The Talents

by Inara Scott

  The school day started at seven forty-five and ended at three thirty. There were mandatory study hours between seven thirty and nine thirty, when you had to stay in your room or go to the library. Lights-out was at ten thirty. There were rules about when you could visit the opposite sex, when you could use your computer, and how loud you could play your music. They even had rules for when you could use your cell phone. That part didn’t bother me, of course, because I didn’t have one.

  The Res, Principal Solom told us, was a four-story U-shaped brick building just behind the school. On each floor, the girls’ rooms were on one side, and the boys’ were on the other. The middle of the U was a big common room. There was a phone in the commons, but you could only use it if you reserved a time slot in advance.

  I doubted I’d have too much competition for the common phone. If Delcroix was anything like my middle school, I’d be the only kid without a cell. Still, this sucked because there were only a few hours a day they would let us use the phone. We weren’t allowed in the common room during school hours, or study hours, or after lights-out.

  Boot camp, I tell you. Boot camp.

  I went to find my room right after the lecture, while the other freshmen were still milling around chatting. I figured that was my only way to avoid talking to Hennie and Esther. I managed to lose them in the crowd as we left the auditorium, and ran out of the building and across the grass to the Residence Hall. Like the Main Hall, the Res was an imposing, red brick structure. But whereas the Main Hall seemed built to intimidate, with its big white columns and marble lions, the Res was trying to masquerade as someone’s home, with curtains in the windows, and pink and purple pansies outside.

  But no one could really mistake it for a home. You had to use an ID badge, which they’d given us first thing this morning, to open an electronic lock on the outside door.

  Each room had a keypad at the door, where you punched in another security code. They said it was so we didn’t have to carry keys around, but it made me feel like I was living in a bank, always pushing buttons and waiting for green lights before I could go anywhere.

  Trevor and two other staff people were standing in the hallway laughing when I walked in. They looked surprised to see me.

  “That was fast,” Trevor said. “Did you run over or something? Principal Solom scare you that bad?”

  “I’d just like to go to my room, if that’s okay,” I said. I wasn’t really in the mood to have Trevor make fun of me.

  For a second, Trevor actually looked concerned. “Is everything all right?”

  “Fine. Can you just tell me what room to go to?”

  He stared at me with those disconcertingly light blue eyes, and I had the uneasy feeling that he could somehow see into my brain. “Sure.” He grabbed a box and pulled out an envelope. “Room 422. The pass code to the door is on the sheet inside. Don’t lose it. You’re rooming with Catherine Arkane. Go up the stairs and take a left. It’s near the end.”

  I nodded and started to leave. Just as I reached the base of the stairs, I felt a hand on my sleeve. Trevor had followed me. I swallowed hard, expecting a lecture about being respectful to upperclass students, but instead I got a serious look.

  “If anyone gives you a hard time, you let me know, okay?”

  “Uh…okay. Thanks.”

  As if I’d ever initiate a conversation with Trevor.

  I ran up the stairs and found my room, without any trouble. The card inside the envelope gave me a six-number code. I punched it into the keypad until I heard the click of the door, and peered inside. Two trunks sat in the middle of the floor in a tiny, sterile-looking room: my junky one, and an ele gant, unmarred black-and-silver version with a printed label on the end that read “Catherine Arkane.” The far side of the room had a sloped ceiling, with one bed tucked in a window dormer. Another bed was pushed into a corner. Matching desks and dressers lined the other walls.

  I closed the door behind me and threw myself onto the striped mattress of the bed under the window. Closing my eyes, I pictured Cam putting his arm around my shoulders. It was a lovely image, but for some reason it disappeared a second later and was replaced by the image of Jack, his face pale as he leaned against the bus seat, eyes closed. What had he said? Keep the bad guys out, or us in?

