Secret Academy - Deuteronomy

XI: S.A. Revealed

The five of them were sitting down to dinner at one of the Italian restaurants in Town Square. Jasper spent that afternoon thinking and napping in his room, until Gail forced him out of bed to join them.

Upon seeing Barbara’s smile, his annoyance left him and he joined in their laughter.

“Don’t worry about it! Mikael said it was okay” Kat reassured Jasper as they talked about what happened in the lab that morning.

“Thanks Kat, but…what about the classes?” Jasper sighed and he looked down on his plate of ravioli.

Jasper had been thinking about what his friends had told him. It was like conversations with his father all over again – except this time, there was no escape. He might as well surrender. After all, it looks like he had found trustworthy people.

All four of them thought for a minute, until Barbra broke the silence.

“Well…there’s still the S.A.” she said.

Kat and Gail exchanged looks and pretended to enjoy eating when Jasper looked at them, while Coco coughed a few times.

“What’s…S.A.?” he finally asked.

“Special Ability” Coco whispered.

“It’s supposed to be a fourth department – and highly secretive. I’ve been here for six years but I still don’t know how many members they have, or who they are…” explained Kat.

“…or what they do” added Gail, rather apprehensively. 

Jasper raised his eyebrows skeptically and it was Barbara’s turn to speak.

“No one talks about them Jasper. The only member we know for sure is in it is Alice, but even we can’t explain why. Rumor has it there’s only a handful of students in that group, and that they do the academy’s dirty work or something” 

“The teachers get mad at you if you ask them about it, or they punish you if they catch you talking about them. It’s really frustrating! At first I thought all Principal students are immediately put in that group – but I don’t think that’s true since Mikael and Ilse work with us at the Science department…” wondered Kat out loud.

“But what made you guys think that Alice is in that group?” asked Jasper.

“Where else could she belong? She’s not on any of our members’ lists…” replied Coco.

“You guys think that I…belong in that group?” Jasper sniggered.

“What else is there for you? Your body can’t handle the hard training at the Security department, you don’t know anything about engineering, and you upset everything you touch in the lab” said Barbara.

Jasper felt a little hurt at this but ignored it. He knew his friends mean well. Unfortunately for him, he wasn’t naturally smart or talented – unlike his friends and the academy students. He was barely keeping up with their academics, and it troubled him that he can’t even fit into any Ability Class. With Coco’s warnings still troubling his mind, he instinctively felt that he didn’t want to know what the academy does to students who ‘fail’. Whatever it was, it felt threatening. 

“You can hang out with us until we get further instructions, Jasper” offered Barbara.

“Hasn’t Alice talked to you yet?” asked Coco.

“No…she hasn’t contacted me since she asked me to be his partner”

They continued eating in silence as Jasper recalled what happened in the elevator earlier that day. Alice’s voice still rang in his ears.