The Healing Power of Sugar: The Ghost Bird Series: #9 (The Academy Ghost Bird Series) (14 page)

“What’s an express lane?”

“Where they put the kids they think will drop out before graduation. They’ll put you in GED training classes, and have you take the test over and over again until you pass. You’ll be sixteen with a GED and out of school, which means no college, no real career to speak of. This isn’t a good route.”

I pressed my lips together to hold back any more questions. Clearly, there was some rules I wasn’t familiar with. Did Mr. Blackbourne know about any of this?

Why would they push a kid missing classes into a GED? Maybe for most kids, if they at least give them a GED, there’s some restitution. They did their best, but if a kid wasn’t going to stay in school anyway, maybe it did make some sense.

When I didn’t respond, she resumed her changing my schedule and typing at the keyboard. What else could I do? Ms. Wright had her mind pretty set. If I was going to

“I’ll do you a favor,” she said. “If you manage to get through this year with good grades and don’t miss another single day of school, I’ll change these Withdrawn marks for your new classes to a passing grade. But only, and I mean only, if you don’t miss another class. Not a single one.”

I pressed my lips together. Was that going to be possible if Mr. Hendricks called me out of class? Or if I really was sick?

I hoped Dr. Green was doing far better than I was.

Mr. Hendricks might have arranged this; he might have found out about me being at school, figuring out it wasn’t me in the car going around town. That would be like him to punish me, blaming me for it all.

That was until I saw the notice on her desk, in one of her many paper trays. It was on letterhead for the school. The page was upside down, but I could still read it.

It was a formal notice from someone on the school board, asking Ms. Wright to send in a report about any students whose attendance was more than ten days, excused or unexcused. The name requesting it was unfamiliar: Vera O. Lottie.

Coincidence? Was Mr. Hendricks even aware?

Ms. Wright’s annoyance might have been fear because she hadn’t been doing her job. She’d only now looked into the absences, and uncovered my large number. Most other school counselors probably would have done something about it ages ago.

That must have been the trigger. She was making it look like she had been paying attention and had noticed before Vera Lottie—whoever she was—came back and asked her why no one had talked to me or what was going on.

Ms. Wright printed out my new schedule and then stood up with it. “Come with me,” she said, putting one hand on her desk as she leaned on it to walk around it. “You’ll go to in-school suspension starting now and for the rest of the week. You’ll start your new classes when you return from break.”

I clamped my mouth shut, taking the paper from her. In-School suspension. What was suspension like? Was it anything like detention? I hadn’t even completed an actual detention, thanks to Mr. Blackbourne. Could he even fix this?

Ms. Wright moved around the desk and opened the door. “I’ll escort you there.”

No chance to escape. Ms. Wright had me walk in front of her, giving me directions as we went, so I couldn’t even send a quick message from my cell phone.

Out in the office hallway, everything was quiet. I expected to hear Dr. Green, maybe Mr. Blackbourne lurking around. Or if they were in a meeting about Dr. Green, that there would be some sort of uproar, a fight. I wished I could hear their voices or bump into one of them. Anything to let me know they were aware of what was happening.

Nothing. All I could do was what I was told. I had to hope that going along with Ms. Wright’s plan was what they needed me to do right now.

There was just the low murmur from the main office: the tapping of keyboards, someone on the phone, the hum of a printer. The woman at the front desk looked up as we passed through. Ms. Wright shared a look with her, and the secretary shook her head, seeming in sympathy for Ms. Wright, like she’d seen this before.

They had no idea…not a clue. They would never know why I was missing for so many days. The reason was usually because the Academy requested it of me.

Without me being able to tell them, I was shoved in with the bad kids.

There was no way I could defend myself. I couldn’t go into details about Mr. Hendricks. I couldn’t tell them about the Academy, how I was involved, or anything that could possibly save myself.

I was now just Sang Sorenson, a new girl who couldn’t hack it, who appeared to be very spoiled and skipped for whatever reasons they decided to dream up.

