Chapter 15 6 January 2017
It was an opinion clearly shared by most of their classmates, and the teachers as well.
As Hannah stepped inside the Kingsley Room for the day’s opening event, the Founder’s Assembly, the air hummed with barely contained glee.
The freshman walking in beside her was actually vibrating like an over-excited puppy.
‘What exactly are we meant to be celebrating?’ she whispered to Oliver. Perhaps she should have paid more attention to Ami’s breathless soliloquies about Founder’s Day. ‘The academic aspirations of a bunch of dead white men?’
‘Pretty much. Legacy, image, money. It’s meant to blow a lot of smoke up the asses of the current generation of Prescotts. School spirit, hierarchical displays of social pageantry, yadda yadda yadda. Mostly, it’s a chance to get out of class.’
All of which was true. But it was clear that Founder’s Day represented a lot more than that to the school community.
The Kingsley Room looked even grander than usual today.
The burgundy drapes had been drawn, allowing beams of cold January sunshine to filter into the hall.
They fell across a student quartet playing Vivaldi as Hannah and her classmates found seats.
Oliver motioned Hannah to one of the back rows, and Ami darted past them to join a group of sophomores at the front.
She was tittering and giddy, fully caught up in the Prescott Pomp.
Soon, Ms Caldwell made her way to the podium at the front of the stage.
Her thick, silver hair had been swept up in a gold clasp, and pinned to the breast of her fitted navy sheath was a small gold brooch in the shape of a laurel leaf.
As her low block heels clicked against the stairs to the stage, the room fell silent.
Ms Caldwell stepped up to the podium. On the wall behind her, the Prescott crest – a shield displaying a falcon soaring through a laurel wreath – was projected in the school colours, crimson and charcoal grey.
In a neat row of seats stage left sat three representatives from the Prescott family – Julian, Xander and Lydia – as well as half a dozen of the school’s most important donors.
Hannah could practically smell the money, and fine Italian wool, wafting off them.
‘Today, we honour Elias Prescott, the founder who saw in our academy not only an institution, but an ideal,’ Ms Caldwell began.
Approximately thirty seconds into her speech, Hannah had lost interest. Leadership.
Tradition. Intellectual curiosity. Yawn.
She glanced around the hall. Beside her, Oliver was scrolling Instagram, and he was far from the only student with their phone out.
But a surprising number of their classmates were hanging on Ms Caldwell’s every word, and it struck Hannah, perhaps for the first time in the months she’d been here, that a deep, sincere devotion to Prescott Academy coursed through its students’ veins.
Sure, jokes about the school’s culture and traditions abounded – how you could tell the days of the week by the rotation of tweed blazers worn by ancient Mr Hawley, the ever-shifting mythology surrounding the alleged duel between founder Elias Prescott and a rival headmaster at Horace Mann – but when the annual awards for academic excellence and community service were presented, the applause was genuine.
When anointed senior Rosalind St John, ranked number one in the class of 2017, rose to deliver the Founder’s Oration, her ode to Prescott’s values thrummed with reverence and pride.
At the close of the speech, Hannah’s classmates stood and cheered.
Even Elle – ranked second in the class – smiled and awarded Rosalind with polite applause.
When the Prescott Honours Choir closed out the morning ceremony with the school anthem – something indecipherably Latin – even Oliver sang along.
Abbreviated morning classes were followed by the Founder’s Luncheon, a lavishly catered affair held in the dining hall, then it was on to the Founder’s Fair in the courtyard.
The picnic tables had been cleared away to make room for booths representing student activities and clubs, vendor carts and a vintage photo booth.
It was a brisk, windy January day, but the sky was cloudless, and sun streamed down on the students milling about with their families, many of whom had arrived to join them for the fair.
The art club sold totes and cross-body bags printed with original student artwork.
Prescott for the Environment gave away branded metal water bottles that must have put a serious dent in the student activity fund, and one of the school’s three a cappella troupes performed a series of chart toppers between the coffee cart and a truck making crêpes to order.
Beneath the maple, Madison and Elle held court, taking selfies and sipping steaming cappuccinos.
