The Academie

by Amy Joy

  “Nothing…” Andy looked as devilish as ever.

  “Nothing, huh? Then what was all the screaming about?”

  “We were just discussing some of the changes that have taken place around here since I’ve been at college.” I smiled at Andy.

  “Like what?”

  “Pop Tarts for one.”

  “Oh, that’s you father,” mom said. “Well, and this one,” she said, looking to Andy. “They started doing the grocery shopping together…”

  It soon became obvious that since Matt and I’d been gone, Andy’d gotten used to getting his way. Even so, this didn’t mean he was happy.

  Later, he lay on my bed, tracing the designs on my bedspread with a finger as I unpacked my college things.

  “So, what’s it been like without Matt and me here?” I asked Andy later.

  “Weird.”

  “I bet. It’s weird now—I mean, I keep waiting for Matt to come home still.”

  “Yeah, you’ll get used to it. I wish he could come home though. Or that I could go to The Academie too.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah, it’d be better than staying here with mom and dad. Both you guys will be there soon. It stinks being here alone.”

  “Andy, please, don’t say that. I don’t want to go to The Academie. I want to stay here, with you.”

  “Why don’t you then?” His eyes were big and full of tears, and my heart broke to see him so hurt and confused.

  “Because I can’t…” It was hard to explain this kind of thing to a six-year old. “I’m not allowed, Andy. The law says I have to go or they will send me to jail.”

  “It’s not fair,” he said, and the tears spilled down his cheeks as his little hand went up to rub his eyes.

  “I know. It’s not. I’m sorry, baby,” I said, pulling him close. I hadn’t called him baby in years. It just slipped out. Tears welled in my own eyes and I picked Andy up and laid him across my lap like I did when he was small. And there I rocked us both, hoping that at least one of us might be comforted.

  When his sniffing slowed, I reached for the box of Kleenex and pulled it close. He grabbed a tissue and began to dry his face.

  “You know, we’re just going to have to make this the best summer we’ve ever had together, Andy.”

  He nodded and grabbed another tissue, while I considered what I had just said. I needed to stop thinking about the inevitable. Before I knew it, I would be at The Academie, but right then, I wasn’t. I needed to make the best of that.

  “Here’s what we’re going to do, Andy,” I said with renewed confidence. “Let’s see, I’m going to be gone three years, right?” He nodded and I could see the tears starting to well up in his eyes again. “No, no, don’t think about that. We’ve got to think about right now. Here’s what I’m thinking. Three years means that I’m going to miss three of your birthdays.” The tears grew larger and threatened to run down his cheeks again. “No, no, you’re not getting it. I think we should celebrate them.”

  “What?” he said, his voice strained.

  “We should celebrate them. I don’t want to miss them, so let’s just do it: we’ll have your seventh, eighth, and ninth birthdays all this summer—cake, presents, the whole deal!”

  He began to crack a smile, and I knew I was on to something.

  “Well, what about your birthdays? We’re going to miss those too,” he said.

  “Good point. You want to do those too?”

  He nodded and smiled as he rubbed the tears away. “And Christmas.”

  “Christmas? Well, now you’re talking. Let’s do it all. We’ll do it big, we’ll do it right. We have three months to pack three years into. I say we do it.”

  He was smiling and I knew I did good. “You’re going to have to help me pull this off though, okay?”

  He nodded happily.

  “Good; then we have some things to look forward to this summer. And we’ve got some planning to do too!”

  “Think we can convince mom and dad?”

  I smiled. “You got them to buy Pop Tarts. I think you can do this.”

  14. grandma marie

  I ran my fingers over Andy’s message, hoping that somehow it could make me feel closer to him. I wanted to write about all the injustices of life, of the Academie. And about how much my bunkmate was driving me crazy. But I just laid there, studying Andy’s font, tracing the letters again and again.

  Finally, I closed it, knowing there’s no way I could write now. But closing the pretty leather book drew my attention to the thing itself, drawing up recent memories of my last visit with Grandma Marie.

  “How are you, pumpkin?” she’d asked, as she gave me a squishy hug.

  “Good,” I lied.

  “Merry Christmas Grandma!” Andy squealed as he entered the foyer.

  “Merry Christmas darling!” Grandma said, leaning over to embrace her grandson. “Boy are you getting big!” She stepped back to take a look. Andy grinned. “Well, it sure is nice that you decided to celebrate Christmas. Now we’ll get to celebrate together for once!”

  Due to the distance, I couldn’t remember a Christmas with Grandma since I was a little girl. The weather was always prohibitive and mom and dad said it was just too difficult and too risky to travel all the way to upstate New York with three kids. Grandma seemed to understand, but I think we all missed the time together.

  “Did you bring presents?”

  “Andy, you aren’t supposed to ask that!” I scolded. Six-year olds; they’ll say anything.

  Grandma grinned. “Yes I did.”

  “Yay!” he squealed.

  “You didn’t have to do that, mom,” my mom said as she joined us.

  “I know. I wanted to. Regardless of the reason,” grandma said, looking at me, “we finally have the opportunity to celebrate together. So let’s do it right.” With that, she lifted a Tupperware from one of her bags.

