The Boarding School Experiment (5 page)

The music shut off, creating a sudden void. The silence gave clarity to the voices in the room, the inane chatter.

A panicked voice said, “Cops.”

My eyes widened, and my heart rate increased. From the other side of the door, plastic cups thumped against the hardwood and shoes scurried. Thane’s expression was unreadable in the dark and I dropped my gaze back to the light under the door. I imagined the embarrassing headlines:
Selectees lose their positions in National Immersion Program due to underage drinking. Further investigation reveals cheating scandal. Trallwyn teens head straight to Juvie.

“IDs, everyone,” an authoritative voice said. “Take them outside. Your parents will pick you up or you can ride back to the station with us.”

Partygoers spewed out feeble protests. The idiots shouldn’t have been so slow to run. The slowest always got caught. I’d have escaped, if I hadn’t been locked in here.

Abrupt silence filled the room, and the light clicked off. My heart pounded hard like I had made a run for it. I grabbed for the doorknob, pulling myself up. “Hey,” I said, and banged on the door.

Thane sprang up beside me, his big body taking up the space, and his hands closed over my fists, stilling them. “Stop it. Shut up.” Thane whispered something else, but I couldn’t distinguish the words. My focus was stuck on the horrible darkness. His face lowered to mine. “Shh.”

I twisted free, threw my arms around his neck, closed my eyes, and kissed him. Looking for escape, I used his warm, smooth mouth as a distraction. I didn’t expect the jolt of electricity that shocked through me when our lips touched.

Thane’s head jerked back. “Holy shit.”

If he didn’t talk, I could pretend he wasn’t Thane, and I wasn’t here in the dark. I had to shut down more brain cells before I became a screaming lunatic. I leaned into him. “Don’t talk.”

My mouth met his, and his hands dropped to my waist, lowering us back to the floor. He tugged me onto his lap. The hardwood pressed into my knees and I sank against him, relishing the solid feel of his body beneath me. Keeping my eyes tightly closed, I concentrated on the sensations. Everywhere he touched me tingled.

His hand slid from my waist to my chest. Blood rushed through my veins, threatening to really pull me under, but I didn’t let it. After a small delay, I moved his hand back to my waist, setting the boundaries. He slipped his thumb under the hem of my shirt and rubbed my skin. The sensation arced through me like Texas lightening, the glowing heat that lit up the clouds during a thunderstorm but never reached the ground. I gasped against his lips and tightened my grip on his shoulders. What was this?

Thane threaded his fingers into my hair, cradling my head in his palm. He lifted up and turned, shifting me until I lay underneath him with the hard floor against my hips. His lips drugged me. He tasted like mint, and warmth, and light.

Music jangled through the closet, an insistent repeated chorus. I pushed on his shoulders. “You have a cell.” I meant to express my outrage, but my voice came out breathless. After sliding out from under him, I snared his phone. The screen lit with an incoming call. I hit decline and dialed Piper. She’d get me out. I could always count on her.

Click
. “Hello?”

“Piper. I’m trapped in the den closet. With Thane. With an armoire in front of the door. I need you and Jacob to circle back and get me.”

“OMG. With Thane? How did that happen?”

“I’ll tell you later.”

“I’ll hurry.”

“Please,” I said, and clicked off.

“Can I have my phone back now?”

I shook my head, making sure the screen stayed on, brightening the closet.

Thane grinned and raised his eyebrows. “She might take a while. Do you want to—”

“No. And we’re not talking about it.”

***

Breakfast came with cereal and smiles: relieved ones from Mom, proud ones from Dad, and watery ones from my sister. The boys were too little to know what was going on. They had one goal, to fight over the remains of the Fruit Loops. Caleb won and emptied box over his blue plastic bowl, shaking it to get the powdery sugar from the bottom.

“Mom,” Mark said. “He’s taking it all.”

Caleb shook his head and threw a green loop at Mark. Mark caught the cereal with his mouth, and they both started laughing.

