Tala Phoenix and the School of Secrets

by Gabby Fawkes

  “It remains to be seen who the guilty parties are,” Miss Mildred continued. “That is what we are now here to ascertain.”

  Now it was Cody’s hand slicing the air. “Should the innocent parties wait outside?”

  Miss Mildred shot him a scalding ‘no’ look that needed no verbal confirmation.

  “As I was saying,” Miss Mildred continued, starting to pace so that her calf-length navy skirt swished along. “If the perpetrators do not come forward, I will have no choice but to punish you all.”

  Outraged murmurs and exclamations broke out amongst the group.

  If the biggest liar does not shut up, there’ll be no choice but to burn her, the voice in my head muttered. I coughed.

  “Even us innocents?” Timmy was demanding, on his feet now.

  “You innocents are harboring the guilty,” Miss Mildred said indifferently. “I highly doubt that no one else knows who is responsible.”

  “It was them,” Jenna said, twisting around to point at us. “I saw them.”

  “You were out of your room too, then?” I shot back.

  “SILENCE!” The lights snapped off, and in the momentary blindness of dark, it was only Miss Mildred’s voice that reigned.

  “I will give the perpetrators a chance to confess anonymously.”

  The light returned, and I was relieved that Demi and Kian looked as faux-unflustered as I was trying to. Jeremy, on the other hand, looked like he might keel over on the spot, but since that was his usual MO, hopefully no one would think anything of it.

  Miss Mildred handed out the little white papers, as she explained how we were to write our names, as well as ‘yes’ if we did do it, and nothing if we didn’t. After she’d handed them all out and given us a minute to write our answers and fold our papers, she collected them.

  There were a few nerve-wracking seconds while she read over the answers that I thought maybe one of the others had caved.

  “Ah,” Miss Mildred said, pursing her lips. Next second, she was on her feet. “As I suspected – the guilty refuse to confess their crimes. Nevertheless, I am prepared to be fair. Put your heads on your desks and close your eyes.”

  Now she swept about explaining another method–the guilty parties were to raise their hands. Minutes later, Miss Mildred was shrilling, “Heads up!”

  She looked downright ferocious now, with the pasty flesh of her face stretched into a grimace. “This is your last chance.” She strode to the door and tore it open. “I’m going to question you all, one on one.”

  Jenna threw me a sarcastic grin, as my heart fell what felt like ten stories. I was going to have to sit there while Miss Mildred’s fish breath interrogated me, and lie to her cement-colored sharp eyes?

  Beside me, Kian just looked pissed, while Demi looked nervous. Jeremy, however, looked like he was about to go into a one-on-one combat with a full-grown grizzly bear. Getting out the noteraser, I scrawled on it, You Got This.

  I passed it to Kian who passed it to Demi who craned her arm back to pass it to Jeremy. Once he got it, some color returned to his face, but that wasn’t all that returned.

  “What is this?” Miss Mildred demanded gleefully, sweeping over the next second.

  Oh shit, this was it. We were about to get caught thanks to my brilliant encouraging noteraser scheme.

  “Just doodling.” Jeremy got in a few rubs of the noteraser on his paper before Miss Mildred had snatched it up in her hands.

  As she brought it up to her nose to squint at, I gasped in my last few breaths of free air. Goodbye Latin class, hello Room.

  A shiver slithered down my spine. Not... there. There was a reason all the teachers used it as a threat to keep us in line. One that I still didn’t entirely understand – but didn’t want to, either. Kids entered the Room, but you weren’t the same person coming out, I knew that much. Kian’s theory was that was why Cody was such a weirdo – a record seven times in the Room – though he hadn’t exactly been well-adjusted to begin with either. Although, were any of us?

  Miss Mildred tossed the noteraser back on Jeremy’s desk, her glare trained on him – “Your turn.”

  Oh crap – what did that mean? Had she seen the writing and was now going to tear him a new one – bullying him into confessing?

  Jeremy left like a prisoner to the guillotine.

