Conspiracies (Mercedes Lackey) - By Mercedes Lackey Page 0,2
minutes later, damp from her shower, and stomped into her closet. It was big enough to dress in—her whole bedroom here had luxuries she’d never imagined owning, like a flat-screen TV and her very own microwave—and it was the same as every other student’s. They all had private rooms, and their own computers, and …
Pretty much everything they wanted, except privacy, freedom, and their families back.
A few minutes later, she came out of the closet, dressed—in an Oakhurst uniform, of course—for another wonderful day on Planet Oakhurst. Almost everything she owned—after The Accident, and its aftermath—was an Oakhurst uniform. She was really tired of brown and gold. Since the fancy formal dinner was going to be fancy and formal, she couldn’t even wear pants (even though you usually could during vacation), but she could still make her feelings known. She chose a brown skirt that went down to mid-calf, brown tights, brown shoes, brown sweater, and brown blouse. There. She looked like a Mennonite. A dowdy Mennonite. All she needed was the little white hat.
Muirin rolled her eyes at the sight of her outfit. “You don’t really want Burke and Loch to see you in that, do you?”
Argh. No, she didn’t. Burke was sweet, and Loch was really cute, and—unlike most of the other kids, like Kylee and Dylan—neither of them had tried to kill her in the four months she’d been here. But she’d be damned if she was going to look “cheerful” when she felt so depressed. She set her jaw. Muirin gave a pained sigh. Muirin had fire red hair and vivid green eyes and was fashion-model skinny and the closest thing to an outlaw rebel that could survive here, since even if you didn’t just “disappear,” collecting enough demerits could make your life a living hell. Muirin despised Oakhurst’s Dress Code, and had somehow managed to alter every bit of her own clothing so that it was just barely within school guidelines. How she got away with it, Spirit still didn’t know. Maybe she cast an illusion over herself every time there was a teacher in sight.
Only that wouldn’t work, Spirit thought in irritation. Because if you have magic, you can tell when somebody’s using it around you. The only one Muirin could really fool here … is me.
“Come on, come on—they’re having French toast and pancakes even though it isn’t Sunday!” Muirin said, bouncing up and down at her. Muirin was a sugar addict, and one of her many grievances with Oakhurst was the lack of junk food on the school menus. Spirit really didn’t miss anything but soda, but Muirin and Seth—he’d been one of the Wild Hunt’s last victims—had set up their own smuggling operation to get contraband into Oakhurst from nearby Radial.
* * *
The dining room was nearly empty. A lot of the school rules were relaxed a little over the Christmas holiday, so you didn’t have to show up for breakfast if you didn’t want to, though if you missed it, you had to starve until lunch. Today, missing breakfast meant you’d be stuck until about two-thirty, because the formal meals were always later than regular lunch. But even so, it looked as if at least half of the other kids had decided to skip breakfast in favor of more sleep. Not that it would be much more sleep, because there was a mandatory “spiritual education” service at ten. Any place else, it would be a church service, but Oakhurst was special. In the not-good way.
Addie, Burke, and Loch were already in the Refectory, sharing their usual table. Burke, as usual, was working his way through an enormous “healthy” breakfast: eggs and toast and sausage and potatoes and orange juice. Addie was crunching delicately away on a slice of toast, with a mug of tea at her elbow. Loch had a plate of bacon and eggs in front of him, but he was pretty much ignoring it to talk to the others. The moment Spirit slipped into her seat, one of the servers came around to ask her what she wanted for breakfast. (That was another creepy thing about Oakhurst. It was like living in a combination of Motel Hell and a fancy restaurant, because they had waiters and waitresses serving them at every meal.)
“Waffles!” Muirin said eagerly. “And cocoa, and orange juice, and bacon, and—”
“Just cornflakes, thanks,” Spirit said, cutting Muirin off. At least during “vacations” you didn’t have to eat a whole Healthy Breakfast if you didn’t want to.