“Induction?” I ask worriedly. I don’t like the sound of that. Not one little bit.
“Just a welcome to Afterlife Academy,” she says. “To explain some of the rules. It will take place in the cafeteria after you get settled in.”
“What if I don’t want to get settled in? What if I just want to go home?”
“This is your home now, Riley. You can’t go back to where you came from. You just have to keep moving forward.”
“This can’t be my home,” I say. “This is school. Where am I supposed to live? What about my parents?”
“This is a boarding school. You will live here until you graduate.”
“Graduate? Oh great, because we’re taking our GCSEs in like two months. Does that mean we can leave then?”
“Graduating from Afterlife Academy is different than graduating from a living school,” Eliza says. “There are no GCSEs here. There are no exams at all.”
“So how do we graduate?” Anthony asks.
“You will graduate when I and the other leaders deem you ready to graduate.”
“What other leaders?” he asks.
“The silent partners,” she says. “Don’t worry, you won’t meet them, but they will watch you from afar.”
“So they’re like stalkers?” I ask sarcastically.
“That’s not funny.” She turns to stare at me. “The silent partners are very well-respected members of society and their only interest in students is to ensure you are ready to leave here.”
“Great,” I say. “When will that be?”
“There is no set time, Riley,” she says. “It can be anything from a few months to a few years.”
“A few years? You expect me to stay here for a few years?”
“I’m afraid you don’t have any other choice. Everyone who dies while still of school age must come here. There is also a primary school for younger students. Sometimes we go there to watch their Christmas concerts.”
“Do you know how disturbed that sounds?”
“I’m sure it must be a climate change for you, but you’ll get used to it.”
“No, I won’t. I won’t ever get used to this. This is insane and you can’t make me stay here.”
“There’s nowhere else for you to go.”
“Riley, shut up,” Anthony says sharply. “You’re not the most important person in the world. Let’s just listen to what the lady has to say.”
Eliza Carbonell nods towards him and smiles.
Great, I think. Suck-up jerk has made a friend. Too bad he couldn’t do that in normal school.
“What do we do after we graduate?” Anthony asks.
“It all depends on your level of graduation,” Eliza says.
“Level of graduation?” I ask dubiously.
“It’s like an exam result. It determines the sort of jobs you will be suited for in the outside world.”
“Jobs?” I ask. “Outside world? There’s an outside world here? Where? Is it like a ghost world?”
“There are many jobs here,” Eliza says. “All the staff here for instance, we are all employed by the silent partners. That’s just one example of the types of jobs you can do in our world.”
“So I could graduate from school to work in a school?” I ask. “What fun that sounds.”
She ignores me.
“Is everybody here dead?” Anthony asks.
“Yes,” she says to Anthony. “It is not possible to get into this world unless you’ve died.”
“What about home?” I ask. “What about my family and friends?”
“You will grieve for them,” she says. “That’s understandable and there’s a school counsellor available to you at all times.”
“I’ll grieve for them? But they’re still alive. They are still alive, right?”
“Yes.” Her voice softens. “But you have lost them in the same way they have lost you. Grief is double-sided. But it will get easier, I promise. Everyone misses their loved ones. I have been here over sixty years and I still miss my family.”
“If you’ve been here for sixty years, how come you still look the same way you did when you died?”
“There is no aging here. The passage of time is different from what you’re used to. One plus is that you don’t have to spend a fortune on all those fancy new anti-aging creams.”
If that was supposed to be a joke it wasn’t funny.
“How do you even know about anti-aging creams?” I ask. “I bet they didn’t even exist in the 1940s.”
“I might be dead but I still like to keep up with the times. And of course I have a lot of contact with modern teens. We also have the ability to visualise the living world.”
“Really? Can I see? I want to know if Wade is okay after the accident.”
“I can’t tell you that, Riley. Visualisation is a skill you have to learn.”
“Where do I learn it?”
“Here,” she says. “In class.”
“What else do we learn here?”
“That’s all something that will be revealed in Induction class this afternoon.”
I nod. This is so wrong. I can’t believe it’s happening. It can’t be happening. This is all some completely bizarre nightmare and I am going to wake up any second now. Any second…
“Do either of you have any other questions?”
I shrug and look over at Anthony.
I have a million questions, but none that I can seem to find the words for. This is all too odd.
Anthony shakes his head as well.
“In a minute you can head over to your dorm rooms. There you will find some personal belongings and everything else you need. Your roommates will be in their own classes now, but you’ll meet them later. After you’ve settled in, there will be Induction in the canteen.”
“We have roommates?”
“Everyone needs a friend, Riley.”
I sigh. Not only am I dead, but I also have to share my room. Ugh.
“Any other questions?”
Neither of us can think of anything to say.
“Right,” Eliza says. “You’re lucky to already know your way around this place. Now, you know where the canteen is, don’t you? Head towards that, go around the side, and you’ll come to the dormitories. Boys in the building on the left, girls in the one on the right. Absolutely no mixing. Give your names to the advisor on the front desk, he’ll show you to your rooms. In a quarter of an hour, please go down to the cafeteria for Induction.”
