The alarm went off at six thirty and I rolled out of bed, never having undressed. When I looked over, my parents were standing in the doorway. I wanted to cry again, but I forced myself to stay calm. Tears would only make them madder.
My mother sat down on the bed next to me, while my father remained in the doorway. “What did you do with them?” she asked.
“Threw them away.”
“Why?”
“Didn’t want them.”
“Then why did you steal them?”
I shrugged.
“Alex, why did you steal them?”
“To get into a club.”
“I see. And you think that was a good reason?”
“No.”
“Then why did you do it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, I suggest that you figure that out.”
I sniffled. “Am I going to jail?”
“Do you think you should?”
I was silent.
“No, of course you’re not going to jail. Mr. Greystein didn’t call the police. He wants you to pay for what you stole, and he thinks you should help out in his store, maybe for a few hours on weekends. He thinks you’ll learn responsibility.”
I nodded, relieved that I wouldn’t be spending time in prison with murderers, rapists, and fellow condom filchers. “I’ll do it.”
“No, you won’t. You’re going to a new school.”
“We’re moving?”
“No.”
I thought about that. There was only one school for kids my age in Trimble, which could only mean…
“
I’m
moving?”
“I’m sorry, Alex.”
“You’re sending me away?”
“It’s not a military school, but it’s a school for kids who need the extra discipline. Honestly, your father and I don’t know what else to do with you.”
The tears started flowing now, and I didn’t try to stop them. “But this is the only thing I’ve done!”
“You know that isn’t true.”
“It
is
true! I’ve never done anything like this before! I’ll never do it again! I promise! Please!”
“You should have thought about the consequences before you shoplifted.”
I shook my head violently. “You can’t send me away! It’s not fair!”
“It’s totally fair,” said my mother. “And you need help.”
“No, I don’t! Can’t I prove it? Let me prove it! I’ll be perfect, I promise!”
“You had your chance.”
“But that was the first time,” I said with a whimper.
“And the last time.”
I sat alone on my bed, shoulders quivering, tears and snot flowing down my face.
I was a bad kid. A rotten kid. A terrible kid.
I was a thief and a liar.
I deserved to be sent to this school. In fact, I deserved to go to
jail.
A terrible, rotten, miserable, evil kid.
I looked in the mirror. I stared at myself for a moment, and then began making the most awful faces I could manage. I stuck out my tongue and scrunched up my eyes, contorting my face into ghastly expressions worthy of a kid like me.
A terrible kid.
The worst kid in the world.
It felt good to know I was that terrible. It was refreshing. A relief.
Because otherwise I was a perfectly decent kid whose parents just didn’t want him.
Three weeks later, with nothing but clothes and a suitcase with a checkerboard, a magic kit, a small bag of store-bought chocolate chip cookies, and my stuffed walrus Farley, I was in the car on my way to Branford Academy.
“Here at Branford Academy, you
will
obey the rules,” said Mr. Sevin, the headmaster. He was in his sixties, short, mostly bald, and almost absurdly thin, but yet there was nothing even remotely frail about the man. Though my parents and I were the only ones in his office, he spoke as if addressing an entire auditorium full of students.
“You will wake up every morning at five thirty sharp. The concept of a snooze alarm does not exist here. Breakfast is at six fifteen in the common dining hall. Classes begin at seven sharp and continue until lunch at eleven thirty. You will have one hour for lunch, and then three and a half more hours of classes. Mandatory study time is from four sharp until six, followed by dinner. Seven sharp to eight thirty is used for further study time or various group activities, while eight thirty to ten is free time, providing that such a privilege has been earned. Lights out at ten sharp.”
He looked at us as if to be sure we understood, and then nodded with satisfaction. “Tardiness to any class
will adversely affect your grade. All assignments must be turned in at the time they are due without exception. An A-level paper turned in late will receive an F.”
I raised my hand. Mr. Sevin blinked with surprise, as if unaccustomed to such astounding rudeness during his speech. “Yes?”
“What if I’m sick?”
“Students who are legitimately ill stay in the infirmary, and their classroom attendance requirements are determined on a case-by-case basis. While I can assure your parents that we provide excellent medical care, I can assure
you,
Mr. Fletcher, that feigning illness to get out of class is simply not possible. Your days of faking stomach pains to avoid taking a test are over.”
“I’ve never done that.”
For a moment, I genuinely believed that Mr. Sevin was going to slap me across the face. “Mr. Fletcher, I realize that your parents are still here, but effective immediately you are to follow the rules of conduct at Branford Academy, and that means you will not interrupt when an adult is speaking. Is that perfectly clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“He just meant that he doesn’t fake being sick to get out of going to school,” my mother explained.
“I was speaking hypothetically,” said Mr. Sevin. “And many new students who are not used to being held to our high standards, or any standards in some instances,
do
attempt to use the infirmary as an escape from their responsibilities. So let me make this clear: it does not work.