  “Can I just say something?” Stevie said, her voice attitude-laced. She turned to deliver us a glare from under her mod bangs eye. “I know you all think it was me, but it wasn’t.”

  “Babe, if they’re suspicious of anyone, it’s me,” Cody said.

  “Don’t call me babe,” Stevie snapped, at the same time Jenna growled, “You’re not even a girl.”

  A few kill-me-now minutes later, Miss Mildred and Jeremy were back. His spooked expression revealed nothing.

  “Can I just ask why the clearly innocent are being harassed with the clearly guilty?” Jenna asked, shooting us another pointed look.

  “Sic semper tyrannis,” I muttered, sending Kian and Demi cracking up, in a very welcome relief of nervous tension.

  We uttered that rallying cry against tyrannical power all too often in Miss Mildred’s class, although that had been a particularly choice moment. My sneakers were jittering up and down, and I dug my fingers into my thigh, lest I give the game away.

  “What was that?” Jenna said.

  “That was shut up, or we’ll make you shut up,” Kian hissed.

  May I propose burning?

  Luckily, Miss Mildred ignored Jenna, didn’t hear Kian, and definitely didn’t notice how every time the voice talked in my head I jolted a little.

  “You,” Miss Mildred said, pointing at me.

  I gulped. I somehow got to my feet and followed her out. I took one last look at Kian and Demi. Their nervous faces were clearly thinking what I was.

  Was this it, had Jeremy confessed?

  5

  “I know, you know.” Miss Mildred’s charcoal eyes bored into me as she spoke.

  Clamped tightly into her hand as though she could actually hurt it, was our poor noteraser.

  She was lying, had to be. I steeled myself with this – liar-, even as doubt shrilled through me – what if Jeremy confessed?

  “Know what?” I said, forcing my voice casual.

  Her gaze dug into me as she circled my immobile form, a lion closing in on its prey. “It was you and your friends. You were the ones out after hours.”

  She paused right in front of me, a nose length away, face expectant. As if she’d actually expected that to be the statement that swayed me.

  I stared back into her tar-black eyes. I said nothing.

  “It’s only a matter of time before we find out,” she said, blasting me with her fish breath.

  Maybe, but not today you won’t, you sardine-breathed bitch, I thought.

  “It wasn’t us,” I said.

  For a minute, Miss Mildred glared so deep into my eyes I thought her craggy nose might actually jab into my face.

  But the next second – Thank John – she’d turned on her heel and stormed back into the classroom.

  The next few minutes were an at-times tense (Kian and Demi left and returned with the same placidly-disguised nervousness that gave me hope), at-times infuriating (when Jenna coughed “loser” looking my and Jer’s way then cackled with her posse, me chucking a few well-formed paper balls to shut her up) wait. After Miss Mildred had finally stormed down her warpath as far as humanly possible – personally questioning each and every one of us – she stood in the front of the classroom.

  She stayed there for a good minute, seething and seething, her glare making the rounds of my friends and me.

  Cah-lang, cah-lang, cah-lang, went the giant clock on the wall. Never had I been happier to hear its annoying gonging tone.

  Although my friends and I still got to our feet warily. As much of a psycho as she was, Miss Mildred wasn’t about to keep us after class, would she? We had gym now.

  All seemed to be okay
as we threaded out, and Miss Mildred remained at the front, like a possessed scarecrow.

  Until, outside the classroom, just when I was about to open my mouth to say something, she said, “You just wait,” as she glided past. “This isn’t over.”

  “No shit it isn’t over,” Kian whispered once we were out of class. “We have three more classes with her this week.”

  “Two,” Demi reminded her. “Friday is Sleep Test day.”

  “Buena vida,” Kian said with a sigh. “My fav. Where do you think she was going anyway?”

  “Maybe the Headmistress,” Jeremy said, frowning. “Guys, I’m sorry that-”

  “No, I’m sorry,” I said. “Stupid of me, sending you that note just when she was in crazy-bitch mode.”

  “And now the noteraser…” Demi said.

  Kian got something out of her pocket. “It won’t be the same, but…”

  When we saw what we written on the pink eraser, we cracked up:

  FUCK YOU MISS BITCHDRED, it said.

