Annette put on a little pouty face and then leaned back until she was fully horizontal, floating and looking up at the ceiling.
“Yeah, we’d better,” Becca agreed. They swam to the edge of the pool and climbed out, little rivers of water running down their bodies and dripping on the tile. The girls had towels and dried off first, handing them to the boys before getting dressed. I watched Annette slip into a pair of jeans and one of her favorite sweaters, a soft gray with a boatneck collar.
“Are you gentlemen going to escort us back to our dorm?” Marina asked as she slipped on her shoes.
“Not a good idea,” Sam said. “Traveling in a large group after lights is never smart.”
None of the girls successfully hid their disappointment, but I knew they weren’t going to argue. Nobody wanted to get busted.
“Oh, all right,” Becca said for all of them. “We’ll just have to forge ahead on our own, then.” She raised her chin a little in mock offense. “Let’s go, girls.”
The girls stuffed their towels into a backpack and left the natatorium through a door across from the bleachers marked GIRLS LOCKER ROOM.
The moment the door clicked shut, Penn was crouched next to the bleachers. “You okay under there?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.” I stood and stretched. “Nice cannonballs,” I added, cracking a smile.
“Dude, we rocked it!” Hank said, slipping his shirt over his head and giving Penn a fist bump. I could see his erection through his boxers, and turned away with a chuckle—it reminded me of the pup tent my brothers used for campouts in the backyard.
Sam checked his watch. “Do we still have time?”
“If we’re crazy quick,” Penn replied.
“Time for what?” I asked.
“For the thing we came here for in the first place,” Sam said.
“Which is … ?”
“A little redecorating in the display cases in the hall.” Penn opened his backpack to reveal a stash of tacky, carnival-style stuffed animals. “Our embellishments,” he explained, and pushed open a door to a wide hallway lined with display cases. I followed, eyeing the stuffed animal legs sticking out of his partially zipped backpack. “Are we replacing the trophies?”
“No, adding,” he said, a hint of deviousness in his voice. “We’re adding one rhino to each case.” He dumped the stuffed animals on the floor. “For comic effect.”
Sam picked the lock on the first case and slid the door open while I considered possible placements. This was clearly the lacrosse case, with quite a few First Places and a giant New England Championship towering over everything. But where to put my fuzzy friend? Top corner? Smack in the middle?
“You should hurry,” Sam said as he picked the next lock. “Security comes by on the half hour, starting at midnight.”
I shoved the rhino into the cup with its stumpy front feet dangling over the edge and slid the glass door closed. Penn had already put two rhinos on display—one clinging for dear life to the edge of a trophy cup like a fallen alpinist, and another flying above the top shelf, hang-glider style.
I picked up a small, brownish rhino with extra stitching across the back. “This guy is super cute,” I said, noting that he seemed older than the others. He looked familiar, too. “Did he come from your room?”
“Damn it, Hank,” Penn muttered, taking the rhino from me and distractedly stroking the worn fur on top of the little guy’s head before stuffing him back into his pack. “He’s not supposed to be in here.” He took a different rhino and helped him into a perfect spread-eagle between a pair of matching wrestling trophies.
“Why are they all rhinos?” I asked.
“Sutton,” Penn said.
“Sutton?”
Penn gave me a “wow, you are a total newbie” look, reminding me of the way my brothers gave me crap about not knowing game stats. They couldn’t quite comprehend why I didn’t have them all memorized, but didn’t hold it against me, either. “The Sutton School is our archrival, and the rhino is their mascot.”
I had a fleeting memory of Becca mentioning a track meet against Sutton, only, come to think of it, I hadn’t seen a whole lot of girls’ cross-country trophies in the cases. “Right,” I said distractedly. Were there any girls’ cross-country trophies around here?
Penn handed me the last rhino and checked his watch. “Make it quick,” he instructed.
I carried the rhino over to the last case and eyed the array of football trophies warily. “Any ideas?” I asked Sam just as the door opened and Hank appeared.