My own mouth was dry, and my stomach churned. The symptoms weren’t caused by the beer I shouldn’t have drunk or the guy I shouldn’t have kissed. They were caused by sick anticipation. I’d left a note at Rhys’s trailer, and I expected him to drop by any second and pound on our door. Or blow up our car.

Last night, during the drive home, Piper had thanked me, over and over again. Piper, who’d snuck back into the party with her boyfriend to free me. Piper, who counted on me. But, I couldn’t steal someone’s future, not even for her.

Mom put a plate of pancakes and bacon in front of me, filling the trailer with a breakfast aroma. “Honey, we just wanted to thank you again for doing this. We know leaving isn’t your thing, and I suspect a lot of your decision has to do with the money we’ll get.”

“She knows she doesn’t have to go.” Dad snagged a piece of bacon off my plate. “The school will be great. And don’t you worry, we’ll fly you home for your birthday and Christmas.”

I made a show of finishing breakfast and spent the day with my family. All of us tried to act normally. The tension of holding back my own tears while catching my family cry at odd moments brought back the worst memories of Dad’s accident, and it was almost a relief when it was time to head for the airport. Up until the time we got in the car, I still had expected Rhys to show up. He didn’t and my family drove me to Intercontinental Airport where we said our goodbyes.

***

The flight to Alaska lasted eight hours, not counting the layovers in Seattle and Anchorage. I reclined my seatback and pretended to sleep but was conscious of Thane the whole time. He sat beside me and his big shoulders crowded my space.

The airline attendant’s voice came through the speaker: “We’ll be arriving in approximately twenty minutes, so now would be a good time to power down those laptops, and bring your seatbacks and tray tables upright for landing.”

I ignored the instructions, shifted against the thin navy fabric, and drew in a breath. We’d gotten cereal before landing in Anchorage, but nothing on this leg of the journey. The cereal had helped clear part of the fuzzy feeling I had after the long trip, but not all. I yawned and wished for caffeine. The flight attendant had said the trip from Anchorage was too short for a drink service, but I bet she had caffeine hidden in the galley.

Thane shifted, and his big shoulder bumped mine again, this time on purpose. “Hey, I want to clear the air before we get there.”

I stretched and yawned, keeping my eyes closed.

“I get that you’re probably into me.” Thane paused. “But, I just broke up with Portia, and we’re headed to a new campus. So let’s see how things go.” He interrupted his own insulting words with a shrug and his shoulder bumped into mine. “You know.”

My eyes sprang opened and I pinned him with my stare. I raised my eyebrows and shoved his big arm off the armrest so I could take it. He placed his back beside mine, and we struggled for a moment before leaving our arms side by side.

“I know? I know what?”

Thane said nothing.

Not playing it cool, I leaned over Thane, straining toward the oblong window, searching down through the clouds for a view of the town and the school. First, I saw patches of land divided by natural barriers, mountains, lakes, green stretches, then I saw a manmade building—an igloo.

My head tilted, but the building’s appearance stayed the same—an igloo shoved up to the side of a mountain. From this vantage point, the structure seemed small, but I knew the school had to be huge to hold all the students. I braced a hand on the plane’s cold beige wall and leaned closer to confirm my impression. It didn’t change: mountain, ice, igloo—those were not words we used in Houston unless we were talking about beer, soda, and a cooler.

The plane banked and whistled as the brakes flapped out of the wings, drawing us down. Bright sun shone through the windows. The flight attendant repeated her instructions, slightly more demand in her voice this time.

I shaded my eyes and moved back to my seat with a big yawn. My ears popped, easing the pressure of the descent. I depressed the button to raise my seatback, and thought about what I hadn’t seen: houses, stores, civilization.

“It’s a sunny warm one today, with a high of 62.” The pilot spoke in a cheerful tone like he’d had his morning caffeine.

