The Sinister Sweetness of Splendid Academy

by Nikki Loftin

  “No, it’s okay,” I said. “I love music, too. I can sing really well. I used to make up harmonies and sing with my . . .” I stopped. I couldn’t talk about Mom.

  But Andrew knew, somehow. “Your mom?” he asked. “I’m sorry.”

  “How did you—”

  “I heard some other kids talking about it during art,” he said. “I don’t know anything else, just that she died last year. That’s terrible.”

  “Thanks,” I said, hoping he wouldn’t say any more. He didn’t.

  After a few minutes, I looked back over. He was thumbing through the mythology book on his desk. “Which mythological person are you going to pick?” I asked.

  “Orpheus,” he said. “The guy who almost rescued his girlfriend from Hades, you know?” He stammered a little on the word girlfriend. “Since we get to rewrite the myth. I always wanted to write a happier ending to that one. Persephone’s in it, too.”

  “You know all these stories already?”

  He nodded. “I don’t have a lot of friends, so I mostly just read. I have an old book like this at home.”

  We started brainstorming our new myths, with him writing down the ideas. Even though he was doing most of the work, he didn’t seem to mind. And he didn’t make fun of my handwriting.

  Just before free drawing time, Allison and the other girls came back from the library, their arms loaded up with the latest copies of some teen fashion magazines. She pulled me over to her group on the carpet. “Why do you hang out with him?” she asked, glaring at Andrew.

  “I don’t know. He’s nice. He doesn’t have any other friends.”

  “Well, you won’t either if you keep talking to him all the time.”

  I was surprised; she sounded jealous. Maybe she’d forgotten that she was the one who’d stopped calling, stopped coming over, after Mom had gone to the hospital.

  No, I reminded myself, after I told her why Mom had to go to the hospital. I didn’t want to get into a fight, though, so I just said, “Ally. Come talk to him. He’s cool.”

  She shuddered. “He’s gross. And super fat.”

  That was so mean. I’d never heard her talk that way about anyone, not even in private. “Um, wrong side of the bed this morning?” I asked, and she rolled her eyes and changed the subject. Still, it made me mad. Who was she to talk? I almost pointed out the way her stomach was hanging over her jeans, but I didn’t.

  Ms. Morrigan was walking around the room, pushing the golden candy bowls closer to the students who were reading at their desks so they wouldn’t have to reach as far to get their sugar fix. When she got to my desk and saw my untouched candy, I thought she was going to throw a fit, but she didn’t. She just smiled to herself and nodded.

  No, I wasn’t going to make fun of Allison. I had a feeling that soon, I was going to need as many friends as I could get.

  * * *

  Recess was my favorite part of the day. No reading, no writing, no sitting still. The morning snack was pink cotton candy. I doused mine with water from my water bottle to make it disappear. Andrew sat on the swings, alone again, as usual. I hadn’t realized until then how much being overweight was like having some sort of contagious disease. No one played with him, or even talked to him, besides me. Sure, a few of the guys said hi, but when it was time for recess, they ran off with a football or played impossible games of chase and tag across the monkey bars that no kid Andrew’s size could do.

  * * *

  I had asked Allison to swing, but she said she didn’t want to mess up her hair. She’d reminded me so much of Molly I hadn’t even argued. If she was going to turn into that kind of girl after all these years of being friends with me . . . well, she obviously wasn’t going to want to hang out with me very much. I’d been feeling pretty sorry for myself, and lonely, until I’d seen Andrew waving me over to the swing set.

  “Hey,” I said, and got on the swing next to him. He was watching the eighth grade guys play football and laughing his head off. I looked and giggled as well. You’ve never seen anything funny until you’ve seen a bunch of guys playing football and carrying enormous cones of cotton candy at the same time. “Powder puff football, you think?” I asked.

  Andrew just about fell off the swing laughing. “It does look like that, doesn’t it? I wonder what game they’ll play if our recess snack is pie?”

  “Frisbee,” I guessed. “With the empty pie tins, of course.”

  Andrew swiveled on his swing to look at me. His dark hair was sticking up in devil horns. It made him look really mischievous. “I’ve been thinking,” he said.