  “What’s that?” mom asked.

  “Pumpkins bars.” Pumpkins bars were Grandma Marie’s specialty. I couldn’t remember when I’d had them last, but apparently my mouth hadn’t forgotten. It had already begun to water.

  “I’ll take care of those,” I said, grinning as I reached over to take them from her.

  “None until dinner,” mom said.

  “Oh Sue, come on. It is Christmas after all,” grandma said.

  Mom frowned. “Just one, Allie.”

  “No problem,” I said, running to the kitchen with the goods. Andy followed, squealing all the way. Even though it was our third time now, rather than getting sick of celebrating Christmas, Andy seemed to be getting more into it each time.

  “What are they?” he asked as I opened the cover.

  “You’ve never had one?”

  Andy shook his head. “Well, you’ve gotta try one then,” I said, passing him a bar.

  He took one bite and his eyes lit up.

  “Yeah, I know,” I answered, biting into my own.

  “Let’s sneak one more,” he said, powder escaping from his mouth as he continued to chew.

  I signaled him to be quiet by pressing my finger to my lips. Then I pulled one more for each of us from the container and rearranged the rest so they’d never know they were gone.

  Andy’s smile was covered in sugar when mom and grandma emerged from the foyer.

  “So does this mean that you liked them, Andy?” grandma asked.

  He nodded furiously.

  “Hello Marie,” dad said as he joined us.

  “Merry Christmas,” she answered. “So what’s the order of events for this celebration?”

  “Well, I thought we’d hang out a while and catch up, then do dinner, and then presents this evening,” mom said.

  Andy looked struck. “No! Presents now!”

  Grandma smiled. “It really isn’t Christmas without presents; is it Andy?”

  Andy grinned at her and then looked to mom and dad with his puppy dog eyes. “Pleeease?”

  Moments later, we were h
uddled around the tree, ready to open gifts.

  “Andy, this is for you,” grandma said, handing him a gift from one of her bags.

  Grandma’s gifts were always a mystery because she lived so far away and never had the opportunity to really know what we wanted or needed. Andy ended the mystery moments later when, throwing the paper aside, he revealed a small, metal tractor and wagon. He gave it a sideways look and then looked up at grandma.

  “This is the kind of thing that boys used to play with when your mother was small,” she explained. “I thought it might still hold some appeal today.”

  Andy smiled politely, but I could tell he was having trouble figuring it out because he picked it up and began to search for buttons to push.

  “There’s no buttons, sweetheart. You push it around and can load things up in it. You can put dirt in the back and haul it around.”

  Andy began to push it around and seemed to enjoy the road-like lines it left in the carpet because he continued making them and then followed truck and wagon back across the same path again.

  Grandma smiled. “I also got you this, honey,” she said, pulling out another package.

  Andy stopped the truck mid-cycle and reached up for the second package. The mystery was ended with one tug at the paper. “Z.T.!” he exclaimed “I’ve been wanting this so bad!” he said, waving the hand-held gamer around gleefully.

  Mom looked at grandma.

  “Hey, I’m not completely out of touch with kids these days!” Laughter exploded around the room.

  With Andy now absorbed in his game, grandma looked to me. “Do you want your gift, Allie?”

  I nodded. Grandma’s gifts were hit and miss. Lately, admittedly, they’d been a bit more of a miss because she kept trying to buy me clothes and wasn’t quite getting it right. But I always appreciated the gesture, and I always kept them, even if I never wore them. After all, it’s the thought that counts.

  The package she handed me was small and clumsily wrapped.

  “Sorry about the wrapping,” she said. “My hands, they just don’t do what I tell them to anymore.”

  “It’s fine, grandma.”

  I gently pulled the tape apart and slid out the contents. It was a small, black book, held closed by an elastic band. I pulled back the elastic and opened the pretty leather cover to flip through the pages. Blank.

  “It’s a journal, honey.”

  “Oh,” I answered, still a bit unsure what to do with it. “Thank you.”

  “I thought you might need it soon.” I noticed a serious tone in her voice.

  There was a moment of silence, leaving me to wonder what grandma could be getting at, before my mother chimed in with, “We have something for you too, mom.”

  “Oh you shouldn’t have!” Grandma answered happily, and I could see that she was thrilled.

  Later that evening, long after all the presents were opened and the holiday meal was settling in our stomachs, I snuck to the kitchen for one last pumpkin bar.

  “I thought I heard you,” grandma said, emerging from the living room where mom had her set up on the pullout couch.

  “You caught me,” I said, hand still in the pumpkin bar container.

  “I wanted to tell you about my gift,” she said, sitting down at the table.

  “Okay. Do you want a cup of tea?” I never knew my grandma to sit at a table without a cup of tea, so it felt natural to ask.

  “Oh no, dear. Not at this hour. Thank you.” She paused and then looked at me intently. “Are you happy to be going to The Academie, Allie?”

  Her question caught me by surprise, and I choked a bit on my pumpkin bar. “You want the truth?”

  She nodded.

  “No. Not at all.”

  “Good,” she said, smiling. “That’s my girl.”

