Variant

“So what were the rules the two runners broke? I mean, for real.” I had already decided that I had little intention of obeying the rules here—I wasn’t going to stay long enough for it to matter—but I wanted to know what they were. Just the fact that Becky seemed to be in a position of authority worried me. Anyone who had been an unwilling captive for a year and a half and yet seemed as unconcerned as she was didn’t deserve a lot of obedience.

Or was she a willing captive?

“No one is supposed to talk to the new students. Like I said, it makes more sense if I can explain what the school is like in a prepared presentation.”

Right.

“Also, they don’t want us to chase after the car. That’s against the rules.”

“Who are ‘they’?”

Becky turned to me and winked. “Ah, that’s the real question, isn’t it?”

She was starting to drive me crazy. Or maybe she was crazy. “And what’s the answer?”

The corridor branched, and Becky directed me to the left. I hadn’t realized how big the building was from the outside.

She shrugged. “They’re the Maxfield Academy. The woman who drove you in and her corporate office.”

“You don’t know? Don’t you want to?”

Becky opened a door and motioned me through. “Of course I want to know, silly. But I don’t know, so I’m trying to make the most of it.”

Inside the small room was a desk surrounded on three sides by tight, cupboard-lined walls. In front of the desk was a small leather sofa. She motioned for me to sit, and then moved to the desk, fiddling with some papers and jotting down a note for herself. The office was immaculately organized. The papers on the desk were in perfect stacks, not a single sheet out of place. There were two pens and a pencil, each one exactly parallel to the others.

Sitting made me anxious. I needed to be out doing something, talking to someone who was as angry about this as I was. I assured myself that there had been others watching through the windows—people who didn’t act like Becky. I’d find them.

She picked up a white three-ring binder with my name already on the spine. She walked around the desk and sat next to me on the couch, then crossed her legs and smoothed her skirt.

“Here’s the deal, Benson,” she said, in a new tone of voice: serious, but still a tour guide, as though she were showing vacationers around the site of a plane crash. “There are some people, like Curtis and Carrie out there, who go running after the car every time it comes. They go stand at the wall and talk about trying to climb over it and get away. They complain about every little thing.”

“Like the fact that we’re trapped?”

Even Becky’s frown was a half smile. “I know that it’s hard. But that doesn’t change anything. And the sooner you accept it, the sooner you’ll be able to enjoy yourself here.”

“Accept what? That I can never leave and I can never talk to anyone? What is this place? A prison?”

She shook her head. “It’s definitely not a prison, Benson. Does a prison look like this? Do prisoners get great food and a great education? Think of it this way: Even if you had a phone, is there anyone you’d call?”

I thought at first it was rhetorical, but she waited for me to answer.

“I’d call the police.”

“That’s not what I mean,” she said. “If this was a normal school that let you use the phone, is there anyone you’d call?”

Was it that obvious that I was a loner? She knew my name before I’d told her; maybe she’d also seen my answers on the application—the answers that said I didn’t have any family.

I decided to lie. “I have lots of friends.”

“Do you?” she said, raising an eyebrow. “Friends you’d call to chat with?” She leaned a little closer, watching my face.

Well, I didn’t have any at my last school—I’d never met anyone there because I was always at the gas station. And I definitely didn’t consider Mr. Cole a friend. There was my caseworker, but she couldn’t ever remember my name.

I shook my head. “Not really. But how do you know that?” Almost imperceptibly, Becky’s smile wilted. Oh. “Wait. You’re the same, aren’t you?”

She turned her gaze down, tapping her fingers absently on the binder. “Yes,” she said. “All of us are like that.”

I couldn’t believe it. A whole school full of people like me—no friends, no family. No one who would notice that we were gone.

I pounded my fist into the arm of the couch.

“They take the ones that no one will miss.”

Her tour-guide laugh reappeared. “You make it sound so sinister.”

I jumped up, rubbing my hands over my face and head. “If it doesn’t sound sinister to you, Becky, then you’ve been here too long.” Maxfield wasn’t just a prison. It hid what it was doing, seeking out students who had no ties, no homes.

Those had been questions on the scholarship application, though they’d referred to it as a personality profile. How many close friends do you have? Who do you confide in? I must have answered just right—none and no one.

If the school was picking the kids who wouldn’t be missed, then were they ever going to let us go? No one was going to come looking for us. Nobody cared.

Becky didn’t respond. When I finally turned around, she was still sitting looking as calm as ever. What was wrong with her? Didn’t she get it?

“We’ve kinda messed up my official presentation,” she said with a smile and a joking sigh, “so let’s get right to the details.” She held up the binder and motioned for me to come back and sit. I walked to her, but stayed on my feet. “This book is your manual for all things related to Maxfield Academy. It has the rules, a map of the grounds, and a list of services. Everything you’ll need.”

I stared at her. “I think you’re crazy. I think this school has made you insane.”

She just smiled. That’s all she ever did. She had to be nuts.

“Benson, I’m trying to help.”

“Help me or our kidnappers?”

“You,” Becky insisted. She handed me the binder and then clasped her hands in her lap. “Now, listen. We need to go over a couple of the bigger rules, and then I’ll take you up to your dorm.”

Great. I didn’t want to go to the dorm; I wanted her to take me back outside. I’d climb the stupid wall and get out of here. I wondered why no one else had done that. It was tall, but there had to be a way. The two that ran after Ms. Vaughn’s car—maybe they’d tried. I’d find them and ask.

“Benson?” Becky pointed at the manual.

I opened the binder halfheartedly. The front page had a black-and-white photocopy of the ornate coat of arms that had been on the school’s website. The color version had looked so regal, like I was going to some Ivy League school that was going to make everything that was wrong about my life right. This paper just looked like a copy of a copy of a copy.

I sat down again with a sigh, closing the book and looking at Becky. “Are the rules as stupid as everything else?”

She laughed. “They’re not stupid at all. Very basic stuff.”