Night School

She and Jo were sitting in the dining room as the lunch crowd waned, twirling salad leaves around their plates and talking about Carter.

Jo wrinkled her pert nose. ‘He probably just wants you to fancy him. He wants everyone to fancy him.’

‘Well if that’s the case, then he’s kind of failing,’ Allie said. ‘God, can you believe the energy we’re giving this conversation about some guy we don’t even like? Tell me about Gabe. How long have you two been together?’

Jo brightened. ‘Let’s see. We’ve been together more than a year now. When I first came here I was going out with this guy Lucas, but then I met Gabe and it was just … like, forget it. He’s the coolest guy I’ve ever known. The funniest. The sexiest. The … everything.’ She laughed at her own giddiness.

‘I can’t believe you’ve been going out a whole year,’ Allie said. ‘I don’t know anybody who’s been together that long.’

Jo set her fork down. ‘Cimmeria’s funny that way. People who get together tend to stay together. That’s why everybody talks about Carter so much. It’s kind of not done, the whole one-night-stand thing. I don’t know why. Maybe because we’re here so much of the time. I mean, some kids here, like, never go home. They’re just always here. Like this is their home. And we’re their family.’

‘Who does that?’ Allie asked curiously.

‘Well, Carter. And Gabe. And, well, me, I guess.’

Allie couldn’t hide her surprise. ‘You never go home?’

‘Long story,’ Jo said with a shrug.

She looked around the room, which was nearly empty. ‘Oh bollocks! What time is it?’

They both reached for their book bags and ran out the door, down the hallway and up the stairs. As they neared the first floor landing they were both giggling hysterically.

‘Late again!’ Allie said as they careened down the corridor and divided to go to their separate classes.

‘What are we like?’ Jo giggled breathlessly.

Allie stopped at the closed door to her history class to catch her breath, then opened it quietly. In the awful sudden stillness, the students all turned to look at her.

‘Miss Sheridan.’ Mr Zelazny insisted on keeping an old-fashioned chalkboard in his room, and he was standing in front of it now, glaring at her. ‘Class started two minutes ago. I know you’re new, but I presume you know our rules on tardiness.’

Allie nodded mutely.

‘Yes? Good. Well then, see me after class.’

Allie trudged to her seat, her eyes downcast.

I can’t do anything right.

No matter how hard she tried to change her life it didn’t work. It was as if trouble were her default setting.

At the end of class she waited for the others to leave, pretending to organise her books until the room was mostly empty. Then she walked up to Mr Zelazny’s desk. He was writing, and did not immediately look up. She cleared her throat timidly. After a moment, he raised his head and fixed her with an icy glare.

‘I’m very sorry to have to speak to you a second time about tardiness in your first week. It is a very bad sign for your future at Cimmeria Academy. I know the other teachers say you have great promise, but I must say I haven’t seen any sign of it.’

An angry flush rose to Allie’s cheeks, but she bit her lip and said nothing. He held out a handwritten piece of paper.

‘This is your detention notice. Tomorrow morning at six-thirty, meet the group outside the chapel and hand the teacher this.’

Allie couldn’t believe it.

‘Six-thirty in the morning? But tomorrow’s Saturday!’

His expression of cool disinterest did not change. ‘I’ve only given you one day’s detention, Miss Sheridan. If it happens again I will make it a week.’

Allie walked into English class draped in an almost visible shroud of frustration. Isabelle gave her a questioning look, but Allie lowered her eyes to her book and, as the headmistress began the class, slipped, relieved, into the familiar cotton wool world of self-pity until Carter walked in five minutes later.

Isabelle stopped her lecture. ‘Carter, you’re usually a little late and I’m willing to overlook a little tardiness but this is ridiculous. Do you have an excuse?’

‘Just running late, Isabelle,’ Carter shrugged. ‘It happens.’

The headmistress sighed and made a note on a piece of paper in her hand. ‘You know the rules, Carter. Please stay after class to speak with me.’

When a discussion of T.S. Eliot ensued, Allie tuned out, fretting about what detention would entail and wondering (secretly hoping) if Jo had been given detention too so she wouldn’t be alone. She felt a quick lash of guilt for hoping that something bad had happened to her only friend at Cimmeria.

Suddenly she tuned back in, hypnotised by the combination of words and the familiar voice reading them. She’d always hated poetry, but she’d never heard poetry like this.

‘And I will show you something different from either

Your shadow at morning striding behind you

Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;

I will show you fear in a handful of dust.’