Wuthering high: a bard academy novel
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Authors: Cara Lockwood
Tags: #Illinois, #Horror, #English literature, #Horror & Ghost Stories, #Boarding schools, #Schools, #Juvenile Fiction, #Social Issues, #Stepfamilies, #School & Education, #Mysteries & Detective Stories, #United States, #Fantasy & Magic, #People & Places, #Fiction, #Family, #High school students, #General, #High schools, #Juvenile delinquents, #Ghosts, #Maine, #Adolescence
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2006 by Cara Lockwood
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Contents
Acknowledgments
Special thanks to Kate Kinsella, for all of her advice and guidance! Many thanks to Julie Antrobus, for helping me with the elusive psychology of the teenage mind.
As always, thanks to Mom, Dad, and Matt. Thanks to my husband, Daren, for letting me bounce ideas off of him at two in the morning. A heartfelt thanks to my editor, Lauren, my agent, Deidre, and everyone at the Knight Agency.
And thanks to all my friends who are still teens at heart — Bethie, Shannon, Christina, Jane, Kate, Jordan, Stacey, Linda, and Kelly. Thanks, guys!
One
Okay, I confess.
I did, sort of, on purpose, steal Carmen’s credit card (Carmen = stepmom, but I refuse to call her anything with “mom” in the title, as she’s only twenty-four and can’t take care of a pet goldfish, much less be any kind of mother figure). And I did, kind of, intentionally, charge up a thousand dollars’ worth of push-up bras. But, technically, my dad said I could use Carmen’s credit card for emergencies, and since my social life hinges on my ability to fill out a shirt, it
was
an emergency. I mean, if I was an SAT analogy, I’d be flat : board; boobs : me.
And yes, it’s true that I did total my dad’s new BMW convertible. Although “totaled” is a strong word for spilling Diet Coke in my lap and accidentally jumping the curb and running into a tree. I wouldn’t have been driving at all (I only have my learner’s permit) except that my little sister, Lindsay, called me on my mobile hysterical because she’d pissed off some two-hundred-pound girl bully and needed to be picked up from school since she’d been too scared to ride the bus. Mom couldn’t get Lindsay because she was at her standing Botox appointment, and Carmen (Anti-Mom) couldn’t be bothered, since she was too busy spending my college fund at Neiman Marcus.
And let’s face it, I did Dad a favor. He looked ridiculous driving that cherry-red two-seater BMW. He’s bald, for God’s sake. He looked like every other pathetic midlife-crisis victim.
And, finally, I’ll admit, it is true that I came home drunk the night before my PSAT exam, and overslept the test. This was entirely Tyler’s fault (Tyler is a cute but disreputable quarterback of the junior varsity football team who I went with for a brief time before I came to my senses). He’s been trying to get into my Paul Frank panties since the summer before freshman year, and he spiked my drink with Everclear in the hopes of robbing me of my virginity. I’d heard the bad rumors about Tyler, but chose to ignore them. I shouldn’t have. BTW, he got what he deserved: a front seat full of Red-bull and Everclear vomit. It’s my hope that he’ll be cleaning chunks out of the leather interior of his Toyota Forerunner for weeks. Since him, I’ve been on a guyatus (hiatus from guys).
So — given the mitigating circumstances — you’d think that I would be given a little slack. After all, I’m fifteen. Aren’t I supposed to be making mistakes? Isn’t that what the teen years are for? I can’t be perfect all the time.
So what do my parents do? They don’t ground me. No. That would be me getting off too easy, Dad says. And even when I try to pit Mom against Dad (for the last five years since their divorce, I’ve gotten very, very good at this), it doesn’t work. For the first time in my parents’ lives, they actually agree on something.
They’re going to send me to a school for juvenile delinquents.
Me! I’ve barely done anything wrong, and I’m going to be going to school with a bunch of drug-using degenerates. How did this happen? I think Mom has been watching too many episodes of
Ricki Lake,
where drill sergeants yell at pregnant teenagers.
It’s ridiculous. Beyond ridiculous.
I am not a delinquent. I’ve had very bad luck, but I’m not bad. At least, not yet. Everyone knows that when good people go to prison they end up becoming bad while they’re there. Either that, or they get stabbed with a homemade knife in the shower. I’m not that innocent. I’ve seen episodes of
Prison Break.
Granted, I’m not going to prison.
I’m going to a place called Bard Academy in some Nowheresville Island off the coast of Maine. I don’t care if that is where great lobsters come from. I don’t want to live there. The brochure for Bard Academy says, and I quote, “a home for troubled and misguided teens set on its own private island, guarded by the Atlantic Ocean, and accessible only by ferry, where our students probe the classics in a solid academic tradition.”
I am not troubled, nor misguided. If anyone needs to go to delinquent boarding school, it’s my dad. He changes wives more often than he changes shoes. And don’t get me started on Mom. She’s a total basket case. She doesn’t date. She doesn’t even go out, so I’m not quite sure why she’s obsessed with looking young, except that I fear she’s holding on to some vague hope that Dad will take her back. Why she would want that, I have no idea.
So, I’m being exiled to some form of Alcatraz for juveniles in the Atlantic. This is what I get for saving my dad from getting a melanoma on his scalp and for coming to the rescue of my ungrateful sister. It’s the last time I do a good deed.
“You hate me, don’t you? You do. You hate me,” Mom says, as she stands in my bedroom watching me pack. I’m taking my time folding my clothes because a) I don’t want to go, and b) I want to wring the last bit of anxiety out of the moment for Mom’s sake. If I draw this out, then she’s liable to start feeling sadness and regret, and she might just decide I shouldn’t go. At this point, breaking Mom might be my only chance of salvation.