Penn winced. “Ouch.”
Great. “That good, huh?”
“They call her the Dragon Lady.”
“Ouch,” I repeated. “Does she breathe fire?”
“Quite possibly. She’s definitely tough, but most of them are. Academics are of the utmost importance here at Brookwood Academy,” he intoned.
“Yeah, I’m getting that.”
We dropped down a couple of stairs into the arched junction, where students veered off in all directions. Penn raised a hand in a partial salute. “I’m off to Latin with Blackburn,” he said. “See you later.”
I nodded and started toward the exit—math and science were in a completely different building. By the time I slid into my seat in algebra, my midsection was making so much noise I thought I might have a couple of semis rumbling through my stomach. I needed food.
Professor Roth brought preppy to a whole new level with her tortoiseshell barrettes, baby-blue Fair Isle sweater, and pink wide-wale corduroys, but I could tell right away she was tough as nails underneath her ridiculous appearance. Her nostrils did, in fact, flare out a little. Her syllabus was considerably shorter than Professor Drake’s, but just as detailed, and the longer she talked, the more stressed I became. I hadn’t exactly flown through Algebra I but had tested well enough to make it into this class. Which had seemed like a good thing … until now.
I was sensing that a lot of things about Brookwood sounded good from halfway across the country. But now that I was here and actually had to face them? Um, not so much.
By the time I stumbled into anthropology, which was thankfully in an adjacent wing of the same building, I was feeling downright faint. I took a seat at the end of the table and looked around. The classroom was cluttered with all kinds of weird stuff—masks, headdresses, feathers, and skulls, most of which appeared to be human. Professor Mannering looked sort of like an artifact himself—the guy was seriously old, with jaw-length gray hair that was impossibly frizzy. He wore a wrinkled button-down shirt that was rolled up to the elbows but also tucked in. His pants were neatly pressed, and belted at the waist. He was so thin he looked like he might break at any second, and yet he buzzed around the classroom, jotting things on the board, arranging papers, and generally looking like an excited little kid in the wrong body.
“The guy’s a legend,” Penn said, appearing beside me and pulling out a chair. “To the students, anyway. The board has other ideas,” he added in a low voice. “We’re lucky we got in here before they kicked him out.”
“Why would they do that? Because he’s old?”
He tossed his backpack onto the desk and sat down. “Not exactly. Mannering isn’t a company man, so to speak—he likes doing things his way. He was supposed to retire three years ago—the board and the administration threw him a big party and everything. But the next fall, he was right here in his classroom like nothing had happened.”
“Seriously?”
Penn nodded. “Seriously. He’s been teaching here forever. Taught my father and two great-uncles.” A look of resignation moved across Penn’s face. “I come from a long line, I’m afraid.”
“A long line of what?”
“The jury’s still out on that one.” He sighed. “And unfortunately, I’m the only boy in my family—the only one to carry on the esteemed McCarthy name.” He leaned in close. “It’s as if my parents have forgotten about McCarthyism,” he confided, rolling his eyes.
A loud rapping sound echoed through the room, and we turned our attention to Professor Mannering. Some kind of antler, I realized. He’d been rapping an antler on the table.
“Welcome to Anthropology Four Hundred, known affectionately as Ant Four,” he said, beaming at us from behind his glasses, which looked as though they hadn’t been cleaned in, well, ever.
He handed a stack of syllabi to the boy at the other end of the table, who took one and passed it down. It was handwritten—a scratchy scrawl—and photocopied crookedly on the 8-1/2 × 11 sheet.
I stared down at the paper. The syllabus contained only two sentences, which, together, created a single line of text: Humans are both biological and cultural creatures. What does this mean?
Next to me, Penn chuckled. “Get ready, Subzero,” he murmured. “Assuming old Mannering doesn’t keel over or get booted in the next couple of months, this is going to be good.”
I had no idea what it was going to be but was pretty sure that Professor Mannering wasn’t going to keel over anytime soon. I was also sure that he was nothing like the other Brookwood professors I’d met so far, who were nothing like the teachers at Virginia Falls High.
