The Academy

by Ridley Pearson

  Taddler heard the sound of the man fooling with the key packet.

  “I hate getting my chain yanked by morons like this. We’re talking seventh inning, Sox down by one.”

  A moment later the first guy spoke into the desk phone. He was standing less than two feet from Brian Taddler. “Key’s on the desk. You want us to bring it down to her? Yeah, okay. We got it.”

  He hung up.

  “We’re delivery boys.”

  “Now there’s something new.”

  “Let’s go.”

  A moment later the door clicked shut. Taddler took that as his cue to breathe again.

  A line of four interconnected three-story brick dormitories had been built cut into the Wynncliff Academy hill so that on the east side the middle floor opened to the school’s horseshoe-shaped driveway, and on the west side, the lower level led out onto athletic fields and the gym complex beyond.

  Steel loved the majesty of the campus. The neoclassical brick buildings with their black slate roofs and sparkling white-painted trim reminded him of the historic buildings he’d seen in Boston and Philadelphia on family trips. The groomed lawn and magnificent old trees were reminiscent of British estates he’d seen on the Travel Channel. It was no less impressive from the back, an imposing line of handsome buildings connected by library-like faculty residences. The only thing odd about Wynncliff Academy was its isolation and anonymity. There wasn’t even a sign off the farm road announcing it; a driver either knew which turn to make or missed it completely.

  Anxious to get as far away from the gym as possible, Steel climbed the stairs to the middle of the dorm building’s three floors, and went outside. He ran smack into the sea of arriving kids, parents, and SUVs bulging with lamps, furniture, and luggage. It was a zoo out there, and he suddenly understood why his father had dropped him off so early: Steel was already unpacked, had picked and made the top bunk, shelved his clothes, and chosen a desk.

  Hand on the dormitory door handle, he froze as he caught a flash of red hair among the chaos out along the entrance drive.

  Can’t be, he thought.

  He mechanically moved toward the exit door, his heartbeat elevated, painful in his chest. His skin now prickled for an entirely different reason, and not something with which he was terribly familiar. He felt feverish. But unlike any allergy he’d ever experienced, it came on instantaneously. His mouth was suddenly bone dry and his tongue tasted salty.

  He moved in a kind of trance, out the door and into the cool September breeze. A few sugar maple leaves had already turned scarlet; they clattered in the wind like broken wind chimes. Steel reached back to hold open the door and let a father and son go past carrying a desk chair. People were swarming into the dorms, moving in all directions, like in an airport or train station. Steel had lost track of the redhead, though his phenomenal memory directed him to look exactly where he’d first spotted her.

  And there she was: Kaileigh.

  He crossed the lawn and two walkways, dodging the throng of kids and parents carrying furniture, steamer trunks, and luggage—never taking his eyes off her. Same hair. Same height. Then he quickly convinced himself he had it all wrong: the girl wore a red-and-green-plaid skirt above black kneesocks, loafers, and a green cable sweater. Kaileigh—his Kaileigh—would never be caught dead in preppie clothes.

  He saw her in profile. Again, his heart skipped painfully. It had to be….

  He turned sideways to avoid a collision with a bookshelf suspended between a mother and daughter, ducked beneath it, and popped up on the other side.

  He was ten feet from her. He stopped where he stood. His mouth hung open to speak, but at first nothing came out. He’d never felt the heat in his face and the seizure of his chest in quite this way. What was going on? A uniformed driver was unloading pieces of luggage from a black sedan. None of the luggage matched: bags of various sizes and colors, most of it well worn.

  “My parents travel a lot,” she had once told him. “They’re almost never home.”

  “Is it…really you?” he finally croaked out.

  The red hair flew as the girl spun around, revealing her face like a curtain lifting. At first he felt like a complete moron: wrong girl. This person was refined, with a tall posture, square shoulders, and the definite body of a young woman—he didn’t remember Kaileigh that way—not at all—and he reminded himself he had a perfect memory.

  “Steel?”

  Coughing out a laugh of astonishment, he breathed for the first time in too long.

