Scar Island(11)

The Admiral smirked.

“Colin Kerrigan!”

“Here, thir.” Colin didn’t shout—Jonathan wasn’t sure he even could shout—but he did speak at more than a shy whisper. “Content and well cared for, thir.”

All the boys were called, sixteen in all, and each gave the same answer. When they were done, the man folded the papers and slipped them back into his coat. “Sixteen charges, sir, all present and all report being content and well cared for, sir.”

The Admiral grimaced and wrinkled his nose.

“Thank you, Mr. Washburn. Put it in your report.”

The Admiral stepped forward. He took a few soggy steps toward the line of boys, his eyes sliding like a snake from boy to boy. He poked at something between his teeth with his tongue.

He had just opened his foul mouth to speak when the boy to Jonathan’s right wobbled. The boy pinwheeled his arms to catch his balance, but it was too late and he dropped a foot off his block to the ground.

The Admiral’s mouth snapped shut and he raised one of his cockroach eyebrows. He shook his head and clucked his tongue.

“To the Sorrow, Miguel Vargas.”

The boy’s head dropped.

“Yes, sir,” he mumbled and slouched to the Sinner’s Sorrow, its black wood dotted now with raindrops. He knelt on the horrible device and squinched his eyes shut. Jonathan remembered well the bite of that sharp rail. He bit his lip and looked away from Miguel.

The Admiral watched him for a moment and then looked back to the boys still on the blocks.

“Boys, we have a new student among us. As I’m sure you know. A young Jonathan Grisby, twelve years old.” As he talked, the Admiral strode slowly down the line of balancing boys. He stopped before Jonathan. “Ten weeks we are supposed to have him. But for a crime of his magnitude, I think we may need him longer.” Jonathan met the Admiral’s sinisterly gloating eyes for a second, then looked quickly away.

The Admiral resumed walking down the line. “I thought it a good idea this morning,” he said, his voice booming so as to be heard over the rising wind and growing thunder, “to remind you all what you are and why you are here. For Jonathan Grisby’s benefit.”

At the end of the line, a boy’s foot dropped to the ground. Without a word he shook his head and walked to the Sinner’s Sorrow. Miguel jumped gratefully up from the kneeler and limped stiffly back to his stone block. The new boy scowled and took his place on his knees. The Admiral waited for them each to get into place before continuing. By now he was back at the center of the line, and he took a step back so he could throw his grisly gaze over all his charges.

“Bloody, disgusting little scabs, boys,” he said. He enunciated each word clearly and precisely. “That is what you are. The very scabs of civilized society.” He smiled an ugly, pinched smile, then let it drop from his face. “And why, you might ask, do I call you scabs?” He started walking again, his eyes up at the clouds and the occasional, quick flickers of lightning. His voice lilted and rose like a schoolteacher’s. “Scabs, as you know, are nasty little things. An otherwise healthy body gets a wound. A disfigurement. And it begins to bleed, that wound. And it forms a dirty little scab. Good for nothing. An unhealthy nastiness. An ugliness. Well, boys, it is our civilization itself that is sick. It is too tolerant. Too soft. It is … wounded. Bleeding from its rottenness. And you, lads, are the scabs. The bad little bits that nobody wants.”

He stopped and cleared his throat. Scratched at his nose. Looked at the line of boys with distaste. “And so society sends you here. Society picks you off like the little scabs that you are and flicks you out here to my island. To try and turn you into something better. And if I can’t?” The Admiral lowered his chin and looked at them from under his eyebrows. “Well, at least we keep you out of the way for a while. And we give you what you deserve.”

He raised his head again and trudged deliberately through them, between two boys. His elbow bumped one—not too gently—and the boy stumbled to the ground. He kicked at a puddle and took the second boy’s place on the kneeler.

When the Admiral’s voice bellowed again, it was moving behind them.

“So what can we do with you? Why are you all such incorrigible delinquents? It’s simple.” The Admiral paused dramatically. “Weakness. And rot. You’ve been spoiled and now you are rotten and weak and it is up to me to fix you. So, at Slabhenge, we do not do what other schools do. We do not read stories. We do not talk about your … feelings. We do not play with numbers or write tedious essays about what you did last summer. What you did last summer was get weak and rotten. What you do here is work. You work. And, yes, sometimes you suffer. That, I’m afraid, is the cost of improvement. That is where strength comes from, boys.”

The Admiral’s voice circled slowly around until he was once again standing before them. The rain had picked up and was now a bit more than sprinkling. It dripped down Jonathan’s face and off the brim of the Admiral’s hat. The puddles were growing, swallowing the few blocks left between them. It was almost as dark as night, and flashes of lightning splashed the courtyard with wild shadows.

“We will work the weakness out of you!” With a flourish the Admiral yanked his sword out of its scabbard. It flashed bright silver in the dim, stormy light. “We will cut all the rottenness out of your character, if we can. We will certainly try. Just as society cut the rottenness out of itself by sending your worthless hides to Slabhenge, Slabhenge will cut the rottenness out of you. We will bleed the infection right out of you.”