Wuthering High: A Bard Academy Novel [Paperback]

Cara Lockwood (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 4, 2006 | Series: Bard Academy (Book 1)

Fifteen-year-old Mia is not exactly thrilled when she gets the news that her parents are shipping her off to boarding school. It's not like she did anything that bad -- all she did was wreck her dad's car and max out her step mum's credit cards. So, off she goes, from Chicago to Bard Academy, an exclusive prep school that treats troubled teenagers with a healthy dose of higher learning and old-fashioned discipline. But all is not what it seems at this educational institute, and Mia and her classmates soon discover that the teachers are actually ghosts, stuck in limbo, some of them famous authors who died before their time, including Virginia Woolf, Ernest Hemingway, and Charlotte Bronte. And what's even more disturbing is that not all the ghosts have good intentions. Mia and her friends must stop one evil instructor's plan to bring down the school -- and the entire student body with it.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Cara Lockwood is also the author of I Do (But I Don't), which was made into a Lifetime movie, as well as Pink Slip Party and Dixieland Sushi, and Every Demon Has His Day, all available from Downtown Press. She was born in Dallas, Texas, and earned a Bachelor's degree in English from the University of Pennsylvania. She has worked as a journalist in Austin, and is now married and living in Chicago. Her husband is not a rock star, but he does play the guitar -- poorly.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

One

Okay, I confess.

I did, sort of, on purpose, steal Carmen's credit card (Carmen = stepmom, but I refuse to call her anything with "mom" in the title, as she's only twenty-four and can't take care of a pet goldfish, much less be any kind of mother figure). And I did, kind of, intentionally, charge up a thousand dollars' worth of push-up bras. But, technically, my dad said I could use Carmen's credit card for emergencies, and since my social life hinges on my ability to fill out a shirt, it was an emergency. I mean, if I was an SAT analogy, I'd be flat : board; boobs : me.

And yes, it's true that I did total my dad's new BMW convertible. Although "totaled" is a strong word for spilling Diet Coke in my lap and accidentally jumping the curb and running into a tree. I wouldn't have been driving at all (I only have my learner's permit) except that my little sister, Lindsay, called me on my mobile hysterical because she'd pissed off some two-hundred-pound girl bully and needed to be picked up from school since she'd been too scared to ride the bus. Mom couldn't get Lindsay because she was at her standing Botox appointment, and Carmen (Anti-Mom) couldn't be bothered, since she was too busy spending my college fund at Neiman Marcus.

And let's face it, I did Dad a favor. He looked ridiculous driving that cherry-red two-seater BMW. He's bald, for God's sake. He looked like every other pathetic midlife-crisis victim.

And, finally, I'll admit, it is true that I came home drunk the night before my PSAT exam, and overslept the test. This was entirely Tyler's fault (Tyler is a cute but disreputable quarterback of the junior varsity football team who I went with for a brief time before I came to my senses). He's been trying to get into my Paul Frank panties since the summer before freshman year, and he spiked my drink with Everclear in the hopes of robbing me of my virginity. I'd heard the bad rumors about Tyler, but chose to ignore them. I shouldn't have. BTW, he got what he deserved: a front seat full of Redbull and Everclear vomit. It's my hope that he'll be cleaning chunks out of the leather interior of his Toyota Forerunner for weeks. Since him, I've been on a guyatus (hiatus from guys).

So -- given the mitigating circumstances -- you'd think that I would be given a little slack. After all, I'm fifteen. Aren't I supposed to be making mistakes? Isn't that what the teen years are for? I can't be perfect all the time.

So what do my parents do? They don't ground me. No. That would be me getting off too easy, Dad says. And even when I try to pit Mom against Dad (for the last five years since their divorce, I've gotten very, very good at this), it doesn't work. For the first time in my parents' lives, they actually agree on something.

They're going to send me to a school for juvenile delinquents.

Me! I've barely done anything wrong, and I'm going to be going to school with a bunch of drug-using degenerates. How did this happen? I think Mom has been watching too many episodes of Ricki Lake, where drill sergeants yell at pregnant teenagers.

It's ridiculous. Beyond ridiculous.

I am not a delinquent. I've had very bad luck, but I'm not bad. At least, not yet. Everyone knows that when good people go to prison they end up becoming bad while they're there. Either that, or they get stabbed with a homemade knife in the shower. I'm not that innocent. I've seen episodes of Prison Break.

Granted, I'm not going to prison.

I'm going to a place called Bard Academy in some Nowheresville Island off the coast of Maine. I don't care if that is where great lobsters come from. I don't want to live there. The brochure for Bard Academy says, and I quote, "a home for troubled and misguided teens set on its own private island, guarded by the Atlantic Ocean, and accessible only by ferry, where our students probe the classics in a solid academic tradition."

I am not troubled, nor misguided. If anyone needs to go to delinquent boarding school, it's my dad. He changes wives more often than he changes shoes. And don't get me started on Mom. She's a total basket case. She doesn't date. She doesn't even go out, so I'm not quite sure why she's obsessed with looking young, except that I fear she's holding on to some vague hope that Dad will take her back. Why she would want that, I have no idea.

