The Year of the Gadfly (17 page)

The large beefy kid stood up. I could hear him breathing like Darth Vader behind the mask. “O'Brien, sit down,” a cool female voice said. “This isn't Gitmo.”

“Oh, really?” I was starting to feel more angry than scared. “You grab somebody and gag her and throw a sack over her head and you're not trying to scare the shit out of her? Now you've got me holed up in some undisclosed location. What is this place? Do you guys have Dick Cheney hiding in the next room?”

“Iris,” the female pig said, “we're sorry for the way we brought you in here. Just give us a chance to explain, and I assure you that everything will be illuminated.”

The others nodded. I scanned their bodies in search of identifying features—any clue about who they were. But I saw no jewelry or nail polish. Not even a strand of exposed hair. Five hundred students attended Mariana's high school. These four could be any of them.

“Now on the end there is O'Brien,” the female pig said. “Beside him is Syme. And Winston's to my left. I'm Julia.”

“These aren't your real names, right?”

The four of them laughed. “I thought you said she was intelligent,” said the pig called Syme, snickering.

Julia ignored this comment and crossed her long legs with tea-party poise. “We know you're researching a story for the
Oracle
about Charles Prisom or, to put it bluntly, us.”

“Prisom's Party,” I breathed. “You're responsible for the flash mob and the flaming effigies! What's wrong with you?”

“Slow down, Iris.” Julia's voice was unnaturally calm.

“You're telling me you weren't responsible?”

“I'm not denying anything. But just because something
looks
sinister doesn't mean it is.”

“Katie Milford said you're some kind of secret society.”

There was more laughter from behind the masks. “We find that particular appellation rather juvenile,” Julia said.

Her diction was crisp, pretentious. I slumped down in the chair. “You couldn't have anything to do with Charles Prisom.”

“Quite the contrary.” Julia stood up and walked toward me with a large, leather-bound album. “This contains the story of Prisom's Party in letters, clippings, and photographs. It has been passed down to us through the generations.” The book smelled of old libraries and brought to mind fountain pens. Its cover was wrinkled and worn but as soft as you'd imagine a newborn colt's skin to be. It wasn't so different in appearance from Lily's
Marvelous Species.

Pressed to the paper on the first page was a handwritten letter. The paper was thick, unlined, and yellowed with age. The black script was slanted like rushing waves. It was difficult to read, but I made out the following:

 

January 13, 1906

To my courageous and trustworthy disciples,

As you know, I founded Mariana Academy according to the ideals of Brotherhood, Truth, and Equality in the hopes that no student should ever feel ostracized for his physical and mental idiosyncrasies or for his particular background. Since 1885, when we admitted our first group of students, we have remained true to this promise.

On the eve of my death, I have every faith that my son Henry will prove a strong and competent leader. But the lifeblood of this school is not the adults—it is you, the students. Time distorts the past. History can too easily slip through our fingers, and there may well come a day when my legacy is corrupted and, ultimately, forgotten. This may seem unbelievable to you now, but it is all too possible.

To guard against such an occurrence, I am appointing you, Prisom's Party, to be the bearers of my legacy. You will be the eyes and ears of this school—its very conscience—when I am departed.

In the name of the Community Code, I bestow upon you the following responsibilities:

 

• You will swear a lifelong unwavering oath to Prisom's Party.
  
• You will cloak yourselves in secrecy, and through clandestine measures you will induct new members to ensure the survival of Prisom's Party throughout the generations.
  
• You will fight for those students who find themselves disenfranchised.
  
• You will be vigilant, and when my legacy is threatened, you will rise as a beacon of light to restore the Community Code. Upholding my Code requires heroism in action and thought. You will be the first generation of these heroes.
  

 

With sincerity and hope,

Charles Prisom

 

I looked at Julia. My brain was buzzing,
Holyholyholyholy SHIT!

