by Laura Burns
Sarah drew in a shaky breath. She had to stop with the poor-kid attitude. Everyone here was rich—she couldn’t be mad at them all, not if she wanted them to accept her. Luckily, if her question had pissed Nate off, he’d only let it show for a second. She got why he was class president. There was something of a politician in him, a calculation under his friendly manner. Again she was being too harsh. It was probably just sharp intelligence.
“Can’t wait,” Sarah smiled, putting her polite voice back on. “I’m almost insane with curiosity. Do you know there’s not one picture of the school online?”
Nate stepped into the cockpit, and stretched out his hand to help her onboard.
“The school has it set up so we can access the Web for research, but that’s it. Nothing from us can go out. No e-mail. No way to get on Instagram or Snip-It, so there’s no way to post pictures,” Nate explained. “We have our own private network though, so we can send stuff to each other, and we have cells that work on-island.” He grabbed Maya by the waist and swung her down beside him.
“The Academy wants us focused on school,” Maya said as they each strapped into one of the chairs behind the pilot who sat at the control panel. “That’s why they have the rule about us staying on campus.”
“Total immersion,” Sarah said softly, remembering.
“Exactly,” Nate replied. “And it works. Sanctuary Bay students get the highest SAT scores in the country.”
“And I’m sure Sarah is properly awed by that.” Maya smiled at her. “But I’m also sure there are other things she’d like to know about the place.”
“Only everything!” Sarah tried to sound eager and perky like Maya.
“Okay, for starters, there are a hundred and eighty-nine students, counting you,” Nate said. The hatch glided back into place and the boat began rushing across the water. “Nine hundred raging horses in this baby,” he commented. “And it can also run on solar power. Slower, but still.”
Maya shook her head. “He’s such a boy.” She didn’t sound at all displeased. “The school, Mr. President. We’re talking about the school.” She turned to Sarah. “First thing you’re going to need to decide is if you’re with the Puffins or the Lobsters. Those are the two lacrosse teams. Stupid names, I know—they’re Maine wildlife. Somebody thought it was clever.”
“There are two teams at one school?”
“Have to be,” Nate told her. “We stay on the island, so the only way we can play is if we play each other. Just think of it like the Bengals and the Browns.”
Sarah’s chin jerked up. There weren’t that many states with two football teams. “Are you saying that because you know I’m from Ohio?” she demanded, forgetting herself.
Nate gave her The Grin. “Not many states with two NFL teams,” he answered, echoing her thought.
“So you did know?”
“You’re the new girl. Of course we found out everything we could. With less than two hundred kids, fresh blood is a big deal,” Maya said.
Sarah flushed. How much did everything include? Her being a foster kid? Accounts of her random outbursts? The cheating accusations? The ones about drugs?
“So how am I supposed to decide between the, uh, Puffins and Lobsters?” she asked, trying to quiet her rapidly beating heart.
The heat in Sarah’s cheeks faded as Maya rattled off the reasons why being a Puffinhead was the only option, clearly, since she and Nate were on the side of the Puffins.
“First view of the island coming up,” Nate announced a few minutes later.
Sarah leaned forward, wishing the glass wasn’t smoked. It made everything appear a little eerie, all shades of gray, even though the day was bright. “I don’t see it.”
“A little to the left. It doesn’t look like much more than a smudge right now,” he said.
She turned her head a fraction, and saw a darker spot out in the water. She kept her gaze trained on it, and as the boat sped on, the spot gradually gained size and definition. Rocky cliffs that rose high over the water dominated the island, at least on this side. There didn’t seem to be much of a beach, just more jagged rocks. “How big is it?”
“About thirty square miles,” Nate answered. “Take you about an hour and a half to walk from the farthest two points, if you could walk in a straight line, which you can’t. Once you’re off the main campus, there’s a big stretch of woods with only a few trails.”
