1/6/2025 0 Comments Chapter 1Becca struggled against the urge to squirm. The folding metal chair hadn’t been uncomfortable when she first sat down, but that had been over an hour ago, and now the unforgiving metal was starting to bruise the bottom of her spine. But if Aunt Tonya could sit still through yet another round of transcripts and waivers, permission slips and class schedules, Becca supposed she could, too. She adjusted her position as subtly as she could and tried to concentrate instead on what the woman behind the desk was saying. “We’ve all been excited to welcome Rebecca into our family,” the woman said as Aunt Tonya pushed over another stack of signed papers. The woman had introduced herself as Selma Fitzgerald, or Mrs. F, on their arrival with a firm handshake and a warm smile that had yet to fade. She took the papers and set them neatly into an ever-growing file folder that had Becca’s full name written in Sharpie on the tab. What kind of place kept paper records anymore? Becca had been sitting in this small office and hard folding chair for almost an hour, and she hadn’t seen any normal office electronics — no computer or phone, no radio or even a lightbulb: all the light in the room came from the two south-facing windows and the reflection of sunlight on three-day-old snow. If it weren’t for Mrs. F’s red-and-green sweater and the heat pumping through the ceiling vents, Becca would’ve sworn they’d been thrown back a hundred years into the past. Mrs. F ruffled through the paper she’d collected in Becca’s folder, then closed it and sat back in her chair with a satisfied smile. “Excellent. Everything is in order, and Rebecca can—” “Call me Becca,” Becca interrupted. “Becca,” Mrs. F corrected herself easily, “you can start class this afternoon. I’ve already told the staff that you’ll be coming.” She passed Becca a large manila envelope stuffed full of even more papers. “Get the teachers this afternoon to sign off on these and bring them back here this afternoon, and we’ll get you all set up.” Becca took the folder. It was heavier than the introductory packet she’d been sent with her acceptance letter. Aunt Tonya took the envelope, and she and Mrs. F got to their feet. “And her ... difficulties?” Tonya asked. “You’re sure you can handle them?” Becca frowned down at her lap, then reminded herself it wasn’t a big deal and stood up after the adults. Mrs. F smiled again, more reassuringly now. “Ms. Toll, I’ve seen a lot of students in my 25 years here. So far, there hasn’t been one I couldn’t help.” Great. So she’d be breaking this woman’s streak. Mrs. F walked them to the door and waved them out. Aunt Tonya went, and Becca followed, stretching her sore sitting muscles as she left. They exited the building and stood blinking for a moment in the glaring winter sun. Then Aunt Tonya started down one of the shoveled paths toward the central green at the center of the handful of buildings enclosed in the tall cast-iron fence around the grounds. She handed Becca the class schedule from the thick manila envelope. “Math starts at one.” “Ooh, my favorite,” Becca muttered. “Becca.” Aunt Tonya grabbed her elbow and stopped them both. “I want you to promise me you’ll try this time.” “Oh, yeah, because all the other times were because I wasn’t trying hard enough.” “Stop it. You know we don’t blame you.” She opened her mouth, but then just blew out a breath. It hovered as a puff of silver around her face before the icy breeze tore it apart. “I know.” She needed to stop blaming her aunt for what had happened. It wasn’t her fault, and Aunt Tonya had done everything in her power to make her life livable for the last eight years. Aunt Tonya touched her cheek. “This place is our last hope. If it doesn’t work out...” She faded off, leaving Becca to imagine the rest. It wasn’t hard. It would be more than jail cells or halfway houses or mental wards. If this place didn’t work out, she’d have to be confined. She was a danger to others, and she could never forget that. “I know,” she said. Aunt Tonya pulled her into a hug. “I love you,” she whispered. “Yeah,” Becca whispered back. “I know.” At least this place was a school. A school that promised 24-hour surveillance of all its students — for their own and others’ safety, of course — but a school with English and math and a library and gym like any other public high school in the country. If she didn’t leave with the help Selma Fitzgerald promised, at least she’d leave with a high school diploma. “C’mon, let’s get you settled.” Aunt Tonya pulled away and grabbed another paper out of the envelope. This one was a map, with little colored boxed labeling the buildings around them. It was unnecessary — there were only half-a-dozen buildings around this central green, and the one with Christmas lights and posters in the window was clearly the dorm. It was a tall gray building, built in a U-shape, with a castle-ish facade complete with towery peaks built above its roof. “You’re in McCray West 307. Did you leave your stuff in the car?” Becca nodded. She didn’t bring much — she’d long ago learned there was no point in lugging all her clothes and books and personal belongings with her, since to date she’d never lasted more than a few months in any one facility. The introductory packet they’d gotten in the mail a few weeks ago with her acceptance letter had promised the full set of textbooks and any necessary gym clothes or uniforms needed for extracurriculars would be provided, so Becca had packed enough clothing and toiletries for a couple of weeks and figured she could find whatever else she needed later. Aunt Tonya grabbed the duffle bag of clothes, and Becca grabbed the bag she’d loaded with her phone, laptop, Kindle, and a couple extra charging cords and a surge protector as specifically and repeatedly recommended in the intro packet, her pillow, and the one concession she’d made her entire life to sentimentality: Expando-Bunny, the little rabbit music box that had hung on her bed since she was a baby. Aunt Tonya caught her stuff the rabbit into her pillowcase and raised an eyebrow. “You still have that?” Becca ignored her. “McCray West 307?” Aunt Tonya glanced down at the map. “Right.” Past its unusual U shape and pretentious facade, McCray looked like every other multi-resident building Becca had ever seen: a small lobby area near the front door, stairs and a handicap-accessible elevator toward the back, then several floors of too-narrow halls