The Academy

by Ridley Pearson

Neither said a thing.

  “How old are you?” Gary asked.

  Here came the tricky part. Randolph had been adamant about how to answer this. The thing was, Kaileigh could easily pass for several years older; Steel had a boyish face and was less confident about the lie. Randolph had explained that the lie would work in Steel’s favor—the director of the shelter would want to keep the population down.

  “Sixteen in February,” he said, exactly as Randolph had told him to do. Boys liked to make themselves older.

  “Seventeen,” Kaileigh said. “I’m the older sister.” She smiled. “Though he doesn’t like to admit it.”

  The brightness in the man’s face dimmed. “Oh…I see.”

  “Is there a problem?” Kaileigh said.

  “Well, yes, actually, there is. It’s not my idea, believe me, but I’m afraid the state sets the maximum age limit at city shelters like ours at fifteen.”

  “But they’re grown-ups,” Steel said, indicating those at the picnic tables.

  “They are. And it’s a bit of a Catch-22,” he said, checking their faces to see if they understood the reference, which neither did. “A contradiction,” he said, “an oxymoron. We accept guests under fifteen when accompanied by a parent or guardian, and over eighteen—anyone over eighteen. But we’re not a shelter for—”

  “Teenage runaways,” Steel said.

  The man scrunched up his face and looked away from Kaileigh and Steel. “The state views transient adolescents as at-risk juveniles. You’ll find this is true in thirty-eight of the fifty states. You are obviously new to our system, or, quite frankly, you wouldn’t have come in here.”

  “What’s it mean?” Steel asked, knowing what Randolph had told him. So far, the teacher had predicted things exactly as they’d happened.

  “It means,” Kaileigh said, “that Gary is going to report us.”

  “Is that true?” Steven said.

  Gary made that adult face that said he was about to lie or exaggerate. Steel had learned to recognize the expression in his mother; his father was more difficult to read.

  “It’s a state law that children your age attend school. I’m sure you’re aware of that. The state of Massachusetts has provided institutions to accommodate people your age to ensure that they receive the opportunity to continue their education.”

  “Juvenile detention,” Kaileigh said.

  “Not exactly.” He was lying.

  “You’re going to report us?” Steel said.

  “I’m required to file a report—a list of our guests—every forty-eight hours.”

  The truth! Steel had been warned to expect anything but.

  “So we can spend the night?” Kaileigh asked.

  “Certainly. Two nights. And get a few good meals in you.” He viewed Steel. “And a shower.” He eyed them curiously. “We can get you some clean clothes from Goodwill. We can even help you get in touch with your family.”

  “That’s not going to happen,” Steel said.

  Gary nodded. He’d heard this enough times before. “The offer stands. Free phone calls to anywhere in the country. You just say the word.”

  “What does it cost?” Kaileigh asked, sounding as innocent as possible. “To stay here?”

  The man’s face glowed. “No, no, no. No charge!”

  Kaileigh and Steel did their best to look surprised. Their efforts were convincing. Gary toured them around the shelter, orienting them: the bathrooms had showers, the second room with cots was the women’s dormitory, meal times. He offered a few warnings, including to not try too hard to make conversation with the adult male guests—some could occasionally be violent.

  “This is not a country club,” Gary said. “You’ll want to keep to yourselves for the most part, and watch each other’s back. My advice is to trust no one, no matter how nice they may seem. People on the street…well, they learn all sorts of tricks to survive, and the young people, like yourselves, present particularly easy targets. It’s one of the reasons special facilities are provided for our transient teens.”

  “Reform schools,” Kaileigh said.

  “No, actually,” Gary replied, “not exactly. Minimum security juvenile facilities are designated solely for the criminally prosecuted. They’re not bad at all, our juvie lockups. It’s our transients—runaways—that present the state with a more difficult challenge.”

  “State custody,” Kaileigh said.

  “Social services,” Steel added.