  “Gotta go,” Jeremy said. “After all that I’m starving.”

  “Everything makes you starving lately,” I teased.

  He shrugged, an odd expression on his face, then hurried off. I almost said something to the others, but held back. Considering he’d just narrowly escaped Mildred’s wrath, was it really that odd Jer was acting off? Hell, I felt off, though in a different way – my brain felt like it was shooting on all cylinders now.

  “What do you think they’ll do to us in the Padded Room of Mystery?” I said, thinking back to Demi reminding us about Friday being Sleep Test day.

  Instead of smirking at my use of the room name she’d come up with herself (which had even spread to be used by the lower years, too), Kian only said, deadpan, “We’ve discussed this. They test to see how wonky our brains still are. Sell our organs to well-paid buyers. The usual.”

  Demi gave her hand a dismissive whish. “It’s just to see our brain activity during REM and other sleep stages, that’s all.”

  “But every week?” I said. Under my long hard look, her wishy-washy smile revealed she bought that explanation as little as I did.

  “What are we supposed to do?” Cody said sarcastically. “Force ourselves awake to see what kind of BS they’re doing to us?”

  “I don’t know,” I said automatically.

  First off, I hadn’t thought that far ahead. Second off, since when had Cody even been in the same hallway as us, let alone close enough to hear us? Third off, why was he even talking to us? Cody was a lone wolf – rarely spoke to anyone unless it was some sarcastic comment, just listened to his Walkman 24/7. Which no one knew how he’d managed to land, for that matter.

  “Forget it,” he said, stalking away.

  “Think he’s next?” Kian whispered as we watched him go.

  I elbowed her. “Cut it out. If we’re judging who’s going to be next by who’s acting the most weird, then…” I trailed off.

  It would be me, I realized. The thought sent a jolt of anxiety through me.

  The School for the Different, or Deranged, or whatever they wanted to call us might be hell sometimes, but it was the only home I’d ever known. These two – and Jeremy – were the only real friends I had. Had ever had.

  There was zero doubt in my mind that if Miss Mildred or the Headmistress found out about the voice in my head, or the way I was acting, I’d be next. Transferred faster than you could say “dragons.”

  As Kian liked to say, with a bit of dark humor, “The ones who act weird – are the ones who’re ‘disappeared.’”

  “What is it?” Demi was asking. As usual, her kind nature was reflected in the concern written on her face.

  “Hang on.” I linked my arms through theirs. “Let’s go to our room first.”

  We booked it that way without another word.

  Altogether, we only had about fifteen minutes until the next class, which meant I had about ten left. Enough time to tell them, but not enough to waste much more time.

  As soon as we got in and the door was firmly shut behind us, I blurted it out, “I haven’t been taking my pills.”

  There was a moment when they just blinked at me, waiting for the “kidding!” that never came.

  “Knew it,” Kian finally said. “You crazy?”

  “Probably,” I said. Now that it was out, I felt a big weight off my shoulders, and was eager to get the rest of it out too. “I’m hearing this angry voice but… guys, I don’t feel tired anymore. I feel pretty good.”

  “You know brain fog is one of the meds’ side effects,” Demi said dutifully. She paused, frozen between us and her plants on the windowsill, then turned to study me. “Hold up – did you say you’re hearing voices?”

  I forced my hands out of their fists. Once again, I was at a loss for how to explain things to my friends. This time, I couldn’t just ‘show’ them like I had for the dragons-on-TV thing. Taking them inside my head so they could hear my crazy voice wasn’t possible.

  What has wisdom far above and beyond the known, you label crazy…. the voice hissed in clear displeasure.

  “Ugh,” I grunted.

  “Tala?” Demi said. Her face was cautious. “What does it say?”

  I was the one who paused this time. By telling her and Kian, I was implicating them. If I was found out, they could get in trouble for not ratting me out.

