The Academie by Amy Joy Read Free Book Online

so will you visit
me?
    truth: if I can find a way there,
yes
    “ The English Placement
Exam is in the same format as your last exam,” the test monitor
announced. “The exam will auto-submit at eleven forty-five. You may
begin.”
    I thought this exam would be easier
than the last. I thought wrong. Usually I was good at English—but
that’s when we actually got to write. This was multiple choice,
asking me to identify parts of sentences, comma placements, and
define words I never knew existed.
    What is the definition of
malarkey?
    I chuckled to myself. It was a word
I’d heard Bryan use before. I’d teased him about it.
    zxbfeie: what do you expect? My
parents are professors.
    It was true; they certainly weren’t
the typical American family. I remember it was something I’d looked
forward to talking about when we met the first time.
    After we’d agreed to meet, it was all
I could think about. When the day came, I got up early and rode the
two hours with Mandy, a girl who lived down the hall from me who
went to Columbus—near Dublin, where Bryan was—often to visit her
mom who wasn’t in good health. We found Dean’s Bagel Shoppe easily
with my phone’s GPS, and I sat there nervously, for hours, waiting,
hoping he’d appear.
    He never did.

 
     
     
     
    9. the room to nowhere
     
     
    I felt a tap on my shoulder and saw
the exam monitor standing over me. She pointed at the screen.
Apparently, I had been staring at it, blankly, for some time
now.
    I clicked “B” for “foolish talk” to
describe malarkey and moved on.
    By the time the exam finished, I was
having trouble keeping my eyes open. It was no surprise when I got
my results: Basic English.
    I sighed loudly, logged off my
computer, and pulled out the schedule Sergeant Garrett had passed
out this morning.
    12:00 Lunch.
    Thank goodness.
    I stumbled to the cafeteria and found
my way to the food line, searching desperately for
coffee.
    “ Can I help you, young
lady?” A woman in a paper hat looked at me strangely.
    “ Yeah, can I get some
coffee?” My voice was becoming gravely from the lack of
sleep.
    “ Very funny.”
    “ What?”
    “ There’s no coffee here,
honey.”
    “ Are you kidding?” My eyes
felt only half open.
    “ Do I look like someone
who kids?” Her face was worn—not just wrinkled, but tired with age.
Her skin sat unnaturally on her skull—puffy under the eyes and much
too baggy around the sides. Little hairs stuck out here and there
from her cheeks and upper lip. I had no idea what her real hair
color may have once been, but I was fairly certain that it was not
the unnatural tone of red that I saw before me. Bright pink
lipstick colored her thin, worn lips, and a shimmery green colored
her eyelids.
    “ No,” I answered. “But
you’re telling me I’m not going to have another cup of coffee ‘till
I leave here?”
    “ That’s right.”
    “ God, this place is hell.”
    “ Welcome to my world,” she
said, moving me along.
    I soon found that it wasn’t just
coffee I’d be missing out on in the years to come. All caffeinated
beverages had been removed.
    I hovered around the lunch line, not
knowing what to do. I was too tired to make any decision. The one
thing I had known was that I needed coffee to reboot my brain.
Without it, I had nothing. I have no idea how long I stood there
before I felt a tap on my back.
    “ Hey, are you all right?”
It was Ruby.
    “ Yeah…I think…I’m
fine.”
    “ I wasn’t sure because,
well, you’ve been standing here looking lost for most of the lunch
period now. Aren’t you going to eat anything?”
    “ They don’t have
coffee.”
    “ Oh, I know. Trust me, I
know. I went my whole pregnancy without it only to find out now
that I am out of luck.”
    My eyes were starting to roll
unconsciously.
    “ Are you sure you’re
okay?”
    “ I didn’t sleep last
night.”
    “ Oh god, you must be
dying.”
    I tried to nod, but my head was too
heavy. I needed sleep. I needed it