by C. L. Taylor
‘Holy f–’ I press a hand to my mouth, not because the bookshelf contained a hidden door but because I’m hit by a wall of noise as it swings open. Beyond the door is an enormous room, cathedral-big, and it’s teaming with kids. There’s a sea of blue on the floor – a carpet the same shade as Abi’s sweatshirt – broken up by huge circular rugs in red, yellow and green.
Across the other side of the room, there’s a huddle of kids my age, sitting on red beanbags on a red rug. They’re wearing headphones, gripping games controllers and staring at half a dozen flat-screen TVs mounted on the wall. To my left, there’s a yellow rug where a bunch of kids are lounging around on sofas shoving popcorn into their mouths, headphones clamped over their ears, as they watch TV. Beyond them, the rug is green and there’s a pool table, air hockey table, table football game and a huge electronic basketball game. Everywhere I look kids are laughing, chatting, squealing, playing and screaming. It’s like an enormous teenaged crèche.
‘Wonderful isn’t it?’ Mrs H. says, completely misreading the expression on my face. ‘We’re very proud of our recreation room. We deliberately don’t have photos of it on our website because, if we did, every kid in the UK would want to come here.’
‘Yeah,’ I say, but I’m not really listening. I’m staring at the boys playing PlayStation in the red zone. A spotty blond-haired guy is sitting in the same beanbag Mason slouched against in the video they sent Mum. Logically I know he’s not here. Mrs H. has already told me he’s in the pre-treatment unit, but that doesn’t stop me scanning the faces of all the boys in the room.
‘What do you think?’ Stuart asks from behind me. ‘See anything that appeals to you?’
‘It looks like my worst nightmare,’ I say truthfully. ‘Where do you go if you want to be alone?’
Destiny laughs softly.
‘We don’t encourage our students to isolate themselves,’ Abi says. ‘But if this is all a bit too noisy for you there are other options.’ She points at a line of doors on the wall directly opposite. ‘Through there you’ll find a café, a bowling alley, a cinema, a gym and a swimming pool.’
‘A swimming pool?’ I stare at her in astonishment. ‘You’re kidding me?’
She smiles. ‘We’re not joking when we say we want your stay to be as enjoyable as possible, Drew.’
‘But … where are the classrooms?’
‘There are classrooms at the rear of the building. You’ll only have three hours of lessons a day and one hour of individual therapy every couple of days. The rest of the time is your own.’
‘What about the kids in pre-treatment?’ I ask. ‘Have they got something like this?’
Stuart shakes his head. ‘No, the pre-treatment wing is quieter. Students are encouraged to use their time there for quiet reflection.’
‘Can I go there now?’ I ask and everyone laughs.
‘Your time will come, Drew,’ Mrs H. says. She indicates to Stuart to pull the door to the library closed, shutting us in the rec room, and then points to her left. ‘I’ll show you to your dorm now.’
Chapter Fifteen
We leave Abi, Stuart and Destiny in the rec room and head towards the large glass double doors on the left of the room. The wheels of my suitcase squeak as I drag it along behind me and several of the boys playing pool stop and stare as we pass.
‘Who’s that?’ asks a short, dumpy boy in a tracksuit, stretched over the pool table with a cue propped up on his fingers.
‘Why?’ asks the tall, ginger boy next to him. ‘Do you fancy her?’
All the other boys start laughing as I flick them the Vs behind my back.
‘That’ll be caught on camera!’ one of them shouts as Mrs H. waves her card at the black box near the glass doors. ‘You’ll have to explain your aggressive behaviour to your therapist later!’
‘There are cameras?’ I say as the doors swing open and Mrs H. steps back so I can walk through first.
‘CCTV.’ She pats her blonde bob, even though there isn’t a hair out of place. ‘They’re installed in all the communal areas and are monitored twenty-four hours a day to ensure you’re all safe.’
Spying on us more like.
‘When you say communal areas …’
‘The rec room, cinema, swimming pool, gym, café, bowling alley and dorms.’
‘There are cameras in our bedrooms!’
‘Yes.’ She smiles tightly.
‘So someone will be watching us when we get changed for bed?’
