The Academy: Book 1 (18 page)

             
“Class will start tomorrow morning. A chaperone will come to the dormitory and wake you. You will have breakfast, and then your training here at the Academy will begin.

             
“There is, however, one oddity that I must discuss with you at this time. As part of Academy tradition, and, as part of your first task here, you will
not,
under any circumstances, speak for the first full week of your stay here. Starting at midnight tonight you will go an entire seven days without any form of communication. We will be watching you, I promise you that. People have been kicked out of the Academy for so much as making too much eye contact with someone else. Absolutely no communication is allowed with anyone; you may not speak to an instructor or a chaperone, or even me: No one.

             
“The exercise is there to make you understand the kind of absolute obedience we expect from our members. This is no joking matter.”

             
Hubert Boistly smiled. “Now, I know that you all are probably real hungry, so we are about to dismiss you to go get some food in the Fishie cafeteria. But before this, I must give you one more word of warning.”

             
The man’s face grew dark. He stopped smiling, and he suddenly looked much older.

             
“Here at the Academy, there are all kinds of odd creatures. You will notice, for instance, that raccoons keep our facilities clean. Do not talk to these animals. Further, you may also notice an assortment of odd creatures in the jungles surrounding. Do not talk to these creatures, ever. They are wild, untamed, too smart for their own good, and dangerous. They may look like they are humans, they may act like humans, but they are not humans. I’ve seen far too many students killed for showing compassion to these animals.”

             
The man’s face lightened again, and he smiled, showing the gap in his teeth.

             
“I think that that’s it, folks. Go eat. Follow the yellow line to the cafeteria. And remember, no talking come midnight. None, or you are expelled.”

             
As the Fishies were getting to their feet, Teddy turned to Asa and asked, “What happens if we get expelled?”

             
“He never said,” Asa replied.

             
“I guess we don’t ‘need to know,’ huh?” Teddy was smiling, but there was fear in his eyes. His lips trembled and the smile shrank away.

              Asa was still running through what Hubert Boistly had said as they entered the cafeteria.

             
The room was large and impeccably clean. The floor shined a deep purple, and white hourglass shaped pillars were connected from the floor to the ceiling periodically throughout the room. The room was lit with chandeliers; Asa guessed that the clear rocks hanging from them were real diamonds. Each of the apricot size rocks must have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars—and chains of the diamonds were draped generously over the dozens of chandeliers. The chandeliers did not have light bulbs on them, but instead they each held hundreds of large, white candles. Wax rolled down the sides of the candles and into golden bowls at the bottom of the candle stands.

             
The firelight twinkling throughout the diamonds gave the room the feeling of perpetual sunset. The Fishies were quiet and talked in hushed voices; they had a lot to think about.

             
“I’ll look forward to talking to you next week,” Asa joked halfheartedly with Teddy, referencing the talking ban that was coming.

             
Teddy smiled for a moment, but the joke had fallen flat.

             
There was a nervousness among the group. A type of shared anxiety had followed them out of the assembly like a charged cumulous cloud. There was tension. There was a lot of undirected energy; people were tugging at the collars of their clothes too much, girls flicked their hair away from their eyes when it wasn’t necessary, people with took their parkas off and then returned them to their body moments later.

             
The sounds were of hushed voices, shuffling, tired feet, and the clanking of dishes. Asa was standing in a long line of Fishies with Teddy, waiting to be served cafeteria-style food on plates. Five polar bears sat behind a glass guarded counter and scooped out food for the people in line.

             
These white bears had the same types of deformities, or changes that Asa had gotten used to seeing since his run in with Harold Kensing—they had more oval shaped, taller heads than typical, and their ears had moved further to the side of their head. Asa also noticed that the jaws of these animals were less pronounced than of the same breed in the wild. There was something in the way they moved their eyes that Asa’s brain categorized as
human
.

             
The line was moving slowly. The polar bears were uncoordinated, and there weren’t enough of them to quickly serve the hundreds of Fishies waiting in line. Asa directed his attention towards the first polar bear in line. He wasn’t for sure, but he thought that it was a female. She was overweight, and her fur was unkempt and matted in places, while missing in others. Black skin shone through in patches where there was no hair. Her blue eyes were tired, and red. She concentrated on the plate in front of her, and lifted a spatula in her palm; she was having to squeeze the pads on her paws to do so; it was an unnatural movement and was obviously difficult. The spatula was shaking. The polar bear was lowering the utensil to the pan below, where slices of herb crusted chicken breast waited, her tongue pasted smartly to the left side of her lip in concentration. The spatula halted, directly in front of a serving of chicken. It wavered, the flat metal end shaking in the air. Then, as the polar bear pushed the utensil forward, trying to lodge it between the chicken and the pan, she dropped it. The spatula clanked on the floor, the food fell with it, and the polar bear let out a hideous roar and slammed her heavy paw against the counter.

             
Everyone but the man in the white suit froze. He was walking toward the situation, not away from it. The Fishies at the corner backed away in terror. Asa stiffened, waiting for what would happen next.

             
The polar bear was breathing hard, her shoulders moving up and down when the man in the white suit came up to her.
She’s upset because she’s having trouble serving the food. She’s a non-human that they’re trying to make do a human task.
Asa recognized the man in the white suite from the little town inside of the Moat. It was the same man who had growled at him. He came up to the polar bear and rested a pale, white hand on her shoulder. He was smiling, showing black gums.

