Night School (15 page)

It was Julie who had seen and listened, who had run fast enough to save.

Julie, whom Mariah and Ned and Autumn and Andrew had specifically chosen and marked out and stalked.

Julie drove Bevin and Mariah home so they could tell their parents. “We can’t tell Mom and Dad,” said Bevin, horrified. “Dad will be furious. He doesn’t want me to be this kind of person.”

“I’ll bet he wants you alive, though,” said Julie quietly. “I’ll bet he’d rather have you rescued than lose you.”

Andrew, Autumn, and Ned stared at the crusts of their pizza, and the single remaining cold, congealed wedge. Ice melted in their glasses and used napkins bled tomato sauce.

“The instructor was right,” said Autumn. “It’s always a surprise. You don’t know who is brave. You can’t tell until you get there. Julie is brave all the way through.”

“I don’t think Night Class can hurt any of them now,” said Ned. “Because they’re strong, and I think you have to choose the weak. Julie and Mariah and even Bevin now, they aren’t weak. The way Tommy and Sal aren’t weak, either.”

“That’s why we signed up for Night Class,” said Autumn, suddenly understanding. “We’re weak.”

Ned had always known that he was weak. He would not have categorized Andrew that way, ever. Nor Autumn. Ever.

“I can’t stand to think of myself that way,” said Andrew. “I am not weak. I’m the class leader. The Most Likely To Succeed.”

“Do you think if we just don’t show up at Night School that it will be over with?” said Autumn. “Even though the instructor said you can’t drop out, Mariah just dropped out. For good.”

“That’s it, you know,” said Ned. “For good. That’s the key. You have to do things for good.” He swirled ice shards at the bottom of his soda glass. “We do have to drop out, but we have to tell the instructor. We have to give our reasons.”

“Reasons,” said the instructor, “do not matter.”

The instructor was sitting next to Ned.

The instructor had simply materialized, out of nowhere, and he was less clear than he had ever been: a darkness, a wraith, a smell of sewage. People in booths around them got uncomfortable and looked away, and left early.

“You are members of my Class and you will stay members of my Class.”

“But what are you?” whispered Autumn.

“I’m Evil. I come in any form that works, of course. Vampires and street gangs—we’re all the same. You are fond of school, so I came as an instructor.”

“Go away.”

“You can’t get rid of me. You can stop seeing me if you like, or stop doing your homework, but you can’t get rid of me.”

The smile was triumphant. It hung as the moon hangs in the sky, a sharp-tipped curl in the dark.

Andrew the watcher, Mariah the dreamer, Ned the loser, thought Autumn. And what am I? Am I an obedient follower? Will I just say, Guess I’d better do my homework on time then.

Autumn thought of Bevin, whose dark had been so much darker than they had known; whose dark had needed no Night Class to shatter it; for whom the lack of friends had been dark enough.

She thought of herself, who had turned on a lifelong friend so swiftly, so easily, telling herself the friend deserved it.

She thought of Andrew’s elderly neighbor, some poor old woman struggling to get through each day—and how Night School would see to it that one night, the old woman didn’t make it.

“No,” said Autumn flatly. “We won’t do it anymore. We’re dropping out. So get lost.”

“You cannot lose me,” said the instructor. “You made a choice.”

Choice.

“Oh!” cried Autumn. “I understand now. The Scare Choice. It isn’t the victim you were talking about. That isn’t the choice! The choice is us! We chose to do it.”

Ned sucked in his breath, understanding her. “You get a choice,” whispered Ned. “Pick on people or don’t pick on people. Be kind or be cruel. Watch it happen or stop it from happening. You have a choice.”

“We made the Scare Choice,” said Autumn, “and we were wrong. We are dropping out. For
good.”

“And don’t even think about touching Andrew’s old lady neighbor,” said Ned. “Because somebody cares about her now. We care about her now.”

The chuckle returned, soft and waiting, from the throat of one who has evil plans.

“Here are the films, Andrew,” said the instructor. “They are yours. So many choices, Andrew. You may keep them. Show them. Or destroy them.” The instructor smiled. “The films are brilliant, Andrew. You know they are. Do come to the party. I will send you an invitation.”

The shadow of him lessened, and thinned. For a moment there was smoke where the instructor had been and then there was nothing.

Nothing visible, anyway, thought Autumn.

There were only wrinkled napkins, empty Coke glasses, and cold pizza. No sense of evil lingered. Even knowledge and memory of evil began to fade.

I should write it down, thought Autumn, or hang onto a thread of it, because you cannot allow yourself to forget how easily it can touch you.

“Is he really gone?” whispered Ned. “Or just waiting? It can’t be this easy.”

“I think he’s always waiting,” said Autumn.

They trembled in the hot music-laden dining room.

“Waiting for what?” Andrew wanted to know.

