Extraordinary Means (10 page)

THERE WAS SOMETHING
about having a group of friends at Latham that transformed it. When I thought back to that first day, watching from my window as the four of them slunk back from the woods, they’d all seemed so mysterious and unapproachable.

But as I became a regular fixture at their dining table, they came more sharply into focus. And so did life at Latham House. It was like I’d misread the directions and had been trying to solve an unsolvable equation, when all I had to do was simplify.

Nick began knocking on my door before breakfast, and we’d wake up Charlie, who was usually still in bed and was apparently allergic to early mornings. We’d spend first rest period playing video games in Nick’s room, and I’d walk the lake path in Wellness with Sadie and Marina. Then I’d grab a shower and take a nap until dinner. We kept up
the post-dinner movie marathon, sneaking the girls into our dorm each night. Marina brought over her selection of Miyazaki movies, which I couldn’t believe I’d missed. I wasn’t an anime fan, so I’d always figured they weren’t my thing, but they completely were.

I remembered how, at summer camp, the first few days had always felt disorienting, and then one morning I’d wake up and everything would just click. That Friday, everything just clicked. I worked on my Dickens packet in English and tried to stay awake during this documentary about the Dark Ages. And then, as we were leaving lunch, Nick complained that his math teacher had brought a travel thermos again and spilled it, making the entire classroom smell like coffee.

“It was like a torture chamber,” he complained. “And then, on top of it, we had to do
math
.”

“There’s no reason we can’t have caffeine,” Sadie informed us. “I looked it up.”

“Except that Latham doesn’t want us bouncing off the walls,” said Nick.

“Which you do anyway,” Marina said,
and we all snickered.

“Oh, whatever,” Nick grumbled.

I asked why they didn’t just smuggle in coffee, and Sadie stared at me like I’d suggested she bring in mung beans.

“Instant coffee?” She wrinkled her nose. “Gross.”

“See, that’s a coffee drinker’s problem,” Marina said. “Meanwhile, I’m perfectly fine with tea bags.”

“I love that there’s such a rivalry,” said Charlie. “It’s like, leaf water versus bean water, you know?”

“
Bean water
?” Sadie echoed. “You better take that back.”

“Watch out, espresso shots are being fired in the drink fandom,” said Nick.

“Can we not talk about coffee, though?” I asked. “Because it’s all I can think about. That, and how we don’t have any.”

Coffee was one of the main things I missed from my old life. Every time Finnegan brought a travel thermos, I practically salivated.

“Actually . . .” Sadie nodded toward the woods, grinning mischievously.

Everyone besides me seemed to know what she meant.

“Oh no,” Marina said. “Not again.”

“Where’s your sense of adventure?” Sadie asked.

“I’ll find my sense of adventure when you find your sense of direction,” Marina retorted.

“It was one
small
miscalculation,” Sadie said. “Besides, I have a compass now.”

We were stopped on the lawn outside the cottages, and Charlie started to walk away.

“Wait,” Sadie called. “Where are you going?”

“To take a nap,” he said, and then snorted. “Where do you think? To get my wallet.”

“Does someone want to fill me in?” I asked after Charlie disappeared inside.

“We’re going to Hogsmeade,” Sadie said. “To get butterbeer.”

I was really, really confused.

“There’s a Starbucks down in Whitley,” Nick explained.

And then it dawned on me what they meant. They were talking about sneaking to
town
.

“No way,” I said, crossing my arms.

“Why not?” Sadie asked innocently.

“There are about a hundred reasons why not. Number one, we’re
quarantined
. Number two, I’m pretty sure someone will notice. Number three, it’s the middle of the aftern—”

“Are you seriously going to stand there and list them all?” Marina asked.

I glared.

“What about these?” I lifted my wrist with the med sensor.

“No problem,” Sadie assured me. “They only show your location if the sensor goes off, so the nurses can find you. Dr. Barons doesn’t sit there Geotracking us around Latham House.”

I stared at it doubtfully.

“I promise it’ll be completely fine,” Sadie said. “Don’t you trust me?”