  What a weirdo. I pictured the first time I saw him, eyes wild, Sunglasses Guy close behind. Jack was bad news, no matter that he was someone at Delcroix I actually felt like I could talk to. I couldn’t afford to get mixed up with someone like Jack. Not when I was teetering on the edge of complete freakdom all by myself.

  I got on my knees and looked out the window, but the only thing I could see was the thick evergreen forest that surrounded the school. I looked for a latch, but the window didn’t open. The building was cold even though it was at least ninety degrees outside. I figured they had central air and that was why they didn’t want us opening the windows.

  Hard to believe that in a few minutes, Jack would be right down the hall from me, unpacking his trunk just like I should be unpacking mine. I wondered what kind of things a guy like Jack would bring to school. He didn’t seem the sort to have pictures and knickknacks.

  Cam’s room would be on the second floor with the other juniors. I imagined his room as warm and friendly. He’d have lots of photos on his walls. Trevor would probably be in some of the pictures, along with Cam’s other friends. I bet he had a lot of friends. And a girlfriend. Probably a gorgeous girlfriend.

  That was a depressing thought, so I decided to focus on unpacking.

  It didn’t take long. I set my CD player on the dresser next to the bed by the window, put away my clothes, threw some pens and notebooks into a desk drawer, and put my sheets and comforter on the bed. I set a picture of Grandma and me on the window ledge.

  That was all I had.

  I heard a few noises down the hall and then some giggling and yelling outside my room. The others were starting to arrive. I lay back down on the bed and picked up the picture of Grandma. It was crazy, but it suddenly hit me that tonight would be the first time I’d been away from her overnight. I hadn’t had friends to do sleepovers with, and my soccer camps had only been for the day. An achy feeling started in my chest as I thought about her. What if she needed help cooking dinner? Who would load the dishwasher, or stir the soup while she puttered around and forgot what she was doing?

  I lay there for another minute or two as the sounds in the hall got louder. Then I heard the door click, and someone thrust it open so hard it slammed against the wall and bounced back a few inches.

  A thin, dour-faced girl wearing knee-length navy shorts and a white button-down shirt stood in the doorway. She had long black hair pulled back from her face with a red headband. She wasn’t unattractive, but her thin lips were pressed together, her hands on her hips as she surveyed the room. I jumped to my feet.

  “Hi, I’m Dancia—”

  “I see you took the good bed,” she snapped.

  I recoiled. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you might—”

  “Sure, whatever. Keep it. I’m Catherine. Nice to meet you.” She spoke in short clipped tones, and her gaze flicked up and down my clothes and then around the room, landing on the picture of Grandma and me.

  “So,” she said, “where are you from?”

  “Danville.”

  “Really?” She sounded horrified. “Where did you do middle school?”

  I blinked. “At Danville Middle.”

  “What do your parents do?”

  “My parents are dead. I live with my grandma. She doesn’t do anything, really, except go to doctor visits and watch The Price Is Right.”

  I had a horrible, childish urge to stick out my tongue.

  “I see.”

  Catherine flounced over to her trunk, paused to rearrange her position so I couldn’t watch, and then flicked a combination lock. She opened the trunk and pulled out a picture in a large silver frame. It was her, wearing a school uniform of a navy pleated skirt,
white shirt, and tie. She was shaking hands with Mr. Judan.

  “I was personally recruited by Mr. Judan,” she said, placing the picture on her desk and giving it a loving pat. “He came to my boarding school. I attended Saint Mary’s School for Girls in San Francisco. It’s a very prestigious school that only accepts forty students per class, and I was at the top of my class every year. I took the SAT last year and got a perfect score on the math section. Mr. Judan said I’m a math wizard. That’s why he wanted me here at Delcroix.”

  “Oh.” I was pretty sure I was supposed to be impressed by all this information, and since I’d already pissed her off by taking the bed under the window, being from Danville, and having dead parents, I decided not to tell her that Judan had come to recruit me as well, and told me they wanted me here for my unusual courage. “That’s great.”

  I sat back down on my bed and plucked at the hem of my pants.

