The Academy

by Ridley Pearson

  “There’s ten dollars in it,” she said, drawing a ten from her purse and waving the bill like a small flag.

  Johnny sprang for it, and she snatched it back.

  “The papers are personal letters addressed to a Mr. Ron Ungerman. They are printed on stationery bearing the emblem for the United States Department of Labor. You need to copy only those letters bearing the emblem. When the job is complete, John,” she said, “and I have the copies, you will be paid. Room 1426 at the Haymarket, arriving tomorrow night, departing the next day. He works out mornings from seven to seven forty-five, give or take a few minutes. Do you know what that means, John?”

  “I want to arrive a little after seven,” John said, squinting his yellowish eyes, “and be out of the room no later than seven thirty.”

  “Precisely.”

  “Brian will accompany you,” she instructed. No one ever argued with Mrs. D. If Taddler objected to being assigned to the job, his residence at the Corinthians would be canceled.

  And then what?

  She handed Taddler a room card for the Haymarket. No more was said. He understood that this card would not open room 1426, but it would serve an important purpose. Mrs. D. had chosen him because he, of all the boys, was the most skilled pickpocket. She’d chosen him to join Johnny—a fast runner and smooth talker.

  She seemed to be always assigning the boys these special jobs. Paying jobs. Sometimes it felt as if the other assignments—the panhandling, or playing music in the subway, or putting fliers on parked cars, or handing out giveaways at intersections—were nothing more than training runs to sharpen and hone their various skills. Travis was the boy who handled the computer work—copying the contents of a thumb drive, or burning a bunch of files to a DVD. They rarely were asked to steal electronics—only the contents of the electronics: a download from a phone, a PDA, or a laptop.

  Maybe she was some kind of spy.

  That would make Taddler a secret agent, which was fine with him.

  “We have something big coming up,” she reported. “I need you all well rested and at your best.” She handed out passes to the Boys’ Club. They could swim and shower there. They did this twice a week, and it was a highlight for the boys because she also gave out gift certificates, as she did now, to McDonald’s, or Wendy’s, or on rare occasions California Pizza Kitchen, a favorite. The gift certificates were for Pizza Hut, which was right up there with CPK.

  “How many of us?” Johnny asked, inquiring about her reference to “something big.”

  “All of you.”

  For a moment there was no sound in the room except a vague humming from the battery.

  “All of us,” Johnny repeated.

  There had never, ever been a job that required more than three boys at once.

  “All nine of us?” Taddler said.

  “Clean, well fed, and well rested,” she said. “There will be no room for mistakes. No tolerance if mistakes are made.”

  The comment put the boys on notice. Wilhelm had been advised of the no-tolerance policy, and no one had seen Wilhelm in over a month.

  “Enjoy your dinner,” she said, snapping her purse shut with a firm click. “And you keep your eye on that red light. This is no time to be caught.”

  “Are they looking for us?” said Johnny, his tone a little too close to hopeful. Johnny was from Minnesota. He’d run away over a year ago and had wondered privately to Taddler several times why no one had ever come looking for him.

  “Maybe they are looking for you,” Taddler had answered him. “Just in the wrong place.” But for now Taddler kept his mouth shut, afraid of the grim expression that had stolen onto Mrs. D.’s pasty face.

  She pursed her lips, turned, and walked out, leaving several of the boys diving for the grocery bags, while Johnny sat back from the others, taking a moment to speculate on the unnamed mission yet to come.

  The snap of the school flag caused Kaileigh to jump. There was no wind to speak of, just sudden gusts and bursts overhead that rustled the leaves of the sugar maples and black oaks, sounding like pebbles striking a car windshield.

  She and Steel had snuck out of their dorms and followed tree shadows to reach the side of the chapel.

  “Has it occurred to you how stupid it is to do this?” she asked. “I don’t know about you, but I’d rather not get expelled. I just got here, and I kinda like it.”

