The Academy - Introductions (17 page)

“And the clothes off the floor and hung up.”

“Right.”

“And I want to hear the vacuum running.”

“I’ll get on it now,” I said, edging toward the door. I
coughed. She didn’t say anything about my throat or ask about it. I wondered if
she even remembered what she’d done.

It was still another ten minutes before I got out of her
room as she lectured me on how to clean. I was elated. I had all night to
myself with a good excuse. I’d been grounded to my room until it was clean. I
could be fairly undisturbed for a while. It was the punishment I could deal
with happily.

I rushed up the stairs and then locked my door behind me.
My room didn’t have trash or clothes on the ground. The floor was bare. I
smiled to myself and shook my head. If she came up to check, there was nothing
for her to say about it. There was hardly a thing in my room to mess it up
with.

I went to the attic door and pulled out the cell phone.

If someone wanted to unlock the door and look in, I’d have
about a split second to listen to the rattle of the handle before it opened. I
cuddled up over near the window. I sat on the trunk, looking out to check
Kota’s house. Victor’s car was still there but he’d said he was going to stick
around for dinner. Victor and Kota and Gabriel had a movie they wanted to
watch. Nathan had gone home. He claimed he had a few chores to do around the
house.

I grabbed a book from the shelf and sprawled out on the
floor next to my trunk. If someone rattled the door, I could drop it behind the
trunk and quickly pick up the book to look like I had been reading.

I checked the messages but no one had sent me anything. I
hovered my fingers over the displayed keyboard, wondering what I could do. And
who would I text? I didn’t know what to say to anyone.

To pass the time and to keep myself busy, I focused on the
Angry Birds app.

I got tired of Angry Birds quickly. I spent a lot of time
on the floor just looking up at the ceiling and listening to the music from my
stereo. The sun started to go down. I checked outside and Victor’s car was gone
from Kota’s driveway so he was already home or on his way.

I had the phone on my stomach when it started to vibrate.
It spooked me and I shivered. The phone slid down to the floor and flopped
over. I sat up quickly, almost too fast as it made me dizzy, and I turned on
the screen.

Silas
: “
Good.
”

I checked the message I had sent earlier about getting this
new phone. I pondered what I would send him next and quickly typed in:

Sang
: “How was
practice?”

Silas
: “Long.
I’m tired.”

Should I stop texting? I wondered. He probably wanted to
rest and didn’t want me bugging him.

The phone rattled in my hands.

Silas: “
What are
you doing?”

I looked nervously around the room.
What am I doing? I’m
obsessively hanging on to this phone and attempting to sound cool to you so
you’ll like me.

Before I could answer, the phone vibrated again. Silas was
calling.

My heart dropped in my chest. I wasn’t sure if I could get
away with answering it. I wouldn’t hear Marie or anyone coming. And I couldn’t
talk! What could I do?

In my panic, I hit the button. I couldn’t just not answer.

“Hello?” I said softly into the receiver.

“I’m not good at texting,” Silas’s deep voice floated to my
ear. Just hearing his deep tones made my insides flip. “I’ve got rhino
fingers.”

I chuckled. “You were doing okay,” I whispered, my eyes
darting around my room. Could I slip into the attic space? My closet?

“This is easier,” he said. “So what are you doing?”

I carefully held the phone to my ear with my shoulder and
then unlocked the window. “Not a lot. I was reading.”

“Did you read all day?”

I held the phone to my chest and heaved a foot out onto the
rooftop. The wind was blowing softly outside but it was the safest place to be
nearby and not get caught. I brought the phone back to my ear, using my
shoulder again to hold to it as I eased myself out. “I went swimming with
Nathan, too. And I met Gabriel.”

“Did he mess with your hair?”

I laughed. “How’d you know?” I put my butt down on the
rooftop, scooting myself until I was sitting next to the window rather than in
front of it. If someone tried to get into my room, I might not hear them from
outside but if I tucked myself out of the way, the person wouldn’t see me out
there. It would just look like my window was open. Hopefully no one would be
interested in looking outside.

“I think he’s done everyone’s since I’ve known him,” he
said. “I haven’t paid for a haircut since I came here.”

“You moved here when you were little, right?”

The phone vibrated in my hand and there was a beep. I
removed it away from my head. It said there was a message coming in. I felt my
heart beating wildly with the desire to check it out but I didn’t know the
buttons to push to look at it without hanging up on Silas.

As it was, since I was distracted I missed half of his
answer. I put the phone to my head again just as he was saying, “-- it’s different
here, but I guess I’ll manage.”

“I’ll have to find a way to manage, too, I guess.”

He laughed. “Not so bad right now, is it?”

Another vibration, another beep. This time I caught the
name. It was from Kota. I still didn’t know what to do so I ignored it again.

“I think it’s pretty nice here. I mean I met you and the
others. You guys are cool,” I croaked. Lame! I put my hand to my cheek, feeling
it warming. I didn’t know how to talk to people.

He was quiet for a moment. “Do you think we can hang out
tomorrow?”

Another vibrate, another beep. Kota.

“I suppose so. I don’t know how to... um,” I wasn’t sure
the words to say and Kota’s messages were distracting me so badly, I couldn’t
think.

“I’ve got a car. I probably need to meet you at Kota’s,
right?”