“Choice,” said Autumn, who for one tiny sliver of time knew all the answers. “Waiting for when you have to make another choice, waiting to help you make the choice, waiting to step up and turn from smoke to flesh.”

Ned shuddered. Autumn in her cloak of knowledge was as terrifying as the instructor had been in his Cloak of evil. “What’s your neighbor’s name, Andrew?” said Ned. He spoke loudly and brazenly, shoving away smoke. “I’ll drop by and pretend to sell grapefruit for the marching band, or something, get to know her, make sure she’s okay.”

But Andrew did not tell him what he wanted to know. A funny hot greedy expression crossed Andrew’s handsome face. “Look outside,” said Andrew.

In the almost-empty parking lot, shadows gathered like a mob. Shadows drawing together to make themselves thick and strong, moving on, finding another SC.

Autumn leaped out of the booth and raced out of the restaurant and ran out into the parking lot, waving her arms like a person running through a flock of ducks on the grass, to make them fly away.

From inside she looked truly peculiar, a girl gone nuts, trying to scatter gravel.

But the shadows were gone.

Andrew was embarrassed for her. He hated it when people did stupid things in public.

“I guess you always look foolish when you’re trying to stop something nobody else sees,” said Ned. I’m in love with Autumn, he thought. She won’t ever love me back, but I can drive her home anyway. We can check on Andrew’s neighbor together.

Autumn and Ned drove away.

Andrew walked alone to his own vehicle. How tightly he gripped his films. He remembered how the principal had been so surprised that Andrew would bother to check on Mr. Phillips. He remembered that he had not, in the end, bothered anymore with Mr. Phillips. Nor cared anymore.

We all had darkness in us, thought Andrew Todd. All four of us stepped up when darkness appeared, and I, some of the time, even enjoyed the dark. Did Mariah enjoy it? Did Ned? Did Autumn?

Very lightly, he swung the camcorder back and forth. Just as lightly, his thoughts went back and forth. Which should he do? Which would make the better film? Light? Or dark?

Autumn had been right. There would always, always be a moment of choice: choice between kindness or cruelty … between entertaining one’s self or sparing others.

For a moment Andrew was very angry. You should be able to make one single choice and be done with it, not have this constant nagging at the bottom of your soul. Andrew looked down at the bottom of his soul. How great was the appeal of the darkness. How quickly the smoke of evil swirled up when you thought
choice.

Andrew lifted the camcorder, and hugged it to his heart. The thought of future films and parties warmed him. He tried to run to his car. Shadows deepened around him. Catch up to the others, thought Andrew dimly. Get with Autumn and Ned, find Mariah and Julie and Bevin.

Stumble,
whispered the instructor,
and join the dark.

Andrew stumbled.

Caroline B. Cooney is the author of ninety books for teen readers, including the bestselling thriller
The Face on the Milk Carton
. Her books have won awards and nominations for more than one hundred state reading prizes. They are also on recommended-reading lists from the American Library Association, the New York Public Library, and more. Cooney is best known for her distinctive suspense novels and romances.

Born in 1947, in Geneva, New York, Cooney grew up in Old Greenwich, Connecticut, where she was a library page at the Perrot Memorial Library and became a church organist before she could drive. Music and books have remained staples in her life. 

Cooney has attended lots of colleges, picking up classes wherever she lives. Several years ago, she went to college to relearn her high school Latin and begin ancient Greek, and went to a total of four universities for those subjects alone!

Her sixth-grade teacher was a huge influence. Mr. Albert taught short story writing, and after his class, Cooney never stopped writing short stories. By the time she was twenty-five, she had written eight novels and countless short stories, none of which were ever published. Her ninth book,
Safe as the Grave
, a mystery for middle readers, became her first published book in 1979. Her real success began when her agent, Marilyn Marlow, introduced her to editors Ann Reit and Beverly Horowitz.

Cooney’s books often depict realistic family issues, even in the midst of dramatic adventures and plot twists. Her fondness for her characters comes through in her prose: “I love writing and do not know why it is considered such a difficult, agonizing profession. I love all of it, thinking up the plots, getting to know the kids in the story, their parents, backyards, pizza toppings.” Her fast-paced, plot-driven works explore themes of good and evil, love and hatred, right and wrong, and moral ambiguity.

Among her earliest published work is the Fog, Snow, and Fire trilogy (1989–1992), a series of young adult psychological thrillers set in a boarding school run by an evil, manipulative headmaster. In 1990, Cooney published the award-winning
The Face on the Milk Carton,
about a girl named Janie who recognizes herself as the missing child on the back of a milk carton. The series continued in
Whatever Happened to Janie?
(1993),
The Voice on the Radio
(1996), and
What Janie Found
(2000). The first two books in the Janie series were adapted for television in 1995. A fifth book,
Janie Face to Face
, will be released in 2013.

Cooney has three children and four grandchildren. She lives in South Carolina, and is currently researching a book about the children on the
Mayflower
.