Low School
RHYS BOWEN
Rhys Bowen currently writes two historical mystery series: the Molly Murphy novels, featuring a feisty Irish immigrant sleuth in 1900s New York City, and the lighter, funnier Royal Spyness series about Lady Georgiana, thirty-fifth in line to the British throne in the 1930s. Rhys’s books have received many award nominations and she has won thirteen major awards, including Agatha, Anthony and Macavity as well as Reader’s Choice for Best Mystery Series. Her books are definitely traditional mysteries so she loves writing short stories where she can reveal her inner dark and evil side. Rhys is a transplanted Brit, now dividing her time between California and Arizona, where she goes to escape the harsh California winters.
“Where are your two number-two pencils, properly sharpened?”
I looked up at a man who had a face like a skeleton—sunken eyes, skin stretched over cheekbones, thin humorless mouth. His glasses were perched on the end of a long nose and he was almost bald, too, completing the skeletonlike effect. He was wearing a grayish-white, short-sleeved button-down shirt with ink stains around the pocket, and a tie onto which egg had dripped at some stage. The word schoolteacher formed in my mind at the same moment that he repeated the question.
“Your two number-two pencils? Properly sharpened?” He paused, those colorless sunken eyes staring at me now with distaste. “You do have your two number-two pencils, properly sharpened, I hope?”
I patted my side, then looked around me. “I don’t seem to have brought a purse.”
He made the sort of tut-tutting noise I’d only read about before and gave a big dramatic sigh. “Not a good start to our first day, is it? The instruction sheet clearly told you that two number-two pencils would be required and that they should be properly sharpened as there is no sharpener available in the examination room.”
“I don’t think I received . . .” I stammered. “I don’t remember receiving any kind of instruction sheet.”
“Everybody is sent the instruction sheet in preparation for their first day,” the man said. “Clearly you chose to disregard the instructions. I shall have to report this to Ms. Fer.”
“Ms. Fur?”
“Our principal. And no, it is not spelled fur like the animal’s hair. It is Fer from the Latin ‘to do’ or ‘to make,’ as I’m sure you know, being a student of the subject.”
I nodded.
“I’m afraid Ms. Fer will not be pleased. Oh, dear me, no. We expect everyone here to obey the instructions to the letter.”
I shrugged. “Well, I’m sorry but I don’t remember receiving any instruction sheet. I guess it must have been lost in the mail. And I can’t make pencils appear out of thin air.”
He reached into his shirt pocket. “As it happens, I do have a pencil I can lend you, just for today,” he said. “To help you out this once. Until you know the ropes. But I expect it to be returned immediately after the examination, you understand. And don’t break the point because there is no way to sharpen it in the examination room.”
I stared at his pocket, blinked, then stared some more because I could have sworn there had been no pencil sticking out of that pocket before but now there appeared to be several. He handed it to me solemnly, as if he were bestowing a great gift. Then he glanced at his watch. “You’d better hurry. Showing up late for the examination is something that wouldn’t be so easily forgiven. Go on. Off you go.”
“Where is the exam room?” I asked. My heart was racing now.
“Didn’t bother to read that either, I see,” he said, looking down at me as if I were a hopeless case. “Not a good start, Miss Weinstein. Not what we expect here. It’s room six hundred and sixty-six. Off you go then. Hurry.”
He pushed open a door for me and I stepped through into a long hallway. It was dark and dingy, lined with lockers and with doors spaced at intervals along either side. From behind these doors came the occasional murmur of voices. But the hallway was deserted. Nobody to ask where I should go. Where the hell was I anyway? I tried to remember but my brain remained fuzzy. My nose twitched at the familiar smells—chalk and books and old sweaty socks and food left to go bad in forgotten lunch bags.
“High school!” I said out loud. That’s where I was. I was in a high school, but certainly not my own. My school was all glass and brightly lit hallways with murals on the walls. This one hadn’t had a paint job in years, nor had a janitor been around with a broom for decades, judging by the drifts of trash in the corners. I stopped walking. So what was I doing here? Why couldn’t I remember? The word accident formed itself at the back of my consciousness. Something to do with an accident. That was it—I’d been in the hospital. A bad accident, obviously, since I appeared to have lost my memory. Perhaps my parents had decided to send me to another school until I could catch up with the work I had missed. Perhaps I was only here to take an exam I had missed—the SATs? A college entrance exam? But wait—hadn’t I already taken my SATs? Or had that just been a practice test?
