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“It’s sad,” I said. “Tragic.”
He grinned. “Girls love that shit.”
“I like happy endings.”
He pulled a face, leaning back on his elbows against the bed. “Life isn’t always happy.”
“It should be.” I moved to sit back on the bed far enough to where my ankles were hanging over the edge and my back was up against the wall. Kota huddled over his desk. “Did you finish yours, Kota?”
“Working on it now, actually.”
“How’s it going?”
He sat up, turning in his chair and holding up his notebook. “I don’t know. What rhymes with formaldehyde?”
My eyes widened. Gabriel laughed, rubbing his fingers against his forehead. “Dude, what kind of poem are you writing?”
Kota blinked at us. “It’s about a doctor.”
“Does the doctor fall in love?” Gabriel asked.
“No.”
“Does someone die?”
“Not in the story, technically.”
“What does he do?”
“He performs an autopsy.”
I glanced at Gabriel, sharing a smile with him. I held out a palm to Kota. “Can I see it?”
Kota’s cheeks turned red and he handed the notebook to me. The poem had a lot of long words describing the procedures of cutting up a dead body. It was more like a set of instructions with every other line rhyming. The gruesome details made my stomach churn. Was this accurate? How did he know how to perform an autopsy?
“Kota...” I said, not sure exactly how to phrase it.
“I’m not very good at this,” he said. He fiddled with the edge of the arm on his desk chair. “I’m not very creative.”
I thought about the lines. It wasn’t bad work. It was just too formal. “May I see your pen?”
He handed it to me. I replaced a handful of words and added in a few more phrases at the end. When I finished I handed it back to him.
He looked over my notes and smiled, shaking his head. “It’s a horror piece.”
“You already had most of it. You just needed a change of perception. A live patient being operated on by a murderer.”
He laughed, pushing his glasses up his nose with a forefinger. “You’re going to make me sound smarter than I am.”
“What are you talking about?” Gabriel said. “If anything, this school is going to dumb you down. I’m surprised you went along with this going in to the public school thing.”
Kota shrugged, sitting back in his chair and using his legs to rock himself back and forth. “You guys were going. What was I going to do?”
“Personally,” Gabriel said, “I’m regretting we ever started. This school seems hopeless. I mean you saw the classrooms.”
“The trailers are kind of unusual,” I said, for a lack of a kinder word.
“And the library,” Gabriel added.
Kota rubbed at his chin. “There isn’t much to the library.”
“And don’t even get me started on lunchtime,” Gabriel said. “I mean come on. You saw that. There were still kids in line for lunch when the bell rang.”
“Something doesn’t add up,” Kota said, rubbing a palm at his cheek and folding his arms over his chest. “And with the problems from the principal today, I don’t think Mr. Blackbourne and Mr. Hendricks are on the same page about what they want from us.”
I hadn’t thought about it before but now that they were talking about it, it did seem unreasonable to put such a thing on the shoulders of seven students. “Who made the arrangements?” I asked. “Who asked you all to come into the school?”
“The whole thing was designed by the school board and some of the administrators,” Kota said. “Technically the principal had the final say, but he was under a lot of pressure to allow us in. It was basically do it or it meant his job. He claimed he couldn’t guarantee the safety of ‘spoiled students’. The school board thought if we could help improve the school overall, the state would develop a second school nearby to split the population. They won’t bother to spend money on a school that looks like it might be a waste of time.”
“But isn’t that what they need?” I asked. I was surprised they were telling me about this. Then I realized it really wasn’t about the Academy, but about my own school. It didn’t count so much as an Academy secret. “Wouldn’t you give money to a school that needed it?”
“You would think,” Kota said. “The only way a school gets attention is by the quality of the grades and curriculum for the entire student body and financial interest from state officials in control of school spending. They’ll only help a school that seems worth investing in, because that’s what it comes down to. They focus more on middle and high income neighborhoods. It makes a bigger impact than these poorer districts. Not as many registered voters here. However, there was a deal struck by a state official. He’s documented that if Ashley Waters can improve, he’ll give the go ahead to start building another school.”