  I was taken aback. Admittedly, I didn’t know my grandmother well, but what I knew about her generation as a whole was that they were very loyal to their country, to their government. This new information about The Academie didn’t seem to fit. “You don’t like it either?”

  “Not at all.” Her words were emphatic. I couldn’t recall a time where I’d seen my grandmother so serious—except perhaps when grandpa was in the hospital.

  “Really? Do you know that you’re in the minority?”

  “Oh, I know. It’s not the first time.”

  I looked at her, puzzled.

  “How much do you know about World War Two, Allie?”

  Her question took me by surprise. What did this have to do with The Academie? “I don’t know. I know what they teach us in school. Hitler was evil. He killed the Jews.”

  “The German government was afraid of a group of people, Allie. So they locked them up, away from society. They did horrible things to them in those prisons. They tortured and killed thousands of people.

  “And it wasn’t just Hitler. Hitler was able to do what he did because many people supported him and many others didn’t object. Many turned a blind eye or believed the claims the government made. They refused to see what was going on right in front of them. And perhaps…after a while, they were too afraid to object.”

  I sat there silently, not sure where she was going with this history lesson.

  “You have family—ancestors—that were mixed up in this conflict. Did you know that?”

  I nodded. I knew that I had relatives who fought in the war. Besides, as an American, I knew I was one of the good guys. We went in and ended World War II. I felt proud of being part of that heritage.

  “My family, as you should know, is from England. My father fought in the war against Germany.” I nodded my head proudly. That part of the story I knew well.

  “My husband—your grandfather—his family was from Germany.”

  “Yeah, that’s about all I know about them.”

  “His family was Jewish, Allie.”

  I choked on my pumpkin bar. “What? How? Grandpa was Catholic.”

  “I know. Grandpa never wanted to speak of it because his mother was so ashamed. She did not approve when he converted. She thought he was turning his back on his family, his heritage.”

  She paused and looked at me.

  “Her brother—your great uncle—died in a German concentration camp.”

  My mouth fell open. Pumpkin bar crumbs tumbled out, but I couldn’t react.

  She took a large breath. “Do you know your father’s family history?”

  I shook my head.

  She waited, and finally I willed myself to speech: “English and German?” I was afraid of where this might lead. She nodded and waited for me to continue. “I don’t know much. I just know that Grandma’s family was German and she was very happy to become a Thompson.”

  “Yes, she was. She was very happy to give up her German surname. That’s because her father was a German officer.” My heart began to race. “He ran a concentration camp.”

  “Oh grandma, no.”

  “I’m sorry dear.”

  I felt sick.

  “Now, I didn’t tell you this so that you would think badly of your father or your father’s family. My family doesn’t hold ill-will and neither should you.”

  “But how? You must have been outraged when mom wanted to marry dad,” I said. My voice echoed coldly through the quiet house.

  “No honey,” she answered softly. “We saw that they were in love. And if anything is going to heal the world, it’s love.”

  I shook my head, unable to take it all in. She put her hand on mine and continued. “I am not a supporter of The Academie for reasons you might now imagine. The idea of locking up any group of people against their will is just—” She cut herself off and shook her head. “—and the idea that they are locking up young people—” She sighed and continued shaking her head.

  We sat there in silence as she recomposed herself. Then she spoke again. “I gave you this journal because I thought you might need it. When I was younger—before my hands stopped working like they did—” she held up her hands to sh
ow how they had become gnarled with arthritis— “I kept a journal. A lot of girls kept journals back then. Many would write things about their day or about boys, but I wrote about things that were going on in my life—things I was trying to sort out or make decisions on. I found that it helped me organize my thoughts.”

  She looked at me. “With all that you are going through, I thought you might have a need for a journal now.”

  Still holding my journal, I fell asleep that night thinking about Grandma and Andy, and imagining ways to escape The Academie.

  15. daytime nightmares

  The next day, I was sitting in Basic Algebra when I started to feel really sick. While Sergeant Prattle rambled about variables in her deep, scratchy tone, I felt myself fading fast.

  At first I couldn’t tell if I was going to throw up or pass out. I debated running to the restroom when things started to go dark and the high-pitched squeal began in my ears. My arms were heavy as I pulled them onto desk and let my head flop down.

  Slowly the squeal dissolved into rhythmic beeping. Then voices.

  “I’m telling you, I think they’re dangerous.”

  “But what you suggest is madness. We can’t leave them until they’re thirty.”

  “But when we offer our case, when we explain the threat they pose, they’ll consider it. If they stay until thirty, then perhaps they will be different?”

  “I don’t know, Ivan. What about the dangers the system might pose to them?”

  “What dangers? They are perfectly safe—we’re all safe—and they will be in better shape than any of us were at that age and smarter too—thanks to us!”

  “Maybe…. I’ll have to run more tests. We can’t be rash about this.”

  The voices sounded distant in my head. I struggled to open my eyes and—finding I couldn’t—began to panic.

  I tried to move, but couldn’t.

  My heart raced.

  I couldn’t breathe.

  Where am I? What was going on?

  The beeping quickened.

  “Woa! We’ve got a blinker!” a man’s voice bellowed. I heard rapid footsteps—dress shoes on tile—growing louder.