Dying for an Education Page 5

  “So are you going to read any?” I asked him. I was feeling those same vibes toward him that I had on day one of class—that I was in competition with him, even though Rick was now gone.

  “I am,” he said with a glower at me. “So get ready.”

  After the first performer, a girl with long blond hair who read a sweet little ditty about her pet cat, it was Sam’s turn to perform. And just like in class, he wanted everyone to know that he was the best. The voice most worth listening to.

  I saw some eye-rolls. Maybe Sam knew how he made the other kids feel—annoyed—but did he know how disliked he actually was?

  I decided to be supportive. I figured most of his arrogant behavior was just down to social awkwardness. Definitely not any ill intent or malice. And can’t we all be a bit awkward and weird sometimes?

  Sam began to read. It was a poem about Rick. About what Rick had meant to him. And about how he might just have found some peace now, “teaching on the other side.”

  “Meanwhile,” Sam read, his voice cracking a little. “We are left to teach ourselves.”

  The whole courtyard fell silent.

  “Wow,” Troy said in a hushed tone. “That was really amazing.”

  I nodded slowly. I had to admit that the poem had been pretty brilliant.

  When he was done, finished with the last line, everyone started to clap, loudly, and Sam didn’t look quite sure what to do, like the reaction had actually floored him for a minute. He sort of did a little bow, in the end, then quickly left the stage and hurried back to his seat next to me.

  “Well done Sam,” I said, still clapping. “That was brilliant.”

  Sam looked like he didn’t quite believe me. “And are you reading anything?” he asked. He said it in the same tone of voice I had asked him in earlier that evening—like he had just assumed the answer was no.

  And just like him, I had taken the gravest of offense.

  “Of course, I am,” I stated, right before Sam excused himself to go and get a drink from the bar.

  I turned toward Troy, who looked stunned. “Are you?” he asked.

  “I…um…I guess I am.”

  Well, you know, how badly could it go? There were only a few problems. One, I had no poem to read. Two, I had never actually written a poem before. Three, I had no idea how to write a poem.

  Well, I supposed there was a fourth problem. There was only an hour of the evening left to go and even if I took the last slot, that only gave me about forty minutes to produce something that I wouldn’t die of embarrassment reading on stage.

  Simple. Simple. Simple.

  I needed Claire.

  There was a quiet part of the courtyard, so I snuck up there to make a cheeky phone call to my best friend.

  “Hey!” Claire exclaimed. She sounded a little jumpy, a little nervous about something. It was the first time we had spoken properly all week and it was a little strange to hear her voice. I realized how much I missed her, but there was no time for a thorough catchup. This was a poetry emergency.

  I told her everything about the direst of circumstances I had found myself in. And how I needed a poem, stat.

  “You can’t just produce a poem in forty minutes!”

  “Yes, I can,” I said, full of confidence. I had to, so I would.

  “It can’t be done. Not well, anyway.

  “Just tell me a poem that I can read then. Send me a link!”

  “No way,” Claire said. A grave tone had entered her voice. “That would be plagiarism, and I am not having any part of that.”

  “It would be what?”

  “Alyson, surely you know what plagiarism is! It’s stealing someone else’s work and passing it off as your own. You can’t do that.” She sighed and said, “If you really have to do this, think of what you are most passionate about and then just let the emotion of the words flow.”

  I knew what to write about. The ocean. Surfing.

  I opened the notes section of my phone and quickly typed a few things.

  “You had to register in advance if you wanted to do a reading,” Adrian said gruffly. “It’s too late now.”

  “Oh, no way,” I said. “As if the rules are that set in stone.” I knew what this was really about. “You shouldn’t be letting what happened at the university affect what happens at poetry night.”

  He growled at me and finally scribbled my name onto the dry erase board, but he did not look happy about it.

  I walked up the few short steps to the stage full of confidence. Hey, there’s a bit of truth in fake it till you make it. I didn’t want anyone to know that this was my first time doing this, nor that this was the first poem I had ever written…or that I had just written it in the bathroom.

  There were so many expectant faces out there. Some of which wanted me to fail (Adrian). Some of which were skeptical, contemplative, waiting (Sam). But then there were the faces that were supportive, that wanted to see me get up there and succeed, to touch and entertain the crowd (Troy). And that gave me the confidence that I could do it, because why the heck not? I was as good as anyone else who had been on the stage that night.

  It was only four lines long. About the rise and the fall. The living and the dying. Flowing and then jolting back to reality, like it had all been a dream. That was the surf.

  I looked up and waited, sure that everyone would hate it. But the silence was one of awe. If anything, I had even outshone Sam. If the applause was anything to go by, I definitely had.

  But Adrian was not having it. This was his night and I had outshone everyone, including him.

  He stepped in front of me as I tried to make my way back to my seat. Troy was trying to wave me over. He wanted to congratulate me.

  But Adrian was blocking my way.

  “You stole that poem,” he said.

  “What? No, I didn’t.”

  Wow. I mean, I had thought about doing so, but that was before Claire had told me how wrong that was and now I understood that you never stole another artist’s work.

  “I heard you on the phone to your friend,” he said.

