Afterlife Academy by Jaimie Admans Read Free Book Online Page A

thanks,” I say, even
though there is still a lump in my throat and I feel like crying.
    I turn to the suitcase and rummage
through the stuff that’s in there.
    It’s like I would have packed to
go on holiday for a week. But this is about the furthest thing you can get from
a holiday.
    “So, how long have you not had a
roommate for?” I ask as I start taking things out of the suitcase and laying
them on the bed.
    “Forever,” she says. “I’ve been
on my own since I came here.”
    “Oh,” I say. “Sorry, I guess.”
    She shrugs. “Well, I’m not
thrilled by the prospect of a roommate, but it was bound to happen sooner or
later.”
    “Has no one arrived here for six
months then?”
    “Oh no, plenty of people come
every week, but they always put them in other rooms. People leave so there are
always spaces.”
    “I thought people couldn’t leave
unless they graduate?”
    “That’s right,” she says.
    “So you’ve known people who
graduated then?”
    She nods.
    “What happens to them? Mr
Burgrove was utterly cryptic about it.”
    “No one knows,” she says. “But I
guess they go out into Death World and get jobs.”
    “That’s what it’s called?” I
ask. “Death World?”
    “No one’s ever told me what it’s
called,” she says. “Maybe it doesn’t have a name. My friend and I just made up
calling it Death World. We think it fits, though.”
    I nod. It does.
    “Can I ask you something?” I ask
as I walk over to the wardrobe with a pile of clothes in my arms.
    Caydi nods.
    “What’s with the pumpkin? It’s
April.”
    “Oh, that’s Charlie,” she says.
“He’s my pet.”
    Charlie. Charlie the pet
pumpkin. Right.
    “He’s kind of… lively, isn’t
he?”
    “Oh no, he didn’t bite you, did
he?”
    “Bite me? Er, no.” He bites?
Wonderful. “But he did growl a bit. Does he, er, make a habit of biting
people?”
    “Only if they’re dumb enough to
put their fingers in his mouth,” she says.
    Right. At least my hunch on
avoiding the mouth was right. “I’ve never heard of a pumpkin that bites
people.”
    “Charlie’s a vampire pumpkin,”
Caydi says.
    A vampire pumpkin? Right. And
she thinks I need therapy. “By vampire you
mean…”
    “He drinks blood.” She says it
like it is nothing out of the ordinary. “Occasionally he eats a bit of flesh
too. But don’t worry, he won’t hurt you. He can’t move from the table, so don’t
go putting your fingers in his gob and you’ll be fine.”
    “Do you feed him often?”
    “About once a month. More often
if someone pisses me off.”
    I stare at her.
    She laughs. “Don’t worry, I’m
only joking.”
    “Oh,” I say with a sigh of
relief.
    “You’ll grow to like him.
Everybody likes Charlie.”
    “Does he speak?”
    “No,” she says in disbelief.
“Whoever heard of a talking pumpkin?”
    Whoever heard of a
blood-drinking pumpkin either, I think in response, but I don’t say it. “You
know, in my school they had hamsters as pets,” I say instead.
    “Yeah, well, Death World is far
more interesting.”
    “I’ll take your word for that.”
    She smiles and gives Charlie the
flesh-devouring pumpkin a stroke.
    I could be wrong, but I think he
purred.
     
     

 
     
    CHAPTER 7
     
    Sleep last night was sporadic at best. Especially after
Caydi noticed something else different about me. I’ve been wearing a pink rose
necklace for the past year. I never take it off. Wade gave it to me on our
second date and it’s been around my neck since then. I hold it in my hand when
we’re apart and it makes me feel better. And it’s still pink. Like my hair is
still brown and my skin is still skin coloured, the rose around my neck is
still pink. Caydi thinks I should go and ask Mrs Carbonell about it.
    This morning I am on my own for
breakfast. Caydi “doesn’t do breakfast”, so I’ve wandered down to the canteen
on my own. I don’t like being by myself. Back at home, I’m never alone. On the
rare occasion Sophie isn’t