I approached the clerk at the curb counter, who took my luggage tag. “How far’s Ridley Academy?” I asked.
“Oh, a fair ways,” he said, in a heavy northeastern accent.
“Can I walk it?”
He looked me up and down. “Suppose so. Maybe a half mile up the road on your right. But better to take a cab.” He paused. “Got your ID? Need to see it for the bag.”
I fished in my purse and retrieved my driver’s license. The clerk held it up to the light. “Lacey Wilkes?”
“The one and only.”
He passed the suitcase to me and slid my ID back across the counter.
A few minutes later, an ancient Ford Taurus coasted to the curb, and a thin man wearing a porkpie hat and a tan windbreaker peered at me from behind the steering wheel. “You need a cab?”
“How much to Ridley?”
“Prep or academy?”
“Academy,” I said.
The driver named a price that was half what I’d feared it would cost. He popped the trunk and waved to it.
Isn’t the driver supposed to take your bag? Although he looked like he might have a heart attack if he tried. I hoisted the suitcase and dropped it beside a carton of tools and oilcans, and climbed into the car.
He pulled away from the curb and in a few moments was headed down a street lined with quaint shops and two-story houses that reminded me of home. “Is this the main drag?” I asked.
“Sort of. There’s another street that crosses it back a ways, with a couple of bars and restaurants and a few overpriced coffee shops. You kids sure love your coffee. Especially if it costs five bucks.”
“Not me,” I said, mentally calculating how far my meager budget would go at that price. I’d worked like a dog at two jobs all year, but still had barely enough to cover the dorm fees.
Each time I glanced up, I caught him checking me out in the rearview mirror. About the fifth time it happened, I held the eye contact, challenging him. Perv! I’m your customer!
He had the grace to blush and look away. “Sorry, didn’t mean to be rude. I was just thinking, you don’t look much like a juvenile delinquent.”
“Uh…thanks?” I guess? Was that supposed to be a compliment? “I’m not, for the record.”
“Oh, I just, you know. Wondered. That school. Isn’t it for…” He seemed to think better of finishing his thought.
OK, fair enough. I’d wondered the same thing at first. “Well, there’s two parts. There’s Ridley Prep – that’s a boarding high school. I guess just like a regular prep school?” Whatever a “regular prep school” might be like. I wouldn’t know. “Then there’s the academy. That’s for people like, well, like me, I guess. Who finished high school, but didn’t learn anything practical. The academy has a bunch of different courses. Some prepare you for university, some directly for a job.”
“Oh, yeah? Which are you doing? What are you studying?”
“I don’t know yet. I’m going to see how things go. But I’ll be studying coding after I knock off some prerequisites.”
“Coding? Secret codes?”
“No, like…well, like coding. For computers.” Didn’t everybody know what coding was?
“Better you than me. I never was much one for math.”
“I’m actually not good at math either, or at least I don’t like it. But coding isn’t math. It’s…I guess it’s more like a language. How you talk to computers, and how they talk to each other.”
That fascinating explanation didn’t interest him at all, and before I’d even finished, he was staring at the road again. See? I sucked at small talk. Computers I could talk to. People? Some days I wasn’t sure I’d ever really learn their language.
The street narrowed to two winding lanes framed by towering trees. The light was going out of the western sky when the driver skidded to the shoulder and turned to me. “Thar she blows,” he said, pointing to a pair of brick columns supporting an open iron gate.
Was I supposed to tip him? It wasn’t exactly a formal taxi, but he had called it a cab. I had no idea, but I was too embarrassed to ask. I paid him and added all the change I had in my pocket, about two dollars, worried both it was too much and too little. That’s me – able to get a situation wrong in either direction. Then I gathered my bag, and the car executed a U-turn and headed back to town.
I signed in with a guard seated by the main gate, and then made my way up the long drive to what was obviously the main administrative building, beyond which stretched some structures that might have been classrooms or something. I stared at it for a long moment, feeling very small and completely alone in the world, unsure of what to do next. I suppose most students would have settled in with the help of their parents, who would have traveled with them and helped them unpack and then gone out for lunch. I’d gotten a ten-hour bus ride and a nighttime arrival with nobody around. What if there wasn’t anybody there at this hour?
I knocked on the heavy wood door, and an intercom crackled to life. “Yes?” a female voice demanded.
I depressed the only button by the speaker. “I’m…my name’s Lacey Wilkes. I just got to town. I’m a new student?” I said, cringing at the uncertainty in my tone.
“Wilkes…Wilkes…just a moment,” the voice answered. A pause ensued. “Ah, here you are. I’ll be out in a moment. Don’t go anywhere.” Like there was anywhere to go.
Several minutes later the door swung wide and a mousy woman in her fifties with spectacles perched on the tip of her nose smiled humorlessly at me. “Welcome to Ridley Academy. We’ve been expecting you, although it’s somewhat irregular to show up this late.”
“I took the bus. Sorry. It’s been a pretty long trip.”
The woman waved
