BY THE NEXT WEEK THEY’VE officially added me to the War Games ranking, and, shocker, I’m dead last. I can’t stop sucking at every single physical thing Sturtevant makes me do. It’s just so embarrassing. I’m not saying I want to be in War Games, but I also don’t want to be literally dead last on a list of two hundred people. But any hope I had of moving a few spots up was dashed today in PT when we had to do monkey bars. Monkey bars! Like five-year-olds do at the playground! But you seriously can’t believe how hard they are: I couldn’t even get myself from one bar to the next. I ended up falling into a pit of wood chips, which gave me a huge splinter on my finger, which was bothering me so much I had to go to the infirmary so the nurse could tweeze it.
I glance down at my schedule to make sure I’m heading in the right direction for Military Strategy. Most of my classes make me really nervous, but I actually really like Military Strategy (and, of course, pottery, because I’d love to have my own line of handcrafted home goods one day, like when I’m seventy and retiring from the magazine world. I already made a mug last week that says Fashion saved my life!).
I fold up my schedule and keep walking. I can’t find a bathroom, and I’m pretty sure I have mascara streaked all over my face from crying again, this time about the splinter. It was literally as sharp as a shard of glass!
Mess I went okay this morning. Ciara and Amanda insisted I sit with them, even though I wanted to find Jack and Joni. Jack’s been so nice to me ever since we snuck out, even though he seemed a little embarrassed when he snuck me back into my dorm, like he’d messed something up.
And Joni’s been so busy studying we barely have time to hang out, but today she came over to see if I was okay at breakfast after the wood chip incident. Of course Amanda gave us a death stare while Ciara picked at her omelet. I have no idea what happened between the two of them and Joni. I’m still sensing it’s about Jack, but I don’t even want to ask because I don’t want to choose sides between them. I’ve never been someone to do that, really, because there’s always more to the story.
Julia, Andrea, and I got along just fine at Mount Pleasant without being part of a certain group. Even though the three of us were best friends, we always had other friends in different social circles. So I’m not going to start allying myself with one group or another now. I know better.
Cadets brush past me, hurrying to their classes. My chest is so tight I can hardly take a breath. I need to find a bathroom but I don’t think I can fix my makeup without being late to class, and you only get one warning for tardiness; the second time you’re late to class you get a demerit. People must get kicked out of this place all the time! I pick up my pace, which makes me think about the sprints Sturtevant made us do this morning, which makes me want to cry again. I’m about to give in to the tears and make my mascara worse when I hear my mother’s voice.
Just breathe.
It’s what she used to say to Ella and me when we were little and devastated over something that felt so wildly important back then, like a broken toy or a lost doll, or a dance recital gone wrong.
Focus on your breathing, Frankie.
I hear her like she’s right next to me, and instead of making me want to cry with how much I miss her, it steadies me a little. I watch my feet walk the hallway and I breathe.
In, out, in, out.
I smile a little. Maybe my mom’s thinking of me right now, too.
I breathe deeply for another minute or two and I feel a little more okay. I feel better, at least, than before. And I’m starting to feel like if I suck so badly at physical stuff, then maybe I should focus on doing well academically at the Academy. I could get back the part of me I lost in high school, the part of me that liked to study and felt amazing when I got high grades.
Room 163.
Room 165.
A few more classrooms to go and I’m there, my arm muscles protesting as I push open the door.
MILITARY STRATEGY is written in blue chalk on the board like usual. Class size is smaller here for more “personalized attention.” (#HowGreat.) There are three rows with six desks each. People are so prompt; there’s still a minute to go until the bell rings, but I’m one of the last ones to show up. Again.
I spot Jack in the front row and a zing passes through me. The good thing about this school is that some of the military-specific subjects are offered to sophomores, juniors, and seniors, so we can actually be in the same class. I try to hide how nervous he makes me by walking right over like it’s no big deal, acting like of course I’d go talk to him because we’re friends. I try not to notice how many kids look at me funny. I try to tell myself it’s because I’m new here, but I’m pretty sure it’s because of all the embarrassing things that keep happening to me in PT.
“Want to sit together back there?” I ask, pointing to the back row, where there are two open spots.
“This classroom is too echoey,” Jack says. “I gotta be in the front. Hang on,” he says, and then he leans over to talk to the girl next to him. She looks up at me and smiles, and it’s totally one of those smiles you give someone you feel super bad for, but I don’t even care. She moves to the back row after low-fiving Jack like old pals. Everyone seems to like him here; I can tell by the way they cluster around him in PT and in the dining hall. He has a wide group of guy friends, but no one who seems to be his best friend or anything, and he doesn’t pay particular attention to any girl except Joni. (And trust me, there are a lot of pretty girls who seem interested in him.) And he definitely avoids Amanda.
