“What are the classes like?” I asked as we headed down from the dorm rooms to the second floor.
“Depends,” Torchie said. “Some of the teachers are big-time strict. I think one or two of them should be locked up somewhere themselves. Miss Nomad is nice. She’s the English teacher. Once we get her talking, she’ll chatter for the whole period, so we really don’t have to do much work. Just say Shakespeare and she’s good for an hour. Mr. Briggs, the science teacher, is pretty cool. He’s the one who came in with the fire extinguisher.”
I didn’t care about the teachers right now. I wanted to find out more about discipline, since I seemed to get a major dose of it wherever I went. “So, are you in trouble for that fire?”
Torchie nodded. I noticed that some of his hair was singed at the tips. “Yup, I’m in trouble,” he said.
“What’ll they do to you?”
He shook his head. “That’s the scary part. You never know what they’ll think up. They keep trying different stuff on us. It’s like we’re some kind of rats in a lab. Honest. They try something different every time.”
“Does it work?” As I asked him that, I realized it was a stupid question. If the punishment had worked, Torchie wouldn’t have been barbecuing papers in his room.
He spread his arms out in a gesture of total innocence. “How can it work? I didn’t do nuthin’. They keep trying to cure me, but I didn’t start the fire. That lighter was empty. Just like these.” He reached into his right pocket and pulled out a handful of disposable lighters. He flicked one a couple of times, throwing a shower of sparks. “See? No flames. I just like the sparks.”
Oh boy. I could tell there was no point trying to get Torchie to face reality. I’d known kids like that before. You could stand there and watch them do something—hit another kid, break a window, steal from a store. And then, if you accused them, they’d look right at you and say, “I didn’t do it.” I’d known all kinds of liars. Some enjoyed it. Some couldn’t help it. And a few poor losers didn’t even know they were lying.
But that was his problem. I wanted more details about what might happen to me. I imagined dozens of kids locked in dungeons, dangling from chains while a huge, sweaty guy wearing a leather apron heated up torture tools. The image made me shudder and laugh at the same time. I could just picture what would happen if they went near Hindenburg with a red-hot poker. Kaboom. Lots of little Hinden-bits flying through the air. “What sort of stuff do they try for punishment?” I asked. “They ever hit you?”
Torchie shook his head. “Not too much. They might take away privileges, or make you watch some stupid old video on how to behave, or force you to listen to a lecture. You’ll find out.”
“Guess I will. Come on, show me the rest of the place.”
I followed Torchie down to the second floor. He pointed to one room at the end of the hall. “Teachers take turns staying there overnight and on weekends. I don’t know why they bother having someone else around, since Principal Davis almost never goes home. Past that side of the stairs is more dorm rooms. The rest of the floor is classrooms.” He opened a couple of the doors so I could see for myself.
The classrooms were pretty much the same as any other classrooms I’d ever been in. Poorly erased blackboards and uneven rows of chairs and desks left no mistake what went on during the week. Most of the stuff didn’t match. I noticed at least three different kinds of desks in the first room, and lots of different chairs. I guess even the furniture was stuff nobody else wanted. Edgeview seemed to be a final rest stop on the way to the scrap yard. One classroom didn’t have any desks or chairs. All I saw was a rug spread out on the floor.
“That’s Mr. Briggs’s room,” Torchie said as we looked in. “He brought the rug himself. He keeps experimenting with different learning environments. It’s a good place to catch a nap.”
I was about to turn around when I got this feeling someone was staring at the back of my neck. Then I turned around and found that the feeling was a fact. For an instant, I thought I was about to meet a teacher. That’s how big the guy behind me was. When reality sunk in, I checked the hall for a quick escape route.
“I’m Bloodbath,” the guy said, stepping close enough to cut off any hope I had of sprinting away. He looked about half the size of the bus driver, which was still a lot bigger than any kid had a right to be. No fat—alt the weight was muscle. The way Torchie had talked about him, I expected him to be some kind of troll. But he could have passed for one of those actors who makes a couple of movies, gets real popular with the girls for a year or two, and then vanishes from sight. He had that kind of face.