Academic Assassins

by Clay McLeod Chapman

  “Girls don’t fight fair in here,” she said a little too matter-of-factly. “Better to have no hair at all. I’ve seen Mimis with bald spots.”

  “That’s a pretty image….”

  “There’s nothing pretty about this place,” she said.

  It didn’t feel right to ask her who Mimi was, so I had to think of what else I could say to fill up the stifling silence.

  “I didn’t mean for this to happen,” I said as I pulled myself over to her chair, the seatback still between us.

  “What did you think would happen?” she asked—and I could see the sting in her eyes. “You’d organize a tribal family reunion and we’d all live happily ever after? Everybody just walks off into the sunset with their parents, hand in hand?”

  She had a point. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

  “Didn’t take social services long to swoop in and take me away. They weren’t going to let me stay at home, no matter what my dad said. Not after what happened at New Leaf. The things we did didn’t just magically disappear…even if you did. The rest of us were left to pay the piper.”

  “What happened?” I asked. “To the rest…?”

  “To Peashooter? There’s no telling. I haven’t seen him here. He could be locked up in a castle tower for all I know.”

  “I spotted a photo of Compass on Merridew’s desk. She’s his great aunt.”

  Sully didn’t seem surprised. “Makes sense. He must come from a whole family of mad scientists.”

  “Is she experimenting on the kids here?” I asked.

  “Just don’t let Merridew send you to the Black Hole, okay? Residents come back empty in the head.” She stared, taking in the sight of me. Things only got more awkward the longer neither of us talked, both of us drowning in the silence.

  So what did I do?

  I did what any kid in my situation would do, of course…

  I went in for the kiss.

  What did I have to lose?

  Eyes—closed.

  Head—tilted.

  Lips—parted.

  Incoming lips in five…

  Four…

  Three…

  Sully slapped me across my cheek.

  “Ow!”

  “What signal could you have possibly received to make you think I wanted you to kiss me just now?”

  “I don’t know….” I rubbed my sore cheek. “Here we are, stuck in a broom closet. The lights are down low, just like old times…Sorry.”

  Her face soured at the sound of my apology. “Sorry doesn’t go far here. We’re stuck in this place for a long time—so I’d watch my back if I were you.”

  I couldn’t help but detect the not-so-subtle threat in her voice. “…Why?”

  Sully stood up from her chair and headed for the door. She opened it, about to head out—only she halted. “Find your tribe,” she said, and a hint of genuine concern—of the kindness I remembered—crept in her voice. “Get protection. I’m not going to save your ass anymore. You’re on your own now.”

  “When have I ever not been not careful?” I tried to smile.

  I had to make her stop. Make her stay somehow.

  “Find my own tribe?” I asked, stalling. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  This took her by surprise. “You don’t know?”

  Clearly I didn’t.

  Sully rolled her eyes. “Follow me. There’s something you need to see.”

  Cheering?

  I couldn’t be sure at first, but the farther Sully led me through the bowels of Kesey’s basement, the more I could’ve sworn I heard voices—lots of voices—hollering at the top of their lungs.

  “During the day, Merridew runs Kesey,” Sully said. “But at night, I take over.”

  I couldn’t help but let out a brief laugh.

  Sully spun around and I nearly collided with her. “Think that’s funny?”

  “For real? As in after lights out, everybody just breaks out of their pods?”

  “Don’t have to.” Sully started walking again. “They open on their own. Merridew’s smart enough to know the only way she can maintain order around here is to turn a blind eye to what happens after dark….”

  A sudden outburst of cheers echoed through the hall. It sounded like I was about to enter a sports arena.

  Sully stopped before the laundry room door. “A lot has changed since the summer,” she said before pushing the door open with her back. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you….”

  I stepped into the laundry room and was immediately assaulted by an uproar of rabid yells. Seemed like every ant at Kesey was down here. Over a hundred residents were crammed together, shoulders pressed against one another.

  Everyone’s attention focused on a blur of bodies at the center of the room.