At VFH, teachers had too many students and too many discipline problems. The entire staff was overworked, right down to the office aids. Classes were big, and getting extra help wasn’t easy. Not that a lot of students even wanted extra help. Sure, there were a few kids who worked their butts off, but the vast majority did the bare minimum, which basically meant that they usually showed up for school. And some didn’t even do that.
Brookwood was, clearly, the polar opposite. From what I could tell, students and teachers alike took academics extremely seriously. This fact fell into the category of “sounded good from halfway across the country” but was, up close, feeling a little scary. Especially because I was on a good-size scholarship, and if I didn’t keep up my grades, the school had the right to renege and give the money and the spot to someone else. Which, according to Headmaster Thornfeld’s Vespers statistics, could be accomplished at the drop of a hat.
Professor Mannering spent our first class barraging us with questions: What did it mean to be human? How much did culture shape our actions? Our ideas? Do cultures dictate our ethics? What about human rights?
If I was tired and hungry after English and tired, hungry, and overwhelmed after algebra, I was tired, hungry, overwhelmed, and confused after anthropology. Penn wanted to talk to Professor Mannering, so I stumbled out of the science building, around the pond, and into the dining hall alone.
“Hey,” a voice said. It was Steve, who was standing behind the grill in the servery (yes, they actually used the word servery), where I had ventured on autopilot.
“Hey,” I said back, eyeing the food like a hungry dog. “Got anything that’ll cure ridiculously low blood sugar?”
“Definitely.” He leaned forward conspiratorially. “And for the record, my grilled veggie feta wrap kicks the pineapple pizza’s ass.”
“Really,” I said. “Maybe I should be the judge of that?”
“Be my guest,” he replied, setting a delicious-looking grilled sandwich on my plate, followed by a dollop of green sauce. “Cilantro pesto,” he explained. “I created the recipe myself. You want the chipotle sour cream, too?”
“You betcha,” I replied, forgetting for a moment that I was no longer in Minnesota.
He gave me a sideways glance as he plopped a healthy spoonful next to the wrap. “You’re not from around here, are you?”
“Um, no,” I admitted. “And I’m not in Kansas anymore, either.”
He laughed. “Are you really from Kansas?”
“Actually, no, but I am feeling a little bit like I’ve landed in Oz.” I squinted at him, wondering why I seemed utterly unable to act like a normal person. And what possessed me to tell him this? Was it because he was a … what was the word again? Towner?
“Well, watch out for the winged monkeys,” he said, deadpan.
This time I laughed. “Excellent advice,” I said. “Thanks.”
The dining hall was crowded, with a long table in front clearly designated for faculty, and I paused at the edge of the tables to look for Annette. We didn’t have any classes together but had lunch at the same time most days, which would have to suffice. The academic schedule at Brookwood was nothing like the academic schedule at VF High. Classes did not meet at the same time every day—or practically at all, from what I could tell.
The smell of the grilled wrap drifted up to my nose, and my mouth started t
o water. Being careful not to drop my tray, I picked up the sandwich, dipped, and took a bite.
“People usually sit down to eat here at Brookwood,” a voice said behind me. Penn. How did he get his food so fast?
I chewed and swallowed. “Where’s the challenge in that?”
“Ahh.” Penn was smiling. “The challenge lies in finding a seat with people you actually want to eat with …” He trailed off and scanned the crowd. “Not a lotta room, I see.”
“Nope.” I was still searching for Annette. Unfortunately, her blondish ponytailed head continued to be essentially indistinguishable from the one hundred other blondish ponytailed heads. It was beginning to make me uneasy.
“Penn!” Hank was on his feet and shouting from halfway across the room. “Dude, are you blind?”
Penn responded by raising his chin. “Twenty-twenty,” he shouted back. Then to me, “Care to join us?”
I chewed, wondering if this was a genuine offer. The table was all boys, and they appeared to be in their usual state of shenanigans. It looked appealing. Funny how boy goofiness drove me crazy at home, but here it sort of pulled me in.