My stomach had tied itself into knots at the mention of the word exam. I couldn’t be late for an exam, whatever it was. I broke into a run, feeling my shoes, which were somehow too big at the heels, slipping off as I ran. Why was I wearing heavy, unfashionable shoes and not my usual heels? I tossed that thought from my mind. The only thing that mattered at this moment was to find the exam room and be on time.
I was never late for anything. I always aced exams. Honor student. Class president, that was me. And whatever this exam was, I’d ace it and get back to my own school and my old life because I sure as hell wasn’t staying in a dump like this. I almost skidded on a tossed banana peel. A door opened and a boy came out. Before I could ask him where I’d find the exam room he glanced in both directions, then took off at a run down the hall and disappeared into the gloom through more double doors at the other end. I glanced up as I saw a movement to my right. A girl was walking beside me—a dumpy, overweight girl with an awful haircut, an atrocious hand-knitted purple sweater and a long droopy skirt. Honestly, how could some people be so clueless about fashion sense? Didn’t she realize her clothes made her look like a pathetic, sagging balloon? No wonder she was sneaking along, cutting class. I would, too, if I looked like that.
I lifted my hand to brush my hair from my face and the girl did the same thing at the same time. I took a step forward and she had vanished. I stopped, stepped backward and she appeared again, looking at me with a puzzled expression.
“Wait,” I said and I saw her mouth move in sync with mine. Cautiously I lifted one hand, and to my horror she did the same. Was she making fun of me or what?
“Listen, you,” I said and took a threatening step toward her. She did the same. I froze as I realized I was staring into a mirror. This dumpy, clueless, disgusting person had to be me. I looked down and saw this was true. I was wearing a purple hand-knitted sweater and a long shapeless skirt. And as I touched the rough yarn of the sweater I remembered my mother making it for me. She was always knitting me things until I told her that there was no way I was ever going to be seen dead in something she made for me again. But that was after Sally Ann helped me lose weight and taught me how to dress.
So why had I gone back to looking like this? When had I put on all this weight I’d taken all that trouble to lose? And why wasn’t I even bothering to wear makeup? The accident—I thought. It must have been a really bad accident and I must have been in the hospital for a while and put on weight while I was there and my old clothes were the only things that would fit me. But would I ever have left the house willingly looking like this? I tried to remember getting ready this morning, eating breakfast, driving or taking a school bus, but no memories would come. I really was in a bad way, but I was sure of one thing: when I got home tonight I was going to burn these icky clothes and go on a crash diet until I looked like myself again.
Then I remembered the examination. That was more important right now than worrying about the way I was dressed. I peered through the half darkness to see if the rooms were numbered, but they were not. How was I supposed to find the six hundred hall if I didn’t know where I was now?
Simple, I thought. I’d find the office and have someone show me the way. And if I was late for the exam, they’d understand that I was new. At least I could make myself a bit more presentable before anyone saw me. I could slick back my hair and roll up that long skirt and perhaps I was wearing a T-shirt under the sweater. I ducked into a girls’ bathroom at the end of the hall and coughed as the smell of smoke met me. The air was so thick with smoke that the lighting created a red haze through which the shape of the sinks and the stalls beyond were only indistinct shapes. Then I saw that I wasn’t alone. Four girls, dressed in black, were lounging against the basins, smoking. They were all in tight, tight jeans and black T-shirts with skulls and similar scary images on them. They looked up with cold, predatory eyes as I came in. As the biggest one, wearing a studded leather jacket, turned to me, a trick of the reddish shadows almost made it look as if she had a tail. I gasped.
“Well, look what the cat just brought in,” she said. Two others straightened up.
“What do you think you’re doing, fatso scum?” The one in the studded jacket stepped right in front of me and blew smoke in my face. “Are you totally clueless? Don’t you know that this is the GothChix bathroom? Nobody else comes in here, not if they know what’s good for them. The last stupid girl said she really had to go, so could she possibly use the toilet. And you know—we let her. Well, actually we flushed her head down the toilet. And she was so scared she wet herself, remember?”
She looked to her friends for confirmation and they nodded, grinning.