“Thanks!” I call to the girl, meekly.
“Sit down and take a load off, princess,” Jack says. I can tell he’s trying to make me feel a little better after this morning, but it’s not working. All of my muscles are killing me as I lift my bag onto the empty desk. A few students turn to stare at us, but most glance back to their phones and books. “At my old public school the teachers wore FM systems,” Jack says as I sit. “So they wore mics and their voices streamed directly to me, which was awesome. They don’t have them here, which is BS, as far as I’m concerned,” he says.
“Another reason you liked your old school,” I say.
“Exactly,” he says.
Two guys at the end of the row are laughing, and there’s a girl near the window who reminds me a little of my sister. My heart does something funny as I watch her flip through her textbook. I imagine myself back home for just a second, working on my blog, going to school with Andrea and Julia like old times, spending time with Ella, sleeping in, eating non–dining hall food like Pinkberry frozen yogurt, and for God’s sake—not working out.
Jack’s dark eyes search my face. “You okay, Frankie?” he asks as I try to get comfortable in my chair. My thighs hurt so bad from the marching drills we had to do today. I don’t think my legs were meant to stomp at right angles. God, what I wouldn’t give for those relatively easy father-daughter Pilates classes back home!
“Just missing my family,” I say.
Jack looks a little more empathetic than he did the night we were out together, but there’s still the smallest flicker of doubt on his face, like he thinks I’m some faker who hates it here. And that’s not entirely true; it’s just that I’m so freaking homesick!
“Can we not talk about me falling into the wood chips?” I ask.
“Sure,” he says, then, “It will get better, okay?”
I lower my voice so no one can hear us. “How can you know that?”
“Because being the new student sucks,” he says. “You don’t know what you’re doing and you barely know anyone.”
He smiles at me, not one of his wide, crooked grins, but a softer, careful smile. There’s something so calming about his presence; maybe it’s because he’s strong enough to be my bodyguard. I don’t even think Sturtevant could scare me with him around. “Maybe you’ll even start to like it here eventually,” he says. His voice is so hopeful.
“Is Joni starting to hate how I keep messing up?” I ask softly. “Am I embarrassing her?”
Am I embarrassing you?
I realize a beat later it’s what I actually want to know. Because why is he so nice to me when I’m so bad at everything? He’s one of the best students here—he’s good at everything, and I’m just good at fashion blogging and cultivating a unique personal style.
Jack purses his perfectly bowed lips. I really hope he isn’t hanging out with me because he feels sorry for me. The thought makes me feel awful.
He meets my eyes, and he looks like he wants to say something—I can see him thinking about it. But then he shakes his head like he’s changed his mind. “Some of the kids here are on scholarship,” he finally says, “and Joni’s one of them. She has to do well here—and not get any demerits—so she can afford to be here. She’s not going to endorse you, you know, answering your phone in front of the whole school and Sturtevant.”
Heat rises to my cheeks. It’s like Bad, Selfish Frankie all over again. Have I always been this way and just never noticed? My parents would be horrified at the way I acted the first morning in PT. (They would also probably be horrified at Sturtevant throwing a punch in my direction, but that’s their own fault for sending me here.) “But it’s not a big deal you can’t do all the PT stuff yet, and of course Joni’s not mad at you,” Jack says. “She likes you, actually. She thinks you have spunk.”
“That’s one way to put it,” I say. I smile but Jack doesn’t. He looks nervous.
“I think so, too,” he says. He clears his throat. “You’re so different, Frankie. It’s kind of refreshing, actually.”
My cheeks get so hot they must be streaked with pink, and Jack is probably noticing!
“And, um, the other night,” Jack says. I can sense the girl on his right starting to listen, and I’m pretty sure Jack can, too, because he leans closer.
My pulse picks up speed trying to imagine what he’s going to say. It’s the first time we’ve been halfway alone since that night—we’re constantly surrounded by other students in PT and in the dining hall.
“I just wanted to have fun with you,” he says.
The bell rings, and I jump. I scan the classroom, but our teacher isn’t here yet. “It was fun,” I say, a little more defensively than I mean. The air smells like lemon detergent, and it’s suddenly making me nauseous.
“I’m sorry if I did something I wasn’t supposed to,” Jack says. His words are slow and cautious, like he practiced them. It reminds me of Josh in my driveway, and I sit there, feeling my body go numb, not knowing how to respond. I’m not sure if he means sneaking out with me in general, or if he means how some parts of that night started feeling like a date, not like I’m the expert on dates or anything.