I wanted to. I really did. But more than that, I wanted to keep hanging out with them. And I had the impression that
if I didn’t go, their ranks would close, and I’d find myself adrift again on the colorless sea of Latham, with no one to blame but myself.

So I relented, and then Charlie came down from the dorm and we headed off into the woods.

IN THE ALMOST
two weeks that I’d spent at Latham, I’d never wondered if there was a way out, or if that way out led anywhere interesting. I figured the woods were followed by more woods, and maybe a highway with a roadside stand where you could buy farm-fresh artichokes, because I’d seen tons of those on the drive up. I’d never once thought that after a mile, the woods would let out into a small town with an old stucco mission and a brightly colored main street. But that’s exactly what they did.

I still didn’t know how I’d let Sadie convince me to do this. We weren’t even supposed to be in the woods during rest period, never mind hiking a mile through them into town. And we absolutely weren’t supposed to leave Latham for any reason, particularly something as pointless as getting coffee.

About halfway there, Charlie was looking paler than usual and was having trouble catching his breath, so we stopped to rest. He leaned against a tree, closing his eyes for a moment while we all stared at each other uneasily.

“Maybe we should go back,” Marina said.

Charlie opened his eyes and glared.

“I’m fine,” he insisted. “Just need a minute.”

After a couple of minutes, he joked that he’d photosynthesized some more energy, and we all continued on.

This ball of nerves lodged itself firmly in my stomach the moment Whitley came into view. The town looked like the places my family used to visit when I was little, driving up and down the coast with a guidebook directing us to quaint historic sites, while my father quizzed me on the history.

“You’ve done this before, right?” I asked.

“Lots of times,” Sadie assured me. “It’s no big deal. Just try not to cough in front of anyone and it’ll be fine.”

She dug a handful of cough drops out of her pocket and passed them around. As we unwrapped them, my heart started racing. We were really doing this—going somewhere that wasn’t Latham. And as much as I’d protested the trip, I had to admit that I was excited at the prospect.

“In case anyone gets nosy, we’re college students,” Nick said. “And we’re making a pit stop on the drive up to Berkeley. Now push down your sleeves to hide your med sensor.”

I dutifully pushed down my sleeves and crunched the rest of my cough drop, and we followed the root-ravaged hiking trail into town.

WHITLEY WAS ONE
of those quaint storybook places, nothing like the sprawling suburbia where I was from. I was used
to strip malls, not main streets. Even so, being in this tiny out-of-the-way place felt like walking into a huge city after spending time away from civilization.

It was warm out, with just a faint bite of breeze. Early October. The shops had started putting Halloween displays in their windows, and some of the doorsteps already had pumpkins. The lampposts were covered with flyers advertising a Fall Fest in a couple of weeks, which featured face painting and a hayride. There were more flyers, for a corn maze and a haunted house.

“I heard they used to turn Latham into a haunted house,” Marina said, reading the flyer. “Back when it was a boarded-up prep school.”

“I went to it once,” Charlie said. We all turned to stare at him. “When I was six. My cousins brought me, and I got so scared I started crying. My aunt had to wait outside with me.”

“That’s adorable,” Nick said. “You were afraid of the big bad plastic masks.”

“I was six!” Charlie insisted. “And that’s not why I was afraid. One of my cousins told me that if I was really bad, I’d have to stay there, with all the monsters, forever.”

“You’re making that up,” Sadie accused, but Charlie just shrugged.

And then he started coughing. He muffled it in his sleeve, and thankfully there wasn’t anyone walking nearby, but we all still glanced around nervously. I was convinced
we’d be caught, that someone would spot us and know exactly what we were and where we’d come from. But that didn’t happen. Charlie caught his breath and mumbled an apology, and we continued on.

We passed a pet shop, a little bookstore, and some kind of organic juice place with a sign in its window urging customers to like it on Facebook. I’d spent so long brooding over the fact that I was cut off from everything, and trying to get back to the real world, but now that I had, it felt strange and misshapen. Or maybe that was me. I felt so self-conscious, like I wasn’t supposed to be here, and like everyone could tell.

When we reached the Starbucks, Charlie was flushed and sweating. I was pretty sure we shouldn’t bring him into a coffee shop, and Marina had the same idea.

