Afterlife Academy (10 page)

I go and lock myself in a
cubicle in the toilets.

I swear to God that if I ever
get back home, I will never ever pick on people again.

I can’t believe how much it
hurts.

Tears are pouring down my face
as I sit on the closed toilet lid with my head in my hands.

Karma really is a bitch.

I can’t believe this is
happening to me. How can I have gone from being me to being the person that I
pick on?

CHAPTER 11

I don’t know how much later it is when there’s a knock on
the stall door.

I ignore it.

“Come on, Riley,” a voice says
gently. “Everyone’s gone now.”

It’s the horned dinner lady. I
realise that I don’t even know her name. I can’t keep calling her “horned
woman”, can I?

I scrub my hands over my face
again and gingerly pull the door open.

“Hey.” She smiles at me.
“Everyone’s gone to class. Will you come and have some breakfast with me?”

“Okay,” I mumble. It beats
sitting on my own in the cold toilet for another hour. I pull myself up and
quickly wash my face at the hand basin, then follow the woman out of the room.

“What’s your name?” I ask her as
we walk back towards the canteen.

“Narcissa,” she says. “But don’t
go telling people that. I’m scarier if I don’t have a name.”

“Are you supposed to be scary,
then?” I ask.

“It’s preferable,” she says. “I
would rather be scary than disrespected.”

“But people are still cruel to
you,” I say. “I saw that girl—Gloria—being horrible to you.”

“Gloria is horrible to everyone,”
Narcissa says. “Don’t pay any attention to her. Kids will always be cruel
because I look different, but they know that if I tell them to do something,
they do it. They’re afraid they’re going to get roasted with fire breath if
they don’t.”

I laugh. “Well, you seem utterly
unscary to me, but don’t worry, I won’t breathe a word of it.”

Narcissa smiles. “Come on, I’ll
show you my secret. I know you want to find out.”

“What? How you run this place
all by yourself? Yeah, kind of. In my old school there are like twelve people
in the kitchen and here there’s just you.”

“But I have a secret weapon,”
she says.

I follow her around behind the
counter and am rather surprised to see a staircase. We go down into what must
be a basement under the canteen. But it doesn’t look like a basement. It’s
bright and white and open-plan.

“It’s not grey,” I say in
surprise.

“No,” she says. “I don’t know
why. It could be my influence over my surroundings.”

I think about that for a moment.

“Could that be why I’m not grey?
Could I be influencing it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Because I was thinking I might
still have a connection to the real world…” I start.

“Riley, I could be out of place
saying this, but this is the real world now. I know it hasn’t always been for
you, and I understand that it’s hard to adjust, but when life gives you bread,
make toast.”

“I thought it was lemons and
lemonade.”

“Yes, but toast is much more
comforting and won’t make you fat anymore.”

I laugh at that.

“Here,” she says. “This is my
secret weapon.”

I look over at the unit she is
standing in front of and she steps aside to reveal a microwave.

“Er… That’s a microwave,” I say.
“Everybody’s got one. It just heats stuff up.”

“But this is no ordinary
microwave.”

I stare at it. It looks pretty
ordinary to me.

“What do you want for
breakfast?” Narcissa asks.

I shrug.

“Tell me anything. Something
completely random.”

“Er…” Isn’t it wonderful how
I’ve craved food for years and suddenly my mind has gone completely blank and I
can’t think of anything I want? “A chocolate doughnut?”

She opens the door of the
microwave, bends down and speaks to it, and then she punches some numbers in
and shuts the door. The microwave starts working and a few seconds later it
pings and the door flies open. Inside is a chocolate doughnut.

I jump back in shock.

“How did you do that?” I ask.

“This is not just any
microwave,” she says, giving it a pat. “How about some ice cream to go with
that?”

“Sure.”

She takes the plate out and
hands me the chocolate doughnut, then she speaks to the microwave again. Within
seconds there is a freezing cold pint of Ben & Jerry’s in the microwave.
She takes it out and hands it to me.

“How does it do that?” I ask.
“It’s a microwave and this feels like it’s just come out of the freezer.”

