Authors: Robison Wells
T
he foyer of the school looked like the natural history museum I’d visited back in elementary school. The floor was marble, and dark wood covered the lower half of the stone walls. It was the kind of place that my optimistic twenty-minutes-ago self would have loved and referred to as a beautiful, awe-inspiring palace of education. My current self thought it was an ugly, poorly lit haunted house. And now it was home.
Not for long.
Maybe some of the other kids didn’t mind being locked in, but I did.
A massive staircase led up to the right, but Becky directed me forward, under a stone archway and down a long corridor. The front doors closed behind us with a soft thud, and despite the tall ceilings, I felt claustrophobic.
“So what were the rules the two runners broke? I mean, for real.” I had already decided that I had little intention of obeying the rules here—I wasn’t going to stay long enough for it to matter—but I wanted to know what they were. Just the fact that Becky seemed to be in a position of authority worried me. Anyone who had been an unwilling captive for a year and a half and yet seemed as unconcerned as she was didn’t deserve a lot of obedience.
Or was she a
willing
captive?
“No one is supposed to talk to the new students. Like I said, it makes more sense if I can explain what the school is like in a prepared presentation.”
Right.
“Also, they don’t want us to chase after the car. That’s against the rules.”
“Who are ‘they’?”
Becky turned to me and winked. “Ah, that’s the real question, isn’t it?”
She was starting to drive me crazy. Or maybe
she
was crazy. “And what’s the answer?”
The corridor branched, and Becky directed me to the left. I hadn’t realized how big the building was from the outside.
She shrugged. “They’re the Maxfield Academy. The woman who drove you in and her corporate office.”
“You don’t know? Don’t you want to?”
Becky opened a door and motioned me through. “Of course I want to know, silly. But I
don’t
know, so I’m trying to make the most of it.”
Inside the small room was a desk surrounded on three sides by tight, cupboard-lined walls. In front of the desk was a small leather sofa. She motioned for me to sit, and then moved to the desk, fiddling with some papers and jotting down a note for herself. The office was immaculately organized. The papers on the desk were in perfect stacks, not a single sheet out of place. There were two pens and a pencil, each one exactly parallel to the others.
Sitting made me anxious. I needed to be out doing something, talking to someone who was as angry about this as I was. I assured myself that there had been others watching through the windows—people who didn’t act like Becky. I’d find them.
She picked up a white three-ring binder with my name already on the spine. She walked around the desk and sat next to me on the couch, then crossed her legs and smoothed her skirt.
“Here’s the deal, Benson,” she said, in a new tone of voice: serious, but still a tour guide, as though she were showing vacationers around the site of a plane crash. “There are some people, like Curtis and Carrie out there, who go running after the car every time it comes. They go stand at the wall and talk about trying to climb over it and get away. They complain about every little thing.”
“Like the fact that we’re trapped?”
Even Becky’s frown was a half smile. “I know that it’s hard. But that doesn’t change anything. And the sooner you accept it, the sooner you’ll be able to enjoy yourself here.”
“Accept what? That I can never leave and I can never talk to anyone? What is this place? A prison?”
She shook her head. “It’s definitely not a prison, Benson. Does a prison look like this? Do prisoners get great food and a great education? Think of it this way: Even if you had a phone, is there anyone you’d call?”
I thought at first it was rhetorical, but she waited for me to answer.
“I’d call the police.”
“That’s not what I mean,” she said. “If this was a normal school that let you use the phone, is there anyone you’d call?”
Was it that obvious that I was a loner? She knew my name before I’d told her; maybe she’d also seen my answers on the application—the answers that said I didn’t have any family.
I decided to lie. “I have lots of friends.”
“Do you?” she said, raising an eyebrow. “Friends you’d call to chat with?” She leaned a little closer, watching my face.
Well, I didn’t have any at my last school—I’d never met anyone there because I was always at the gas station. And I definitely didn’t consider Mr. Cole a friend. There was my caseworker, but she couldn’t ever remember my name.
