Chapter Six: In Which I Am Accused, or, The Headmaster’s Office

“Ms. Wintersmith,” the Headmaster said. With his elbows resting on his desk, his fingers steepled in front of his chin, and his spectacles – which he only ever wore when trying to impress people – perched precariously on the end of his nose, he looked as if he were trying overly hard to act out the part required of him. Some people might’ve been intimidated. Unfortunately for him, the effect was lost on me.

  I sat in a chair just opposite him, nearer to the door than to the Headmaster’s desk. This, and this only, left me feeling slightly awkward. I could never figure out what to do with my legs, no matter how many times I’d had to sit there. I settled for feet firmly planted on the floor, one slightly in front of the other; not the most comfortable of positions, perhaps, but perfect for quickly leaping out of your seat.

  “Your insolence, Ms. Wintersmith, seems to be growing by the day,” the Headmaster started. “I’d been hoping that, having been here just over a year, your attitude would’ve improved.” He sighed ever so slightly, glancing down towards his desk and the piles of paper spread out upon it. My target. I hoped Walken’s distraction worked. And that he’d hurry up with it. I could hardly sit still in my eagerness to begin.

  “However,” the Headmaster continued, his gaze coming up again and meeting mine, where it hardened, “instead, you continue to defy your instructors, you refuse to cooperate with Dr. Livesely, you harass the other students, and you show no respect for those in authority over you. Worse yet, you seem to have no desire to change.”

  I felt my cheeks flame, and for a moment, all thoughts of snooping left my mind. Yes, I supposed that I showed very little respect for the Headmaster, and I certainly had no intention of ever cooperating with Dr. Livesely, but I couldn’t understand why he seemed to think that I was constantly defying instructors. And harassing other students?

  The Headmaster noted my change of countenance, and what looked like a slight smile twitched on his lips. He probably didn’t mean to do it, but I noticed.

  Was this his plan, then? To lie, falsely accuse me, and then bully me into feeling guilty and ashamed for things I’d never done? Sudden anger surged through me, hot and powerful, taking hold of every part of me in a matter of seconds, until my head spun, my vision blurred, and I could feel my pulse pound jarringly through every fiber of my being. I wanted nothing more than to throw my chair at his head.

  Part of me recognized, through the clash of blood buzzing in my ears, that the Headmaster had continued speaking. But that part was only about five percent. The other thirty-five percent was too busy waging an inward battle with the remaining sixty percent of me that currently boiled with rage.

  Calm down, I thought, digging my fingernails into my palms. Calm down, calm down, calm down, calm down, calm down. I might’ve closed my eyes, but I’m not sure. Everything was very dark, tinged with red. Calm down, calm down, calm down. My head pounded. My palms stung. I was still sitting, which was good. A vague droning caught my attention. That would be the Headmaster. That was also good. It meant I hadn’t thrown my chair at him yet. Calm down, calm down, calm down. I stopped breathing. I’m not sure how long it took for my lungs to start burning. Calm down, calm down, calm down. The droning got louder, and I began to pick out a few words, none of which I cared about enough to try to understand. Was I still not breathing? It hurt. Calm down, calm down, calm …

  Why? the angry part of me thought.

  The somewhat rational part of me stalled, ticked, stopped, and shattered.

  Somehow, that killed the anger.

  My lungs filled with oxygen, and, slowly, the world returned. I opened my eyes, which had apparently been closed after all. I noticed how limp I was. Limp, trembling, and drained. Turning over my hands, I uncurled my clenched fists to reveal white puncture marks across my palms. Small dots of blood clung underneath my fingernails.

  How had I managed to get that angry?

  Shame overtook me with nearly as much strength as the anger had.

  It was only at that point that I noticed how silent the room was. I glanced up.

  The Headmaster was staring at me with a thunderous frown. “Ms. Wintersmith,” he said, voice tight with anger. “Have you been listening to anything that I’ve said?”

  A spark of anger lit inside my chest, and I let it sizzle there. I was too mentally exhausted for it to be of any danger, but it was enough fuel to give me some energy.

  “I heard some of it,” I answered, my voice raspy. I hoped he wouldn’t notice.

  He must’ve, because some of the animosity faded from his expression, replaced by a miniscule dose of concern. “You look pale, Ms. Wintersmith.”

  Stating the obvious, much? my thoughts snapped.

  “Are you unwell?”

  Before I could respond, with either a snarky comment inside my head or a semi-polite and downright lie out loud, a very loud yell echoed along the hallway outside the office door. I half-turned in my seat, still trembling. That sounded like Walken. And then I remembered. The distraction!

  With everything else going on, I’d completely forgotten.

  The yell came again, this time louder. It sounded as if he were in pain.

  The Headmaster must’ve thought so too, because he leapt out of his seat, dashed past me, flung the door open, and, with the hurried words, “Stay put,” smashed the door to behind him. I heard his pounding footsteps echoing down the hallway.

  “Stay put” can be interpreted in many ways. I took it to mean that I wasn’t to leave the office, but I didn’t necessarily have to remain in my chair.

  I headed for the desk.

Chapter Seven: In Which I Find Useful Information, or, Five Previous Schools

Although the Headmaster’s desk couldn’t have been any messier if a tornado had blown through it, I was fairly confident that I would be able to find what I needed mere seconds after beginning my search. Considering that Glass Farthingdale was a new student, and that the Headmaster was a busy man and disorganized when it came to his office, it only made sense that the file I wanted would be somewhere on top.

  The top file happened to be my own, which was hardly a surprise. Perhaps, in a different situation, I would’ve paused and flipped through the sheaf of papers titled, in large block letters, GALE CAROLINE WINTERSMITH, but I was not only pressed for time, I was still drained from my intense inward struggle of a few moments before. Not to mention my unbearable curiosity had resurfaced.