  Oh no.

  “Well, you should not have been eavesdropping,” I said, my heart racing a little. “That is rude and not something a teacher should be doing to a student.”

  My words weren’t having any effect on him. He had already decided I had cheated and nothing was going to get him to drop this bone. “So you’re not denying that you asked her to give you a poem to read out?”

  “I did, but…but I didn’t steal the poem that I read! It was my original composition!”

  Adrian rolled his eyes in disbelief. “We don’t stand for plagiarism in our school, Alyson Foulkes. Even off-campus. This is a mostly student night and what happens here can tarnish one’s reputation on campus. And this is two strikes against you now. I am sure when Rex Lewis hears about this, he won’t have much of an option but to review your application to the university.”

  And with that, Adrian flounced off and walked to the bar.

  I caught sight of Sam’s face. He was trying not to look too delighted, but I could see a strange look of amusement in his eyes.

  I felt completely deflated. All the air let out of me. Well, I should have known I was never cut out for the arts. Maybe it was back to business after all.

  14

  Claire

  My ghost was waiting for me with an ice cream this time. A slightly sweeter treat. And hopefully no trick.

  “Geez, the ice creams are cheap down this way,” Chris said with a grin. He handed me a soft serve. “I remembered you always like the ones with the candy bars.” He glanced back over his shoulder at the ice cream van. “But seriously, I feel like I just robbed the guy. Should I have tipped him?”

  I shook my head and began to lick at the ice cream. “Nah, that’s not how things are done down in Eden Bay. And people here are more concerned with pleasing customers than making profits.”

  “Crazy,” Chris said. And yeah, I was sure it did sound
crazy to a guy like him who made a living as a hotel developer and only cared about profits. He had his own candy bar-free soft serve. He didn’t like the extra calories. He was a big fan of the gym, and I remembered him lecturing me about the dangers of sugar back when we were dating. I was pretty sure he wouldn’t finish the full cone.

  But he’d gotten to the bottom of it by the time we reached the edge of the water, and I was surprised. Maybe he had changed a little. Loosened up. That said, one of the reasons I’d liked him in the first place was because he was so much like me. Kinda uptight. Sensible. Knew how to make money. Thought that was the most important thing in life.

  He finished off the cone and stared out into the ocean. Chris was a good-looking guy, it was just in a more uptight, clean-cut way than Matt was. Matt had a casual surfer charm about him and now THAT was the appeal to me. Someone different from me. Another side of the coin.

  “I really shouldn’t be here,” I said, glancing around nervously. It wasn’t as though we were doing anything wrong. But we were on Matt’s home turf now that we were at the water’s edge. There were surfers out in the waves.

  “Then why are you?”

  I shrugged. “Morbid curiosity.”

  Mostly I just wanted to know what he was doing in Eden Bay. Really doing. Maybe it was my ego as well. Part of me wanted him to get down on his knees and tell me he had made a dreadful mistake and he should never have left. But Chris would never get down on the sand in his $700 pants. I was surprised he’d wanted to come out on the sand at all.

  Chris took off his shades, and there was a pleading look in his eyes. I’d never seen him look like this before. Or act this way before. Going out of his way for another person, I mean.

  Now I knew what Byron had meant about ghosts. And about them needing my attention. Chris had practically begged me to meet him by the pier, and that was unusual for him.

  But now that I was with him, it was like there was something he wanted to say but he couldn’t bring himself to say it. So I decided that I would talk. Maybe he could actually be useful.

  “I destroyed the stool and there is still something upstairs,” I said gravely. “I saw it.”

  Chris was trying not to laugh. Then he must have seen the look on my face because he stopped. “What do you need from me, Claire?” he asked. Maybe he was just being patronizing, but it sounded like a genuine question.

  “I want you to tell me I am just being silly. That I am imagining things.”

  But Chris was thoughtful. He pulled his shades back on and stared out into the water. “You know, my time in Bali changed me a bit. Made me see that maybe there’s more out there than I previously thought. More than any of us know.”

  Oh boy. Not another hippie.

  He turned back to me. “If you see something, then trust yourself, Claire. You are fighting against your own judgement. Your own eyes. Your gut. You see something, but you tell yourself you didn’t. So you can’t win in an argument against yourself. You will always lose.”

  Ugh. I hated to admit it, but he was right.

  I had barely said a word though. So far, I was just taking it all in. Chris hadn’t told me what I’d wanted to hear. But he also hadn’t told me what he’d brought me down there to say. And so I found myself just waiting again.

  It wasn’t until a full wind blew so loudly that it was almost impossible to hear that Chris finally got real with me. “Claire, I meant what I said the other day. I am here only for you. Not this view. We can make this work, you know. You and I were perfect together.”

  He was right. Again. At least about the last part. I hated that. But he was right, we fit well together. We were two puzzle pieces that clicked. Matt and I were like two puzzle pieces that were left over from two separate puzzle sets and had no connection to each other at all.

  Except that Matt and I did have a connection, it was just a different one. In a way, it was deeper. We’d come of age together in this small beach town. When I was sixteen, I’d had a big secret crush on him that I had never told anyone about. I just thought he saw me as his kid sister’s best friend. And maybe he did. But he didn’t see me that way now.