“Dude, XYZ,” Penn said.
Hank fumbled for his zipper and pulled it closed, and a wave of sadness washed over me. I wished I’d gone swimming, that I’d chosen to dive in instead of watching from the sidelines. But it was too late now.
Squeezing my hands together, I realized that I was still holding the rhino. I shoved it into the display case, perching him atop a giant football, and slid the door closed.
“Can we get out of here?” I asked, trying to sound normal.
“Mission complete.” Sam stuffed the lock pick into his back pocket and quietly opened the door to the pool. All was quiet, and we were heading back to the dorms. Well, that’s something, I thought grimly as I followed the boys back into the pump room and through the hatch. The dark, stale air was comfortingly familiar. And I’ll take what I can get.
By the time I got back to my room, it was 12:52 a.m. Not wanting to disturb Roxanne, I slipped into the bathroom and closed the door behind me before flipping the light switch. I turned on the hot water and pulled off my filthy clothes.
The swelling on my thigh burned on water contact—the welt was raised and blistered. Extending my leg as best I could to protect it, I crookedly washed my body, letting the liquid warmth run down my shoulders and back. I could have slept right there.
Willing myself to keep moving, I turned off the tap and toweled down. After gingerly blotting the wound on my thigh, I pawed through the shelves of hair products, multivitamins, and laxatives until I found a tube of antibiotic ointment. I slathered a bunch on my burn, then stuck a not-quite-big-enough Band-Aid over it.
You can redo it in the morning, I told myself as I slipped into my pajamas. Right now you need to sleep. Sneaking out of the bathroom, I climbed the ladder to the top bunk.
“What took you so long?” a voice whispered. The covers lifted and I saw Annette’s long, slender form in my bed, more naked than she’d been on the diving board.
In my head, I froze. I didn’t slide in next to her and put my mouth across hers. I didn’t remove my pajamas in the darkness, my heart pounding with anticipation. I didn’t wrap a hand around her narrow waist and cup her breast with another. I was too full of questions and doubts and confusion to melt into her, to let her envelop me.
My body, however, had a mind of its own.
“Pass the salt,” Becca said, wagging her hand in the air expectantly. It was seven thirty a.m. and we were rushing through breakfast to get to class. As I burned the roof of my mouth on my coffee, I couldn’t help but notice that everyone seemed a little bleary, an adjective that didn’t even begin to authentically describe my own state.
Annette had stayed in my bed until five o’clock, nestled up against me. I was still dozing when she slipped away, and I had no idea whether Roxanne knew she’d been there, since she, too, was gone when I woke up.
So many things had happened in the last twenty-four hours that I could barely keep track, much less sort out what they meant. Part of me loved having Annette spend the night—the first time since we’d arrived at Brookwood. But I was also feeling more and more unsettled about us, more and more bothered by the choices she was making.
I took another sip of coffee just as Roxanne appeared with a giant bowl of Lucky Charms. I scooched over so she could get by and she sat down next to me, her back less than twelve inches from Hank at the next table over.
So here we were again, the lot of us, together in the dining hall. Our lives at Bro
okwood were so entangled that escaping one another was almost as impossible as escaping ourselves. We really were like microbes in a petri dish—microbes that collided and smashed together and sometimes lost their individual shapes, becoming a single mass of mold. I cradled my mug in my hands and told myself that I wanted nothing to do with the moldy mass, that keeping my distance from the Soleets was the right choice. But somehow, I wasn’t entirely convinced. And when Annette’s eyes locked on mine over the top of her juice glass and she smiled—the sly, secret smile we’d shared at many breakfasts before—I was even less convinced. I was that easy.
“Hey,” I said to Roxanne, feeling sheepish about Annette spending the night. I knew it was bad form to fool around when someone was right below you, and was pretty dang sure Annette didn’t ask for permission before climbing up to my bunk, either. Should I apologize? If Roxanne had no idea she was even there, would that just make things worse?
“Hey, yourself,” she replied coolly.
I felt my stomach drop. She knew.