More details came into focus. She could see the trees, and among them …
Sarah’s heart felt like it had been squeezed by an ice-cold hand. Was that the school? She could just make out a brick building almost hidden in the tree line. It obviously used to be fancy, but now sat in disrepair with a crumbling roof and walls smattered with holes where bricks had fallen out, making it look like a smile with missing teeth.
“That’s the Academy?” she asked, keeping her voice steady so she didn’t betray her unease.
“Oh! Hell no!” Nate quickly answered.
“The school’s on the other side of the island. You can’t see it yet. It’s nothing like that.” Maya flicked her hand in the direction of the building Sarah had spotted, dismissing it. “You should have seen your face.” Maya twisted her mouth into a horrified grimace and bugged out her eyes, laughing. “That’s just some old ruin left over from before the Academy was here. You can hardly see it from our side.”
Sarah relaxed back into her chair, realizing all her muscles had tensed at the sight of the creepy old ruin. The boat glided into a series of curves as the pilot navigated around the island, and Sarah spotted several cell towers along the shoreline. They made her feel better. Cell towers were modern, not like that decaying old place.
“That’s a lot of towers,” she said.
“It’s a closed system,” Nate recited again, as if that explained anything.
The boat powered up to a long jetty made of large flat stones stacked on top of one another and glided to a stop. The hatch slid up and the world exploded into color again. The rich gold of the setting sun turned the perfectly fluffy clouds orange, amber, and pink. The sea held dozens of shades of blue. The stones of the jetty had appeared gray, but now that Sarah could see them without the barrier of smoked glass, she realized they were actually subtle shades of charcoal, lavender, purple, sand, tan, and even a dusty rose.
It was beautiful.
“Thanks, man,” Nate said to the pilot, who only nodded in response. As soon as Sarah, Nate, and Maya stepped onto the jetty, the hatch slid back into place, turning the pilot into a shadowy figure inside. A moment later, the boat was flying across the water, a strange high-tech blip on the ocean.
Maya sighed as she watched it go. “If only we could use it every few weeks for a mall run. We’re blocked from online shopping too,” she explained to Sarah. “But the school is fabulous enough that missing out is no biggie.”
“Your closets are stuffed as it is,” Nate said. “She’s always begging me to let her store some shoes in mine,” he added to Sarah.
“It should be a privilege,” Maya shot back. “They’re extremely cute shoes.”
“My Chucks like their privacy.” Nate started down the jetty after grabbing Sarah’s suitcase and backpack. Was it weird to let a stranger haul your crap? Maybe he was just being a gentleman, as Mrs. Yoder would say.
Sarah watched him for a few seconds, carrying her bags like they were weightless.
“Coming?” Maya asked.
“Yeah. Sorry,” Sarah answered, heading across the stones after Nate, Maya trailing behind. At the end of the jetty, more of the same stones had been used to create long, high steps up the side of the cliff. A small brown rabbit skittered out of the way as Sarah started to climb.
The cliff was so steep that Sarah couldn’t see what lay above until she reached the second step from the top. Then her whole field of vision was filled with a wide, vividly green manicured lawn, leading to the most beautiful building she’d ever seen. Her eyes flitted about, trying, and failing to take ev
erything in all at once. Stone base, red brick walls, four stories high, with window upon window, tall and crisscrossed with white latticework all the way across the first floor, Greek columns flanking both sides of the glass entrance doors. Two wide staircases, also of stone, ran in graceful curves from the lawn up to the wide veranda that wrapped around the entire building. A balcony followed the line of the veranda on the floor above. Arched niches held classical statues of white marble. A bell tower rose out of the center of the white roof, a chimney on either side of the roof continuing the symmetry that the whole structure possessed.
Nate glanced over his shoulder. She stood rooted in place, unable to take the last step. There was too much to see. “Now this,” he said, “is the school.”
“No fucking way.” The words escaped before Sarah could stop them. Classy, Sarah. Real classy.
“Fucking way,” Nate replied. He smiled, not The Grin, but something softer, his eyes intent on her face.
