Charlaine Harris - An Apple for the Creature

“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.