The Academy (34 page)

To my relief, I didn’t get to hear what he had had planned for me. North went into action again and this time the moves he used were nothing like the ones he had shown me during our Judo lesson. They were fast, efficient… and deadly. Before I could blink, he kicked out, snapping Broward’s thick wrist like a matchstick. Broward let out a high, breathless scream and abruptly released me.

With the bully’s hold on my ankle finally broken, I scooted backward, still fighting with my towel. But North wasn’t done yet. Leaning down, he grabbed Broward by the collar and yanked him upright. When he saw the way Broward’s pants were puddled around his thick ankles, his face turned even darker.

“Wilkenson thought you were up to no good when he saw you sneaking back onto campus but this is worse than I imagined. What the hell were you planning on doing, Broward? Wasn’t bullying Kris and beating him up bad enough for you?”

Broward looked up, his face curled into a nasty sneer, his broken arm dangling uselessly by his side. “What do you think I was going to do, huh? The same thing you’ve been doing with that little bitch all semester, that’s what.”

North glared at him. “What Kris and I do is none of your business. He’s under my protection.”

“What do you keep saying ‘he’ for, huh?” Dawson demanded, from the relative safety of the far corner.

“Yeah,” Nodes snuffled, still cradling his broken fingers. “Stop tryin’ to pretend. We know you know what Kris is.”

“What are you talking about?” The honest look of confusion on North’s face seemed to strike Broward as suddenly hilarious.

“Look at him—he doesn’t know!” he howled, although his words came out muffled, due to his broken nose.
“He doesn’t know.”

“You son of a bitch. I don’t know
what?”
North demanded, shaking him.

“Your little roomie is a girl
,
North
”
Broward sneered, nodding at me. “Don’t tell me you really didn’t know. Jameson is a
girl.
”

Abruptly, North seemed to go crazy. With a low growl, he turned on Broward and began to beat him. I heard another snap and then the bully was gasping and clutching his leg. I felt sick when I saw the boneless, rubbery way his calf suddenly bent in the middle. He fell to one knee but North wasn’t done yet. His deadly hands flew and then a white shard of bone, streaked with red, was poking out of a hole it had torn in Broward’s shirt sleeve. Next, North targeted his already bloody face. His own face was white with fury—he was completely out of control.

“Stop! Stop it!” I gasped, horrified by the violence. “Don’t, North—you’ll
kill
him!”

My voice seemed to get through to him somehow. Panting, he stepped away from Broward who was in a heap on the floor.

“I warned you.” His voice was shaking. “I warned you what would happen if you came after Kris again. Now
get out.”
He looked up at Dawson and Nodes who had stunned looks on their faces. “Go on—grab him and get him out of here. Before I give you two some of the same.”

Scrambling, they managed to each hook an arm around Broward and drag him toward the door. The bully was unconscious—either that or dead, I thought with a shiver. He didn’t protest even when his friends bumped his broken limbs roughly in their haste to get away from North.

They left a trail of red on the white tiles that made my stomach turn but at last they were gone. Then the bathroom was empty except for myself and North.

Slowly, he turned to me. I had finally managed to get to my feet and get my towel knotted securely around me but the look on his face made me feel completely naked.

“Is it true?” His voice was barely more than a whisper and the look on his face was terrible to behold.

“Of course not,” I lied frantically, still trying desperately to keep my secret—Kristopher’s secret. “Broward is crazy. They’re all—”

He held up a hand to stop me. “No more lies, Kris,” he said tiredly, wiping his bloody hands on his uniform pants. “Tell me. No, don’t tell me…
show
me.”

“North—”

“Show me!” he roared and then his voice dropped to a whisper. “
Please
. I need to see. I need to know. Please, Kris, just…just show me.”

There was nothing else I could do, no other lie I could tell. No way to keep him from finding out my shameful secret. Blushing and trembling, I let the towel drop.

North took me in, his eyes growing wider by the second. “My God,” he breathed. “It
is
true.”

“North…” I took a step toward him but he backed away, shaking his head.

“No, get away from me. I can’t believe I was such an
idiot.
I never even—”

“Okay now what the
hell
is going on in here?” The angry roar of Coach Janus echoed in the tiled room, freezing me to the spot. “Broward back on campus and half beaten to death. Nodes and Dawson yelling that North is responsible and that Jameson’s a Goddamned
girl
. And now—”

He came to a halt right in front of me, beside North. Finally my paralysis broke. I blushed and scrambled for the towel, my heart pounding in horror. But it was clear by the time I got it back in place, the coach had seen everything. He looked at me blankly. “Jameson?”

“I can explain,” I babbled, pulling the towel tighter around myself. “It’s my brother, you see—my father was going to send him here but he didn’t want to go. He wanted to join the orchestra instead. And I—I’ve always been better at Astro Navigation than needlepoint. I wanted to fly a space ship and this was the only way to learn. So we switched places but it’s not Kristopher’s fault. It’s honestly not—”

Coach Janus shook his head. “Save it for the headmaster.” He took me firmly by the arm. “Come on. I don’t get paid enough to deal with this kind of crap.” He gave me a look of disgust. “Hell of a way to start the damn semester.”

