Chapter 37: Anomaly (Part 2: Finale)

The one honest man in the room, Mr. Thwaite, was outvoted by his own staff’s nods.

The two instructors ought to have wondered whether the boy owned them, not that they could ever ask.

Buying himself time to process things, the principal rocked his chair back-and-forth to face the academy’s trophies and the painting of the meadow.

"Among the stolen relics was a pair of sandals," Mr. Cald said. "Brother Ansel’s Soles. They have a particular Mercy."

So the stolen relics hadn’t frightened Cald into silence. They had given him something to work with, and Milo only wished he’d stopped at the questions about hiding places.

"Where are you going with this?" Mr. Thwaite asked.

The instructor leaned forward. "Still Step, Andrew. It silences the wearer’s footsteps."

"Does it look like I’m wearing sandals?" Milo cut in.

The principal turned to look at his hiking boots, their cheap leather cracked and their laces stiff with dirt.

With a sigh, Mr. Cald leaned back. "I can see the boots, that does not mean he couldn’t have changed them. He admits taking the Turnhook. Who is to say he stopped there?"

I ate it...

"Mr. Cald, what exactly are you suggesting? Do you have evidence that Milo wore those sandals?"

"No. I am pointing out an oddity. That is all."

Thwaite turned back to the trophies.

For all Milo knew, someone was coughing on the grounds while Thwaite admired his trophies. They could go on thanking Aldous once Milo got close enough to stop it, but first he had to get out of this room!

Eyes on the trophies, back to the four of them, Mr. Thwaite asked at last.

"The hook. It was somewhat bent, as if it had been used for a beating? You are sure you never met the ghost?"

"I never did. However, I forced my way into the bathroom. To hide."

At the laptop, the clicking stopped.

"...And you were strong enough to do that?"

In the silence that followed, everyone looked at each other. Henry’s knee picked its rhythm back up, and Mr. Cald dug deeper into his temples. Grace checked that the office door was on its hinges.

Eventually, the principal spun back.

"I’m going to need to order stronger reinforced seals..."

He found a pen and made a note of it, in front of the boy the equipment was for.

Grace, from the right, cracked.

"S-Sir, are you anticipating another incident like that?!"

"No!" He put his glasses on and squared a stack of paper. "Procedure."

So when was this going to end? They all went on sitting there, waiting on a principal who had plainly run out of questions. If that was how the liars lay low, they were doing a poor job of it.

Milo, for reasons he’d rather nobody asked about, had to hurry.

"Mr. Thwaite, is there anything else you need me for?"

"No, no. It’s okay. You were cleared, right? You are not coughing anymore. If you’re okay, you’re free to go. Find Layla, or something. The academy gates are still closed."

He was still expelled, he took it.

Under the cover of the chair’s scrape, Milo eased himself upright, keeping his shoulder stiff so the chain wouldn’t slip beneath his sweater.

Mr. Thwaite watched the whole ascent, and his glasses came back off.

"Are you sure you’re okay?"

"Yes!" The syllable covered a quicker step. "Absolutely. Only the bruising, from Seb’s baton."

He had his palm on the handle when Mr. Thwaite’s expression darkened. A student walking out, Milo figured, did not account for that much sorrow.

The principal looked at the instructors.

"And the three?"

"Stable," Mr. Cald replied. "If cured, they should make it."

Although he could have been out of the office by now, Milo kept his hand on the handle and asked, "The three?"

"Paul, Maigh, and Roy," the principal answered.

Roy, that was the fourth bully.

But what about Seb?

The instructors had staged finding the boys, clearly, but Milo was certain Seb had been in the isolation rooms back there.

"What about Seb? And Tessy? Those two had something going on."

The answer landed flat.

"Sebastian and Theresa are dead."

...

Back in the shredded bathroom, Milo punched the paper towel dispenser hanging by its last screw.

"Shit!"

Despite the chain clinking at his shoulder, he punched it again.

Before the office door shut, he’d heard that Seb was alive, though critical, around the time he reached the academy with a way to stop the Plague.

Maybe he could have reached him. Instead, he’d sat on a bench, waiting for a cure to look like somebody else’s work. He’d watched students get up and stretch and let himself think being good suited him.

Seb and Tessy were supposed to get better too.

Milo threw a fist at the mirror but stopped it a knuckle short of the glass.

"Why am I freaking out over this? Seb was an asshole. They were all assholes!"

"Would you mind?"

Milo spun around. A janitor in the doorway tipped his broom at the inside.

"Step outside. I’ve got to finish in here."

Blankly, Milo stared back.

Stable. If cured.

Cald had said that about Paul, Maigh, and Roy. Three boys he could still reach, it dawned on him, he hadn’t cured either.

Seb and Tessy were dead. The others were fighting for their lives.

"Do I have to call an instructor?" said the janitor, but Milo brushed by him without a word.

The second floor had isolation rooms. But having claimed the staff rooms were cleared, Cald and Henry would’ve staged their finding far from there. That left the first or the ground floor, and only one of those had any.

Milo swerved down the stairs, the chain’s jingle lost in the chatter of students back in the corridors.

He bumped straight into Layla.

"Milo! Where—"

He was about to wave her off, but no. She’d been with the staff, and she might know.

"Where are they?" He stepped in, the flail’s head under his sweater dangerously close to her. "The three? Where are they?!"

"Paul, Maigh, and Roy?"

"Yes."

"What do you want with them?"

This bitch always seeks answers when I’m in a rush!

"WHERE ARE THEY?"

"Milo... okay... they’re next to your old—"

He passed her at a run, making for his old isolation room.

"What’s it about?"

Layla dogged his heels, and he gave not one word of an answer.

The door hung open, and inside, the pair of nurses from the backyard were testing the boys for Plague. One nurse glanced up as Paul pulled the blanket under his chin at the sight of Milo.

"They tested positive earlier..." Layla explained. "It’s bad."

At the sight of the kits, Milo drew a breath to steady himself, but a flange pushed up under his sweater and he had to let the air out again.

Of course they were checking whether the boys had recovered after Aldous’ Turning.

Plague, disable. Turn off. Go away! OFF!

The nurse watched her dial.

Saving them had turned into, first and foremost, saving himself.

Milo looked from the dial to the boys.

All the Plague in them. Off. Please.

The dial had to go green.

A positive result, being an anomaly, would make them ask why the Turning hadn’t worked.

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⋆˚࿔ Coming right up: "Peace" ... ⤵︎ [!]