If she’d seen a picture of the place online, she wasn’t sure she would have gotten on the plane, no matter how big of a life-changer the school was. This place wasn’t meant for someone like her.
“Don’t you want to see the rest?” Maya piped up from behind.
Sarah was still trying to see all of this. You can make me relive this moment as much as you want, she told her freaky brain. She took the last step, breathing in the smell of freshly mown grass, her eyes still flicking over the school. Two three-story wings stretched out from both sides of the main building, columns alternating with the huge windows on both of them.
Don’t go falling in love with it, not until you’re sure you are staying, she told herself sternly.
A flash of movement and color caught her gaze, a long banner unfurling from one of the smaller windows on the third floor of the east wing. The fuchsia cloth kept unrolling until it was only a few feet above the veranda. Vivid yellow letters in a vertical row spelled out WELCOME, SARAH!!!
She suddenly felt like she needed to sit down in a small quiet room by herself for at least a few minutes, just to breathe. To digest everything that had happened since five this morning when the social worker picked her up to drive her to the airport.
“I think we’ve been outclassed as the welcoming committee,” Maya commented as they headed down the path that led across the huge lawn. “Here comes Karina. She’s one of your suitemates, Sarah. And that banner came out of the window of your room.”
Sarah watched as a petite girl with long dark hair took the steps from the veranda to the lawn two at a time. She reached them before they were even halfway across the lawn. “I’ve been standing by the window for an hour to get that timed right,” she exclaimed.
“Yeah, thanks for making us look like slackers, Kar,” Maya teased. “Let me state the obvious. This is Sarah Merson. Sarah, meet Karina Sharma.”
“That was amazing. That banner. Thanks so much,” Sarah said. She’d started at new schools what felt like a thousand times and the most she’d ever gotten was a tour from a kid who worked in the office.
Karina gave her a fast hug. Sarah felt herself stiffen, and hoped Karina hadn’t noticed. “Just wanted you to know we’re happy to have you here, like Jamiroquai dancing and tetherball happy.” Sarah had no idea what that last part meant, but she got the idea, and anyway, Karina was talking too fast to try to interrupt with a question. “‘We’ being me and Izzy, your other roommate,” Karina continued. “I’ve been here since I was a freshman, but Iz just started last year. She’s a senior. I’m a junior like you.”
“Your lung capacity must be phenomenal,” Nate commented as they started walking again. “You got all that out without taking a breath.”
“I’m phenomenal in a wide variety of ways, Cruz. Are you only just starting to realize that?” Karina winked at Sarah.
She’s gorgeous, Sarah thought, sneaking a glance at her new roommate. Not just pretty, gorgeous. East Indian, Sarah was pretty sure, with skin almost the same shade as her own, and eyes such a deep brown they were almost black. Every guy there probably got palpitations when she walked by.
After they climbed the stairs to the main entrance, Karina took Sarah’s suitcase from Nate, swinging it away when Sarah reached for it. “You two are dismissed,” she told Nate and Maya.
“We were going to give Sarah a tour,” Maya protested.
“Nope! She’s probably tired, and I’m taking her to our room, letting her sit down, and getting her a beverage of some sort,” Karina answered. “You can do an official tour later. Or just let Izzy and me show her around.” She pulled one of the glass doors open and waved Sarah in first.
“You good with that?” Nate asked Sarah.
“Sure.” It sounded great actually, as close as she was going to get to sitting in a small, quiet room by herself right now. She needed it more than ever. Her senses were on overload as she took in the elaborate wallpaper of the—again her vocabulary failed her. Sitting room? Waiting room? Lobby? Whatever the room should be called, it was huge, with a ceiling that went up two floors. A mammoth fireplace dominated the far end of the room, and there were clusters of furniture—chairs, love seats, sofas—on Persian carpets that almost created small rooms within it. The colors and patterns complimented each other, but didn’t match. It was as if everything was special, one of a kind.
“Don’t worry,” Nate said quietly as he handed over her backpack. “In a few days you’ll feel like you’ve been here forever.”
