“Uh. No. Boozer wouldn’t do that.” I lied again.
“Ah. Well, you’re a smart girl. You’ll think of something. But at any rate, let me offer a compromise. If you wish, I will take you to the airport now. However, if you return with me to Blackthorn, I promise you there will be no recriminations and no mention of this to your parents or Judge Kerrigan. Agree to stay for one month. Thirty days is all I ask. At the end of the month we’ll talk, and if you still wish to leave, I’ll put you on the plane to L.A. and what you do when you get there will be your business. If you can elude Judge Kerrigan and her storm troopers, well, that will be up to you. Of course, you realize you could end up in Juvenile Detention. I assure you Judge Kerrigan is not a big believer in second chances. But I am. So, what do you say?”
I was now officially overwhelmed. He was kidding, right? Storm troopers?
“How do I know you won’t keep me at the school against my will?”
“You don’t. You’ll just have to trust me.”
Trust. Hah. People are always saying “trust me.” I didn’t trust anybody but good old Rachel Buchanan. I hadn’t met many people that you could trust. I certainly couldn’t trust Charles and Cynthia to act like parents. None of my teachers ever seemed real interested in helping me out. And Boozer, he was fun, but not really someone you could trust when it came down to it. About the only adult I’d ever met that I thought I might be able to trust, believe it or not, was Judge Kerrigan, and I only trusted her to toss me in the hoosegow if I didn’t go to this stupid school. And now here was jolly Mr. Kim saying “trust me.”
“Rachel. Please. Give us a chance. Let me help you,” Mr. Kim said. He sounded very sincere.
Right then I felt tired and a lot older than fifteen. No matter what I tried, it didn’t seem like there was any way out of this whole stupid idea. Suddenly it seemed easier to go back to the Academy and do the stupid Tae Kwon Do and stuff and just get the year over with. I choked back tears and nodded.
“Thank you, Rachel. I will do my best to see that you are not disappointed with this decision.”
He jumped down from the boulder, smiling.
“Follow me,” he said. He led me over a little rise and through some thick trees, and in about thirty yards we were back at the gate in the fence. It figured. Mr. Kim pulled the gate open and we walked right through it.
We didn’t talk until we were almost back to the school.
“Mr. Kim, how did you know where to find me?”
“Your trail was fairly easy to follow. Using the bath powder to check for motion detectors was very smart. But you left powder footprints—first leading to the atrium, and again headed toward the do jang when you came back. The window in classroom 221 was open and there was a depression in the ground below where you must have landed when you fell. Are you injured?”
“My wrist is sore and my pride is damaged, but I think I’m okay.”
“Then I tracked you through the woods and found you asleep by the rock. And here we are.”
I stopped for a minute and looked back the way we had come. Off in the distance I could see the bench still leaning up against the fence.
“You know, I’m never going to get this Tae Kwon Do stuff.”
“We will work on that. The important thing is that you try. You respond well to challenges, Rachel. Give yourself a chance. As I said, you’re not the first student to try running away on the first day. Mr. Scott, Mr. Christian, Pilar, even Judge Kerrigan have all taken similar walks like this with me.”
I couldn’t stifle a laugh. “Judge Kerrigan! A runaway? You’re totally kidding me!”
“No. Theresa had, shall we say, an enormously bad attitude when she got here. I remember she arrived in the morning and was headed to the freeway by a little after midnight. She tried to go through the woods, same as you. I found her in almost the same spot, in fact.”
Well. Sometimes life surprises you. Judge “Hair in an Unfashionable Bun” Kerrigan had run away from Blackthorn too. Now, that was funny. “This school will do wonders for you,” she’d said. Yeah, right.
I looked back at the woods and suddenly remembered the dream again. A chill ran through me, and I shuddered.
Mr. Kim looked at me. “Rachel, is there something else? Are you feeling ill?”
