Chapter Four
The School & Evi's Dad
"Summer, how are you so far away, yet so close...at the same time?" I recited dreamily, talking with a Shakespeare-esque air. Then I switched to normal voice as thoughts of facing the nasty cafeteria along with the danger of a rush at school tomorrow. Oh, and I couldn't forget Maddie and co. They were a bundle of joy.
Evelyn snapped me out if my thoughts (If you haven't noticed, I daze out often) "You look kinda fisheyed like that."
"What? Oh. Well. Don't I feel special."
"Hey, it's not an insult if it's the truth. No, I'm kidding. It's not an insult because I'm your best friend."
I rolled my eyes. "Suuure. Think whatever you want. Do I need to take you home?"
"Yeah. You could hang out at my house for a while."
Evelyn was the only person who'd want to hang out with me right after hanging out with me.
"Sadly I can't. I'm getting my braces off."
"Aw man."
"No, not aw man. It's "oh yes!" Braces off!"
"Right. Yay. Sorry, I'm tired."
"It's fine. And besides, after that were taking my laptop into Best Buy. It has a virus. No wonder, it's so old."
"Really? You know, my dad could fix it. He's great with computers and technology. That kind of stuff."
"And at the same time, he's a super brain scientist? Wow."
She laughed. "You can bring it with you and drop it off at my house."
"Okay, great, I'll tell my mom. Now go get dressed."
She nodded and once she was packed up, I got my laptop and we set out on the golf cart.
Five minutes later, I parked it in her driveway and followed her inside, clutching my computer in my fingers. I was hardly able to fend Chevy off me, but Evelyn said something to him. At least I think. She opened her mouth and moved it like she was talking, but no sound came out. It was like watching a movie on mute.
I'm assuming Chevy heard what she said, and his ears wilted a little as he backed off of me and set his front paws back on the ground. I petted his head but he shambled off dejectedly.
"That was cool. But it looked weird."
"What did it look like to you?"
"Like you were talking but there was no sound."
She scratched Chevy's ears as she explained, "Yeah, thats what it looks like to most people. It's because when I talk to dogs, it's formatted for dogs to hear. Humans' brains aren't capable of understanding. Rarely you might understand some of what a dog is trying to tell you, but only if he's smart enough to try and communicate in the first place."
Evelyn's dad walked in. When he saw me, he gave me a warm smile. "Ari! Good to see you!"
"Thanks, you too." I smiled back.
"Ari's dropping off her laptop here because it has a virus," Evelyn said.
"Ah, I see. I'll fix it for you then," he said. "Doctor the virus out. Viruses are just like colds, you know. You suffer for a short time, but once it's gone you're fine."
"Thank you, Mr. Pulcher." I handed my laptop to him, letting his analogy sink in. He quickly booted up the ancient machine. Evelyn went to her room. I stood there awkwardly, wanting to make sure he knew what was wrong with it.
He clicked around for a few minutes until he said, "Ah, I've found your virus. You have antivirus, right?"
I nodded.
He continued, "It'll be easy to remove but it may take about two hours."
"Oh, okay. Thanks," I said, slightly surprised. I watched as Mr. Pulcher clicked a few times and a loading process began on the screen.
Evelyn walked out and said, "Wow Dad, got it already?"
"Yep. In the time of two hours her computer will be perfectly healthy."
"Thank you again, Mr. Pulcher."
He nodded and winked at me. I turned to take a step but stopped when he asked me, "So, what do you think about the academy?"
At first I had no idea what he meant. "Huh?"
"Well, didn't Evi tell you?"
A few seconds passed. Then the wheels of my brain clicked into place. The phone conversation!... that I overheard.
"No, she didn't tell me." That was true, right. She didn't tell me directly. So I wasn't lying. Right?
Mr. P smiled. "Well, I must have underestimated her ability to keep her mouth shut! To make a long story short, it's a school I run for people with abilities. Evelyn told me all about your ability. Oh, and you're invited to attend the academy on a full scholarship."
It took my brain a little bit to catch up.
I don't even know what my facial expression looked like at the time; I couldn't remember if I tried. Those three sentences seemed too good to be true. I didn't have to go to school at Bearin High School anymore? No more Maddie and co.? A whole SCHOOL full of people with abilities? Run by Evelyn's dad? I couldn't believe it.
"Really?!?!" was the only word I managed to squeak out after all those thoughts.
He nodded. "Are you interested?"
I nodded eagerly. "Y-yeah!! Of course! Are you kidding?"
He smiled. "Would you like to look at the academy now?"
My eyes lit up. "Yeah! Wait," my face fell. "I'm getting my braces off. I don't have time to drive somewhere with you. Sorry."
