by K. C. Dyer
Kate shrugged and held open the door. “Let’s go to orientation. Brodie’s there saving our seats. And maybe Professor Tooth will give us a few answers, for a change!”
The dining hall echoed with the sounds and movements of milling bodies. Unlike most gatherings populated by large groups of teens, a feeling of uncertainty tinged the atmosphere like smoke through a firehouse. Darrell looked around, interested in the pervasive feeling. Eagle Glen was a new school for most of the kids here, though she knew some had switched from the European campus. Uncharted territory. Everyone she could see rustling their papers and scraping their chairs seemed touched by first-day-at-a-new-school nerves.
Darrell smiled. Her summertime experiences had given her a taste of Eagle Glen, though she felt like she had more questions about the school and its principal than ever. Guess we’ll learn soon enough.
Darrell and Kate stepped across a tangle of legs to slide into seats beside Brodie. Kate dug through her bag. “I think I forgot my timetable in the room,” she whispered.
Brodie leaned around Darrell. “What? You mean you haven’t programmed it into your laptop already? How lax of you.” He chuckled gently.
Kate smirked and pulled out her laptop. “Why, thank you for reminding me, Brodie,” she said with satisfaction. “As a matter of fact, I have done just that.”
Brodie groaned. “Unbelievable,” he muttered.
“Shhh,” hissed Darrell. “Here comes Professor Tooth.”
The principal stepped onto a raised platform and looked out at the sea of faces. The tables had been pushed back against the walls and windows, and the open space was filled with chairs. Without raising her hand or even an eyebrow, quiet dropped like a blanket over the room. She smiled.
“I’m not sure what to make of a silence like this one. However, based on my years of experience as a teacher, I realize I should enjoy these moments when I can find them.” She stepped forward and her eyes seemed to take in every face. “I must say I am filled with a tremendous sense of excitement this evening. As many of you know, this is the second fully functioning campus of Eagle Glen School. The first has been running successfully in Europe for more than a decade. I know you must all be eager to have the new year underway and hear more about your classes, so I will keep my remarks very brief.”
A murmur ran through the group, and Darrell settled herself more comfortably. If this speech was like any of those she had listened to from previous principals, it would probably go on a lot longer than everyone would like. Still — she looked around at the faces of the other students. It was weird, but everyone seemed to be paying attention.
“Eagle Glen is a unique school. We view each student’s education very seriously here, and recognize that much learning in the life of a teenager comes from more than the pages of a textbook. Eagle Glen is a school where you will follow the customary path to higher learning — with a twist. Each student is encouraged — expected — to find the path best suited to him or her. Some of you may find,” and here Darrell could have sworn Professor Tooth’s eyes twinkled directly at her, “the path is far more interesting and involved than you might ever have expected.”
Darrell felt Kate’s elbow dig into her side, and she pressed her own knuckles hard against the smile she felt threatening to turn into a laugh.
“You will now be assembled according to form, and each group of students will go through timetables with its form teacher. Each form teacher will be available during school hours to answer any questions you may have. After school hours, this job passes to the head students. Elections for these positions will be held next week. Until then, your form teacher will give you all the information you need. Would the fourth form please stand? I’ll ask you to follow Mr. Neuron to the math centre.”
There was a general rustling and muttering as a ragged group of students gathered their things and filed out of the room. Darrell was stunned. The speech had been less than a minute long. Professor Tooth had been true to her word.
Kate whispered in Darrell’s ear, a note of panic in her voice. “What about Brodie? If classes are divided by age, he’ll be a year ahead of us!”
Darrell felt a pang of worry, and turned to Brodie, her eyes wide. “Are you in first form or second?” she demanded in a loud whisper.
“Second.” But Brodie was grinning. “Don’t worry, I’ve talked to Professor Tooth. It’ll all work out, you’ll see.”
Puzzled, Darrell looked up to see Professor Tooth had gathered the third form and sent them off with a female teacher she didn’t recognize. Glancing around the room, Darrell could see there were fewer than thirty students left.