I really don’t like the sound of this Induction business.
“Come back to me if you have any problems,” Eliza Carbonell says as we leave the room.
Problems? I’m stuck in a school for the dead with a total loser and a woman who has been dead for over sixty years. What problems could I possibly have with that?
CHAPTER 4
Anthony doesn’t say anything as we walk through the schoolyard. It looks the same as it always looks, but I don’t know where she thinks we’re going to find these dormitories because this is a day school. There have never been dormitories here.
We pass the social sciences block, the technology block, and the science block. All grey. Even the bright green fire-exit doors are grey. The surrounding mist is hanging low, covering the top of every building.
When we come to the canteen, we go down a little path at the side of the building and come to what has always been a huge open field with a couple of picnic benches. Now it’s different. Now there are two huge buildings that have never been there before.
“So…” I say to Anthony.
“Weird, huh?” he says.
But he doesn’t sound even remotely freaked out. Not like me. I’m extremely freaked out.
“How come you’re so calm about all of this?”
He shrugs. “I dunno. It just seems right, I guess.”
“How can being dead seem right?”
He shrugs again. “What did you expect the afterlife to be like?”
“I don’t know.
I’ve never really thought about it. But I didn’t think we’d be back in school, I can tell you that much.”
“Well, at least it’s familiar.” He pauses. “Come on, let’s go and find our rooms. See you in quarter of an hour.”
He’s already opening the door of the boys’ dormitory, so I guess I have to do the same.
I walk into the girls’ quarters and look around. There’s a little reception area and nothing else but a staircase.
“You wouldn’t happen to be Riley Richardson, would you?”
“Yes.” I look around, startled. Why does everyone seem to know my name?
There’s a little old man sitting behind the reception desk. He smiles at me when I see him.
“Are you the resident advisor?”
“Indeed I am.” He smiles again. “You can call me Mr Hart. Come on upstairs, I’ll show you your room.”
I reluctantly follow him as he totters up the stairs. I wonder what would happen if he fell. Would I be able to catch him? Would it even matter since he’s dead anyway? Can ghosts die again?
We come to a landing area with a long corridor leading off it. He points the way to the communal bathroom and tells me the laundry room is downstairs in the basement. Then he leads me along the corridor and says there are two other floors above this but I’m on the first floor, last room on the right. The one with a nice view, he says. When he leaves, at least he walks away instead of dissipating into thin air.
I’m alone as I walk along the corridor and find my room. I’m surprised there is no one else around, but I suppose everyone is still in class like Mrs Carbonell said. Last I remember it must have been about three o’clock in the afternoon when I was coming back in the car with Wade.
I feel a jolt in my chest at the thought of him.
Wade.
He didn’t mean to hurt anyone. He was just being normal, popular Wade, tormenting the geek. He didn’t mean to kill him. He certainly didn’t mean to kill me. He loved me. He told me so all the time. Well, when we were on our own. Not when his mates were around or anything. And I loved him. We were the perfect couple. People wanted to be us. Wade was the hottest boy in our entire school. Everyone liked him. Year Sevens salivated over him. In fact, everyone in the entire school salivated over him with his beautiful dark hair and big brown eyes. Girls tried to make friends with me and Sophie just to get close to Wade. Everyone wanted the captain of the football team. But I was the only one who had him. Everyone loved him and everyone loved me. If we had proms in this country, he and I would easily have been prom king and queen.
I feel a lump in my throat at that and try to shake my thoughts away from Wade. I have to find a way to contact him. What if he was hurt in the accident too? I mean, I guess he can’t be dead because he’d be here too. Not that I wish him dead, but I do wish he was here. God, I miss him.
No. Enough. More important things to worry about. Like having a roommate and how the hell I’m going to get out of this place.
I’ve found the last door on the right. I press my hand against it for a moment before gingerly pushing the door open.
There’s no one in there.
Along one wall is a set of bunk beds. At the end of the room there are two chests of drawers and one wardrobe. On the other wall is a desk and a little table underneath the window.
I walk farther in. It’s obvious someone lives here. There’s a load of girly things spread out across the top of one of the chests of drawers. There’s a hairbrush, a little mirror, make-up—worryingly it consists of black eye shadow, black eyeliner, grey blusher, and black lipstick.
I open the wardrobe, which is full. Whoever my roommate is, she’s going to have to move some of her clothes to make room for mine. All her clothes are grey anyway. I look around the room and realise that everything is. The paint on the walls is pale grey, the bedding on both bunks is grey, and the carpet is grey. The furniture looks like it is made of wood, but is also grey. The only thing not grey is the orange pumpkin on the table underneath the window. I stare at it. It’s carved for Halloween, with a tea light flickering inside. It has evil-looking eyes and sharp teeth carved into it.
Someone should tell the girl who lives here that it’s April.
