Spectrum Pherret
AmbriThe first time I heard of Grellston Academy, I was in the sixth grade. There was a story about it in the news, something about the school buildings being restored to their former beauty and grandeur; I just fell in love with what I saw. The photos and videos of students in their classes and otherwise drew me towards the television. I sat listening intently as the headmaster droned on and on about the gothic architecture that had inspired the original design of the buildings that were being repaired. I learned that the school had been in operation for nearly one-hundred-and-fifty years, the grounds were gorgeous, and the classes offered were most certainly the best in the country.
There was nothing that I wanted more than to attend that school, so I rushed to my mother and father and the words spilled out of my mouth in an uncontrollable torrent as I informed them of my discovery. I described the classes and the grounds as best as a fifth grader could, and then I followed it up with a question, “Can I go there? Please?”
My mother and father looked at each other, both momentarily at a loss. “Please?” I asked again, my hands clasped together as if I was praying. I was determined as only a child can be, and it showed in my gaze. I penetrated my parents like an x-ray, seeing their hearts and tugging on them. “Please?” I repeated once more, though this time much quieter. I allowed my eyes to become teary, and my lower lip to start shaking.
Mother was the one that finally cracked. “Gregory,” she addressed my father quietly, “I’m going to use the computer and look up this school, okay?”
My father was silent for a while, very contemplative. “Well, I don’t see what harm a little research would do,” he conceded with a sigh.
I shifted from being on the verge of tears to practically glowing with delight instantly. The change did not escape my father. He turned back towards me and said sternly, “That was not a yes, you little brat. We don’t know anything about this place you want to go. So just wait for your mom to finish looking at the website.”
“…yessir,” I muttered. Time crept by at a snail’s pace, causing what was actually only about eight minutes to seem like an hour. I was fidgeting the whole time my mother was gone, I could never just sit and wait or stand quietly, no, I had to be moving constantly. From tapping my toes to pacing, I did everything I could think of to make the time go by faster, but it didn’t help in the least. My father became thoroughly annoyed by my ongoing refusal to be still and the noises I generated while moving about. The scuffing of my shoes against the tile floor, the squeak of a chair’s legs as I sat down and then stood up again mere seconds later; I could tell that all of these sounds were grating on his nerves, but I just couldn’t stop. I then realized that I would hurt my chances of attending Grellston by further angering my father, so I just stopped in the middle of the room and sat on the cold floor. I took a couple of deep breaths to calm myself down and waited. I wondered what was on that website that my mother was looking at. More pictures and testimonials about how great the school was, I guessed. I didn’t understand the concept of paying to attend a school at that age, so it never occurred to me that the Academy might have been beyond my family’s financial range, which of course it was.
Once my mother came back into the room she went straight to my father and started to discuss something with him quietly. She faced me when I stood eagerly, but her face was conflicted. My spirits fell when she told me, “Jasper, honey, that school did look amazing, and the classes sound fantastic!” Her words were praising Grellston, but her expression didn’t reflect the happiness that I thought it should have. “But, honey, we… we can’t afford it. I’m really, truly sorry, but it would cost $20,000 just to send you there, not including room and board, or all the other expenses… We just can’t do it.”
I hardly heard what she had said after the first “can’t”, but I knew it wasn’t good. Running up the stairs as a haze of tears clouded my vision and into my room, I started to mourn a freshly conceived and freshly killed dream as only a child could. I cried and I cried and I cried, all because I couldn’t go to a school that I had just discovered less than an hour beforehand.
After a couple of weeks the school was forgotten by both my father and I, but my mother remembered. She made a label that read GRELLSTON and put it on a jar that she kept on her vanity. Whenever she had spare change, or even real money that she just wanted to put in the pot, she would remove the scarf that hid it from her husband and drop the cash in. Every time the coins reached the top, she would take the container to the local bank and deposit it all into a bank account that she had set up specifically for saving up the money to send me to the school. Somehow my mother had managed to keep the bank account a secret from my father, my sister, and me for almost three years, but all good things, as they say, must come to an end.
Not long after I had started the tenth grade and my sister had entered her freshmen year at the local community college, my mother became very sick. Her doctor declared it to be a form of cancer, and she moved into the hospital to be close to the help she required. I would go and see her every other day back when the medications and treatments seemed to be working, back when she just looked like she was getting over the flu, back when there was still hope.
But then, all of a sudden, the hope began to run dry. The medications stopped working and my mother deteriorated rapidly. She had once been beautiful, albeit tired-looking, with bright eyes and a warm glow about her that was extremely inviting. She was the kind of person that was always happy, no matter what, and I loved her for it. She was my world, so seeing her in her final days crushed me.