“Second form? Please follow Mr. Dickerman to the rock lab.”
Professor Tooth had begun summoning the final group when a door banged open at the back of the room. Darrell was craning her neck, looking for the source of the disruption, when she felt a hand grip her upper arm and squeeze.
“Ow!” She looked down to see her arm caught in Kate’s iron-tight grip. Darrell opened her mouth to complain, but closed it when she saw Kate’s expression. The colour had drained out of her friend’s face and her freckles stood out like spots of rust on the pale skin.
Darrell followed Kate’s gaze to the door and her stomach dropped into her shoes. Leaning on the doorframe, a smirk on his face, was Conrad Kennedy.
Professor Tooth’s voice was brisk. “Mr. Kennedy. I’m afraid you are a trifle late, but if you will wait a moment, I will see you to your teacher. Would the first form please follow Mr. Gill to the library?”
Darrell’s heart hammered in her chest.
Kate turned and met Darrell’s gaze. “What’s he doing here?” she squeaked.
“I don’t know.” Darrell’s voice choked as she rubbed the vivid red marks Kate’s fingers had left on her arm. “I guess we’re about to find out.”
CHAPTER TWO
Darrell dragged a heavy, stuffed chair over the uneven planks of the library floor to a spot beside Kate. Fifteen kids were gathered in the group, almost equally divided between girls and boys. Flopping into the chair, she rubbed her right knee and gazed around at the new faces. She leaned forward and adjusted the prosthesis under her jeans. A low ache still throbbed in her leg, and she looked out one of the leaded glass windows of the library. The night was so black, all she could see was the reflection of the brightly lit room on the glass. The lashing of rain against the window confirmed what the ache in her leg had already told her.
“Sore leg?” Kate spoke in a low voice, and Darrell shook her head at her friend’s concerned face.
“Oh, nothing to worry about — just the usual for a rainy night.” She looked around and dropped her voice to a whisper. “Can you see Conrad anywhere?”
Kate peered over the back of her large wing chair. “Nope, not a sign of him. I can’t believe it was really him! What d’you think he’s doing here? I thought he was supposed to be in some kind of reform school in Ontario.”
Darrell shrugged and was about to reply when Mr. Gill cleared his throat at the front of the room. Kate ripped a sheet out of her binder and passed it to Darrell. Let’s talk later, it read.
Darrell nodded and turned to listen as Mr. Gill began to outline the calendar for the upcoming year.
Wind hurled rain against the windows, and Darrell snuggled deeper under her down quilt. She was warm and dry, it was midnight of her first night back at school, classes were scheduled to begin the following morning at eight-thirty, and she was as far from sleepy as it was possible to get. Fall had roared in with a vengeance, and the storm outside the windows perfectly reflected her state of mind, roiling with all the events of the day. Delaney lay curled in his creaky wicker bed on the floor.
“I look forward to getting to know all of you this year. Please don’t hesitate to approach me at any time if you have questions or worries.” The voice of Mr. Gill echoed in her head, and Darrell remembered how his eyes had lit up as he looked at her. “It’ll be great working with you again, Dar
rell.”
Yet his words twisted and swirled around the image of the smirking face at the back of the dining hall. Arthur Gill and Conrad Kennedy. Two more differing male figures she could not imagine, and yet they had both markedly changed her life this past summer. Conrad was a bully, a thief, a smuggler — and worse. She had last seen his sneering face as he was hauled off the beach by the RCMP in handcuffs.
That should have been the last of him. What’s he doing here?
And Arthur Gill, the art teacher who had been her inspiration over the summer and was now the head teacher for the first form. He was a talented artist in his own right, and she had been so looking forward to working with him for a full school year. But would that change now that Conrad had appeared?
Darrell sat up, her crawling thoughts leaving her unable to get comfortable in any position. She snapped on the tiny book light she kept beside her bed and picked up her sketch pad and charcoal from her bedside table. In the glow from the small bulb she saw Delaney lift his head. He met her eyes and his tail thumped once, and with a few gentle creaks he settled back into his wicker bed, head on his paws.
