by Nikki Loftin
Of course, it was already one fifteen. We’d gotten there late thanks to Molly and the hour she had taken to glop on about forty pounds of makeup.
“No one’s here,” I said. “We’ve missed it.” There were no cars out front, and no parents, kids, or teachers to welcome us. When we got to the front doors, they opened soundlessly.
“Wow! Automatic doors on a school?”
“Well, go on in,” Molly fussed. “I thought you kids were in a hurry.”
“But there’s no one here,” I complained. “What, are we supposed to show ourselves around?”
“No, of course not.”
The voice surprised me, and I jumped. It was the lady I had seen on the construction site. She wasn’t beautiful, exactly. Her black hair was pulled back in a clip, but it fell around her shoulders and shone like a blackbird’s wing. Her skin was flawless, even though she didn’t have any makeup on. Her nose was a little too long, and her lips a little too thin for her to be a magazine model. But her eyes were amazing. Green and hypnotic. She was tall and . . . striking. Looking at her was like staring at a campfire. I was mesmerized.
“I’m Principal Trapp,” she said, and smiled, her teeth glinting almost as white as the tile floors we stood on. “And you must be Lorelei and Bryan.” She shook our hands. Normally, I thought it was strange to shake hands with an adult, but shaking hands with her felt right. She looked at me as if we were equals, as if I was someone important.
I smiled at her without even realizing I was doing it, then cleared my throat. “How did you know our names?”
Principal Trapp laughed, and the sound echoed through the empty hall. “Oh, you! I’ve been hearing about you from all your friends. They say you’re a particularly talented singer, isn’t that right?”
“I guess I was. I used to take private lessons,” I said. “But not anymore.”
“Why not?”
Molly interrupted me before I could answer. She was probably afraid I would tell the truth: that we didn’t have enough money for private anything lessons these days, or so she and Dad claimed. “Lorelei gave it up,” Molly lied. “After years! Can you believe? Kids spend all their time goofing off these days, don’t they?”
I found that I was so angry I couldn’t speak. But the principal could.
“Goofing off? I don’t know,” she said softly. “I suppose some do. But this one doesn’t seem the type. Lorelei, what do you say?”
I started to tell her that my stepmonster was full of it, but Molly drowned out my voice. “If you had to live with her, you’d see. She takes her brother’s old skateboard and runs off all the time, mostly when there are chores to be done. Look! There’s not a patch of skin on her knees. It’s terrible.” She smiled at the principal like don’t you agree?
The principal smiled back, but when she looked down at me, she rolled her eyes and I could practically hear her laughing at Molly.
A different, soft voice behind me did laugh. “Well, who actually needs all their skin, anyway?”
I whirled around. A woman who couldn’t have been more than twenty-five stood there in dark jeans and a bright blue silk blouse, smiling. She had golden blonde hair piled and twisted on top of her head in the most elaborate braids I had ever seen, straight out of a wedding hairstyle magazine. Her eyes were the same bright blue of her shirt, and her teeth were as white as Principal Trapp’s. She held out her hand.
“I am Ms. Morrigan.” I shook her hand, but let go quickly. It was cold, almost popsicle-temperature. Maybe charter schools kept their air conditioning turned too low.
“I’m Lorelei.”
“So you’re the girl we’ve been waiting for.” She leaned down and whispered so that only I could hear her. “Very rude, you know. Are you habitually late, or was this a special occasion?”
I stepped back, stunned. I didn’t even know her! If this was the sort of teacher they had here, forget it. They could bus me across the district, I didn’t care. I almost said it out loud, but those blue eyes flashed again. She straightened and spoke louder. “Lorelei. Lovely. So different. Is it a family name?”
“Not really,” I mumbled. I had hated being Lorelei most of my life. Adults always asked about it, like having an unusual name would make me more interesting. They were disappointed when I turned out to be nothing special. For a second, I was tempted to explain anyway—how our normal dad had named Bryan after his uncle, and our fairy-tale obsessed mom had picked mine from an old German legend—but I just shrugged. I wasn’t going to tell this woman anything about myself.