             
“Cindy,” he said to the polar bear, patting the animal’s shoulder. “Why don’t you go rest now? You’re doing amazing work.”

             
Cindy the polar bear grunted and gestured at the spatula at the ground.

             
“I know, I know,” the man with the black gums said to her. His bald head glowed orange beneath the firelight. “You shouldn’t be working with a spatula like that—I’ll have someone make you a new one before you come into work tomorrow. Deal?”

             
Cindy nodded gently. She was twice as tall as any human in the room.

             
“Now, go, get some sleep. You’ve done a great job.” The man in the white suit’s voice was soothing, comforting. Still, there was something dangerous about him. Asa’s instincts told him so.

             
Cindy the bear grunted some more, then fell down on all fours and padded out the room. She exited through a wide door in the back of the cafeteria, and the food was once again being served to Fishies. The man in the white suit with the black gums had taken Cindy’s place and was flopping chicken breasts onto plates for the Fishies.

             
Out of the corner of his eye Asa noticed Charlotte, far forward in line, making eye contact with Asa to communicate something. She turned around and was served a chicken breast.

             
When Asa got to the front of the line, and held his plate out for the man with black gums to serve him, he did his best to stop his hands from shaking. The man with black gums had been scooping up chicken breasts from the front row of foods and serving them, but for Asa, he took one from the back of the pan. The man placed the meat on Asa’s plate and smiled at him—“Enjoy,” he said. The smile was huge, it was almost like the snarl he had given Asa earlier that day.

             
Asa nodded, muttered—“thank you,” and went on down the line.

             
By the time Asa had been served by every polar bear, his plate was full of butter laced turnips, green beans with bits of bacon in them, and a large, warm, sugar cookie. He tried not to think of the man with the black gums as he led he and Teddy over to a couple of seats directly across from Charlotte and her friend with red hair. Asa did a quick glance around the cafeteria and could not spot Stridor. In the corner, already eating, were McCoy and Conway, talking quietly together. Asa had not seen Conway since he stormed away on the train station.

             
Where do I know him from?

             
The question came to his mind, but he tried not to dwell on this, either. Tomorrow would start one week of no talking, and he wanted to make a good impression on Charlotte before this time started.

             
“Looks like Conway and McCoy aren’t very hungry,” Asa joked as he and Teddy slumped down into two of the high backed chairs.

             
Charlotte turned her head and looked back to see that each of the chaperone had what would be three servings for a normal person, piled high onto their plate. “It appears that way,” she joked back.

             
Asa smiled as he cut into his first bite of chicken breast. He was happy. He was in a bad situation, sure, but he liked these people. And, after dinner, he would go safely to bed. He did not know what the morning held for him, but for now, he felt that he was safe.

             
He put the bite of chicken breast into his mouth and chewed. It tasted wonderful—the chicken was well cooked, while still maintaining an ample amount of moisture and tenderness. The herbs and salts mixed deliciously in his mouth.

             
He swallowed, and wasn’t keen enough to notice that his mouth was going numb. He began to cut into another bite.

             
“This is my friend, Sam,” Charlotte said, indicating the girl with red hair. She smiled and showed her braces to them.

             
“Nice to meet you, Sam,” Teddy began. Then, he spoke to the whole group—“You’ve got to feel sorry for Cindy, don’t you?” Teddy asked. “I mean, a polar bear isn’t meant to use its hands like that.”

             
“What do you want it to use?” Charlotte asked. “It’s mouth?”

             
“That would be more natural, wouldn’t it?” Teddy asked.

             
Asa swallowed his second bite of chicken. The room spun violently in his vision for one second and he jerked his eyes further open. Everything went back to normal.

             
“Yes,” Asa replied. “That would be more natural, but wouldn’t it almost seem to key in?”

             
He was smiling and took another bite of his chicken.

             
“What do you mean?” Sam asked.

             
“Asa, are you alright?” Charlotte asked. “You don’t look well.”

             
Asa looked at Charlotte’s plate. She hadn’t touched her food. Beyond Charlotte’s curly, dark hair, the man with the black gums was standing in the back of the cafeteria, leaning against one of the pillars. He was watching Asa, waiting to see what would happen. A slight smirk was creeping among his thin lips.

             
Asa stopped cutting into his chicken. He didn’t feel well. He opened his mouth, “Habaloo chacknos. Greeney,” he said.

             
They looked at him with concerned expressions.

             
Asa felt something running down the front of his face. He reached his hand up, wiped his mouth, pulled it back, and examined it. His fingers were covered in red, hot blood.

             
“Your nose, Asa!” Charlotte hollered.

             
Asa tried to breathe in, but found that his throat had swollen shut. He stood up, panicked, and again, the room around him shook violently. This time, the sensation was more extreme and he fell onto his back, smacking his head against the hard purple floor.

             
He heard Charlotte scream for someone to help.

             
His left arm hurt an insane amount, and when he turned his head to examine it, he saw that it was turning a bright shade of red. He sat up and saw that Conway and McCoy were racing over to him. His vision began to tunnel, the world around him darkening. He wanted to scream, but found that his throat was still swollen shut. The last thing that he saw was the man with black gums, leaning against the white pillar. He was smiling now, looking right at Asa.