Again, he’d known what she was thinking. “That’s not possible,” Sarah murmured. She started to turn away, but Nate still held one of the backpack straps.
“It is. But only if you leave all your crap behind,” he said, his voice so low only she could hear it, eyes locked on hers, like he was trying to give her a coded message. “Sanctuary Bay is who you are now.”
Sarah stared at him, surprised. Nate’s intense look vanished, and The Grin reappeared. He released the backpack. “You have an appointment with the dean at six. I’ll come by your room and escort you over.”
“Thanks,” Sarah said as he walked away.
The dean. If Sarah could get through that meeting without getting sent back home, her whole life would change—as long as she left all her crap behind, apparently. Sanctuary Bay is who I am now.
“Okay,” she told Karina. “Show me everything.”
2
“To our room!” Karina exclaimed. She took Sarah by the arm, steering her toward a wide polished wood staircase with the same gentle curve as the brick steps leading up to the school’s door. “Oh my gosh, so, I’m insanely curious about you. I want to know everything. But I can go first if you want.”
“You go,” Sarah answered. “I want to know everything too.” She did want to know about her new roommate. But she also wanted time to figure out what she wanted to say about herself.
“Well, I’m from L.A. My dad’s in the Biz. Movie producer. My mom’s a lawyer slash 1950s housewife.” Karina came to an abrupt halt. “Okay, I know I said no tour, but you have to see the Board. One of them at least.” She released Sarah and turned toward the wall, where what looked like a large flat-screen TV was mounted. It showed a close-up of the rocks on the jetty, wet with sea foam.
“Calendar,” Karina said. The picture of the jetty disappeared and was replaced by a calendar of school events. Sarah had only managed to read a few words when Karina said “menu” and a list of that night’s dinner specials came up.
“Pasta: shrimp and scallops fresco,” Sarah read. Seriously? Karina continued, “My messages,” filling the screen with a row of texts. “How does it know it’s you?” Sarah asked.
Karina shrugged. “I suck at understanding that stuff. It might as well be little fairies inside. Some kind of facial recognition software, I guess. The Boards all recognize you, no matter where you are on campus. They know everything about everyone.” She ran her finger through the air, making the messages scroll. “Uh-oh. One from Ethan.” She pinched her fingers together and the p
icture of the jetty returned. “My boyfriend,” she explained. “He can be a little obscene. I love it though! I’ll read it later. Why are we standing here? Up to the room!” She started up the stairs. It took Sarah a second to follow her, semi-stunned by the rush of information.
“We’re on the third floor in the east wing,” Karina said over her shoulder. “Izzy’s up there, so you’ll meet her in a minute. Preview—she’s from Boston.” She said it like Sarah was supposed to get more than Izzy’s hometown out of what she’d said. “You know, old money, regular visits to the Museum of Fine Arts, DAF to the BSO, all that.”
She might as well be speaking Chinese, Sarah thought as they reached the top of the staircase and started down a long hallway. She didn’t ask for a translation though. Sarah was good at figuring things out on her own. All it took was paying attention—she could remember all the details.
“I hope you don’t mind, but Izzy and I did a little decorating on your part of the room. It’s such a pain to have to do it the second you arrive. And anyway, you’d have to wait forever for a package, since you didn’t bring that much with you.” They started up a second staircase.
Not much, Sarah thought. Only everything I possess.
“Just a duvet and some pillows and a lamp and a couple other things,” Karina continued. “We’re the third one down,” she told Sarah they reached the third-floor landing. When they got to the door, she pressed her fingertip against a small silver pad and Sarah heard the door unlatch. “Dean Farrell will take your fingerprint when you meet her later,” Karina said. “They use fingerprints for everything here. Checking out books and lab equipment, opening doors, paying at the dining hall.”
Between that and the Boards, they can pretty much track every student every second of the day. The realization gave her an itchy sensation between her shoulder blades, like someone was staring at her.