Nightmare Academy Part 12

Elisha piped up, "Mr. Easley, in some cultures, they love their neighbor. In some cultures, they eat their neighbor. Which do you respect?"

"I respect them both."

"Both/and," Elijah muttered in disgust.

"You can't have it both ways," Elisha said, actually scolding him. "If you respect my neighbor's right to invade my room and take my things, then you sure don't respect my right to peace and safety!"

"Either/or," said Elijah.

Easley came back, "Every person has a right-"

"No!" said Elisha. "No one has the right to do something that's wrong!"

Easley leaned toward her. "And I suppose you're going to tell us what's right and wrong?"

Some of the group murmured, "Yeah, who do you think you are?" "Yeah, who gave you the right?"

"I don't decide what's right and what's wrong," Elisha answered. "G.o.d decides."

The moans and hoots from the group were so loud they echoed back from the buildings across the field.

Elisha pressed on, completing her thought for the whole group. "Remember the Ten Commandments? Well, there are two more we didn't get to recite in Booker's cla.s.s: Don't lie, and don't want something that belongs to someone else. I think those two commandments right there would solve a lot of the problems around here."

Now Easley leaned back, smiling, obviously glad Elisha had said such a thing. "Ah. G.o.d. Religion. Holier-than-thou. Thou shalt not. Is that how it works? Just impose your religion on everyone so they can't think for themselves?"

"It isn't like that. G.o.d gave us-"

"Set yourself up as the one who makes all the rules, and tell everybody they have to see things your way because, after all, you have G.o.d in your camp. Now you have all the rights: the right to criticize and persecute and condemn, and why not lead a few more Crusades and Inquisitions while you're at it?"

"He twisted everything we said," Elisha lamented as she and Elijah walked across the field together.

"He's good with speeches, have you noticed? When things start getting too illogical for him to argue, he starts working on everyone's feelings so n.o.body's thinking anymore."

"And now we're the intolerant bigots and know-it-ails."

"And n.o.body's really thought everything through. Very handy."

"And very dangerous. Elijah, I'm all for investigating, but we're losing what friends we may have had, and I don't know what's going to keep these kids from doing ... something worse."

A voice called from behind them, "Hey! Jerry!"

Oh-oh. It was Rory, the big guy from last night. Oh, please, Lord, don't let him be looking for a fight. Elijah tried to keep his face from showing what he was thinking.

Rory didn't stop to talk, but just pa.s.sed by as he handed Elijah a note. "Somebody wants to talk to you." He kept going without looking back.

"Well, I'm glad somebody does," Elisha complained.

Elijah read the note. "It's from Mr. Booker."

The note, in Booker's handwriting, included a rough map showing Elijah where to find the plain, unmarked door in back of the office building. Elijah reported to that door immediately and gave it a gentle knock.

"Come in," came Booker's voice from inside.

Elijah opened the door and stepped into a small tool room. There were garden tools-shovels, rakes, hoes, picks, axeshanging on the walls, a wheelbarrow, some sacks of fertilizer, and a small workbench with some hammers, screwdrivers, and a vise. Mr. Booker was standing there, an elbow on the workbench, looking at him. He seemed entirely out of place in here. Elijah remained by the door and left it ajar.

"Come in, Jerry, and close the door."

"Why am I here, Mr. Booker?"

Booker smiled understandingly. "No need for concern, Jerry. This meeting is off the record and totally nonthreatening, I a.s.sure you."

Elijah found a rake and let the handle drop through the gap in the door, preventing it from closing. Then he remained where he was. "Go ahead."

With a resigned smile, Booker began. "So you've gotten to know Rory"

"Not the way I'd like to."

"Well, it was Rory who recommended you. He was very impressed with your martial arts skills last night."

"Recommended me for what?"

Booker tried to look relaxed, propping one foot on the fertilizer sacks. "You're a bright fellow, a clear thinker, not flighty. A good student, too. Very resourceful, and even courageous. I've been giving it some thought, and I've decided to offer you a very special privilege.

