Rogue River Academy

By Pamela Martineau

It's 3 a.m., and the rattle of a heavy chain awakens Sage, 16. Within minutes, Sage is taken out of her house with a chain wrapped around her waist, escorted by two men to a therapeutic boarding school in a national forest in Oregon. Sage's mother sends her away because she is falling apart. Steeped in anger and fear, Sage is shut down due to her father's death and the surreal smoke days that increasingly engulf her California town. Climate anxiety weighs heavily on Sage, as does her hypercompetitive community where grades are everything and her fears for the future are shut down. But the boarding school, Rogue River Academy, is not safe. Its mentors are sadistic and embrace in-your-face tactics. Students are screamed at and forced to confess their faults in a sick, circle-time therapy. Sage is already in a weakened state due to the wildfires raging about 50 miles away, much closer than they were at home. Then, the school sends her out on a wilderness therapy intervention.

Sage, her bunkmate, Rayne, and a sympathetic mentor run away from the wilderness intervention. The chase for them is on, led by a vicious, two-faced mentor and a volatile, unstable student. Good thing Sage's deceased father, one of California's foremost experts in wildfire, taught her some of what he knew.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Dec 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9798218315337

Book preview

Chapter 1

The chain awakens Sage. Its metal-on-metal, teeth-grinding rattle. Then, the voices, like echoes from people walking toward her across an expanse of beach. With them comes the faint aroma of smoke. Clutching her orange blanket in her fists, tucked in the fetal position, Sage doesn’t move in her bed. She doesn’t even open her eyes.

Sage, her mother says as she shakes her daughter’s arm. "Sage. Please, honey.

You need to get up. These men are here to take you to your new school. Get up.

Sage unclenches her fists and opens her eyes. She glances at the clock. 3:34 a.m. She sits up.

Mom? What the….?

Figures move in her clothes-strewn, still-darkened room, then someone turns on a light, and when her eyes adjust, Sage sees the source of the rattle – a chain.

What the hell? she says, her voice hoarse from last night’s alcohol and cigarettes.

The light sears Sage’s eyes and the slight aroma of smoke pushes her more fully awake. She moves her hand to cover her nose in the instinctive gesture she’s picked up during the last three fire seasons in Northern California. The fires are 150 miles away, but their acrid smell has started to drift into town in recent days.

These men are going to escort you to your new school, Lena says, her voice starting to waiver again. I warned you. I warned you so, so many times. Still, you dropped out of school. Still, you drink, run away…

Lena, I got this, says one of the intruders.

I'm Johnny, the man says, then points at the other man. He’s Devlin. We're here to take you to your new school. Get up.

"Fuck you," says Sage, not moving. She feels nauseous from last night’s drunk. Her heart is pounding. She pulls the blankets up to cover her chest. Wearing only an over-sized t-shirt with the neck cut out, she pulls up the arm of the t-shirt to keep it from falling off her shoulder again.

Devlin walks in circles through Sage’s room, picking up clothes and bags. He wears the chain wrapped around one arm and each time he bends down it slips and jangles. He pats down the things he picks up then throws them back onto the floor, reaches behind curtains and even pats down the bed around where Sage sits.

Lena starts in again.

Sage, please – the school is a good place. I’ve visited it. I can’t keep you safe here with your self-destructive...

Enough, interrupts Johnny. Lena, time to go for that drive we talked about. You’ve said your piece.

He turns back to Sage.

Get up. Pull these sweats on.

Sage doesn’t move.

I said ‘GET UP!’

Johnny pulls her to standing and hands Sage a plastic bag filled with clothes. She throws it against the wall.

As she turns back to stare Johnny down, Sage notices her father standing in the doorway. She knows he is the only one who can help her, but he is silent. He just stands there, looking at her in his sad Dad way.

Do it, or I'll do it for you, says Johnny. Now get that bag.

Sage picks up the bag, grabs the sweatshirt and pulls it over her head, then steps into the sweatpants, all while still staring at her father. He is looking down now, trying to look away from what is happening.

Devlin walks toward Sage with the chain.

You've got to be kidding me, says Sage, looking at the grey chain that is about five times the length of a bicycle chain.

No one's kidding about anything right now, replies Johnny. You know how many kids we escort try to bolt?

Devlin unfurls the chain and wraps it around Sage’s waist, then loops one end through a round clasp behind her, leaving a long strand of loose chain, which he hands to Johnny.

Start walking, Johnny says.

Sage doesn’t move, then turns around and stares at Johnny in silence. She gets it. She gets the whole thing now. She looks over at her father, but he is gone.