“It’s a special microwave,” she says.
“I don’t question it, I just use it.”

“So this is how you can provide
anything the kids ask for. You just tell the microwave and it gets it?”

“Uh huh. There’s a platform
here, see?” She pulls down a little board above the microwave. “This takes the
food straight up to the counter so I can hand it to the students.”

“But how? Where does it get
things from?”

“Like I said, I don’t question
it. I just know that it works.”

“Where did it come from?”

“It was here when I got here.
It’s my understanding that it’s been here since the school was built.”

“And it can get you anything?”

“Yep, anything.”

“Even non-food?”

“I think so,” she says. “I had a
cold once and I asked it for some paracetemol and it got some for me.”

“That’s amazing.”

“It’s certainly a lot more efficient
than employing a kitchen full of chefs. Plus the microwave never undercooks
anything or burns anything. I’m a bit prone to burning things myself, so no one
would want to eat here if I actually did the cooking.”

I laugh at that. Maybe the fire
breath isn’t just a rumour after all.

“Come on,” she says. “Let’s sit
down. You’ve missed first class anyway.”

“So, you live here?” I ask as I
follow her around the kitchen unit to a big table in the middle of the room.

“Yes,” she says. “My bedroom is
over there and the bathroom is just down there. It really is all I need.”

“This must be right underneath
the floor of the cafeteria,” I say as I look around.

She nods.

“And no one knows about it?”

“No students, no,” she says.
“And I’d like it to stay that way. But for some reason I’m pretty sure I can
trust you, Riley.”

“You can. I swear I won’t tell
anybody. It’s not like there’s anyone who would speak to me long enough to tell
anyway. Er, not that I would or anything, even if anyone would give me the time
of day. I… I’ll shut up now.”

Narcissa laughs.

I break the chocolate doughnut
in half and push half towards her.

“How come you’re so nice to me?”
I ask.

She shrugs. “You didn’t look at
me with horror like most kids do the first time they see me. And you look like
you could use a friend.”

I nod.

“That boy seems nice. The one
you had lunch with yesterday.”

“Anthony? Oh God, no. He’s
horrible. I mean…” I stop myself and think about it for a minute. “I suppose
he’s okay. He’s actually been really nice since we got here, but he’s so not my
type it’s not even funny.”

“Why not?”

“It’s a long story. We come from
the same school. It was actually my boyfriend who killed Anthony. And me as
well. It was an accident, of course, but still. The point is that Anthony was
possibly the biggest nerd in our school and if my friends could see me talking
to him, I’d be exiled. The only possible reason to talk to Anthony would be to
set him up for some kind of practical joke.”

“You seemed to be enjoying his
company.”

“No!” I think for a moment.
“Well, okay, maybe. But it’s strictly because of the dire situation here. My
friends would kill me for even looking at him.”

“No offence, Riley, but your
friends aren’t here and probably never will be.”

“It doesn’t matter. No, my
friends aren’t here, but Anthony… He’s okay, I suppose. There aren’t exactly a
whole lot of other choices here. But in the real world, Anthony is the joke of
the school.”

“There you go with the real
world thing again. This is the real world now, and if you and Anthony are friends
now, then that’s real too. This is all there is.”

“Not necessarily,” I say. “I
don’t think I belong here. Maybe I won’t be here for very long.”

I don’t want to say too much.
Narcissa might be being nice to me, but if I tell her my plans, there’s nothing
to say she won’t run straight to a teacher and tell them everything. That would
be my escape plan scuppered.

“Do you believe in fate?”

Er… Hello, left field? Where did
that come from? “Yeah, I guess.”

“Perhaps you ended up here for a
reason, Riley. I think you’re making things harder on yourself by looking at
this the wrong way. You shouldn’t see this as an end to life but as a beginning
to something else.”

“But I didn’t want my life to
end,” I say. “Whatever Gloria says about the people who chose to be here,
that’s up to them. I died in an accident. I’m sixteen. I’m leaving school in
two months. I’m doing my GCSEs and going to college. My life was just
beginning. I didn’t choose to be here. I didn’t want this. I loved my life. I
loved my friends and my boyfriend and my family. I didn’t want to die. Why
should I have to just accept it?”

