New Girl - By Paige Harbison Page 0,10
couldn’t catch my breath. I tried, and got a mouthful of salty water instead. I thought I reached the dry surface and took a breath. Instead I breathed in a rush of water that made my throat ache. My salty tears were mixing with the water around them and my body was contracting oddly as if I couldn’t control it.
“Anyone who has not already, please proceed to the Kenneth L. Montague auditorium for the First Day Assembly.”
I was shaken from my dream very abruptly when a voice I didn’t expect came over a PA system I didn’t know existed.
Why hadn’t my alarm gone off? I inspected it, to find that I’d set it for 6:00 p.m., not a.m.
Without thinking, I threw on some jeans and grabbed my bright yellow staff T-shirt from my last year at the Jax Beach Surf Competition. I flip-flopped out the door thirty seconds later with only my key in hand.
It took me fifteen minutes of running around like a rat in a maze before I found the auditorium. I pulled on each of the doors, but they were all locked. I looked around for anyone, but I was completely alone. Left with no other option, I knocked.
The door opened suddenly, and a youngish man let me in. “Freshman?”
“Oh, no, I’m a senior. But I’m new.”
“Try to be on time from now on.” He was stern but not unkind. He glanced at my clothes. “And at the end of the assembly, please put on your uniform.”
A shock of humiliation ran through me. I looked at the sea of navy-blue, white and khaki uniformed students in the seats. “Sorry, I’m coming from public school, I’ve never had—”
He nodded politely, though a touch dismissively, as I drifted into my annoying habit of overexplaining. I stopped, and he told me there was a seat down in front. To get to it, I’d have to walk—duck—past everyone.
I got there as quietly as possible and ignored the stares I could feel on me. Once seated, I stared straight up at the stage where I was only just noticing that there was a woman speaking.
She was reminding the students of the rules. Mostly everyone had no doubt heard the spiel as many times as I’d read it over the summer. I cringed when she got to the part about wearing uniforms every day to every function but Saturday and Sunday and social events. Weekends were mostly our own. We were allowed out from 9:00 a.m. until 10:00 p.m. on Saturdays, and from noon till 7:00 p.m. on Sundays. There were shuttles that would go back and forth from town to Manderley.
“…and absolutely no sexual relations of any kind anywhere on school property,” the speaker said, a tad optimistically, and adjusted her papers. There was a snicker in the audience that she must have heard but ignored. “And now I’m inviting Professor Andrews up to the stage. Thank you for your continued attention.” She took a seat at the back of the stage with several other teacher-looking people.
I clapped once, but the rest of the auditorium stayed silent. I shrank in my seat.
Professor Andrews turned out to be the man who’d let me in. He walked to the podium looking a little frazzled.
“Okay, well, I think Eloise, er, Headmaster Jenkins, pardon me, did a pretty good job of welcoming everyone, and reviewing the rules with you, so I won’t be getting into any of that.” He took his glasses from the neck of his shirt and put them on. “I’m sure most of you, at least many of you for whom this is not your first year, have already heard about Rebecca Normandy.”
There was a slight rustling in the audience, but an immediate halt in the whispering.
“In the interest of providing correct information to all of you at once, and keeping the school from crippling rumors, I’ll tell you what we know. Since May fourteenth, Rebecca Normandy has been missing. It’s not clear what happened, only that she was here one moment and gone the next. If anyone hears anything from her, sees her, or is in any kind of contact with Miss Normandy, you must tell someone.”
I listened carefully, and then felt my stomach plummet through my seat.
Rebecca Normandy was Becca, the old roommate. Hers was the “slot that opened up” at Manderley.
“This is a very small school, and I’m sure that everyone here has been affected by the event. Because of that, I hope you all know that Dr. Morgan—” he