  “About what?” I asked. “And is it going to get us in trouble?”

  “Ha,” he said. “You’d have to murder someone to get in trouble at this school. I mean, the teachers let you do anything you want. Text, cut class, miss a homework assignment? No problem. As long as you eat, eat, eat.” He laughed, but his eyes looked sad. “I know it’s wrong, but I’m kind of looking forward to a bunch of these guys getting fat,” he said. “Some of them live near me, and they’ve made fun of me for years. Called me fatty, lardo. Even beat me up. But if they keep eating the way they have been, they’re going to be the ones who are fat. And I’m not. I don’t care how good the stupid food tastes. Nothing can possibly taste as good as revenge.” His eyes were shining, and his voice had gotten loud, louder than I think he realized.

  “Andrew, quiet down. They’re gonna hear,” I said, but just then Andrew flipped off the back of his swing. “Oh no!”

  He hadn’t fallen out of the swing; he’d been pulled. I looked behind me; six boys, Neil Ogden and Patrick from our class and four older boys, crowded around the empty swing and stared down at Andrew.

  “Too late,” one boy said. “We already heard.”

  Two of the older boys grabbed Andrew by the collar of his shirt and hauled him around to face them.

  Patrick threw his empty cotton candy cone at Andrew’s face. The sharp end hit right by his eye, but Andrew didn’t move, only blinked.

  “You ought to be more careful talking about people,” Patrick said. “They might be standing right behind you.” He kicked sand toward Andrew, who flinched. All the boys laughed.

  “Yeah, what was that you said about not eating, anyway?” one of the kids holding him taunted. “A fatso like you? You know what I think?” He shook Andrew by the back of the neck. “I think you’re so hungry, you’d eat anything. I think you’d eat dirt. Don’t you think so, Neil?”

  Neil scooped up a huge handful of the playground sand and held it up to Andrew’s face. Andrew fought against the two boys holding him, but he couldn’t get loose.

  “Let me go!” he shouted, and twisted his arms, but the bigger boys just held tighter until he stopped struggling.

  “Stop it!” I yelled. “Stop hurting him! He was just talking, he didn’t mean anything.”

  Neil looked at me. “Don’t get in the way, Lorelei, or you’re next.”

  Neil was huge, and I had seen him beat up a girl before. I wouldn’t stand a chance. I ran to get an adult, my feet slipping on the soft sand. I could hear Andrew choking behind me as the boys stuffed his mouth full of sand. What were they trying to do, suffocate him? My heart was pounding out of my chest as I swung through the doors to the cafeteria.

  The room was empty except for a few of the waiters, who were sitting down on the soft chairs. I hadn’t noticed before, but the wait staff all looked thin. Too thin, like pictures of anorexic people. Even their hair was thin. One of the girls was reaching for a cup of tea, and it shook as she lifted it. She spilled the tea all down her front when I caught my breath and yelled—“They’re hurting him!”

  Two of the guys stood up, alarmed.

  “Already?” whispered the girl, her white shirt now covered with tea stains. She had a strange accent, and spoke each word slowly, precisely; he
r face twisted like it hurt to say each one. “But it’s too soon.”

  “What?” I yelled. “What are you talking about? It’s Andrew! The other boys are suffocating him!”

  “Oh,” she said, and sat back down. I noticed her mouth moving like she was chewing, or having to force each word out. “My friends? Can you . . . ?”

  The two guys who had been sitting with her got up silently and walked out the doors with me. I pulled at their hands, trying to ignore how bony they felt—skeletal, even—as we went. “Hurry,” I said. “Please. I wasn’t kidding about the killing thing.”

  “Who’s killing whom?” Principal Trapp was standing next to the swing set, patting Andrew on the back gently. She had a water bottle in her hand, and was giving him a small sip every few seconds. “Lorelei? Why have you brought the wait staff out here?”

  She glanced at the waiters, who pulled their hands away from mine and backed up. “Gustav? Otto? Don’t you have lunch to prepare?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” they murmured and shuffled away. I leaned down in front of Andrew.

