School of the Dead

by Avi

  I dropped my backpack to one side of the couch and flipped through the pages of a brochure. On the second page, I came upon:

  A Brief History of the Penda School

  The passage I was looking for was right up front.

  The Penda School came into existence in 1897, when Mrs. Penda, a wealthy widow who owned redwood forests in Northern California, established the school soon after her only child, a boy, died. So great was her grief that shortly afterward she too passed away. All the same, she left her mansion and an endowment for a boys’ and girls’ school that they might “Respect the past and protect the future.”

  I took out the paper on which I’d copied what Bokor had written in his history of the school.

  Mrs. Penda died, and shortly afterward, her son died. Her will established the school.

  The two statements did not agree. Did the boy die before or after his mother died? Did it matter?

  I studied the painting of the Penda Boy. His eyes full of fear. Pleading. What was he trying to say?

  “Tony.”

  I looked up. Mrs. Z was standing over me. “Will you be staying long?” she asked.

  “About to look at the yearbooks.”

  “That’s fine. I have to speak to one of the janitors. I’ll be right back. Ms. Foxton should return soon.”

  “I’m okay.”

  She left the room.

  I put down the brochure and plucked out the earliest yearbook, 1898. It was a real book, cloth-covered, heavy, the date stamped in gold. I opened it. The pale yellow paper was thick with a slight sheen. On the first page was this statement:

  The Penda School has come into existence because of the death of Mrs. Reese Penda. Shortly after her adopted son died, she died, and according to the terms of Mrs. Penda’s will, the school was established.

  There it was again: the boy died before Mrs. Penda died. And something else was different: the Penda Boy was an adopted son. Did that matter? Over the years, facts seem to have been changed.

  On the next page was a list of school officers. Then came a page of faculty names. What followed were group photos of each class, starting with the first grade and continuing to the eighth.

  Under the picture of “Our First Seventh Grade,” boys and girls were listed separately. In the girls’ list I saw

  Jessica Richards

  Not believing what I was seeing, I read the name over and over. I studied the faces in the image. The pictures were small, like faded memories. Two girls with dark hair looked like Jessica might have looked. Except obviously it could not be her.

  I pulled out another yearbook, the one for 1905. On the first page was a class picture:

  Our Seventh Grade

  I read the girls’ names. Among them was

  Jessica Richards

  Jessica had told me her family had always been in the school. Did they all have the same name? Not likely. More and more puzzled, I pulled out another year, 1920, and flipped through the book until I came to the first-grade class. Sure enough, among the names was

  Jessica Richards

  It made no sense.

  I turned to another yearbook.

  Jessica Richards

  Why did her name keep reappearing? How could she have been a student for more than a hundred years? Impossible.

  As I stared at the name, I remembered my first day at Penda, when we’d met with Ms. Foxton in her office. She had held up a manila folder and said, “Since 1897, we’ve kept track of every student,” and she had glanced toward the file cabinets.

  I thought, Then there should be records for every Jessica Richards. If I checked the files, I might make sense of what I had discovered. Hadn’t Ms. Foxton said, “If you can think of any way I can be helpful, my door is always open”?

  I looked toward Ms. Foxton’s office. The door was partly open. A light was on.

  I crossed over to the school office door and peeked out into the reception hall. The chandelier was swaying slightly, causing the glass bits to tinkle softly. There was no sign of Mrs. Z.

  I stood before Ms. Foxton’s office, trying to decide if I should go in or not. Though I knew that Mrs. Z was around and that Ms. Foxton would be returning soon, I felt I had to learn more. Had to. That’s my explanation for why—though I knew I’d be in huge trouble if discovered—I stepped into Ms. Foxton’s office.

  No one was there, but the room looked exactly the way it did whenever I had to speak to Ms. Foxton: The large desk with three chairs before it. Behind the desk that photograph of joyful kids; on the right wall, the fake-looking fireplace; on the wall opposite, the wooden file cabinets; standing on one of the files, a plastic flashlight; on the wall next to the door, the large wooden chest. Nothing had changed.

