Afterlife Academy (20 page)

I also know that our head
teacher is obsessed with all things fire, and if there’s one thing guaranteed
to get her worked up, it will be the fire alarm going off.

The alarm screeches out as I
pull the emergency handle and reverberates through the building with vigour.

Within seconds every building in
the grounds is screaming too, and suddenly the corridor I’m standing in is
converged on by hundreds of girls in pyjamas, all running for the exit.

I get caught up in the crowd and
before I know what’s happening, we’re standing outside in the yard and everyone
is filtering into lines.

It’s the middle of the night and
it’s freezing, dark, and foggy.

“What’s going on?” I ask Caydi
innocently.

“Fire drill.” She yawns.

“It wasn’t a—”

Every teacher is here now. Mr
Burgrove is standing near us.

“Get into lines!” he yells. “Get
into lines according to your floor. Keep track of your friends. Is there anyone
missing? Tell me if you don’t see someone!”

Some other teachers are running
around in a flap.

I look around for Anthony and
see him standing in a line outside the boys’ dorm. I wave to him. He waves back
but he still looks half-asleep.

He’s adorable.

Holy shit. They’ve got the whole
school out. I thought it would just be our building, but the whole school is
here.

Eliza Carbonell is striding
across the playground, looking remarkably composed for this time of night.

“Is there anyone left inside?”
she demands in a steely voice.

“We don’t know yet,” Mr Burgrove
says.

Our resident advisor stands
there too. “I don’t think so. Girls,” he yells louder than someone his age
should be able to yell. “Is there anyone you don’t see?”

No one replies.

“I’m going in,” Mrs Carbonell
says.

“Is that really a good—” Mr
Burgrove doesn’t get a chance to finish that sentence before Eliza Carbonell
has stalked off across the playground and into the dormitory we’ve just come
out of.

Jesus.

I know the woman is obsessed by
fire, but was all this really necessary? I thought it would just disrupt a few
teachers, coming to see what had caused the alarm to go off. I didn’t realise
it’d be a full-blown fire drill.

I mean, not that it matters. The
more disruption the better, right?

Right?

I do feel a bit guilty looking
at all these people, most of them standing around in little T-shirts or vest
tops and shorts. It is cold here. Very cold.

“Do you think there’s a fire?”
Caydi asks me. “Did you see anything?”

“How would I know?” I snap.

“Well, you were sneaking around
in the…” She pauses as realisation dawns. “Oh Riley, you didn’t…”

I shrug and look at my feet.

“I didn’t know it was this big
an operation,” I mutter.

“Ri… Do you know how serious she
takes this stuff?”

I shrug again.

At that point, Eliza Carbonell
strides out of the building, looking, you could say, rather pissed off. You
could also say looking like she’s about to fry someone with one look.

“Everyone calm down,” she
bellows to us as much as to the other teachers, some of whom are still running
around like blue arse flies.

“There is no fire,” she booms.
“It appears this was someone’s idea of a joke and I’d like to know who.”

“We thought it was a drill, Eliza,”
Mr Bosenak from Ghost Laws class says quietly.

“Then can someone explain why
the handle of the emergency alarm was pulled down?”

No one speaks.

Oh God.

This is the part where I should
own up. This is the part where I’m supposed to do star jumps and shout, “Yes! I
did it! Expel me!”

But I can’t.

I hadn’t realised how serious
this would be.

This woman has serious issues
with fire. She died in one, for God’s sake.

It’s something that you don’t
play with here.

I get that now.

This is something the old me
would do, not the new me who is trying to be better and not nasty to people.

God, I’m in
so
much trouble if I get found out.

And Caydi knows.

She’s going to drop me in it.

I don’t know what’s wrong with
me. This is what I wanted. I wanted to cause enough trouble to get myself
kicked out.

But the look in Eliza
Carbonell’s eyes is beyond anger. It’s beyond mad. It’s beyond the sixty years
ago that she died pulling a kid out of a fire.

“Maybe it was an accident,” Mr
Bosenak says after a few more minutes of silence.

Everyone is quiet for a few
minutes longer.