  “Andrew? Are you all right?”

  He didn’t say anything, but after a moment he coughed, and nodded weakly.

  The principal spoke instead. “Poor Andrew, don’t try to talk. Slipping out of the swing, what a shame. Well, for all that playgrounds are lovely, they can be dangerous if we’re not careful.” She patted him on the back one last time and handed him the rest of the water. “Finish this now, and watch yourself next time. I have high hopes for you, Andrew Fortner. Don’t go choking to death before we can help you reach your potential.” She stood up and looked at me.

  “Principal Trapp,” I said, straightening up as well. “He didn’t fall. He was pushed. Those boys playing football now? Patrick and Neil, and some of the other guys—they were forcing him down, stuffing his mouth with sand.”

  “Is this true, Andrew?” She instantly looked concerned. “Did you eat the playground sand? That would be extremely . . . unhealthy. You might need medical attention.”

  “N-n-no,” Andrew sputtered. “I told you. I slipped off the swing. The guys helped me up. Maybe Lorelei thought they pushed me.”

  I couldn’t believe it. He was lying, bald-faced lying to her! And making me look like an idiot. I glared at him, and caught his wink.

  “Maybe I was wrong,” I muttered. “But it looked—”

  “Now, Lorelei,” she said sympathetically. “Don’t get overexcited. Boys play rougher than girls on the playground. You probably just misunderstood what was going on. Andrew is fine and he didn’t say anything about boys pushing him down. Maybe you’re feeling a bit . . . hungry, perhaps.” She turned toward the cafeteria doors. “I’ll have my staff make you some marzipan to go with your lunch.”

  As soon as she had gone back inside, I turned to Andrew and knelt down in front of him. He was still coughing softly.

  “I’m sorry, Andrew. I couldn’t stop them.”

  “It’s . . . okay,” he rasped out. “But . . . there’s something . . . wrong with the sand.”

  “What?” I asked. “Did they make you eat too much? Are you going to be sick?”

  “No,” Andrew said after taking a few seconds to breathe and cough. “But . . . can you grab some sand? You have a pocket or something? Put some in there and bring it inside. I need to find something out.”

  “Sure,” I said. I pulled my paper cotton candy cone out of my pocket where I’d wedged it. “I’ll fill this up. That way the sand won’t spill out too much.”

  “Okay,” Andrew wheezed and doubled over in another coughing fit.

  Curious, I waited until he stopped, then asked, “Why are you interested in the sand?”

  He looked up at me, and I could see the capillaries around his eyes were broken, his eyes bloodshot from coughing so hard. “Lorelei,” he said, after a few seconds, and paused. “I don’t think . . . I don’t think it’s sand.”

  “What?”

  At that moment, Ms. Morrigan called, “Time for Candy Math!” and the whole class ran past us, throwing their paper cotton candy cones to the ground as they went.

  “I’ll explain later,” Andrew grunted. I helped him up, looking back at the field where the boys had been playing football. Their white cones littered the ground like unicorns’ horns on some horrible, magical battlefield.

  “Wow, Lorelei,” I whispered to myself. “Your imagination’s really running away with you.”

  Ms. Morrigan was standing at the door, her face twisted into a curious smile, and Andrew and I ran to catch up with the class.

  CHAPTER NINE:

  BRIGHT SAND, DARK SECRET

  Forty-five minutes later, Andrew and I sat alone in the science lab. As he lit the Bunsen burner in front of us with a match, I was overcome by how different this school was from any other school I’d ever been to, and how wrong.

  “Messed up,” I said out loud.

  “What?” Andrew looked up at me, brown eyes sparkling as brightly as the sand he was pouring into the small metal tool in his hand. It was like a miniature scientific version of one of those toys little kids play with in the sandbox: a sifter. The pieces of sand were just big enough not to fall through the tiny holes in it.

  “I was just thinking,” I said. “About this. I mean, this is really dangerous. That’s a torch. An open flame!”

  He laughed at me. “Oh, no! An open flame! Don’t worry, Lorelei. I’m a Boy Scout.” He looked back down at the sifter, muttering, “Open flame, what will we do?” and chuckling.