“Your dormitory will have four boys to a room. The rules of conduct will be explained when you arrive there. Infractions will result in a loss of privileges, including but not limited to loss of free time, loss of mail privileges—both sending and receiving—and restriction to the academy grounds on Saturdays. This will apply equally to all four boys in the room. So you are not merely responsible for your own behavior, but for the behavior of your roommates. Are there any questions?”
We had no questions.
Mr. Sevin looked directly at me. “It is not standard policy to admit students after the term has begun, but we had a recent dismissal. I sincerely hope that making this exception will not prove to be a distraction.”
He said this as if I should be appreciative that he let me in. I wanted to inquire as to exactly which magical universe he was living in where letting me be a student in this hellhole was doing me a favor, but that didn’t seem like a question to which he would respond favorably.
After signing several papers, my parents and I were given directions to the dormitory, Dorm B. I was silent during most of the five-minute walk, trying to force myself not to ask the desperate question that was on my mind. But once we stopped in front of the four-story white brick building, I asked anyway, trying but failing not to sound like I was begging.
“Isn’t there
something
I can do so I don’t have to stay here?”
There wasn’t.
Once inside, there was no real tour to speak of. The guy in charge seemed annoyed that we were distracting him from his newspaper. He gave a cursory wave to where I could pick up my mail (so long as that privilege wasn’t revoked), and led us up two flights of stairs to room 308. He unlocked the door and motioned for us to enter.
It wasn’t as bad as I’d expected, although at this point my expectation had been barren gray walls, iron bars, and stone mattresses without pillows or blankets. Or perhaps even a personal torture chamber, complete with a hairy gentleman in a black hood. There was a set of bunk beds on each side of the room, and a pair of desks with two chairs each. Though the room was supernaturally tidy, at least based on my personal experience with rooms, a poster of a dalmatian and another of a pug, along with a
Star Wars
movie poster, livened it up.
“The seventh graders aren’t back yet,” said the guy, who had never introduced himself. “They’re at a museum, I think. Probably won’t be back for an hour or two. I don’t know if you want to go out and get some lunch or something like that.”
I almost thought my mother was just going to ask if she could leave me with him, but instead she said, “That sounds fine. Alex, is McDonald’s okay?”
I nodded.
I didn’t say anything during my Last Meal, and wasn’t even able to finish half of my Big Mac. My parents talked to each other about what a great opportunity this was for me, and how it would open up many wonderful doors to my future, and how this summer we’d take a really fun family vacation. I pretended to be excited about this idea, just to let them ease their guilt.
After lunch we went to a mall to buy some last-minute supplies, but since I couldn’t think of any last-minute supplies I needed, we wandered around aimlessly for an hour and a half until it was time to go back.
The same guy was there when we returned. My mother cried a little as we said our good-byes, and my father patted me on the shoulder, silently telling me to be brave. The guy led me back upstairs to the room and opened the door without knocking.
“Here you go,” he said. I stepped inside and he shut the door behind me without another word.
I stood exactly where I was, unable to move. The three boys looked me over, immediately sizing me up. Two of them were seated on the floor, playing a game of cards, while the other read a hardcover book at his desk.
“Hiya,” said one of the boys on the floor. Even sitting on the floor he was obviously quite tall and overweight, with a chubby face, a blond crew cut, and wire-framed glasses.
“Hi,” I managed to blurt out.
“What happened to your chin?”
I self-consciously touched the purple blotch on my chin. “I was born with it this way.”
“It’s cool-looking.”
“Thanks,” I said, relaxing a bit.
“What’s your name?”
“Alex.”
“Alex what?”
“Fletcher.”
“I’m Peter McMullen.”
The other kid on the floor also had a crew cut, though he had black hair and an average build. He set down his cards. “And I am…Jeremy!” He announced this as if introducing a rock band, and then mimicked loud audience cheers.
“Hi.”
“You wanna play?” Peter asked. “It’s Crazy Eights.”
“Sure.”
I sat down on the floor next to them. The boy seated at his desk had a dark complexion and thick black hair that hung almost into his eyes. That was a good sign that at least I wouldn’t be forced into a military haircut. The boy looked away from his book and sat there as if waiting for somebody to introduce him. When nobody did, he returned to his reading.
“How come they made you go here?” asked Peter, shuffling the deck.
“I stole something.”
“Cool! What’d you steal?”
I considered telling the truth, but then thought better of it. “Some candy.”
“That’s it?”
“Yeah.”
“They sent you here just for stealing some candy?”
“And a bunch of other stuff,” I said, scared about what the other boys would think of me if they knew that my parents had just been looking for an excuse to send me away. There had to be something wrong with a kid who was that unwanted.
“Was it good candy?” Peter asked.
“Snickers.”
“Yeah, that’s pretty good. That’s probably what I’d steal.” He nodded approvingly as he began to deal the cards.
“Why are you here?” I asked.
“Because I’m dumb.”
“He got bad grades at his old school,” said Jeremy.
“Yeah. Because I’m dumb.”