  It was going to be hard not to hate Catherine Arkane.

  I thought about what Esther had said on the bus when Cam hugged me: no one had recruited her at all, or maybe they had called her mom at work. It made me wonder again why the school had sent Cam and Mr. Judan to meet with Grandma and me.

  “What was it like?” I tried to sound impressed. “When he recruited you, I mean. Did he meet with you by himself?”

  “Well, my dad was there too,” she said. “He flew all the way from D.C. to be there.”

  “But that was it? No one else from Delcroix?”

  She sniffed. “As if the chief recruiter isn’t enough?”

  I kept my eyes on my pants. So Cam hadn’t visited her? This information was both thrilling and unnerving. I loved the idea that Cam and I had some special connection, but I couldn’t escape the inevitable conclusion that he and Mr. Judan must have visited me by mistake. They must have gotten my name wrong, or transposed two numbers on an IQ test somewhere. Catherine Arkane obviously belonged at Delcroix; I did not.

  Catherine pulled another picture out of her trunk, this one of her and a man in a suit and tie. “That’s my dad. He went to Delcroix. He works at the White House.”

  I squinted at the picture. Catherine’s father looked a lot like her—tall, thin, and grumpy.

  “That’s cool.”

  Catherine placed the picture on the desk. “Right. Cool.”

  She pulled three more frames out of her trunk: two displayed pictures of her in a school uniform standing beside men wearing suits, and one showed her awkwardly hugging a woman wearing a suit. I wondered if anyone in her family ever wore jeans.

  “Is that your mom?” I asked.

  She nodded. I had the feeling she had lost interest in talking to me. I was officially beneath her.

  She unpacked with smooth, efficient motions, like someone who had done this many times before. She seemed to know exactly where each picture should go on her desk, and where all the clothes would fit in her drawers. I put on my headphones, turned on a CD, and pretended not to watch her.

  When she was finished, she sat down on the edge of her bed and cleared her throat. I sat up warily.

  “Time for ground rules,” she said, and fixed her dark eyes on me.

  “Ground rules?” I removed my earphones.

  “Look, I started boarding school when I was in fifth grade, so I know a little bit about how to deal with roommates. Here’s the story. You don’t touch my stuff, you don’t make noise when it’s time to study, and you don’t leave the lights on after ten. Got it?”

  I nodded. What could I say? Somehow I’d managed to get a complete psycho for a roommate. It only seemed fitting.

  “I’m here to study and learn. I consider it the highest possible honor to have been chosen to attend Delcroix, and I hope you do too. I intend to make Mr. Judan and my father and all the other people who came before me proud. And I don’t intend to let anything stand in the way of my success. Do you understand?”

  “Absolutely,” I said. “You’re absolutely right. Those rules sound perfect. I only wish I had thought of them myself.”

  She narrowed her eyes at me, as if trying to decide if I was joking. I kept my face impassive. Catherine Arkane, I decided, was like a young Principal Solom. Intense, motivated, and unafraid to throw an elbow if necessary. Luckily, I had dealt with people like Catherine before, and found the thing to do with them was simple: bow in their general direction, agree with everything they said, and then stay the hell out of their way.

  Of course, I’d never had to live with someone like her before.

  That might make things a bit more difficult.

  “ALL RIGHT, everyone, gather ’round.” Trevor gestured for us to come closer.

  I swallowed hard, and like everyone around me, obeyed without question. Tall Douglas firs and spindly vine maples surrounded us, creating pools of shade from the morning sun.

  “Look around you. These ten people will be your freshman team. Each team shares an adviser, a homeroom, ethics seminar, and study hall. You’ll see each other every day, and hopefully you’ll end up supporting each other through the year. Even though you’ll only officially be in a team for your freshman year, the friendships you make now will stay with you throughout your time at Delcroix. I know everyone on the team I started with are still good friends, even two years later.”

