Night School by Caroline B. Cooney Read Free Book Online

you? In your room? Under your bed? Touching your hand?
    Ned shrugged. The dark is fine with me, he thought. It’s people who make me panic. I’ve been afraid of society. It’s true. I’ve been afraid of the gathering of people, of crowds and groups and pairs and classes.
    Fear, whispered the teacher. Especially when you are alone. Especially when you are alone in the dark.
    Autumn closed her eyes to keep away the dark, but it went after her, its little fingers curling around her. She had not been afraid in the dark, walking over here. But I should have been, she thought. It was out there with me. It knew, even when I didn’t know, like a gang looking out of broken windows, waiting for a victim, fear knew I was out there all alone.
    I’ve been afraid, thought Andrew. I see it now. Afraid of life. I’ve kept busy to cover up life. Blessed dark, for letting me see myself. I am a watcher. A reporter and a filmer of other people’s lives. I don’t have to live my own.
    We take control of the Night, said the instructor. We bring fear to the weak and panic to the fragile.
    That doesn’t sound right, thought Mariah. Shouldn’t it be the other way around?
    We begin, explained the voice, by being scouts. We want to find an example of a person alone in the dark.
    The instructor required them to say this sentence over and over. A person alone in the dark. Autumn and Andrew and Ned repeated it until it had no meaning.
    A person alone in the dark.
    A person alone in the dark.
    Perhaps it was mass hysteria, like witches in Salem. For there were Autumn and Andrew and Ned oddly indistinguishable from each other, as if they were the same person, or dressed in the same uniform. What could those three possibly have in common? And yet they sat half-rocking, dreamy profiles content and ready. Ready for what? A person alone in the dark.
    Hypnosis, thought Mariah. Definitely hypnosis. It didn’t touch me. When the psychologists finish scoring my testing, will I turn out stronger or weaker or just different?
    Stronger, Mariah, said the teacher. You are much much stronger than the rest. It is a wonderful facility you have, to be so strong. You have potential. You may be the foremost student in our class.
    Me? Strong? Mariah doubted it. In her heart of hearts (and nobody had a heart more layered than Mariah’s) she knew she was weaker, because all her triumphs were pretend.
    Pretend … Andrew … she’d forgotten Andrew. She was sitting next to him and had forgotten him. Incredible. What did it mean?
    The instructor’s voice went even beyond silence. It was inside her head, a little whispering pine, rustling only in Mariah’s dark. I know your secrets, Mariah, said the instructor. Shall I reveal them? Shall I tell Andrew and Autumn the content of your dreams? Shall I let Andrew know that you stalk him in your heart?
    I don’t stalk him! she thought. I love him.
    Are you sure he would call it love? Are you sure he wouldn’t call it a sick, depraved obsession? The instructor’s laugh swelled like a helium balloon inside her head, filling the place where her lovely daydreams used to be.
    Please don’t tell! I won’t have a chance with Andrew if he knows the truth. Autumn would laugh at me. She’d tell Julie and Brooke and Danielle and they’d laugh at me. Andrew would avoid me in …
    I might tell. I want you to know that. I might tell everybody everything, Mariah.
    So her secrets were the property of this screenless, pageless, bodyless thing up there talking.
    Andrew, Ned, and Autumn awoke from their rocking repetition.
    Mariah, give us an SC, said the instructor.
    What is an SC?
    A person alone in the dark. Name one.
    Of course, the name that came immediately to Mariah’s mind was Bevin, and she shot that out of existence, keeping her brother’s name unthought, unworded, unformed. For if ever a person was alone in the dark, it was Bevin. She could not name Bevin. He was too close to the edge.
    A name, please, Mariah, said the