“What? Oh. No. I was just thinking. I had this really weird dream when I was sleeping out there, and it kind of shook me up.”
Mr. Kim seemed to relax. “Really?” he said. “Dreams can be very interesting. What was yours about?” We had reached the back of the school now and were walking up to the door that I had wondered about last night. Sure enough, Mr. Kim reached out and pulled it open. No alarm. No lock. No nothing. Sheesh. He stopped to hold it open for me.
“I dreamed I was running down a long corridor and there was a guy chasing me. Only the corridor kept changing, and sometimes it was the hallway of the school, sometimes it was the hallway of someplace I didn’t recognize, and sometimes it was the ravine in the woods. And the man was strange. He wore a really big gold medallion around his neck and his head kept changing. For a moment, I could have sworn he turned into a bull and not a man.”
I had kept walking while I was talking, and I didn’t notice that Mr. Kim had stopped dead. When I turned around he was holding the door and staring at me with the strangest expression. The color was completely drained from his face.
“What did you say? About him changing?” He was gripping the door so hard his knuckles were turning white.
“He turned into a bull. Or at least his head did. It grew horns and he looked like a bull. And he was chasing me.”
“Did he say anything to you in the dream?”
“I don’t remember. Why? It’s just some crazy dream.”
That seemed to snap Mr. Kim out of it. He shook his head as if he were clearing his thoughts.
“It’s nothing. It’s a strange-sounding dream, that’s all. Let’s get you back to your room. You’ve got class this morning.”
Something in the way Mr. Kim was acting had me on alert. Most of the time I’m happy to go along with my preferred idea that everything in the world revolves around me. But ever since I’d come across Judge Kerrigan and arrived at this school, people were treating me oddly. Pilar kept staring at me all the time and saying she felt like she knew me from somewhere. Then, when I thought about it, I remembered Mrs. Marquardt spending a lot of time watching me in the rearview mirror on the drive from the airport.
I mean, I guess it’s normal that when somebody new arrives, you check them out. And yet this felt different. Mr. Kim was definitely upset somehow. I had a sense that something was going on, even if I didn’t know what yet. But I would find out.
Mr. Kim took me through a hallway. As we were about to turn up the stairs, I noticed a red door with a sign that said “Top Floor. Access Restricted. Top Floor Students & Faculty Only Beyond This Point.”
“What’s a ‘top floor student’?” I asked.
Mr. Kim was still thinking about something.
“Hmmm? Oh, the Top Floor is a special classroom wing of the school for the upper classes. It’s where Blackthorn students who show special aptitudes in various areas of study take advanced classes. We call them Top Floor Students.”
“That sounds cool. What kind of classes?”
“Various kinds. We need to stop by the infirmary and have your wrist checked out.”
Why did I feel like Mr. Kim was changing the subject?
“What do you have to do to become a Top Floor Student?” I asked.
“There are a variety of standards. You shouldn’t concern yourself too much with it yet, Rachel. I’ve known you barely twenty-four hours and I have no doubt you’ll be running the school in a few short weeks. You’ll be able to learn all about it then.”
At the infirmary, the nurse took an X-ray and confirmed that my wrist was only sprained. She wrapped it in an Ace bandage and gave me some Advil. Mr. Kim showed me how to get back to my room from there.
CHAPTER NINE
This Must Be a Month in Dog Years
When I got back to the room, Pilar was awake and sitting at her desk, going over notes. Did she ever not study?
I went into the other room, dried my hair, dressed, and unpacked my laptop.
“How did it go?” Pilar asked as I carried the laptop back into the study room and sat down at my desk.
“How’d what go?”
“Your ‘walk.’” Air quotes again. I was definitely going to kill her.
“Not so well. Got lost in the woods.”
“How’d you get back?”
“Mr. Kim seemed to have no trouble finding me.”
“Yeah, he’s like that. Wow. The woods. Pretty brave.”