“Fine,” Eliza Carbonell
eventually grinds out. “No harm done, I suppose. Everyone go back to bed.”

She stalks away to where she
came from, straight past the line Caydi and I are standing in, and I swear that
she casts me a knowing look as she passes us.

Oh crap.

“How come you didn’t say
anything?” I hiss as Caydi and I walk back to our dorm room.

“Misguided as I may be, Riley,”
she says, “I like you, and I do not want to see you get kicked out for
something like this. This is a big thing in Mrs Carbonell’s life. You’ll end up
going to hell for playing on her memories like that.”

“I know,” I sigh. “I didn’t
realise it would be such a big deal.”

“Just get some sleep. If you’re
determined to go ahead with this then we’ll have to think of something better.
Something that won’t hurt anyone,” she adds pointedly.

“Great,” I say. “Thanks, Cay.”

I can’t help squeeing a little
inwardly. Caydi likes me.

I may have a friend here after
all.

Besides Anthony, of course.

CHAPTER 24

This afternoon is the meeting about the secret exit that
Clare invited me to. I persuade Anthony to go with me. He’s being a bit quiet
with me. I know he doesn’t agree with my idea of trying to get expelled, and to
be honest, he doesn’t even seem that interested in finding the secret exit.

“Come on,” I say exasperatedly
as we sneak around the back of the dormitories. It’s no easy task in the middle
of the day when there are teachers and other students around, and Anthony is
being really slow and lagging behind.

“I don’t see why you even want
to go,” he says.

I know that he doesn’t just mean
to the meeting, but I ignore him.

Eventually we come to the hole
in the fence and climb through it.

We follow a couple of little
paths until we come across Clare and a couple of other girls.

“Hi,” she greets us warmly. “You
guys, this is Riley and Anthony, the ones I was telling you about,” she says to
the others. “Not everyone is here yet.”

We sit down on a patch of moss
and wait.

Eventually four more girls and
two more boys show up.

I’m surprised there are so many
people.

Surely that can’t bode well if
there are so many people looking for this exit and no one has found it?

It’s freezing out here. Anthony
is sitting so close to me that our thighs are touching and I can feel his
warmth filtering through my jeans. I have to fight the urge to lean closer to
him.

I can’t like Anthony. I’m at
this meeting because I’m trying to get back to Wade. I’m trying to stop him and
Sophie getting together. I’m here because I have to go back to my life, not sit
here trying to get closer to Anthony. My life was perfectly fine before he came
into it, and it can be again. Whatever I have felt towards him recently is
clearly due to the absolutely extenuating circumstances.

 “So,” Clare says eventually.

Good. Talking. Anything to stop
me obsessing over Anthony’s thigh touching mine or the fact that he appears to
be wearing aftershave that I’ve never noticed before and it smells really nice.
Very subtle. Unlike Wade. Wade marinates himself in aftershave, so much so that
if you go to kiss his neck, you get a nasty taste in your mouth.

But Anthony’s is a nice, earthy
scent and it doesn’t overpower everything else within a six-mile radius. I like
it. I try to lean closer without him noticing.

“Thanks for coming, everyone.
I’ve brought along some secret weapons today.” Clare points to us. “Everyone,
meet Riley and Anthony. They used to go to this school in their old lifetimes,
so they know everything there is to know. They could certainly be very helpful
in locating what we need to locate.”

“With all due respect,” Anthony
says, “I don’t think we know anything more about the school than you do.”

“Nonsense,” says one of the
other boys. “We’ve been hoping someone like you would come along.”

“We’re as new to this as anyone
else,” Anthony says. “We have no idea where your secret exit is, or—”

“Sssshhhhhh,” everyone says
immediately.

“We don’t say it out loud,”
Clare says. “Just in case anyone is listening in. The teachers are sneaky
around here. They could be hiding and we wouldn’t know.”

That sufficiently creeps me the
hell out. I glance around furtively like I’m fully expecting someone to jump
out from behind a bush.

“But you know your way around,”
the boy says. “You’ve been coming here for five years.”