  She laughed too. And now any doubts he’d harbored vanished, for he knew that laugh without question. He moved toward her without hesitation and enveloped her in a warm hug before he considered what he was doing. She hugged him back like the friend she was, but the physical contact between them brought unexpected and not entirely unpleasant feelings for Steel. Nothing he was comfortable with. They backed away an arm’s length and both erupted into blushing laughter, then talked over one another in a stream-of-consciousness blabber that had Kaileigh’s driver looking on in bewilderment.

  “Steel’s the reason I’m here,” she informed a middle-aged woman Steel hadn’t seen. She introduced the woman as Miss Kay, and Steel felt he knew her. Kaileigh had told him a great deal about her governess. Miss Kay shook hands with Steel, but he sensed her disapproval.

  “What do you mean, I’m the reason?” Steel asked Kaileigh.

  “Your father, I should say,” she informed him.

  “My father…”

  “He didn’t tell you?” She studied him for some kind of crack in his veneer. Was he kidding? “It was his idea. Your father’s. Wynncliff Academy. For me to go here. All my parents’ money, and it took your father pulling strings to make this happen.” She stepped forward and spoke in a whisper. Her breath smelled impossibly sweet—like a vanilla milk shake. “It’s not your typical school, you know?”

  He thought of the boys in the gym. Did she know more than he did? “I know,” he said, not really knowing. “But how was my father…?”

  “He contacted my parents about my going here. My parents have been planning on boarding school for me since I was about six. But this place? Do you know it’s not on the registry of private schools? It has like, unlisted phone numbers, no Web page. I mean…are you kidding me? And you don’t just apply: you’re invited to apply.”

  Steel knew approximately none of this. But he tried to look both unsurprised and unimpressed.

  “Which is where your father came in,” she said, returning him to the moment.

  “Enough, Miss Kaileigh,” Miss Kay said. “You’ll have time for catching up later.” The governess glanced overhead into the thick canopy of leaves, the branches swaying in the wind. She looked at Kaileigh thoughtfully, sympathetically, and shook her head. Clearly, beautiful campus or not, Miss Kay felt sorry for leaving her charge at such a place.

  “Can I help?” Steel offered, eyeing Kaileigh’s bags.

  “Sure, if you want,” she said.

  He reached for one of the larger bags but, trying to pick it up, changed his mind and opted for one of the many smaller ones. He took two, one in each hand. To his surprise, Miss Kay hoisted the heavy one like it was nothing.

  “My father?” he asked Kaileigh, still dumbfounded that he’d played a role in her attending Wynncliff. His father was full of surprises. Only recently had Steel found out that he worked for the FBI, that he wasn’t the computer salesman he’d always claimed to be. He was some kind of undercover investigator. He infiltrated organized crime and ferreted out wanted criminals. It was dangerous work, and Steel had never imagined his father—his father—to be that kind of person.

  Another thing he’d learned about his father was that he never did anything without a reason. So why had he helped Kaileigh be admitted to Wynncliff? To what purpose? To provide Steel a friend in hopes that he would like the place? He didn’t put anything past his father.

  “Can you believe this?” she asked excitedly, almost reading his thoug
hts. “Both of us here!”

  No, he thought. No, I can’t. But he held his tongue.

  Kaileigh was smarter than he was—he knew that. She lacked his photographic memory, a condition that tricked people into thinking he was smarter than he was. She, on the other hand, had a bright intelligence and street smarts that permeated everything she did. She had a keen sense about people, and plenty of nerve. He’d met her on a train on the way to the National Science Challenge. They’d had a wild time together—had been the target of a gang with terrorist connections. Together they’d saved a kidnapped woman’s life. She possessed an internal strength that Steel admired. She wasn’t afraid of much, and she’d demonstrated that she could think clearly under pressure. Better than that, she was a science geek—her invention for the National Science Challenge might have won if it hadn’t been stolen. And more than anything, she treated him as if he were normal. Around her, he didn’t feel like the freak of nature that everyone else thought he was. She rarely mentioned his memory skills, and when she did it was to tease him.

