Saint Chub Academy

Your suitcase wheels drag on the gravel as you cross the main courtyard. The sign above the entrance reads the school’s name in carved stone. One corner of the sign is chipped. Moss grows inside the letters.

You check the envelope they gave you at the gate: dorm assignment, class schedule, a campus map folded three times. A yellow highlighter circles your name. You missed orientation by a day.

Inside the main hall, the receptionist hands you a room key, a lanyard, and a packet labeled “Welcome Materials.” She points toward the stairwell without standing up.

“Top floor, west wing. Room 312. Someone should be around.”

The stairwell smells like old carpet and bleach. Your suitcase thumps once on every third step. Halfway up, a student passes you, says something too fast to catch, and keeps walking.

Room 312 has two beds. One is already made. The other has a stack of folded sheets and a pillow sealed in plastic. A pair of shoes sits under the opposite bed. The closet is half full. The window is cracked open.

You set your bag down but don’t unpack.

The bell rings while you’re still holding the map. You head toward your first class: World Literature, Room B-17. You pass students in uniform, some talking, some walking alone. A few glance at you as you go by. No one speaks.

The classroom is full when you arrive. The teacher checks your name against a clipboard, nods, and points you to the only open seat—front row, far left.

“New transfer,” she says to the class.

No one responds.

You open the book to the page number written on the board. Someone behind you taps a pen rhythmically on their desk for almost the entire period. It stops exactly one minute before the bell.

Your second class is science. You sit at a lab station with a chipped corner. The student beside you has already claimed the better stool. The teacher hands you a syllabus but doesn’t introduce you.

Lunch is loud. The dining hall is crowded. You walk through the maze of tables, tray in hand, until you find an empty seat near the windows. Two students sit two chairs down. They don’t acknowledge you. One of them is eating chips directly from a backpack pocket.

Afternoon classes go by in silence. Teachers gesture to empty seats when you enter. Other students talk when you’re not near them. The girl in history class drops her pen and doesn’t pick it up.

After the final bell, you return to your dorm room. The other bed is still made. The shoes are still under it. A half-empty bottle of shampoo is visible through the bathroom door.

A note is taped to your desk: “Try not to slam the door. I study late.” It’s unsigned.

Out the window, the campus fades into a dull gray. The bell tower chimes once. Dinner will start soon. Someone laughs down the hallway.

You arrive at the gates just after sundown, dragging your duffel bag up the gravel path lined with white hydrangeas and signs bearing cursive script. The iron arch above the entrance reads St. Chubs for Girls. A receptionist at the front desk glances up as you step into the marbled foyer. Her smile falters.

“Name?” she asks, fingers poised over a keyboard.

You give it.

She types, squints at the screen, then clicks something. “You’re early. We weren’t expecting you until tomorrow morning.”

She hands you a folded map, a temporary ID badge with your name printed in pink, and a key marked Briar Hall 3C. You nod, turn, and head down the corridor. No one stops you.

On the way to the dormitory, you pass students in matching skirts and navy sweaters. Conversations pause as you approach. Some glance your way, others look past you like you’re a misplaced chair. No one says anything.

Briar Hall sits at the edge of the campus, ivy climbing up its red-brick sides. Inside, the walls are painted lavender, the air thick with hairspray and dryer heat. You find room 3C. The door is ajar.

Inside, two girls sit on opposite beds—one painting her nails, the other braiding her hair. Both look up.

“You’re lost,” one says.

You show the key.

They exchange a look. The girl with the braid swings her legs off the bed and stands. “You sure you’re in the right place?”

You hold out the ID. She reads it, blinks, then shrugs. “Well. That’s going to be a problem.”

Later, a RA arrives, followed by a teacher in a blazer who smells like chalk dust. They both study the paperwork. The teacher adjusts her glasses and mutters something about system errors and miscommunications with the regional board.

“Just for tonight,” she says. “We’ll sort it in the morning.”

They assign you a cot in the corner of a supply room. It smells faintly of mop water and dry erasers. You lay down. Through the thin wall, someone laughs, then shouts about borrowing shampoo. A hairdryer whines, then cuts off.

Outside the small, square window, the courtyard lights blink on. A bell chimes the evening curfew. You don’t move

You step off the shuttle as it hisses to a stop in front of the stone archway labeled St. Chubs Academy. A bronze plaque glints in the sunlight beneath the school’s crest: Founded 2023 – Scholarship, Brotherhood, Discipline.

Inside the administrative building, the lobby smells faintly of old books and floor polish. A clerk behind the desk—gray-haired, sorting through registration packets—looks up when you approach.

“Name?”* he says without glancing at your face.*

You give it.

His fingers stop moving across the keyboard. His eyes flick to the screen, then to you, then back again. “Right,” he mutters. “Unexpected transfer. Guess the regional office never updated the roster.”

He hands you a folder, a campus map, and a plain brass key. “Langley Hall. Room 207. You’ll find the boys finishing practice right about now.”

You pass a line of lockers as you cross the campus—some open, shirts draped over doors, duffel bags on the floor. In the distance, on the sports field, shouts and whistles echo through the afternoon air.

Chub Hall smells like sweat, detergent, and deodorant. The carpet is threadbare, the walls scuffed. You reach Room 207 and push the door open.

Inside, two boys are arguing over something on a phone screen. One of them looks up mid-sentence. His brow tightens.

“…Uh, bro you lost?,” he says.

You hold up the key.

The taller one stands. “You’re joking.”

You don’t respond.

He steps closer, glances at the folder tucked under your arm, then turns toward the window. “Chub Hall, Room 207,” he reads aloud. “Well, I’ll be damned.”