Move! says Johnny.

Sage steps forward and the chain’s rattle is the only sounds she hears.

###########

Driving past the elementary school her daughter attended just five years ago, Lena is two miles or so from the house by the time Sage walks out the door. She drove the first three blocks without her lights on, then someone honked, and she realized she was driving in near total darkness. She hadn’t focused on driving at all. Instead, she saw the image of Sage asleep in her bed just a few minutes earlier, clutching her blanket in her fists like she did as a two-year-old. But the bleached pink hair and the teardrop tattoos on each finger were clearly the Sage of the now. The lost Sage. The scary Sage. The Sage who must be saved.

Chapter 2

The grasslands along Interstate-5 shimmer pink beneath the shifting hues of the morning sky. Sage scans the horizon and sees a line of trees at the far edge of a grazing pasture. Flames spring from the treetops, climbing with the wind, like a stretching circus clown in bright orange. Sage looks down at her hands and then lifts her head back up. The flames are gone, replaced by hovering pink strands of light. It is 5:30 a.m. and the sun is rising. She is two hours from the Oregon border.

"A terrible beauty is born."

Sage remembers the random line of poetry and sees an image of her father standing at the kitchen window with his cup of coffee in his hand. Many days he would mumble that line, thinking no one could hear him. He’d also say it at odd times as a joke, like when she got her braces off, or serious times, like when they sat on hill watching the sunset that time on a camping trip. Sage never got what it meant and never bothered to ask him the meaning.

Too late now.

Snapping back from her memory, she locates herself just where she is. In a car with two strangers driving to some school in the middle of a national forest in Oregon.

Fuck this shit.

Sage hadn’t spoken a word to Johnny or Devlin on the drive from Oak Grove, even when Johnny told her more about the school.

It’s badass. You’re going to hate it, but love it too, Johnny said.

His talk just made Sage more scared. She is clammy with fear and keeps replaying the scene in her bedroom this morning. Also, the night before when she came home drunk and passed out on her bed. She has a vague memory of her mother coming into the room and standing over her. She seemed to be crying. Sage can’t believe her mother actually went ahead with it. She’d threatened for months, but Sage did not take her seriously. Two other teens in the neighborhood were sent away to boarding schools last year, but those kids were full-on losers. Breaking into people’s houses, stealing oxycontin.

Johnny turns around from the front seat.

Hey, what kind of music you want us to queue up?

Sage doesn’t respond.

You’re gonna have to speak at some point, little girl, Johnny says, turning back.

Sage’s mind is racing, trying to figure out a way to get away. But the chain. That damn chain. An image of her father putting chains on the family van pops into her mind. They were headed to Tahoe when the storm hit early. Barely any snow had yet fallen, but Dad hadn’t wanted to take any chances.

Fear is your friend, he used to tell her. Listen to it. Then harness it.

Dad was always prepared, Sage thinks, pushing the snow chain image from her mind. She remembers seeing him standing by her bedroom door when the assholes led her out.

We’re stopping up here for gas, says Johnny, not turning around. After we fill up the tank, we’ll find a place up the road to pull over so you can pee.

You good with that? Johnny asks, turning again to look at Sage.

Sage doesn’t answer. She keeps looking out the window. She has to pee, but there is no way she will tell these losers. She’d rather let her bladder burst. Johnny turns back to face forward.

She’s gonna need to go to wilderness soon after she gets to the Academy, Johnny says to Devlin, who is driving. They’ll need to break this one sooner rather than later.

The purple and pink sunrise disappears into grey early spring light. Still overcast even though it is late March. They drive past the town of Redding. Oregon draws closer each mile.

Chapter 3

Devlin pulls off I-5 onto a country road near Ashland and drives deep into the Rogue River -Siskiyou National Forest. They wind through the forest for about twenty five minutes, curving along a poorly paved road lined with Ponderosa Pines and Sitka Spruce. The haze from the Three Sisters fire in the north hovers in the air, milder compared to the smoke in Oak Grove last fall, but still intense. Sage sees the sign – Rogue River Academy – as Devlin turns off the road onto a gravel driveway. Her hands go clammy.

A half circle of low-slung buildings with a taller one in the middle, the school reminds Sage of a church camp she saw on a reality tv show. At that camp, students in shorts were forced to kneel on sand for hours to show their love and devotion to God. The show provided fodder for Sage and Jake to use to rip into each other and their friends with hilarious one-liners about suffering, strength, and cleanliness. Sage thought the show was pathetic, but scary too. Now, she can’t stop thinking of one of the Bible quotes the camp counselors kept repeating.