“Anyone want to take my algebra quiz this morning?” Marina asked, flipping through her math text in a last-minute attempt to prepare. “I’m hopeless with exponents and logarithms.”
My stomach dropped again. I’d completely forgotten about my own algebra quiz. I’d planned to study the night before but had gotten wrapped up in barfgate and then the tunneling-turned-swim-party …
I’d been struggling in algebra and knew I needed to ask for help but hadn’t quite gotten around to it. Professor Roth wasn’t exactly the most approachable teacher.
Cynthia shook her head. “Stressing about my Latin test. Why do you think I skipped the pool?”
Roxanne’s head shot up.
“Because you never swim with us after lights,” Marina replied a little sulkily.
Hank turned. “You ladies want a bullhorn so you can announce it to the whole room?” he asked.
Roxanne’s eyes searched my face. Pool? they asked accusingly.
I felt a flash of guilt, and then resentment. I didn’t even get into the pool!
“Did you go swimming last night?” she asked quietly.
I shook my head. It was the truth, but she didn’t look like she believed me.
“You said you’d help me with my project.”
I felt my face flush with shame. “You meant right then—last night?” But even as I asked, I knew that was what she’d meant. It seemed so obvious now.
“I didn’t mean next week,” she said, her dark eyes cloudy. Roxanne was extremely adept at hiding her feelings, except for her eyes. And as they locked on my face, I could see that she was really hurt.
“I didn’t—”
“I know you didn’t,” she said, cutting me off. “That part is clear.” She got up from the table, leaving half her bowl of cereal—even the marshmallows, which she always saved for last—floating on top of the pale pink milk.
My stomach sank all the way to the floor as I watched her walk away. I’d definitely blown it. Pushing my plate aside, I turned back to Becca, who was still on Cynthia and her Latin roots. Nobody even seemed to notice Roxanne’s departure.
“Oh, please, Wu.” Becca set down her mug, sloshing the cream-and-sugar-laden coffee dangerously close to the rim. “The whole school knows you’re fluent in practically every language except Latin—it’s only a matter of time before you master that, too.”
Cynthia didn’t flinch. “All the more reason for me to memorize the conjugation of this week’s thirty roots.”
“Can I have a few drops of your overachieving blood?” Marina asked. “My parents are threatening to yank me out of here if I don’t get my grades up.”
I could relate to that problem, except I didn’t feel pressure from my parents. I felt it from the school.
“I thought you didn’t like it here,” I said without thinking. “Or did you mean ‘embrace the horror’ as a compliment?”
Cynthia looked up from her Latin, her eyes defensive. Marina leaned toward her unfinished French toast. “Horror is everywhere, and relative,” she explained, “because Mummy is a bit of a bitch with a fondness for prescription drugs, and Daddy has fidelity issues—he spends more money on his mistress than he does on my tuition. Way more.”
Becca rolled her eyes and plunked another sugar cube into her coffee while Marina pulled her cardigan around her and returned her attention to algebra, but not quickly enough to completely hide the sadness on her face.
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled.
Annette was leaning over the side of her chair, avoiding the entire scene with remarkable aptitude. Had she even been listening? I waited for her head to surface, but she just kept fiddling with her book bag. Her coffee was gone, but she’d barely touched her food.
“Time for class,” Becca announced. Cynthia closed her notebook and got to her feet, ready for the thirty roots. I tried to make eye contact, to let her know I felt bad about upsetting her roommate, but she didn’t give me the chance.
“Ready, Marina?” she asked gently as Annette slung her reorganized bag over her shoulder.
“Ready as I’ll ever be,” Marina replied with a sigh. She slammed her book shut, shoved it into her bag, and followed Cynthia to the window, where Steve was rinsing dishes.
I waited while the other girls dropped off their trays, and tried to muster a smile.
“That good?” Steve asked, grabbing a stack of bowls.
“Better,” I said drily.
His gloved hand rested gingerly on the soggy piece of toast on the top plate. “Don’t let the turkeys get you down,” he offered.