I couldn’t tell if she was teasing me or what. I decided not to press it and started opening the drawers of my desk. Inside the top drawer was a manila envelope with a sticker on it that said “Rachel Buchanan: Class Schedule.” I opened it and looked at the schedule. Classes started at 8:30 and lasted fifty minutes. First period, Languages. Boring. Second period, Microelectronics. What? Third period, Computer Lab. Okay, cool. Fourth Period, Physical Conditioning? What! Gym! In addition to Tae Kwon Do? Get real. Definitely going to drop that one. Although I could already imagine how that conversation would play out.
Me: “Mr. Kim, I’m afraid I’m going to have to get a different class fourth period, as apparently you’ve forgotten that I don’t do gym. Perhaps Advanced Napping would be a better option for me.”
Then Mr. Kim would laugh, remind me about my agile mind, and have me enrolled in the decathlon at the next Olympics before I could blink.
Lunch was next on the schedule. I was very good at lunch. Followed by Cultures. What kind of class was that? What kind of Cultures? Then Introduction to Code Theory. Ugh. Whatever that was, it sounded boring. Seventh period was Intro to Criminal Justice. Criminal Justice? Hello? What kind of school teaches Criminal Justice to teenagers? Evading Criminal Justice, maybe.
That took us all the way to 3:30. Then there was a phrase on the schedule that sent a shiver through my body. Kitchen Duty 4–5:30 M-W-F. Kitchen Duty!
“Yep,” said Pilar, “everybody has to do it. I’m on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays.”
Her voice startled me, because I hadn’t realized I’d said anything out loud.
“What is Kitchen Duty, exactly?” I asked.
“Like, stuff you do in a kitchen. Serving food. Washing dishes. Fixing stuff. Whatever Mrs. Clausen asks you to do. She runs the kitchen.”
Great. Mrs. Clausen. Sounds like a pickle. I’m sure we’d be pals.
“We have the same schedule,” Pilar said. “Mr. Kim told me yesterday. Hey, are you any good with computers? Because computer lab is really killing me. I just don’t seem to have the aptitude for it.”
“Yeah. Computers are okay. But I don’t get this. What kind of class is Cultures? Or Criminal Justice?”
“Oh, man. Criminal Justice is like the coolest class ever. Mr. Quinn teaches it. He used to go to school here too. He’s in his mid-twenties and works freelance for the FBI. Did I mention that he is gorgeous? Also, he’s the greatest teacher. He tells all these amazing stories about criminals and investigations and crime scenes and forensics. It’s awesome.”
“Sounds interesting.” Not.
“Oh, it is. It’s my favorite class.”
Great, I thought to myself. I was rooming with a Criminal Justice groupie.
“The semester started a month ago, so you’ll have to catch up on some of the stuff we’ve covered. I can help you if you want.”
“Thanks. Listen, I want to apologize for what I said yesterday. About why you’re here. That was rude of me to assume—anyway, I just…I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” she said. But she kind of blushed, like how she got here was a sensitive topic. “There are a lot of kids in here that are like you—I mean…not like you…in a bad…I mean with court trouble…sorry.” She flushed.
“It’s okay. That’s what I was told. I just shouldn’t have assumed it about you.” There was an uncomfortable silence for a few minutes.
“If you don’t mind my asking…,” she said.
I could guess. “It was either here or Juvenile Detention. I got arrested for joyriding in a stolen car. I didn’t steal the car or anything; my friend had just borrowed it. But I’d had some scrapes before that, stupid stuff like vandalism and shoplifting. So this judge gave me a choice, my parents made it for me, and here I am.”
“Well, today is a new day, as Mr. Kim is fond of saying. Shall we go get breakfast?”
The minute she said breakfast, my stomach growled. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was. I had done more physical activity in a day at this school than I did in a month back home, and I was famished.
We headed to the cafeteria, which was somewhere in the center of the cavernous building. We were eating some fruit and cereal when Alex and Brent appeared at our table.
