Behind the Gates (5 page)

W
hen Evelyn comes into English class with us on Friday morning, a student from another class hands her a note telling her to report for a League interview. Barely able to contain her excitement, Evelyn practically skips out the door.

“What about you?” I ask Maddie.

“I decided not to apply,” she reports.

“Good,” I say.

“It wasn’t because you told me to,” Maddie insists quickly.

“I still think you did the right thing,” I say. Just as class is letting out, Evelyn returns, wearing a smug little grin.

“How did it go?” Maddie asks as Evelyn takes a seat in a just-vacated desk near ours.

“Awesome,” she replies confidently. “I totally played the system. I told them everything they wanted to hear and they ate it up!”

“So you’re not on the no-fly list anymore?” Maddie asks.

Evelyn shakes her head emphatically. “I told them I was asking so many questions when we first got here because I was nervous. But now I’m a total CMS fan. They are
so
going to take me.”

Maddie and I laugh. “In that case, do you promise to let us try on your night-vision mask?” Maddie teases.

“No way!” Evelyn replies, laughing, too. “Apply for the League and get your own!”

At dinner the kitchen jobs are announced. Maddie gets cleanup, and she doesn’t look happy about it. “Why do I have to pick up after all these rich kids?” she complains bitterly over her dinner of soycken wings and rehydrated string beans.

“Everyone will have to do it, eventually,” I remind her as I shovel tofu chili into my mouth. “My assignment is kitchen staff. That’s not any better.”

“Of course it’s better,” Maddie says hotly. “It’s much better! You’ll be preparing food or putting it out on the buffet tables. I’ll be picking up garbage.”

“All these jobs rotate,” I say, but Maddie doesn’t want to hear it.

Evelyn brings over a bowl of pasta with tomato sauce and takes a seat.

“You know it’s because of who I am,” Maddie goes on, so wrapped up in her argument that she doesn’t even stop to acknowledge Evelyn’s presence. “If my parents were doctors, I bet I wouldn’t have pulled cleanup duty. If my parents were rich and famous like —”

Alarm bells clang in my head. Evelyn is sitting down right next to us! And who knows what other girls could be quietly tuned in to our conversation?

“Your parents
are
my parents, silly,” I say loudly. “Any way they treat me is the same way they are going to treat you … because we’re a family!”

Maddie blinks. And then bites her lips as she realizes what she almost did. “Yes, I know,” she mumbles. “I was just goofing around.”

“You’re such a weirdo sometimes,” I say lightly. She really has to be more careful!

Maddie rises from her chair, gazes around the cafeteria, and then just leaves without another word.

Normally I would follow her out to make sure she’s okay, but right now I just don’t want to. Before coming to CMS, I never really realized how dramatic and negative Maddie is … about everything! Even Evelyn, with her crazy theories, at least tries to have fun and get along. Heck, even Rosie is fun during class!

“Hey, guess what?” Evelyn says brightly, breaking me out of my frustrated thoughts. “I’m in! I’m a Leaguer!”

She raises her hand high and I slap it in congratulations.

“I wanted to tell Maddie, too — what’s bothering her?” Evelyn asks.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” I say dismissively. “She’s just way too touchy sometimes.”

“Is it because she’s got kitchen duty? Everyone will have it eventually,” Evelyn says. Then she grins. “Except League members, of course.”

I roll my eyes but smile. “Of course. You guys are going to be
much
too busy being the upstanding junior citizens of the New Society.”

Even if I wanted to go after Maddie, I can’t leave right now. After dinner, at six thirty, the kitchen staff is going to show us where we need to be for the next two weeks.

“Hey, now that you’re in the League, can we keep the lights on all night?” I ask playfully.

“No way,” Evelyn says, suddenly serious. “I have to play by the rules or my cover will be blown.”

On schedule, Mrs. Brewster appears and steps to the front of the room. “Those students assigned to kitchen staff for the next two weeks, please report to me for orientation. Those assigned to the cleanup crew, go see Devi.”