  Shutting the door behind me softly, trying to move as fast as I could, I went right to the first of the cabinets, the one with brass letters that read 1897. The drawer slid out noiselessly, revealing row upon row of file folders with tabs sticking up, each with a student’s name, last name first, all neatly written—like gravestones, I thought, and was reminded of the cemetery where Uncle Charlie was buried.

  I grabbed the flashlight, turned it on, so I could see the files better. My fingers flicked over the names, front to back. Culley, Jacob. Kimball, Timothy. Potter, Elisa. And so on. But no Richards, Jessica.

  I pulled out the 1912 files. Abel, Miller, Tagent. So on. No Richards, Jessica.

  I kept going fast, cabinet after cabinet, year after year, name after name. No Jessica Richards. Not even Richards. Or Jessica. Baffled, I finally drew out this year’s files. Budson. Minks. Pallister. Smathers. Even my name, Gilbert, Anthony, was there.

  Everybody but Jessica Richards.

  I closed the last file and tried to make sense of what I had not found. Ms. Foxton had said there was a file for every student. How could Jessica’s name appear in all those yearbooks but not be in any of the school files?

  I was still there, flashlight in hand, trying to figure things out, when I heard the sounds of someone moving about in the front office. My stomach lurched. Mrs. Z—or Ms. Foxton—had come back.

  It took no thought to know that if I was discovered in Ms. Foxton’s office it would be a disaster. For a nanosecond, I considered staying where I was, at least until Mrs. Z left. She would have to go sometime. Then I realized it could be an hour or more before she went. Or she might step into the office to turn out lights or leave papers—and find me. Or it might be Ms. Foxton and she might come in.

  I had to get out of the office.

  I couldn’t go out the way I’d come in. I’d be seen. My next notion was to hide under the desk. But being discovered there would be just as bad.

  Panic growing, I went over to the fireplace, thinking I could crawl up into the chimney. On hands and knees, I peered in, and up. The way was blocked. In other words, it was fake, just as I’d thought when I first saw it.

  I considered the fancy wooden chest. I was sure it too was fake—that is, empty, except maybe it just held a few envelopes and folders. If it was mostly empty, it was big enough to hold me. Though it was coffin-like, it wouldn’t kill me to lie there for an hour or two.

  More noise came from the front office, pushing me to try the chest. Only trouble: when I put my hand to the edge of the lid and pulled up, once, twice, it would not give.

  Desperate, I scooted back to Ms. Foxton’s desk, snatched up the letter-opening knife, and stuck it under the chest lid. With a pop, the lid opened. I dropped the knife to the floor, grasped the lid with two hands, lifted, and looked inside.

  Going down into darkness were steps.

  I stared, not certain if the steps were actually there or something I was imagining. But the more I gawked, the more certain I was that they were real.

  I was still looking when new sounds came from the front office. Knowing that at any moment someone might come in and find me, I looked around the office, snatched up the flashlight, and pointed its pathetic beam along the steps. What I saw were old wooden
steps, worn in the middle, as if used over a long period. Aiming the light deeper, I saw that the steps led down to some kind of space.

  Wanting only not to be discovered, I gripped the flashlight, stepped into the chest, and went down a few steps. Once a bit below, I reached over my head and tried—as gently as possible—to ease the lid down. Jittery, I miscalculated. The lid dropped with a loud bang.

  Scared that I might have been heard, I crouched down and clicked off the flashlight. Heart racing, I held my breath and listened.

  I heard footsteps cross Ms. Foxton’s office, in and then out. I imagined Mrs. Z checking the room, finding no one, then—hopefully—leaving for the day. Though I allowed myself a breath of relief, I made myself count to three hundred. And then some.

  Feeling safer, I reached up and pushed against the lid. It wouldn’t give. I pushed harder. No success. I tried again. When it still wouldn’t budge, my heart sank. The force of the dropping lid must have caused it to stick shut. I was not going to get out the way I came in.