Jack’s olive skin flushes while he waits for me to say something. When I don’t, he says, “I just didn’t mean for it to turn into something that made anything weird between us.”
I sit still for a second, watching Jack’s features soften. Maybe the words are similar to what Josh said after what went down between us, but the space between Jack’s words is different. There’s something there.
“I want to be . . . ,” I start, but my voice trails off. I almost say: friends, but I stop myself. I’m not going to say I just want to be friends because it’s not the truth.
“Friends, right, I get you,” Jack says, but he doesn’t look like he gets me at all. He looks embarrassed, or confused maybe?
The classroom picks up with conversation and volume, like the rest of the kids are sensing our teacher’s going to show any minute and make them shut up.
“Wait, Jack . . . ,” I say, trying to find the right words. “Me wanting to leave had nothing to do with not wanting to be with you.” I need him to understand. “It’s not that at all. It’s more that I’m starting to realize I need to try to be better here, and I guess, um, learn discipline and follow rules, and . . .” My voice trails off. “Because my parents want me to,” I say.
I run my fingertips across my desk. Is that why? Or is it because a little part of me wants it, too?
“Oh, okay,” Jack says, seeming surprised. “Then from now on we follow the rules. I’ll help you.”
I grin. “You will?” I ask. “I’d like that.”
Jack nods. “Maybe we could even . . . ,” he starts, but stops midsentence because our teacher has pushed open the door and is announcing his presence in a booming voice:
“Good morning, Albany Military Academy students! Forgive me for being late to enrich your minds today!”
Right; class. The whole point of Albany Military Academy: disciplined education.
Lieutenant Martin is full-blown brainiac material with his wire-rimmed glasses and tufts of graying hair above his ears, the kind of professor who makes you feel dumb just by looking at him.
“Intelligence analysis,” he says, scrawling the words on the chalkboard right below Military Strategy, then turning back to us. “Why is it vital? What makes a mind—maybe one of yours—sharp enough to analyze the kind of intelligence that changes the outcome of an operation, or an entire war?”
In Military Strategy, I don’t even bother jotting down fashion items to blog about like I do in Mount Pleasant in some of my classes, and not only because I’m trying to do better here academically but because this class is completely fascinating.
“The analyst must avoid projecting onto the intelligence what she wants her opponent to be thinking,” Lt. Martin goes on. His eyes are like stones as he scans us, almost like he’s searching out which one of us could be the next great US military intelligence weapon. “She must remove her personal biases to objectively consider and decode the material before her,” he says. “So, how do we do that? We avoid, above all, mirror imaging. Do not assume that your opponent thinks like you; do not assume that she values what you value. Your opponent may consider great risk appropriate for what you consider small gain.”
My mind wanders a smidge. Maybe because I can smell how good Jack smells. Focus, Frankie, focus! But seriously, what is that smell? It’s like woodsy and boyish and maybe a little minty, too. And what was he going to say to me earlier? Maybe we could even . . . what?
Maybe I’ll just write him a quick note—it’s not like passing a note is that bad, nothing like answering my phone, which obviously was wrong. This is just a reminder that we have more to talk about after class.
Talk later? I scrawl on a piece of paper. I wait till I’m almost positive Lt. Martin isn’t looking to pass it onto Jack’s desk.
“Private Brooks!” Lt. Martin shouts.
Shoot! “Yes,” I squeak.
“Class,” he booms, “here I am blathering on about intelligence analysis, and I see Miss Brooks passing intelligence to Mr. Wattson!” Bile rises in my throat. I can’t get in trouble again or I’ll be at two demerits.
Lt. Martin laughs, but it sounds good-natured. He’s still got a hand on his round stomach. “Oh, don’t worry, Miss Brooks!” he says. “You won’t get in trouble for passing notes here,” he says, “but you should pay more attention, because your grade rests entirely on your test scores in my class: not on your effort; your listening skills; nor, in your case, on what I can sense is a winning personality.”
At least someone gets me.
A few students chuckle, but I’m too wiped to care. I just need to survive this week. “I’m sorry, Lt. Martin,” I say, and I find I actually am, because I like him, and I definitely love his class.
He nods. “Now, where was I? Ah, pitfalls to avoid in intelligence analysis.” He turns and scrawls rational-actor hypothesis on the board, then points to it with his chalk. “To fall into this trap is to assume that your enemy is acting rationally under the same standards of rationality you assume. This is war, people,” he says.
Knock. Knock-knock-knock. KNOCK!