"Hey, who says you have to drive anywhere?" Evelyn grinned.
I blinked. "What are you talking about?"
"The academy. It's right here."
"I don't have time to walk anywhere either- wait. Are you sure? I've never seen a school around here. Is it invisible or something? Oooh, this is fun, I wanna go to an invisible school!"
"No, it's not invisible," Mr. P laughs. "Not quite."
"I don't get it. Then where is it?"
"It's right here," Evelyn says and walks across the living room and down the hall on the left side of the entryway. I walk behind her to the door at the end of it.
"Follow me." She grabs my arm and pulls me down a flight of stairs on the other side of the door. I can hardly see a thing, so I'm glad for her steering me.
We climb down more and more stairs and turn a few more times. I'm getting dizzy. Meanwhile Evelyn explains, "The goal of the academy is to train its students to become efficient users of their abilities and to prepare them for a possible career in the league of elite ability users that keep the world in check." She was talking so fast that after she finishes saying that, she exhales a huge breath.
"Wow, there's a league?"
"It's called the National Gifted Association of Control. Sort of like the FBI but it's people with abilities."
Finally we come to the bottom. Evelyn turns on a light switch which illuminates the room and half the staircase.
"Whoa. What the heck is this?" We're in a large, wide room, the floor is shining white wood and the walls are also white. On the opposite wall are seven elevator doors. The right wall contains a single hallway which branches off to I-don't-know-where.
"The entrance to the academy," Evelyn says simply.
"Entrance to-huh-what? You have the academy UNDER YOUR HOUSE?"
She shrugs. "Basically."
"How did this get here? It has to have cost...." I trailed off. Evelyn's dad was pretty loaded but I didn't see how he could easily afford a school under his house!
"It's government funded, mainly because we needed a school for people with abilities. My dad was qualified to be the principal. He prefers that over headmaster, by the way. Anyway, the school board was happy to make one here; it's an ideal place." She said all this sounding exactly like a tour guide.
She pushes one of the elevator buttons and we got in. I wrapped my brain around what she said as the elevator traveled down and we exited it into a large central room. My mouth came apart from my jaw a little. We were standing on a balcony overlooking a large central room. Wide, white staircases with gray banisters led down to said room. The floor was shining white wood and the wall was polished white cinderblocks.
Everything looked new and modern. There were a few gray benches and tables in the area.
"It's... so big," I say.
"Well, yeah. It's a school."
I followed Evelyn down the stairs as we stood in the center of the room. "This room is called the commons, where everybody comes and hangs out in the morning."
She pointed to a door on the opposite wall and told me that was the cafeteria. There was another hallway going left ("That's the junior and senior wing.") A third one, mirroring the junior/senior wing, adorned the right wall. "And that's the freshman and sophomore wing. I think we should've called them something more fun but Dad said, 'No, Evelyn, this is a school. It's something we have to be serious about.'"
She took me down the sophomore wing. Red, white and blue lockers lined the walls in between classrooms. Evelyn said that her dad didn't want a school color or mascot, so he decided to be patriotic instead. Now they're the unofficial school colors. We peeked in a few classrooms and then Evelyn stepped out into the middle of the hall like she wanted to move on.
"Wow, this is so amazing. You have a freaking academy under your house!!"
"And there's another floor."
"Ooh, yay!"
We went back into the big entry room and she took me down a flight of stairs that were right under the balcony we had entered on. I hadn't noticed them until now. We went down them, made two turns, and ended up in the middle of a hallway that looked different from the ones upstairs. The floor was black carpet. The walls were white bricks. A few classroom doors were visible as I looked down.
"Wow, this is cool. What's it for?"
"Well, the original school didn't have it. But twenty years ago, when the very first freshman class that went here were seniors, one of the students kind of...went crazy." She twirled a finger near her temple for effect. "His power was healing, so he was basically indestructible. He went after the students and some of them were hurt. But with all the teachers' and some of the students' abilities put together, they trapped him and tied him up. They got him out of the school and put in a loony bin."
"Whoa, that's crazy! Why did he go insane?"
"Nobody knows. Anyway, they decided to build the bottom floor because it was more secure, and it would keep the students safer."
"Cool. So can I see the classrooms down here?"
Evelyn showed me the left end of the hall, which ended in a right turn. "There's nothing down there, just some janitors closets, storage and some weird rooms. I'm not supposed to go down there."
We went right and there were a few more classrooms, a large storage room and a slightly smaller cafeteria than the one upstairs.
"That's where the seniors eat. They don't have lunch with us."
"Oh. Why?"
"I don't know, because they couldn't build a cafeteria big enough for everybody?"
"Or maybe to keep the seniors safe from Psycho Healer Dude!" I cried.