I shook my head. “Not really. But how do you know that?” Almost imperceptibly, Becky’s smile wilted.
Oh.
“Wait. You’re the same, aren’t you?”
She turned her gaze down, tapping her fingers absently on the binder. “Yes,” she said. “All of us are like that.”
I couldn’t believe it. A whole school full of people like me—no friends, no family. No one who would notice that we were gone.
I pounded my fist into the arm of the couch.
“They take the ones that no one will miss.”
Her tour-guide laugh reappeared. “You make it sound so sinister.”
I jumped up, rubbing my hands over my face and head. “If it doesn’t sound sinister to you, Becky, then you’ve been here too long.” Maxfield wasn’t just a prison. It hid what it was doing, seeking out students who had no ties, no homes.
Those had been questions on the scholarship application, though they’d referred to it as a personality profile.
How many close friends do you have? Who do you confide in?
I must have answered just right—
none
and
no one
.
If the school was picking the kids who wouldn’t be missed, then were they ever going to let us go? No one was going to come looking for us. Nobody cared.
Becky didn’t respond. When I finally turned around, she was still sitting looking as calm as ever.
What was wrong with her? Didn’t she get it?
“We’ve kinda messed up my official presentation,” she said with a smile and a joking sigh, “so let’s get right to the details.” She held up the binder and motioned for me to come back and sit. I walked to her, but stayed on my feet. “This book is your manual for all things related to Maxfield Academy. It has the rules, a map of the grounds, and a list of services. Everything you’ll need.”
I stared at her. “I think you’re crazy. I think this school has made you insane.”
She just smiled. That’s all she ever did. She had to be nuts.
“Benson, I’m trying to help.”
“Help me or our kidnappers?”
“You,” Becky insisted. She handed me the binder and then clasped her hands in her lap. “Now, listen. We need to go over a couple of the bigger rules, and then I’ll take you up to your dorm.”
Great.
I didn’t want to go to the dorm; I wanted her to take me back outside. I’d climb the stupid wall and get out of here. I wondered why no one else had done that. It was tall, but there had to be a way. The two that ran after Ms. Vaughn’s car—maybe they’d tried. I’d find them and ask.
“Benson?” Becky pointed at the manual.
I opened the binder halfheartedly. The front page had a black-and-white photocopy of the ornate coat of arms that had been on the school’s website. The color version had looked so regal, like I was going to some Ivy League school that was going to make everything that was wrong about my life right. This paper just looked like a copy of a copy of a copy.
I sat down again with a sigh, closing the book and looking at Becky. “Are the rules as stupid as everything else?”
She laughed. “They’re not stupid at all. Very basic stuff.”
I nodded, wondering how someone like Becky would define
basic
. She certainly had a screwed-up version of
normal
.
“There are lots of rules, and you can look them up in your book. But there are four big ones that will get you in a lot of trouble. First of all, no sex.” She made a fake grimace. “That’s the first thing that all the students think when they hear that there are no adults in the school. But, even though there are no adults, there are these.” She crossed the room and pointed to a security camera in the corner. She avoided my eyes, which meant she probably felt as uncomfortable discussing this with me as I felt hearing about it from her.
“Every room, every hallway,” Becky continued, still staring up in the corner. “So, they know whether you’ve been naughty or nice, and if you break big rules—like that one—you will get detention.”
“What is detention?”
Becky glanced my way and then returned to her desk. “Detention is bad enough that you don’t want to end up there.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” I said, putting the binder to the side and leaning forward in my seat. “How about you start giving me some real answers?”
Becky stammered for a moment, her eyes looking everywhere but at me.
“What is detention?” I asked again, speaking slowly.
She exhaled and then looked down. “When people go to detention they don’t come back.”
“They get sent home?”
“I’m sure they don’t.”
“What? They get sent to someplace worse?”
Becky broke, her face suddenly contorted in—was it sadness? Fear?
“I don’t know,” she said firmly, turning away from me. “Nobody knows.”