After you have suffered, you will be made strong, firm, and steadfast.

The quote moves Sage into an odd calm. One of those quietings just before something really bad is about to happen.

Devlin parks the car and Johnny leads Sage into the school through a side door. They walk down a corridor and step into an office where a woman greets them.

Sage Lawrence? I’m Cindy. So nice to finally meet you. Your mom told me all about you. Please take a seat, says the blond, super-tanned woman. She holds a clipboard with a piece of paper on it. I bet you had a beautiful drive this morning. Yes, the smoke is bad, but it sure makes for some interesting skies. Don’t-cha think?

Cindy reminds Sage of the super-fit moms back in Oak Grove. The ones who pick their kids up from school wearing brightly colored Spandex leggings. Only Cindy is wearing jeans and boots, but the vibe she gives off is that same aggressive, fake positivity – a projection of exuberant health, my-life-is-so-great. Oh, did I tell you Joey got into Stanford? We’re so proud. Sage always recognized the vibe for exactly what it was – bullying.

Cindy points to a chair. Sage remains standing.

Sit, Sage, says Johnny. You need to sign something.

Sign something?

Yes, sit.

Sage sits, mainly because she is so exhausted. Hungry too. And hungover. Cindy lays the clipboard on the table in front of Sage next to a plastic bag with Sage’s cell phone, a container of Visine, keys, and a crumpled baggie containing dried out remnants of weed -- stash hidden in the lining of her jacket that Devlin picked up from the floor of her room that morning.

Why would they show that to me?

Sage this is our school contract. You need to sign it. It states that you agree to our big three rules. There will be other rules of course, but these are the big three. I will not run away from school grounds. I will not engage in sexual activity on school grounds. I will not engage in physical violence on school grounds."

Sage laughs.

Here’s the big fourth – ‘I will not sign your fucking contract on school grounds.

There is a long silence.

Well, Sage, you can choose that, Cindy says, "but by doing that, you will be

choosing a month-long wilderness program. And I can tell you right now, it's mighty cold out there at night, even in March. Wilderness will be a lot harder than working this program over the next thirteen months."

Thirteen months!! Are you out of your mind?! yells Sage, her voice suddenly cracking. She feels bile rise in her throat. I'm not staying here for thirteen months. No fucking way. This is a joke.

Cindy and Johnny look at each other. They know they've made headway. Fear and rage are the currencies of change. Most all kids exhibit terror when they get to the school and find out this thing is for real. Many try to act badass with Johnny during the escort. They talk non-stop about their so-called gangsta life in their white upper middle-class towns, as though shoplifting Jack Daniels and running away to a Motel 6 you paid for with money you stole from your mom is the ultimate in badassery. It is hilarious and pathetic at the same time. But Sage hadn’t done any of that. She remained shut down. Closed off on the drive up. Johnny didn't think she would make it at Rogue River Academy. She would need to go to wilderness first to be broken. He was sure of it. But now this anger makes them think otherwise. She is just as scared and oppositional as the rest of them. Maybe she can be broken after all.

Johnny stares at Sage. Sage stares back, and without looking away, sweeps her arm across the table sending everything on it flying. Cindy ducks as the paper, weed, Visine, and everything else flies across the room.

Oops, says Sage, now looking straight at Cindy.

I got this now, Johnny says to Cindy. Cindy steps out of the office. Sage can hear voices outside the door.

Oh no. It's ok. Just a little reluctance to sign the contract. Johnny is talking to her.

Johnny steps toward Sage, grabs her by the wrists and flings her against the wall.

You're not understanding this little girl. Your mother legally signed you over to us, he says, his face two inches from hers. The state of Oregon has granted us a license to tell YOU what to do. You're not at Mommy's house anymore, screaming about getting a new iPhone.

Sage starts breathing hard. The room is spinning. She thinks of her father. She knows he would never go for this. She sees him standing against the wall of the office, but he is looking down again, like he did at home, doing nothing.

Pick up the goddamn shit, says Johnny. Then sign the fucking contract.

Sage gets down on her knees and starts picking up the papers and other things. Her shaking makes it hard to keep her balance, so she steadies herself by holding onto a chair, then Johnny kicks the chair over and she falls. She rights herself, then reaches to pick up more. She doesn’t see her dad at the door anymore but hears him making the funny voices like he did when she was little and he read to her. And now, cried Max – let the wild rumpus start! She can smell him too. The lavender soap he called his medicine. He didn’t care how much his friends teased him about it.