She laughed. "Oh, I almost forgot about this thing I have to show you!" In her eyes I saw back the glimmer of my friend Evelyn, instead of Female Tour Guide. We strolled down back to the big storage room at the right end. She walked into it and opened up a closet door. I watched her as she bent down and traced her hand over the bottom of a shelf of the right side closet wall. She seemed to have found it when something clicked and the shelf moved.
Not a shelf! A door! It was attached to a part of the wall which opened as a secret door.
"Whoa! Cool!" I looked behind the door to see...another staircase. It was going up. I swear I'm gonna get leg biceps from all these stairs. We climbed it and were in a large empty room. It had the same black carpeting but the walls were red brick. There was a fireplace on one wall. A few beanbags were scattered around the room.
"What's this room for?" I asked finally.
"I don't know. My dad didn't even show it to me on his tour. I got a note giving me instructions on how to find it."
"Awesome. Who was the note from?"
"No idea."
"Well, do you think your dad knows it's there?"
"No, he's never said anything about it and I don't really wanna ask him."
I nodded, imagining it. 'Hey Dad, nice shoes. By the way, know anything about that secret room you get to from the downstairs storage room closet?'
"So it's your little secret."
She nodded. "And yours too. It'll be our secret place, like we talked about when we met as kids."
"Awesome!" We stood in silence and then I asked, "So do you teach sports or anything here?"
"We have fitness as part of one of the classes. We have the classes that teach how to control your ability, but we also have to teach normal subjects like math and science. Oh, I forgot to show you the fields. And the dorms. And the-"
"Oh, SHOOT!" I interrupted loudly. "I'm probably late for my orthodontist appointment!!" I raced with her up through the school back into her house. "Can you take the golf cart back? I'm running home. It'll be way faster."
"Sure. And think about going to the school, okay?"
A smile split across my face. "Bye, Mr. Pulcher!!" I yelled to him and sped out the door.
Mom drove me to my appointment and we made it just in time. A little while later I looked into the mirror. I smiled. There was no glint of metal. Just plain teeth.
The whole ride back to the house, I was feeling up my own mouth with my tongue. It just felt so....smooth.
I was so going to eat a bunch of candy when I got home.
"Gummies, pretzels, caramel. Come to me!!! You can't hide anymore!!" I yelled as I went into the house.
"Uh, no way," my mom said, following me. "You'll spoil lunch."
I groaned and flopped up to my room. Taking selfies seemed like a sensible thing to do, so I did that, smiling widely in most of the pictures.
Then my phone started ringing. It was Evi, so I answered it right away. "Hey. My teeth are kinda sore. It feels really weird and smooth though. I keep feeling my teeth with my tongue, so it's like, tired!! Ah, stop!" That was to myself, I was doing it again.
"Uh, right. You're being really random. Anyway, did you mention anything about the school to your mom?" Her voice was urgent.
"AHHH!" I face palmed myself. "No! I can't believe I forgot!"
"Thank GOODNESS you haven't. Is she there?"
"Not here, I'll go get her."
"No, I wanted to make sure she couldn't hear me. You're alone?"
"Uh huh."
"Great. So, obviously your mom doesn't know about the abilities, so she won't understand why there's a secret school under my house. The cover story is, it's a small teaching program run by my dad. Sort of like homeschool but it's more like class-size. That serves to explains why some people come to my house in the mornings. I'll explain more later about we get a whole school of kids under my house. But anyway, that's what you tell your mom."
"Oh, okay. Cover story, got it. What's it called? The fake homeschool thing."
"We call it Pulcher Educational Program."
"Okay. That sounds real enough."
"I know. Oh, and make sure to mention, we have a few helpers that come to teach us things like music and sports, so it sounds "wholesome" to your mom. If you tell her it's a great opportunity for you, she'll probably let you go. I mean, you want to, right?"
"Of course I do! That's all I was thinking about when the orthodontist was groping around my mouth."
She giggled. "Oh my god. That was a bad choice of words."
Suddenly a thought occurred to me. "What if Mom wants to see me at school? Or just, like, happens to drop by and wanted to say hi?"
"Me and Dad are working on a room and buying some desks so it looks like a little school. What happens is, we call you, me, and some other students up to look like we've been there the whole time. Dad will probably be in his office so he'll just call us up there after he sees your mom."
"Oh, okay. That seems like a lot of work to keep up the cover story."
"It is. So you should say something to her like, having visitors here during school hours is really disruptive. That should work to keep her away most of the time. It sounds like a really flimsy cover story, I know, but if my dad didn't think it would work, he would come up with something else."
"Okay. Thanks for telling me, I might've spilled sooner or later."