“We don’t bite,” he added.
“No, thanks,” I said. “I’m good.”
“No one was doubting that, Subzero,” he said. “Just try not to fall asleep—that would be messy.”
I laughed as he ambled over to the table of guys, then acted like I knew where I was going and started walking. And then, thankfully, I spotted Annette.
And Becca.
And the rest of the girls from the main hall that first night.
“Hey,” I said, setting my tray down next to Annette’s just as I’d done every school day for years.
“Hey,” Annette replied, “I was wondering when you’d get here. Becca is filling us in on the Dress to Impress Dance this Saturday.”
“It’s a rite of passage at the beginning of each school year,” Marina explained. “We all dress up, but not fancy—crazy. The wackier, the better.”
“Remember last year?” said fluent-in-five-languages Cynthia Wu from table 37 (in English, thankfully). “Penn McCarthy’s outfit was hilarious.”
“He’s such a ham,” Becca pronounced.
“A gorgeous, meaty ham,” Marina added with a giggle.
Taking the cue, the girls cast their eyes toward the table of boys not far away. Penn was on his feet, adding to the chocolate chip cookie and toothpick bridge they’d been building, his face tight with concentration despite the silliness of the task.
Gorgeous? Penn? Funny, yes. Quick-witted, definitely. But gorgeous? That had been lost on me.
When I turned back to our table, Annette was watching me knowingly. Lost on both of us, I thought with a small smile.
“Watch out for your lateral bracing, McCarthy,” Becca called out. “You wouldn’t want it to get stuck in one of your stringers.”
At that moment the bridge collapsed, leaving a heap of cookies on the table. “Your fault!” Penn called accusingly, though it was clear he didn’t really care as he picked up a cookie and bit into it. His smile was wide.
“Faulty design!” Becca retorted before turning back to us with a wide grin of her own. “Powwow in my room on Saturday to figure out what we’re gonna wear,” she said. “I have cross-country until five, so come at five thirty.”
“You’re running again?” Cynthia asked. “Girl, you have got to get with real team sports. Field hockey is where it’s at.”
“Are you kidding?” Becca countered. “There’s no way I’m going to run around chasing a tiny plastic ball so I can whack it with a stick.”
I felt a flash of respect for her, since I was in total agreement. Despite my little brothers Josh and Toby’s obsessive interest in hockey, chasing something with a stick had always seemed a little ridiculous. And team sports in general kind of … teamy.
“Especially when I can be kicking butt in cross-country,” she finished, turning to Annette. “Last year we had a 7-2 record, and almost went to regionals. We rocked it. You should run with us.”
Like that’s gonna happen, I thought as I took a bite of wrap. I almost felt sorry for Becca, since Annette despised running. She’d never run a day in her life … unless you counted the early days when the neighborhood kids played freeze tag in our backyard, and sometimes even that took coaxing.
“I do not see why anyone in their right mind would want to spend extra time with Lola No,” Marina said, blowing her bangs out of her eyes.
Becca stared her down with her turquoise blues. “Just saying,” Marina added lamely.
“She might be a nightmare in the dorm, but she’s an amazing coach. Plus, she looks out for her girls, so to speak. Being on Lola No’s good side is definitely a good thing.”
“Annette’s not exactly a runner,” I said, taking a swig of iced tea.
I felt Annette stiffen next to me, even as Becca babbled on, providing details about the practice schedule and their fiercest competitor, the Sutton School.
“I’d love to try out,” Annette announced as I took another bite.
I choked on a piece of feta cheese. “No, you wouldn’t.” I knew I should just keep quiet and talk to her about it later, when we were alone, but I seemed unable to control myself.
“How do you know?” I could see the challenge in her eyes, in the tilt of her head.
“Because I’ve been listening to you complain about having to run more than fifty feet since you were eight,” I said. “Remember those laps Coach Thompson made us do in fifth grade? You pretended to have the stomach flu almost every Thursday.”