‘No one will be watching you get changed, Drew. They’ll be monitoring for any undesirable behaviour, but if you feel self-conscious you can get changed in the en-suite bathroom. There are no cameras there.’
It’s like I’ve just moved into the Big Brother house. With locks on the doors that can only be opened by staff passes and CCTV everywhere escaping is going to be trickier than I thought. And I still have to find Mason.
‘Are the dorms up here?’ I ask, pointing at the stairs that lead upwards.
‘That’s right.’ Mrs H. gestures for me to go up them.
‘And down there?’
Her eyes flit from the top of my head to the black leather boots on my feet. Despite the smile, permanently fixed to her face, she’s suspicious of me. I can sense it.
‘Those stairs lead to the basement.’
‘What’s in the basement?’ I keep my tone deliberately light. ‘More cool stuff?’
‘Storage,’ she says sharply. ‘The kitchen and cleaning staff use it mostly.’
I flash her my sweetest, most innocent smile. ‘So nothing I’d be interested in then?’
‘The basement is off limits to students.’ She gestures, again, for me to take the stairs that lead upwards. This time I do as instructed. I take the first set of stairs, bumping my suitcase behind me, round a corner, take another set of stairs, another corner and yet more stairs. I’m huffing and puffing by the time I reach the top but Mrs H., on my heel, isn’t even breathing heavily.
‘You can stop here,’ she says as I reach a double, frosted glass door. To my right are another set of stairs that lead upwards.
‘Staff quarters are on the second floor,’ Mrs H. says, catching me looking. ‘Nothing cool for you up there, either.’
Her stupid sing-song voice is starting to really grate on me. She may as well pat me on the head and tell me to be a good little girl and stop asking any more questions. I wish she’d just leave me to explore Norton House on my own, but it’s like being in a prison. I can’t go anywhere unless I’m accompanied and I can’t get through any of the doors without a staff pass.
‘Here we are then,’ Mrs H. says, touching her pass to the black box. ‘The dorms!’
I raise my eyebrows as the door opens. This place is like a TARDIS. From the outside I was expecting low ceilings, corridors and ward-like rooms, but it’s been completely gutted and remodelled inside. They must have knocked two floors together to make a room this big.
‘It looks …’ I stare in shock at the squared horseshoe of doors in front of me. In the centre there are metal stairs, leading up to a second level. ‘It looks like a prison block!’
Mrs H. laughs dryly. ‘You wouldn’t be the first student to say that. But appearances can be deceptive, Drew. The dorms are really quite comfortable. The boys have the dorms on the lower floor, girls on the first floor.’
I say nothing as she heads for the metal stairs. I can’t get my head around what I’m seeing. What the hell is this place? Everywhere I look there are small black half-domes affixed to the walls. More CCTV. Mrs H. wasn’t joking when she said that the only place to get any privacy is in the toilet. Are we being bugged too? So they can hear and watch everything we say and do?
‘Here we are.’ She turns left at the top of the stairs and leads me to a door with the number five stuck to the front. In prisons I’ve seen on the TV there’s normally a low fence that runs around the first floor. Prisoners lean over to see what’s going on below. Not here though. There’s a barrier b
ut it’s a six-foot-high clear Perspex wall. Is that to stop us throwing ourselves off or throwing other people off? I reach out a hand and give it a push. It doesn’t so much as wobble.
‘OK?’ Mrs H. glances at me then raps three times on door number five. She turns the handle without waiting for a response. ‘Your roomies are waiting to say hello to you.’
My stomach twists as she pushes the door open and the enormity of the situation sinks in. For the next couple of weeks, I’m going to be living with complete strangers. Complete strangers who’ve been excluded from school for God knows what.
‘Girls,’ Mrs H. says. ‘This is your new room-mate.’
Chapter Sixteen
I step into the centre of the room, dragging my suitcase behind me. I’m desperate to let go of the handle and wipe my sweaty palms on my jeans but I don’t want anyone to see how scared I am. I glance back at Mrs H., standing in the doorway. She smiles sweetly. It’s almost as though she’s enjoying my discomfort.
‘The girls will show you the ropes, won’t you, girls,’ she says, looking from the large, pasty-faced girl on the bottom bunk to my left to the small, skinny girl with a wide mouth on the top bunk to my right.