  “But you miss home,” he said.

  “Me? No. Not so much. My home is basically Miss Kay and me. She’s nice and everything, but to be honest, this place is more fun than being at home with her.”

  Steel set his wristwatch back an hour. He told Kaileigh to do the same. “We’re both from the Midwest,” he said. “If we tell ’em we never changed our watches, then…”

  “We’re an hour behind,” she said, obviously impressed. “You’re devious.”

  “Practical,” he said.

  “We won’t need the watches,” she said.

  “Because?”

  “Because all you have to do is kiss me.”

  “What…?” He cleared his throat.

  “If we hear someone coming…if we think we’re about to be caught…then you kiss me. We make out. We’re caught making out, not spying on the chapel. My roommate, Cassandra, was telling me how they hardly ever do anything to kids caught making out. Especially the first couple of times.”

  “The first couple of times?” he muttered.

  “Some extra study hall for a while. That’s about it.”

  “Is that right?” He wasn’t hearing everything she said because his ears were ringing. He was stuck back on the idea that he was just supposed to start making out with her.

  “That’s it.” She turned to face him, the shadow so thick he could barely see her. “Is that a problem? It’s not like it means anything. Don’t get any stupid ideas. It’s not like I want to kiss you, or whatever. I’m just saying…if it comes to that, then that’s what we do.”

  “I…get…it,” he said. He felt like he might puke, he was so nervous. He considered reminding her that she’d already kissed him once. But he didn’t. It had only been a peck on the cheek, not making out, but it was technically a kiss, and he had not forgotten it. Nor could he.

  “You ready?” she asked.

  He wasn’t sure exactly what she was asking: did she want him to practice kissing her, or was he ready to enter the chapel?

  “Set your watch back an hour,” he said, reminding her.

  She smiled widely, reaching for her wrist and doing as he’d said. “Yeah. Okay. That’s what I like about you: you’re practical.”

  “The side door,” he said, blushing in the darkness.

  “What?”

  “There’s a side door. It was in a photograph in a pamphlet they sent us. Red ivy on stone. Do you remember that? The stones. These stones,” he said, placing his hands on the chapel. “I recognize them from that photo. The rest of the buildings are all brick. This is the only one made of stone.”

  “You are a freak of nature. You know that?”

  “You’re not the first to say that, but it’s not my favorite thing to be called, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “You remember a photo from a pamphlet that we all got in the mail…what…in July? Are you kidding me?”

  “I’m kinda of stuck with it,” he said.

  “I wouldn’t complain if I were you,” she said.

  That’s what you think, he thought.

  “You lead,” she said.

  Steel avoided the lighted paths and headed around back of the towering stone edifice, beneath the spreading canopy of a silver ash tree that had a trunk four feet in diameter. It didn’t escape Steel that the tree had likely been there for several hundred years. Something about that sense of history touched him, and for a moment he paused, looking up into the dark tangle of majestic branches.

  It proved impossible to move through the fallen leaves without crunching. For this reason they took their time, ducking into shadow
s periodically and catching their breaths, frantic from nerves.

  “Exactly why are we doing this again?” Kaileigh asked in a harsh whisper.

  “If something is going on, something secret or against the rules, then we need to know about it,” he answered. “What if there are a bunch of weirdos planning something…you know, like those shootings in schools that are always on the news? What if we can stop something like that?”

  Kaileigh clearly hadn’t considered that possibility. “You think?” she gasped as she hugged him from behind. Steel went rigid with surprise. Was she going to try to kiss him? Then he heard her sigh, and looked back in the gloom to see her looking up. He followed her gaze: the grotesque face of a stone gargoyle crafted as a rainspout looked down on them, devilish and twisted. It was but one of many such griffins up there.

  “Relax, the griffin is just the school mascot,” he whispered, patting her hands locked around his belly. She released him and they moved on.

