The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek(21)

“Candidatus,” she said again, this time overly pronouncing each consonant, the final, aggressive syllable rhyming with the word moose.

Was Alicia supposed to respond? She nodded, sitting up straight in her seat, giving the woman her undivided attention, but it didn’t seem to be enough. Maybe somewhere in that depressing, barely furnished dorm room she’d been hurled into last night—every surface that now familiar beige—there was a student handbook that explained stuff like this. If so, she definitely hadn’t found it. She’d been too busy lying in that sad excuse for a bed—just stiff sheets laid over what felt more like a piece of plywood than a mattress—trying to sleep instead of crying, all the while doing her best to avoid eye contact with the only thing that broke the room’s sad color scheme: a portrait of Mr. Whitewood that hung on the wall opposite her bed, reminding her of what she’d done to get herself here. It looked like the pictures she’d seen of Joseph Stalin in her world history book, complete with a similar non-smile and faraway look.

The woman continued to stare.

“Sorry,” Alicia said. “I don’t know…”

“You don’t know what?” The woman jabbed the air with her words.

Alicia used her peripheral vision to survey the students in her immediate vicinity, hoping to find a helpful face, anyone who might throw her a line. There was no one. Every head was forward, all eyes glued to the teacher. That was more disturbing than the woman herself.

“I didn’t know if you wanted me to respond,” Alicia said.

“I’m looking right at you saying your name and you didn’t know if you should respond?” The woman’s face remained stern, but in her eyes was a trace of playfulness not unlike a cat’s gaze as it toys with a mouse.

Alicia was confused. “Um,” she said. “My name is Alic—”

“Your name,” the woman barked, “is Candidatus. The same as every other student in this building. The name that Headmaster gave you. Isn’t that right, Candidatus?” She stared at a short blond boy in the front row, who looked to be several years younger than Alicia. The class, she realized, was filled with kids of all ages. Were they all going to be taught the same material?

“Yes, Helper,” the short blond boy said.

“You see?” the woman said, her head swiveling back to Alicia, who noticed the light reflecting off a silver pin—an upside-down seven-pointed star—attached to the woman’s collar. She suddenly realized she recognized the woman. Alicia had seen her at the jewelry store next to the Twin Plaza movie theater.

“Do you think you and you alone deserve a different name?” she asked.

“No, ma’am,” Alicia said, trying to demonstrate how quickly she was catching on.

“I am not ‘ma’am.’ I am Headmaster’s helper. Do you understand?”

“Yes, um, Helper,” Alicia said, recognizing the similarity to Hamburger Helper but not daring to laugh.

“Good. Do you think you can do whatever you desire in this world?” the woman asked.

“No, Helper.”

“Do you think you know better than Headmaster?”

“No, Helper.”

“Do you think your curly hair makes you unique? Special?” She spit out the last two words as if they were swears.

“No, Helper,” Alicia said, even though the weirdness of this question caught her off-guard. And even though this, like her other answers, wasn’t the truth. She loved her hair.

“Good, Candidatus,” the helper said. “Headmaster would be very pleased.”

Alicia held eye contact and ignored the itch on her shoulder from the scratchy, ill-fitting beige jumpsuit she’d been forced to wear, the same one every kid had on. She was just three minutes into her first class—if that’s what you would even call this—and she already hated it here.

Not that she’d thought she would enjoy it, but she’d still been allowing for the possibility that maybe it could be good for her. That maybe she deserved it.

But no, this awful woman with her shoulder-length black hair who seemed like she could be one of Alicia’s mom’s friends, except missing a soul, left no doubt: This experience would not be good. If the blank faces on all sides were any indication, it was going to be very, very bad.

She couldn’t believe her parents had actually sent her away.

“I know what you did, Candidatus,” the helper said, eyes still locked on Alicia, “and it disgusts me.”

“I’m sorry,” Alicia said. She wondered how long this interrogation would last, how long she would be in this room. She had no sense of the day’s schedule, which she suspected was by design. It was disorienting enough going to school on a Sunday, but as she’d learned from her roommate that morning—the only thing the freckled preteen had said to her—there were no weekends at the Whitewood School. Occasionally the students were given break periods, but they came without warning. And they would end just as suddenly as they’d begun.

“Sorry,” the helper said, finally looking away to address the entire class. “She says sorry. You should know, Candidati, this is the student who burned Headmaster.”

The students quietly gasped. Alicia looked down at her desk, her face hot. It was becoming abundantly clear that her innocent tumble into Mr. Whitewood wasn’t just disrespectful. It was blasphemous.