‘Of course, darling Mrs H.’ The skinny girl blows a kiss which makes Mrs H. laugh.
‘I’ll leave you to it then, Jude.’ She disappears through the door, closing it behind her with a click.
I fight the urge to throw myself at the closed door and yank it open again. Instead, I take a deep breath. The dorm, like the rec room downstairs, is brightly coloured. The carpet is royal blue, the walls are yellow and the duvet covers are red. There’s a pinboard on the wall beside each bunk. Jude’s covered hers with photos, postcards and pictures of celebrities, snipped from magazines. The other girl’s pinboard is completely bare. In front of me is a door which I assume leads to the en-suite bathroom. On the right of the door is a bookcase full of paperbacks. On the left there’s a shelving unit. Four shelves are filled with folded clothes. At the end of each bunk there’s a table. There’s an MP3 player docking station on one and three portable DVD players with headphones on the other. There are no windows anywhere. In the corner of the room, fixed between the wall and the ceiling above Jude’s bunk is a black CCTV unit. The red light at the base blink-blink-blinks in time with my heartbeat.
I feel like some kind of circus freak, standing in the middle of the room, being watched, and the urge to sit down and hide away is unbearable. But where should I go? Jude has taken the top bunk on one side of the room and I don’t want to take the bottom bunk beneath her. Just the thought of lying in it makes me feel claustrophobic. I’ve got a thing about small spaces. When I was eight I played hide and seek with Mason at our grandmother’s house. We were really competitive about finding the best places to hide and, when I discovered a big, old empty chest freezer in Gran’s garage, I clambered inside, certain there was no way he would find me there. I was right, he didn’t. But what I hadn’t anticipated was the fact I wasn’t strong enough to push the lid up and off from the inside. I was stuck. I had to stay inside my big, white coffin for nearly an hour until Dad finally heard me hammering on the sides and let me out. He looked absolutely terrified as he opened the lid then, when he realized I was OK, he screamed at me and called me a stupid little girl. It’s the only time in my life my dad ever shouted at me.
‘You OK?’ Jude says. Her voice has the same effect on me as nails being dragged down a blackboard. ‘You look like you’re about to pass out.’
‘I’m … I’m fine.’ I wipe the back of my hand over my forehead. It’s clammy with sweat.
‘Can I have this bed?’ I touch the duvet on the bunk above the quiet, pasty-looking girl, surreptitiously wiping my sweaty palms on the cool material.
The girl shrugs. She’s lying on her side in her bunk, her duvet pulled up to her chin. Her thick brown hair is splayed over her white pillow like tendrils of seaweed on a rock. She has a wide face, doughy cheeks and deep-set eyes.
‘Is that a yes?’ I ask.
Her amber-coloured coloured eyes flash in my direction then return to the book she’s holding in her hands. I guess that’s a yes.
‘She never speaks,’ Jude says, as I haul my suitcase onto the bunk above then scale the ladder. ‘So I wouldn’t waste your breath if I were you. Her real name’s Megan but we all call her Mouse.’
That’s original.
‘I’m Jude,’ she continues. ‘I’m sixteen, from London. Mouse is from Cardiff. She won’t tell me how old she is. Where are you from? What’s your name? How old are you? Why did you get excluded?’ She pauses for breath. ‘How many schools have you been to? Have you got any brothers or sisters? What do your mum and dad do?’
As she continues to bombard me with questions, I crawl along the bed until I’m up by the pillow. If Mouse is Megan’s nickname what’s Jude’s? Annoying Big Mouth? She’s sitting cross-legged on her bunk, watching my every move. She’s got small beady eyes, a long, narrow nose and a small puckered mouth that reminds me of a cat’s bum. She’s one of those twitchy girls, all nervous energy, jerky movements and verbal diarrhoea. The bunk below me creaks as Mouse sighs and changes position.
‘Oh God,’ Jude says, ‘please tell me you’re not another quiet one. I swear I’ll go out of my mind if you are.’
I look at her lazily. ‘My name’s Zara,’ I say. ‘I’m sixteen. My dad was the Duke of Ayreshire. When I was nine years old, me and my mum were involved in a plane crash and we had to take refuge in an ancient Balinese temple. My mum vanished and I still don’t know where she is.’