  He wanted to trust his father in sending her here, and yet…why hadn’t he mentioned her coming? Why had he dropped Steel off without a word about Kaileigh?

  “We’re going to have fun,” she said, the two of them lugging her suitcases toward the dorms.

  “Yeah,” he answered, outwardly agreeing with her. Internally, he couldn’t help thinking: But there’s got to be more to it than that.

  Daily school life soon absorbed the freshmen. Encouraged by teachers and advisers alike, sometimes subtly and sometimes not, Steel fell into a routine. He was awakened by his dorm master sometime after 6 a.m., was due in the common room by 7:00, in coat and tie, just ahead of breakfast in the dining hall—a chaotic, noisy assembly with smells of butter and syrup, cinnamon and chocolate, where students clambered for plates and trays while the authorities—coffee-swilling teachers assigned as heads of tables—attempted order.

  Classes ran from 8:30 to 2:30, Monday through Friday, and until noon on Saturday, when at last the necktie could be left in the closet for thirty-six hours. Mandatory athletics filled the late afternoons, with a quick return to dinner that presaged the rigors of study hall.

  There were tardies and truancies and disciplines meted out in the first few days, done so in a public manner so as not to be missed.

  What was at first dizzying soon became comfortable, which Steel assumed was the point. He missed home, and was tempted to call, but his father had encouraged him to go at least two full weeks before doing so. Steel had made it through two weeks of science camp two summers in a row; he could make it through the first two weeks of Wynncliff.

  The football and soccer teams, both varsity and JV, boys and girls, had been announced a couple of days ago, causing a stampede in the administration building. Steel had tried out for soccer but had not made the cut; he’d seen Kaileigh’s name on the girls’ JV list.

  Wynncliff’s Third Form—ninth grade classes—were harder than any he’d ever taken, and he’d been consumed by mandatory study hall until 9 p.m. five evenings a week, only to return to his room and do homework for another hour after that. He’d be lucky if he got B’s.

  His roommate, a stout African American kid named Verne Dundee, from New Haven, Connecticut, was a nice enough guy, but he went to sleep listening to hip-hop through a pair of leaky headphones. Steel, being a light sleeper and no fan of hip-hop, didn’t appreciate the annoyance, but had yet to gather the nerve to say anything about it. He’d read in a school pamphlet—Dorm Life for Dummies—that the best way to be a good roommate was to allow privacy and space. He wasn’t sure how noise pollution from leaky headphones fit into that agreement, but he wasn’t going to push it.

  As he tried to fall asleep, he heard the squeak to the door of the boys’ room down the hall. It was the thirteenth squeak since Steel had entered his room for the night.

  Lying there on the upper bunk, trying his best to ignore the irritating, hollow pulse from Verne’s headphones, Steel awaited the fourteenth squeak—door squeaks came in pairs: entering and leaving. Sometimes that pairing was thrown off by one boy holding the door for another, but politeness was not commonplace in Lower Three. In fact, the older boys tended to torture the younger ones—hazing them and turning them into shoe-shine boys and personal butlers. More to the point, this most recent squeak of the washroom door had come on its own, nearly thirty minutes after the mandatory lights-out at 11 p.m.

  He waited through one endless song squealing from Verne’s headphones, and was well into a second by the time he felt his bladder suggest that a trip to the boys’ room wasn’t such a bad idea.

  He headed down the hall in his bare feet, the cuffs of his pajamas sweeping across the polished stone floor. At night, only half the hallway ceiling’s orb-shaped light fixtures were left burning, saving energy but leaving a long, dim corridor. The lavatory was located in the center of the dorm. The door squeaked as Steel entered.

  The fourteenth squeak.

  He fully expected to run into someone—a boy responsible for the door’s thirteenth squeak, but to his surprise, the place was empty. There was no one standing at the urinals, no one taking a shower, and all three stall doors hung open. He checked the toilets just to make sure. Empty. He shrugged, decided to let it go. Clearly someone must have held the door for someone else at some point—a reasonable explanation. And though the timing of the squeaks didn’t exactly fit, he pushed it out of a mind already too crowded with math and the anxiety of the following day’s test.