  “Take him down,” one ant shouted beside me. “Rip him to pieces!”

  Ants climbed on top of the industrial dryers lining the walls for a better view, their legs dangling off the edge, heels kicking at the monocled eyes below.

  I had to stand on my tiptoes to see what was happening in the center of the room. Two ants were grappling with one another, arms up and ready to throw a punch. I recognized Buttercup as she sidestepped her opponent to avoid a left hook. She cleared this kid’s fist and quickly wrapped her arm around his neck in a choke hold. The cheering grew rowdier as Buttercup leaned back and lifted the ant off the floor. The kid’s feet kicked at the air. Buttercup held him up and spun him around, acknowledging the crowd as she turned, which got everyone to howl even louder.

  “Take him out!” one ant shouted. “Break his back!”

  Buttercup refused to let her opponent go, even when this scrawny kid’s face started to turn blue. She brought one hand up to her ear, pretending like she couldn’t hear. “What’s that?” she shouted.

  I knew that kid. From the Ant Farm. He’d helped me up while Grayson had shocked me down. His face was now a deep purple under Buttercup’s grip.

  All the ants went berserk. “Take him out! Take him out! Take him out!”

  Is this what passes for extracurricular activities at Kesey?

  Buttercup spotted me in the crowd and smiled. She wouldn’t quit batting her eyelashes at me.

  Can we say awwwk-ward?

  I found Babyface in the crowd and made my way over to him.

  “What’s going on here?” I asked.

  “Nothing but animals, man,” Babyface said before he did a double take. “Hold up. Did you just say something?”

  I held out my hands as if I were a magician who’d just performed some mind-blowing sleight of hand—“Ta-da.”

  “So that’s what you sound like,” Babyface said. “Think I preferred you when you were mute.”

  Sully ascended her own washing machine, personally reserved for her, as if it were her throne. She was surrounded by her coterie of orange-uniformed ants, watching over the action. Maybe she really was in charge. Pinching her thumb and index finger between her lips, she let out a shrill whistle that cut through the cheers.

  Buttercup begrudgingly released her opponent’s throat. The winded ant slid to the floor, coughing.

  Sully raised her hand. All conversation faded immediately. “Roll call!”

  Buttercup stepped forward, chest heaving. “The Peer Facilitators!”

  Buttercup’s punching bag boosted himself onto his feet. “The Orphans,” he croaked.

  From the back wall, a pigtailed girl hoisted herself on top of a dryer and brought her hands up to her mouth, shrieking—“The Screeeeeaming Mimis!”

  “The Napoleons!”

  I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Could this be true…?

  A Tribe franchise. Peashooter had brought the idea to the masses at Camp New Leaf—and here at Kesey, Sully had taken the concept to the next logical step.

  Now everyone could have their own tribe. Just how many were there?

  Everybody thinks they can start their own tribe these days. The quality of tribal life has really g
one down….

  Babyface leaned over to me and whispered, “Seen anything like this before?”

  “Would you believe me if I told you I have?”

  Once every other tribe had announced itself, Sully stood up from her throne and shouted—“We are the She-Wolves.”

  The Wolves surrounding Sully, her tribe, bent their necks back and let out a prolonged ululation from deep within their throats, howling over their heads.

  Sully held up her hand and the Wolves immediately went silent.

  “Who smells fresh meat?” She turned her gaze toward us, the Newbies on the Cell Block—Babyface, Nailbiter, and a few others, freshly shorn and huddled together. “Look at what the Men in White dragged in. What a bunch of pretty faces, all doe-eyed and wet behind the ears. Somebody oughta take a picture.”

  This roused a row of laughter from the surrounding ants.

  “Hate to be the one to break it to you, newbies,” Sully said. “But you are nothing special. You are not a snowflake or a little princess or whatever it was your mommy used to call you back at home when she tucked you in at night. We are all the same here. The sooner that sinks into your skull, the better your chances of surviving this place. Nobody leaves Kesey. Not the way you came in. Whoever you were when you stepped through those front gates is already long gone. So say goodbye, good riddance—and say hello to the nub you are now.”