“I want to know why if grades go A, B, C, D, and F, they don’t use E.” Jeremy’s voice deepened a bit as he made this observation.
“Because F stands for Failed, stupid.”
“So what does D stand for?”
“Dumb. Like me.” Peter crossed his eyes and let his tongue hang out to make himself look quite dumb.
“I just think that if we go to school to learn things, they shouldn’t mess up the alphabet.” He set down his cards. “Don’t start yet. I’m gonna write that down.” Jeremy stood up, hurried over to the desk that the other boy wasn’t using, and began to write in a spiral-bound notebook.
“Why’s he doing that?” I asked Peter.
“He thinks he’s funny.” Peter picked up Jeremy’s cards and looked at them.
“Is it really bad here?” I asked.
“Sometimes. Not all the time. It can be fun, too, but you have to make sure you get your homework done and keep the room clean and aren’t late. For a lot of stuff they punish the whole room, but I’ll make sure you know what you’re supposed to do.”
“Thanks.”
“Don’t look at my cards,” said Jeremy, closing his notebook.
“I wasn’t.”
“They’re in your hand.”
“I was just keeping them safe from Darren.”
The boy at the desk looked up from his book again. “Ha ha.”
“Hee hee,” said Peter.
“Ho ho,” added Jeremy.
They all looked at me expectantly. “Har har,” I said.
Jeremy sat down and grabbed his cards from Peter. “So are we playing or what? Who dealt this garbage? Did you ever notice how everybody on a card has an upside-down head instead of a butt? They’re all a bunch of butt-heads.”
“You’ve already said that,” Peter told him.
“But not to
him.
”
“Wouldn’t that make them head-butts?” I asked.
Jeremy considered that, and then set down his cards. “Hold on a second,” he said, returning to his desk.
“How come you’re here?” I asked him as he opened the notebook again.
“To babysit Peter.”
“No, really.”
“Because my parents sent my older brothers here and it straightened ’em up
real good,
so I got sent here, too. But I make extra money babysitting Peter.”
I glanced over at Darren to ask him the same question, but he’d already returned to his book.
We played cards for about an hour. I was sad, scared, and missed my parents, but I knew that I’d get along fine with Peter and Jeremy.
At ten to six the entire residence hall gathered outside, formed a long line, and walked single file to the dining hall, which was the next building over. After we took our seats I tried to do a quick count and estimated that there were about four hundred kids in the room, all between the ages of twelve and sixteen. About ten students pushed carts between the tables, handing a cellophane-wrapped dish and a container of milk to each student.
“That’ll be our job every Thursday at dinner,” Peter explained.
Dinner was meat loaf, mashed potatoes, creamed carrots, and a roll. All four were indescribably awful. The meat loaf tasted a lot like the mashed potatoes, which tasted a lot like the creamed carrots. The roll didn’t taste like anything.
I successfully fought back tears as I thought of my mother’s meat loaf, which, to be perfectly honest, was never all that great.
After the meal, Peter and Jeremy took me on a quick tour of the school grounds. There were two residence halls, a library, one classroom building, a small administrative building, and a sports field. Even with my horrible sense of direction, I was pretty sure I could keep from getting lost.
When we got back to the room we talked and played some more cards. Peter told me all about Killer Fang, his cocker spaniel, who at this very moment was guarding his room back at home, defending his valuable possessions against evil intruders. He explained how more than anything in the world, he wished that Branford Academy would institute a policy where he could trade Jeremy in for a dog.
Jeremy made several pointed observations about how people who loved dogs often grew to resemble them, using the pug poster as a visual aid.
Darren kept reading his book.
At ten o’clock, lights out, we went to bed. I was unbearably tired, especially since I hadn’t slept the night before, but no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t fall asleep.
The next night I did sleep, if only because of my complete mental exhaustion. I slept fitfully for the first week, and twice I woke up crying. Fortunately, this didn’t awaken my roommates, unless they were pretending to be asleep in an effort to spare me the humiliation.
But by the third week, I was sleeping more or less soundly each night, and I was getting used to the Branford Academy routine. The teachers were amazingly strict, but the classroom material was less difficult than what I was used to, so it didn’t take me long to catch up. I made sure to turn in my homework on time and study thoroughly for every test, and there were no problems.
The dorm rules were straightforward: room spotless at all times, with surprise inspections at least once a week. No noise after ten o’clock, although they were generous enough to allow middle-of-the-night bathroom visits.
I never could get used to the food. Each and every meal was so bad that the chef
had
to be doing it on purpose. Culinary incompetence could explain the first six or seven meals, but more than that had to be culinary malice.
Peter and Jeremy readily accepted me into their group, and the three of us hung out like best friends. Despite living in the same room as him, I didn’t talk to Darren much. If he wasn’t studying, he was reading, furiously scribbling in his notebook, or staring into space.
I can’t honestly say that I’d rather have been at Branford Academy than back at home, but all things considered, the first three weeks weren’t such a bad experience.