  A murmur of deep, adolescent voices approaching from the hallway sent him into a frenzy. At least two boys, it sounded like. There was no set rule that an underclassman couldn’t go to the bathroom at night, but it wasn’t the set rules he was worried about; it was the unwritten rules of the dominating upperclassmen. If they caught him in here alone, they were likely to force him to clean a toilet with his bare hands, or pick the hair out of a shower drain. One boy, Otis Reed, had been harassed into drinking a handful of water straight from a toilet bowl—which in turn had caused the kid to blow his dinner all over the washroom floor and had been a great source of humor for the upperclassmen of Lower Three. Steel had no desire be found.

  To avoid detection, he scrambled up onto one of the toilets and pushed the stall door closed just far enough to screen him from view of the mirrors over the sinks. If one of the boys tried to use this stall, he was toast, but he took that chance.

  The door squeaked—for the fifteenth time since lights-out.

  The boys’ voices echoed off the washroom tile, the sounds mixing with the drumming of blood past Steel’s ears to where he couldn’t distinguish what was being said. It seemed to have something to do with soccer practice. Somebody said something about “the program.”

  He waited, his heart attempting to break out of his chest, his bare feet delicately balancing on the toilet seat, fearing that if he moved even slightly, the seat might also squeak and reveal him to the boys.

  Silence.

  It hit him all at once. One moment he’d been staring down at the black toilet seat trying to keep from moving, the next, an eerie drip-drip-drip from one of the sinks.

  No squeal of the door hinges having come open again. No sound of a urinal flushing, or the sinks running—beyond the slow, tortured dripping of the faucet. He waited far longer than he needed to, fearing that the boys had sensed him and were waiting to spring at him when he climbed down. But he did climb down, and there was no pounce, for there were no boys. The washroom stood empty. Completely, totally empty.

  Had he, in fact, fallen asleep while trying to avoid Verne’s hip-hop? Had he sleepwalked into the washroom and dreamed the rest? He reminded himself that two boys had entered the washroom. No boys had left. And yet the washroom stood empty.

  He conducted a complete tour one more time just to make sure.

  Empty.

  Thirteen squeaks. Then fourteen. Then fifteen. No sixteenth squeak. Again, an odd number. A washroom w
here upperclassmen disappeared. He wondered about this place, about the boys he’d seen in the gym, what his father had gotten him into—him and Kaileigh—and what, if anything, he should do about it.

  Academy assembly on Monday mornings meant an auditorium of yawning students sitting before Mr. Bradley Hastings, a thick-necked but handsome man, youthful in appearance and strong of voice. Announcements were kept brief, variations to schedules made loudly, and dismissal conducted in an orderly fashion.

  Steel recorded everything about these assemblies, from curious looks between headmaster Hastings and a few of the more senior teachers, to the groupings of students.

  It was during such a dismissal that Steel spotted and caught the eye of Kaileigh—though to be fair, she was already waving frantically at him from the opposite aisle.

  They met in the mail room, a dismal, dimly lit warren of tiny post office pigeonholes. The mailboxes required a memorized three-letter combination, A–K, to open. Everything about Kaileigh was conspiratorial as she took Steel by the wrist and literally dragged him down two lanes of mailboxes and around the corner to a dead end, where, it was rumored, a boy had once been beaten and left for nearly three hours before discovery. It was clearly just such isolation that Kaileigh sought, or believed she required.

  “Sorry,” she said, seeing confusion in Steel’s eyes. “But I absolutely must talk to you.”

  He opened his mouth to speak, but she cut him off.

  “I need your help,” she said.

  Again, he wanted to say something, and again she interrupted before he got the chance.

  “I was in…the little girls’ room…” she said, blushing, “and I overheard something that absolutely needs checking out.”

  “The other girls in the room disappeared?” he asked, speaking quickly and forcing his words between hers.

  “What?” She laughed. “Why would you say that?”

  Steel had wanted to bring up the apparent disappearances from his dorm’s washroom, but her ridicule prevented him from doing so. He shrugged and gestured for her to continue.