On the bottom bunk bed, there is a grey suitcase with a grey tag on its handle and my school bag, which was once pink but is now grey.
Grey is so boring.
I pick up the tag on the suitcase and turn it over.
R. Richardson.
I guess it must be mine.
I undo the zip and flip the lid open. Inside is my stuff. Not all my stuff. Not everything I own, but there are some clothes. I rifle through them quickly and realise that it’s all my favourite outfits. There are some photos of my friends and family. A picture of Wade and me together. He has his arm around my shoulders and we’re both smiling widely. A couple of little pictures of me and Sophie mucking around in one of those tiny photo booths. A picture of my mum and dad on their wedding anniversary last year.
I don’t even realise I’m crying until there’s a cough from the doorway.
“Sorry to interrupt,” Mr Hart says. “But you’re late for Induction.”
“Oh, sorry.” I straighten up and rub my hands over my face, trying to make myself look like I’m not affected.
But he’s gone.
I wish people would stop doing that.
I hold the photos tightly in my hand and look at them one last time before I turn around and go to put them on the table behind me.
That’s when I hear a growl. I look around the room. Of all things right now, the last one I need is some kind of crazed dog or angry wild animal growling at me. You die and then you get eaten by a rabid animal. Perfect.
I don’t see anything in the room, so I walk over to the window to look outside. Mr Hart was right about the view. I can see right across the grounds from here, right up to the football field. This would have been perfect to watch Wade play.
The growling sounds louder now, and when I glance down I’m not sure that I believe what I’m seeing.
The candle inside the pumpkin is flickering madly and I’m almost positive that it’s the jack-o’-lantern growling at me.
The pumpkin.
Pumpkins don’t growl. At least, they don’t in my world.
I stare at it.
No. It’s not possible.
But still it growls.
I reach down to touch it. On the side. I don’t want to go near its teeth. Just in case.
My fingers gingerly stroke its cool outside and I swear I feel it jerk under my touch.
No. Way.
A pumpkin?
“Miss Richardson, you really need to get to Induction.” Mr Hart has appeared in the doorway and is talking to me again.
How does he do that? How does someone so old and doddery make it up and down those stairs so quickly?
Still, I cast one last nervous glance towards the pumpkin and leave the room quickly.
CHAPTER 5
I run down the stairs and round the pathway and burst through the canteen doors, only to find it deserted apart from Anthony, who is sitting at a table while a young man stands in front of him talking.
“Ah, Miss Richardson. Glad you could join us,” the man says sarcastically to me.
I take the empty seat next to Anthony and look around. The canteen looks exactly the same as it always has. Apart from the greyness, obviously. Grey lino flooring, grey tables and black chairs, grey counters. There is a short, grey-looking dinner lady pottering around behind the food counter.
I stare at her for a moment. She has bright red horns protruding from her forehead.
“Are those… horns?” I ask in surprise.
“You would do well not to discriminate against people around here, Riley. Now if you could just pay attention to what I was saying?”
“I wasn’t discriminating,” I protest. “I was just asking. So the cook has horns. Great. Almost beats the pumpkin that just growled at me.”
“As I was saying,” the man says loudly.
I turn to look at him.
“Ah, attention, wonderful,” he says. “My name is Mr Burgrove, I am the head of your year and the welcoming party for today. The other students will be out for dinner soon, so we need to make this snappy. Welcome to Afterlife Academy. I know you’ve already met Mrs Carbonell and I trust that she’s explained a lot about what we do here, so I’m just here to answer any remaining questions you may have and to straighten out some details. Any questions?”
I glance at Anthony. He shakes his head. I shake mine too when Mr Burgrove looks at me.
“Wonderful. I trust you’ve already found your dorm rooms and settled in okay. We took the liberty of transferring some of your belongings from your life to make you feel more at home here. You will start classes tomorrow morning. Here is your schedule.”
I read over it distastefully. “Are you kidding me? There’s maths on here.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful,” Anthony says.
“Oh, shut up,” I tell him. “Seriously, what on earth do we need maths for?”
“Maths is a skill that everybody needs to learn,” Mr Burgrove says. “You never know when it might come in handy.”
“Yeah, well, you know something? If I’m really as dead as you say I am, then I am certainly not going to waste my afterlife on bloody algebra.”
“Is that right, Miss Richardson? Because I’m told that if there’s one subject you badly need to improve on, it’s maths.”
“Okay, how do you even know that? How come you seem to know everything about me without my permission?”
“Records, Riley. We have complete access to all your educational and personal records at your old school.”
“Now that’s just creepy,” I mutter.
“It’s not creepy, it’s business,” Mr Burgrove says.
“So, does our old school know about this place?” Anthony asks.
“Oh no, we couldn’t have that. No one living knows about this place.”
“Where are we then?” I ask. “Technically we’re in our old school, but we’re not. Where is this place?”
“We’re on a different plane of existence,” he says.
Afterlife Academy Page 3