"As you've observed, things are getting out of hand: the raids, the violence, the looting, and I'm sure plenty of other things we have yet to discover. Jerry, I'm sure you understand, when any society is threatened with disorder, firm measures must be taken. The evil has to be contained."

"I thought you didn't believe in evil."

He chuckled. "It's just a convenient term I'm using for, shall we say, disruptive, undesirable behavior? When people can't be trusted to control their behavior, then someone else has to do the controlling. That's what police departments are for; security guards; metal detectors. Well, I am in need of policemen. I need to know what the kids are thinking, what trouble might be brewing so it can be dealt with. I may even need some brute force to contain disruptions."

"So you want me to be a cop?"

"Mm-hm."

"And a ... an informant?"

Booker weighed Elijah's choice of words and finally agreed with a nod. "But I have no illusions. Loyalty comes at a price, like anything else." He reached into his blazer pocket, pulled out his wallet, and produced two twenty-dollar bills, laying them on the workbench. "Would it be worth, perhaps, forty dollars-forty real dollars-per day, plus a pipeline to all the KMs you might need? I can also see to it that other privileges make themselves available."

"And who would I be working for? You?"

"For me, and indirectly, the academy. You won't be alone, of course. I've already hired some others among the student body, Rory being one of them."

"To be what? Hired thugs?"

He laughed. "Well, you make it sound so sinister. But think of the advantages, the main one being order on the campus. No more terrible disruptions, no more lootings, no more injuries." He looked at Elijah a moment, and then raised an eyebrow as he said in a softer voice, "And the advantage for you personally"

"Which is?"

"You would be connected with someone in power. I can make things happen. I can change the game to your advantage." He leaned closer to Elijah, exhilarated with his own sales pitch. "You've seen me and the others pa.s.s through that gate every evening. My boy, inside that gate is where the power is."

Elijah paraphrased one of Booker's pet slogans. "It's all about power, and you have it."

"Exactly."

Elijah ran his teeth over his lower lip and then said, "You're really scary, you know that?"

Booker seemed flattered. "Fear works."

"Especially if you have spies and head-breakers working for you."

"A good general must have an army"

"The same goes for an emperor, or a dictator, or a fuhrer. That's the scary part. What you're after is control, am I right? You're trying to contain evil."

"Admittedly"

"But if you don't believe in truth, or right and wrong, then who's going to contain you?" He put his hand on the doork.n.o.b.

"Eighty dollars a day!" Booker dug out two more twenties.

Elijah shook his head in wonder. "Mr. Booker, it's like you and I are from different planets or something. For you, it's all power and money. For me, it's G.o.d. It's Truth. I could never work for you. But thanks for your consideration."

He went out the door, politely closing it after him.

Elijah and Elisha showed up for Mr. Booker's afternoon cla.s.s several minutes early-not that they were eager to get there; they just didn't want to risk being late. They'd already had one faceto-face with him, and now, after that little meeting in the tool room, there couldn't be much goodwill left between them.

BAM! The door burst open right at the top of the hour and Booker entered the room. All eyes went forward. The sudden hush announced him as loudly as any trumpet fanfare.

"Pa.s.s your homework to the front!"

One-page a.s.signments were pa.s.sed forward, desk to desk, to the front. Elisha received the pages from her row, stacking them neatly in front of her. How some of these kids found the time to write anything was a bit of a mystery. One look at the stack told her some didn't.

"Give them here," Booker ordered, and all the front-row students handed them over. Booker took them in hand without looking at them. His eyes were doing a slow sweep of the cla.s.s, ray-gunning every kid one at a time.

Elijah could see most of the cla.s.s from where he sat, and knew what Mr. Booker was noticing. Oh, boy, he thought, here it comes.

After a long, chilling moment, Booker crossed his arms and announced in a very dark tone, "You can be certain that you have made a very grave mistake."

Heads pivoted about. Guilt was everywhere.

