The Unseemly Education of Anne Merchant. Joanna Wiebe

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ to the end of the kitchen and gazing out the garden window as I sip my coffee.

      “Of course he didn’t,” she says under her breath.

      Gigi’s cottage may be old and small and the kitchen may be lined with plates commemorating the Reagan administration, but it has one redeeming quality: it’s just feet from the edge of the east side of the island, giving a spectacular view of the endless Atlantic (when the fog breaks, at least). The lush land drops off sharply, suggesting a cliff. My gaze follows the island’s dark green border as it runs mere steps from where I’m standing, behind the Zin mansion next door, and gets lost in the dense woods, only to appear again high in the distance, where the black slate rooftops of Cania Christy rise like the pointy teeth of a saw. There are no gentle slopes into the water, at least none that I can see from my vantage; there are just towering rocky cliffs, abused at their bases by hungry waves. It’s rugged and harsh and absolutely perfect looking.

      “You’ve only been here since last night,” Gigi continues, “and already you don’t like it.”

      “I like it. I’m just surprised. Does everyone live off-campus? I mean, there are dorms, aren’t there?”

      “You and the Zin boy are the only students living off-campus.” Gigi shuffles her crossword around. “There are dorms, yes.”

      Her watery, drooping gaze rolls my way then trails out to the whitecaps of the ocean. A spot of toast with strawberry jam is stuck to her lip.

      “But the dorms are full,” she explains, chewing out each of her words in a slow, deliberate manner. “Headmaster Villicus approved your application a mere two days ago. You should be glad I opened my home to you.”

      “I am, Gigi.”

      “Because not many would do what I’ve done,” she finishes sharply.

      Our gazes meet and stick. To look in her eyes, you’d think she could be a hundred years old or five; she is at once a wise old woman and a lost child. The combination is, I have to admit, frustrating—the condescension of her wisdom fused with the weakness of her vulnerability. As if I should revere her and protect her at once. Either she’s going to be a pain in the butt to live with, or I’m in a bad mood thanks to my intense jet lag. Or both.

      She is the first to drop her gaze.

      “Well, maybe something will open up at the dorm soon,” I say. “In the meantime, Gigi, thank you for taking me in. It’s—” I start looking around but stop quickly, which is the only way to keep a hint of believability in my tone “—nice here.”

      She doesn’t look up. “You’ve got orientation today, right?” She scribbles over her crossword. I’m not even sure she’s putting letters in the boxes. “Big day for you, between getting your Guardian and choosing your PT. Big day.”

      “Sorry?” This is the first I’ve heard of a Guardian or a PT. “What are those?”

      Still staring down, her eyes dart left, right, up, and down. “Oh, pish posh,” she sings, getting chirpy suddenly. “It’s not my job to walk you through your whole orientation day in advance, is it? No. I’ve got strict orders from Headmaster Villicus. Let you bunk here. Stay out of it. And get paid.”

      “Is there something in particular you’re staying out of?”

      “Oh, what do I know? Your life! Your school! All of the above.” Her expression can only be described as panicked when she looks up at me. “You’re the first student I’ve had stay with me. Don’t pay any attention to me.”

      With an odd smile, she shakes her stringy hair. Then she’s on her feet, shoving me toward the front door, where Skippy has resumed bouncing and barking madly at me; this dog hates me. And I’m getting the sense that Gigi feels the same way, but she opts to growl and wave away topics rather than bark and bounce. After rummaging through the front closet, Gigi pivots on her heels and pushes a thick fisherman’s coat at me. It smells like old fish carcasses. I take it and stop to look her in the eyes again, forcing her to look at me.

      “Are we cool?” I ask.

      “This is just a business arrangement,” she says. Then her voice softens ever so slightly. “I can’t say if it’s a good thing you’re here. But here you are. And I can’t change that.”

      As I stumble out of Gigi’s, a frigid breeze blows over my back, but I toss the fishy coat behind shrubs—I don’t need to replace my Death Chick moniker with Stinky Salmon or something worse—and wrap a scarf around my neck. It’s far too cold for September, but I have to remind myself I’m not in California anymore; beyond the fuzzy-looking trees and wide fern fronds is the cold Atlantic, not the warm Pacific. Breaking into a trot to keep from freezing, I dash up Gigi’s gravelly walkway to the main road and tell myself not to run too hard or I’ll show up at school sweating like the devil in a church.

      The Zin mansion looms to my right. My hometown is filled with houses designed to make neighbors and tourists sick with envy, and it appears Dr. Zin’s mansion was designed with the same thing in mind. But I’m not envious. Really, I’m not. After all, it looks like Dr. Zin’s place, cloaked in fog, with sharply pitched roofs stabbing up through the mist, is about one lightning storm away from haunted house status. I turn onto the long, narrow, and empty road and start toward the school. In the distance, over the treetops and through the fog, I can just make out the peaks and steeples of the campus. Even from here, it looks nothing like the big-box school I used to go to.

      “What did Dad get me into?” I ask myself and watch my breath freeze.

      Until this morning, I’d heard nothing of getting a Guardian or choosing a PT, which, if I had my way, would be txt shorthand for getting Pretty Teeth or Perfect Tests. Having never been to a private school—never mind the most elite one on the planet—I guess it makes sense that I don’t know. Maybe Guardians ‘n’ things are standard at these places.

      “It’ll be fine,” I assure myself. “You’ll figure it out.”

      That’s when I notice it: a red line painted across the road right before the Zin property begins. The paint is bright. I near it. I spy layers of faded red below it, as if it’s been painted and repainted weekly. For decades.

      With a little hop, I cross it. I tell myself to disregard it.

      As I start jogging, hoping not to be late, a loud Ducati whizzes by me, sending small rocks and twigs swirling into the air; I have to slow to pick a particularly wiry twig from the wilds of my hair. As I do, I hear the crackle of leaves underfoot and glance over my shoulder. A uniformed girl with a short brown bob and little bangs is walking far behind me. When I look again later, she’s gone. I jog the rest of the way to school, alone on the road.

      Cania Christy is one towering stone building backed by smaller converted houses and outbuildings, which I can barely distinguish beneath the slowly lifting perma-cloud that drapes campus. Just two things catch my immediate attention: the main building, over the front doors of which the name Goethe Hall is etched, and the silence. The campus is so noiseless that a part of me wonders if I’m a day early. I hear only the squealing protest of door hinges opening and closing and the caw of gulls muffled in the foggy seascape and absorbed by greenery that is so lush it’s suffocating. In the rare moments a breeze blows a hole through the fog, I glimpse the odd student meandering silently into or out of Goethe Hall; I’m at once comforted to know I didn’t arrive on the wrong day and curious to find that, without fail, every student СКАЧАТЬ