The coach was pulling me away but I looked over my shoulder at North. He just stood there, staring at me, his bloody hands hanging limply by his sides. More than my own punishment, more even than the fear that Kristopher was in jeopardy, the look in his pale blue eyes seemed to pierce my heart.

“North,” I whispered. “North, I’m sorry.
So sorry…”

North only shook his head. “I trusted you,” he whispered, but the echoing walls picked up his voice and flung it at me, a bitter accusation. “Kris, I
trusted
you.”

And then Coach Janus pulled me around the corner and he was gone.

Headmaster Chauser paced back and forth in front of his desk, a worried frown furrowing his forehead. Every once in a while he would stop and look at me as though he was going to say something. Then he would shake his head and just keep pacing.

After ten minutes of this, I felt like I was going mad. I had already been kept waiting for hours in the room adjoining the headmaster’s office—ironically, the one where Broward had received the fateful paddling I had witnessed on my first day—and I felt like I couldn’t stand to wait a minute more. Hinks had given me an oversized uniform coat to wrap around myself, which was better than the towel, but honestly not by much. I was still naked under it but it wasn’t my lack of underwear that had me feeling more bare and raw than I ever had in my life.

“Please, Sir,” I ventured, but Chauser only shook his head.

“A female,” he said at last, glaring at me. “Masquerading as a male in
my
school. What is this universe coming to? How the
hell
could I not know?”

“I think a lot of people are asking themselves that right about now,” Coach Janus said roughly. “I know
I
sure as hell am.”

Headmaster Chauser looked up, seeming to realize for the first time that the coach was still there, standing beside me like some kind of guard.

“Thank you, Janus, you can go,” he said absently. “This is my problem to deal with now.”

Coach Janus snorted in obvious disgust. “Yeah, good luck with that.” Then he turned and slammed out of the headmaster’s office, leaving me alone with Chauser and Hinks, who was standing in one corner wringing his hands.

“Headmaster, please, if you’ll just listen for a moment I think I can explain—” I began but Chauser rounded on me.

“Explain? Explain what—that you’ve made me and the entire rest of our faculty here at The Royal Academy a laughingstock? Explain that you’ve played us all for fools and idiots?”

“That wasn’t my intention at all,” I protested. “This isn’t some kind of prank I played for fun—it’s my
life.”

“It’s my life too. And my
career,”
Chauser snapped. “And if you’re not Kristopher Jameson then who
are
you?”

“Kristina Jameson, Kristopher’s twin sister,” I said softly.

“Twin, eh?” he said bitterly. “Yes, you certainly
look
alike enough to be twins. Your face matches his picture almost exactly.”

“That’s what gave me the idea in the first place,” I said.

“The idea to masquerade as a male and invade my school?” the headmaster demanded.

“Dudley, please, just let him talk. Er, her—let
her
talk,” Hinks suggested. “I’m sure there must be some explanation for all this. Some reason she’s here instead of her brother.”

“There is,” I said. Quickly I explained about my father’s plans for Kristopher and myself—plans we had no say in which would lead to a life of misery for both of us. I told about how
I
was the one who cared about exploring space while my beloved brother only wanted to stay immersed in his music.

“And so I convinced Kristopher we should switch places,” I continued. “But I never dreamed how difficult it would be and I had no idea the…the penalty for such deception was so high.” I swallowed hard. “By the time I learned the possible consequences of my actions, it was far too late to back out. I…I was stuck.”

“I see.” Chauser nodded slowly. “And I
also
see that there’s no way you could have survived and kept your disguise intact without help. Tell the truth now, young man…er, young lady, did your roommate know about any of this?”

“None of it,” I said instantly. “North had no idea I was a girl until just now when he…he saw me in the shower room.” My cheeks went red with the admission but it was a truth that needed to be told.

The gave me a stern look. “I’m sorry but I just don’t see how that’s possible. Hinks and I both saw North’s devotion to you—do you expect me to believe that he developed feelings for you while he was still under the impression you were male?”

“He did,” I said as strongly as I could.

Chauser frowned. “My very strong impression was that North had no interest in other males—at least until he took that caning, which was meant for you.”

“He didn’t. He
doesn’t
,” I whispered. “He just thought he did because he thought I was a male.”

The headmaster shook his head. “That was cruel of you, Jameson. Very cruel. I can only imagine how confused your roommate must be at this point.”

“I know.” Tears pricked at my eyes and I tried desperately to hold them back. “I’m not proud of that, of how I lied to him—to everybody here, Headmaster. But I was desperate to keep my secret and protect my brother.” I looked up at him. “So you see, it was all
my
fault—entirely mine. And the blame and punishment should fall on me as well.”

He shook his head. “I’m afraid that’s not possible. I’ll need you to divulge your brother’s location so he can be found and brought to justice.”

“No!” I lifted my chin. “I mean, no sir—I can’t tell you that. All I
can
tell you is that Kristopher is far away, out of the Prometheus system and beyond your reach.” I hoped, anyway. “If you want to punish someone, you’ll have to punish
me,”
I said.

Headmaster Chauser lifted an eyebrow at me. “You are aware that the penalty for impersonating another student with the intent to defraud The Royal Academy is the loss of a hand?”

My throat was so dry it made a clicking sound when I swallowed but somehow I managed to answer. “Y-yes,” I whispered. “I know.”