  “Fresh meat,” chanted the ants, “fresh meat, fresh meat….”

  “You’ve got to be the worst of the worse to land a stint at Kesey,” Sully continued. “But here, you’re like kittens among wolves.”

  Glancing around, I wondered who these kids had been before they got here. They presumably had parents, had once been schoolchildren, sitting through algebra and history and eating lunches out of brown paper bags.

  Just like me.

  Suddenly I was surrounded by dozens of Spencer Pendletons, each the worst kid in his or her own Greenfield Middle.

  Every school had their very own rabble-rouser.

  Now we were all stuck at Kesey together.

  “Merridew says she’s rehabilitating us for the outside world, but you’re not welcome outside anymore. Outside society has rejected us. Outside society doesn’t want anything to do with us—so we don’t want anything to do with outside society.”

  Sully really had come into her own. While I had been off gallivanting in the woods by myself, she had been here—organizing, rebuilding, commanding.

  She was a leader now. And I was on her turf.

  Peashooter would have been proud.

  “This is your home now,” she said. “Kesey is a school for delinquency—and class is in session. We’re talking pass-fail here. Life or death. You want to survive this place? Find your people. Find your tribe. Membership is mandatory.”

  I have a hazy memory of Greenfield Middle hosting an After-School Club Fair. Over twenty clubs set up their booths throughout the cafeteria—the French Club, Model United Nations, the Eco-Warriors—each organization enlisting new recruits. I ambled from booth to booth, checking out the poster board banners in search of an extracurricular life.

  This was so seventh grade.

  Time for a little breakdown of what each tribe has to offer:

  THE SHE-WOLVES

  MEMBERS: 20

  MODUS OPERANDI:

  Sully and her comrades from Camp New Leaf had developed their own tribe over the summer. After the original Tribe had been disbanded, Sully rebuilt her new crew around the ideals that mattered most to her—

  Sisterhood. Solidarity. Self-Reliance.

  The She-Wolves were the first tribe at Kesey. Girls only.

  The She-Wolves worked in the shadows rather than under the watchful eye of Merridew. When the lights go out and the Men in White hide behind locked doors, Sully and her She-Wolves were in charge. She had become the de facto kingpin of Kesey, a godfather—sorry, godmother—of the entire tribal syndicate. Even though she conferred with the leaders of the other tribes, she had final say. Go against her and you got slingshotted.

  DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS:

  Slingshots. No sense of humor whatsoever.

  MOTTO: “The Wolves come out at night.”

  I pushed through the crowd toward Sully. I was only two steps from her washing machine throne when one of her towering She-Wolves cut me off.

  “Step back,” the wolf cub said, her hand pressed against my chest.

  “But I want to make an informed choice, you know? Interview as many candidates as possible before making a decision. Selecting a new tribe isn’t easy.”

  “Better look somewhere else, newbie….”

  I looked over her shoulder at Sully. “What?” I asked. “I can’t join your tribe?”

  Sully tried to hide her smirk. “You don’t meet our criteria. No boys allowed.”

  So far, I was off to a swimming start.

  THE ORPHANS

  MEMBERS: 34

  MODUS OPERANDI:

  The Orphans were the purest product of the juvenile corrections system. True Charles Dickens-style. They had nowhere else to go, no one to look after them.…“Love” wasn’t a word that came their way that often, if ever.

  The Orphans’ numbers were larger than any other tribe. They were shuttled through the system. They had nowhere else to go. If they were ever released from Kesey, it would only be a matter of weeks—sometimes days—before they returned. Though they were defiant toward adults, they held a fierce loyalty to one another, believing nobody else would take care of them.

  DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS:

  Sleepless eyes. Bruised and sometimes broken-nosed, but they take a licking and keep on ticking. The homemade zero tattooed within the joint between the thumb and index finger on their left hand.

  MOTTO: “Mama didn’t love us enough.”

