“What do you mean? Where are they?”
“Possibly at the bottom of the ocean.”
“Possibly?”
“More than likely, really.”
I sighed heavily. I should have known better than to trust Jack with a set of keys, but I hadn’t thought that even he could lose them so shortly after getting a new set. The night was unbearably cold and all I wanted was to bury myself beneath every blanket in the dorm room and lay there until I stopped shaking.
“But you can pick the lock,” I said.
“Sure,” Jack replied. “Do you have a hairpin?”
“Of course I don’t!”
“Then I can’t pick the lock – these ones are tricky.”
Refusing to accept that we were locked out of the building until someone opened the door on their way out to breakfast the next morning, I searched for a solution.
“Come on – I’ve seen you break in teachers’ offices with a stick of gum,” I said.
“Right, but I used the gum to stop the door from locking, not to unlock it. Besides, we don’t have any gum, either.”
“What do we have?” I asked, wondering how many of our belongings were currently floating to the bottom of the ocean as we spoke.
“Not much. Well – I might be able to use one of the laces from your shoes to pick it,” he said.
“Too bad. My shoes are gone.”
“What? You lost your shoes?”
“Don’t remind me,” I said wearily. “Karl’s going to kill me when he finds out.”
“Just tell him they got dirty – he won’t be able to stand that.”
I nodded, thinking that he had a point, when something rustled behind us and a large shape came into view in the corner of our vision. We both saw it at the same time and jumped back.
“I might be able to help,” said a tentative voice.
Squinting over at it, I tried to make out who was there. The voice sounded vaguely familiar, though I didn’t want to believe who it belonged to. My stomach squirmed uncomfortably.
“Nice of you to join us, Porker,” Jack said, crossing his arms.
Thomas edged forward towards us from the shrubbery. I felt my heart sink all the way down into my stomach. He was looking at us with utmost pleasure that could have only meant he was reveling in the idea of having something to hold over our heads.
“Jack,” he said curtly. “Enim. Having a nice night?”
“Lovely,” Jack replied darkly.
Thomas eyed Jack coldly. For a moment he fumbled in his pocket, breaking his gaze on us, and I stole a glance at Jack. His fingers had curled around the handle of his pocket knife. I reached over to grab his forearm: threatening Thomas wasn’t going to help us.
“Here,” Thomas muttered to himself, finally pulling out what he had been looking for. I could see a flash of metal in the starlight and heard a jingling sound, but it took a moment to realize what he was showing us. “Looking for these?”
I squinted, barely able to recognize the keys through the dark.
“Hand them over, Porter,” Jack said.
“I don’t think so,” Thomas replied, pulling the keys back behind his back. He seemed to be under the impression that if he hid them from view, Jack wouldn’t able to get them from him.
“Where’d you get those?”
“You dropped them coming out of here.”
“When we were coming out of here?” Jack repeated. “What, you’ve been spying on us?”
Thomas didn’t answer. I could see him fumbling with the keys behind his back, undoubtedly searching for what to say.
“Thanks, Thomas,” I said, finally breaking into the conversation. “You’re a real lifesaver.”
I reached forward for the keys, hoping that he would simply give them back, but he snatched them back and shook his head at me.
“Not so fast,” he said. “I – I’m not just going to give them to you.”
“Oh, please,” Jack said, taking a step forward. “You can hand them over, or I can take them from you. Which do you prefer?”
“You’re not taking them,” Thomas said. “I – I’ll give them to you, but I want something in return!”
The keys jangled in his hands. I glanced up at our building, glad that Sanders’ room was on the opposite side and that he wouldn’t be able to look down if he heard the ruckus.
“How about I just take them from you and let you walk away, Porter?” Jack said, taking another step forward. His face glowed white in the night lighting and his expression was hard. Thomas took another step back.
“No,” he said shakily, fingers grasping the keys to ensure Jack didn’t grab them away. “I – I’m not afraid of you, Jack. Even – even if you beat me up, I can still tell Mr. Barker that you were out.”
“So are you,” I reminded him.
“It doesn’t matter!” Thomas said angrily. “You and Jack have been in too much trouble – you’ll get a two week suspension, minimum, for another offense! You won’t graduate!”
He looked between us as he gave his threat, but it didn’t have the effect he had been hoping for. Jack rolled his eyes.
“You won’t graduate, either, Porker,” he said, taking another step forward, “so I’ll take my chances.”
Thomas swallowed.
“It doesn’t matter if I get caught or not; I’ll be booted out of here regardless for my GPA.”
Jack gave him a scathingly mocking look.
“Oh, poor Porter,” he cooed. “Too stupid to stay in school. What a shame.”
Thomas looked as though he wanted nothing more than to shove Jack’s keys down his throat and watch him struggle for breath, but Jack was far too irritable from the cold to heed the warning look that I gave him.
“Fine,” Thomas said after a moment. “You might not care, Jack, but Enim does.”
“Nim doesn’t care if you tell on him: Barker will let him off.”
“Not about that,” Thomas countered. “I know something else about him.”
Jack raised his eyebrow and gave me a look.