Her skin had turned a mottled gray colour and hung loosely off of her arms and face, stretching harshly over her elbows and cheekbones and gathering beneath her eyes in purple, bruise-like bags. We all knew that she didn’t have much time left, even her, but every time we went to visit she would smile and try to sit up and greet us. A nurse would always hurriedly scold her and lay her back down again. I always held it together around her, but the second that I was sure that she couldn’t hear me I would start to cry.
I was the kind of person that cried far too easily, but even Beverly was reduced to tears during those last couple of visits, and she was as tough as nails. We were there, all three of us, when my mother died. I was the first to let loose a torrent of tears, my father was the last.
The visitation was packed with friends and relatives, all of whom gave us their condolences and expressed their grief at my mother’s passing. The funeral itself was small; only family and her closest friends were there for that. The next day those named in her will were summoned to her lawyer’s office for the reading of the document. I don’t know what my father received or Beverly for that matter, but I was handed a thick, sealed envelope.
I waited until I was alone in my room to open and read my letter. I pulled the envelope out of my suit coat pocket and used my fingernails to gain access to the contents. I reached in and produced a bank card, a registration packet, a bus ticket, a flyer for a restaurant called Aleksandr’s, and a letter. After setting all of the papers to one side I unfolded the letter and began to read:
Dear Jasper,
If you’re reading this letter then that means that I’ve really gone and done it now. I did exactly what everyone was expecting I was going to; kick the bucket. I understand that you’re probably quite distraught right now, but allow me to tell you one thing, okay? Don’t be sad. I know that it’s cliché of me to say that, but I mean it. Please buck up, for me? That’s better. I just know that right about now you’ll be wiping your eyes and putting on a fake smile just for me. Thank you, honey.
I had done what she had predicted I would, and that made me smile just a little bit more truthfully. As I continued to read on, my mother eased my grief and even made me laugh through the simple letter in my hands, but eventually seriousness set in.
Now I know you might not remember this, but when you were a few years younger you asked if you could attend a school called Grellston Academy. Well, call me silly, but I’ve almost managed to save up the tuition. I put around $17,300 into a bank account that you can access with the card that should have been with this letter. I’m not certain how much interest it’s garnered, but I think it’s around $3,500 total. I have a friend that lives in town that offered to give you a place to stay and a job if you get accepted. I bought you that bus ticket to Treaton, too. It’s one-way and good any time. Good luck, I really hope you get in, honey. I believe in you and your abilities.
Love,
Mother
My shock was intense as I wrapped my mind around what she had written. I couldn’t remember ever having wanted to attend a school named Grellston, but I ran to the family computer and typed it into a search engine. I got news results first and foremost that consisted of praise for student and graduates and their accomplishments, mainly. I scrolled through the pages of type and photos, glancing over each of them until I ran out of things to read. Once I made it to the academy’s official website. I remembered it all, how much I had wanted to attend five years before. Why she had saved up more than $20,000 for a fleeting fancy that I had had as a child completely escaped me. That was until I saw the lovely navy blue and black that made up the web page.
Amazing black calligraphy wrapped in twisting vines immediately caught my attention, certainly, but it was the photograph of the main buildings that really brought it all back to me. Now that I was much older and had truly experienced school I could really appreciate the level of education offered by Grellston. There was a list of courses available, and they almost all caught my attention somehow. From college-level classes to electives taught by professionals, they had it all. After a few hours of checking to make sure I really wanted to go through with it, and of course I did, as it was my mother’s final wish, I powered down the computer and dashed back to my room to fill out the registration form.
My mother had already signed everything that needed a parent’s signature, but I had to gather things like my past report cards and acquire recommendations from teachers. Luckily I was a good student, rarely, if ever, did I receive any grade below an “A”. My teachers liked me because I never tried to cause problems; in fact I was very quiet and reserved around people.
I decided at one point that I needed to visit the bank to make sure that I could gain access to the account, as well as check the amount of money therein. Not that I didn’t believe that my mother had saved it all, it was just that in the past she had had a bad habit of misjudging or over exaggerating things, and I wanted to be certain that she hadn’t miscalculated somehow.
Leaving directly after school one day and taking a shortcut down a park trail shaved enough time off of my usually leisurely ride home that I was able to stop in at the First National Bank of Kinsley, which was the only bank in the tiny dot of a town. After chaining my bike outside I readied myself to enter into the unknown.