lined with doors. West was to the left side of the central entrance, and Room 207 was a small concrete square, painted white, with twin bed, desk with chair, and a small freestanding wardrobe on both the left and right side. The left (obviously her side) was stripped down to a thin blue mattress and empty walls; the right side was already furnished and decorated with a neatly-made bed and the desk hutch stacked with textbooks in an even, alphabetical row. A large tapestry pained with a complicated Celtic-looking knot hung above the bed, covering up a chunk of the cold walls, and pictures of a smiling Latine family were pasted around the remaining space. Aunt Tonya set down the duffle bag and envelope on the empty desk and peered at a couple of the pictures. “This must be Ana,” she said, pointing to one of the faces. Becca sat on the empty bed. The frame creaked under her weight. Aunt Tonya tried again. “She looks nice.” Becca remembered what information she’d been given about her roommate. Ana Fernandez. 16 years old. Straight-A student, student body president, head of the yearbook committee, the news team, the student-faculty communication committee, and captain of the mathletes. Becca’s head spun with the thought of that much socializing, and she hoped Ana wouldn’t drag her around to events because she thought the new girl needed to make friends — although she doubted she’d be so lucky. People like that couldn’t rest until they felt they’d made everyone as active and involved as they were. “Becca? Do you...” Aunt Tonya hesitated, as though unsure of how to proceed. She settled with her usual offer: “Do you need help unpacking?” Becca shook her head and smiled to prove she wasn’t being sullen. “I’m fine. You can go. It’s a long drive home.” Aunt Tonya held out her arms; Becca stood and went over to accept her aunt’s hug. “Love you, sweetie,” Aunt Tonya said. “Love you, too.” “No more calls from the principal, okay?” They separated. Aunt Tonya smiled. Her smile had gotten strained and tired over the years as Becca had ruined her life time after time. But she still smiled, and that stiffened Becca’s resolve. This wasn’t just her last chance at what could be as normal a life as she could hope for — this was Aunt Tonya’s, too. There could be no more calls from the principal, not for either of them. “I’ll be good.” She would do whatever she had to to keep that promise. Math didn’t start until one o’clock, so she had an hour to kill after Aunt Tonya left. She spent it puttering around the room, making the bed and pulling out the couple of books she’d brought with her and setting them spin-out and in alphabetical order on the desk hutch. They wouldn’t last long like that — she wasn’t nearly as tidy as her roommate seemed to be — but she figured she could at least start out with a clean room and a neatly-made bed. When she got bored of that, she sat down on her bed and started flipping through the contents of that thick manila envelope. It was all pretty benign — a class schedule, a cafeteria menu, a bright pink flyer for the welcome-back party happening that weekend, syllabi, several papers requiring teacher signatures and orders for dispensing textbooks. At the bottom of the stack was a copy of the original brochure from the office of the psychiatrist who’d first referred her here. She’d looked at it a hundred, a thousand, times during the last few weeks as Aunt Tonya made the necessary phone calls and arrangements for Becca to start halfway through the school year. Fitzgerald’s Academy of Teaching Excellence, the brochure said in big yellow letters across a nice-enough picture of what looked like the admin building she’d spent the morning in. Where children with unusual behavioral disorders can find the help and support they need. Unusual behavioral disorders. That was one way to put it. She scanned the brochure again, mostly just noticing the stock photo of smiling teenagers sitting entranced by a teacher in a lab coat that took up most of the first two-thirds of the paper the last third had a picture of Selma Fitzgerald and followed by a short bio. Apparently, this Selma Fitzgerald who didn’t like computers or lightbulbs had studied all kinds of unusual metaphysical phenomena in the deserts outside of Jerusalem, then spent 25 years building this school out of a decrepit mental institution to give unusual children the chances she herself never had in her young life. Becca sighed and fell back against the creaky springs of her too-thin mattress. Her blanket wasn’t thick enough to cover the way one spring pressed unevenly into her spine. She pulled on Expando-Bunny’s legs to turn on the music. The familiar music box notes of “Here Comes Peter Cotton-Tail” chimed through the empty room. Becca curled up against her pillow and closed her eyes. She didn’t imagine her parents. Eight years since the accident, she could barely remember what they looked like, except in the last glimpse she’d ever had of them, dead in the destroyed Walmart aisle. She didn’t think about the uncomfortable churning in her stomach or the prickle against her skin. She thought only about the old tiny man playing a tiny piano that lived inside Expando-Bunny’s oversized head. It was a stupid image. She knew it was a music box, a punched metal cylinder turning along a series of tuned chimes, wound by pulling on the legs. But the idea of a tiny man and his tiny piano living inside the bunny had been a whimsical understanding of what was happening made when she was very small and that lingered even into her cynical near-adulthood. That tiny man and his tiny piano, eager to play for her whenever she needed it, had been the only person who stuck by her despite everything, the only person she could be close to and not hurt. She wasn’t ready to give him up. She would make it work here, no matter how difficult it might be. If she had to put up with a preppy roommate intent on making sure she made friends, she would make those friends. If she had boring teacher speaking total gibberish, she would learn to speak gibberish. No matter what. If she screwed it up here, there was nowhere else for her to go.
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AuthorI'm M. B. Robbins. I write YA/NA fantasy, with a particular love for fairy tale retellings. You can check out my books here. ArchivesCategories |
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© COPYRIGHT 2025. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.