  They rounded another corner—the chapel was designed in the shape of a cross—and approached a door that looked, in the gray muddled light, exactly as it had in the school brochure. Crafted of ancient, heavy, dark wood, it was framed by the large chiseled stones that formed the chapel walls, the doorway wrapped in ribbons of creeping ivy.

  Steel grabbed hold of the oversized cold iron doorknob and twisted. There came no cry of old hinges or horror-movie squeaks. The door swung open silently, and they were met with the sweet smell of cedar mixed with the slightly musty odor that came with the structure’s old age.

  Open cedar armoires occupied three of the four walls, holding robes for the choir. Black music stands stood in front of empty chairs formed around an upright piano littered with sheet music. Diagonally across the choir room from them, a closed door invited their curiosity. Steel hurried over to it. Kaileigh followed. The door had a heavy iron ring in place of a doorknob, and Steel lifted and twisted it, drawing the door open a crack. Standing alongside the chapel organ to their right, they faced the chancel, and across an expanse of marble flooring, the choir pews. The chapel altar rose to their left. The pipe organ itself was very large, with four tiers of keys and multiple rows of labeled stops.

  The once Episcopal church had a unique design. The pews ran parallel to the nave—rows facing each other with the wide nave in between.

  “Sir David,” Kaileigh hissed, pointing to the back of the life-sized knight kneeling just below a single step that led down from the transept. Kaileigh’s whisper echoed through the hall. The lofted roof’s heavy crossbeams towered nearly forty feet overhead.

  They had taken three steps toward Sir David when they were stopped by a sharp click and the rough sound of scraping wood.

  Steel took Kaileigh’s hand and pulled her into a cramped hiding place atop the pipe organ’s foot pedals. His heart lodged in his throat; they could ill afford to be caught.

  Muffled voices echoed off the stone walls and raced through the eaves.

  He and Kaileigh sat facing each other, toe to toe, their legs balled up, arms wrapped tightly around their shins, fingers laced. The foot pedals were long pieces of maple wood. The sides of the instrument created a small cave, and they huddled within it. Kaileigh caught Steel’s eyes and pursed her lips into a kissing pucker, reminding him of her plan. He shook his head “no.” She nodded “yes” back at him.

  A second pop rang through the cavernous chamber, and the voices were no longer muted but present. More voices than just moments earlier, now whispering low and conspiratorially. The shuffle and squeak of rubber soles cried against the marble.

  Four boys passed within a matter of inches of the pipe organ and headed into the choir room. The last stopped and turned. Steel couldn’t see above the boy’s waist, but he pictured him raising his head and taking a long suspicious look into the chapel. He’d sensed them.

  Thankfully, the boy didn’t look down. But he did take a step back, and in that instant, Steel got a good look at him.

  He had a square jaw, wide nose, and a dimpled chin. Red hair, perhaps, or blond—the light was poor. He had a strong build, with broad shoulders and a thick neck. Definitely an upperclassman. Maybe even one of the four he’d seen that day in the gym. Steel couldn’t be absolutely sure, but he thought he recognized him from the dorm. Could he be one of the boys who’d disappeared from inside the washroom on Sunday night?

  “You checked?” the boy said. “Before we—?”

  “Yes. Of course,” answered another voice from within the choir room.

  The upperclassman took one last inquisitive look around, and then entered the choir room, drawing the door shut behind him. A moment later, silence.

  Steel heaved a sigh of relief.

  “I’m out of here,” Kaileigh whispered. “No more for me.”

  “But we’re here,” Steel protested. “Sir David. Please?”

  “Not me,” she whispered. “Not now. I’m out of here.”

  “Wait for me by the ash tree, then,” he said.

  She didn’t acknowledge him. Instead she stood, looked around, and was gone.

  Steel unfolded himself and walked out past Sir David and into the nave. The four boys had not come through the main door; he would have heard that. They had not come through the only other door—the door to the choir room.

  So how had they just suddenly appeared? he wondered.