But as Ms. Wright walked me out, I couldn’t help but wonder where was Mr. Blackbourne? If he hadn’t come to interrupt, what did it mean?

SUSPENSION

I’
d known the school was too small for the over two thousand students it currently housed, but I was still surprised that in-school suspension wasn’t held in a classroom. Instead, it was in an old, unused service hallway, at the end of a T junction. On either side of the T, there were doors with signs marking them that they were the school heating and air conditioning units, and at the center top of the T, there was an emergency door.

Ms. Wright marched me down the bottom of the T, passing the nurse’s office and a couple of other rooms, all the way to the top. She walked quickly, unconcerned about matching my pace.

At the intersection was a wide teacher’s desk, facing a row of student desks, separated by movable walls, making a line up and down the hallway. The students faced away from us, everyone quiet, some with bowed heads.

An older woman was sitting at the teacher’s desk, her hair in tight grey curls. She wore a nurse’s uniform. Did she work two jobs, as a spare nurse and for the in-school suspension?

As we approached the desk, I kept my eyes on the floor, not wanting to look at the students, though I could hear some noise like they were turning to see what was going on. My cheeks heated at my embarrassment. Sang Sorenson used to be a straight A student, and was now being pulled from classes and under suspension. If the students talked about me before, they would love this news.

These were the bad kids. I was now one of them.

Ms. Wright waved to the woman at the desk. “I’m sorry to drop another one off with you.”

“I’m going to be out of desks soon,” the woman said and then focused on me. “You’re not one of my regulars.”

“She will be for a few days,” Ms. Wright said. She picked up a basket from the desk that was filled with cell phones and shook it at me. “I know you’ve got one. Everyone does.”

I considered saying I didn’t have one. I needed to reach Mr. Blackbourne or anyone else to let them know where I’d gone. However, I was a horrible liar. I was worried if I tried to lie about it, if Ms. Wright wouldn’t suspend me for longer. I bit my lower lip, and with an embarrassed drop of my head, I reached for my phone in my bra and held it out. Luckily with the jacket, it might have looked like I was reaching for an inside pocket. Neither one of them seemed to notice.

Ms. Wright didn’t take it, but shook the basket at me. I placed my phone next to the others before she put the basket back down on the desk. “You’ve got her from here?”

“Yes, of course. Have a nice day,” the old woman said.

Ms. Wright nodded and waddled down the hallway without a look back; I was forgotten. She was off to do whatever, maybe call down another student with too many absences.

The woman at the desk shifted through stacks of papers, neatly organized across the top. I eyeballed my phone in with the collection of others. “Don’t worry about your phone. You’ll get it back at the end of the day. Your parents will have to call the school if it’s a real emergency.” She started rifling through her papers, like she was trying to decide which to give me. “I don’t suppose you have anything to work on.”

Did I? Not really. I’d completed homework, but now that my classes had changed, I didn’t think that mattered anymore. I shook my head.

“Normally we’d have you work on homework and missed assignments from your classroom, but since we weren’t prepared for you, and it’s a Monday and you probably don’t have any, you’ll have to work on SAT prep.” She reached for a packet and an answer sheet and passed them along to me. “It’s just like a regular SAT test. Finish what you can. Whenever you have spare time the next few days, you’ll work on it. Let me know if you need a pencil.” She moved a clipboard to have me sign in and then pointed to a seat. “Go ahead.”

I held my breath, still avoiding looking at any of the students. I didn’t want to make eye contact and have someone there recognize me.

I signed my name, took my test packet, and with my head bowed, quickly identified an empty seat near the left side of the hall and went for the desk. When I sat down, I could barely see the woman with the wall in the way, and I certainly couldn’t see anyone else when I sat close to my desk. At least I was mostly isolated. The monitor could probably see my back, but she probably couldn’t tell what I was working on.

The hall was cold. My lungs filled with stale air. It felt like the first time I had taken a full breath since leaving Dr. Green at the office.