  Gary looked at them gravely. He seemed to be warning them that if they stayed too long they would be swallowed up by a system ill prepared to deal with them.

  “Don’t hesitate to contact me if you need anything or have any questions. You’re welcome here, but do be careful.”

  Steel felt a chill. Gary left them by the restrooms. Steel was eager to clean up. An hour of smelling bad and wearing filthy clothes had proved too much.

  Kaileigh spoke in a whisper. “Mr. Randolph could have written that guy’s lines. That went about exactly as he said it would.”

  “Yeah, kind of creepy.” In fact Steel wondered how Randolph could have possibly gotten it so right. Was Gary some kind of ally of Randolph’s? he wondered.

  “Clean-up time?” she asked, indicating her disgusting clothes.

  “Yeah, definitely.”

  When Steel got out of the shower, he found a pile of clean clothes left for him, presumably by Gary. He tried them on, and they fit surprisingly well. He transferred the thirty dollars from the dirty sock into his pocket—his only belongings—and threw the dirty clothes into the trash.

  Kaileigh took longer than he, but eventually came out of the women’s room looking much better. Only the weird hair color remained. He couldn’t believe how it so radically changed her looks.

  They kept to themselves, as Gary had suggested. Steel beat her in three straight chess matches—there were few people who could beat him at chess, because he’d committed to memory the strategies and moves of the world’s chess champions. He read a newspaper while she watched one of the soaps. The late day dragged on. They both kept watch for the person Randolph had told them to look for.

  The later the day grew, the more convinced they became that they would fail the most important part of the assignment. Randolph had warned them about impatience, had made it clear that this was a big part of the operation, but Steel felt himself edgy and antsy by the time dinner was called.

  Dinner was ham, peas, and bread, as good or better than a Saturday night mystery meal at Wynncliff. Steel and Kaileigh ate by themselves at a small table in the corner.

  “Don’t look now,” Kaileigh said, her attention fixed on her plate, “but everyone’s staring at us.”

  “I noticed,” Steel said.

  “What’s with that?”

  Steel stole a few glances around the room, and finally overhead.

  “Duh! We’re sitting directly under the TV.”

  “Jeez. Talk about stupid. We’re asking for it,” she said.

  “Just look natural.”

  “Yeah, right,” she said. She slid the ham around the plate.

  “You aren’t going to eat that?”

  “How can you eat? I am way too nervous,” she said.

  “Because?”

  “The thirty creeps staring at us wouldn’t have anything to do with it,” she snapped. “Neither would the fact that we’re on a mission we don’t even understand, but if we don’t succeed we’re no longer in the Program. Maybe no longer at Wynncliff.”

  “Yeah, but being nervous about it isn’t going to help.”

  “You sound like Mrs. Kay.”

  He noticed that Kaileigh never spoke about her parents the way other kids did. She always referred to her governess, her nanny. He felt sorry for her. Even though his father traveled a lot of the time, Steel treasured his family and his dog, Cairo, and wondered what it must be like for the men and women in this room, and even Kaileigh, to live without that. The worst part of being homeless, he decided, was
not being poor, but being separated from your family.

  “We ought to do something to cheer them up,” Steel said.

  “Yeah, right.” She laid on the sarcasm.

  “You think I’m kidding?”

  “Note to Steel: you’d better be kidding. We’re supposed to keep a low profile, remember?”

  “And where’s the best place to hide?”

  She shook her head. “Please…”

  “In plain sight,” he said rhetorically.

  “Please, do not do this.” She leveled a look meant to stop him cold, but it only encouraged him further.

  Steel set down his plastic fork.

  “I’m begging you,” she whispered.

  Feeling himself the focus of attention, given his position immediately beneath the TV, and finding it impossible to determine if those in the room were staring at him or the TV, Steel stood.

  “I have a proposal!” he said loudly into the room.

  “Oh, gosh, no!” Kaileigh gasped under her breath.

  If the group’s attention had been on the TV, it was now squarely fixed on Steel.