I didn’t let up. “Have people been sent to detention before?”
“Can we just say ‘it’s bad enough that you don’t want to end up there’ and leave it at that?”
I asked again. “Have people been sent there?”
“Yes.”
“And they don’t come back?”
“No.”
“Perfect.”
That fits right in with all the other crap.
For a moment I wondered whether that meant I ought to break the rules immediately—get sent to detention and get out of here. But that couldn’t be right, either. Detention couldn’t just mean that I’d get sent home. I’d go to the police, and I was sure the school wasn’t about to let anyone do that.
I glanced back at Becky. “That’s the first rule. What are the other three?”
“No trying to escape,” she said, crossing her arms and leaning against the cupboards on the far wall. “No refusing punishments. And no violent fights.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Violent fights? Is there any other kind?”
She grinned. “Yeah, that rule is weird. Most fighting will just get you some minor punishment, but if there’s something really bad—like if someone gets seriously injured—then you’d get detention. That’s what happens if you break any of the four big rules.”
“So how do I know whether my fighting is violent or not?” I didn’t plan on getting into a fight—part of the reason I came here was because I didn’t want to fight anymore—but I felt like arguing about it.
“You don’t,” she said. She turned and opened a cupboard full of small boxes. “That’s why it’s probably best to avoid fighting altogether.” She picked three boxes and held them out to me. “Do you want a bracelet, watch, or necklace?”
“What do you mean?”
She handed me the small stack. Each box was about the size of my fist, with a simple photo on the front and a blue background.
“You can either have a necklace, a watch, or a bracelet. But, let me warn you that these things do not come off. The school doesn’t want you to switch yours with someone else’s, so once you put it on it’s on for good.” Becky pointed at her neck. Part of the school uniform was a tie. “I chose the necklace, and I’ve regretted it for a year and a half. It really chafes under this tight collar.”
“What are these for? Why don’t they come off?”
“Oh,” she said. “Sorry.” Becky crossed the room to the door, and as she reached it there was a buzz and a click, just as I’d heard outside on the steps.
“It’s the chip,” she said, pointing again at her necklace and walking back to the desk. “This will give you access to your dorm and to any places that you’ve contracted to work. The door can sense your chip, and it unlocks.”
I was trapped in a prison, and I had to wear a chip? Were they going to track me?
“What if I refuse?”
She smiled again, turning her head and looking at me out of the side of her eyes. “What if I said please?”
“What?” I blew up at her. “Don’t you get how wrong this place is? ‘Welcome to Maxfield, here’s your tracking device. We watch everything that you do. You can never leave.’”
Becky let me talk, silently listening as I paced the three steps across the room and back. I tried the knob. It had locked again after she’d moved away. I was even a prisoner in this room.
I smacked the heavy wooden door with my palm, and then turned back to glare at her. She stood still.
“Can we sit down?” she said, some of the fakeness disappearing from her voice.
“Will it help me get out of here?”
She raised her eyebrows. “Please?”
I moved to the couch and slumped down against the cushions.
“Let me tell you something, really quick,” she said, not quite looking at me and keeping her voice low. She moved from the desk back over to the couch, sitting closer to me now and locking her eyes on mine. “This school has some problems. Your best bet is to follow the rules.”
I leaned my head back and stared at the ceiling. “My best bet is to follow the rules.”
“I’m serious,” she said. “You’re right. Things shouldn’t happen this way at a school. They shouldn’t be happening to us. But they are. And the only options are detention or . . .”
“Or what?”
She sighed. “Will you please just wear the chip?”
I grabbed Becky by the arm and jumped to my feet, yanking her up off the couch. Too startled to resist, she stumbled after me and I shoved her up against the door, my hands angrily pinning her arms back against the wood. Her eyes were wide with shock.
There was no sound, and as I stared at the still-locked door, my heart felt as though it were being squeezed.
Becky’s words were barely audible. “They watch on those cameras,” she whispered, her face only inches from mine. “You can only get out with your chip.”