“Hey, Charlie, want to check out the thrift store with me?” she asked.

“Sure,” he said, brightening.

“Back here in twenty?” Sadie called.

“If we’re running late, we’ll text you,” Marina deadpanned, and for a moment, I believed her.

“Come on, troops,” Sadie said, holding open the door of the Starbucks.

Nick and I followed her inside. I’d expected the place to be mostly empty, but a surprising number of people were sitting at the tables with their laptops out. I was wearing my Stanford hoodie and jeans, and even though I was sure we
stuck out, I guess we looked pretty normal. Just three clean-cut kids grabbing coffee. No one even glanced up at us.

“So, butterbeer lattes?” Sadie asked.

“I don’t think that’s on the menu,” I said.

“Ah, but it’s on the
secret menu
,” Nick said, clapping a hand on my shoulder. He went on to explain that Starbucks had a treasure trove of unlisted options, one of which was the butterbeer latte.

“If it’s coffee, I’ll take it,” I said, following Sadie to the register.

This bored-looking blond dude with adult braces was reading something on his phone, and he didn’t notice us at first. Sadie leaned across the counter a little bit, examining a packet of cookies.

“Hey,” she said.

The cashier glanced up, and I swear his eyes bugged out at the sight of her tight black V-neck sweater. I didn’t blame him; I’d been trying not to get caught staring at it all day.

“Um, what can I get for you?” he asked, flustered.

“Five venti butterbeer lattes.” She smiled sweetly, as though daring him to say they didn’t make those.

The cashier laughed.

“Hey, Mike,” he called to the barista. “Can you do butterbeer lattes?”

The barista, this lumberjack-looking hipster dude, shrugged and said sure.

“No one ever orders those,” the cashier said, punching it in. “That’s awesome.”

I held out some money, and he reached out to take it, then stopped, staring at my wrist.

I glanced down to see what he was looking at, and tried not to panic. I’d pushed up the sleeves of my sweatshirt without thinking, and my med sensor was right there.

My stomach twisted, and I winced, waiting for everything to come crashing down.

“Is that one of those fitness bands?” he asked.

I’d never been so relieved in my life.

“Yeah, it is,” I said, tugging down my sleeve.

“I’ve been thinking about getting one,” he said, taking the money and counting out my change.

“They’re awesome, you should,” I said, and then I decamped to the island of napkins and straws, my heart still hammering.

Nick came over and started nervously fidgeting with the sugar packets.

“I
told
you to pull your sleeves down,” he said. “Thank God for yuppies and their stupid fitness tech.”

I glanced over at the little coffee station, where Sadie was chatting with the barista. He said something sharply and slid the drink carriers across the counter with more force than was necessary.

“Grab some drink sleeves,” Sadie said, coming over.

“What was that about?” Nick asked.

“Nothing,” Sadie said. “Let’s go outside before Michael throws a fit.”

“You know the barista?” I asked.

“Long story.”

She didn’t elaborate, and we brought the drinks outside the store and waited for Charlie and Marina.

“Well?” Sadie asked, after I took my first sip.

I was having a religious experience. Caramel and cream and sugar and caffeine and I didn’t know what else, but I didn’t care.

“The look on your face,” she said. “I bet you’re glad we came now.”

“Of course I’m glad,” I said. “I just had to protest, for the principle of the thing.”

“Uh-huh, sure.” Sadie smiled into her straw.

Charlie and Marina weren’t back yet, and after the second time Sadie checked the time display on her med sensor and sighed, I asked if she thought they’d wanted some time alone.

“Charlie
always
wants time alone,” Nick said. “It’s why he always skips Wellness.”

“I meant, um, with Marina,” I said.

Sadie giggled.

“They’re just friends,” she said. “I mean, Charlie’s adorable, but so are the
boys
he likes.”

“Boys?”

“I know,” Sadie said with a wry smile. “The entire female population of Latham was upset over that one.”

I hadn’t pictured Charlie as being gay, but now that Sadie had said it, I could see it easily. Suddenly, the One Direction poster above his bed made a lot more sense.

Marina and Charlie came back from the thrift store then, both of them carrying bags. Charlie looked much better, which was a relief.