So, I'm being exiled to some form of Alcatraz for juveniles in the Atlantic. This is what I get for saving my dad from getting a melanoma on his scalp and for coming to the rescue of my ungrateful sister. It's the last time I do a good deed.

"You hate me, don't you? You do. You hate me," Mom says, as she stands in my bedroom watching me pack. I'm taking my time folding my clothes because a) I don't want to go, and b) I want to wring the last bit of anxiety out of the moment for Mom's sake. If I draw this out, then she's liable to start feeling sadness and regret, and she might just decide I shouldn't go. At this point, breaking Mom might be my only chance of salvation.

I can tell that Mom is feeling guilty, even though she's just had a Botox injection, so the only expression she can convey with her numbed face is slight confusion. It's a little unnerving. Sort of like talking to a mannequin.

"I don't hate you," I say, trying to be calm and composed. I'm the adult here, after all, even if I am the one who's being sent off to a school one thousand miles away. I was the shoulder Mom cried on when Dad left her five years ago for his secretary. He's divorced and remarried since then, and Mom has been on maybe two dates. I love Mom, I do. But her neediness sometimes is a bit scary.

"It was your dad's idea," Mom pleads with me. Of course it's Dad's doing. Mom would never have had the guts to send me off, but Dad's a different story. He's been trying to disown me pretty much since I started talking and could talk back to him.

"Well, we both know Dad makes bad decisions. Why do you still let him boss you around?"

"I don't let him boss me," she says.

"You didn't even ask him if he'd pay for your Botox. You should. He gave you those worry lines."

Mom reflexively touches her face.

"You're right," she says.

I'm just about to reel Mom in, when we're interrupted by the appearance of my little sister, Lindsay. She's wearing a pair of jeans and her new purple push-up bra from Victoria's Secret.

Lindsay, age thirteen, is a 34B, which is a full cup size bigger than me, since I barely fill out an A cup. It's a bit embarrassing when your younger sister wears a bigger bra than you do. I'm not sure what my chest is waiting for, perhaps an engraved invitation. Apparently, my breasts are like diva pop stars and like to be fashionably late. When they arrive, I imagine they'll also come with a list of outrageous demands, like that they'll only tolerate blessed Kabbalah water, white Bentleys, and green M&M's.

To make matters worse, Lindsay spreads her arms wide and cries, "Tah-dah!," as if she just pulled her boobs out of a black magician's hat. Show off.

"My baby's first Victoria's Secret bra," Mom cries, turning her attention to Lindsay. "My baby is all grown up."

Although Mom's face doesn't change expression, I hear a slight crack in her voice, the telltale sign of an impending emotional breakdown.

Mom is going through the early stages of meno-pause and is extremely emotional these days. I recently caught her crying in front of a Cingular One ad. It's embarrassing.

"Lindsay, put some clothes on," I say. Seriously, sometimes I feel like the only responsible adult around here. What is Mom thinking? "Since when is it okay to parade around in your underwear?"

"Miranda -- this is a revolutionary new bra," Lindsay informs me. "The patent is pending!"

"You don't even know what a patent is," I snap.

Lindsay sticks her tongue out at me. I glance down at Lindsay's jeans and notice the strap of a matching purple thong sticking out from her jeans.

"A thong!" I cry.

Mom didn't let me wear one of those until a month ago. And that was only after I wrote a two-page essay on the devastating effects of panty lines on my self-esteem. "She's too young to wear a thong!"

"You wear them all the time," Lindsay points out.

"I'm two years older. Mom? Really." I cross my arms to show my disapproval. Mom just wipes a tear from her eye and then tries to hug us both. I squirm away. With Premenopausal Mom, you never know when you're going to be blindsided with a hug. Last week, she wanted a hug in public in the middle of the cereal aisle at the grocery store. Thanks to my quick reflexes, I avoided PPDA (Parental Public Display of Affection), and Mom got an armful of Special K.

Lindsay, however, isn't as quick as I am, and she gets the full force of Mom's bear hug. I smirk at her, while she makes a face over Mom's shoulder. There are some benefits to being older. Better reflexes.

Besides, it's about time Lindsay took one for the team. She's benefited from all my hard lobbying efforts to house-train the 'rents. Case in point: my hunger strike to wear lip gloss in eighth grade, the protracted negotiations to let us watch the TBS version of Sex and the City, and now the thong essays. At this rate, Lindsay will never have to learn to do anything for herself, since I'm always doing all the work. She doesn't even have to work to have cleavage like I do. I need two rolls of Charmin's double ply to get the hint of cleavage. Lindsay just went to sleep one night and woke up the next morning as Pamela Anderson. Life is not fair.

Lindsay sticks her tongue out at me behind Mom's back. I squint at her. She's gloating over the fact that she's ruined my last reprieve. She'll live to regret it. With me gone, there will be no one to blame when she does something bad, like breaking another of Mom's Staffordshire dogs. Besides, one week alone with hug-crazy Mom and Lindsay will be begging her to let me come home.

Since Lindsay ruins my chances of a night-before reprieve, I set Plan B into motion. Plan B involves me dre...

