Tala Phoenix and the School of Secrets Read online

  “I know, but… going on the roof and the fresh air…” Demi’s expression softened.

  “Okay, whatever,” I said. My mint chocolate sugar high was gone, and I was dead tired. “Goodnight guys.”

  Kian was changed, already in bed, while Demi was by the window, checking on her plants.

  Only once we were all in our beds and the lights were out did Kian speak. “Tala?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m glad you’re okay.”

  “I am too,” Demi said.

  “Guys,” I said.

  “Yeah, yeah.” Kian snorted. “Mostly for practicalities. Like how, if you were gone, we’d have an uneven number of girls, could even be stuck with Jenna.”

  “Sure.” I smiled. “You two take care of yourselves.”

  “I’d say sweet dreams,” Demi said mildly. “But with eau de mildew, it’s not likely.”

  “Here’s to that,” I said, blowing them a kiss.

  They giggled and did the same. “Here’s to that.”

  3

  Kill me now… being caught by the She Who Does Not Wish to be Named would’ve been preferable to this.

  In history class, as Miss Jane droned on about the school’s founding and the same tragic-sweet story we’d heard a thousand times by now – about Mr. John the poor sad orphan who’d wanted to help all the other poor sad orphans and thus formed this shitty school which wasn’t shitty back then, I couldn’t help but be jealous of Cody.

  With his snaggle-curls almost like a Cousin It face cover, the guy could sleep through anything. And was, right now.

  If only. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt energized, but my late night hangouts with Kian, Demi and Jeremy always wiped me out good the next day.

  Everyone in our class was wearing the same glazed expressions – even Owen’s gaze was on the windows as he combed his fingers through his beard.

  My gaze flickered back to Miss Jane – her Mrs. Potato-head body, ‘90s clothes and perpetually watery eyes.

  Liars – burn them…

  I jumped. Had I just thought that?

  I stared at Miss Jane, rubbing my eyes. Clearly I needed way more sleep than I’d even realized, since my thoughts were going all homicidal Charles Manson on me.

  Shit. Tonight’s planned return to the TV room was too far away. I needed to find out ASAP whether I was losing it, or whether something else was at play here. Something messed up. Something I couldn’t explain.

  “Miss Jane?” Timmy’s freckled arm sliced through the air. “Is it true this place used to be called School for the Deranged?”

  I grinned over at Kian. Timmy’s question was rhetorical at best – all our textbooks had the last word of the title covered over with white-out that had had ‘different’ scratched on top, but that wasn’t fooling anyone.

  Miss Jane sneezed into a little handkerchief, casting us all a heartbreaking look.

  And this was the teacher I’d wanted to burn. The woman who looked at us like pitiful calves destined for the slaughterhouse?

  Her incessant pity was a bit much, although our outlook wasn’t exactly promising.

  No one really knew where we went after graduation – administration claimed some were ‘cured’ enough to be released into regular society, although I’d never actually seen these paragons of success myself. Not that I really blamed them if they had managed to make it and didn’t want to come back. No one visited here for obvious reasons – it was a shitty, decaying building, and us students weren’t the apple of anyone’s eye either – most were sleepy, moody. Typical teenagers, plus a healthy handful of crazy pills. It wasn’t like we had any family anyway – we were a double whammy: the unwanted of the unwanted – the orphans who were too messed up for anyone to even consider taking on.

  That was, if you even made it to graduation – the older you got, the more kids started acting weird – missing class, breaking things, acting out – and the more kids got transferred to the other school a few states away. At least, that’s what they said.

  “I think,” Jenna began, and that was when I tuned out.

  A glance over found Kian’s bright pink lips pursed as she doodled a giant eye on the edge of her lined paper. The edges of my own paper were already starting to look like an accordion from my stressed foldings (precursor to full out crunching and tearing). I pushed it to the edge of my desk.

  I got out the noteraser and scrawled my message on it. I handed it to Marley, who handed it to Kian, who took one look at it, and, looking straight at me, rolled her eyes.

  I could basically hear her response to my scrawled hallway tnt? now: you’re really not going to drop this, are you?

