Academic Assassins (20 page)

The shock seized my chest and
the words are stuck in my throat my body's broke spasms spasms limbs flailing through the air like a marionette who's strings were just cut my own
rib cage gripped onto my lungs and commenced to slowly squeeze the air out change the channel switch the dial turn the TV off forever and ever
and I started falling toward the floor
face-first, coming in for a crash landing…

…Only the Mimis suddenly caught me.

I was lifted back up in the air.

Even though I couldn't speak, my throat locked up with residual electricity, I could still hear my words echoing all around me.

“Bring back Babyface! Bring back Babyface! Bring back Babyface!”

The rest of the mess hall was now chanting along. The other tribes had picked up the protest where I'd left off and carried on, while Merridew could only watch and listen.
“Bring
back Babyface! Bring back Babyface! Bring back Babyface!”

A
Napoleon on laundry detail took the time to painstakingly daub our green and orange uniforms with liquid bleach. When he tossed them into the
wash, the chlorine chewed through the cloth—so once our clothes came out of the dryer, nice and clean, they now sported a stick figure holding a spear over its head along their backs,
surrounded in a bleached ring. The Tribe's symbol had been making the rounds ever since my floral rearrangement with Merridew's prized poinsettias.

Donning our uniforms now became an act of insubordination.

How d'ya like them apples, Merridew?

A symbol goes a long way. It inspires hope in those who need it most. And we ants needed all the hope we could find right about now, wherever we could find it.

Inside these cold cinder block walls, where residents have been stripped of their individuality, their identity, their sense of self—the surest act of defiance against Merridew and her
putrid policies were a couple slash marks and a circle.

The emblem didn't belong to me or anyone else. That's the true strength of a symbol. Once you put it out there into the world—scribbling it on your desk, scratching it into the
bathroom stall, spray-painting it along the wall—the world takes it and makes the symbol their own. I couldn't stop it from spreading even if I tried.

I got word that our barber had been relieved of his duties after he shaved the tribe's symbol into the hair of incoming ants. A couple kids were sporting the stick figure buzzed into the
backs of their skulls without even knowing it.

Merridew was sending more kids to the Black Hole than ever before. Suddenly there wasn't anyone around to mop the floors or fold laundry. Nobody to cut our hair.

Kesey couldn't operate without its ants. We were the ones who ran this building. The Kesey machine was slowly starting to grind to a halt, one act of defiance at a time.

The drones were now defying their queen.

I'm youth, I'm joy, I'm a little bird that has broken out of the egg
.…

And broken free from this place—even if for just a few pages.

The quote came from
Peter Pan
. Not that the Men in White knew that. Someone had stuck a wad of bubble gum over the lens of the surveillance camera right outside Merridew's office,
creating enough cover to scratch the words over her door. Nobody took responsibility for the vandalism, but you better believe Merridew was on the warpath to find out
whodunit
.

To be completely honest, I was pretty curious myself. Once we were all in the library, I asked Table Scrap—“Did you do it?”

He shook his head. “I thought you did….”

“Nah—I dumped food coloring in the oatmeal this morning.”

“I figured the Mimis did that.”

Table Scrap shook his head. “They spray-painted the cameras in the cafeteria.”

Ten ants had showed up to the library for the next gathering of Assassins. Our numbers were growing. I counted five Mimis, three Napoleons, and a stray She-Wolf. Plus Buttercup. I was nervous
having her here, for fear that she was going to rat us out, but the Assassins had an open-door policy and I had to stand by it. We could hardly all fit in one aisle, so we pushed back the bookcases
just to make room.

Bring us your poor, illiterate masses….

Orphans now sported quotes scribbled over their bodies. Table Scrap had pilfered a permanent marker and written his favorite line along his left arm:

YOU CAN HAVE ANYTHING IN LIFE…

Along his right, from wrist to armpit, he scribbled the rest of the quote:

…IF YOU WILL SACRIFICE EVERYTHING ELSE FOR IT.

Sometimes the best rebellion starts with a book.

Reading
Peter Pan
had planted the seeds for an insurrection in their heads. If I could convince these kids that they didn't need to stay under the stiletto heel of their own Captain
Hook, then we might break out of here once and for all.

“Everybody ready?” I asked, cracking open my book and clearing my throat. The first sentence for today was—“
I ran away the day I was born
.”

I let the words settle over the crowd before diving into Wendy and Peter's dialogue, taking on their voices like I was reading lines from a script:

“But where do you live mostly now?”
I'll admit—I did a pretty dreadful Wendy impression.

Then, as a marginally better Peter—
“With the lost boys.”

“We got ourselves a bunch of lost boys here,” Table Scrap muttered. “Ain't one of us growing up in this place. You sure this isn't Neverland?”

Captain Hook's band of pirates quickly drew comparisons to the Men in White, who apparently had traded in their knives for remote controls.

“
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of prescription meds
,” a Mimi sang to herself.

Captain Hook was coming to attack, a pirate who “
was never more sinister than when he was most polite, which is probably the truest test of breeding….
”

“Sounds a lot like Merridew,” a Napoleon suggested.

“She thinks she's got us figured out.” I coughed, my throat feeling like sandpaper from all the reading. “But we've always got to be one step ahead of
her.”

Table Scrap stepped over the ants sitting in the aisle. “You need help.”

“I got it.”

“Nah, man—you're losing your voice. Here. Let me.”

He held out his hand.

“I didn't pin you for the reading-out-loud type.”