  He pushed and pulled Sir David, but to no avail. It didn’t budge in the least. It had to weigh a ton or more. He couldn’t imagine anyone—even four upperclassmen—moving it. No, if there was a secret entrance to the chapel, it would involve the dark wood paneling, intricately carved and decorated with many moldings that arched over each of the back bench seats. Any one of these might conceal a secret door, released somehow—some piece of woodwork moved, or a hidden lever tripped. A sixteenth century monastery must come with some secret passages.

  If there was a secret passage, Steel would need hours to pound on the paneling, listening for hollow spaces and searching for a release. He left the chapel feeling defeated.

  He and Kaileigh met up under the ash tree. They were heading back toward the dorms when she stopped and turned to face Steel beneath the gloomy shadow of a towering sugar maple.

  “If we make a plan,” she said, “we have to stick with it.”

  “What plan?”

  “You know,” she said. “The plan.” She puckered up.

  “I didn’t agree to any plan,” Steel objected. “It was your idea.”

  “Same thing,” she said. “I didn’t hear you complaining. It wouldn’t be so awful…kissing you. People do it all the time.”

  Thankfully, she turned and left him before Steel was required to come up with some kind of answer. But he stood there watching her move through the shadows, and he wondered if he’d missed a chance at something he might regret.

  Steel considered his options in order to reach his room without being caught. Upperclassmen—Fifth and Sixth Forms—still roamed the campus, primarily moving between the dorms and the athletic center’s student lounge, or the library. The movement of these students provided him with some cover—he wasn’t entirely alone and therefore sticking out—but it also meant there were many eyes to see him. He’d been warned of upperclassmen torturing younger students caught after hours: spraying them with hoses, stripping them naked and making them run to their rooms across the junior varsity soccer field—right in front of one of the girls’ dorms.

  All because if a Third or Fourth Form student was caught violating curfew, they impacted the liberties and freedoms of the upperclassmen. In this way, the school had created a polarized environment where the older students monitored the younger students, if for no other reason than to protect their rights to a later curfew.

  Given the uniform of coat and tie, most of the guys looked alike from a distance. It was only Steel’s height and boyish face that might have given him away as a younger student. The secret, Steel thought, was to stand as tall as possible, and to walk with c
onfidence.

  Above all, he could not allow himself to be caught. He spotted a shortcut. He could climb into the breezeway and cut through to the lower dorms, avoiding the administration building altogether.

  He stayed in shadows, heading for the breezeway. Halfway there, he heard voices and stopped short. Looked around again. Still no one…then he placed the voices. They were coming from his left, from one of the basement classrooms in the administration building. These windows—there were eight in all—were below the level of the grass, in dug-out bays.

  He might have continued on—the breezeway was so close now—but he recognized one of the voices, knew without any doubt it was the same voice he’d just heard in the chapel—the same upperclassman.

  What was he doing over here?

  Remaining in shadow, he moved toward the concrete semicircle dug down into the ground, which contained the glowing window from a basement classroom. Dropping to his knees, he crawled the final few feet.

  The window shade was drawn three quarters of the way down, the window open a gap. Steel had a view of six pant legs and three pairs of shoes, and three silhouettes were projected onto the shade like shadow puppets. Of the three, one was considerably taller than the other two; this person wore proper trousers and shined shoes—a teacher. The other two wore blue jeans and leather boat shoes.

  “The problem is…identification,” said a deep voice in a British accent.

  Steel knew of two teachers with British accents: a math teacher named Randolph and a chemistry teacher known to the kids as Munch.

  “But if it’s true…” said the voice of the upperclassman from the chapel. He said something else, but Steel missed it. Only his final words, “…all in trouble,” came through distinctly.

  Trouble?

  “Agreed,” said the British accent.

  “And how…find…?” said the third person. His voice was younger. Steel desperately wanted to determine who he was. He edged slightly closer, his hands now touching the curving concrete wall that formed the window well.