My mouth snapped shut when Alaska’s temperature registered. 62? In what world was 62 warm? The weather still reached triple digits back home.

Thane stiffened beside me. He probably wanted his letter jacket. I mentally dared him to ask me its fate. Besides, no one wore their old school’s letter jacket to their new campus. Wearing your old jacket said,
I don’t want to fit in here
, and Thane always fit in. Not that he’d be cold; no doubt his mommy had packed him all kinds of specialty mittens for the trip. Big baby.

The loud speaker crackled, and the pilot said, “Flight attendants, please take your seats.”

The flight attendant took one final walk through the cabin, staring at our waists with half-suspicious, half-indifferent expressions. My seatbelt was worn low and tight across my waist when she passed. As soon as she took her jump seat, I undid the buckle and wiggled into a more comfortable position.

The brakes whined and the wheels hit the tarmac with a smooth solid thump, making me slide forward a bit. I turned to the window. The forest zoomed by, providing me with my first close-up view of my new town in Alaska.

The plane came to a sudden stop several yards from a grey metal warehouse. This regional airport was one-third the size of the Anchorage airport where we’d switched planes, and a fraction of the size of Houston’s intercontinental airport. Sudden silence filled my ears, then seatbelts unclicked and passengers jammed into the aisles.

One of the directors said, “Follow the path around to the shuttles. They’ll take you up to the school. We’ll offload your bags and they’ll follow later.”

***

I got in line behind a welcome table marked with the letter
C
, and took in my surroundings. A male coordinator wearing a lab coat handed me an 8 x 11 envelope stuffed full of papers. “Here’s your welcome packet.”

I ignored the forms and lifted out a small translucent baggy. It held seven silver pills.

“One vitamin per day. You’ll get a new supply at the end of the week.”

I shoved them back inside.

The coordinator said, “Explore all you want. Your room assignment is written on the pink flyer inside your packet.”

“Thanks.” I started walking, with no clue as to where I was headed. Everything smelled new: the Berber carpet, the fresh plaster. The acrid scent was a cross between pleasant and headache-inducing. One cool feature of our igloo was its faux ice block walls. They arched up several stories. At the top, they thinned and met a sheet of glass. The glass formed a dome over top of the school. If the faux blocks were a waffle cone, the clear dome on top was the ice cream.

Every wall was covered in the faux ice blocks except the back one. An actual mountain served as the back wall. I brushed my fingertips along the rough granite. The surface ascended at an angle and climbing anchors had been installed at intermittent points. I leaned close to test one. Houston had no mountains, but my family used to road trip out of state to indulge in climbing trips. My hand fell away, heavy with the memories.

Other kids swarmed around, exploring, or sitting and reading their packets. I found the cafeteria next. Baskets of snacks had been laid out and I snagged a cinnamon granola bar and a bottle of water. After peeling back the wrapper, I bit into the oat-flavored snack, and the crunch helped shake off a threatening headache.

A girl peered over the rail, gnawing on her own breakfast bar. Light poured onto her shiny red hair through the overhead dome. “It looks like heaven.”

“It looks like an amusement park,” the dark-haired girl beside her said.

You could see most of the school from this vantage point. The inside of the school looked like a pampered hamster habitat. The outdoor atrium, with its twenty-foot wall, would probably only hold half of us. We’d have to take timed outdoor breaks, like they did on prison TV. When I leaned over the rail, I could see the lowest point of the habitat, the underground amphitheater. If our new school was an ice-cream cone, the amphitheater was the chocolate bite at the bottom

I wandered away, taking a ramp up several floors. At the top level, security panels were mounted beside the doors. The bulb in the nearest sensor panel turned green. I reached for the lever, but had to back up when the door opened and a coordinator strode through. She was dressed in a suit, with her hair in a bun, and she wore a frown. She was the one who’d visited Trallwyn for the announcements. Coordinator Steele. I blinked and backed up another step. “Hi.”