“Which is why this is stupid. There’s not a lot worth saving. They might as well build two new schools. And the mismanagement is terrible. I feel like we’re wasting our time,” Gabriel said. He stretched out a leg over his homework, tipping his foot to nudge my leg. “If it weren’t for you, I’d be asking Mr. Blackbourne if we could drop this whole thing.”
His attitude surprised me. They could leave if they wanted? Would they if they were pushed out at all or felt it was too much? “You don’t have to stay for me,” I said softly. “I mean, if you feel it’s that bad.” I didn’t want to be so demure about it. They were my only friends in the school. Even so, it just seemed silly to stay because of me. If I had the choice, would I have stayed? I could only imagine what the Academy was like but I knew it had to be better than Ashley Waters.
“We’re in for the year,” Kota said. “We promised we’d do our best for the school and that’s what we’ll do. We agreed to this. We’ll stick it out. We don’t get to give up just because it’s complicated. Mr. Blackbourne’s plans weren’t made lightly, so there must be something we can do.”
So it was Mr. Blackbourne that was officially in charge. Mr. Blackbourne made the arrangements. Did he call Victor out of the class? I bit my lower lip, talking about Mr. Blackbourne only reminded me of secrets I couldn’t ask about and what I had to do tomorrow. “Maybe we should make something for lunch tomorrow so we aren’t stuck with vending food. There might not be anything left tomorrow.”
“I think there’s a loaf of bread downstairs,” Kota said, standing up. He held out a hand to me. It took me a moment to realize he wanted me to take it. I sucked in a breath to summon some courage and put my hand in his. He grasped it as I stood up, letting go when I was standing. A passing thought in the back of my mind was somewhat sorry he released me. “Unless you mean you want to cook something.”
“I suppose I could,” I said, putting a fi
nger to my lower lip. It seemed kind of weird to make something and I couldn’t imagine what to fix.
“Hold up. Are you telling us you can cook?” Gabriel said. He swung his legs around and stood up next to me. “I have to see this.”
“Who doesn’t cook?” When it came to my family, unless I wanted dinner from a can every night, my sister and I learned how to cook. I couldn’t remember not being able to at least make scrambled eggs or spaghetti as needed.
“Luke and North can,” Gabriel said. “It doesn’t happen often.”
“If you can read, you can cook.” I crossed the floor, heading to the stairs. I glanced over my shoulder at them. “Ready?”
Kota shot a look at Gabriel. Gabriel smirked. “I might be able to use the can opener.”
Within a short amount of time, taco soup simmered in a pot on the stove. The boys managed to cut onions and opened cans. They stood back and watched as I cooked up ground beef, added beans and vegetables and different spices and put it all together.
“There,” I said, wiping my brow with the back of my hand as I stirred the pot. “Kota, you’ve got dinner for tonight. What you don’t eat, stick into a thermos. We’ll take some plastic cups and spoons and bingo. Lunch.”
Gabriel hovered over my shoulder. He stuck his finger into the mix and yanked it back to put into his mouth. “He might not have leftovers,” he said, licking his finger. “I’m gonna stay for dinner.”
He attempted to reach into the pot again and I playfully swatted at his hand. “You’re going to eat it all before it’s dinner time.”
He pouted and the way the bottom lip curled melted my heart. It was adorable. “Don’t be so cruel, Sang. You didn’t tell us you could cook and now that you’ve made something and it smells really good, you won’t let me taste it.”
“You’re going to burn your fingers,” I said. “It’s hot.”
“I’ll live. It’s just a finger.” He threaded his hand around my side with a pointed finger aimed at the pot. I pushed his arm in a panic, worried he really would burn himself. He grasped my wrist. I laughed, dropping the large wooden spoon into the pot. I tried to wrestle my arm away. He captured my other hand, and collected my wrists together against his chest. “You’re in trouble now,” he said, grinning.