I’d never been inside a bank before, let alone spoken with a teller or managed a bank account. I didn’t even have a college fund. My father said that because he already had one child pursuing a higher education, Beverly, he wanted me to go directly from the public high school into the local workforce. I had tried to tell him that I wanted to study history, or chemistry, or even literature, but he insisted that those were topics focused on by those with too much time and money on their hands. He had become especially stubborn about it after Mother died. He insisted that we were barely getting by on his income alone, and yet he managed to keep up his drinking, no problem. My father had told me that not going to college would be my contribution to the family, and that we were all making sacrifices.
Yeah, right.
I realized that I had spaced out right in front of the door and was staring at the heavily tinted glass through unfocused eyes. Blushing, I pushed the door open and walked across the small, square lobby area to stand in a short line of people waiting to speak with one of the bank’s employees. My turn was up quicker than I had expected.
“I can help the next person in line!” I heard a young woman call from behind the last counter in the row. I padded over to her, the sound of my sneakers hitting the carpet almost inaudible. “My name is Meryl, how may I help you?” she asked cheerfully.
The woman was in her early twenties with short, curly chestnut hair, gray eyes and bright red lipstick. She wore a tweed suit jacket, white blouse, and a skirt that matched her jacket - a truly horrendous outfit. I just glanced at her name tag, which stated “Hello, my name is MERYL” in generic black letters on a white rectangular background, and then looked back to her face to stammer out a response.“Um… I’m not really sure what to do; I’ve never really been in a bank before, so…”
“Well I can answer any questions you have, so fire away!”
Her voice was high and irritating, and the smile she wore never faded, not even for a second. I was a little intimidated to say the least. My mind couldn’t form coherent thoughts, so in the place of stuttering and babbling through a whole lot of nothing, I remained silent for a long stretch of time. This was probably not the best thing I could have done, but it certainly wasn’t the worst either.
Meryl began to show obvious signs of discomfort, shifting her weight in her chair, glancing from me to the woman at the next counter, who was helping an elderly woman, and back again, and clasping her hands together on her desk. Her smile didn’t even flicker, though. I became increasingly aware of her growing agitation and that made me feel bad, which also made me wish to stay quiet.
The woman let out a grateful sigh when someone called my name from across the room. I looked up and saw a short, older man standing in an open doorway in the far wall. “Jasper Alastair? Is that you?” he asked, shuffling forward. I went to meet him halfway as he looked like he could literally fall apart at any moment.
“Yes, I’m Jasper,” I replied, “but, if you don’t mind my rudeness, sir, how do you know me?”
“I’m your mother’s accountant,” he explained, “or at least I was. God rest her soul.” He sighed, but then perked up again. “I’ve waited so long to meet you! Come into my office, please!” The man took hold of my arm with a surprisingly strong grip and led me through the door he had come from and down a barren hallway or two before herding me into a sparsely-furnished office, where I sat on a wooden chair. The old man sat in a large swiveling chair on the other side of a tidy square desk. He leaned forward and looked at me closely. “You remind me of your mother when she was younger, you look just like her,” he thought aloud. I was trying to think of a response to that, but luckily he just kept talking. “It’s obvious that you have no idea who I am, other than what I just told you?”
“Ah… yes,” I admittedly shyly, looking at the floor. I wasn’t big on talking to strangers.
The man frowned, wrinkling his aged face even more as he spoke, “I’ve always been a family friend on your mom’s side. I went to school with her father, you see.”
“You knew my grandfather?” I asked, glancing up in surprise.
“Your grandfather, your grandmother, and even your aunt, I knew all of them.”
“I don’t have an aunt,” I told him, confused.
He looked at me with a bewildered expression. “Yes, you did. Sylvia had a younger sister, Henrietta. She was the sweetest little girl, everyone used to call her Henny. She and your mother were inseparable. That is, until Sylvia met your father. She fell in love and he took advantage of her feelings and she ended up pregnant. He refused to take any responsibility and insisted that it was her fault for seducing him…” The teller trailed off and twined his fingers together in his lap and leaned back in his chair to stare at the ceiling, his white hair falling in flyaway wisps into his face. “Not too long after that, the accident happened. The whole family except for your mother was in the car driving to church when they got into a crash… Sylvia had nowhere to go but to Gregory. He made her beg to stay with him, made her cut off all ties with her former life. No offense, Jasper, but I truly want to punch your dad right in the empty space where his heart should be!”
The passion in his voice made me jump. I had become absorbed in his words and the story and was now sent back into reality by a jolt that made my blood run cold. I had always known that my father wasn’t a good guy and that he had basically forbidden my mother to even speak of her own family, but I didn’t know it was that bad. How could I have not known about my mother having a younger sister? I could finally understand why my father was held in such low regard by our neighbors and acquaintances.