“There’s a story there, I’m sure,” she replied, and turned to my brother. “And you? ‘Big Bryan’ Robinson? I’ve been hearing about you, too. I can see where you got the nickname.” Bryan puffed his chest out. “I hear you’ll be starting on the high school football team in a year or two.” Her eyes sparkled. “You are a strong boy, aren’t you? Are you sure you’re only thirteen?”
He ducked his head and shrugged.
“Not big enough for football yet, though. We’ll have to see what we can do about that.”
Principal Trapp laughed and put her arm around Ms. Morrigan’s shoulders. “Oh, Alva. Lorelei, Bryan, I’ll have to warn you: She loves menu planning almost as much as she loves working with kids. If you decide to come to Splendid, and you’re not careful, she’ll try out a thousand new recipes on you.” She shook her head, smiling at the teacher. “Sometimes I worry about how much time you spend in the kitchen. You need to—what’s the expression?—get a life!”
Molly must have gotten sick of being ignored. “Principal Trapp? Could we go ahead with our tour of the facilities?”
“Why, of course!” She took Molly’s arm and tucked it in hers. There was something old-fashioned about the way she did it. “Alva? Why don’t you take a break. We can meet up in the cafeteria later.”
“Where else?” Ms. Morrigan asked, and waving goodbye to Bryan—who blushed—she slipped down a side hallway. I jammed my elbow into Bryan’s ribs, to let him know I’d seen.
“Pretty,” Bryan muttered and shrugged.
“Pretty weird,” I said. Now that the teacher was gone, the air in the hallway seemed warmer, more inviting.
“Kids?” Molly called back to us, impatient again. Bryan and I hustled to catch up, so we could hear the principal.
“This is the art room, and this is our computer lab. Of course, all of the classrooms have computers for each student as well. We’re cutting-edge at Splendid.” We turned left and went down another hall. “This is the library. We have over five thousand books, and we have plans for every student to write a book this year as part of their English studies. Those books will all be bound and shelved here for future Splendid students to enjoy.”
“No good for you, stupid.” Bryan whispered to me, but the principal had heard him. She turned and raised an eyebrow.
“You don’t want to be an author?” she asked me, and a little wrinkle appeared between her eyebrows. I wanted to rub it away, restore her face to perfect smoothness. “I can’t imagine that.”
I was trying to think of what to say, when Bryan broke in. “It’s more like she can’t—”
Molly stepped on his foot with her black high heel. “Now, Bryan. Be kind.” She smiled at the principal. “I’m sure she’ll learn to love writing. She just needs higher expectations.”
The principal looked at me again, waiting, but I didn’t say anything about my writing problem. I had overheard my dad tell Molly that he didn’t want the school system labeling me a “short bus” kid. He and Molly pretended I was normal. He’d told me more than once that if I practiced more, I would be a better writer. But I worried he really thought I was dumb.
Maybe I was. All I knew was that every year of school got tougher.
When I didn’t answer, Principal Trapp started walking again. “Next door
is our science wing.” I looked at Bryan and he stared back. A whole science wing?
“What about music?” Molly asked. “Of course, Lorelei sings.”
“I used to, anyway,” I said.
“Oh, I wish I could sing!” The principal patted her dark hair back, even though none of it had come loose from the clip. “I’m afraid I couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket, as the saying goes. None of my family can, unfortunately. But we’ve found the perfect music teacher. She’s coming from overseas, and I expect her any day. Until then, we’ll have an extra recess during music period.”
Extra recess? I had never heard of a school like this!
We turned a corner, and Bryan spoke up. “Who are they?” He pointed to six framed photos clustered high on the wall. I stepped up to one. It was a picture of a small red brick school, with a few dozen children standing outside, squinting into the sunlight and smiling as wide as they could.
