All the Birds in the Sky(28)

Something smooth and red was inside the half-open drawer of Theodolphus’s desk. For a moment he was certain it was a strip of blood-soaked silk from the Order, signifying his fall in status. But instead, he pulled out a cream-colored envelope, lined in red, around a card that informed Theodolphus the District had nominated him for Educator of the Year. He was invited to an award ceremony, at which black tie would be worn and factory-farmed creatures would be eaten. Theodolphus almost wept in front of Carrie Danning. He had to end this somehow. Whatever it took, he had to get his life back.





13

LAURENCE SAW HIS parents coming out of Mr. Rose’s office in the middle of the day. They looked alarmed—literally, as if an alarm had gone off next to their heads and their ears were still ringing. They wouldn’t look at him or acknowledge him at all, as they hustled out of the school and into their car.

Laurence barged into Mr. Rose’s office without knocking. “What did you say to my parents just now?”

“That’s covered by the same confidentiality that all of our conversations in this room enjoy.” Mr. Rose smiled and leaned back in his big chair.

“You’re not a therapist,” said Laurence. “And you shouldn’t pretend to be.”

“Your parents are worried about you,” said Mr. Rose. “You’re one of the most gifted and intelligent students we’ve ever had at this school.”

“What did you say to my parents?” Laurence said. “And what did you say to Patricia, before that? She still won’t tell me what it was, but it messed her up.”

“This is nothing to do with Patricia,” said Mr. Rose. “We’re talking about you.”

“No. We’re talking about you.” Laurence was thinking about how Patricia looked like she’d seen a ghost whenever he mentioned Mr. Rose, and the way Mr. Rose had studied him like an insect before. Things were falling into place. “You said something to freak out my parents, just like you freaked out Patricia before. What did you say?”

“As I was saying, your test scores are off the charts. But your attitude? Threatens to ruin everything.”

“I guess I’m lucky that you already promised that everything I say in here is a secret,” Laurence said. “I can go ahead and tell you that you’re a fake. You’re not the coolest adult at this school, you’re some kind of troll, hiding out in your crappy little pasteboard office and messing with people. My parents are weak-minded and feeble, life has crushed their spirits, and so you think they’re easy marks. But I’m here to tell you that they’re not, and Patricia isn’t, either. I’m going to see that you burn.”

“I see.” Mr. Rose’s hands were twitching. “In that case, what comes next is your own doing. Good day, Mr. Armstead.”

Laurence’s parents weren’t around when he got home, and he was left to scavenge frozen pizza. Around 10:00 PM, he came downstairs and caught his parents looking at brochures, which they hid as soon as they heard his footsteps.

“What were you just looking at?” Laurence asked.

“Just some…,” said his father.

“Just some materials,” said his mother.

The next day, they hauled him out of bed just after dawn and told him he wasn’t going to school today. Instead, they stuck him in the back of their hatchback, and his father drove as if he had a heat-seeking missile on his tail.

“Where are we driving to?” Laurence asked his parents, but they just stared at the road.

They sank into grayest Connecticut, with the interstate hemmed in with rock walls, until they turned onto a series of backwoods humps made of tarmac, then dirt, then gravel. The birch trees jittered and whispered, as if they were trying to tell Laurence something, and then he saw the sign: “COLDWATER: A Military Reform School. Now Reopened Under New Management.” They parked in a rock pile, surrounded by battered Jeeps, and on their left jumped a phalanx of twenty or thirty teenage boys, any one of whom could wipe the floor with Brad Chomner.

And beyond those kids doing jumping jacks, a big American flag hung half-mast.

“You,” Laurence told his parents, “have got to be kidding.”

They mumbled that he had left them no choice, with his disruptive behavior, and he was just going to try out this school for a few days to see if Coldwater could be an option for him for high school—instead of that science school, where he would only learn more ways to be destructive.

What the hell had Mr. Rose told them, that he was building a bomb?

Laurence’s brain was as hot and oxygen poor as the inside of this car. He felt an acute pain, like the skin of his life breaking as his future was ripped away. His parents were already walking up the dirt path to the cement bunker that said “COMMANDANT” without waiting for him to follow. He ran after them, shouting that they couldn’t do this, and he already had a f*cking school lined up, goddamn it.

“The new and improved Coldwater Academy is all about helping the individual reach his full potential,” said Commandant Michael Peterbitter, who sat rigidly behind a fake wood desk with a Windows XP computer on one corner. Laurence couldn’t help snorting. “We see discipline as a means, not an end,” said Peterbitter, who had a lopsided handlebar mustache and a sunburnt nose under his buzz cut. “We believe in the age-old ideal of a sound mind in a healthy body. After a semester here, I bet you’d hardly recognize Larry.”