Alex sat down next to Pilar and kind of bumped into her with his shoulder. She giggled and bumped him back. I see. Brent sat next to me.
“Hi, guys,” Pilar said. “Rachel, I think you met these guys last night, but this is Alex Scott and Brent Christian. They’re roommates. I still haven’t figured out how Brent puts up with this big dope.” She elbowed Alex in the ribs and giggled.
They both said hi, and I said hi back. Alex reached over and took an apple slice off of Pilar’s tray, and she slapped at his hand. He smiled as he ate it. It was so cute it almost made me sick. I rolled my eyes at Brent. He smirked.
I had gotten a close-up look at Alex last night in the do jang as he was watching me flop myself all over the place. He seemed to be a little less intense when he was out of his uniform. Brent still looked like Colin Farrell.
“So you decided to stick around?” Alex said.
“Yeah. How did you hear about that?” I said.
“I didn’t. But we’ve all done it. It’s sort of like a club,” said Alex.
“Yeah. I managed to cut through the woods and find the road, but it was tough. Lucky for me, Mr. Kim caught up with me on the freeway,” Brent said.
“How does he know?” I asked.
“Mr. Kim knows everything. He’s got some freaky weird sixth sense, like that kid in the movie. I think he sees everything but the dead people,” said Alex.
“Did he offer to take you to the airport?” I asked.
“He offered to drive me back to Detroit,” Pilar chimed in. “Of course, he knew I had no place to go to there, but he told me at least we could get to know each other on the drive. We were about forty miles down the road before he convinced me to come back.”
“He’s like a wizard or something,” I said.
They all agreed with me. Mr. Kim the wizard. Well, my mind was not made up yet. I had agreed to stay the month. Then we’d see.
Amazingly, the morning and early-afternoon classes kind of whizzed by. I didn’t realize it until afterward, but the teachers were different than what I was used to at Beverly Hills High. For instance, I thought that first-period Languages would have me asleep in about three minutes, but the teacher, Miss Reynard, was like a language cheerleader. The class was on a Spanish section, and Miss Reynard had this very interes
ting way of using music to help you decode the linguistic and grammatical details when you were speaking the language. At first it was way over my head, but by the end of the period I was starting to catch on to some of it.
Then, in Microelectronics, we had to do a diagnostics exercise. A man named Mr. Sherman taught this class, and he put us at our lab stations and gave us a small circuit board that fit into a cell phone. The circuit board had a burned-out condenser or transistor or something. Then he gave us a box of old radios and telephones and calculators, probably three or four of each in the box. We had to try to find working parts on the phones and radios and get them to work in our circuit board. The only thing was, we weren’t given any tools, except for a paper clip and some chewing gum. It was really weird, but I kind of got into it. Those “tools” were what you had to try to make it work. Brent was in this class, and I noticed he was the first one to have his board repaired. He had his cell phone chirping away in a few minutes.
I didn’t have a clue what to do, and Mr. Sherman spent a lot of time helping me figure it out. I couldn’t imagine how a class like this would ever be useful to me, short of getting a job in a cell-phone factory. But strange as it was, the hour went by fast.
It was computer lab that blew me away. All of the machines were top of the line, with incredible operating speed and some types of software that I had never even heard of. Mrs. Pollock, this thin, kind of willowy woman, ran the lab. I tried to ignore her for a while and use my machine to get on the Internet, but the machine had no browser on it. Dang it. I had been looking forward to a whole hour of surfing, but instead we were kept busy doing an exercise on macro programs. I hadn’t been able to get on the Net since I got here, and I think I was beginning to have withdrawals.
Next was the physical conditioning class, and even that went by quickly. The instructor was a sort of military-looking guy named Mr. Elliot. He looked like he’d be a real hard case, but he let me start out doing some easy stretches and walking around the track in the gymnasium, while the rest of the class did some harder stuff. I thought that was decent of him.
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