“One way to find out,” he said and grabbed the book. “Where were we?”

You would never have known Table Scrap hadn't cracked open a book since he was six. He shared the burden of the book with me. We read different roles out loud, volleying the book between
us, until the characters' voices filled the library.

Peter and Hook were only a few sentences away from crossing swords.

“Who are you, stranger, speak?”—
he read in his best pirate accent.
“Hook, have you another voice?”

He tossed the book back to me and I picked up where he left off—
“I have.”

Back to Table Scrap—
“And another name?”

“Ay, ay.”

“Vegetable?”

“No.”

“Mineral?”

“No.”

“Animal?”

“Yes.”

“Man?”

“No!”

Several Mimis shouted out—
“No!”
—along with me, hanging on our every word.

Table Scrap and I were on a roll now. We lost ourselves in the book, blurring the lines between its pages.

“Boy?”
—read Table Scrap.

“Yes.”

“Ordinary boy?”

“No!”

“Wonderful boy?”

Yes!

The words took over, possessing each and every one of us—until the walls of Kesey dissolved, fading into the furthest corners of our mind.

How could we not keep reading?

We were no longer imprisoned. For a few shining blinks, we were free.

Free from Kesey.

We finally reached the end of the chapter. Table Scrap, breathless, handed the book back to me so I could read the last paragraph. My voice was raw, but I forged through the rest of the
text—
“To die will be an awfully big adventure.”

I closed the book and looked up to find the wide-open eyes of nearly two dozen ants, all staring back. When we had started reading, I could've sworn there were only ten of us. Where had
all these kids come from?

“Funny,” Table Scrap said, even though he wasn't laughing. “This place never felt like a prison to me until I started reading a book.”

“We'll pick up where we left off tomorrow,” I said.

“Read a little more,” a Mimi pleaded. “Just one more chapter? Please?”

“One chapter a day,” I said. “Those are the rules….”

No one moved. I could tell everyone was disappointed to call it quits for the day. The spell the book cast over us still hung in the air.

“…But rules are meant to be broken, right?”

The Mimi's face brightened as I cracked the book back open. I took a deep breath, dove in and read—“
Peter, you see, just said anything that came into his
head
.”

“That sure sounds familiar,” someone said at the back of the library.

I looked up from the book to find Sully leaning against the shelf, arms crossed at her chest.

She'd made it. Sully had finally come.

“You never met a rule you couldn't break, have you?”

“Take a seat,” I said, trying hard to keep my cool.

“I'll stand, thanks.” Her steely stare told me she was in no mood for swooning. “I just came to pick up my Wolves.”

The two Wolves who'd made it to our meeting bowed their heads.

“Come on,” Sully ordered.

One slowly stood, her head still bowed. The other—a red-haired girl with freckles spread all over the bridge of her nose—remained seated.

“What if they want to stay?” I asked.

“That's not your call,” Sully said. “Callie. Come on.”

Callie hesistated, unsure of herself. “Just one more chapter? My mom used to read to me after she tucked me in…Please?”

“Let me just read a little more.” I'd lost my place, so I read further in—
“As time wore on did she think much about the beloved parents she had left behind
her?”

I peered up from the page at Sully. Her eyes tightened on me. Was she reading between the lines here? Her features remained stone cold, but somewhere deep in her eyes, I swore I could see a
shimmer of…
something
. Hope? Hurt?

“I barely remember my parents,” one Napoleon thought out loud. “My parents might as well be dead.”

“You guys aren't alone,” I said, and picked up reading the passage about Peter. “
He was so full of wrath against grown-ups, who, as usual, were
spoiling—
”

Sully cut me off. “So is that it? Are you supposed to be Peter Pan now?”

“
Ssssh!
” A Mimi pressed her finger to her lips. “We're in a library!”

Sully's eyes dug right into me, clearly annoyed. “You're enlisting new members for your tribe with a book?”

“We're just reading, is all. This is Book Club.”

“
Just reading
. Right. Your club's a cover for your crew. You're making converts to your cause.”

“What if I am? If I'm remembering correctly, there once was a time not so long ago when you thought of yourself as a Wendy Darling….”

Before I knew what was happening, Sully was on top of me, yanking the book out from my hand and slamming it back down on my head. “I'm not your Wendy!” Sully seethed.
“And you're no Peter Pan!”

She stormed out of the library.

“Sully! Wait—”

I picked up the book and raced after her.

I nearly collided with her. She stood stock-still just outside the library door. Her attention was locked on the hallway wall. Someone had sketched in soap—

THE LOST BOYZ ARE NOT FORGOTTEN. BRING BACK BABYFACE. BREAK OUT FROM THE BLACK HOLE.

Sully and I stood side by side, staring at the fresh vandalism.

“You really are rocking the boat….” Sully shook her head. I could detect the slightest, infinitesimal hint of respect in her voice. Not much—but I'd take it.

“You ain't seen nothing yet.”

I slipped my hand into hers. We kept our eyes forward, staring ahead, while our fingers intertwined themselves, almost unbeknownst to us both.

“#347678!”

Sully yanked her hand back. We turned to find Grayson racing down the hall.

“We got graffiti!” he barked into his walkie-talkie. “Fresh graffiti in front of the library!”

Sully and I sat in silence before Merridew's desk, waiting for our hostess with the mostest to arrive. The only sound in the room was the persistent
ticktocking
of
the grandfather clock right behind my shoulder, chiseling away at my ears.