“Thanks,” I replied, setting my dishes on the stainless steel counter with a grimace. I wanted to decide once and for all that these girls were turkeys—every one of them. Becca still didn’t appear to give a crap about anyone but herself, but Marina couldn’t be written off that easily—she’d kept the kiss she’d seen under wraps and overall seemed pretty damned human. And Cynthia had just defended her roommate (without even speaking). I wanted to hate them, to not care at all about my flub. But I couldn’t.
And then there was Roxanne.
I dumped my tray into the pile, feeling like total crap. “Right,” I mumbled. “Except I’m beginning to think that I’m the biggest turkey of all.”
The best part of English class, hands down, was listening to the other kids snicker about the rhinos we’d left in the trophy cases. Professor Drake actually stopped teaching for a few minutes. “I can see that we need to spend a few moments reacting to the embellished trophy cases discovered in the athletic center this morning,” he said, turning from the whiteboard with a sigh. “Go ahead, get on with it.”
“All rhinos.”
“Had to be Sutton.”
“How’d they get in?”
I felt a tingle of pride as the banter spread throughout the room. Sam sat very straight, pretending to wait for the lesson to begin, but a small smile tugged at the corners of Penn’s lips. Becca, who was sitting next to Penn, gave him a sideways look of suspicion, then beamed at him.
“Are we finished?” Professor Drake asked as his eyes traveled the room, momentarily settling on each of us in turn. This is actually possible when there are only eleven students in class. “Because I’d like to move on to helping you learn how to write coherent, thoughtful essays.” The rest of the class was spent on coming up with themes for “The Lottery,” which I found depressing. First of all, the story itself was depressing. Sure, it started out with sunshine and blue skies and the anticipation of an annual event. But it ended with a person getting stoned to death. And it was hard to get excited about hypocrisy, mob mentality, and human cruelty, especially when all three things only reminded me that I’d totally blown it with Roxanne the night before. How did I not get that she meant right then? She’d used the word brilliant!
Maybe you didn’t want to get it, I thought miserably.
After English, I went straight to my own kind of doom: my algebra quiz. Which I failed. After a
nother lesson on linear equations that I barely understood, I headed to anthropology, determined to put my woes behind me.
Professor Mannering was in rare form. Particularly rare form, actually, because he always reminded me of the rare and unusual artifacts in his classroom. There was something about his birdlike movements and the intensity of his eyes—I’d never had a teacher anything like him.
“Peoples,” he began. He put an s on people, he told us, because we weren’t all from the same tribe. Tribes were not limited to rural places but were in fact everywhere on earth, complete with beliefs and traditions and patterns of behavior. The Soleets were, for example, a tribe. And, I supposed, the poker-playing tunnelers were, too. “Today we shall examine the cultural anthropology paradox.” He scrawled the words on the board. “Can anyone tell me what this means?”
“Well, a paradox is a contradiction,” Penn said.
“Exactly.” Mannering beamed. “It is a thing that contradicts itself. Now, how could cultural anthropology be a contradiction?”
The room got quiet. Professor Mannering took a sip from one of three coffee mugs on his desk and made a face. “Ack, Wednesdays,” he muttered, swallowing with a grimace.
Marina raised her hand. “Well, on the one hand, anthropologists are supposed to study other cultures for the sake of understanding different human behaviors. On the other, didn’t it all start when Europeans decided to conquer the world? Isn’t anthropology directly linked to colonialism?”
Professor Mannering nodded. “Indeed, the roots of cultural anthropology spread deep and wide when European thinkers became interested in the differences between ‘civilized’ and ‘primitive’ cultures. Even today, anthropological research is funded by schools and governments and institutions, all of which have interests that undermine the very cultures and lives they are studying.” He paused. “Land, oil, medicines …” He trailed off, returning to the board to write: Who is the anthropologist ultimately loyal to?
A boy named Damon raised his hand. “The institution funding him, of course,” he said derisively. “They’re the ones paying the salary.”
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