  I looked around the circle to assess the damage. Perfect Girl stood to my left, wavy ringlets framing her face like a golden-brown halo. Perfect Girl’s name, I had learned the day before, was Allie. It figured—cute and perky, just like her.

  Jack stood to my right. That also didn’t surprise me, because fate seemed determined to stick us together ever since we’d arrived at Delcroix two days before. Jack had shown up next to me in the auditorium our second morning at school, when they introduced us to all our teachers and handed out our schedules, and it turned out we had a lot of the same classes. We spent most of the day wandering around together, getting lost as we tried to find our classrooms, and talking about how weird everyone else was. That worked for me because, other than Esther and Hennie, who I kept trying to avoid, it seemed like every other freshman at Delcroix was some ultrasmart, ultracool, and ultratalented kid who made me intensely uncomfortable. It made me feel infinitely better to know that Jack was as unsure about why he was here at Delcroix as I was.

  The amazing thing about Jack was that he really didn’t seem to care what anyone thought about him. Once, during an assembly, a teacher came over to shush him, and he just stared at her, as if daring her to say something else. She didn’t.

  This morning after breakfast the team leaders had split us into groups and walked us out to the forest. Jack appeared at my side moments after they announced the groups. Even though the trail into the woods narrowed in spots, and we had to walk single file, Jack managed to stay close to me. A few of the other girls, including Allie, gave him come-hither looks, but for some reason, he only talked to me.

  Now Jack hung back a few feet from the circle, looking bored. He rolled his eyes as Trevor spoke, which was particularly bold because Trevor was staring right at him.

  “Mr. Landry, why don’t you go around the circle and say everyone’s name?” Trevor said. “I’m sure you remember them from roll call.”

  The faces of our group held a mix of nervous smiles and studied boredom. I kept my own expression blank.

  “Dancia, Allie, Alessandro, Paul, Emma, Hector, Marika, Gideon, and Yashir,” Jack said, pointing at each person as he spoke.

  Everyone looked amazed. I couldn’t remember more than one or two names in the group. Trevor narrowed his brow, clearly irritated that he hadn’t managed to embarrass Jack. We went around the circle a few more times, practicing all the names. Alessandro was a short, dark-skinned kid with longish black hair. Paul, Emma, and Gideon looked like your basic middle-class white kids, nothing too special. Hector was tall and buff, the kind of guy who would never notice me if we passed in the hall. Marika had long dark hair in braids down her back. She was cute in a wholesome sort of way. Yas
hir was the guy that Hennie liked. He seemed serious but friendly. He wore silver rings on several of his fingers, and he fiddled with his dreadlocks when he spoke.

  “Okay, now that you’re all acquainted, let’s get down to business.” Trevor led us over to an enormous wall in the middle of the forest. It was about twelve feet high and at least that long, made of smooth, dark wood planks.

  “This is the wall. On the back of it is a ladder that leads to a platform a few feet from the top. Follow me—this will be your only chance to see it before we begin.” He led us around the backside. The platform looked frighteningly high off the ground. Nervous laughter trickled off into silence.

  Jack snorted under his breath. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  Trevor glared at him. “Your job as a group is to get over the wall. After I explain the rules, you will have thirty minutes to complete your task. Not a second more.”

  “You want us to climb that thing?” Gideon asked doubtfully, as we returned to the front.

  Trevor smiled. Not a nice smile. More of a smirk. “You can get over the wall any way you choose. There are only a few rules. You can’t go around the wall or touch the sides. You can have up to two people stand on the platform. While they are on the platform, they can help those coming over, but they must come down in the order they went up. Once someone gets over the wall and comes down from the platform, they can come back around and help as spotters for people going up, but they can’t touch them.”

  Everyone groaned. Trevor silenced us with one of his icy-blue stares. He showed us a few basic safety moves, telling us to push the person into the wall if they started to fall, which sounded more sadistic than safe. We practiced with him for a minute or two, then he held up his hands for quiet.