Bryan read something out loud. “Escuela de—” He broke off. “This isn’t even English. Where was this?”
I peered at the frame in front of me. Sure enough, there was something written in a foreign language, but I couldn’t tell which one. The caption had little marks over the words that didn’t look like anything I’d ever seen. One of the students, a dark-haired, skinny girl about my age, stared out of the frame and straight at me. I stepped right up to her, wondering, what was her story? Her eyes were saying something. I felt a gentle touch on my shoulder.
“Those are my students, from the Splendid Academies I’ve opened all over the world.” Principal Trapp waved her hand. “Romania, Austria, Germany, Mexico, Brazil, and Greece. All my former pupils. I remember every single child I’ve ever brought into my schools.” Her eyes shimmered for a second. “They become a part of me.”
“That’s a lovely sentiment,” Molly said, obviously impressed. “I’m sure they feel the same about you.”
“I hope they do,” the principal said, taking Molly by the arm. “Now, shall we?”
They took a few steps, but I was still looking at the dark-haired girl. “What was her name?”
“Whose?” The principal sounded startled.
I wondered if she really could remember each one of those kids, or if she had just been lying to make herself sound better. I pointed to the girl and said, “This one.”
Principal Trapp’s lips curved up in a gentle smile. “That one. Of course. One of my brightest. Her name was Vasalisa.”
“Weird name,” Bryan said.
I stepped away from the wall. The eyes of the girl followed me down the hallway, though, like she was still trying to tell me something. There you go again with your wild imagination, Lorelei, I thought, remembering the words my dad had said to me a thousand times. Focus.
Molly was chattering away to the principal about test scores when we passed the only door that didn’t have a label next to it.
“Principal Trapp?” I asked. “What’s this room? Can we go in?”
“Oh, that?” She waved a hand at it and turned away. “Just the teacher’s workroom. Nothing interesting.”
But I was curious. “I’ve always wanted to see what was inside a teacher’s workroom. They never let us go in at Russell Elementary.”
Principal Trapp smiled, but she seemed distracted; Molly was walking on ahead. “Fine. Just a peek; it’s not finished yet.”
She held the door open a crack.
“Oh,” I said, disappointed. There was nothing in there, just a couple of chairs and—weird. “Is that a table?” I asked.
In the corner, leaning up against the wall, was a giant dome-shaped . . . something. It was covered with a black cloth with strange markings embroidered all over it along the sides. It couldn’t be a table, though. Wrong shape. And one edge near the bottom was uncovered, just enough that I could see a gleam of copper.
Maybe it was a drum, a kettledrum. Did this school have a band?
“Principal Trapp?” I looked back, but she had already gone down the hall with Bryan and Molly. I ran to catch up.
“And this is the heart of our school, the most beautiful room—in my estimation—in the building.”
She opened the door, and Bryan and Molly gasped. So did I when I caught up.
“The cafeteria,” Principal Trapp said, and smiled.
We stepped in.
I’d never seen such an amazing cafeteria. It was only a medium-sized room, but it looked more like a restaurant. Small tables, covered with bright tablecloths and centerpieces made from peacock tail feathers and glittering glass balls, filled the room. Rich velvety purple fabric hung like enormous pillows from the ceiling, and giant crystal and gold chandeliers floated over each grouping of table and chairs. The chairs themselves were works of art, carved wood and gold leaf, straight out of a fairy tale. The arms of every chair ended in tiny gargoyles’ heads, with each gargoyle making a different funny face.
“Sweet!” Bryan started running toward the table in the center of the room, the one with the fountain centerpiece sculpted into what looked like chocolate mermaids. “Got anything I can eat?”
“Bryan, don’t run inside,” Molly warned, but the principal touched her arm lightly, and Molly stopped.
“Yes?”
“It’s perfectly fine. He’s just excited. We want the kids to be excited about their food. They’ll be eating at least two meals a day in here, and we tried to make it a second home.”
“This is nothing like home,” I said. “This is amazing.” I ignored Molly’s dirty look.