“At least you can sleep,” Darrell muttered, and then jumped at the sound of another voice.
“Maybe he can, but I can’t.” Kate’s whisper carried from her bed across the room. “Too much to think about.” She grabbed her quilt and scampered over to settle like a small nesting bird at the foot of Darrell’s bed. Leaning back against the window, she gestured at a lump in the middle of the third bed in the room. Gentle snores emerged from the pile of covers. “Lily doesn’t seem to be having any problem,” she commented dryly.
Darrell grinned and glanced over at the third resident of the room. Lily Kyushu, who had shared a room with Darrell and Kate in the summer term, had quickly established a reputation for herself as a fast swimmer and a noisy sleeper. “Yeah, with Lily there, it feels like nothing’s changed — and then I remember this summer and I feel like nothing will ever be the same again.”
Kate nodded. “I know what you mean. So much happened in such a short time it’s almost easier to pretend it didn’t.”
Darrell dropped her sketchbook into her lap and rubbed her forehead. “It’s only our first day back and already things are not the way I expected.”
“Yeah. We’ve got a new school year — and one seriously disturbed student.”
“No kidding.” Darrell fidgeted with the charcoal pencil, twisting it through her fingers with practiced ease. “I don’t know how we’re supposed to think about learning anything with that bully in the group.”
“Well,” said Kate sensibly, “we don’t even know if he’s in our class. I didn’t see him after orientation, and there has to be some kind of mistake for him to be here in any case. Besides, if he is going to this school, he’s sure to flunk out anyway.” She ran her fingers through her short, red hair so it rose above her forehead in spikes. “Anyway, from the list that Mr. Gill gave us, it sounds like it’s going to be a busy year.”
“Yeah, I just hope some of it will be fun,” Darrell answered absently, her mind on Conrad.
Kate rubbed her eyes. “I guess we’d better try to get some sleep,” she said with a yawn. Wrapping her quilt around her shoulders, she slid off Darrell’s bed and crawled back into her own. Her voice emerged, somewhat muffled, from under the covers. “Remind me to write my parents for some earplugs, would you? I forgot how loud Lily’s nasal passages actually are.”
“Um hmm.” In spite of the noise from Lily’s bed, after a few moments Darrell could hear Kate’s breathing become slow and even. She tried to settle herself in her bed, but her brain wouldn’t co-operate. She thought about the cave on the beach below the school and the glyphs that had pulled her back to the time of the Black Plague. Images of medieval Scotland swirled with thoughts of Conrad. It was a long time before her mind slowed down enough to allow sleep to claim her at last.
She was swimming through marshmallows and it wasn’t easy. Her arms and legs felt like they were weighted with lead, and it was getting harder to breathe. Downright suffocating, in fact. Something had to be done. Darrell opened one eye.
“It’s about time you entered the land of the living. You’ve missed breakfast entirely and you’ve only got ten minutes before class starts.”
“What?” Darrell opened the other eye and glanced at her clock. She sat up and several pillows fell onto the floor.
“I said you’d better get moving. I must have fired ten pillows at your head before you woke up.”
“Oh.” Darrell yawned. “That explains the marshmallows.” She reached down, batted a few pillows away, and grabbed her prosthesis from its place beside the bed.
“You’ve gotta get out of this habit of staying up so late. You’ll never make your class.”
Darrell raised an eyebrow. “Oh, and you were sleeping like a baby?”
Kate grinned and stuck a paper plate bearing a banana and a muffin onto Darrell’s night table. “I brought you a mobile breakfast.”
“Thanks.” Darrell flew out the door to the bathroom, her arms filled with yesterday’s clothes. Ten minutes later, she was sitting in Renaissance history class, swallowing the last bite of a dry carrot muffin.
“I need coffee,” she whispered to Kate, who bulged her eyes at the door in response. Professor Tooth entered the room and the class fell into the amiable silence of a group ready to be entertained.
