get it out in about ten minutes.
I had needed to get my hands on some oil. When dinnertime came the only oil available that meal was oil and vinegar salad dressing. I snuck some away in a plastic bag and back in my room I was able to remove the gum in a few minutes. I took a shower, so that I didn’t smell like a salad and then I felt kind of good. I hadn’t had to cut my hair; I had thwarted one of their plans yet again.
Whatever they threw at me I would keep dodging—at least that’s how I had felt at the beginning of the week, but as it dragged on the relentlessness and the meanness started to wear me down. I thought I was strong and that I could take it, but I could feel myself starting to break. The sounds of hundreds of people laughing at me, and constantly having to be on edge, were taking their toll.
The highlight of my days were coming back to the room to see a new email from Dean. He was writing me every day, and I didn’t want to tell him how bad it was here. I didn’t want to let him know how much his emails were helping me keep my sanity, but I treasured his kind words, they were making me feel human when everyone else was telling me I was trash.
The other thing that was keeping me sane was the scholarship students. We had another Saturday movie and board games session and it was so much fun. I had also started going on solo walks in the woods just to get away
from the school and feel normal for a bit. I was doing well in my classes and it made me feel good that a poor girl from public school was beating out students who had grown up in this competitive environment.
As I lay my head down on the Sunday night of my second weekend, I dreaded what Monday would bring. I couldn’t imagine it could get any worse than the week before, but I didn’t want to underestimate the Kings. I was sure they were preparing a new round of torture for me right then.
Monday morning came all too soon, and I was woken up by the loud bells. I didn’t normally go down to get breakfast. I was someone who loved to sleep, so I would steal fruits the night before at dinner and I would eat those as my breakfast. This allowed me to stay in bed a little longer but also it allowed me to avoid the dining hall for one meal of the day.
The “dining hell” was where a lot of my bullying took place. At least once a day something would happen to me there, like last week when someone walking by had dropped a live rat in my soup as I was eating it, or when a bunch of students took up every food station at the buffet and pretended to take so long that I finally got fed up, grabbed a bread roll before they could block it and that was my lunch for the day. Without fail someone would try to trip me as I walked by with my full tray of food. A couple of times in the beginning they had succeeded, but I caught on and it hadn’t happened again after I became extra vigilant. Despite how pretty it was, I hated going there, but unless I wanted to starve I had to—but anything I could do to minimize the amount of time I spent there the better.
However, that morning I was famished for some reason and I decided to go down early and get breakfast. Fruit would not cut it that day. I got ready and dressed in my school uniform. Grabbing my bag, I went over to the door and started removing the cutlery I had stacked in front of it. I piled the silver spoons and forks on the small entryway table and removed the chair that was wedged and placed it to the side. I unlocked the door and then turned the door handle but it wouldn’t move. I tried again. And again. It was solidly stuck.