Ten minutes later, a coach in a windbreaker knocks on the door, followed by a second-year student in a gray lanyard. The coach reads your papers twice, calls someone, and then sighs into the phone.

“Temporary arrangement,” he says at last. “Administration will resolve this tomorrow.”

They bring in a spare mattress and clear a corner of the room. A partition is set up beside one of the wardrobes, more symbolic than useful. No one talks much after that.

That night, the hallway is loud—someone blasts music from a Bluetooth speaker; someone else yells about a broken Xbox controller. From the shared bathroom, water runs in intervals, then stops. The floor creaks.

Your key is cold against your palm. Through the blinds, the dorm windows across the courtyard flicker with lamplight. A horn beeps once, then twice. The sky turns navy.

You wait…

You arrive at the main office just before the bell. The receptionist is sorting through a box of new ID badges. She glances up, hands you yours, then passes over a slim folder with a color-coded map, a class schedule, and a laminated list of emergency procedures.

“Room 214,” she says. “Second floor, North Wing. You’re the new teacher , right?”

You nod. She’s already looking at the next name on the check-in sheet.

The halls stretch in clean lines—arched windows, hardwood floors, radiators that click as they warm up. Banners hang along the corridor walls: past academic teams, theatre productions, Latin mottos in fading gold print. You pass a group of students clustered around a locker. They fall silent as you walk by.

Room 214 is at the end of the hall, the door propped open with a rubber wedge. Desks arranged in rows. Chalkboard across one wall. A narrow window overlooks the rear courtyard. Someone left a half-scribbled lesson plan on the podium. You pick it up, read it once, and set it aside.

The first class filters in at 9:05. Backpacks thump against desk legs. Pages flip open. A student raises a hand before you speak.

“Are you permanent, or just covering?”

You pause.

A shrug from the back of the room. Someone yawns. A pencil breaks. You take roll, mispronounce two names, and move on without correction. They write quietly when you assign reading. The bell rings at 9:50, and they’re gone before you finish erasing the board.

Between classes, you find the staff lounge. There’s a tin of leftover pastries and a clipboard for coffee donations. A bulletin board lists birthdays, room changes, and one missing library book from 1987. You write your name on the sign-in sheet. No one else is there.

Your next group is louder. A student walks in two minutes late and drops into the seat nearest the window without explanation. Another draws in the margins of their notebook during attendance. Someone hums under their breath the entire time you’re reviewing a short story outline.

At lunch, you eat outside on a bench near the track field. A few students pass by. One glances at you, then whispers something to their friend. The friend doesn’t laugh.

The afternoon class is smaller—only nine students. They sit in a semicircle and listen when you speak. One stays after to ask if they’re expected to finish the entire chapter before Friday. You say yes. They nod and leave.

The faculty apartment is at the edge of campus, behind a row of pine trees. It’s small. Clean. A desk. A shelf. A quiet heater that buzzes when it turns on. A calendar already pinned to the wall lists grading deadlines in red and the fall play in blue.

Through the window, the campus glows with evening light. Somewhere, a bell rings once—long and low. Footsteps pass outside. Voices rise, then fade.

You arrive before the rest of the staff, unlocking the front doors with a key stamped ‘ADMIN – MASTER.’ The entrance hall is still dark, morning light just beginning to creep through the upper windows. Your shoes echo across the stone floor as you pass the portraits of past headmasters lining the east wall. One frame is missing its nameplate. It’s been missing for years.

In your office, the light switch sticks halfway up before it clicks. The room smells like books and radiator dust. A stack of reports waits on your desk—disciplinary forms, housing updates, a memo from Facilities about a cracked pipe under the greenhouse.

At 7:45, the intercom buzzes. The receptionist asks if you’ll be addressing the student body this morning.

“Only if the flag’s back from dry cleaning,” you say.

You hear a brief laugh, then the line cuts out.

By eight o’clock, students begin moving across the quad—some alone, some clustered, some hurrying to avoid attention. A senior waves half-heartedly when they pass your window. You don’t wave back.

At assembly, you stand near the podium but don’t take the mic. The head of student life reads out announcements. A junior is recognized for placing in a statewide debate competition. Someone claps a beat too early.

Afterward, you make your rounds. Dining hall, west dormitory, athletic building. In the art wing, someone has repurposed a broken statue base into a bench. You make a note to ask if it was sanctioned. It probably wasn’t.

You stop in on a math class and stand in the doorway for a full five minutes. No one notices.

Back in your office, the counselor is waiting in your chair. She’s holding a clipboard and sipping from your mug. You say nothing about either.

“Two room change requests,” she says. “One parent complaint. One potential expulsion—fight behind the science building last night. We have footage.”

She leaves the USB drive on your desk.

Lunch is a sandwich at your desk. Ham, dry, left over from yesterday’s meeting. The faculty group chat buzzes three times: a birthday, a reminder about weekend supervision shifts, and a joke about the vending machine eating change again. You don’t respond.

By mid-afternoon, the halls are quiet again. A few students hang posters for a blood drive. One tries to staple a corner to the stone wall. You watch them fail twice, then move on.

At 5:32, the receptionist buzzes again.

“Evening study hour started late. West House proctor didn’t show.”

You nod, though she can’t see it.

As the sun sets, the building empties out. A janitor hums as he mops the east stairwell. You gather your coat, turn off the lamp, and check that the office door locks behind you.

Outside, the air is sharp. In the dorms, windows glow yellow behind curtains. Someone plays violin from an upper floor—slow, steady, just off-key. You cross the quad alone.