Sage finishes grabbing everything, stands up, and lays it all on the table.

Very good, says Johnny. You are getting the hang of this, little girl. Now sign it.

Later, months later, when she was asked to describe the intake process to the investigators with the Oregon Department of Social Services, Sage describes what happened in such minute detail the investigators wondered whether she made some of it up. Based on the complete corroboration of all of her other prior testimony, however, they knew that she was speaking the truth. Sage, they joked, was never anointed with the soothing balms of denial and distortion.

Chapter 4

Manila folders with the Rogue River Academy insignia sit in stacks on the table next to piles of butcher paper and magic markers. Someone has been making posters depicting The Four Agreements in red, brown, and yellow. Be Impeccable with Your Word sits at the top of the pile. Erica collects the butcher paper and markers and puts them in a box on the floor, then takes a seat at the conference table. Mentors Jaime, Riis, and Tre file into the room.

Okay, gang. Just a quick rundown on our two newcomers, says Director Marlene, as she and Admissions Officer Cindy Ross step into the room and take seats at the table. Marlene is wearing a blue business jacket over jeans, her long auburn hair pulled back in a ponytail. She dresses in a jacket on the days she video conferences with corporate. Other days she wears rhinestone-studded denim shirts. On those days, the kids call her Dolly Warden.

Erica smells alcohol on Riis – again. One of his nail head stud earrings is missing and he’s wearing the same ripped Penn State jersey from yesterday.

Alight, says Marlene. How are our new little lovelies? And how can help them find their true selves at Rogue River Academy.

True selves? says Riis. Their true selves belong in the state pen.

The other mentors laugh. Marlene looks up from her files and stares hard at Riis.

Ok gang, says Cindy. First up. Shane Goddard. Arrives tomorrow. Sixteen years old. Transfer from Steel Ranch, Idaho. Hit his mom and a few kids a few times. Expelled from public school after spraying racist graffiti on the walls. Former competitive snowboarder training for the Olympics. Makes it to trials. Injured in 10th grade and that's when folks say he started going off the rails.

Aaaah, former Olympic hopeful. Therein lies the angst, says Riis, looking at Jaime.

Trophy child meets real world, says Jaime. Welcome to our 90 percent.

God, why can't these parents let their kids just be normal, average kids? says Erica.

But then we'd be out of business, says Jaime.

Erica looks over the file and thinks of her high school in the D.C. suburbs.

There she saw first-hand the corrosiveness of the trophy child syndrome. It nearly killed her older sister Ainsley. Ballet since she was three, private educational consultants to administer the Gifted and Talented test, writing tutors, math tutors, thrice-weekly weigh-ins for ballet. By the time Ainsley was 14, she was regularly locking herself in her room and depriving herself of food if she got a test back lower than an A. She weighed 85 pounds. Four hospitalizations later, Ainsley dropped out of high school and now spends her days counting calories in her room watching Iron Chef. She still lives at home at 26. Erica knows she hit the trifecta by being viewed by her parents as just a good solid kid, not really a superstar as she once overheard her father say.

So why did Shane’s parents want him to leave – where is it? Steel Ranch in Idaho? asks Marlene.

Said he's not getting enough therapy there, just discipline, says Cindy. They like our emotional growth approach.

Any problems with running or violence or disobedience in Idaho? asks Marlene.

According to the mom, no, says Cindy.

Do we have a report from Idaho? asks Erica.

No, says Cindy. They won’t find out about the disenrollment until tomorrow. Just before the escorts show up.

Why? asks Erica.

Duh, replies Jaime. Why would we tip them off that they may be losing a client.

Tip them off? asks Erica, looking first at Jaime, then turning to Marlene.

We’ll need to figure out his primary fear once he’s here. Face your fears my friends before they efface you, says Marlene in a sing-song voice.

Ok, next and last one, says Cindy. Sage Lawrence. Arrived about an hour ago. This is a quick admit. Mother wanted to move fast, replies Cindy. Sixteen. Anger issues. Anxiety issues. Writes weird stuff in English class about wildfires, school shooters, climate. Ran away to San Francisco a few times. Rages at home. Some drugs and alcohol. Apparently obsessed with climate change.

Divorced mom? asks Tre.

No, says Cindy. Her father’s dead. I've spoken with the mom several times. She's desperate to get her kid out of her environment. Says she can’t keep her safe anymore.

Is she seeing a therapist? asks Erica.

"She does see a therapist, but she skips it a