“Listen,” my mother’s bank teller got my attention, “Sylvia told me all about what she was saving up for and that you’d be here soon to speak with me about it. Eugene Heckle is here to help you in any way I can.”
I pushed the thoughts of my father from my mind and managed a weak smile. “That’s great, because I really don’t know what I’m doing at all.”
Mr. Heckler knew exactly what I needed to get to apply. He himself had three children who were all fully grown and through college, so he knew a thing or two about applying to schools. Even with his guidance, though, it took me over a month to get everything I needed to send with the application. Due to the fact that I had to physically mail the documents to the school, I had to wait four or five weeks for a reply. The biggest challenge, though, wasn’t the waiting; it was the fact that I had to hide what I was doing from my family. I never had been a very good liar, or very good at hiding my true feelings.
I had never been so glad that my father basically acted like I didn't exist, so I didn't even have an opportunity to accidently let something slip. Luck was certainly on my side, I couldn’t doubt that fact.
Fall was beginning to wane and the temperatures were dropping quickly when I finally received a letter in response. I was lucky that I was the one to check the mail that day because over the past few weeks I had hinted to my father that I once again wanted to attend Grellston and he had made it quite clear that he was certain I could never get in. It made me sad that he didn’t believe in me, but it made me realize that I really couldn’t tell him that I was on the threshold of becoming a student there. The envelope was addressed to my parents, and opening it made me feel really bad about going behind my father’s back. I sighed as I finally steeled my nerves and tore it to gain access to the letter it held.
I slowly removed the stiff white envelope’s contents and read it silently. I couldn’t believe it, I was completely shocked. Only after basically falling onto my bed and messing up the perfectly arranged pillow and blankets did I allow myself to comprehend what I had just read.
I had been accepted into Grellston Academy.
The first thing that I did was call Mr. Heckler to tell him the good news. He was very excited and said that he needed to send in my tuition money as soon as possible. I reminded him that I had actually applied for a partial scholarship, so he didn’t need to worry about that yet, but he insisted that it would assure my place in the school come the new semester. I let him go back to work and then lay back on my bed, staring at the ceiling and imagining the future that was rushing towards me at full speed.
I sat up suddenly, having realized that I needed to call my mother’s friend that I was supposed to stay with.
The restaurant flyer had a note scrawled on the back by my mother in strong handwriting, written before she fell ill. There was a phone number and the short sentence “Ask for Lydia Douglass, she’ll have been expecting your call.”
I dialed the number and listened to the phone ring. I was once again frozen with anxiety. Maybe no one would answer. Maybe I would be forced to abandon this dream, forget the money wasted on it, forget every - there was a click on the other end of the line as the phone was answered.
“Hello! You’ve reached Aleksandr’s. Would you like to place a to-go order?” The voice was loud, obviously in an attempt to drown out the background noise of laughter and loud talk.
“Uh…” I was stumped with what to say. Why had I called again? I couldn’t remember.
“Hello? Is anybody there?”
“I… Uh…”
“We got customers here, you got somethin’ to say or what?” The professionalism had slipped completely from the man’s voice and he was now obviously annoyed.
“Y-yes!” I finally managed to squeak. Taking a deep breath, I said, “I need to speak with a Mrs. Lydia Douglass, please.”
“Well why didn’t you so say so in the first place?” The man on the other end of the line said with a laugh. He moved the receiver away from his mouth and called, “Mum! Phone for you!”
There was a sound of scuffling as the phone changed hands before a woman’s voice could be heard. “This is Lydia, who’s this?” The voice was warm and calming.
“This is Jasper Alastair and-“
“Jasper, I’ve been waiting for your call! So this means you made it into Grellston! I’m so happy for you! When should I expect you here?” She spoke very quickly, making it difficult to focus on her words.
“Yes, ma’am, yes I made it in,” I replied quietly.
“Oh, I’m just tickled! This is so exciting! It’s been so long since I talked to your mama about this, how is she?”
“Ma’am,” I said slowly, “My mother passed away.”
“Oh my,” she whispered. I would say that the phone call was now reduced to silence, but just because Mrs. Douglass had stopped talking didn’t mean that that was the case. All of the background noise of the restaurant around her basically came across the phone line as a loud crackling mixed with distorted voices and laughter. Eventually, though, I heard her turn away from the receiver and blow her nose. When she resumed talking her voice was catching in her throat. “I’m so sorry, dear,” she said, trying desperately not to start crying.
