Variant

I wanted to check out the basement, too, but the last period of the day was about to start-gym-and I needed to run upstairs to change clothes. As I entered the boys’ dorm and headed toward my room, I counted the doors. Sixty-four in the main hall. I didn’t know how many others were in the halls that branched off-I wasn’t interested in running into either Isaiah or Oakland-but I guessed there were at least that many, if not more. So, 128, and they could fit two guys in each room… about 250 guys? And it was probably the same for the girls’ dorm?

Were they all going to be filled?

Mason was already dressed when I got to the room. He looked at his watch and grinned. “I almost thought you’d run away.”

I took my gym clothes from the closet-a white T-shirt and red shorts. “Maybe I would have if the doors unlocked.”

Clouds had rolled in, but it didn’t look like they were going to do anything. There was a bit of a breeze, and everyone was cold.

Gym didn’t have any set curriculum-it was essentially a free exercise time. Most people were out on the track, jogging or walking. A couple Society kids had a soccer ball. I didn’t really want to exercise, but it seemed like the best way to stay warm. The V’s didn’t have any sports equipment, so we mostly kept to the track. Mason and I started walking together while a group of V girls jogged. After about twenty minutes Lily left them and joined us.

I was making a mental map: the layout of the track, the distance to the tree line, the groundskeeping sheds. I tried to correlate it to what I’d seen from my window-hills in the forest and rocky outcrops that I couldn’t see from here. If I was going to run, I had to know this place perfectly.

I watched Havoc. They were clustered in what looked like a sculpture garden-upturned logs carved into faces and shapes, piles of rocks, flowers planted in patterns. Every once in a while Skiver looked in my direction, pointing and saying something to another guy, but they never stood up.

A cool breeze blew past, but it carried forest smells that brought up vague memories. Had I ever been camping before? I couldn’t remember.

“I really should be liking this,” I said, more to myself than Mason. “Look at this place. It’s nicer than any school I’ve ever been to. There’s no homework.”

“No one telling you what to do,” he added.

Lily snorted. “Well, no one except whoever is running the school. Someone is telling us to walk out in the cold.”

“You know what I meant,” Mason said. “When we go back to the dorms, we can do whatever we want.”

“Except leave the dorms,” she said.

I checked my watch. It was past five, and getting colder. “Shouldn’t we be heading back in?”

“A bell rings when gym is over,” Lily said. “We have to wait for that. The doors don’t unlock until it does.”

“Why isn’t there a schedule?” I asked. “Why don’t we just know that gym ends at whatever time, every day?”

Mason spoke. “You know that schedule that was posted on the screens this morning? It changes every day, and there’s no pattern to it. Sometimes class starts at nine and sometimes it starts at seven. Sometimes there’s no class at all and sometimes we’re there till ten at night.”

“Why?”

“Why does anything happen here?” Lily answered. “It’s all random and stupid.”

I had to smile. At least there was someone else who was as annoyed as I was.

We made a few more loops around the track. The wind was beginning to pick up, and a group was already huddled by the doors, waiting to go inside. Curtis and Carrie appeared around the corner of the school. They sat by the doors. Jane and a few of the other V’s left the joggers and ran over to them.

As we walked close to where Havoc was gathered I tried to count them. Even in their gym clothes they looked like thugs. One girl sat on a fat stump, drawing an intricate pen tattoo onto another girl’s leg. Oakland was leaning against a long, thin rock that looked like it had been jammed vertically into the ground, and four of his friends sat around him. Unlike the rest of us, a few of the Havoc guys had ignored the rules and worn jackets.

“Are those against the dress code?” I asked, gesturing to hooded sweatshirts.

“Yep,” Mason said. “Maybe they’ll get dinged for it, but it’ll just be points.”

“Why are points a big deal?”

“Points are everything,” Lily said. I couldn’t tell whether she was being sarcastic or not.

Mouse jogged past us and slowed to a stop in the sculpture garden. Despite the cold, she had her T-shirt tied into a knot to show off her stomach, and I’d swear her already-short shorts were rolled at the waist. I know I wasn’t the only guy who noticed.

We passed Havoc and again faced the expanse of pine trees. A gust of wind blew past us, carrying tiny leaves and sticks with it, and making me shiver. The only trees nearby with any leaves were the cottonwoods by the road, but those had shed most of their foliage already. Autumn here wasn’t pretty.