Turning, I see Devi standing near the buffet table. Maddie is already off to a bad start, missing her training session.

As I start to get up, Evelyn puts her hand on my arm and leans closer. “Tell me
everything
you see in the kitchen,” she whispers.

“Will do,” I promise with a smile. “I’ll report every suspicious tofu dog I see.”

“Just keep your eyes open,” Evelyn insists.

About twenty of us gather around Mrs. Brewster. She takes a folded piece of paper from her pocket and lays it flat on the nearest table. “Find your assigned shift here. This is the shift you will work for the entire two weeks of your kitchen staff rotation.”

The girls crowd the table to see if they’ve gotten breakfast, lunch, or dinner. I hang back and notice that Rosie is over by Devi with the other cleanup crew girls. I wonder if she feels as insulted by the cleanup assignment as Maddie does. All different girls are in her group. It doesn’t seem to me that anyone has been singled out to work cleanup for any reason. Why does Maddie have to be like that?

Once the first rush of girls leaves the table, I move forward to find my assignment. I groan when I see it.
Breakfast! And I have to be there for prep work by four thirty in the morning!

“Follow me to the kitchen,” Mrs. Brewster instructs us. She leads us to a large room with a high ceiling. The fixtures and cabinets look about a hundred years old, deep white porcelain sinks, white metal cabinets. Bulky ovens with heavy doors. The walls are all covered in large white tile and the small floor tiles are in a black-and-white checkerboard pattern.

I’m surprised to find myself taking note of all these details — Evelyn telling me to keep my eyes open seems to have made me more observant.

Mrs. Brewster takes us around, showing where everything is located. In the refrigerator I see the usual — white lettuce, soy cheese, soy milk — and the pantries are full of canned vegetables and fruits. Most of the products are from NutriCorp, which has a big Canadian maple leaf on its logo. Food from a Canadian corporation. I smile to myself. Evelyn will definitely have a wild idea about that!

I’m back in the suite by seven, just in time for curfew.
Evelyn and Rosie’s door is closed. The door to the room I share with Maddie is also shut tight.

It’s just as well. Whatever’s bugging Maddie, I’m not ready to listen to it. I’m just as happy not to see her. I would like some company, though.

I sigh, alone in the dark living room. The only light is the last rays of dusk making it through the tall windows. I’m just not in the mood to sleep right now and I wish Evelyn were still up.

I remember that last night we were given an oil lamp for our table. It’s so that we can do a little homework at night in the winter months, but even these need to be doused by eight, when the last round of Student Leaguers checks in and we’re expected to go to sleep. I uncover the glass globe, light the wick, and adjust the flame. Putting the globe back, I take a moment to admire the soft amber light it throws over the room.

The quiet light somehow reminds me of home. Suddenly I feel awful about what happened at dinner and I poke my head into the bedroom I’m sharing with Maddie. She lies on her bunk, snoring lightly as always, her social studies textbook open across her chest. I take my locket from my top drawer and gaze at the photos of my parents before clasping the chain around my neck. For a minute, I feel a little less alone.

Returning to the living room, I slide my English reading off the pile of my books on the table and open it to the assigned page. It’s a novel from the 1800s by Charles Dickens called
A Tale of Two Cities,
set during the French Revolution. Most of the class hate it. They say it’s too old-fashioned and hard to read. I find the writing style slow to wade through, too. But the book captured my interest from the very first line: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
I couldn’t stop thinking about that. It seemed to fit my life so well. The world was in an awful state, and yet here I was, having the most exciting, most free, most interesting time ever.

I sit at the table and start to read by lamplight. I haven’t gotten more than a page into it when I hear a key turn in the lock.

Everyone is here — so who could be coming in? I stand, alarmed, my open book still in my hand.

Rosie slips in the door and shuts it quietly.

“Rosie! You scared me!” I sigh as relief floods me. “I thought you were in your room. It’s past curfew.”