  Sitting on the steps in the dark, I tried to figure out what to do. I flicked on the flashlight. The feeble yellow beam revealed a bottom step and wood flooring, nothing else. Even so, that seemed the only way out. Not really wanting to go down, I made another try at the overhead lid. It refused to move.

  I reexamined the wooden steps. They were steep, barely three feet wide, with rough, splintery wooden walls crowding in from either side. I had no more idea what was below than when I had first looked. The only thing clear was that I didn’t have much choice other than to go down.

  Trying to steady myself so as not to fall, I held the flashlight in my left hand and then pressed my right hand against a wall. I began to descend like a little kid, moving one step at a time, feeling my way with my feet. When I reached the bottom, I played the flashlight beam about, wanting to see where I was. It was a small room. The air was clammy and smelled musty. The walls were thin wood slats, dry and unfinished, in some cases warped. Here and there, rusty square-headed nails stuck out like blunted spikes. The sagging ceiling was wood too. On the wooden floor lay random piles of clothing. The only sound I heard was the rasping saw of my own nervous breathing.

  Across the room, opposite where I stood, was a closed door; against the right wall, an old bed with a rust-corroded frame, its feet shaped like clutching claws; on the bed, a thin mattress, plus a jumble of blankets. The blankets were torn in some places, frayed at the edges. At the bed’s head was a lumpy gray pillow. It was indented—the indentation darker than the surrounding area—suggesting a head had rested there.

  On the left wall was what looked like a freestanding closet, its two doors partly open. I aimed my light inside. On the bottom lay more clothing. Stepping closer, I saw what appeared to be a shirt, socks, and a skirt. Amid the clothing lay a pair of black sneakers with red shoelaces. By the closet was a rickety wooden chair from which a black backpack hung.

  The way the clothing was scattered gave the impression that, though the room was old, it had been occupied recently. Someone, it seemed, had slept in the bed. But who, I asked myself, would live in such a place? A janitor? Was it a servant’s room, abandoned years ago? It was right under Ms. Foxton’s office. Did she use this place? I could make no connection between her—well dressed, neat, and proper—and this disorderly, decaying room.

  I peered back into the closet and considered the clothing: white collared blouses, pleated blue skirts. The standard dress of Penda girls. Then it struck me: the black sneakers with red shoelaces were like the ones I’d seen Jessica wear.

  Next second I recalled seeing her coming out of the building Sunday morning. And that she didn’t live at that Lake Street address, which was in the school directory.

  Could this be where Jessica lived?

  I considered the black backpack hanging from the chair. It looked like Jessica’s. When I lifted it from its place and hefted it, it seemed as if something was inside.

  Unfastening the clasp and using the flashlight, I peered in. There were papers and a few books. I pulled out a sheet. In a glance, I saw penciled geometry problems. On the top of the page, a name had been written:

  Jessica Richards

  I stared at the name, returned the paper to the backpack, fished around, and pulled out a paperback book. It was a copy of The Old Man and the Sea. On the inside of the cover was a name.

  Jessica Richards

  I felt around and found something else: her pale blue tube of moisturizer. It was Jessica’s room. Where she lived. Her talk of her father, mother: fake. But . . . why would she live here? Alone?

  In search of more clues, I went back to The Old Man and the Sea. On the inside back cover, in the same handwriting as before, another name was written.

  Anthony Gilbert

  My name. Circled. Next to the circle, the words STINKS OF DEATH had been written in block letters. There was a line, an arrow, pointing from those words about death to my name.

  And the number seven, written seven times.

  Below that were the words Let the dead bury the dead.

  I had no time to figure out a meaning. I kept thinking that if this was Jessica’s room—and I was sure it was—what would happen if she came back and found me?

  At the thought, fright surged through me. My heart pounded. All I knew was that I had to get away, fast.

  I hurried back up the steps and used my shoulder to press against the chest lid, so hard it hurt. It still refused to open. Knowing I was trapped, I flicked off the light and sat on a step. I felt claustrophobic. The stale smell of the air sickened me. I felt woozy.