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 14 and up
  
• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: MTV Books (July 4, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1416524754
• ISBN-13: 978-1416524755
• Product Dimensions: 7.2 x 5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,296,183 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I grew up in Mesquite, Texas, which for those of you who like livestock shows, is the home of the Mesquite Rodeo. Ironically, Mesquite was named after Mesquite trees, only none of them now exist in the city, which is about fifteen minutes east of Dallas. No, I don't own a pair of cowboy boots, although I do own quite an impressive collection of black shoes. My Dad is a third-generation Japanese-American, and my mom is a second-generation Texan who's mostly English, or at least claims to be because of her anglophile nature.

I went to school at the University of Pennsylvania, only I'm not sure how I got in. I think these days they only accept students who can solve String Theory. Anyway, I majored in English, and had dreams of being the Next Great American Novelist, but then I realized I was more of a humor writer and less of an Important Literary Figure. I don't think any of them have a sense of humor.

Anyway, I knew I wanted to write a book, but I also knew that my Dad would kill me (death by guilt) if I didn't move out of his house and start paying my own rent after he shelled out my tuition.

So, while writing fiction in my spare time, I went to work as a newspaper reporter, working for an overly exciteable editor who sent me running anytime the police scanner went off. I was working insane hours for next to no pay. I was actually sent to cover a grass fire on my 25th birthday. Let me tell you, it smelled bad. I think some mice may have lost their lives. But that was about it in terms of excitement. Happy Birthday to Me.

So, I decided after I began hiding from my editor in the bathroom at the office anytime the police scanner went off, that journalism probably wasn't for me. I went to work for a marketing firm and discovered that most everyone else didn't stay until ten o'clock every night writing up their riveting story about grass fires. I also decided that I would take advantage of that free time to write some fiction. That's when I started writing "I Do (But I Don't)." A year later, I finished it, thanks to the help of my friend, Shannon, who wouldn't let me slack off and kept asking me for chapters.

And that's how I became a writer. Except that it still feels weird to say, "I'm a writer." I keep expecting to wake up tomorrow and have to go cover another grass fire.

To see what I'm up to these days, check out my blog, www.caralockwood.blogspot.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting approach, August 1, 2006

By 

Armchair Interviews (Minneapolis, MN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wuthering High: A Bard Academy Novel (Paperback)

After Miranda Tate wrecks her father's BMW and maxes out her stepmother's credit card, she is sent to Bard Academy, a boarding school on Shipwreck Island, Maine. With its Gothic setting, Bard Academy could be straight out of one of the classic novels to which Cara Lockwood is indebted: Wuthering Heights, Dracula, and Frankenstein.

Lockwood's villains are characters from these and other novels, but the main antagonist in Wuthering High is the ghost of a famous nineteenth-century author. Indeed, the school is run by the ghosts of writers who died before their time--Charlotte Bronte, Virginia Woolf, and Ernest Hemingway, to name a few. And the antagonist seeks to bring her book to life, even if it means destroying the world.

But Miranda has other ideas. An average fifteen-year old, Miranda is concerned with fashion and boys, but she's also able to transcend these preoccupations. She doesn't wallow in self pity over her worthless dad, nor does she give in to despair while stuck in what amounts to a prison. She also refuses to compete with other girls even when it means giving up the guy of her dreams.

Miranda is a strong, likeable character, brushing the dust off every time she goes down (which is quite often). She's a much-needed hero for girls stuck on the likes of Paris Hilton.

The book is heavy on pop culture references and stereotypes, although Lockwood will have more chances to add some dimension to Miranda's rather flat sidekicks. (Wuthering High is the first of a series.) It's the literary references, however, that are the biggest disappointment. With the exception of Heathcliff, Lockwood's villains have none of the complexity of their original forms, and the dead writers do not fully reflect the realities of their lives. Still, the bookhas a fast pace and an interesting plot. And what bibliophile can resist the idea of a meek writer coming back to destroy the world?

Overall, though, it's Miranda who will satisfy readers, for she's far more than her namesake from The Tempest.

Armchair Interviews says: Interesting approach that mixes modern-day writing with the work of literary geniuses.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazed!!!, June 24, 2007

By 

Jaz Rose "Jaz" (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wuthering High: A Bard Academy Novel (Paperback)

Well, I always saw this book on the shelves and it looked pretty interesting so I got it one day. Wow, I'm totally glad I did. This book suddenly gave me a craving for classics- you guessed it.."Wuthering Heights." The book kept me captivated EVERY step of the way. I wanted more and was satisfied. It made me giggle like crazy at different scenes. The action or conflicts made it a fun and delicious read. Read the sequel "The Scarlet Letterman" too! The story was just as good as the first.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Cool romance and very well written, February 10, 2007

By 

Make it Funny (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Wuthering High: A Bard Academy Novel (Paperback)

I think Cara Lockwood captures the dialog of teenagers very well. The book was suspenseful and kept me up reading till the very end. Then I didn't want it to end. Awesome romance with 2 'to die for' heroes. Fashion references were fun. It was a really entertaining book and subtly pointed out that many good literature have dramatic plots that would greatly interest teenagers.