“Everything happens for a
reason,” she says.

“How about you?” I ask, trying
to get off the topic. “How did you end up here? Where do you come from?”

“They were advertising for a job
and I needed one,” she says.

“Where do you come from? Are you
dead as well?”

“I’m part demon on my father’s
side,” she says. “I was born dead.”

“What about your home? Where you
lived? Do you ever get weekends off to go and see your family? What’s outside
this school?”

“You have a lot of questions.”

I nod. “This is kind of new to
me.”

“I needed a job and this came
up. It’s that simple.”

“How long have you worked here?”

“About ten years. I don’t know.
Time passes differently here. Years don’t mean as much as what you learn in
them.”

“What did you do before?”

“I think we should talk about
something else,” she says. “The teachers don’t like you learning about what’s
outside until you’re ready to.”

“That is such bullshit,” I snap.
“I’m ready to learn everything. I want to know where this hellhole is and how I
can get out of it.”

“I’m pretty sure you can’t get
out of it until you graduate, Ril—”

“This is bullshit. What if I’m
not supposed to be here—”

I stop for a minute as I realise
I’m taking out my frustrations on her when she’s just trying to be nice to me.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t
mean to yell at you. You’re the kindest person I’ve met here. I just have no
idea what’s going on. I don’t know what to do and I’m feeling kind of lost.”

“You must have a group-therapy
session on your schedule this week,” she says.

“I don’t need therapy,” I say.
“I just need to go home.”

I know she wants to say
something. Probably tell me that this is my home now. But she doesn’t. “Is this
very different from your old school?” she asks instead.

“What, you mean besides everyone
being dead?”

She smiles. “You know what I
mean.”

“Building-wise, this is my old
school. But yeah, it’s different. The Goths are popular. I’m the outcast
because I’m colourful. Back at home, people really like me. Back at home, girls
like my roommate Caydi are the outsiders. I make fun of girls like her. Here
she is taking pity on me. Then there’s Anthony. I ate lunch with Anthony. If
Sophie—that’s my best friend—saw me, she would never speak to me again. You
could say things are fairly different here.”

“No one should be judged by
superficial things. Why don’t you like Anthony in your old school?”

“Because he’s a geek. Because he
likes maths and science and carries a scientific calculator around in his
pocket.”

“Yes, but why don’t you like
him? Has he ever done anything nasty to you or your friends? Has he ever been
rude?”

“That’s not the point.”

“So what’s wrong with him?”

“It’s just the dynamics of
modern life. He doesn’t have to be rude or nasty. He just doesn’t fit in. He’s
quiet and a loner and he actually enjoys going to school. He’s exactly the type
of person you can make fun of to make other people think you’re cool. It’s a
dog eat dog world out there. If you don’t pick on someone then someone else
will pick on you.”

“There are more important things
in life than being cool,” Narcissa says. “Like being a nice person and having
friends who appreciate you for who you are, not who you hang out with or who
you’re unkind to.”

“Yeah, well, Sophie and Wade
appreciate who I am just fine. They just don’t appreciate uncool kids like
Anthony.”

Narcissa looks at me doubtfully.

“Don’t get me wrong,” I say. “I
do feel bad about the way I used to behave. I know the way I treated people
like Anthony was wrong, but there’s not much I can do about it now.”

“I take it you haven’t been to
Redemption class yet, then?”

“Redemption class?”

“I’ll leave that as a surprise,”
she says.

I let out a frustrated moan.

“Come on, I’m going to have to
start the lunch shift soon, and you need to get yourself sorted for class this
afternoon.”

I stand up from the table.
“Thank you,” I tell her. “For everything.”

“You’re welcome.” She smiles.
“And don’t forget what I said Riley—when life gives you bread, make toast. Or
lemonade if you prefer. And don’t judge every book by its cover, okay?”

I nod.

“And try to make the best of
every situation. Even this one. I’ll see you at lunchtime, right?”