“Most of the class did that,” Annette said woodenly.
That was true, actually. But so was the fact that Annette did not like to run.
“Why don’t you try out, too?” Becca said, raising her chin. This was obviously meant to be a challenge.
“No, thanks,” I said. “Running isn’t my bag, either.”
Becca narrowed her eyes at me as if to say “no, of course it isn’t,” and then actually opened her mouth. “I think you forgot your dessert,” she said. “That cake looks delicious, and you don’t have to worry about getting it on your face.” She pushed a fork across the table in my direction.
Did she really just say that? I wondered. Nobody at the table acknowledged the snub, and Becca immediately refocused her energy on Annette. “Just think about it,” she was saying. “Tryouts for new students are Wednesday.”
“Sounds great,” Annette said.
My girlfriend skillfully avoided my gaze—a talent she’d perfected on her mother—and I wondered if she had lost her mind, her backbone, or both. Not knowing the answer, I slathered my last bite of veggie wrap with chipotle sour cream and shoved it into my mouth.
“Orientation? It was great,” I lied into the room phone I shared with Roxanne. My cell was permanently dead, thanks to a combination of my own foolishness and the Brookwood sprinkler system. I stretched out on the top bunk and gazed out the window at the pond, where a group of people lounged in the Saturday afternoon sun. I watched Becca and Cynthia and Hank, and several others I’d seen a dozen times in the past week but couldn’t identify by name if my life depended on it.
“It took forever to pick out those pictures!” My mother’s excitement reverberated through the phone line.
“She made us all crazy!” my dad put in. “I’m officially certifiable.”
“You’ve been certifiable since Josh was born.” I heard the breathy sound of a spoon swat—probably on the arm—and wondered which spoon it was, the short one with the hole in the middle or the longer one with the scorched handle. My mom had an entire collection of wooden spoons, thanks to years of Christmas gifts, but used these two over and over while the rest collected dust in a drawer.
“What’s for dinner?” I asked, turning away from the window. I could picture them as clearly as if I were right there at our kitchen table, and found that I wanted to be. Which was surprising, because a couple of weeks ago,
that seemed like the most boring place in the world.
“Chicken cacciatore,” my mom said. “Your grandfather is coming.”
Crap. I loved my mom’s chicken cacciatore. I could smell the oregano, taste the falling-off-the-bone-tender chicken and mushrooms.
I heard Ben come into the kitchen and imagined him slouching against the Formica counter with his hands shoved in the pockets of his tattered Levis, but he opened the fridge instead.
“How’s it going out there in preppy land?” he asked as he popped the tab on his Mountain Dew. “Are you working your butt off?”
“Uh-huh. That’s pretty much what everyone does around here.”
“Well, then, you should fit right in.”
I considered trying to explain that working hard at VF High and working hard at Brookwood weren’t even in the same orbit, but decided it might just depress me. Being on a grade-based scholarship was stressful enough.
Luckily, Ben changed the subject. “Did you freak when you saw the pictures?”
“Pretty much,” I said. “And hey, thanks for the warning.”
“Mom swore me to secrecy,” he intoned before taking a gulp of Dew. “Said she’d take away the car if I spilled.”
“Maybe she should take the car away anyway.”
“That’s cold, Jo,” Ben said. “But we both know she won’t, because then she’d have to drive Josh and Toby everywhere herself.”
“I do drive those maniacs practically everywhere,” my mom insisted.
That crack is almost the exact shape of Turtle Lake, I thought, looking up at the ceiling above my bed and wondering if Mom was glad to have one of her kids out of her hair. Maybe my leaving had simplified things.
I closed my eyes and rubbed my temple, even though it was my chest that was aching. I missed them so much it actually hurt.
“Hey, I have to go—Roxanne needs the phone.” Total lie.
“All right, sweetie,” my mom said. “Say hello to her for us. Tell her we can’t wait to meet her.”
“Right. Especially if she’s hot.”
“Benjamin!” More spoon swatting.
“She is smoking hot,” I confirmed.
Without Annette Page 5