  Chris was looking at me hopefully.

  “What do you say, Claire? Doesn’t it make sense?”

  I knew what he wanted from me. He wanted me to say the same things back. That I also thought that breaking up was a mistake, that I wasn’t over it. That was how I had felt at the time. I had been heartbroken. Furious at Chris for going overseas and not even offering me a ticket to join him. So I had thrown myself into my work. And then I had moved back to Eden Bay, and everything had changed.

  I couldn’t keep dealing with these ghosts from the past. I just couldn’t. I felt like I was being constantly tested and tempted back into my old life. Alyson would say it was “The Universe” trying to get me to prove what was really the most important to me. But I thought it was just plain bad, dumb luck.

  I recognized one of the wetsuits and surfboards in the ocean. Not that Matt’s black wetsuit was particularly colorful, but it had one of Alyson’s specifically-tailored designs on the back. This one was a white design of a bear on a surfboard.

  Just as long as he stayed bobbing in the water, I should be fine…

  But he turned the board away and started heading toward the shore. Oh no. The beach had been a dumb spot to meet. Not that there were really any safe places in Eden Bay. Anyone could see you anywhere you went. I always felt exposed.

  “I’m sorry, Chris, I can’t give you an answer now,” I said, taking a step back. I still had half my cone left and it was dripping down my hand. Matt was coming toward us, and I had to run.

  But Chris had given me more than just one thing to think about. He was right. There was something in the shop, and I was in denial if I thought anything else.

  I slowed down as I approached the shop. I knew what I needed to do. So it was time for the next step after all. I was going to have to come face to face with the ghost and ask it to leave.

  15

  Alyson

  Sam settled in the seat next to me with a stack of heavy textbooks and notepads and a laptop. He was a pretty thin guy. I didn’t know how he managed to lug all those things around campus.

  This was supposed to be a Rick Niemer lecture, so everyone was a little on edge as we waited for the replacement to arrive. “Will it be Adrian?” I asked Sam.

  He rolled his eyes a little as if I didn’t know anything and shook his head. “Adrian doesn’t teach semantics. This will probably be that no-hoper B—”

  A thin, older man with a nice smiley face entered the room and tried to calm our nerves by telling us that his name was Bruce Helen and he would be teaching the class until further notice. Sam grunted a little and told me this was who he was expecting. And he was very far from impressed. “Talk about a downgrade.”

  I didn’t think Bruce was so bad. He explained the concepts in a simple way, even if he was lacking the humor and nuance of Rick. He had a can of Diet Coke that he sipped from every now and then during the breaks between slides and then set down neatly on the center of the desk. Sam complained about everything Bruce did, including the soda can, which Sam found to be highly unprofessional.

  “His only crime is not being Rick Niemer, and that is a crime that most of us are guilty of,” I said to Sam.

  Sam sat back in his seat and didn’t say much after that.

  After class, I made sure that Sam and I left together. He was a quick walker and didn’t wait for me, so I had to power-walk to catch up. I only had a few more days left on campus and the weekend was about to start. I needed to get info from Sam before he went back to his parents’ house on the weekend.

  “Can you show me where it happened?” I asked Sam as we crossed one of the courtyards. Sam had a break between lectures and was going back to the dorms.

  I was almost too embarrassed to ask what I’d asked, so I asked it in this weird, pitiful, almost ashamed way

  Sam looked confused.
He stopped walking. “Where what happened?”

  Oh great, he was going to make me say it.

  “Where Rick was killed. Pushed.” I had to cough to clear my throat when the words got stuck there. It was not an easy thing to have to ask Sam, but he was the one who could actually help me. He lived on campus and he could show me the exact site.

  “I can show you the building,” he said with a heavy sigh. “But I’m not sure what good that’s going to do.”

  We wandered over to where the accommodation blocks were, in a very green, very tree-lined part of the university that was right off to the side, past the business facility. The towers were all made of sandstone, and they looked to me like something out of Camelot. Another version of me would have loved to live in one of these towers. I would feel like I was in one of those old Enid Blyton books where all the girls went to boarding schools and had adventures. I used to read those when I was young. Claire always liked to tease me by pointing that out.

  But to live in the towers, I would have to be a younger version of myself, with money, or a scholarship. Sam told me that was what he had. The scholarship, I mean, not the money. He told me that the only reason he could afford to come to Ferguson at all was because he’d gotten a full scholarship out of high school. “Otherwise I would have been forced to do a technical trade like everyone else from my tiny high school with no ambitions.”

  I didn’t know that Sam had come from a working-class background like mine. I had just assumed that he was one of the spoiled rich kids. But that’s one thing I should never do. Assume.

  “You feel like you don’t fit in here?” I asked.

  Sam bristled. I had said the wrong thing whilst trying to say the right thing. Sounded about right. I was trying to be sympathetic, but I had only offended him.

  “I fit in just fine… You have seen me in class.” He sounded very defensive as he continued to ramble on. “I have the highest marks; everyone is struggling to keep up with me. You should talk to everyone else in the class about not fitting in.”