Page 11 of The Executioners Three
Despite what people often assumed, Allard Fortin Preparatory School wasn’t named for the local founder, José Allard Fortin. Instead, it was named for his descendant: Roberta.
After her older sister was disowned (rumor was she fell in lurrrve with a Very Unsuitable Boy) and then both her parents passed away, Roberta decided to just ditch the whole Allard Fortin legacy. And also ditch Berm while she was at it.
She and her older sister actually became the first of the Allard Fortin bloodline to ever move out of town. Then, rather than let the family’s estate go to waste with no Allard Fortins to fill it, Roberta—as the heir—turned it into a scholarship school.
It was a great idea in theory. Like, kudos to Roberta for trying. But it was not so great in practice. Turns out schools are expensive to run, and the Allard Fortin fortunes were about as depleted as their bloodline. So, one year after the school’s opening, the mission changed.
Bye-bye, charitable outreach of 1973. Hello, wealthy alum of 1974.
And wowzas, was it a fancy school now. Like, if Freddie’s loyalty to Berm High weren’t so profound, she’d be jealous of all the fountains and gardens and the two gourmet cafeterias.
Also, there was a fancy library and a Maximum Drama mausoleum right in the middle of campus, where Allard Fortin 1. 0 was buried.
The estate might no longer be bound to the dead bloodline of Allard Fortins, but the school did at least keep his crypt spotless.
As Kyle had promised, the gate to the school grounds was indeed unlocked—and even propped open by two enormous bags of birdseed. A welcoming glow flickered from lamps that had actual wicks and actual flames. A ridiculous expense…
That also looked pretty cool, honestly.
“Come on,” Laina hissed. Since the Strange Incident with the Crows, she had remained a drill sergeant hell-bent on proving she was fine.
Which was maybe why Laina was the first to scoot through the gate, while everyone else crept more cautiously behind.
Freddie and Divya brought up the rear, their corn syrup jugs glooping with each step.
And for the first time since abandoning the cars, Freddie’s sixth sense reared back enough for her BFF awareness to wiggle in.
“Hey,” she whispered, “where did you get that sweatshirt?”
Divya smiled slyly, and the frown that had folded across her brow since the crows smoothed away. “Laina lent it to me.”
Freddie’s grin stretched almost to her ears. “ Eeeee . You two have moved very quickly, haven’t you?”
The smile faded. “I… don’t know.” Now it was back to the frown. “I’m not sure she… you know. Likes girls. She did date that guy from Elmore High last year.”
“Maybe she likes girls and boys.”
“I hope so,” Divya said, and the look on her face—the earnest hope… It made Freddie’s heart tighten.
The gate squeaked as Freddie nudged it a bit wider to slip through, and a split second later, she stepped onto the grounds of Allard Fortin Preparatory School.
Freddie had seen it all before, of course—she’d come to a few soccer matches.
Plus, there’d been that summer when Mom had been hired to restore the mausoleum after time, weather, and occasional vandalism had taken their toll.
Freddie (only eight at the time) had been forced to tag along every day for an entire summer.
But for each of those visits, Freddie had been allowed on campus. Right now, she was 100 percent trespassing. And it turned out breaking the rules was exhilarating.
In fact, it was making Freddie reconsider everything she had ever known. Like maybe it was time for a new ten-year plan. No more law enforcement; a life of crime was summoning instead.
With Laina at the lead, the Prank Squad tiptoed over maple- and oak-lined paths (where nary an acorn or fallen leaf dared to disrupt the view).
“The Fortin cross-country team runs here,” Luis whispered, pointing to trails that snaked into darkness.
“But,” he added with a toothy grin, “they’re mostly flat.
Which is why they always lose, and I always win. ”
“And always will, babe.” Cat offered a boyfriend-indulging smile.
A few more bends in the path and a new light filtered their way. Laina made a SWAT-team motion toward the trees, so they all ducked off the paths.
“It’s the field lights,” Kyle said, frowning his ever-confused frown as they gathered beside a barren willow. “But why are they on? There’s no game.”
“Yeah.” Cat nodded, wearing a more intelligent frown. “It’s an away game tonight. The students should be gone.”
Except, Freddie thought, I did get them arrested . It was possible a lot of them were bound to campus now.
“Well, shnikies,” Laina swore at the same moment Luis dropped his corn syrup to the ground. They both ripped off their masks.
“What the hell are we gonna do?” he asked. “We have all this syrup, and we have to retaliate somehow. This morning can’t go unanswered.”
