Night School

She and Lucas were both now giggling uncontrollably. ‘Just about every girl in this school wants to go out with him and you just dumped him.’


Allie felt her face redden, and she looked around to make sure nobody had heard them.

‘Will you shut up?’ she hissed. ‘Seriously!’

As they tried to control themselves, with Rachel wiping the tears of laughter from her eyes, Allie turned the pages of her book, frowning. ‘Well, he was a wanker,’ she muttered defensively.

That set them off again only this time Allie found herself joining in. It was, she had to admit, kind of funny. In an awful way.

That night after dinner, bored of the library, Allie retreated to the common room to read her English assignment. Even after a week of trying to catch up, she was still behind on her work. Despite the fire and Ruth’s death, teachers had been ratcheting up the pressure, and she had mountains of chapters to read. But by nine o’clock, she was half-asleep, curled up in a deep leather chair near the unplayed piano in one corner of the room with her head resting on one hand and the words on the page in front of her starting to swim. When a piece of paper folded into a tiny square was shoved in front of her, it took her a moment to absorb what was happening.

‘Your mate Carter asked me to give it to you,’ Lucas whispered, putting a sarcastic emphasis on the word ‘mate’.

‘What? Where is he?’ Allie asked, sitting up and looking around her.

Lucas shrugged. ‘I passed him in the hall a few minutes ago. I gotta run. We’re playing cricket out front.’

Glancing around to make sure nobody observed her, Allie unfolded the piece of notebook paper. Carter’s neat handwriting filled only a few lines at the centre of the page.

Allie

We need to talk.

Come and find me at 9:30, in the library. I’ll be

in the ancient Latin section in the back left

corner. Don’t let Sylvain see you looking for me.

C



Allie’s heart beat faster. As soon as she finished reading the words, she folded the note in half to hide its message and slipped it between the pages of her book.

The next twenty minutes went by slowly as she tried to read but found it impossible to concentrate. Finally, at nine twenty-five, she gathered her things and, stretching theatrically to indicate how tired she was in case anyone was watching, she rose from her chair.

‘Well, I guess I’m off to bed,’ she said to nobody before heading for the door.

Once out in the hallway she stopped and flipped through her papers, waiting to see if anybody followed her out. When nobody came out after her, she headed for the library, stopping to look over her shoulder before opening the door.

Inside, the room was full but hushed, and as she walked across the soft rugs she flipped through the pages of her notebook as if looking for something. Occasionally she peered at book numbers on shelves, then as if she hadn’t found what she sought, moved on.

I should be an actress, she thought. So convincing.

Gradually she made her way past the wall of elaborate panelling where the senior student study cubicles held their strangely violent murals, and then on to the section on ancient languages. The further back she went the fewer people she saw. By the time she reached the bookshelves lining the back wall there was nobody around at all.

Unsure where the Latin books were kept, she moved aisle by aisle, pulling heavy books off the shelves to determine the language. But although she found rows of dusty leather-bound books in Greek and entire stacks in Arabic, she found no Latin.

‘Why have they hidden the Latin books?’ she muttered. ‘Is this some sort of clever joke? Like, if you want to read Latin you have to go the …’

‘Allie.’

The whisper that cut off her random thoughts came from somewhere ahead of her, in the very back corner of the room.

‘Carter?’ The lighting was dim. As Allie squinted to see who’d spoken a hand reached out of the shadows and pulled her into the space between two towering bookcases.

‘Jesus,’ Allie said. ‘A simple “Hello” would do.’

Carter didn’t smile. ‘I’m sorry, I just wanted you to get back here before everybody in the library wondered what you were doing hanging out in the ancient languages section talking to yourself.’

‘A paper on ancient Rome for history class.’

Allie was delighted with her cover story, but Carter didn’t look impressed. ‘We’re studying Cromwell.’

‘I’m working ahead,’ she said defensively. ‘We must study Rome at some point.’

‘Very convincing.’

As she took in his humourless face, her heart sank. ‘What’s wrong, Carter? What’s with all the intrigue? Why didn’t you just come get me in the common room?’

‘Look, we have a problem.’ Crossing his arms, he leaned back against a bookcase as if he was trying to put distance between them.

‘Right,’ she said. ‘What’s our problem?’