Raps that sound like a military code crack the door, and I turn to see a boy’s face pressed against the glass. Lt. Martin strides across the room and opens the door. “Hello, Archie Hancock!” he says. “To what do we owe this pleasure?”
Archie’s the guy who was on Jack and Joni’s ridiculously fast-paced running team that first day.
“I’m here for Frances Brooks,” Archie says, looking down at the piece of paper in his hand.
“We were just talking about Miss Brooks,” Lt. Martin says excitedly, like I’ve won a contest. The rest of the kids in my class look at me with renewed interest. The air is thick, like they’re all anticipating something.
“Um, I’m right here?” I say, raising my hand halfway.
Archie breaks into a goofy grin. “The new girl,” he says in an amiable voice like we’re already friends. It doesn’t escape me that he could have called me something way worse—the girl who answered her phone in PT, the girl who fell off the monkey bars, the girl who can’t run or fight to save her life—and that small kindness feels huge right now.
“That’s me,” I say. “Frankie.”
Archie folds the piece of paper in his hands and turns to Lt. Martin. “Frances Brooks is being summoned to Lt. Sturtevant’s office.”
Oh God.
“By all means,” Lt. Martin says. “Take her.”
The class is quiet while I gather my things. I try to breathe slowly, but I can’t. Lt. Martin turns back to the chalkboard and Jack whispers, “Text if you need me.” He scrawls his number onto a scrap of paper and our fingers touch as he passes it into my hand.
Archie closes the classroom door behind us and we start down a hallway with glass windows. Sunlight pours onto the floor.
“Thanks for being so nice back there,” I say, wondering if he knows what I mean. Could he possibly understand how vulnerable I feel here?
“No problem,” Archie says.
“Um, so do you know what this is about?” I ask as we walk over the sunlit tiles.
“I don’t,” Archie says. “And Frankie, I know we don’t know each other, so I hope you don’t mind me giving you advice. I just think maybe you should try to keep a lower profile here.”
He glances over at me, and he must see the question on my face, because he says, “Maybe you could be a little more careful with who you fall in with at this school.”
“Fall in with?” I repeat. Does he mean Amanda and Ciara? Or Jack and Joni? Those are the only people here I’ve spent a lot of time with.
We stop outside a door marked LIEUTENANT STURTEVANT. “You seem like a nice person,” he starts, and I can’t help but think he might not say that if he knew what I did back home. If he really knew me, he might think I deserved to be getting in trouble.
“Just be careful,” Archie says, knocking on the door.
I don’t have time to ask him what he means because the door swings open to Lt. Sturtevant dressed in full military regalia with a purple heart pinned to her chest. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one up close like this, but I know my grandpa Frank was awarded the Purple Heart decades ago.
Archie straightens, so I do, too. Then Archie salutes, which I do not do. Lt. Sturtevant salutes back. I stand there, stupidly, and then I get that weird feeling I get in dreams when I walk into a room and everyone’s talking about me.
Archie retreats into the hallway, and I follow Sturtevant to a mahogany desk in the middle of a green-carpeted room. Then she salutes again. I feel like I should do it because it’s just the two of us, and not doing it feels wrong, so I fling my hand to my forehead and try to remember the way she adjusted my arm into place that first morning in PT. I’m almost sure I have it pretty close, so I hold it there for a few beats. Then I fall back on my memory of Tom Cruise’s military salute in A Few Good Men, which we watched one random day in my old school when we had a sub in drama class. Tom really whips his hand quite aggressively back out of the salute, so I whip mine dramatically, too. It feels awesome, and it seems to have gone over well, because Sturtevant doesn’t look mad or anything.
“Please sit, Brooks,” she says, gesturing to a massive leather chair in front of her desk, which looks like something out of a movie set. There are stacked military manuals; a model airplane; a gold-dipped cannon figurine; and, to top it all off, a tiny rifle inside a snow globe.
Here’s the thing: I have to Instagram this. As nervous as I am about Sturtevant yelling at me, the images before me are too good not to capture them and show my readers. And it’s not like we’ve started our meeting yet, so maybe she wouldn’t even mind. “Just a quick photo opportunity?” I ask her carefully, slowly taking out my phone. “I have a pretty big online presence, so it would be great press for the Academy. If you could just hold still for a sec,” I say, and then I angle the lens so that Sturtevant’s visible behind her paraphernalia.
“Private Brooks,” Sturtevant says.
Almost got it . . .
“Private Brooks!”
If I could just get the rifle snow globe in the bottom left corner.
“Put your phone away, private!” Sturtevant growls.
Snap.
I tuck the phone into my bag and give her a look that says I’m so sorry and also I learned my lesson.