“What, about my mother?” I said, trying to think of what he thought he could do with that information. I shook my head. “So what?”
“Not about her, no. About your ... confidant.”
“My what?” I said bewilderedly as Jack mirrored my expression.
“You know, your little secret over at the Health Center,” Thomas said maliciously. “That doctor who you have to see every week.”
The coldness that had pierced my skin gave way as a wave of heat came over me instead. I stared at Thomas uncomprehendingly.
“How do you know about that?” I said.
“I saw you.”
“You mean you followed me?”
I narrowed my eyes in irritation, but my voice was shaking with the cold.
“Maybe,” he confirmed. “It wasn’t easy ... you’re very secretive about it. What’s the matter, Enim? Don’t want anyone to know that you’re not so perfect?”
I couldn’t find the words to respond. My face felt so hot that I was sure I was burning with a fever.
“I wonder how long it would take the school to find out about it,” Thomas mused. “An hour? Two?”
“I’ll break your jaw if you do,” Jack responded harshly, but even though Thomas looked nervous at the threat, I made up my mind and stepped between them. My heart rate quickened.
“All right, what do you want, Thomas?” I said. “I’ll do it.”
He was licking his lips anxiously as he glanced back and forth between Jack’s threatening stance and my own apprehensive one; it was hard to know which of us was shaking the most.
“I – I want the answers to Mrs. Beake’s homework and exams,” he said. “For the rest of the year. You write down the answers and give them to me.”
I looked at him, completely astounded.
“We’re in the same class, that won’t help you,” I told him. I found it hard to believe that he would go through so much trouble to
get me to do his work for him. I wasn’t sure if I should be annoyed or feel sorry for him.
“I dropped chemistry so that I could change my schedule around,” he said.
His request wasn’t spur-of-the-moment; he had obviously been planning on having me get the answers for him for some time now. Perhaps he had thought that I would do so out of friendliness, and then when that hadn’t panned out he had resorted to blackmail.
I ran my hair through my half-frozen hair.
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll give you the answers. Now … hand over the keys.”
He hesitated. Swallowing, he said, “If you don’t give me the answers, Enim, I will tell everyone. Don’t think I won’t.”
He dropped the keys into my hand. When we had stepped far enough back, he turned and scurried through the darkness back to his residence building. Jack glanced at me uncertainly before we unlocked the door and snuck back up to our room.
We stripped off our wet clothes and replaced them with dry ones before collapsing into bed silently. I could hear Jack’s jagged breathing turn heavy after just a moment and knew that he had succeeded in falling asleep, but I laid awake for the remainder of the night. Worse than the thought of getting caught cheating for him or the one of him telling everyone about Beringer was that, if it was so easy to find out about the latter, it might be just as simple for him to find out the truth about my mother.
After a sleepless night, I pulled myself out of bed the following morning to find Jack awake and half-dressed. My head was pounding and I was certain that I was getting sick from nearly freezing to death the night before. Before I could look at the clock to see what time it was, though, there was a quick knock on the door and it opened. Sanders stood in the doorway.
“Ever heard of waiting for an answer before entering someone else’s room?” Jack said irritably, wearing only his pants and an annoyed look. Sanders surveyed him with a squinted gaze.
“What’s the problem, Hadler? Are you doing something you’d rather me not see?”
“Yeah – getting dressed,” he answered. “Do you want to follow me into the shower to finish our conversation?”
“Actually, we’re not having a conversation,” Sanders replied. “I’m here for Lund.”
I looked over at them quickly.
“Why?” I said.
“You have a message to go up to the main offices,” Sanders said. “Mr. Barker wants to see you.”
My heart stopped momentarily. It was unheard of to be called to Barker’s office for anything but the most serious offenses – even Jack, who had seen more trouble than most of the school combined, had only had to see Barker once: the rest of the time, other teachers had always been the ones to berate him and give him his punishments. Porter must have been caught sneaking back into his residence building and elected to turn me in as well.
“Why? What’d I do?”
“I don’t know, Lund,” Sanders said. “I’m just bringing you the message.”
Sanders was observing me with interest. I could tell that he was just waiting to hear what I had done to warrant a visit to the headmaster’s office: his face lit up excitedly as though he hoped that I might allow him to escort me there like a prisoner. Jack glared at him openly.
“Sanders, have you ever heard the phrase, ‘shoot the messenger’?” he asked casually.
“Yes, I have.”
“Have you ever experienced it?”
Taking the hint, Sanders chewed his tongue and backed from the room. The door closed loudly behind him. As soon as he was gone, I turned wildly to Jack.
“What do I do?” I said. “Thomas must’ve gotten caught outside last night and turned me in!”
“Hold on, you don’t know that,” Jack said calmly. He was so used to being in trouble that the idea of it hardly fazed him. “If he had been caught then he would’ve turned me in, too.”
“Then why do I have to see Barker?”
Jack shrugged.
“Maybe he wants to have tea with you,” he said. “You know, catch up. Talk about your dad, the weather, politics – the works.”
“Don’t be sarcastic.”