“As a prelude to today’s lesson, I would like to invite all of you to a special meeting to be held in the dining hall this evening. Your form teacher may have mentioned something about the upcoming Renaissance fair, but full details will be available at the meeting. I bring this up not only to act as a reminder but to introduce the topic of the Renaissance fair, the subject of our lesson today.”
Darrell felt a nudge against her left elbow and turned to see Kate sliding an open notebook under her arm.
RENAISSANCE FAIR!! was written in capital letters and underlined twice.
Darrell scribbled a reply and slid the notebook back. So what?
Kate smirked and scribbled Dunk tank. The next word was circled. Lily.
Darrell jotted a reply and pushed the notebook back. Snore revenge?
Kate’s smile broadened and she nodded before turning her full attention to Professor Tooth. Darrell settled more comfortably in her seat and was soon drawn in by the teacher’s words. She spent the rest of the class translating Professor Tooth’s lesson into an elaborate sketch in her notebook, complete with festive tents, wandering minstrels, and a thieving pickpocket relieving a noble of his gold.
Class time flew by and before she knew it, Darrell was gathering her things and heading for the door.
“Ms. Connor, could you stay behind a moment, please? I’d like a word with you.”
Darrell glanced up to see Professor Tooth standing by the door and closed her notebook guiltily. Maybe sketching wasn’t one of Professor Tooth’s approved notetaking methods.
The teacher smiled, and her green eyes gazed steadily into Darrell’s. “I hope you enjoyed the lesson this morning. I meant it to serve as an apt introduction to one of the most magical eras of history.”
Darrell breathed a silent sigh of relief. She clutched her notebook to her chest. “I can’t wait until we get to study the artists. Mr. Gill told me we can spend some time learning the techniques Michelangelo used to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.”
“Yes, I understand the subject is on Mr. Gill’s agenda for this fall. However, I have something else I’d like to discuss with you for the moment. We have a new student I would like to introduce, though I do believe you have met before. Let’s walk down to my office, shall we?”
Darrell was curious as she followed Professor Tooth down the hall to the office. Someone she had already met? Could it be one of the kids from her old school? She had grown to feel very protective of Eagle Glen, and she didn’t feel it was the right school for many of the kids who had been so distant and rude to her at
her old school in Vancouver. Staring at the floor and thinking these dark thoughts, she followed Professor Tooth and automatically turned to close the door.
When she turned back, the sight of the student standing by the window in the principal’s office froze her to the spot in shock. How could she have been so stupid? Of course.
“When I saw you at orientation I thought there had been some kind of mistake,” she gasped, looking at the pale, sulking face of Conrad Kennedy.
“You wish!” he snarled, then added, “You and me both, actually.”
“There is no mistake.” Professor Tooth’s calm voice overrode Conrad’s snarl. “Conrad has taken his place as a student at Eagle Glen as of today.”
Darrell whirled to face the principal. “But what about everything that happened over the summer? I thought both he and his dad were going to jail!”
The principal looked serious. “The events of the summer are in the past, Darrell. Conrad’s father has been incarcerated and Conrad was to be sent to a special school in Ontario.”
Darrell felt her face flush and she glanced at Conrad’s closed and sneering expression.
Professor Tooth spoke again. “It is my opinion Conrad will learn far more here than at a school for incorrigible children.”
She turned to him. “I presume you are settled into your room?” When he nodded, she stepped forward and opened the door. “Then you just have time for lunch before your music class begins.”
Conrad’s face twisted into a grimace, and in three strides he reached the door. He leaned over and put his mouth beside Darrell’s ear.
“Nice to see you again, Gimpy,” he whispered, and slipped out of the office.
Darrell closed her eyes for a moment so her tears of anger and frustration wouldn’t show. She struggled to find words — any words — that could possibly tell Professor Tooth how wrong she was to accept Conrad as a student at Eagle Glen. When she opened her mouth to protest, the teacher raised her hand.