The bell rang downstairs. Alex looked at his watch. It was exactly one o’clock—lunchtime.
That was another thing about the school. Everything was done to the exact minute. Lessons from nine until twelve. Lunch from one to two. And so on. James made a point of being late for everything, and Alex had taken to joining him. It was a tiny rebellion but a satisfying one. It showed they still had a little control over their own lives. The other boys, of course, turned up like clockwork. They would be in the dining room now, waiting quietly for the food to be served.
Alex rolled over on the bed and reached for a pen. He wrote a single word on the pad, underneath the names.
BRAINWASHING?
Maybe that was the answer. According to James, the other boys had arrived at the academy two months before him. He had been there for just three weeks. That added up to just eleven weeks in total, and Alex knew that you didn’t take a bunch of delinquents and turn them into perfect students just by giving them good books. Dr. Grief had to be doing something else.
Drugs. Hypnosis. Something.
He waited five more minutes, then hid the notepad under his mattress and left the room. He wished he could lock the door. There was no privacy at Point Blanc. Even the bathrooms had no locks. And Alex still couldn’t shake off the feeling that everything he did, even everything he thought, was somehow being monitored, noted down. Evidence to be used against him.
It was ten past one when he reached the dining room, and sure enough, the other boys were already there, eating their lunch and talking quietly among themselves. Nicolas and Cassian were at one table. Hugo, Tom, and Joe were at another. Nobody was flicking peas. Nobody even had their elbows on the table. Tom was talking about a visit he had made to some museum in Grenoble. Alex had been in the room only a few seconds, but already his appetite had gone.
James had arrived just ahead of him and was standing at one of the windows into the kitchen, helping himself to food. Most of the food arrived precooked, and one of the guards heated it up. Today it was stew. Alex got his lunch and sat next to James. The two of them had their own table. They had become friends quite effortlessly. Everyone else ignored them.
‚You want to go out after lunch?' James asked.
‚Sure. Why not?'
‚There’s something I want to talk to you about.'
Alex looked past James at the other boys. There was Tom, at the head of the table, reaching out for a pitcher of water. He was dressed in a polo shirt and jeans. Next to him was Joe Canterbury. He was talking to Hugo now, waving a finger to emphasize a point. Where had Alex seen that movement before? Cassian was just behind them, round faced, with fine, light brown hair, laughing at a joke.
Different but the same. Watching them closely, Alex tried to figure out what he meant.
It was all in the details, the things you wouldn’t notice unless you saw them all together, like they were now. The way they were all sitting with their backs straight and their elbows close to their sides. The way they held their knives and forks. Hugo laughed, and Alex realized that for a moment he had become a mirror image of Cassian. It was the same laugh. He watched Joe eat a mouthful of food. Then he watched Nicolas. They were two different boys. There was no doubting that. But they ate in the same way, as if mimicking each other.
There was a movement at the door, and suddenly Mrs. Stellenbosch appeared. ‚Good afternoon, boys,' she said.
‚Good afternoon, Mrs. Stellenbosch.' Five people answered, but Alex heard only one voice.
He and James had remained silent.
‚Lessons this afternoon will begin at three o’clock. The subjects will be Latin and French.'
The lessons were taught by Dr. Grief or Mrs. Stellenbosch. There were no other teachers at the school.
Alex hadn’t yet been taught anything. James dipped in and out of class, depending on his mood.
‚There will be a discussion this evening in the library,' Mrs. Stellenbosch went on. ‚The subject is violence in television and film. Tom, you will open the debate. Afterward, there will be hot chocolate, and Dr. Grief will give a lecture on the works of Mozart. Everyone is welcome to attend.'
James jabbed a finger into his open mouth and stuck out his tongue. Alex smiled. The other boys were listening quietly.
‚Dr. Grief would also like to congratulate Cassian James on winning the poetry competition.
His poem is pinned to the bulletin board in the main hall. That is all.'
She turned and left the room. James rolled his eyes. ‚Let’s go out and get some fresh air,' he said. ‚I’m feeling sick.'
The two of them went upstairs and put on their coats. James had the room next door to Alex and had done his best to make it more homey. There were posters of old sci-fi movies on the wall and a mobile with the solar system dangling above the bed. A lava lamp bubbled and swirled on the bedside table, casting an orange glow. There were clothes everywhere. James obviously didn’t believe in hanging them up. Somehow he managed to find a scarf and a single glove. He shoved one hand into a pocket. ‚Let’s go,' he said.
They went back down and along the corridor, passing the games room. Nicolas and Cassian were playing table tennis, and Alex stopped at the door to watch them. The ball was bouncing back and forth, and Alex found himself mesmerized. He stood there for about sixty seconds, watching. Kerplink, kerplunk, kerplink, kerplunk-neither of the boys was scoring. There it was again. Different but the same. Obviously, there were two boys there. But the way they played, the style of their game, was identical. If it had been one boy knocking a ball against a mirror, the result would have looked much the same. Alex shivered. James was standing at his shoulder.
The two of them moved away.
Hugo was sitting in the library. The boy who had been sent to Point Blanc for shoplifting was reading a Dutch edition of National Geographic magazine. They reached the hall, and there was Cassian’s poem, prominently pinned to the bulletin board. He had been sent to Point Blanc for smuggling drugs. Now he was writing about daffodils.
Alex pushed open the main door and felt the cold wind hit his face. He was grateful for it.
He needed to be reminded that there was a real world outside this bizarre goldfish bowl.
It had begun to snow again. The two boys walked slowly around the building. A couple of guards walked toward them, speaking softly in German. Alex had counted thirty guards at Point Blanc, all of them young German men, dressed in uniform black roll-neck sweaters and black vests. The guards never spoke to the boys. They had the pale, unhealthy faces and close-cropped hair he would have expected. Dr. Grief had said they were there for his protection, but Alex still wondered. Were they here to keep intruders out, or the boys in?
‚This way,' James said.
James walked ahead, his feet sinking into the thick snow. Alex followed, looking back at the windows on the third and fourth floors. It was maddening. A whole half of the castleperhaps more-was closed off to him, and he still couldn’t think of a way of getting up to it. He couldn’t climb. The brickwork was too smooth and there was no convenient ivy to provide handholds.
The drainpipes looked too fragile to take his weight.
Something moved. Alex stopped in his tracks.
‚What is it?' James asked.
‚There!' Alex pointed at the third floor. He thought he’d seen a figure, watching them from behind the window directly above his room. It was there for only a moment. The face seemed to be masked. A white mask with a narrow slit for the eyes. But even as he pointed, the figure stepped back, out of sight.