Scar Island by Dan Gemeinhart
It’s no fun shivering when you’re wearing handcuffs.
It doesn’t help to be seasick, either.
Jonathan Grisby sat hunched over in the wildly rocking boat and tried not to throw up. And he tried not to let his teeth chatter together so hard that they shattered. And he tried, at the same time, to look like he didn’t care.
It wasn’t easy.
The little boat rocketed off of each wave and crashed into the next with a jolt that sent shots of pain into his rear from the metal bench. His clothes were wet from the salty spray. The wind kept blowing his straight black hair into his eyes, and with his hands cuffed he couldn’t brush it away. The sun was already down and every second brought more darkness.
He noticed the boat’s pilot grinning at him. It wasn’t a nice grin. He was missing most of his teeth, and the few that he still had were brown and crooked. Tobacco juice dribbled out from his bottom lip into his scraggly gray beard.
“Ya look scared!” the pilot shouted over the whine of the outboard motor that he steered with one hand. Jonathan just blinked and looked away.
“ ’Tis all right to be scared, boy.” The pilot eased back on the motor, slowing the boat so that he didn’t have to yell. He was still smiling, and his eyes twinkled with a mean hunger. “I’d be scared, too, if I was goin’ where you be goin’.” The pilot’s smile widened, showing off even more stained teeth.
Jonathan threw back his head to clear the hair from his eyes and looked out over the white-capped ocean, ignoring the leering pilot. He was sitting with his back toward the front of the boat, facing the pilot and the dock they had left minutes before. Next to the pilot sat his partner. He was young, maybe seventeen or eighteen, with a kinder face. Not much more than a kid, really.
“Aw, leave ’im alone, Cyrus,” the younger man said. “There’s no need to tease ’im.”
“I ain’t teasin’, Patrick. I’m warnin’.” The grizzled pilot narrowed his eyes and nodded at Jonathan as he spoke. “Wouldn’t be fair to toss him to the wolves with him thinkin’ he’s goin’ on some seaside vacation! ’Tis a dark place yer goin’, boy. A dark place indeed.”
Jonathan, trying to ignore the old pilot, looked at the younger man, Patrick. Patrick’s eyes slid away from his own. Like he felt bad. Like maybe the old man was telling the truth.
“ ’Course, ye probably knew ’twas a dark place, though, didn’t ya?” Cyrus continued. “That’s why yer goin’ there, after all. A dark place for dark youths such as yourself. Troublemakers. Delinquents. Criminals.” He savored each word in his mouth like a salty piece of bacon.
“How old are ye, boy? Twelve? Thirteen?”
Jonathan bit his lip. He didn’t want to talk to Cyrus. But he was feeling awfully lonely, handcuffed in a boat on the way to prison.
“Something like that,” he said at last, with a shrug.
Cyrus’s mouth widened into a wolf’s grin. “Ah, yer right in the middle, then. Criminal boys, aged ten to fourteen. That’s what Slabhenge is for, idn’t it? Can’t imagine what dark crime ya committed to get yourself sent here, boy. They’ll have ya meek as a lamb in no time, I’d wager, beggin’ to run back to yer mama’s lap.”
“Leave him alone, Cyrus.” Patrick spoke again. “There’s no point in taunting him so.”
Cyrus’s eyes widened innocently. “I ain’t trying to taunt him, Patrick! I just feel the boy should know what he’s gettin’ into, is all.”
Patrick frowned and looked out over the water.
“Ah, and there she is!” Cyrus crowed. “Go ahead, boy, turn around and take a look at yer new home!”
Jonathan twisted in his seat and craned his neck to get his first view of the Slabhenge Reformatory School for Troubled Boys over the rusted bow of the boat.
It was a hulking, jagged building of gray stone, surrounded on all sides by the foaming sea. The walls were high, rising up two or three stories from the crashing waves. Several towers stabbed up even higher into the gathering black clouds from each corner of the building. Each was flat-topped and crowned with a black iron railing. A few dark windows dotted the higher parts of the walls. Instead of glass, they all had thick metal bars. In a movie, it would be where the evil lord lived. Or where the good guy died.