Hannah caught Madison flashing Theo her middle finger, then draping her arm across Elle for yet another photo.
When she gave the pair a wave, no one waved back. Lovely.
Hannah and Ami wandered among the heat lamps and club booths, feeling happy to have an afternoon free from classes, but more than a little out of place.
Their parents were both working, whereas the parents of their classmates – especially the mothers – seemed to be there in droves.
(‘Easy to take the afternoon off when your only “job” is sitting on a variety of boards,’ Hannah muttered to her sister.) Yesterday, it had seemed unimportant for their parents to come, but now, suddenly, their absence was yet another marker of difference.
One more reminder in a day filled with reminders – you’re new here.
Still outsiders. Hannah gave Ami’s hand a protective squeeze. You’ve got me.
Ami gave her a weak smile in return. Every time the day’s schedule had called for a nod to tradition or a ceremonial flourish, she’d watched Ami look on with wide eyes, whereas every other student seemed to be feverishly, giddily in on the joke.
There had been the solemn and downright theatrical Laying of the Laurel (a wreath made from real laurel leaves, bound in crimson ribbon) by the members of the Prescott family beneath the bronze bust of Elias Prescott in the atrium that morning.
The Signing of the Ledger, a book original to the first headmaster in 1926, by every member of the senior class at the conclusion of the luncheon.
(The leather-bound tome was, Hannah learned from Alice St Clair in a passionate whisper, opened but once a year on Founder’s Day, and was otherwise kept behind lock and key in a glass cabinet in Ms Caldwell’s office.)
And then there were the unofficial, but no less revered, student traditions: Hidden Letters, a game involving the placement of little notes of advice and encouragement to underclassmen in books throughout the library, which was rumoured to have been started by a group of Prescott seniors in the 1940s; the Prescott trivia quiz circulated during morning classes; and the semi-sanctioned student pranks, a subtle bending of the rules in the name of tradition that faculty and staff had grown to expect – and seemed to enjoy as much as the students.
(An official-looking memo had been posted to the announcement board overnight, declaring that Ms Caldwell’s beloved thoroughbred, Marie Antoinette, would be receiving an honorary degree from Prescott that June.
That morning, a sea of grey and crimson ping pong balls – and one lone rubber duckie – had overtaken the Prescott fountain.
By lunch, the bust of Elias Prescott was seen sporting a school blazer, silk tie and holding a latte cup.)
‘Crêpe?’ Hannah asked. Ami had halted beneath a heat lamp near the centre of the courtyard and was gazing towards the food trucks with a small frown.
‘Huh?’ She turned to Hannah, looking mildly bewildered.
‘Do you want a crêpe? You’ve been staring at that truck for three solid minutes.’
‘Oh, sorry. Not hungry.’
Hannah frowned. ‘Then let’s join the boys for a game of cornhole.’ Across the courtyard, Bash and Theo were engaged in what looked like a heated match with a few other senior boys. Theo looked up and gave Hannah a wave, and heat flooded her cheeks.
Ami shook her head. ‘You go ahead, though. I’m actually going to run back inside. I think I need another layer.’
Hannah nodded. The wind had picked up, and it was colder than it had been a few minutes ago.
She’d thrown on her winter coat before coming out, but like at least half her classmates, Ami had accessorised her uniform with only a token item of winter apparel – a scarf, in Ami’s case, which hung limply around her neck.
The heat lamps were a nice touch, but it was still January.
As Ami hurried back to the building, Hannah made her way over to Theo and Bash, who were tossing bean bags at one of several cornhole boards that had been set up near the far end of the courtyard.
Not the fanciest lawn game, but then again, the courtyard was hardly large enough for croquet.
Good thing, because Hannah was an excellent cornhole player.
She was three matches in and kicking the boys’ butts when the smell of smoke began to drift among the booths and tents.
‘What’s that?’ Hannah asked.
‘Nice one.’ Bash pointed across the courtyard. From behind the coffee cart and crêpe truck, red and grey smoke swirled in slow motion up to the sky.