  I smiled on back, flashed my brows – nope.

  Scowling, Kian scrawled something on the eraser, then passed it to Demi, who, reading it, blinked a few times, before writing her own response and passing it back.

  By the time the eraser got back to me, I could already see Kian’s block-lettered and Demi’s wispy-handwritten ‘fine’s. For some reason, I couldn’t quite smile at my victory, not yet. Because, it wouldn’t happen, couldn’t obviously.

  But what if my friends actually saw the same dragons I had?

  At lunch, Jeremy considered our plan through a mouthful of greens.

  “So?’ I said.

  He chewed, swallowed, nodded. “All right.”

  “You don’t think it’s a stupid, reckless idea?” Kian said.

  She’d been clearly counting on him to be the voice of nervous reason that would snap me back to reality.

  “Going out any night is a reckless idea,” he said. He sneezed – once, twice, three times, like always. “But we do it anyway.”

  Part of me wanted to tease Jer for his signature sneeze, but right now we were talking serious. Plus he was right. Every time we set foot out of our dormitories we were risking being caught and punished – or worse.

  I scrutinized Kian as she attacked her garlic roasted potatoes with vengeance.

  “What is it – why are you so against going there?” I asked her.

  “Forget it,” she said, glancing to Jeremy’s plate. “Got food for all of us?”

  He scowled, stabbing his fork into a stack of roast beef from the massive mound that was the food on his plate. “Was hungry is all.”

  “Hungry enough for a bear,” Demi teased, helping herself to some asparagus on the side.

  I nibbled on my cookie half-heartedly. After the whole dragon-on-TV and murderous-voice-in-head thing, I didn’t have much of an appetite.

  “Think she’ll be next?” Demi whispered.

  I turned to see Aerwyna sailing into the cafeteria, her radiant face topped with her trademark flower-crown, dark hair streaming behind her.

  “You know what they say,” Kian said in a morbid whisper. “The ones who act weird are the ones who’re—”

  “You’re the only one who says that,” I cut her off. Even if our classmates getting transferred was becoming increasingly commonplace, no way did I want to dwell on it, or even think about who’d be next. “Besides, Aerwyna always does well in class.”

  “Still, missing class like she has today and yesterday, that’s the first sign,” Kian said quietly.

  We fell silent.

  “Jeremy!” We turned to see Jenna poised at the edge of our table, regarding Jeremy’s plate of food with a delighted smirk. “You got food for all your girlfriends, how sweet.”

  He shifted uncomfortably. One of Jenna’s favorite things to do – aside from matching her headband to her shoe color — was give Jeremy shit.

  No way was I going to stand for that.

  “Jenna,” I said. “How wonderful. We were hoping not to see you.”

  As her friend Tania joined her, Jenna’s expression became a sneer. “Better run along now to your meds appointment – wouldn’t want to be late for your crazy pills.”

  The two girls sashayed past, giggling.

  “You take the pills too, genius!” I called after h
er, but she was already gone.

  “You know there’s no point,” Kian said dully. “That bitch is dumb past the point of recognition.”

  Demi sighed, then smiled ruefully. “Remember the time you ripped her a new one in Latin and she just said, ‘Well, you suck- so there!’ and spent the whole rest of the day proud of herself?”

  I nodded. “Maybe if we’re lucky she’ll be the next one to get transferred.”

  “Maybe,” Kian said, her voice expressing how dubious this was.

  In all the years I’d known her, Jenna hadn’t stepped out of line once, even missed a single class.

  I glanced at the massive numeral clock that spread ceiling to floor on the wall farthest from us. “She’s kinda right anyway. Probably should get going to my appointment.”

  “So soon?” Kian said, but I was already up and going.

  “Velocius quam asparagi coquantur,” I said, leaving as they cracked up.

  As much as the class itself was a particularly potent form of semantic torture, I did like throwing in the odd Latin phrase here or there. Like just now – I’d said “Faster than you can cook asparagus,” one of my friends’ and my most favorite (and pointless) sayings.