He sounded Very Shakespearean, and Freddie approved. Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet was her favorite movie. Except, of course, this wasn’t Verona Beach, and tragically, Leonardo DiCaprio wasn’t here.
While everyone debated the best course of action, Freddie spun in a slow circle, searching for inspiration. Trusting her gut to guide her…
Her eyes landed on a different set of lights through the trees. It was the ever-spotless Allard Fortin mausoleum. Oh yes. She grinned a criminal grin. That will do nicely.
“President Steward?” Freddie dropped her jug to the ground. “How do we feel about changing our target? The Fortin crypt is right over there.”
“Ooooh,” Kyle said. “We could pour the syrup on his skeleton!”
“No!” Freddie flung up her hands. “No, no, no. ” She would never deface a piece of history.
Her mom would literally kill her. “No touching the three-hundred-year-old mausoleum, please. My mom worked really hard at the restoration, okay? However, feel free to sully the gardens and benches all you want.”
“Oh, nice.” Luis made an approving nod. “I’ve heard those gardens are a popular make-out spot. It sure would suck to find it covered in corn syrup.”
“Especially if”—Freddie pointed to a nearby trash can, her eyelashes batting innocently—“there’s trash all over the syrup.”
“Oh, and birdseed, ” Divya said. “There were bags of it back at the gate.”
“Gnarly.” Laina punched the air. “They’ll have raccoons and birds crawling all over by morning.”
Kyle whooped (albeit softly) and everyone else gave gleeful nods.
“Boys.” Laina stood taller. “Go fetch that birdseed. Cat, Divya, Freddie?” She slid her mask into place. “Let’s dump some corn syrup.”
During Freddie’s summer with her mom on campus, Freddie had learned that the Fortin mausoleum looked way cooler on the outside than it did on the inside. The interior was tiny, dusty, and contained nothing more than a boring stone coffin.
As such—unsurprisingly—Mom’s restoration efforts had mostly focused on the crypt’s exterior: on the four Allard Fortin busts (that honestly looked just like Fake Fortin at the Quick-Bis); on the marble sign that read, Le pouvoir réside dans le service (Power resides in service); and on the columns and domed roof and broken weather vane.
Above all, though, Mom had focused on the bell.
She’d felt a deep attachment to it, having worked so hard to make a replica as her first order of business upon taking over the Historical Society.
And her attachment had only grown when the missing bell had mysteriously turned up in the schoolhouse in 1987.
She’d known it was the Real Deal right away because apparently the grayish verdigris (that blue-green patina that forms on copper) had revealed a distinctive ratio of tin and copper that was no longer in use—not even for the replica.
It was too easy to crack, particularly in cold weather.
With painstaking care, Mom had removed the original bell from the schoolhouse cupola and returned it to its rightful spot in the mausoleum belfry.
How the bell had gotten dumped in the Village in the first place was a question Mom never did get an answer to.
Nor did she ever figure out what had happened to the original clapper.
So the replica clapper had gone into the original bell, while the replica bell had gone clapperless into the schoolhouse, where Freddie could get daddy longlegs stuck in her hair each year when she put up fairy lights.
And Mom had used that summer to write at length about why José Allard Fortin might have requested a bell in his mausoleum in the first place.
It had been nine years since Freddie had last stood this close to the mausoleum.
It looked exactly as she remembered. There was the domed white building; there was the original bell with its gray-green verdigris; there were the four busts and the sign and the knee-high fence Mom had insisted on adding because, in her words, Rambunctious teens cannot be in close proximity to history.
Fair point, Patty. And your own daughter was living proof of that right now.
There were other new additions too, such as two fountains, some rosebushes, and then the yew hedges that probably would make really great kissing corners.
In fact, Freddie hesitated at one such corner because what if Kyle were to decide he wanted to make out? Shouldn’t Freddie leave at least one corner clean for such a possibility?
In the end, she didn’t. It was just too much fun pouring out corn syrup and then flinging birdseed like rice at a wedding.
Emptying trash bags also filled her with Deeply Criminal surges that she enjoyed way too much. Plastic wrappers, cigarette butts, crushed pop cans— who knew what scandalous chaos she might engage in next?
In fact, Freddie was so proud of the mess she created that she tugged Xena from her puffer vest and captured her masterpiece for all of time.
Snap. Flash! Snap. Flash!
To make the night even better, Kyle called Freddie Prank Wizard on three separate occasions.