Theo pulled out his phone and started filming, as did Nick Von Kassel, Hannah’s primary competitor in the bean bag toss.
It was beautiful – a viral moment sure to be memorialised on The Upper Edge – but the parents and teachers were exchanging concerned looks.
She caught Mr Harris’s eye, and he gave her a quick, worried smile.
Clearly, this hadn’t been in the plans for the Founder’s Fair.
‘Good prank.’ Theo returned his phone to his pocket. ‘Haven’t seen that one before.’
A gust of wind sent booth liners flapping, and Hannah reached down to zip up her coat. Just then, a sharp yell pierced the courtyard, then another.
‘What the—?’ Theo started to ask.
Hannah grabbed his hand – Theo’s skin was warm, despite the cold day, and a tingle ran up her spine – and pulled him in the direction of the smoke.
They arrived to find two of the canisters had tipped in the wind, sending fumes into the nearby art booth.
The students selling totes and art prints poured out, coughing.
A girl Hannah recognised as a sophomore – Cherry, or Sherrie – was doubled over, hacking.
‘Where’s your inhaler?’ another girl asked, tugging at Cherry or Sherrie’s Hermès handbag. ‘She’s asthmatic,’ she said to Ms Briar, who knelt beside them. Her voice quavered, and her trembling fingers struggled with the clasp. ‘It’s normally in her bag.’
A few tense moments followed, but then the inhaler was located in an inside pocket, Cherry or Sherrie recovered, and Ms Briar guided the girls away from the smoke.
Hannah breathed out – and then her eyes landed on Ami.
Her little sister stood in the space where the a cappella troupe had been earlier, arms crossed tightly across her chest, mouth pinched.
Her scarf still hung limply around her neck, and if she’d put on another layer, it was invisible.
Ami met Hannah’s eyes, and a look of panic flashed across her sister’s face.
Wait. Had Ami…
‘Please don’t tell,’ she mouthed, and it struck Hannah that she was shaking.
Well, hell. So Ami had been behind the smoke display – a viral moment gone wrong.
Hannah bit down on the inside of her cheek.
She should have seen this coming. Hannah would graduate in a few months, but Ami had two more years left at Prescott.
She was desperate to fit in, to make her mark.
For days, she’d talked Hannah’s ear off about Founder’s Day traditions of yore, most of which she’d sourced from conversations with Alex DuPont.
Hannah had tuned her out when she should have done the opposite.
Maybe she could have put a stop to this before it started. The prank must have taken days to plan.
Hannah took a step towards her sister, but then the wind gusted again, and more canisters tipped.
Tears stung Hannah’s eyes, and Theo grabbed her hand, sending another tingle shooting up her spine.
They hadn’t had a real conversation since that night at the Lenox Club, but the spark she’d felt then was still there, smouldering.
If things were different… She allowed herself to be pulled to the school doors as the courtyard exploded in chaos – students liberating urns from the coffee cart and dousing the canisters, others running, others filming, parents chasing after younger children, and teachers shouting for everyone to evacuate the courtyard. Immediately.
The Founder’s Fair was officially over.
Inside, Hannah sank down on the entry hall’s herringbone oak floor, eyes still stinging, and looked around for her sister. Ami was nowhere.
Her phone buzzed. Grace.
Hannah, hello? You promised me live footage from Old Rich Men Day and my phone has been suspiciously silent for hours. It is seventeen degrees and grey here, and I need a good laugh!
Hannah jammed her phone back in her bag. It wasn’t the first text from Grace she’d ignored lately, but cackling together over Prescott gossip didn’t hold quite the same appeal as it had at the start of the year. Especially since the latest drama was all about Ami.
‘You all right?’ Theo asked.
She nodded, swiping away tears. Goddamnit, Ami.
‘Just a little smoke in my eyes.’ She gave Theo a big smile.
Hannah leaned the back of her head against the wall, feeling queasy. She’d keep her sister’s secret, would protect Ami to the best of her ability. But sooner or later, Ami was going to push things too far, and Hannah wouldn’t be there to catch her.