  That scrawny kid who Buttercup had mopped the floor up with definitely didn’t look like leadership material to me. There was hardly any meat clinging to his bones. His lower lip drooped. Too many bullies must’ve yanked on it over the years. The bags under his deep-set eyes indicated sleep wasn’t something that came often.

  “Nobody else take you in yet?” he asked me.

  “Looking that way.”

  “You’ve come to the right place.” He reached his hand out for me to shake, exposing the zero etched into the stretch of skin. “Call me Table Scrap.”

  I took his hand. “Table Scrap?”

  “That’s the name this place gave me. Once punks like Buttercup are done with me, that’s all that’s left. Figured I’d keep it, just to remember I’m nothing.”

  A mouse scurried up his arm and perched itself on his shoulder. Someone had taken a Magic Marker and drawn a zero with a diagonal slash through the center across its furry back.

  I leapt back. “Rat attack!”

  “Don’t mind Mickey,” he said. “He won’t bite. Not hard, at least.” Table Scrap turned to his shoulder and pursed his lips, giving the mouse a kiss.

  Another Magic-Markered mouse popped up on his other shoulder. “Meet Minnie. They’re orphans like the rest of us.”

  “What’s the zero stand for?”

  “That’s all we’ve got here and it’s all we’ll ever need. Absolute zilch.”

  This kid had an unassuming style that was less about acting tough and more about being honest. He wouldn’t be able to outfight any of these other brutes, but if you’ve been pushed around your whole life, shuttled from one facility to the next, what did it matter?

  “So…” I took in a deep breath. “Why should I join your tribe?”

  “Join?” Table Scrap asked rather incredulously. “You already are an orphan, man, whether you know it or not. All of us are….”

  Stepping onto an overturned milk crate, Table Scrap scratched at his scraggy chest above everybody else’s head before beginning his grand sales pitch.

  “At age ten,” he started, “I was a juvenile delinquent. At twelve, I was already a repeat offender. Now, a
t fifteen, I’ve spent more than half of my life in this system.”

  Babyface pushed his way up next to me, listening.

  “I don’t know what a bird chirping sounds like,” Table Scrap said. “I don’t know what a dog barking sounds like. But I sure know what a boy screaming sounds like….I hear it inside this prison every single day. That’s the sound of nature in Kesey. Human nature. And it sure gets ugly up in this place.”

  Glancing to my left, I found Babyface squatting on his own milk crate. Another Orphan sat beside him, holding a homemade tattoo gun fashioned from a melted toothbrush and a sewing needle. The Orphan cracked open a Bic and dipped the tip of his needle into the pool of ink.

  Babyface held out his hand as the Orphan began jabbing at the tender flesh between his thumb and forefinger. A zero emerged under the ink and blood smeared across his skin.

  “We are The Orphans,” Table Scrap shouted, raising a fist into the air, presenting his zero to the rest. “Kesey is our home forever!”

  Suddenly, a dozen fists rose up from the crowd, like cornstalks punching out from the ground, each brandishing their own zeros.

  “What about breaking out?” I had to ask. “Don’t you want to get out of this madhouse?”

  “Some of us have it better in here than we ever had it out there,” Table Scrap said. “At least here we belong somewhere. Can’t say the same for out there.”

  I spotted Nailbiter perched on a washing machine by herself. She seemed more interested in sitting back and observing, a placid smile spread across her face.

  “Hey,” I said. “I was wondering when I’d bump into you….”

  Nailbiter slowly turned her head, as if she had just realized I was standing in front of her. Her smile only widened as she leaned over and gave me a hug.

  I held my arms out, unsure if I should hug back. Nailbiter squeezed tighter.

  “It is so good to see you,” she said, her voice calm. Flat. She finally let me go. Her face was only a few inches away from mine. Earlier today, there had been panic in her eyes. Genuine panic. Now they were glazed over.

  Marbles. Her eyes were like marbles. And her smile….

  Where had I seen that smile before?

  Merridew.

  “You, uh…” I started to ask. “Sure you’re okay?”