I held the SAT packet in my hand, and all I could do was stare at it. So much had just happened, overwhelming me. But now my brain was completely blanked as I realized I’d been cut off from the others.

What was I supposed to do now? Excuse myself to a bathroom? What would I do if I got there? I didn’t think I could slip back into the front office and down to the office with the unmarked door. Not that it would do much good, especially if Dr. Green was in some kind of trouble.

Maybe I could calculate what period it was, and find one of the boys.

I couldn’t even fully blame Ms. Wright; she was obviously under a lot of pressure, and I imagined with a school full of misbehaving kids, that she had her work cut out for her.

And then she’d lied to me about talking to my mother. It was just so unbelievable that she would. Or was that what she said to all students to get them to confess? Either way, why had she done it? I couldn’t tell if what she did was something sinister, or she was just following policy and was simply bad at her job.

Maybe she made so many calls, that she mixed me up with some other students?

I wondered about if my parents really would be notified. What would happen if the school tried and found out about my situation?

Despite knowing the real reasons for my absences, I was still ashamed about my behavior. There were times I could have been at school, like when I just discovered information about my real mother. I’d been out for a week during that time, but could I have sucked it up and just went in? Even if I didn’t participate in class, would it have hurt to have been there? Mr. Hendricks had warned me not to do that, even though I claimed to be doing what he wanted then.

I breathed in deeply but unable to find some relief, feeling hollow and helpless. Perhaps it was mostly shock that left me almost without feeling at all.

But no matter how upset I was, I knew I shouldn’t be worrying about myself; Dr. Green might have been in real trouble. There was a possibility that someone might show up to confront me about it.

I was so worried about him: Was he okay? Would they kick him out of the school? Ms. Wright had said suspension without pay and possibly worse. My only hope was that while I was miserable and didn't know what was going on with the guys, they’d focus on Dr. Green and help him. It was different for a teacher to be called up. While I didn’t have details, because I suspected we’d been discovered, it made me paranoid.

What else could it be?

A scraping sound pulled me from my downward spiral of thinking. A foot slid under the wall from the desk beside me. It lifted and then moved away, revealing a note underneath.

I rolled my eyes so hard, that I was almost left with a headache. I received a lot of random notes from other students. While North or one of the others were usually around to intervene, and North kept and read them all, getting one right now was about the last thing I needed.

I picked it up quickly and was going to expel some energy ripping it apart.

The outside of the note had a carefully drawn paintbrush, looking almost lifelike.

I stared at it, and then exhaled a really slow breath, my heart suddenly in a rush. I looked at the wall, as if I could see through it. Either Gabriel was there, or he was down the line and had managed to pass the note to me.

It had to be him. The more I looked at the brush, I was sure.

How did he get here?

And then I realized if he’d taken time to draw the paintbrush, he might have been waiting for a bit. Had they known this was going to happen?

I checked over my shoulder but the monitor had pulled out a book, and was reading. All she had to do was babysit, and didn’t hide the fact that she was bored, too. I opened the note, trying to be quiet and shielding it with my body in case the monitor looked over.

I can’t leave you for two fucking minutes without you getting into trouble, Trouble. What the hell?

I smiled, a wave of relief washing over me. I could have kissed the paper. I did bring it closer to my face, detecting a smidgen of rose with a mix of something leathery, the smell he wore since he’d slept at Nathan’s. I went back to reading.

I gave the old bat at the desk a dead phone. Mr. Blackbourne wants to know anything important about what happened in there. Anything he might not have been able to see, because he could only listen and couldn’t watch. We heard everything. Ms. Wright is a lying fuck. She kept saying you were out for 25 days, but you were marked excused for nine, and you were out sick for five and had a doctor’s note for a lot of the rest. You were in the office for some. I don’t know how she came up with that number. I don’t know who she called, either, but it wasn’t your step mom at the hospital, that’s for sure, and it wasn’t your house. I hope we get out of this school after this. This might be the last straw, even for Kota.