  Trying to contain my mounting fright, I crept back down. Flashlight in hand, I pointed the beam around the room. The light flickered and faded, as if about to die. I shook it. It strengthened. As far as I could see, there appeared to be only one way out: the door on the opposite wall.

  I crossed the room, put my hand to the knob, turned it, and pushed. The door opened onto a narrow hallway. My flashlight revealed floor, ceiling, and walls of old wood, like the room in which I’d just been. But what lay before me was only darkness.

  Feeling I had no choice, I went forward.

  I shut the door behind me and began to walk. I had taken no more than six steps before I told myself not to leave that door shut, fearful that it might remain closed the way the chest lid had. I darted back, grabbed the doorknob with all my strength and pulled, only to have the knob come off in my hand. Trying to swallow down my shock, I just stood there, doorknob in hand.

  Not wanting to leave any evidence of my presence, I put the knob shaft back into the square hole. Then I used the faltering flashlight beam to see a few feet ahead.

  I crept along the hallway, moving cautiously. Nothing on the floor to impede me. Nothing on the walls to suggest where I was. But also nothing to tell me where I was heading.

  I continued on, noticing an old bell hanging from the ceiling. I put a finger to it, causing it to tinkle in a tinny, metallic way, its little sound making me feel even more alone.

  A few steps farther on, I came upon a short hall leading to the right. At its end was another door, latched. Hoping the door might lead to a way out, I went to it, unfastened the latch, and looked in.

  It was a room smaller than the one in which I’d just been. Four chairs sat about a round table, as if placed for a meeting. Other chairs stood against the walls. In the center of the table stood a partly burned candle, its wick short and bent like a charred, crooked finger. Around the candle’s base lay a gray crust of hard wax.

  Unfortunately, the only door was the one I’d used to enter.

  My first thought was that the room was a place where—in times past—servants met, or ate. Then I caught a faint whiff of burning, as if the candle had been recently lit. On the floor, I noticed a small mound of sunflower husks, as Barney might have left. That made no sense to me. Why would he have been here?

  Retreating, I shut the door, latched it, and returned to the hall and continued in th
e same direction I had been going.

  I reached a dead end, a wooden wall of horizontal slats, with what appeared to be plaster that had oozed between the slats before hardening. It took a few seconds of looking about to realize that against the wall was a rusty metal spiral stairway. When I pointed the flashlight up, all I could determine was that the steps rose up into darkness, with not so much as a flicker of light to suggest where or how high they reached.

  Recalling the concealed rooms and walls in the building, I decided that all of this was where, in olden days, servants came and went: the hidden passages. There had to be a way out. Determined to find it, I reached for the iron railing. Though the metal was icy cold, I gripped it and began to climb.

  Pointing the unreliable flashlight beam up, keeping my head tilted back, hoping to see where I was going, I climbed steadily, if slowly, moving in tight circles, tight enough that I became woozy.

  I didn’t know how far I had climbed when I reached a place with a small landing off to one side. Dimly, I could see a door set into the wall, as well as another dangling bell. I imagined it was the sealed door that Jessica had shown me on the second floor of the school. I tried the doorknob. It wouldn’t turn. Even when I gave the door a hard push, it remained shut. Sealed.

  I returned to the steps, looked up, and saw nothing but more blackness. I looked down. It was just as shadowy. I chose to go up. But as I swung back around, my flashlight hit the banister and popped out of my hand. I lunged for it but missed. It dropped like a noisy falling star, bump, bump, bump, until sounds and light ceased altogether. Afraid to move, I remained where I was, surrounded by absolute and silent darkness.

  I’m not sure how long I stood there, only knowing I had little choice but to continue. Clinging tightly to the banister, staring into blackness, I forced myself to go up again.

  Round and round I went, pulling as much as climbing. In all that blackness, I had no idea if I passed other landings, or other doors. I just kept going. I did sense I was moving up into one of the building’s towers, perhaps the tallest one.