"Tonya! Where is your white blouse?"

Tonya was wearing a ragged denim s.h.i.+rt under her burgundy blazer. "Stolen, sir."

"Samuel? Your white s.h.i.+rt and your tie?"

"Stolen."

"Stolen, sir," Booker barked.

"Sir," Samuel replied.

"Marvin! You aren't even wearing your shoes!"

"Uh ... can't find 'em, sir."

Booker scanned the room one more time. Out of some twenty-plus students, only six or seven had a complete uniform. The rest were wearing whatever pieces they had left, horribly mismatched with street clothes. By G.o.d's grace, Marcy-oh, her name was Cher now-and Elisha had avoided the first raid, so they still looked sharp. Elijah and Warren had complete uniforms, but only because they'd decked Rory and his two buddies before they could loot their rooms. Brett's wardrobe was apparently unscathed.

"Where is Alex?" Booker asked.

For a moment, there was no answer.

Then Brett spoke up. "Sir, I heard Alex say he was going to get some sleep." Then he added, "He, uh, he said he needed sleep more than he needed your cla.s.s."

Booker raised an eyebrow, leaning back against his desk, sufficiently, theatrically offended. "Rory. Tom. Jamal. Clay. Bring Alex here, place him in his desk, and make sure he stays there. Oh! And make sure he brings all his KMs with him."

Four big guys rose from their desks. Elijah knew Rory, Tom, and Jamal-they'd met under last night's unfortunate circ.u.mstances. They were big, tough, and ugly. Clay, the fourth guy, looked even worse. None of them were wearing a complete uniform, but Booker didn't seem to notice. Elijah could guess: Each had had his own little meeting with Booker in the tool room, and now Booker was "changing the game to their advantage." They left the room with gleeful, hungry looks on their faces.

Brett was looking a little gleeful himself. The first three guys were from his dorm, weren't they? But what about Clay? He was supposed to be one of Alex's buddies. Forty bucks a day must have looked pretty sweet.

Booker went on with business. "Tonya, you will be fined five KMs, as of right now."

She was devastated. "But-"

"NOW!".

She dug in her pocket and produced five coins. "It's not my fault...."

"I heard an excuse. Two more. Samuel! Five KMs for the missing s.h.i.+rt, five for the missing tie! And Marvin! Five for each missing shoe!"

It took a lot of cla.s.s time to collect fines from so many lawbreakers, but this was Booker's way. He seemed to enjoy punis.h.i.+ng people as much as teaching them. The KMs jingled into Booker's wooden "penalty bowl" like doubloons into a pirate's treasure chest.

"You will replace whatever you are missing by purchasing it at the Campus Exchange, using, of course, your KMs." He gave the penalty bowl a knowing look as he added, "If you have no KMs, the cafeteria will issue a ten KM credit for skipping a meal."

The kids would have moaned, but that would have cost them.

"And, of course, you will abandon all thoughts of protest or appealing to fairness. I require uniforms and I exact penalties because I rule your lives. Period. Are there any questions?"

The room was silent.

"Of course not."

Then Rory, Tom, Jamal, and Clay returned, bursting through the door with Alex walking-sometimes-between them, some bruises on his face and some blood on his forearm. He wasn't dressed for cla.s.s. As a matter of fact, he was hardly dressed at all, wearing only a tee s.h.i.+rt and jogging shorts. The four big bruisers dropped him in his desk and then stood there, defying him to get up. He'd learned better than that and chose not to, but sat there glowering, huffing through clenched teeth, holding the wound on his arm.

Booker saw the blood and tossed a box of tissues to Rory, who gave them to Alex. Alex dabbed the wound but didn't say thank you.

"Things got a little rough. He hit the corner of a table," Rory explained.

Booker extended his open palm, and Rory tossed him Alex's bag of KMs. The bag was full and heavy, landing in Booker's hand with an audible c.h.i.n.k! "You will never avoid my cla.s.s again. None of you will avoid my cla.s.s-ever!"