“We brought you in here the way we did,” Julia said, “because we must take the utmost precautions to ensure our secrecy. Like you, we are working undercover. I assure you that we are not duplicitous. We are simply following the dictates of Charles Prisom.”

She sounded sincere enough. “All right,” I said. “So what am I doing here?”

“All in due time, little flower,” Syme said with a sneer.

“If you'd permit us,” Julia said, “some history first.”

“All right,” I said again, trying to broadcast healthy skepticism, but even I could tell I sounded more like a petulant little kid than a seasoned reporter.

Julia folded her hands in her lap and began to speak. “Prisom's son Henry had been head of school for fifteen years when he hired a young Marine to teach English. Later, it was discovered that this Marine had been dishonorably discharged from the military, but nobody knew that at the time. In any case, the young Marine was charismatic and brilliant, and in a couple of years he had worked his way up in the administration. When Henry Prisom grew ill and announced his retirement, the Marine was unanimously voted to become head of school.”

“And a new king arose over Egypt who did not know Joseph,” Syme said, and then in his serpentine lilt he spoke two words: “Thelonius Rex.”

“Come on,” I said. “That's not a real name.”

O'Brien stood up. “We're not pulling shit out of our asses here.”

“Perhaps he changed his name,” Julia said. “But he was definitely going by Rex when he arrived here.” She took the book from my lap and turned to a grainy black-and-white photograph of a handsome young man with a thick head of black hair and what a cliché-riddled writer might call a “sinister glint” in his eye. On the very next page was a piece of Mariana stationery bearing an August 1921 date and addressed to the school board. The letter began,
I humbly accept the position of Mariana Head of School.
It was signed,
Thelonius Rex.

Julia closed the book. “Strange doesn't mean impossible,” she said. I supposed she was right.
Just look at these kids in their pig masks,
I thought.
And look at me sitting here with them, lapping up their words.

“The first year of Rex's leadership went well,” Julia continued, “but when Henry Prisom died, Rex grew unhappy with how the school was run. The rules were lax, the faculty permissive, the students undisciplined. So he set about making certain changes, small ones at first. You have to understand that under the Prisoms' supervision Mariana felt very much like a liberal arts college, and it was still a boarding school. Students had tremendous freedom. There were many innovative student clubs, including the
Oracle.
You'd barely recognize the paper from even a decade ago. In the past the stories were both well-written and timely . . .”

“Very funny,” I said, but I felt a twinge of the indignation that now accompanied all my dealings with the
Oracle.
Stories abounded at this school. Students were kidnapped and dragged to secret lairs! And yet every time I pitched Katie, she gagged me. It might as well have been 1932, when a singing bird was trumpeted as the year's most entertaining overseas broadcast! I really felt for Murrow, who begged CBS to cover the Anschluss in 1938 but was ordered to report on choirboys instead.

“Iris, are you listening?”

I nodded. I was starting to feel glum.

“Rex began running the school like a basic training camp. He shut down the clubs, implemented strict curfews, and imposed harsh punishments for minuscule infractions. He shuttered the
Oracle
and censored student mail. He fired the teachers he didn't like and brought in educators who sympathized with his disciplinarian style.”

“My parents would have sicced a pack of lawyers on this place.”

Julia shook her head. “Back then, parents deferred much more to the schools. And Rex was a master manipulator. He scared students into keeping mum by preying on their worst fears and insecurities. And all of this would have continued—if it hadn't been for Prisom's Party.”

As impossible as Julia's story sounded, it seemed that some part of me had known this tale from the moment I first saw Mariana's dark, weathered walls. I could see the events playing like a movie against the concrete backdrop of the Party's secret room: Rex with his hard-set mouth and obsidian eyes, marching students military style to breakfast, commanding silence as he sat stiff and proud at the headmaster's table.

Julia continued. “Prisom's Party had watched Rex rise to power, but they hadn't done anything about it.”

“Why not?”