  On the way out of the cafeteria, I ran into Sammy.

  “Tala, hey!” She smiled her crooked teeth at me, eyes going into half moons.

  We gave each other a side-hug.

  “You must be super excited – so close to graduation!” Sammy beamed up at me.

  I smiled back. Ever since she’d gotten lost on the maze-like third floor a few years ago and I’d helped her get to class, Sammy had looked up to me as the big sister she never had.

  I didn’t have the heart to lie to her about graduation excitement (or lack thereof) now.

  “Almost made it,” I said.

  “I like your hair,” she said shyly.

  I reached back to remind myself what I’d done with it today – ponytail, right.

  “Thanks,” I said. “Yours too.”

  “Oh this?” She shook her head, a bright red crimp falling in her face as she did so. “It’s crazy today, we actually got to go outside for geography class and it was raining…”

  I shrugged. “Well, I like it.”

  A grin split wide on her face, then fell. “Whoops, you have your doc appointment early, right? I’m totally keeping you.”

  “It’s fine.”

  “I mean it.” She stepped back, cheeks flushed. “I should go grab something to eat while there’s still time anyway. See ya.” She waved.

  I waved. “See ya.”

  I couldn’t stifle a pang as I left. The younger kids were always so sweet – and got less so as they got older. Losing half your classmates in mysterious circumstances probably did that to you, although even normal teenagers weren’t all sunshine and rainbows, I bet.

  Even with the pit stop, I saw my psychologist Kelly Keenn early. She hopped up from her lunch, stashing her cucumber sandwich in her translucent blue container, and just about beaming at me.

  “Tala, how unusual. You are early.” Behind her Coke-bottle glasses, with magnified green eyes almost the size of the lenses, she peered at me, as if the answer to this particular conundrum lay in whatever expression I was wearing right now.

  She motioned to a plastic high-backed chair, and, as I sat down, asked, “Is everything all right?”

  I resisted the urge to say, Of course, I’m in school for screwed-up orphans, many of who get transferred and/or never get better, but all’s just glorious, thanks for asking.

  “I… think I heard a voice in my head.” Might as well tell her.

  “Oh.” She peered closer at me and I shifted uneasily, feeling like a bug on a slide. “I see.”

  “And…”

  Another liar, another burn….

  I stiffened. What the heck was going on with me?

  “Tala?” she said.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Just remembered I forgot to do my homework.”

  She smiled mildly, adjusting the collar on her neoprene track suit. “I’ll make sure to get you out of here fast and spiffy.”

  Rising, she went over the Cupboard of Plentiful Pills (another Kian original), and took out a small cylinder of light pink pills I’d never seen before.

  “Sounds like a double dosage is the thing for it. Clean it out good, fast and spiffy,” she repeated like an automaton. She popped open the cap and handed me a pill that looked like a jellybean.

  “You just swallow it, same as normal,” she said cheerfully, as if reading my mind.

  As soon as its cotton candy-colored shell made contact with my skin, a shudder went through me.

  Do –NOT, the voice spat.

  “You okay?”

  I forced a smile. “Fine.”

  Just take the damn pill and ignore the damn voice.

  That was the unsettling thing about Miss Keenn. As nice as she was, I couldn’t shake the feeling that she found all of us psychos terrifically fascinating.

  Anyway, she was clearly waiting for me to swallow it, so I might as well do it. Or appear to, anyway.

  Once I’d done it, she leaned into the mesh back of her ergonomic swivel chair, bony veiny hands steepled. “This voice you speak of… what did it say?”

  Lie to the liar.

  “Uh… I think it was just angry.”

  “About?”

  “Forgetting to do my homework.” I rose, forcing another smile. “Speaking of, is it okay if I go work on it for the rest of the period?”

  “Of course.” Miss Keenn’s smile was frozen on, her body immobile. “You haven’t been feeling any inexplicable flashes of rage or power, have you?”

  “No, why?” I eyed her. What did she know about my condition that she wasn’t telling me?

  “No reason.” She stood up now, fixing me with one last looking-into-your-soul look. “Though you will tell me if that voice starts up again?”