“Yeah, probably,” I squeaked as I whispered.

Pause. Did he hear what I said? “Is your voice okay?”

I swallowed, trying my best. “I’m fine.”

“I’ll have to do stuff that morning but I can swing by
later in the afternoon.”

“Perfect.” Was this him asking for just us or was he coming
over to hang out with me and Kota? He was asking me personally, right? I didn’t
know how to take the question.

The phone vibrated and started beeping, Kota was calling.

“What’s that noise?”

“Kota’s calling,” I said. “I don’t really know how to
switch over the line...”

“It’s okay,” Silas said. “Go ahead and answer him. I’ll
talk to you later.”

I wasn’t sure but he sounded disappointed in having to go
so soon. “Okay, bye.”

“Bye.”

I pushed the big green button on the phone to answer Kota’s
call.

“Hel--?”

“Get off the roof, Sang!”

His tone was stressed. Was he mad at me? “Kota, I...”

“Hide the phone in your pocket and go outside behind your
shed. Go now.” He hung up.

I felt my legs shaking underneath me when I tried to stand
up. Kota was scaring the bejeezus out of me.

I scrambled through the window. I tried to shut it but it
got stuck halfway down and I left it. I tucked the phone back into the cup of
my bra. I stopped to double check that everything looked normal and then went
for the door.

The house was quiet. I slipped down the hallway, trying not
to make a sound as I tiptoed down the back stairwell and out into the garage.

I jogged out into the open driveway, down to the end of it
to the shed. I circled around, the grass was warm under my bare feet. The back
of the shed had a concrete patio and an overhang. It was kind of like a third
porch. I think it was meant for a place to stick a barbecue pit or maybe even
fit a car because there looked like an oil slick on one side. It wouldn’t allow
much protection if Marie left the house to come look for me, but it did block
me from view from the windows and I was out of voice distance in case someone
could actually hear me from my bedroom.

The phone started  to shake in my hands. Kota was
calling and I tapped the green button.

“What were you doing on the roof?” he demanded, his voice
intense.

“I wasn’t sure if I should answer the phone in the house.”

He breathed out into the phone, causing it crackle with
noise. “I thought you were going to fall off. You’ve gotten into enough trouble
this week without needing to go to the hospital.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “That area over the porch of the roof
of the porch is pretty flat. Besides, the drop isn’t that far.”

“It could break your neck,” he said.

“I’ve been trained on how to fall,” I insisted.

He paused. “What do you mean?”

“Back in elementary school, in gym class. They taught us to
fall from a tall distance.”

“How?”

“Depends on the distance,” I said. “If it’s pretty far, there’s
this thing where you tuck and roll to keep going on that momentum so you don’t
break your hands and knees.”

He laughed, the power in his voice slipped away, becoming
friendly. “And they were teaching you this in elementary school?”

“I think they might not do it anymore. After a week of
training, some of us were out on the school jungle gym taking turns
practicing
falling. We got caught pretty quickly and we got reprimanded about it. I may or
may not have been involved.”

He laughed again. “You are a trouble maker. But that’s no
excuse. Don’t climb out on the roof.”

“What if there’s a fire?”

“Unless there’s a fire.”

“What if there’s a robber with a gun?”

“Sang.”

“Or a zombie?” I giggled.

“You don’t run from zombies. You shoot them in the head.”

“I don’t have a gun.”

“I’m not buying you a gun.”

I laughed this time and he did too. “Oh, Silas called and
said he might come over tomorrow afternoon.” I hoped he meant to hang out with
Kota and the others. Going solo was too nerve-wracking to think about.

“That’s good. I heard North and Luke were coming, too. They
had something they wanted to tell us.”

There was a beep from the phone and I checked it. It was
from Luke.

“Luke’s sending me a message right now.”

“Well you should go answer him,” Kota said. “Just stay off
your roof, okay? I’ll tell everyone to text you to call them and you would do
it as soon as you can. No surprise calls.”

I agreed and hung up. Still, the conversation bugged me. He
had been watching me from his window? Now he was telling everyone the best way
to communicate with me. Leader of the group. What kind of group was this?

L
uke

W
hen I
got back to my bedroom without anyone noticing, I was relieved. I huddled back
near the window and checked the message from Luke.

Luke
: “
Hi
.”

I laughed a little, giddy. I had boys texting me. It was
like something out of a movie I’d seen. How stupid was I to get excited over a
text?

Sang
: “
Hello
.”

I tried to suppress my excitement. I really wanted to go
for a walk to release some of this energy but now that I was back in the house
again, I didn’t want to go through the effort to sneak out. This phone was much
more fun than I’d anticipated. I had friends calling me! It was easier to
pretend I was normal this way.

The phone buzzed in my hand.

Luke
: “
I’m Lucian
but everyone calls me Luke. You’re Sang, right? Where did you move from?
”

Sang
: “
I’m from up
north. The south is different.”

Luke
: “
It’s warmer,
but it’s probably the same.”

Sang
: “
There’s also
palm trees.”

Luke
: “
LOL”

Sang
: “
Are you
coming over tomorrow? Kota mentioned it.”

Luke
: “
Yeah. In the
morning, I think.”

Sang
: “
What’s the
big announcement?”