Rosie jumps at my voice and then slumps against the wall, putting her hands on her chest as though to quiet her pounding heart. “I know,” she says with a breathless laugh. “I know. On my way back from the cafeteria I couldn’t resist taking a walk in the woods. I just had to have some quiet alone time or I thought I’d go nuts.”

“I know exactly how you feel,” I agree. “It’s hard always being with other people. That was starting to drive me nuts back in Chicago.”

Rosie crosses to the couch and throws herself down onto it, one leg propped on the couch’s arm, the other dragging onto the floor. “But then I was scared out of my mind trying to get back here without being seen. It was stupid. I’ll never do something like that again.” She propped herself on her elbow. “Hey, you got the lamp going. Cool.”

There’s an awkward pause as we both realize we never really talk, at least not outside of class.

“So, what do you think we’ll be doing this weekend?” I ask, just to fill the empty space.

“Well, I don’t know about the rest of you guys, but I thought I’d cruise the mall and take in a movie. Enjoy the air-conditioning,” Rosie says, kicking off her sneakers.

This is totally
not
what I expected her to say! Imagine, Rosie Chavez making a joke!

“Maybe I’ll come with you,” I say, playing along. “I hear that a new fast-food place opened. You can get pizza, burgers, tacos, and ice cream all in one place.”

“I wouldn’t mind some of my mother’s enchiladas suizas,” Rosie says wistfully.

“That’s a Mexican dish, isn’t it?” I ask, recognizing the name from the local Mexican restaurant my parents, Maddie, and I used to like to go to.

“Yeah, it is.”

“So you’re Mexican?” I ask.

“My parents were born in Mexico. I was born in
So that makes me American — as American as you.”

“Yeah, of course,” I say. “I was just curious. So … anyway … I know a good Mexican place we can go. How many enchiladas do you want to eat?”

“I don’t know,” Rosie says doubtfully. “I’d better not have too many. The other night I ate, like, an entire cow.”

“Oh, me, too. I forgot,” I say, keeping up the gag. “But after we eat, we can pop over to the health club for a game of tennis.”

“Terrific idea,” Rosie says loftily “Let’s just do that very thing.”

We burst into laughter at the same moment. Even though it’s not really funny, it’s easier to joke about it.

Plus it feels really good to laugh.

“I see you’re wearing your locket,” Rosie observes. “Whose picture you got in there? A boyfriend?”

“No. My parents.”

I expect her to make fun of me, but instead she asks to see the photos. Opening the locket, I show her.

“They look like they’re nice,” she says. “The best,” I reply. “You’re lucky,” Rosie remarks.

There’s a knock at the door — it’s a Leaguer telling us to turn out the light and go to bed. “Sure thing,” I say as I turn the dial to lower the wick into the oil, putting out the flame.

We’re instantly plunged into near darkness. Only the strong moonlight that washes over everything allows us to find our way toward our rooms. “See ya tomorrow,” I say softly to Rosie.

“Bright and early,” she adds.

I tiptoe back into my and Maddie’s room. Maddie is still asleep, which is fine with me. I’m not feeling so lonely anymore, and I don’t want to get into a bunch of drama with her tonight. I don’t want her to bring me down with all her negativity.

I’ve had a good day and a surprisingly nice night. But I’m exhausted and I just want to go to sleep.

A
t breakfast next Saturday I stand by the buffet table wearing a stained white apron with straps that tie at my neck and a hem that falls past my knees. I’m about to scoop a large bowl of fruit salad into small white bowls when Mrs. Brewster stands at the front of the room and calls for silence. She has an important announcement.

“You girls will be spending this weekend in very special classes,” Mrs. Brewster says.

A low murmur of disappointed grumbling travels across the cafeteria. We’ve been so busy this week that everyone is exhausted and looking forward to some time off.

I have mixed feelings, though. I’m tired, too, and wouldn’t mind some time to just chill. Yet I lean forward,
interested to hear what Mrs. Brewster will say next. Country Manor is so full of wonderful surprises.

“These special classes all involve outdoor survival skills. Your class assignments are listed on the bulletin board there by the door,” Mrs. Brewster tells us. “Check for your classes after you finish eating your breakfast.”

There’s no way I can wait until I eat before checking my class assignment. I’m way too excited. Going directly to the board, I give a little fist pump of excitement when I see that I’m to report to the pool.

Yes! I’m finally going to see the famous CMS Olympic-sized pool.

I rush through my kitchen chores and then hurry to the suite to grab my purple tank suit and put it on under shorts and a T-shirt. I meet Maddie in the bathroom when I go for a towel. “I’m going to the pool,” I say excitedly. “What class do you have?”

“Tent raising or some stupid thing like that,” Maddie answers sourly. “It’s in the forest.”

“Are you okay?” I ask.

“Fine,” Maddie mumbles.

“Are you sure?” I press.

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever.” Maddie waves me away. “Go. You don’t want to be late.”

“You’re right,” I agree, already moving out of the bathroom with one of our plain white towels in my hand. “Have fun at your class.”

“I’m sure it will be a blast,” she grumbles.

As I hurry out of the dorms and toward the pool, I wonder why Maddie can’t just get into the spirit of things. What’s got her so bugged?

The first floor of the pool building is a changing area, an expansive room lined with lockers. I notice that no one has put a lock on any of the lockers and, at first, I hesitate. What if someone takes my stuff? Back in my old school, theft was a big problem.

But then I rethink it.

What do I have left that anyone would want to steal? And even if they did steal my sneakers or something, I’d spot them eventually.

So I quickly undress down to my bathing suit, step into my flip-flops, and throw my towel around my neck.
I see a sign with an arrow and the word
POOL.
I follow it down some dark, dungeon-like steps.

The sounds of girls’ voices vibrating with that particular pool echo effect tells me I’m getting close. When I pass through the entrance at the bottom of the steps I feel a rush of excitement. There it is — aqua and shimmering. No lap ropes disturb the serenely sparkling field of blue.

It’s completely as I’d pictured it.

But a second glance reveals something totally unexpected.

Canoes! Four of them are lined up at the three-foot end. Two girls are seated in each canoe. Several more girls sit on the edge, their legs in the water.

Devi is in a blue tank suit. Emmanuelle is there, too, also in a bathing suit, assisting her. Emmanuelle smiles at me when I enter.

Devi stands at the pool’s edge. She wears water shoes and has a whistle around her neck and a clipboard in her hand. “You’re late,” she states evenly when I approach.

“I apologize to you and the class,” I say. “It won’t happen again.” In the last week I’ve learned that this is the expected response to the charge of lateness. That morning I was delayed because, after breakfast, the girl I was working with in the kitchen, Anne Abadi, had cramps and had to sit down. That left me to finish both of our work. There was no use in saying this to Devi. No excuses, no matter how valid, are acceptable.

And, the fact is, I am not actually late at all. I am exactly on time. But at CMS, on time is late. We are expected to be at every class and event five minutes — ten minutes is even better — early. This rule makes Maddie nuts. “You’re either on time or you’re not,” she insists. I see the point, though. When the class or whatever starts, we’re already focused and ready to go.

I join the girls at the end of the pool and listen as Devi picks up an oar. “If you are seated in the back of the canoe, you are in the stern. That makes you the helmswoman, which means you are in charge of steering. The person at the front, called the bow, is simply providing power forward. The first thing the helmswoman
must know about steering the boat is how to do a J-stroke.”

Devi demonstrates how to do it. Then the crew in the four canoes goes out into the pool to try it. There is a lot of laughter as the girls collide with one another; it’s clear that keeping a canoe on course is not as simple as it looks. After those girls practice, another group takes its turn.

Finally, it’s my turn to get into a canoe. Getting into the tippy boat is not easy. I have to keep my weight low, and even then the canoe rocks from side to side.

I’m assigned to sit in the back to steer. While Teresa Balmer gets into the bow, I can’t resist dangling my arms into the cool water. It’s so refreshing I can almost cry with delight. This pool water brings back so many good memories — happy days spent swimming with my family, the thrill of competing when I was on the team.

At the end of four hours, we’ve learned to steer, turn, back up, hold the canoe in a stationary position, and bring a canoe into a narrow docking space.

The last lesson is the most fun. We take the canoes into the middle of the pool, with three girls in the boats
this time, and the middle girl stands up. She bounces until the canoe is rocking so violently that it tips and we are all thrown into the water. This, we are told, is called capsizing. We are then taught how to right the boat once more by very quickly swimming back to it before it takes on too much water and sinks. We station ourselves on one side and, all at once, press our weight down until the opposite side rises.

It’s sort of thrilling when the opposite end starts to come up, dumping a torrent of water on all of us. Then it plops over with a tremendous splat, spraying us even more. Of course, the trick then becomes to make sure the canoe doesn’t float away on its own before we can climb back in.

I’m smiling from ear to ear as I hurry back to my room to change for lunch. Even though I didn’t get to swim, learning to canoe is the most fun I’ve had in … maybe ever. No kidding! To be out here where the air is clean — at least much cleaner than in Chicago — and schoolwork is combined with outdoor skills is like a dream to me. It’s as if CMS was designed just for me.

• • •

On Saturday night I put down my book to answer a brisk knock at our door.

“Lights out, girls!” Evelyn cries, smiling in her new League gear — night-vision goggles in her bag, Student League pin on her collar.

I excitedly drag her inside. “Let’s see them!” I cry.

“No. It’s against regulations,” Evelyn says, trying to be serious and official.

Rosie looks up from
A Tale of Two Cities,
which she is desperately trying to finish before all the classes have a test on Monday. I can’t believe they’re expecting us to finish the whole book in a week. “Oh, come on!” Rosie pleads. “Let’s see them.”

“Please,” I beg. “You said you would.”

“No, she didn’t,” says Maddie from her spot on the couch where she’s reading her social studies text.

“See?” Evelyn insists. “I didn’t.”

“Please,” I repeat.

Evelyn shifts from foot to foot indecisively.

“Pretty please,” I whine.

“Oh, all right,” Evelyn gives in with a big smile. She reaches into the canvas bag she carries over her shoulder and pulls them out.

“Turn out the lamp!” I cry as I stretch the rubber strap over my head and adjust the goggles over my eyes.

“I’m trying to read here,” Maddie complains to Rosie, who plunges us into darkness when she douses the lamp’s wick into the oil.

I can see everything! It’s all gray, of course, with patches of red here and splotches of green there. Just the same, I can see them all fine. “This is amazing,” I say. “I feel like a soldier or something.”

“Let me try,” Rosie requests. She’s trying to be cool, I can tell. But she’s excited.

“Come get them,” I say, knowing full well she can’t see me.

“Very funny,” she replies. “Bring them to me. You’re the one who can see.”

Moving as silently as I can, I sneak over to where Maddie is on the couch and poke her in the arm.

Maddie shrieks.

“Quiet!” Evelyn says in a hushed, worried voice. “You’ll get me into trouble.”

“Sorry,” Maddie apologizes peevishly. “Some idiot nearly scared me to death by poking me in the dark. And I’m pretty sure I know who it was.”

“Can’t you take a joke?” I ask, annoyed. Can’t she have fun for two minutes?

“Give me the goggles,” Rosie prods.

“Yeah, give them to her,” Evelyn says. “I have to get going.”

I find Rosie and take hold of her arm. “Here,” I say, handing her the goggles.

“Whoa,” Rosie says once she has them on. “I
need
a pair of these. Totally must have them.”

After a few minutes she offers them to Maddie. “Want to try?”

“Nah, it’s okay,” Maddie declines halfheartedly. “I don’t want Evelyn to get into trouble.”

Rosie lights the oil lamp again and takes off the goggles. “Thanks, Evelyn,” she says, handing them back.

“Okay, guys, gotta go,” Evelyn says as she returns the goggles to her bag. “That lamp has to be turned off in five minutes,” she adds.

“Yes, ma’am,” I say with a little salute.

“Rule number twenty-eight of the League code: no special favors for friends or family,” Evelyn says lightly as she crosses to Maddie. With a smile, she delivers a comforting pat on Maddie’s back.

Maddie returns Evelyn’s smile with a look of genuine affection. This surprises me. I hadn’t realized the two of them had grown so close. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, though. I haven’t been paying much attention to Maddie since the evening she walked out of the cafeteria.

Has Maddie been confiding in Evelyn?

Actually, it makes sense. Maddie hates CMS and Evelyn thinks it’s all some evil conspiracy. Naturally they’d have a lot to talk about.

A jolt of jealousy hits me but it quickly passes.

Fine,
I think,
it’s about time she makes some other friends and doesn’t rely on me for everything.

• • •

Sunday is a half day of classes, morning only, but I have to be up by four thirty for my second week of kitchen staff. I hope the next time I pull this assignment, they’ll give me lunch or dinner duty. Getting up every morning before dawn is a killer.

“Why are you up?” Maddie mumbles, rolling over in her top bunk. “It’s Sunday.”

“You still have to eat breakfast on Sunday,” I remind her.

“At five thirty in the morning?” Maddie grumbles. “Why can’t they give us a break? Haven’t they ever heard of the
weekend
in this hellhole? I’m skipping breakfast. I need to sleep.”

“You’re not allowed to skip any meals,” I remind her.

Pulling the pillow over her head, she makes a sound that is halfway between a scream and a grunt. Kind of a roar of deep displeasure, I suppose. “This place is the pits,” she declares before rolling over to face the wall.

“Sorry you think so,” I mutter as I leave the room, and
hurry down the stairs to begin my trek through the early-morning fog.

Today Anne Abadi is feeling much better, so we have a full crew and we get out on time. I arrive at the pool a full ten minutes early, as expected. In the water, four canoes once again float together side by side. I wonder what more there is to learn about canoeing. Almost as though she’s read my mind, Devi says, “Now that you know the basics, the most important thing is for you all to practice. And that’s what we’ll be doing today.”

We’re split into three-girl teams and given a series of challenges. The team that rows to the opposite end of the pool, switches positions without capsizing, turns, rows to the center, then stands up to tip the canoe, rights it again, and rows back in the best time, wins. Devi and Emmanuelle hold up their stopwatches to indicate they will be timing the event.

My team can’t stop giggling during the capsizing part, but everyone is shouting and laughing on all the teams, and we come in second. I have even more fun than I did on Saturday.

And actually being in the water is so amazing! To be surrounded by the flowing coolness — to float, weightless! It’s something I worried I would never experience again, but here I am.

During the capsize part, I take a minute to duck below the surface. A world of water — clean, beautiful water. The lost world of water! It isn’t a dream; it’s Country Manor.

Heading back to lunch with Sara, one of the girls from my canoe, I meet Rosie, her tall tennis friend, and the gymnast with the long black ponytail. I don’t know what to expect. Will Rosie snub me now that she’s with her sporty friends?

“Hey.” Rosie greets me with a smile. “Look what we did all morning.” She and her two friends each hold up a jumble of rope tied in a bunch of different ways.

I think they must have been in some arts-and-crafts macramé class. “Nice,” I say uneasily. “What are they?”

The three of them laugh at my confusion, but not in a mean way. “They’re knots,” Rosie explains.

“Every kind of knot known to humankind,” adds the tall girl.

Rosie introduces me. The tennis girl is Mary Jensen and the ponytailed girl is Chui-lian Lee. “You can call me Chewy,” she says. “Everyone does.”

“This is Louisa, my one cool roommate I was telling you about,” Rosie adds.

I introduce them to Sara, feeling flattered and happy at Rosie’s description of me. But I also feel like I should stick up for Evelyn and Maddie. When the other girls head back to their rooms and it’s just me and Rosie, I tell her, “Evelyn and Maddie are great. You just have to get to know them.”