“I’m glad you approve. Ms. Morrigan is responsible for the design. She even oversees the cafeteria staff. I tell her frequently that she works too hard. She’s been planning the school menus for months!”
Months? How hard could it be to come up with hamburgers, pizza, and chicken nuggets?
“I mostly pack my lunch,” I said. “It’s safer than our old school’s cafeteria food.”
“I can imagine! They practically starved you all, I hear.” She sighed, and I smelled peppermint. “No wonder you’re so small. But haven’t you eaten this summer?” She took one of my arms between her fingers, and squeezed a tiny bit. It made me shiver all over, in a good way, the way I used to when my mom brushed my hair. “Don’t you eat at home?”
Molly laughed, and pulled my arm back. “That’s just Lorelei. She’s so active, for a girl. And she’s got her mother’s metabolism.”
Molly sucked her own stomach in. She wasn’t skinny like my mom had been, and I thought it bothered her. I had heard her and Dad arguing the night before about why Molly needed a five-hundred-dollar-a-month personal trainer at the gym when they didn’t have enough money to pay the cable bill. She had yelled something about needing to slim down so she could measure up.
I wanted to tell her that she would never measure up to my mom, but I didn’t. I can be polite.
Molly frowned. “Did you say they would eat here two times a day?”
Principal Trapp nodded. “Yes, breakfast and lunch.”
Molly tilted her head. I could tell she was thinking about how much extra that was going to cost. “Oh, I don’t think the kids will need to eat breakfast at school. We have plenty of time to feed them in the mornings, since we live so close.”
The principal bit her lip. “Oh, but breakfast is the most important meal of the day. The staff at Splendid has found that when the children eat here, under supervision, they have a more productive day. And the kids love the food. Pancakes, bacon, omelets, French toast. And it’s all part of our Community Schools grant, so it’s free of charge.”
“Free of charge?” Molly looked interested for a moment, but then shook her head. “Well, I’m sure Bryan will love that, but little Lorelei won’t touch a thing. She won’t even eat dry cereal most mornings.”
“Is that so?” The principal k
nelt back down by me. She touched a finger to the top of my head, and pulled a piece of hair loose from my ponytail. “What beautiful hair you have, Lorelei. Spun gold. Is it naturally curly?”
I nodded, the lovely goosebump feeling back again.
“I thought so. I knew a little girl a very long time ago with hair just that color, hair that curled exactly as yours does.”
Her voice sounded sad, and I wanted to comfort her. Was she talking about someone who had died? Maybe she had had a daughter, one who looked like me. I didn’t say the words out loud, but I saw her nod anyway. Then she straightened up, smiling.
“Well, you may rest assured that you will love our food. We hire only the best chefs, and use the freshest ingredients. What do you like to eat?”
I wondered what I was supposed to say. I knew there was always a right answer with adults, and they never wanted to hear the truth. “Broccoli?”
Principal Trapp laughed like I’d made a joke. “Lorelei! No, really, what do you most love to eat? If you could have any food in the world, anything at all, as much of it as you could hold—more than your parents would ever let you have—what would it be?”
She waited for me to answer, like what I might say mattered to her. Before I could, though, Ms. Morrigan appeared at the doorway behind us. She had papers in one hand. “Principal Trapp?”
“Yes, Alva?”
“You have a call. Should I take a message? Or I could finish the tour for you.”
“Oh, would you? I was just asking Lorelei what her favorite food is. Maybe you could have the staff make it—that is, if we’re lucky enough to have this very special girl and her brother join our school.” She leaned down next to me, and looked me in the eyes. Her eyes were green, dark and deep as a forest, pools of green that I could fall into and float on, forever. “Do you want to join us at Splendid, Lorelei?”
“Yes.”
Her eyes brightened. “Good. Good.” She patted my arm and straightened up. “I can’t wait. Thank you, Alva.” In a flurry of apologies to Molly and Ms. Morrigan, the principal left.