  “Of course,” I said, hoping she couldn’t see it in my eyes.

  Only once I was out, down the hallway and in a bathroom stall did I dare take the pink pill out of my pocket. I dropped it in the toilet, where it bobbed innocuously.

  Had I just majorly screwed up? I was hearing an angry voice telling me to burn people, for God’s sake, and my solution was to stop my meds altogether?

  But after what I’d seen and this voice… There was something going on.

  I’d known it for a while – ignored it, stifled it, pushed it under the table. Kian and I used to make fun of Demi for her dreams that we weren’t really orphans at all, that her family was out there somewhere. But hadn’t there always been a part of this that hadn’t added up?

  With all the kids getting transferred, more and more every year; with all the graduated disappearing to never be heard from again.

  My gaze went to the bathroom stall door. There was the usual graffiti – some anonymous blue-pen-ed A + N, below it a black Sharpie-d looping-script-ed Just looove yourself. And then, near the bottom, easy to miss, was a new message.

  At least, it had to be new. No way would administration let it sit there long. Any breath of any conspiracy – most of which came from kids who were transferred within the week – was snuffed out as quickly as it arose.

  In this case, the message was: NO PILLS = KNOW THE TRUTH.

  Talk about crap timing. I glared at it, the scraggly penmanship not exactly confidence-inspiring.

  Now I was stooping to following some bathroom stall door wisdom? Maybe– with seeing dragons on the TV and hearing a voice in my head –maybe I really was crazy. But it didn’t feel that way. The voice felt like a part of me. Like it didn’t want to hurt me – like it wanted to help me.

  Everyone here knew the stories about kids who’d tried it – who’d palmed their meds and got away with it – for a while. They were the ones who had the outbursts, pulled you to the side babbling about some big conspiracy. They were the ones who got sent to the Room and didn’t come back.

  My gaze went ba
ck to the pill, which had now sunk to the bottom of the bowl. My nose scrunched up. Even if I had screwed up not taking it, no way was I fishing it out of the toilet.

  I left the stall and went to the sink with decision.

  As I tucked a strand of my straight sandy hair behind my ear, I gave my reflection my best we-got-this smile. I could just take my meds tomorrow, same as usual.

  You didn’t go crazy in a day, right?

  The rest of the afternoon passed typically enough.

  I managed to speed-finish my homework just in time, scrawling the final answers (courtesy of Jeremy’s generously offered finished work) on our walk to class.

  Miss Mildred harassed us with Latin drills until we were all ready to fling ourselves from the second-story window – and Aerwyna actually left, citing the bathroom, although I saw her strolling across the lawn a few minutes later.

  I nudged Demi, indicating the window. “Where do you think she goes?”

  “The forest.” Demi’s face was full of longing.

  “She told you?” Kian said.

  Demi shrugged. “Where else would she go?”

  “The bath,” Kian said, and we snickered.

  The Bath Incident, as it was now called, had happened a good year ago, but it wasn’t going to be forgotten any time soon.

  What had started as Jenna bitchily demanding to get in the bathroom during one of Aerwyna’s lengthy baths had degenerated into a three-hour battle of wills, by the end of which every 11th year was collected around the bathroom to watch (Jenna: “I swear to John, if you don’t come out!!” and Aerwyna: indistinct murmuring), and which only ended when Miss Mildred showed up and pried open the door. Seconds later, wrapped in a green towel, with an impassive face and vague smile, Aerwyna was floating by the crowd.

  Miss Mildred’s voice cut through our snickers: “Something funny, ladies?”

  “Maybe it’s how many homework questions they got wrong,” Jenna offered.

  Another good candidate for burning.

  I swallowed.

  “Well?” Miss Mildred was demanding.

  “We’re sorry,” Demi said quickly. “We were just-”

  “Not paying attention, that much is evident.” In their black beady way, Miss Mildred’s eyes looked downright delighted to have caught us. “And of your remorse, I am certain, Demi – but as for Miss Kian and Miss Tala, I have my doubts.”