Page 2 of Depraved Boys

“They wanted Dad to teach?” I asked.

“Actually, it was about you.” Uncle Trevor placed a steadying hand under my elbow and walked us to the door. “The Brittas Academy offered a bursary for you to enroll.”

My feet froze. “Why would a school on the Elite Register even know about me?”

“Your principal recommended you to Mrs. Benazir, the academy’s headmistress.”

My stomach sank. I did okay at Cummersdale Comprehensive. Better than okay, but I had few friends there as most people preferred Ashley, my less academic, prettier, and thinner twin. A place at an elite-registered academy would give me somewhere I could belong. Mom and Dad had to know this. I’d spoken to them at length about my isolation.

“T-they refused my place?”

“It was just after your mother got her breast cancer diagnosis, and they wanted the family to stay together.” He placed a comforting arm around my shoulder and guided me out of the door into the empty reception area.

I glanced beyond the glass storefront for signs of Ashley and Aunt Hortense but couldn’t see them.

“If they thought it would help, they would have passed the offer onto you, but you were already doing so well without an elite education.”

I nodded. Now that Mom and Dad were gone, I appreciated their decision. It would have killed me to have missed even a week of their lives.

Uncle Trevor drove through Carlisle town center and down the highway that led to the Lake District, a region of mountains and lakes where Mom had always wanted her ashes scattered. I didn’t bother to ask why he and Aunt Hortense had separated Ashley and me.

Ever since the night Mom and Dad died, I’d felt differently about Ashley’s lifestyle. At first, she was the exciting sister. The one who went to parties, had older boyfriends, and had a crowd of lively friends. A stark contrast to me and my books.

But Mom and Dad had seen her differently. They’d wanted her to be more like me, but after we had moved out of London, Ashley had rebelled.

I blew out a long breath. The night they had died, Ashley had missed a family dinner to go to an outdoor rave. Mom had found the flyer in her room and gotten Dad to drive her through the mountainside roads to find Ashley.

But a drunk driver had knocked them off the road. Then the car had tumbled down the slope into one of the lakes. According to the coroner, it had been an instant, painless death. The verdict had given me no reassurance.

A lump formed in my throat. Mom and Dad were gone… just because Ashley had decided to skip out on dinner to party.

“I hope you don’t mind.” Uncle’s voice broke me out of my thoughts. “I called Mrs. Benazir, and she would like to see you.”

Clearing the lump in my throat, I croaked, “When?”

“In the afternoon.”

I gazed out at the distant mountains. “That explains why you’re driving me toward the Lake District.”

“And why Hortense brought her own car.”

The Brittas Academy looked like the five-star country house hotel we once visited on a family vacation and was set within hundreds of acres of woodland. The central part of the building stood two stories high, with east and west wing towers that stretched four stories.

If grief hadn’t encased my heart in numbness, I might have gasped at the tall, arched windows or at the grand entrance, but I just stared ahead and wondered if the headmistress would offer me enough of a bursary to afford to keep the house.

“This place looks more promising than Cummersdale Comprehensive.” Uncle’s voice was upbeat, as though he was trying to convince himself that he was doing the right thing by sending me away. “What do you think?”

“It’s nice. How many stars does the academy have?”

“The Elite Register awarded them five and a special commendation. It’s graded above Eaton and all the other historical schools. The waiting list is a thousand-students long.”

“You’ve done your homework.”

Uncle coughed. “Not really. As a teacher, I have to know about these things.”

“Oh.”

Students strolled in and out of the main building, clad in bottle-green blazers with matching pants or skirts, a peculiar color for somewhere supposedly so exclusive.