“They were just a small group of students, subjected to the same rules as everyone else. They had to meet in secret. If they were caught, there'd be no one left to defend Prisom's legacy, and they knew full well that the victors write history.”

The other pigs nodded. I imagined they wore grave expressions beneath their masks.

“During Rex's rise to power, Prisom's Party was headed by a student called Edmond Dantes. This wasn't his real name, of course, but the secret one he used for Prisom's Party. And Dantes realized that if he didn't act against Rex before he graduated, no one would.”

I was sitting on the edge of my chair but slid back, feigning lack of interest. “So?”

“In 1923, two years after Rex's ascension, Edmond Dantes started the
Devil's Advocate,
an underground newspaper. We don't know how Prisom's Party managed to print and distribute these pamphlets, but for months the newspapers served as the only voice of dissent.”

I imagined cloaked figures running through the campus under the cover of night, their hearts thumping as they slipped between shadows while rushing to their secret meetings. I saw the cautious looks in the refectory, boys with dark circles beneath their eyes transmitting coded information through the placement of plates and spoons.

“The problem, Iris,” Julia said, “was that a lot of students resented the
Devil's Advocate,
because after the paper began appearing, Rex's punishments became seriously twisted. He made students stand up at meals and renounce allegiance to their roommates and best friends.”

I imagined being told to stand up in front of the entire school and proclaim my hatred for Dalia. I'd never do such a thing, no matter the punishment. “But why?”

“He believed lessons in suffering, hardship, and fortitude would help students become strong individuals. He was also clearly a psychopath.”

“And Dantes?”

“Rex didn't know who Dantes really was or where he was hiding. But he devised a plan to make Dantes come forward. One night he walked into the refectory, carrying a bowl of bright red strawberries, and he called for Timothy Keaton, a freshman, to join him at the front of the room. Now, everyone knew that Keaton was seriously allergic to strawberries. If he ever ate one, his face would swell up and his throat would close. Awful stuff. So Rex said he was going to make Timothy eat the entire bowl of strawberries unless the leader of Prisom's Party revealed himself.”

“Come on, a teacher wouldn't do that. Somebody would have reported it to their parents. Or to the police.”

“I agree,” Julia said. “It's quite possible that Rex was bluffing. But we think he'd decided that if he couldn't identify the members of Prisom's Party, he'd discredit them instead. He knew Prisom's Party would lose all credibility if they saw a student in harm's way and did nothing. Edmond Dantes knew this too, so he had no choice. He jumped up and knocked the bowl of strawberries from Rex's hands. Rex lunged back. And then chaos erupted.”

“No such thing as a peaceful revolution, dear Iris,” Syme said, wagging his finger in a manner that was both pedantic and lascivious.

“Dantes was tall, but Rex was built like a wrestler. Students rushed to Dantes's aid, but the faculty—remember, these were Rex's teachers—fought against them. Rex and Dantes ended up fighting by that large window near the kitchen door, and it looked like Rex was simply going to beat Dantes to death. But then Rex suddenly pitched out the open window. Nobody knows whether Dantes pushed him or whether Rex tripped, but Rex fell directly onto the gate.”

A wrought-iron fence separated the campus from the road, and certain embellishments on school grounds were patterned after it. The most notable feature of this fence was its spadelike spikes.

Julia held up two fingers. “Two of them. In the chest.”

For a moment, nobody moved.

“The thing is,” Winston said in low voice, “Rex's death changed everything.”

This was the first time Winston had spoken. I'd been wondering about him, sitting there silent throughout these proceedings.

Winston continued, “Mariana parents pulled their children out, and the school closed. Dantes finished his senior year elsewhere and slipped off the radar.”

Julia flipped to another page in the photo album and showed me the newspaper clippings from 1923 announcing Rex's death and the closing of the school. On the following page an article reported the school's reopening as a co-ed day academy in 1940. So that was why the
Oracle
s between 1921 and 1940 were missing, I realized. First Rex shut down the student paper and then the school closed.