“Private Brooks,” Sturtevant says, definitely already forgetting how good my salute was. “This is exactly the sort of problem we’re having with you here.” A line marks the inch between her dark eyebrows, and a single drop of sweat beads on her reddish forehead.
“Do you mean me using my phone?” I ask. “I agree that it’s been a distraction for me, and I’m definitely willing to work on it.” I adjust my butt on the leather chair. I glance up to the bookshelves behind Sturtevant to see a slew of serious-looking hardcovers and a framed photo of her wearing army fatigues in front of a line of beige tents.
“The problem is not just your phone,” she says.
“Well, what then?” I ask. Maybe my parents have de-enrolled me? Could that be?
“You,” Sturtevant says. “You are the problem. Your attitude, your work ethic, and mostly just the day-to-day ways you manage to show me disrespect.”
My mouth drops a little. The list sounds so long and foreboding when she says it like that, and I’ve only been here for two weeks! Sturtevant steeples her fingers, which I don’t even think I’ve ever actually seen someone do. In Mount Pleasant, it’s all about prayer hands and positions that express gratitude and openness. Sturtevant doesn’t exude either. She procures a photo and passes it across the desk, and—oh, no! It’s blurry, but it’s obviously me sneaking past the guard that night I snuck out with Jack! My platinum-blonde hair is just so remarkable!
“You were seen early Friday morning off campus at oh two hundred hours with an unidentified male,” Sturtevant says in the same tone the detectives use on Law & Order.
“I-I was, actually,” I stammer. But I can’t seem to finish my sentence. There’s a photo, and I did exactly what she’s saying I did—all of it—and what’s the point of lying to her? “I’m sorry,” I say, feeling my eyes well with tears. Is she going to call my parents? They’ll be so upset with me. “I’m really, really sorry.” I put my face in my hands. How could I have been so stupid to think someone wouldn’t report Jack and me? Was it a townsperson? Or maybe an undercover military employee of the Academy? Or maybe Sturtevant herself woke up and saw Jack and me outside her room and followed us?
“Unfortunately, an apology won’t cut it, no matter how sincere,” Sturtevant says.
I look up from my hands to see that her expression has softened just a hair. I consider trying to cry harder, but I’m not that great of an actress.
“Who reported my misdoing?” I ask, thinking if I sound verbally adept she might lighten my punishment. What if it was a fellow student?
“We have reason to believe the person who came forward may want to protect the identity of your coconspirator,” she says.
My coconspirator: Jack. And who would want to protect Jack?
Joni. Could it be? But why? She’s been so nice to me!
“Really?” I ask.
I feel like I could help Sturtevant get to the bottom of this, which I soon deduce is not what she’s after. She taps a thick finger against her desk. “The Academy does not tolerate illicit student activity,” she says, “which is why the last student residing in your room was expelled.”
Rachel.
Sturtevant pops her knuckles. It sounds like a warning. “This is the moment you tell me the name of the other student you were with that night,” she says.
“Um,” I stall. “I don’t think I can—”
“Now!” Sturtevant yells, leaning forward and knocking her chair into her desk. The crash sends the flurries in her rifle snow globe fluttering.
“Anger has deleterious effects on your health,” I say. “My mother says life is about forgiveness and an open heart.”
“Your mother sounds lovely,” Sturtevant says. “Name, please.”
“Marie Brooks,” I say.
Sturtevant clears her throat. “Not your mother’s name.”
I stare at her. She can’t expect me to give up Jack. Who would do that?
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I can’t.”
“Private Brooks,” she says, “if you don’t tell me who you violated code with, I’ll award you with your second demerit. And since your chores haven’t been assigned yet, I’ll take special care to place you in the mess hall. Would scrubbing floors strike your fancy?”
I smile at her and watch as the corner of her lip twitches. I can totally handle scrubbing the dining room floors. Ella and I used to watch Annie all the time.
“Tempting, truly,” I say. “But no.”
Sturtevant’s nostrils actually flare. She’s so cinematic.
“Fine, Private Brooks,” she says. “Have it your way. That’ll be demerit number two, and you can report to the cafeteria on Sunday at eighteen hundred. One more demerit and you’re out.”
“What time is that?” I ask. “Like, in English?”
“Google it,” Sturtevant snaps. She stands, which I take to mean I’m excused. She salutes, and this time I do it so dramatically that I almost knock myself out.
Note to self: tone down salute.
I’m walking toward the door when Sturtevant says, “Private Brooks?”
I turn to see her arched over her desk, ready to pounce.
“I hope you like hairnets,” she growls.