Rhett McLaughlin - The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek

Alicia really missed cupcakes.

She stared forward the way the girl did, subtly shaking her head that no thanks, she didn’t need the peas.

The girl coughed, one hand over her mouth, then slid her tray an inch closer to Alicia, who was starting to get annoyed. Why was this girl so obsessed with sharing her peas? Was she mentally unstable? Or was she trying to get Alicia in trouble? Alicia glanced down at the plate once more, and that was when she saw it:

J.

The peas were arranged to form the letter J.

The girl saw Alicia receive the message. Still staring straight ahead, she patted her chest twice and gave the smallest of smiles.

Alicia understood; it was a nod to the A that Alicia had written in blood on the wall, the very act that had gotten her sent to the Roll. This girl didn’t want to go by Candidatus either.

Alicia had gone so many days without genuinely connecting with anyone that the interaction invigorated her, giving her a warm feeling in her chest like a favorite T-shirt she’d discovered buried in a drawer.

J slid the tray back to its regular position and spooned some peas into her mouth.

Alicia kept J in the corner of her eye through the rest of the meal, but she made no further attempts to communicate.

—

TWO DAYS WENT by before J made contact again.

Not that Alicia was counting or anything.

The cafeteria exchange—if you could even call it that—had affected her more than she’d first realized. Knowing that she wasn’t alone—that she had an ally at Whitewood, maybe even a friend —made her all the more determined to hold on to her Alicia-ness.

And weirdly, knowing there was someone she wanted to run into again inspired Alicia to be, for at least a brief time, obedient. She held her tongue and kept her head down, hoping she wouldn’t be sent to the Roll again before she’d communicated with J.

Opportunities to connect, however, proved rare, and the wait was excruciating. Though Alicia saw her every day at lunch, she couldn’t bring herself to sit at J’s table. She didn’t want to inadvertently reveal their connection to the helpers, who might stamp out the friendship before it even started. No, J had to be the one to make the next move.

Which she finally did. In the Leisure Room.

The students of Whitewood had two options for spending their limited break time: their dorm room or the Leisure Room. In the latter—which was really just a small library, complete with built-in bookshelves on three of the walls—Candidati were allowed to sit on the worn wooden floor and read from the sparse collection of old books. Alicia hadn’t found anything written after 1960. There was one entire wall of Bibles (all King James Version) along with other religious writings and, randomly, about a dozen primers for learning Latin. The other two walls’ shelves were full of classic literature that Headmaster had apparently deemed acceptable for young, impressionable minds.

During her first stint in the Leisure Room, Alicia had picked up The Pilgrim’s Progress , having heard her grandfather talk about it before, but three pages in she found it impenetrable. And so she had chosen to spend her remaining time in thought, imagining what her first week of freshman year at Bleak Creek High would have been like. She wondered if Rex and Leif had successfully pulled off their plan to avoid sitting with Mark Hornhat at lunch. Probably not without me, she thought.

Now, during her second visit to the Leisure Room, she planned to bypass the books altogether and simply sit, letting her mind take her on a journey. But as she entered the room and looked over the twenty or so students who had already found a seat on the floor, she caught a glimpse of those thick eyebrows.

She didn’t want to make her interest in J too obvious, so instead of facing her, she took a seat about ten feet away and turned ninety degrees, placing her new friend in her periphery.

Then she waited.

For a few minutes, J remained motionless, not looking up from her copy of Treasure Island . Alicia started to lose hope, thinking J had changed her mind about continuing their secret connection.

But then J coughed.

Alicia turned her head slowly to see that J was looking just above the giant book in her hands, directly at her.

Alicia then looked over at the helper assigned to the Leisure Room, a skinny guy with Luke Perry sideburns who Alicia had decided must be newer, as he didn’t seem that much older than the students. He was deeply engrossed in a Hardy Boys novel.

J coughed again. She subtly lifted her chin, as if pointing to something. When Alicia tracked her eyeline, all she saw was the same FOLLOW sign that hung in every room.

J slowly stood, then walked to the helper and asked if she could go to the bathroom. He nodded without looking up from his book, and J left the room.

Alicia was confused for a second before she understood.

FOLLOW .

“Helper, may I use the restroom?” she asked, getting to her feet.

“Somebody just went, Candidatus,” the helper said, still not looking up. “You can go when she gets back.”

“I really have to go,” Alicia said. “Like, really really.”

The helper looked at her over the pages of his book, skeptical but also clearly wanting to get back to those Hardy boys. They must be on a very exciting case, Alicia thought. “Fine. But make it quick.”

“Thank you, Helper,” Alicia said, but he was already back with Frank and Joe.

Alicia headed out into the beige hallway and saw J’s dark hair turning the corner all the way down at the other end of the hall. She’d passed right by the girls’ bathroom. Alicia picked up her pace to try to catch up.

Her heart beat extra fast, knowing that if she was caught roaming like this, she’d almost definitely end up in the Roll again.

It was worth it, though.

When Alicia turned the corner, J was hovering about twenty steps ahead. She nodded at Alicia and then stepped into the wall. Alicia half believed some kind of magic had occurred until she reached the spot where J had been and saw that it wasn’t actually a wall, but a beige curtain that she’d never noticed. She looked around nervously before threading her body past the curtain to find…another hallway.

J was about halfway down, standing next to an open door, gesturing with her hand like Come on come on come on quickly come on.

Alicia suddenly worried. Was this a trap? But even if it was, it couldn’t make things worse than they already were. The words of the helper rang in her ears: Make it quick. She speed-walked the remaining distance to J and went through the open door.

What she saw took her breath away.

She’d been assuming this was J’s dorm room, but it was immediately clear that she’d been wrong. The room was huge, at least three times as large as the cramped space Alicia shared with her roommate. But the most startling part was the colors. The walls were covered with a pink, blue, and violet floral-patterned wallpaper, while the white four-poster bed was draped with a deep purple comforter and topped with fluffy tasseled pillows of multiple patterns and a worn blue crochet toy frog that looked homemade. Across from the bed stood a teal desk with an orange mug filled with pens and pencils of every shade. Having spent a week seeing little other than beige throughout all of the school, the colors overwhelmed Alicia, seeming to spill into her other senses.

As she caught her breath, she registered that this was a little girl’s bedroom. But something was a bit off. While the room was clean, as if someone still lived there, the decor had a noticeably dated feel. It reminded Alicia of the girls’ room from The Brady Bunch .