‘Woah!’ Jude stares at me, her black, beady eyes growing large and round. ‘You’re kidding me?’
‘Yeah,’ I say steadily. ‘I love making jokes about my dead parents.’
Her gawping mouth snaps shut and her face tightens. She doesn’t know whether or not to believe me. I don’t know why I just told her such a ridiculous lie. If she knew anything about gaming she’d totally realize where I lifted that from. I didn’t plan on lying to her. It just came out of my mouth. Maybe because I didn’t like the way she looked me up and down when I came in. Or perhaps it’s because I don’t like the vibes I’m getting off her. There’s something about her that reminds me of Lacey. Something that can’t be trusted.
Mouse, in the bunk below, turns a page of her book.
‘You said your mum disappeared,’ Jude says, ‘but what about your dad? How did he die? How did you get back from Bali after your mum disappeared? And you still haven’t told me why you were excluded from school.’
She continues to bombard me with questions for a good fifteen minutes. I answer each one without hesitation. Sometimes my answers are directly lifted from the game, sometimes they’re totally made up. Finally, Jude gets bored and reaches for a DVD player. As the tinny sound of the film she’s watching drifts across the small room I reach for the laminated printout at the bottom of my bunk.
NORTON HOUSE DAILY ITINERARY
7.30 a.m. – wake-up call
8.15 a.m. – breakfast in the canteen
9 a.m. – assembly in the large hall
9.30 a.m. – English or maths
11 a.m. – individual therapy sessions or rec room (check the board in the rec room to find out when your therapy sessions are)
12 p.m. – lunch in the canteen
1 p.m. – English or maths
2.30 p.m. – Sports or outdoor activities
3.30 p.m. – rec room
5 p.m. – dinner in the canteen
6 p.m. – rec room
9 p.m. – dorms for quiet time
10 p.m. – lights out
On the other side of the piece of paper is a list, simply titled, Solitary confinement? I run my nail under the two words, leaving a dent in the laminate. That sounds scary. I wonder where that is? What else didn’t Mrs H. show me?
RULES
Respect other people and your environment (no tampering with the fixtures and fittings)
Intim
ate relationships between the students are forbidden
Do not verbally or physically abuse other students or staff
You must attend all classes and therapy sessions. Only genuine medical emergencies will be accepted as a reason for not attending
If you feel unwell ask a member of staff to take you to Nurse Jones in the Sanitorium
No smoking, drinking or drug taking (this includes ‘legal highs’)
No stealing – from other students, staff or any of the rooms
Food is prohibited in the dorms. Cups are available in the en-suite bathrooms if you need water
No dangerous play or games. Any behaviour deemed unsafe will immediately be stopped by staff
No contact with the outside. You are prohibited from writing letters, making phone calls and using electronic devices that have Internet connectivity (this includes mobile phones, tablets, ipads, laptops etc).
NB: Staff at Norton House reserve the right to place any student who breaks any of these rules in solitary confinement
As a soft snuffling noise suddenly accompanies the tinny sound of Jude’s film, I glance across the room. Jude is lying on her back with her eyes closed and her mouth open. The DVD player is on her chest and her hands are hanging loosely at her sides. Watching her sleep makes my eyes feel heavy and I stifle a yawn. According to the schedule there’s half an hour until dinner. Maybe Mason will be there too. I’d be very surprised if there are two canteens, even if they do keep the kids segregated into two wings. I shuffle onto my side, being careful not to make the bunk squeak too much, and reach down to my boot. The printout of the pipes and tunnels beneath Norton House should be neatly folded and wedged between my sock and skin. I’m pretty sure I’ve memorized it but, if Mason’s at dinner, this might be my last chance to look at it before I give it to him.
I pull at the leg of my jeans and slip my fingers between my knee-high sock and my calf. For one heart-stopping moment I think it’s gone but then my fingertips graze paper and I sigh with relief. Out of the corner of my eye, I see the CCTV unit flash-flash-flash its red light. I’d forgotten about that. I pretend to scratch my leg then take my hand out of my boot and glance across at Jude. She’s still asleep. What about Mouse? I can’t remember the last time I heard her turn the page.