"You're welcome. You're kind of a special case, most of the parents knew their kids would have abilities before they were born. It's hereditary...so I don't know how you got it."
"It's hereditary?" I asked with sudden interest.
"Yeah. Once in a while you'll get one that skips a generation, but the generation without the ability usually shows up in its kids."
"But can you be born from people who've never had an ability?"
"If the parents or grandparents didn't, then you won't. I've never heard of that happening."
"Okay. Listen, I have to go. Thanks for your help, bye." We hung up.
Suddenly I'm bouncing on my heels. It's not a rush, I'm just hyper. Whoa, my teeth feel weird again! I think about the academy. I think about the hereditary thing. Life is really weird.
I jump up and start skipping around the house. Then I do some ballet moves. I bet I look like a leaping gazelle. I grin at the thought and flip my hair in a midair jump. Then I feel myself go off balance. Ahh! Hair in face! Can't see! Help!
I crash onto the couch. Sudden memories of my fall the day I got my ability come back. Shaking it off, I get up and continue my dance routine.
Then I catch the blur of a figure standing there. The blue sweater is unmistakably my mother's. Whoa, deja vu much? This seems to have happened before, me being caught in the act.
All that runs through my head in less than a second and I freeze. My mom is standing there holding a Flip camera and holding back a laugh.
"Mom??? How long have you been there?" I cry. That makes her burst out in giggles.
"Ari-" but she can't say anything else because she's laughing.
Finally she gets a hold of herself and pushed a button on the camera and lowers it. "Okay, let me explain. I was on a parenting website-"
"Oh, not again!" I interrupt. "Oops, sorry. Continue."
Mom gives me a look and then says, "Anyway, I was reading an article on creative punishments. Supposedly they're more effective than the usual 'no TV for a week' kind of thing. So, this-" she gestures to the camera "-is YOUR punishment for almost being late for your appointment. Call it probation, but just know that I'll be using it if you ever step too far over the line."
"Blackmail?!?!" I cry. "Mom, that's..." But I can't think of the right word. How is it possible for my mom to be so cool and so uncool at the same time?
"Uh HUH." She smiles matter-of-factly. "So just watch yourself, missy."
"Wait, so you think I need incentive to follow the rules? I hardly ever break the rules."
"I know," she explains. "But I know I've been trying to ignore the fact that you're a teenager. I've been treating you about the same for a few years now. But you're older, and I'm expecting that rebellious teenage streak any time now. In fact, I expect it. So I'm just preparing."
"Uh, wha-" As I'm standing there, mouth open, trying to wrap my mind around everything, my mom walks away, waving the camera triumphantly, with a smug look only a mother like her could pull off. In fact, I completely forgot to ask about Evelyn's "homeschooling" offer.
Rebellious teenage streak? I don't know of anyone who's ever gotten one if those. Where does Mom come up with this stuff? Hey, that reminds me.
"Hey, Mom!" I followed her into the kitchen and said, "So, I was at Evelyn's and she was telling me about this thing her dad does. It's like homeschooling except there's like a class of kids there that he teaches. Anyway, he's certified (I assumed) and I was thinking about going to that in place if regular school."
My mom raised her eyebrows at my words. "You mean, instead of public school?"
I nodded. "It's a great opportunity. He does it at his house so I could just walk there every morning."
"So, let me get this straight." Mom put down her knife and turned to face me. "Evelyn's father homeschools a class full of students at his house, as a certified substitute for regular school?"
"Yeah, pretty much." I shrugged.
"How does he afford it?"
"You know they're kind of rich."
"Yes...and he offered for you to be a part of this program?"
"Uh huh. Personally I think it's a great idea. It's like homeschooling, so private, but a class of students opens the door for me to make friends in a secure, intimate environment." I tried to keep my face neutral, but I was surprised, since have NO idea where those words came from.
"Hmm." My mom was fully considering it now, I knew it was because of the friend thing. She would always jump at the chance for me to make more friends. "Does it cost?"
"No."
"So, what does he call it? Is he licensed by the state?"
"It's called Pulcher Educational Program, and I'm pretty sure he's licensed."
My mom continued to pepper me with questions, which I answered the best I could. After asking me if he taught all subjects ("I'm pretty sure, Mom.") she seemed satisfied. "Well, I'll think about it, but I want to talk to Mr. Pulcher about it. And you're sure that's what you want?"
"Yeah, totally."
My mom smiled at me. "You know, you really are growing up."
"Um, if you say so...."
Mom laughed at me. "Go do whatever. I'm cooking."
"Okay, love you."
"Love you too, hon."
I walked away slowly, thinking. I don't know what I'll do if I can't go to AIGEA.
***
Long chapter. Yay!
So if you're reading this please comment what you think. I would love it c: