Sugar & Squall (3 page)

We sat at the same table for lunch. Other girls joined us, bringing numbers to seven. One of the newcomers was describing a guy she’d gone down on over the holidays. That kept most enthralled. I pushed peas around my plate, listening to every intricate detail of the act unfold until it started to sound more like some wildlife documentary than a heated sexual encounter.

“What did you do over the break, Kat?” Eyes focused, genuine interest. It took me by surprise. She mus
t have picked up my name in class, bitch. I tried to remain casual.

“You know, the usual, shopping and stuff, wishing I was on an island.”

Mild amusement.

“With Logan, I bet,” another newcomer
said, snaking her eyes back to Jemma. News travelled fast. I was already in over my head.

Again, I tried to play it down. “He’s okay.”

My green eye was itchy from the contact. I wanted to rub it.

Newcomer one was incredulous. “
Okay
? He’s hot as fuck. I’d sell a kidney for five minutes alone with him.”

A safety mechanis
m kicked in. Logan was in demand. Buyers were lining up. I dared not risk any potential friendships, no matter how trivial, by joining the queue. I kept my mouth shut.

A short period of silence followed in which every girl at the table seemed to be having their mental way with him. I almost couldn’t believe it myself when I tried to change the subject.

“So, what do you do for fun around here?”

Newcomer one spoke up again. “The usual stuff. There’s the rat’s nest, on the way to the beach. Sometimes we sneak down there after lights out with some of the guys. Not down the actual hole, just near it. Some idiot first-years got busted there last year. The screws have made it pretty tough since, but if you know where to go, it’s easy.”

Rat’s nest? It didn’t exactly sound appealing from a sightseeing perspective.

“What about the security guards?” I suggested.

“Guard, singular,” Newcomer two corrected, “and a fat fucker at that. He couldn’t catch a cold.”

“The nest’s a
deathtrap, you know,” Jemma added, with a deep voice for extra foreboding. “Once a girl was walking there at night, fell to the bottom and broke her leg. It took them three days to work out she was missing.”

“That’s such a load of shit,” newcomer one said. “Next you’ll be telling us the Loch Ness monster lives in the pool. After all, God knows there are much scarier things out here on
this island than a big old sinkhole.”

Jemma piqued up again, a spoonful of yogurt jiggling on her spoon. “There’s the beach. It’s over on the far side of the island, about two minutes past the hole. It’s ghost season, too.”

“Ghost season?” I queried.

I didn’t believe in ghosts. Once you died, you were dead – dust.

“No one told you?” Newcomer one started.

I shook my head. The other girls leaned in.

“Before Carver was a school, it was a mental asylum.”

I looked to the others for a sign of skepticism. They were serious as cancer.

Newcomer one continued. “Some of the dorm rooms still have the restraint bolts in the walls. The admin office was where they did the shock therapy.”

Others nodded in agreement.

“Anyhow, so all these loons are out here on the island. They take the place over, kill all the staff and then drown themselves in the ocean, possessed.”

Why newcomer o
ne had suddenly flipped from being a skeptic I couldn’t work out.

I did my best to look serious, stifling internal laughter.
“You’re not for real, are you?”

“She’s serious,” Jemma interjected. “And it’s true. Carver was once a big crazy bin, and the ghosts are real. I’ve seen them.”

“Me too,” a girl said to my right.

“And me,” another to the left.

Newcomer one sat back on her chair, her arms folded. “It’s a bit early for the beach, though, isn’t it, and a bit bloody cold?” letting the Brit in her come through.

Jemma remained casual, slipping spoons of yogurt between words. “It’s perfect, actually. The skies are clear, there’s a full moon tonight and I’ve already spoken to those guys about it.”

She used her spoon to point over her shoulder at a bunch of senior boys huddled together at a nearby table. Her expression was smug.

“Fine,” newcomer one said. “The beach it is.” I sensed a bit of a rivalry in the air, social butterflies flitting, flirting with power.

Jemma turned her eyes back to me, kicking me under the table. “You’re in too, Kat. All for one, one for all and all that. Maybe Logan might be there? No guarantees but.”

“Maybe you’ll get to cross skinny-dipping from your little black book,” newcomer one mused, with a little pout, soon scooting away when I lunged across the table.

Jemma grabbed my arm and forced me back. “Hey, hey,” she said, throwing ocular daggers newcomer one’s way. “Nothing’s private here, Kat. We don’t keep secrets. It’s a sisterhood thing, share and share alike – prison rules.”

I was fuming, and sat chin to my chest glaring at newcomer one. Anger radiated through me. “You’ve been through my things?”

Jemma went back to her yoghurt. “We had to. It’s almost policy. We have to be sure we aren’t rooming with a serial killer or something.”

“You think I’m a serial killer?”

“Of course not, but we have to be sure. You’re welcome to go through our things. We’re the same size, so borrow whatever you need – except for that cute little jacket in my top drawer. What’s mine is yours and yours is mine,” she said, bringing her left hand back and forth like she was passing a gift.

I was still angry, but simmering. I decided to change the subject again.

“How do you get down there at night, this beach?” I asked, more to the group than one person in particular. “Is there a secret tunnel or something?”

Everyone laughed in unison.

“This ain’t Hogwarts, honey,” Amy chipped in, “but we have ways of getting around. Besides, it’ll be good for you to get out and have a bit of a meet and greet.”

I was surprised such a night life could exist at all. “You don’t get caught?”

Amy turned her lip up like it was nothing at all. “Once or twice. The girl that left got weekend detention last year for getting sloshed at the sinkhole with one of the older guys, but if they get you at the beach it’s usually just a slap on the wrist. Besides, we have escape routes, backups. It’s a fine art.”

Art or not, I was in two minds.

If I wanted to do my own thing, I damn well did it. No one would tell me otherwise. Here, it was different. That was evident. I was outcast already, left here on the island, and for once in my life I genuinely did not want to be alone. I rationalized it in my head. What was the worst that could happen? Detention? Walk the plank?

“I’m in,” I announced, lifting my head. “I love ghosts.”

Jemma gave me a wink and stood up. “Good. Some of them like to play.”

#

The rest of the day seemed to fly past now I had this insider information on board, a reckless act in waiting. Logan was in my next class. I spotted that face, those eyes, as soon as I walked in. Again, I acted like a coward, seating Jemma and I right at the front, much to her protest. I didn’t look his way. I didn’t embarrass myself when class broke, and I didn’t see him again that day.

It seemed like mere minutes before I was back in the room with the girls, throwing on a sweater and swapping
pajama pants for jeans. Toothpick girl was already in bed. She didn’t want a part of it, and the other girls had pulled out, so it was just newcomer one, whose name I discovered was Sam, myself, plus roomies Jemma and Amy.

Jemma had gone
the whole hog. Make-up, bracelets, bomber jacket. It looked like she was auditioning for a music video rather than running out into the night.

“It gets cold out there,” she informed me. “Grab something warm.”

“Maybe she won’t have to,” Amy said. “Xavier’s coming.” She exchanged a quick look with Jemma.

“Who’s Xavier?” I asked.

“Just some guy, not Logan, but not too bad either. Come on, it’s time to go. Remember, heel first, roll it forward.”

I was amused. “What are you guys? Ninjas?”

Jemma gave a little laugh. “Not quite, unless you mean ninjas that make out with hot guys in the middle of the night. We’ve been doing this for years,” she said, patting me on the head on her way past. “Don’t worry.”

“Right,” I replied. “Let’s go then.”

We padded out into the hall. It had been lights out for a half-hour, so things were dead silent except for the odd snore.

As discussed, the four of us carefully made our way towards the end of the dorm. To our left, a door opened.

We hugged the wall, flat up against it in the shadows. I could feel the stone against my back, the cold seeping through my sweater.

It was a girl going to the bathroom. She hadn’t seen us.

When we reached the end of the hall, we headed down the side stairs. Boards creaked underfoot. Jemma said the whole place moaned like a ship at night, so extra noise wouldn’t be construed as anything out of the ordinary.

The teachers occupied rooms at the end of each floor. Some left their doors ajar, and there was a hall check on the hour according to a roster. The first was right after lights out, so we still had at least twenty minutes to make it outside. The security guard was supposed to do rounds as well, but I was assured he’d be too busy jerking off.

I followed the others, careful to remain as quiet as possible.

We reached the ground floor. It looked just like the others. The hallway was there to the left, long and narrow. To the right was a single door.

“Ames,” Jemma whispered.

Amy came up from the back and knelt down by the door knob. She reached up and pulled two pins from her hair, letting it fall in ashen curls down her back.

She kept one pin in her mouth, jiggled the other into the lock, a fierce look of concentration on her face. Jemma watched the staircase.

Amy inserted the second pin. There was a short pop as the door released and then a rush of cold air reached its way inside.

“Let’s go,” Amy said, and she was gone. We followed, Jemma closing the door gently with two hands behind us.

The girls were right. The combination of a full moon and cloudless night meant the landscape was bathed in light. The beach was a fifteen-minute walk. There was a path that went straight there, but it was out in the open, could be seen from Carver and was much too conspicuous. Instead,
we made our way through a tree line that ran right out from the back of the school to the water.

We walked in silence. Whether it was the thrill of being out or ju
st the physical exertion, I breathed hard, clouds of cold forming in front of my mouth and then dissipating into the semi-darkness.

Ten minutes in, we reached a hill. The girls said the beach could not be seen from the school, and this was why. The hill buckled up right out of the earth, obscuring view of anything beyond it.

Descending, Sam pointed out the rat’s nest. I hadn’t noticed it at all, but once we got closer it was clearly there, an almost perfectly circular hole plunging straight down. In circumference, it looked like it was quite large, but it was hard to be sure.

“How do you get down there?” I asked, bent over and trying to get the sentence out completely between breaths.

Jemma pulled up beside me. “You don’t. There’s no way to get back up. Like I said, it’s a deathtrap.”

“Why don’t they fence it off?”

“They did a year or two back, but the hole got bigger after a storm, pulled everything down with it. You think with all the money they’re getting it’s the least they could do, but the school board is too busy sipping champers to worry about any of that.”

We moved on, the sound of waves rolled in, and then, there before us, was the beach.

It was at least a mile long, shaped like a scythe. The moon was directly over the water, sending an ivory staircase across it.

At first, I mistook the boys for a boulder given the way they were seated together on the sand. We walked over.

I noticed there were four as we got closer. Four of them, four of us. Fan-friggin’-tastic.

Jemma spoke out, no longer whispering. “Hey, fancy seeing you guys here.”

Three of the boys nodded or grunted. The other replied, “You too. Have a seat?” he said, motioning at the sand.

We sat and talked for a while, but I wasn’t concentrating. I’d already ruled the guys out. They weren’t my type. I was disappointed Logan hadn’t come. But why would he?

I noticed Jemma was holding hands with one of the larger boys.

“I can’t stand having group every day,” he was remarking, “having to give them
the same crap about why I’m so messed up, how much I hate life.”

Jemma nodded. “It was bad enough three times a week. They probably want us to click it, you know, go nuts and stab someone to keep us here, filling their bank accounts.”