  “Would anyone here like to play a game of charades after dinner?”

  The people, mostly old—at least over forty—looking tired and unkempt, with varying shades of bloodshot eyes and sallow skin, looked up at once. Steel had won their attention, though he was met with dumbstruck, confused expressions that seemed to say: Did he actually just suggest charades?

  “Charades,” he said, just in case anyone had missed his proposal. “We’ll divide into teams.”

  One by one a few cautious hands went up. First, only a couple, and of those, none higher than shoulder height. But then, more and more, to where a full half of the group were willing.

  “See?” Steel said under his breath to Kaileigh. “Stand up.”

  “What?”

  “Stand up. You’re a team captain.”

  “Am not!”

  “Are too. There are four women in here. I’ve got a hunch I know which team they’ll be on.”

  “This is a big mistake.”

  “Because.”

  “This is not lying low.”

  “Trust me,” he said. He stepped behind her chair. Raising his voice, he said, “This is Kaileigh. I’m Steven. We’re team captains. I’m choosing first.”

  And so, over the next few minutes, those in the room wanting to play were divided into two teams. They moved to opposite corners and, writing on napkins, noted the titles of books, movies, and songs intended to stump the other team from being able to act out the title.

  This was where it got tricky: despite their dogged, end-of-the-rope appearances, many in the group were obviously smart; several were well-read; more than a few knew each and every film title mentioned. And as the game began, the competition among them was unleashed. To Steel’s surprise, the players rallied, jeering at the opposition when an impressive time was delivered, cheering in self-congratulations when a title was guessed correctly. Kaileigh’s team, consisting of three women and five men, took the early lead and never relinquished it, but that did nothing to deter the effort of each member of Steel’s team.

  Somewhere in the middle of the twenty-minute competition, Steel caught a glimpse of Gary. Arms folded, he was leaning against the far wall of the room, a mixture of astonishment and appreciation on his face. He seemed to be directing this all onto Steel, silently congratulating him. Or maybe it was more a look of curiosity, or even warning. The more often Steel glanced over at the man, the more confused he felt. Gary seemed to be studying him, examining him, evaluating him, which only led Steel to further suspect that the shelter’s director was somehow tied to Randolph. But if so, then why had he and Kaileigh lied to get inside?

  With the first round going to Kaileigh’s team, a second round was proposed. Not only did all those involved elect to play again, but several of the shelter guests sitting on the sidelines joined in, bringing the teams to ten people on a side, a nearly unmanageable size. Another hour passed, as lively as the first.

  It was near the end—with just two players to go, one on each team, and the scores incredibly close—that Steel caught Kaileigh making hand signals from her chair. He nearly called foul, believing she was coaching the current player, only to realize she was signaling him. She motioned to her eyes and then, screening her hand, indicated the area of the room behind her and to her left—the same place where Gary had been watching. He was about to nod, to tell her he was way ahead of her, when he bothered to actually look where she was pointing.

  Gary was there, leaning against the wall, as casual as before. But there was now a woman there as well. Nicely dressed, with neat dark hair and a pretty face—the exact description Randolph had provided. She and Gary were engrossed in conversation, the way teachers sometimes talked between themselves.

  Steel caught a slight shake of the head from Kaileigh, and he looked away, not wanting to be caught staring. He returned his attention back to the game, though he locked eyes briefly with Kaileigh. Their training in “urban surveillance” was about to be tested.

  The game of charades came to a close. Steel had lost track and wasn’t even sure who’d won. A few of the homeless guys patted him on the back. A couple others suggested they play again the following night, an idea that was roundly supported. Steel and Kaileigh had made friends of themselves. Even those who hadn’t actually played the game had most definitely taken notice of its two organizers. Sentiment seemed generally supportive, but there were also evil-eye looks of disapproval and outright suspicion and contempt. “How dare you challenge the routine of this place,” several seemed to be saying.