  Then there was how my heart was slamming against my chest, as if it wanted to warn me against what I was about to do. I couldn’t really blame it. So much had happened in so short of a time that I didn’t know what to make of it. That was partially why I hadn’t told my friends first thing. I’d wanted time to figure it out, whether me not taking my meds had been a fluke, or something I legitimately was going to do.

  But now… now I was starting to think different. I liked how I felt. And even though I hadn’t really kept the fact that I wasn’t taking my meds from Demi or Kian for very long, I still hated that I was holding out on them.

  “Oh come on,” Kian snapped. “You know we’re already too deep in this already. It can’t be crazier than seeing dragons on TV.”

  “We were in too deep since we were nine,” Demi agreed cheerily.

  She was right, too. That was the first time we’d lied for each other – claiming that Kian had missed a class because of an IBS attack, instead of the real reason – she’d tried making a run for it with another girl – Yale. One who got caught and was transferred the next week.

  “Okay,” I said. “Typically, the voice tells me to burn people, but-” I backpedaled, seeing their faces. “I feel like it’s trying to look out for me, weirdly enough.”

  “Okay, yeah.” Kian’s nod was decisive. “That’s crazy. Then again, we are here, soo…

  “But that’s the thing,” I said slowly. “I’m starting to think…” I took a breath, trying to catch their eye. But they both seemed determined not to meet my gaze. “C’mon. We all know something’s going on here. Has been from the start.”

  Demi finally rushed over to her plants. She hovered by them uselessly, like a grandmother over a sleeping, perfectly fed baby.

  “Stop it,” Kian said. She was by the mirror now, attacking her shoulder-length dark waves into some sort of neatness.

  “Why?” I said. “So we can just stick our heads under the sand how we’ve been doing? Pretend we don’t notice how our class has dropped to half its original size, how none of what our teachers or admin have been telling us actually adds up? And then what we saw on the TV…”

  “What’s the alternative?” Kian said.

  She twisted to face me, her waves as wild as ever.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. My thoughts seemed to be solidifying as I said them. That was the thing about running things by my friends – they helped me figure out what I thought about things. “Just keeping our eyes open. You guys don’t have to stop taking your meds, I just wanted you to know.”

  Demi was still by her windowsill plants, although her body w
as facing me. “Tal, you know what happens to the kids who stop taking their meds…”

  “I can always start taking them again,” I said.

  I swallowed. Demi was right, I knew she was – I’d had the exact fear myself. But now that I was thinking more clearly…

  That was just it, was I thinking more clearly now? Or was it just my craziness making me think so?

  Demi’s light blue eyes crinkled as she ran a nervous hand through her curls. “You say that, but when you’re too far gone…”

  I shrugged. “Then you two can force-feed me my meds.” I tried to smile so I’d look like I believed it as much as I wanted to. Truth was, I had no clue why, but not taking the meds just felt right on a visceral level.

  Kian shook her head, her eyes flashing. “I’m going. This whole discussion is pointless.”

  I caught her by the T-shirt sleeve. “Kian-”

  She ripped herself free. “Don’t ‘Kian’ me. This is crazy, you know it is. Even if we aren’t as nuts as they’re making out, even if this is all some screwed-up 1984-style prison, what difference does knowing that make? No one’s ever escaped this place. Ever.”

  Her words slammed into me with all the force of a punch to the gut.

  Even as she turned her back on me, the words came out of me, “Not that we’ve been told of.”

  Kian paused, shoulders going up and down. I paused too. There were more words ferreting around my head, fighting with each other, statements on how there had to be a way out, how we got guests every year, how we still had a few months before graduation to figure things out. How we had a chance.

  But then the giant clock on our wall shrilled the alarm for the next class. With one last look at me, Kian hurried out. Demi looked like she wanted to say something more too, but only said, “We’d better go.”

  As I followed them out, I tried putting all that had happened to the back of my mind. I wouldn’t be able to make it out of here if I got too hell-bent on this whole conspiracy thing. Then I’d act weird and give myself away.

  Although as I made my way down the hallway and waved to Sammy, the thought twirled alluringly in my head once more: No one had ever escaped – that we knew of.