  “Fine, laugh at me. I don’t care. But we’re still kids. We could burn ourselves up—or the whole school down. Hey, look at what happened at the other middle school.” I wondered if I should mention the creepy thing Ms. Morrigan had said about the kitchen ovens being left on. “Do you think it really was wiring?”

  “I guess it must have been. I mean, no one was in the building, right? Still, schools don’t usually burn down like that. They have all sorts of sprinkler systems, alarms . . .” His voice trailed off as he studied the sand.

  “Well, be careful. You say you told Ms. Morrigan what we were doing?”

  “Not precisely. I told her we were going to run an experiment. All she said was we needed to be back in time for lunch. Of course.”

  “Oh. I still can’t believe kids can just come and go. It’s cool, sure, but it’s strange too. They’re not taking care of us. The only thing they seem to worry about is—”

  “How much we eat,” Andrew said. “Yeah, I had a grandma who did that. She used to pile my plate up over and over, and if I told her I was full, she would cry and ask if I didn’t love her.”

  “Weird,” I said. “So is that how . . .” I stopped. I didn’t want to ask about his weight; he’d already had a really bad day.

  “Yeah, part of the reason I got fat.” He shook the sand in the sifter and lowered it close to the flame. “Of course, my genes didn’t help. We’re fat in my family for at least four generations. Big bones, too. I had to live with Grandma for two years, when Mom had cancer. That’s when I got so fat, and I couldn’t lose it. Not that a five-year-old knows how to diet.”

  “Your mom had cancer?” I asked. “Is she . . . okay?”

  “Yeah, she’s in remission,” Andrew said. “Six years now.”

  “What kind of cancer was it?”

  Andrew blushed. I couldn’t figure out why until he said it. “You know. Breast cancer.”

  “Oh,” I said. “That’s good. Breast cancer’s really curable these days.”

  I was thinking about my mom and her death. Andrew had told me about his mom’s cancer. Maybe I should tell him about my mom? I hadn’t told anyone except Allison. Yeah, because when you did tell her what happened, she dropped you like a brick, idiot.

  But Andrew’s mom had had it, too. Maybe h
e would understand. Maybe he wouldn’t act like it was contagious. He would know better.

  His voice interrupted my thoughts. “What happened to your mom?” he murmured, shaking the crystals over the flame. They were starting to spark a little, a few of them catching fire so close to the torch.

  “She died,” I whispered and cleared my throat. The familiar stabbing pain near my heart started up when I said it, and I crossed my arms over my chest.

  “I know, but how?” Andrew asked. “If you can talk about it.”

  “I’ve only told one person. And then she sort of . . . stopped hanging around when I did. So I never talk about Mom.”

  Andrew looked up. “You don’t talk about your mom?” He frowned. “Why not?”

  I took a breath. I didn’t have to tell him everything. But I could tell him some of it. “She was killed.”

  His jaw dropped. “Murdered, you mean?” He looked horrified.

  “Not exactly. She had an accident. Someone made her fall. She had cancer, so when she fell it made her legs break. She went to the hospital. But she never came home.”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t get it, though. She didn’t die of cancer? She died of falling? Who pushed her, anyway?” His eyes were dark and sympathetic, and I almost told him.

  But it hurt too much. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  He didn’t speak for a few seconds, just looked at me, ignoring the sand that had ignited in the sifter. I was afraid he had guessed it—that I was the one who had made her fall—but he didn’t say anything. He just asked, in a quiet voice, “What kind of cancer did she have?” But before I could answer he said the word that was on my lips. “Bone!”

  “What?” I said. “How did you know?”

  “Know what?” Andrew looked confused.

  “That my mom had . . . that kind of cancer. Did Allison tell you? No one else even knew.”

  “Oh, no. I didn’t know. I’m sorry about that. Bone cancer is awful.” He shook his head and looked back down at the sifter, where the sand was turning to ash. “I meant that the sand isn’t sand. It’s bone.” He turned white and swallowed hard. “I can’t believe I ate this stuff.”