Free Crazy by Benjamin Lebert Page A

a short one after the fourth. You go get sandwiches from the case outside the dining hall. They taste disgusting.
    One-fifteen lunch. The menu’s posted at the entrance to the dining hall. Usually rice with some kind of sauce. Every six weeks you have to wait tables. While the others eat, you get to run around. Set and clear the tables. When everything’s over, it’s your turn. You eat with the staff in the kitchen. After lunch you’re free for an hour. Afternoons: doing homework. Then supper. Two hours free. Then washroom. Then sleep. Bedtime for sixteen-yearolds is ten-thirty.
    How can you describe life in boarding school?
    I’ve been here four months.
    I go into Troy’s room. There’s a little light coming through the open window. The curtains are moving in the wind, their shadows dancing on the cracked parquet floor. The floor is gray and radiates depression. There are a couple of posters on the pock-marked wall. They all show scenes of horror from the Second World War. Screaming children. Bombed-out cities. Desperate soldiers. Next to them are some newspaper articles about the SS. I see hideous faces. Goebbels. Göring. Hitler. There’s a sentence written on the wall in a color that looks like blood: IS THIS THE WAY LIFE’S MEANT TO BE? The letters run into each other, but you can make them out. Only one bed in here, placed in the middle of the room. The pillows are tangled up in the bedcover, but you can see it has a scene from the movie
Dragonheart
on it, with a huge fire-belching dragon fighting one of the knights of the Round Table. WE WILL ALWAYS SUCCEED is written on it. The desk is to the right, next to the window, heaped with stuff, mainly books, colored pens, and photos. Some drawings are stacked on the windowsill. Naked women with big breasts. I’ve never been here before. Somehow I’m ashamed about this. I take another step into the room. There’s a storage cupboard against the left wall. Full of books. Troy himself is in front of it in the act of pulling one out. Stephen King’s
Misery.
It’s a great book. I know it. It’s about this novelist who has a car accident. He finally ends up with a madwoman who tortures him. Cuts off one of his legs and so on. She says she’s his greatest fan, and he has to write a book for her. If he doesn’t, he’ll die. It’s that simple. Terrific book. At my last school, I suggested it for our German reading class. That got me a 6. We read
Soul Flame.
Piece of shit. I didn’t understand a word. As far as I remember, the only books we read in school were ones I didn’t understand. The authors always seem to talk in riddles; they could actually be writing a quiz book or something. Probably I just don’t get it. Still. I go over to Troy. Sit down by him on the bed. On the edge, of course, I don’t want to bug him. He frowns irritably. He holds up
Misery.
It has a green binding with silver lettering, which truly sparkles when you get it in the right light. The guy’s really made it, I think to myself. No more problems. Stephen King has millions and millions in the bank. He doesn’t care whether his son gets a 6 in math or not. Keeps on living. Writes his books and is happy. Stephen King can kiss my ass. I’ve handed in another two pieces of homework in the last week. I think they’re both lousy. I haven’t got them back yet. Math and German. Everything seems to be getting on my nerves right now.
    The bed I’m sitting on is incredibly soft. What I’d really like to do right now is go to sleep. I could also use it. We were out again last night. Down in front of the dining hall. A little smoking, a little talking. Just enjoying ourselves. Janosch says we should do it more often. But I don’t know if that’s such a good idea. Everyone needs a little sleep, too, in my view. I look around. The room is really small. Does Troy like it in here? I have no idea. I lean back. Look at the clock. Five-thirty. Another hour until supper.
    “Troy, what are you