“But her head wasn’t quite as round as yours. Yours would probably get stuck and the janitor would have to come and get you out.”
“Or she’d have to walk around with a toilet on her head all day,” someone else commented. “I’d like to see that.”
The other girls laughed.
“Wanna try?” She moved closer again.
“Look, I’m sorry,” I said, holding up my hands in front of me as if to ward off a blow. “I didn’t know. I’m new here. I don’t belong.”
“She’s right about that. She belongs at a bag ladies’ convention,” one of the other girls said. She gave me a shove, sending me sprawling into the big girl. The studs on that jacket dug into my cheek and I gave a cry of pain. They laughed again.
“What’s your name, bag lady?” she asked.
“It’s Amy. Amy Weinstein.”
“We won’t forget it, Amy Weinstein. We don’t like the look of you. You better watch yourself.”
Some of my innate spunk was resurfacing. “You can’t talk to me like that. I’ll report you to the principal.”
For some reason this made them roar with laughter. “Oh, that’s a good one,” one of the girls said, wiping her eyes.
“If she really wants to go see the principal, then good luck to her,” another said.
The big girl grabbed my sweater front and dragged me close to her. “I’ll tell you one thing, girl. You show your face in here again and we’ll pull out your eyelashes, one by one. Got it?” She gave me a hearty shove that sent me ricocheting off the basins and staggering into the tiled wall. “Now get lost.”
I fled, disgusted at myself for not standing up to them. The hallway was still deserted and opened into another, identical hallway. I must be really, seriously late for that exam by now. I wondered if I dared to report those girls and what they might do to me if I did. One thing’s for sure, I thought as I hurried forward, peering into the darkness that seemed even deeper in this hallway, there is no way I’m staying here. What were my parents thinking, sending me to a place like this? If it’s just one exam I’m supposed to take here, then fine, but I’m sure as hell not coming back.
Then a thought flashed across my consciousness. An image of a grave and I’m dressed in black and . . . my father is dead. I went to his funeral. I stopped walking and stood, frowning as I tried to make sense of this fact. How could that be? I tried to picture that funeral but nothing would come. A bell rang, jangling loudly above my head. Doors opened and students streamed out, making me feel like a salmon swimming upstream. I was pushed and jostled around as they hurried past.
“Wait,” I called. “I’m trying to find the six hundred hall. Room six hundred and sixty-six.”
They acted as if they hadn’t heard me. Their faces went past me in a blur. The hallway cleared until it was deserted again. I decided I should follow them—at least I’d have a chance of finding a classroom with someone in it before the next period started. As I walked on down the hall I heard the sound of knocking—a hollow hammering sound. It seemed to be coming from one of the lockers. I went over and listened. As well as the knocking I heard a muffled voice yelling, “Help, let me out.”
I opened the locker door and a small skinny boy half fell out. He was naked, wearing his underpants over his head. I helped him to his feet.
“Here,” I said, taking his underpants off his head. “You’d better put these on quickly. I won’t look.” I turned away.
“Thanks,” he said. “I’ve been in there since last night. I thought I was going to pass out from lack of air.”
“What happened to your clothes?” I looked in the locker.
“The jocks took them. I expect they’ve dumped them in the trash and they’ve been burned by now.”
“Come on,” I said. “I’ll take you to the principal’s office and you can report them. And you can telephone your parents for more clothes.”
“Are you crazy? I’m not going anywhere near the principal’s office,” he said. “I’m not that stupid. I’ll see if I can find something to fit me in the lost and found.” He started down the hall, but then turned back. “Thanks for rescuing me.”
“You should seriously report this. It’s not right. Bullies should be punished.”
“Happens all the time,” he said. “If you’re small they pick on you. Bullies rule here. You’re either the predator or the prey. And you’ll be prey, just like me.”
“Then transfer to another school.”
For some reason this made him grin. “You must be new,” he said.
“I am, and I’m supposed to be taking an exam, in the six hundred hall.”
“Room six-six-six?” he asked and made a face.
I nodded. “Can you tell me where it is? I’m already late.”
“Oh no. You’d better run. That direction. You keep going until the very end, then up the stairs to the top floor. It’s a long way. I hope they won’t give you detention on your first day.”
“Is detention that bad?”
He nodded silently. “The worst. It’s . . . down there, you know? You don’t want detention. Trust me.”