“It’s okay, ma’am. I just called to let you know that you can expect me before the end of the month, if that’s alright.”
“Yes, yes of course. I’ll have my son clean out his guest room. You’ll be staying in his apartment,” Mrs. Douglas was certainly much more subdued now. She had to have been a close friend of my mother’s, at least I was assuming since she was going to let me live with them, so the sudden news of her death had to have been a blow to her, but she recovered quickly enough and began to just chat with me. Eventually she was called back to work by a man that she informed me was her husband. She told me to look up the bus schedules and that she would call me back after the restaurant closed.
I hung up and remained sitting on the bed for at least ten minutes, trying to stop shaking from both excitement and nervousness. Two things were painfully clear to me; first, that I was going to Treaton and thus plunging into the unknown, and second, that I would have to run away from home to achieve my and my mother’s dream. I knew I could do it; I was just terrified of being caught. If my father found out that I was planning on leaving or saw me as I attempted to do so, he would be so furious that I couldn’t even imagine how he would react. I doubt he would even care that I had done all that I had because it was my mother’s final wish.
A couple of weeks after I received my acceptance letter, a second hand written note arrived in the mail. I read it quietly in the safety and solitude of my room. “Congratulations! We cannot wait for you to begin your classes at the beginning of the semester, and as you have been approved for the partial scholarship you applied for due to your exemplary grades, the total tuition for your two and a half years at Grellston Academy will be covered with $10,000, so half of the money that you sent has been added to your Student Funds, which can be accessed to purchase anything on campus by showing your student ID, which will be created for you upon arrival. We request that you transfer to Treaton as soon as is convenient for you to assemble your class schedule. This actually needs to be completed before the beginning of the Winter Break. Please contact us using the following number in regard to your living arrangements and…”
This letter had a much lighter tone to it than the acceptance notice had and was signed by an R. X. Grellston, who was the headmaster of the academy. I became more and more excited until I wanted to scream with joy, but I managed to contain myself. My school had received a letter from Grellston about my impending transfer and my money had all been relocated to the school. There were no loose ends in my mind.
Other than the fact that I knew that I would miss Beverly fiercely; she was the one that I was going to miss the most. I cried when it occurred to me that I wouldn’t even get to say goodbye to her.
Every single noise my suitcase made on the stairs as I slowly made my cautious way down caused me to flinch. It was nearing four o’clock in the morning, and my bus was due to arrive at the terminal halfway across my small home town. I unlocked the front door silently and turned around to grab my suitcase so that I could lift it through the space and almost cried out when I saw Beverly standing with her arms crossed and slipper-clad foot tapping.
“Jasper,” she whispered harshly, “what the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“What?” I squeaked quietly.
“Jazz, you’ve been totally obvious. You’re just lucky dad’s an obtuse moron.” She hit me upside the head and told me, “That’s for planning on leaving without telling me goodbye.” I pouted, but inside I was beaming with happiness. My sister paused for a moment before reaching out to grab my suitcase. I tried to stop her, but she put her index finger to her lips and shushed me. To my further astonishment, she told me, “I totally support what you’re doing. You deserve this, so I’m going to help you.”
After placing the suitcase in the trunk of her beat-up Kia and my other bag in the back seat we strapped ourselves in and began to drive. At the first stop sign Beverly reached around behind my seat and pulled out a large package. “I got this for you a couple of weeks ago. I knew you’d need one at that fancy school of yours.”
I carefully tore the paper open to reveal a black laptop. “Oh Beverly, thank you!”
“I had to get you something so that you could stay in touch with me and keep up with your classes. And Jazz,” she said as we arrived at the terminal. “Don’t worry about Dad, I’ll keep him off your trail.”
“Thank you so much. For everything,” I said as she unloaded the rolling suitcase and placed it up on the curb. I took hold of the handle and led the navy luggage through the swinging door and into the high-ceilinged bus terminal. I checked in at the main window and double checked my bus’s arrival time. It was actually predicted to arrive at least ten minutes earlier than expected, so I didn’t have long to wait. Beverly tapped my shoulder and I turned to her and was immediately wrapped in her strong arms. We held each other until a message went out over the intercom to alert us that the bus was almost there.
The announcement echoed through the terminal, which was really just a glorified hallway, and woke the only other person present, a man in a gray suit with an undone tie and a small duffle bag. He gathered up his few possessions and staggered out into the brightly lit back parking lot where a bus could be seen pulling up. I looked at my sister until she waved me on towards the exit and the charter bus that was waiting to take me to Treaton and my future.