  “Okay,” said Gary, moving into the center of the room. “We’re going to put a movie on for anyone who wants it.”

  The sound of a single person clapping came from the dark corner over by the entrance to the men’s room. It was slow, heavy-handed clapping, sarcastic and attention-getting.

  The person responsible was a man roughly the size of a refrigerator. He wore a shirt with no sleeves, his arms covered in tattoos, a soiled bandana around his head, and a peevish look of disgust on his face.

  He was looking at Steel—maybe had been for some time.

  “On with the flick,” he said. “Enough with the babysitters’ club.”

  “Lyle!” Gary said, admonishing him. “Cool it.”

  Lyle and Steel shared a silent moment. It was clear he’d made himself an enemy—a big enemy, at that. Randolph had warned him to lie low, and now he thought he knew why.

  Shelter curfew was 12:00 a.m. Past midnight, you were refused admission and on the streets for the night, this to discourage drunks and druggies from overrunning the place. A new world for Steel.

  His chest tightened as he considered all that had to be done over the next several hours: follow the woman, identify any kids associated with her, attend the Halloween party, steal their way into the hotel suite. Did Randolph really expect them to pull this off? Maybe it was all a lie: some kind of test. Could they make it back to the shelter by midnight, or did that no longer matter? Steel was supposed to call Randolph once safely inside the suite. No plans had been made for what he and Kaileigh were supposed to do after the phone call.

  Steel suddenly wondered: Why not?

  Steel and Kaileigh took advantage of a particularly compelling scene in the movie to sign out, grab their backpacks, and leave the shelter. They’d been taught to get ahead of their surveillance subject so it didn’t seem as if they were following the person. With two of them, they could split up into two different taxis, playing lead-and-chase the way they’d been instructed.

  Steel was to commit the license plate of the woman’s car to memory. If they lost the car—a Volvo, they were told—they were to phone or text Randolph the plate number and await instructions.

  At the moment, the plan didn’t matter: the traffic outside the shelter was bumper to bumper, and there wasn’t a taxi in sight. They moved away from the shelter’s entrance, stopp
ing at a storefront long since boarded shut.

  “Never seen so many cars,” Steel said.

  “We could walk faster than they’re moving.”

  “Then that’s what we’ll do,” Steel said, agreeing. “And if you see a cab, take it. We’ll split up at the next intersection.”

  “GPS tracking would be easier.” The boy’s voice came from behind them.

  They spun around on the balls of their feet.

  “Penny?” they both exclaimed nearly simultaneously.

  Pennington Cardwell III bowed from the waist. “At your service.”

  “But we said—”

  “Not to bother you,” Penny finished for Steel. “You know how tempting it is when someone says something like that? You think I could possibly help myself?”

  The two kids were speechless.

  “Now, I’m assuming from what I just overheard that following some car is part of your hazing,” Penny said. “Correct?”

  “I…ah…we…the thing is…” Kaileigh stammered, trying to think of what to say.

  “Yeah. A woman,” Steel explained. “Probably some upperclassman’s mother…but that’s the drill.”

  “It’s kind of…well…it’s like a treasure hunt or scavenger hunt,” Kaileigh added clumsily. “She works with these kids, and we have to take pictures of the kids. Depending how soon we do it, we get more—”

  “Points,” Steel said.

  “Points,” she echoed.

  “It’s a bunch of places and people and stuff,” Steel said, continuing the lie.

  “And if we get it right,” Kaileigh continued, “then we have a chance to join the group we told you about.”

  “And you can recommend your friends,” Penny said, for this had been a major part of their story.

  “Absolutely!”

  “How did you find us, anyway?” Steel asked, though his accusing tone bordered on rudeness.

  Penny pointed to his head, suggesting his smarts. He then pointed over his shoulder, indicating his backpack. “Listen, dude, I’ve got enough gear in here to…well, like I said…to do anything. How ’bout I slip a little GPS transmitter on your friend’s car, and you can follow it all night long?”