He scurried away in the opposite direction and I started to run again. It was hot and stuffy here and the sweater was way too thick and itchy. I felt perspiration trickling down under my arms and checked to see what I was wearing under that sweater. Nothing. Not even a bra. And it appeared that I had not used any deodorant because I stank. What was the matter with me—who let me leave the house dressed like this? I reached the end of the hall and as I pushed open the swinging doors into a stairwell another smell hit me. The faint odor of rotten eggs. Probably the science lab, I thought. An experiment gone wrong or students playing a trick on the science teacher by mixing the wrong chemicals.
I started up the stairs. The staircase was in almost total darkness and I kept going, up and up. I would never get to the exam at this rate. What would happen if I failed it? Or if they wouldn’t even let me take it because I was so late? Would that mean I couldn’t go back to my old school, or I’d fail my college entrance exam? I counted the floors and came at last to what had to be the sixth. How come a school this large didn’t even have an elevator? It must take forever to get between classes. My feet echoed on the vinyl floor and back from the tiled walls. Clomp, clomp, clomp. A door opened suddenly and an angry face looked out. A woman’s face, birdlike with a big nose and cold reptilian eyes.
“You, girl—what do you think you are doing?” she snapped. “Disturbing my examination.”
I glanced up at the door. The numbers 666 were now glowing over the door frame.
“I’m supposed to be here,” I said. “I’m to take this exam but nobody told me how to find the room. I’m sorry I’m late.”
“You will be sorry, if you don’t complete the exam in time,” she said. “What’s your name?”
“Amy Weinstein.”
“Ah, yes. We were expecting you.” The smile on her face was not welcoming, but instead expressed malicious delight. “Amy Weinstein who thinks a lot of herself. Thinks she’s the cat’s whiskers. Overachiever—am I right?”
“I’m a good student,” I said. “I worked hard for everything I achieved. My parents didn’t have the money to send me to a good college so I had to get a scholarship.”
I paused as I said the words. Had I already gotten into college? In which case this exam meant nothing and I didn’t have to worry about it.
“We’ll see how well you do here,” she said. “You’d better not waste any more time. You do have two number-two pencils, properly sharpened?”
“I have one,” I said. “The man at the door lent it to me. I didn’t receive any instructions. Or I might have done, but I’ve been in an accident and lost my memory.”
“That’s a poor excuse for failure, isn’t it? Go on in and take a seat at an empty desk. You’d better work fast because you only have an hour left. You wouldn’t want to find yourself in remedial classes, I’m sure.”
“Remedial? I’m in the gifted program. I’m in Advance Placement English.”
“At your old school, maybe. Here the rules are a little different.” And she smiled again. She took me by the arm and propelled me inside. Her fingers dug into my flesh like talons.
The room was much bigger than I had suspected from the outside. It stretched away into more gloom with row after row of desks at which students were scribbling furiously. Nobody even looked up as I passed them to take my place.
“Begin immediately,” the bird-woman said and I turned over the sheaf of papers that lay on the desk.
Algebra, the first one was headed. Algebra, I thought. It’s been ages since I did algebra. How long had it been, exactly? So long ago I couldn’t remember studying it at all. Why couldn’t they have told me the subjects in advance? Then I could have studied up.
I focused on the first problem. If x and then a squiggly sign I didn’t recognize to y, and then a + b in brackets, can we say that z is greater than x is? I blinked, stared at it again. It made no sense, even if I did know what that squiggly sign meant. Surely you couldn’t have so many unknowns in one problem. But the other kids seemed to be working away as if they weren’t fazed at all.
I moved on to the second question. Draw a graph to show that x/y might tend toward infinity in the circumstances z squared is less than 100. Again it made no sense to me. I had done well enough in algebra, surely, but I’d never encountered anything like this. The thought struck me that perhaps this was some kind of advance placement exam for math whizzes. Well, that wasn’t me, anyway. I’d never claimed to be a math whiz. My strengths had always been in the arts—reading, writing, history, languages, that was where I shone.
I turned over the algebra sheet and flipped ahead to see how much of the exam was math. Then I heaved a sigh of relief as I saw pages of writing ahead. World history. Good. I’d ace this part.
Discuss the treaty of Nebrachshazar in fourth-century BC and how it affected the development of cuneiform writing for the Babylonian people.