“Yes, but not
here
here,” Anthony says. “Here
there
. It’s different.”

“Look,” I say. “I cut class more
often than I went. The only thing I know about is how to hide behind the exam
wing without being seen and then sneak out the back.”

“So, do you pair know of
anywhere suspicious? Any secret doors or hidden rooms?”

“Nope,” Anthony says. “And I
really think we should go.”

I elbow him in the ribs.

“Have you looked in the staff
areas?” I ask. “If they were going to hide something, surely it would be a place
where kids aren’t allowed to go.”

“Someone tried to sneak up there
once, but Eliza Carbonell caught them as the staff area is right above her
office. Everyone’s been too scared to try since then.”

“What happened to the person who
was caught?” I ask.

“Detention,” Clare says. “Every
day for the past three months.”

“Yikes, that’s a tough
punishment.”

“They don’t like people poking
around here,” Clare says. “Whatever they’re hiding, we’re not supposed to find
it. People who do want to find it are considered criminals by the teachers.”

“Did you ever think of forming
an escape plan?” I ask. “Y’know, getting a big group together and just walking
out the gates?”

“There’s nothing out there,
Riley.”

“How’d you know that?”

“Because someone left once. The
road just continues. It’s never-ending. The person walked for hours until a
prefect turned up and magically transported them back to Mrs Carbonell’s
office.”

“What happened to that person?”

“No one knows. Expelled, I
guess.”

My stomach does a little
flip-flop.

“You really think they’re hiding
something?” Anthony asks. “This all seems a bit ridiculous to me. Teachers
hiding a secret exit that can transport you back in time? It’s crazy.”

“This whole thing is crazy.
We’re all dead, being taught by a bunch of people who have been dead for a hell
of a lot longer than we have,” one of the girls sitting next to Clare says.

“Yeah,” someone else pipes up.
“And they’re creepy. They know everything about us. It’s like they can read
minds or something.”

“We didn’t come here to discuss
the teachers,” another girl says. “Some of us need to get home.”

“Don’t we bloody all?” I snap.

Suddenly there’s a noise in a
tree behind us and everyone jumps.

“Okay,” Clare says immediately.
“Time to go. Don’t forget to check your cards for the time of next week’s
meeting. It’ll probably be Sunday, considering the ball is on Saturday.”

Ugh. I had so far managed to
forget about the notice that went up in the canteen this week. There’s a dance
next Saturday. A dress-up ball. I quite fancy going just to see what dead
people consider a party.

Everyone murmurs agreement and
begins to filter away.

Clare walks back towards the
school with Anthony and me.

“If you guys think of anything,
let me know, okay? You know this place better than any of us. If you think of
any rooms that aren’t used here, or any good hiding places, please tell us.
Riley, you know some hiding places outside. It’s not absolutely positive that
the thing we’re looking for is located on the school grounds. If you think of
anywhere, tell me straight away, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Great, see ya,” she says,
rushing off ahead.

“Huh,” Anthony says. “Weird.”

“Like everything else around
here.”

“So, this ball on Saturday,” he
says quietly. “I was wondering if you would, er… Well, I mean, if you’re not
going with… I mean, if you haven’t already made plans… Would you… er… Would you
go with me? I don’t mean as a date because I know you’ve already got Wade and
everything, but maybe just as a friend?”

He’s adorable when he rambles. I
can’t help but grin at how cute he looks when he’s blushing like that and how
nervous he sounds.

“Of course I will.” I smile at
him.

I don’t admit that I’m slightly
disappointed that’s it’s not going to be a date. Anthony isn’t Wade, and I
can’t go on a date with anyone but Wade. Not that it seems to matter to Wade,
considering the things he’s been doing with Sophie, but that’s not the point.
If I can go back to before it happened then it won’t even be an issue.

“That’s brilliant,” Anthony
says, and I hear his almost inaudible sigh of relief.

I guess he was nervous about
asking me. I can’t believe he thought I’d say no.

“I like you, you know. As a
friend,” I add quickly, in case he gets the wrong idea.

Not that I would object if he
tried to kiss me again.