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“I’d still like them,” I said firmly. “Please.” Good manners are important, my mom always used to say. They’ll get you things and places that rudeness can’t.
It wasn’t the first time my mom had been proved right. With a huffy sigh, the receptionist put back the short-sleeved uniform blouses and pulled out five of the long-sleeved ones to hang on the rolling luggage cart instead.
“Fine—here you are. But don’t come crying to me that you’re too hot in a day or two. These are all you get for this semester so I warn you, you’d better be sure.”
“I’m sure,” I said, keeping my voice steady with an effort of will. I wasn’t going to snap back at her or react to her snotty attitude. And, I had decided, I wasn’t going to let myself care that she was treating me like a charity case.
Nobody can make you feel inferior unless you let them. Eleanor Roosevelt said that, I think. Anyway—it was true no matter who said it. If this receptionist was any indication of the rest of the school, I was going to have to remind myself of it on a daily basis. I might even get it tattooed on my arm when I went back into town this weekend—if dumpy little Frostproof was big enough to have a tattoo parlor, that was.
“All right—winter blouses it is,” the receptionist said, breaking into my thoughts. “Now let’s get you a meal ticket.”
She went to a far wall, where a long line of hooks were neatly fixed to a long wooden board. They all had lanyards with different colored plastic tags hanging from them. The colors were emerald green, sapphire blue, ruby red, and royal purple.
Her long skinny fingers hovered over the lanyards with blue tags for a moment but then skimmed over to a hook far in the corner which hadn’t caught my eye before. Probably because the tags hanging from those lanyards were a dull, ordinary gray.
“Here—you’ll have to be ranked with the Norms due to your Null status,” she said, taking one of the lanyards with the gray tags. “However, since the Headmistress herself is sponsoring you…”
Her hand skimmed on to another hook, which held five rolls of colored tape—green, red, purple, blue, and a thick roll of black. Tearing a piece of red tape off, she applied it to the middle of the gray tag on either side.
“And since you are supposed to be with the Sisters if you ever manifest…” she went on, grabbing another roll of tape—the blue one this time. Tearing off a piece, she applied it across the red tape so that my gray tag had a red and blue cross on it Well, at least it was more colorful than it had been, even though I still wasn’t sure what all the colors meant.
Satisfied at last, she gave me the lanyard carefully, as though she was bestowing a diamond necklace.
“This is very important—never take it off. All of our distinct groups must be marked and preserved. The lanyard is a constant reminder of your place in the Academy hierarchy and your adherence to our rules.”
“Um, okay.” Shrugging, I draped the lanyard over my head where it rested against my Henley. Beneath the shirt, I felt the black key shift and grow even heavier but I tried to ignore it.
“Now you can’t go to class wearing that,” the receptionist pronounced, eyeing my clothes distastefully. “So I’m going to send you to the restroom to change and then it’s off to the guidance councilor for your class schedule. Er…” She frowned. “Well, off to the school secretary, anyway. Our old councilor, Mrs. Rosenstein, had to quit and we haven’t had time to replace her yet. But you’ll be fine with Mrs. Vernon. You should be in time to make your second class of the day, if you hurry. The rest of your things will be sent to the dungeon.”
I didn’t protest the idea of my clothing going to the dungeon this time. After all, since Nocturne Academy was located in a castle, it stood to reason that they would try to utilize every bit of available space. Though it seemed kind of unfair that the “Norms” whatever that meant, got sent to the dungeon.
But I had no idea of how truly unfair things could get at Nocturne Academy—though I was about to find out.
6
“You can’t put me in remedial English! I was in AP Literature in my old school.”
I leaned forward across the oak counter which separated the guidance office into two parts, staring earnestly at the middle-aged school secretary, Mrs. Vernon. She sat behind a heavy wooden desk, while I had to stand like a supplicant, as though to emphasize who had the power in the room.
If the receptionist had been intimidatingly perfect and precise in her personal appearance, Mrs. Vernon was the exact opposite. Her hair was a strange, reddish-purple shade that clearly came out of a bottle and she was wearing a too-tight blue blouse with big pink flowers printed all over it.