“I’m serious, Nim – what else could it be? It’s not like you could’ve done anything bad enough to be called to his office, so it must be some social call. Just go and come back – and don’t worry about it. If you look guilty, he’s going to know something’s up.”
“How do I not look guilty?” I wondered aloud, but Jack only smirked without a response.
I dressed in my cleanest pants and selected an unwrinkled sweater from the closet, but since I had lost my boat shoes I was forced to wear a pair of loafers instead. I sighed as I realized that I would have to call Karl and ask him to send another pair; I would never get through the winter without them.
“Good luck,” Jack called after me as I left the room.
Barker’s office was located in the Welcoming Hall, a large brick building located at the top of the hill past the sporting fields. As far as I knew, it didn’t serve any real purpose other than to showcase his innate egotism in every aspect of his life. The walls were lined with evidence of students that he had supposedly shepherded to success: there were cabinets filled with trophies, yearbooks dating back decades on full display, and numerous awards hung up on the walls.
At the very back of the building was his ornate, overly large office. It was a wonder as to why he needed such a large office considering his notable absence at the school – he divided his time between his summer house in town that overlooked the water and his winter home in a warmer state – and when he was at Bickerby, he certainly didn’t have a role beyond keeping up appearances. Unless there was severe trouble, he left the duty of handing out punishments to the other administrators. I swallowed again as I wondered what I had done.
I dug my hands down into my pockets as I walked up the hill to the building. I had left my soaked jacket behind and the chill in the air quickly seeped beneath my sweater. I stepped into the main hallway, wrinkling my nose at the sight of the multitude of framed pictures and certificates lining the walls, and hesitantly stepped down towards Barker’s office. I ran my hand through my hair nervously before I knocked.
“Come in.”
His secretary called me into the outer office; his private one was located behind thick oak doors. I approached her desk and cleared my throat.
“I was called to Mr. Barker’s office.”
She glanced up at my quickly as though I was annoying her.
“Name?”
“Enim Lund.”
“Looned,” she repeated. “Looned ... Looned. Yes, they’re waiting for you. Knock before you enter.”
I forced myself to approach the door and gave the softest of knocks. Barker called me inside. Though I had only met him on a few occasions, his gruff voice was easily recognizable: it always sounded as though he had just downed a shot of whiskey and it was still burning his throat.
“Enim, Enim, there you are.”
Barker was a huge man. I had either forgotten quite how large he was, or he had put on more weight since I had last seen him several months ago. He was standing behind the desk wearing one of his customary three-piece suits in a shade of forest green, looking rather like one of the mounds of grass outside the window behind him. When I hesitated in the doorway, he ushered me inside with a wave of his hand. The tone of his voice was friendly enough, and for a moment I thought that Jack might have been right in thinking that there was nothing to worry about. No sooner had I let out a sigh of relief, though, than I noticed who else was in the room: Karl.
My knees jerked beneath me.
“Why don’t you have a seat, Enim, and we can get started?”
I looked back at Barker with a fearful expression. My legs were heavy beneath me and I had to yank them from the floor in order to get over to the chair. Once I had reached it, I nearly collapsed upon it.
“Do you know why you’re here, Enim?” Barker asked.
I swallowed as
I contemplated if it would be better to admit what I had done or feign ignorance. Throwing another glance in Karl’s direction, I decided on the latter and shook my head stiffly.
“You have ... no idea?” Barker asked.
My heart was pummeling against my ribcage and I was sure that my expression gave away my guilt, but I shook my head again regardless. Barker sighed.
“You mean to tell me that you have no idea that your grades are severely low?”
“What?”
Having expected him to say something entirely different, I couldn’t hide my surprise. Barker’s eyebrows knotted at my tone.
“Your grades, Enim,” he said, his voice rising impatiently.
“This – this is about my grades?”
“Yes, it’s about your grades. You’re failing every class, young man.”
He pulled out the chair to his desk, which was the same shade of forest green as his suit, and took a seat. I licked my lips anxiously as I debated how to respond.
“All of them?” I managed at last. Barker gave me an astounded look.
“Yes, all of them!” he said irritably, as though I had hoped that the punishment to be different if I was still passing just one. “Your GPA is below a one – I’m sure that I don’t have to tell you that that means you’re on academic probation.”
I looked at my hands without responding; the brief relief that I had felt from learning that I had not been reported by Thomas had quickly been replaced by a sense of foreboding. From the corner of my eye, I could see Karl shifting in place.
“This late in the semester, when there’s no chance of your grades lifting, the course of action is immediate and indefinite suspension,” Barker imparted.
I shut my eyes at his words. Karl had come up to the school to take me back to Connecticut. As the realization came, a feeling of illness came over me: I couldn’t go back there. I wrapped my hands around the arms of the chair thinking that he would have to pry them off before I would consent to go.
“What do you have to say for yourself, young man?”
I looked up at Barker’s voice. He was looking at me expectantly, though I had no idea what he hoped that I would say.
“I ... I mean, I thought I was passing Calculus,” I said at last.
None Shall Sleep (Damnatio Memoriae Book 1) Page 9