  I shifted my own file just slightly, and GLASS F jumped off the folder directly underneath and hit me with the force of a blow. Fingers shaking, I slipped the file out from the clutter of papers, placed it on top, and opened it.

  The first thing to greet me was a picture of Glass Farthingdale herself, pinned to the inside of the folder. It appeared to be a semi-recent photograph, probably taken at one of her previous boarding schools. I couldn’t tell if it was because of the black-and-white palette, or the graininess of the photo, or if the two coupled together softened her features, but Glass didn’t look nearly as scary as she did when I’d met her. Instead, she looked sad. Her eyes, two grainy black whirlpools, reflected something that I immediately recognized. Heartbreak, emptiness, distrust, and loneliness intermeshed to create the look of someone who’d been abandoned.

  Something within me ached with sudden pain, and, on an impulse, I flipped open my own file. My picture stared back at me, nearly a stranger without my spectacles (they’d made me take them off for the photo), round face glowing unnaturally white against the grey background. Unlike Glass Farthingdale’s photo, mine hadn’t softened me. I looked half-blind and edgy. But my eyes were the same as hers: Heartbreak, emptiness, distrust, and loneliness swirled together in grainy black depths, and abandonment reflected outwards. 

  I didn’t know what to do with this information, or how to process it, so I didn’t. Instead, I shut my file and turned back to hers.

  The first page always contained what I considered to be more trivial information – such as height, weight, birth date, physical appearance, who to contact in case of emergency, etc. – and I had half a mind to just barely skim it, but something caught my eye.

  Birth Date: Unknown.

  Intrigued, I hurriedly read the rest of the page. As I had half suspected, nothing more was mentioned of her birth date, and her age was just marked as “Approximately 16”. But she was apparently three inches taller than me, at five feet and eight inches, and, of more interest, she had a long, white, jagged scar that ran across the back of her neck. Her emergency contact was some corporation I’d never heard of before, with a “Refer to Ms. Harcourt” scrawled beneath.

  I turned the page, hoping to find something about her missing birth date, or more about the corporation and why it was Glass Farthingdale’s emergency contact. Instead, there was a list of her previous boarding schools. Five, apparently. There were dates next to each.

  Eastwood Boarding School. December 12, 1903 – January 13, 1905.

  Morrisburg Boarding School. February 9, 1905 – March 6, 1906.

  Allslost. April 2, 1906 – October 20, 1907.

  Thierak Academy. November 15, 1907 – January 13, 1908.

  Cornerstone Academy. February 8, 1908 – April 18, 1908.

  Unfortunately, there was nothing to explain why Glass Farthingdale had left any of these schools. However, I could tell, just by looking at the dates, that none could be considered a natural transfer. The dates were all disjointed, with unusual transfer times, and about a month in between each start at a new school. Of course, there were all kinds of possibilities for this, but, most likely, since she was now attending Norlocke, it was because she had been expelled. I had only been expelled from two boarding schools, though, and, according to the dates, I’d been attending boarding schools many years longer than Glass had. So, what did she do? What had happened? What had caused her to be expelled from five different schools in less than five years?

  The file wasn’t telling me, in which case I’d have to do some digging of my own. I pulled a scrap of paper and a small pen out of my skirt pocket and scribbled down the names of the schools as well as the dates Glass had attended them.

  There were still a few pages, and I skimmed them rapidly, trying not to worry about the sound of footsteps in the hallway or, worse yet, the door suddenly opening. Sentences and words flashed across my line of sight: Allergic to milk. Chicken pox. A+. A+. A+. A+. Nothing yet about her unknown birth date, the corporation, or anything else more noteworthy.

  I arrived at the last page, and just a glance told me that, while it might be incredibly useful, it was also incredibly long. Far too long to read now. The Headmaster would surely come back at any moment. It was amazing he wasn’t back already. I started to close the file. And hesitated. I couldn’t stop here. I might never get a chance to look at it again. Besides, based off the last page’s detail, it was probably meant to be given to Dr. Livesely. If that happened, the paper might as well have never been written for all the opportunity I’d have of reading it.

  I felt torn in two, but curiosity got the best of me. I started reading.

  And only made it a few lines in before I slammed the file shut, slipped it back into its place in the pile, and dove for my vacated chair.

  The door burst open mere moments after I’d seated myself, revealing the Headmaster, a thundercloud darkening his features, with one of his hands resting somewhat forcefully on the shoulder of one of the students, a boy named Lawrence Teagarden. His name suggested someone rather small and placid, but Lawrence Teagarden was neither. Dwarfing even many of the teachers, he was known as the most volatile student at Norlocke, and just looking at him could get you punched. I hoped Walken was alright.

  The Headmaster’s step faltered when he saw me, and a momentary look of confusion darted across his face. Apparently, he’d been so caught up in Walken’s distraction that he’d forgotten about me. But he recovered amazingly fast. “Leave, please, Ms. Wintersmith,” he said sternly.

  “Yes, sir,” I said, and slipped out. The door shut behind me, cutting off Lawrence Teagarden’s deadly glare.

  Walken, lounged casually against the wall, was waiting for me just around the corner. I gave him a quick once-over to make sure he wasn’t hurt before snagging his sleeve and pulling him further away from the Headmaster’s office. I didn’t want to be anywhere near there, in case the Headmaster realized his blunder and called me back.

  “Your distraction was very effective. Thank you,” I whispered to him as we walked briskly towards the stairs. “But next time maybe pick something a little safer.”

  Walken grinned at me, looking more awake than usual.