CHAPTER NINE

Then how or which way should they first break in?

Question, my lords, no further of the case,

How or which way: ’tis sure they found some place

But weakly guarded, where the breach was made.

Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Part 1

Who would I ask to help me break into the theater?” Zandy gave a small groan of pure misery. She hates doing anything her mother wouldn’t like. But the answer to my question was so obvious, she replied to the one I hadn’t asked yet. “It’s too late to call Austin now.”

So we texted him.

We knew Austin. Ultimate techie. He’d never turn off his cell phone. Even if he was asleep, he’d get the message.

He must have been awake because his answer came back immediately: I CAN GET US IN. MEET BACK PORCH.

Zandy and I gave ourselves a high five. A quiet high five. It looked like all our problems were solved.

We’d been pretty sure Austin would help. The theater meant as much to him as it did to us, only in a different way. Where else could he use power tools, run electrical wiring, or program a lighting board? He’d loved showing off the backstage to Mrs. Fredericks. Of course he was going to help us.

Five minutes later, we were wheeling our bikes down the driveway. I suppose we should have felt as carefree and happy as all those kids in books who sneak out at night and have wonderful adventures—from Tom Sawyer to the Berenstain Bears. But Zandy had never snuck out at night before and she jumped at every sound. It didn’t help that it began to rain so hard we could barely keep our bikes on the road. We were dripping wet by the time we arrived at the small porch on the back of the theater. We stashed our bikes in the bushes and huddled together under the little roof covering the door.

“Where’s Austin?” Zandy whispered anxiously.

We saw him almost as soon as she spoke. He was as soaked as we were. We waited for him to drop his bike beside ours, but he rode it up onto the porch and leaned it against the wall. He grinned at us, pulled a can out of his jacket, and shook it vigorously.

“You’re going to have to hold my bike so I can climb up,” he said.

“What are you doing?” demanded Zandy. “Where’s the key?”

“What key?” Austin stopped shaking the can, a puzzled look on his face.

She pointed at the door. “You said you could get us in.”

“Yeah,” he said slowly. “But I don’t have a key to the door.”

“Then how are we going to get inside?” She was starting to sound mad.

“There’s a padlock on the flat house. I’ve had to open it so many times I’ve got the combination memorized. We’re going in through there.”

“Then why are you messing around over here?”

“Because I’ve got to disable the alarm before we go inside,” he said and pointed the can at a round metal square mounted high on the wall. “I’m going to squirt shaving cream in that box. The foam should muffle the noise when the alarm starts ringing.” He grinned and started shaking the can again. “I read about this on a website. I’ve always wanted to try it.”

I was afraid Austin was enjoying himself too much.

It looked like Zandy thought so, too. She crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes. “Just why are you worrying about the alarm going off?”

“If we trigger it by opening the door or something, the police could come and find us . . . and . . .” I could see that Austin was starting to lose confidence as Zandy continued to glare at him.

She sighed in exasperation. “That alarm’s been broken for years. It kept going off during the very first play I was in, back when I was seven, and no one could figure out how to fix it. So they pulled the wires out. They’re still there on the wall in a big knot.”

“Are you sure?” Austin looked at the can of shaving cream and dropped his arm to his side.

I didn’t have to ask. As soon as I heard her say it, I realized she must have known the alarm didn’t work. That’s what had given her the courage to come here in the first place.

“Mrs. Mac showed the whole cast where they were tied, so we wouldn’t worry about the alarm starting up again when we were onstage. I still check them on opening nights.” She looked a little embarrassed. “It’s just a habit.”

Even best friends have secrets they don’t share. I didn’t know Zandy did that. And she definitely didn’t know I touched the picture of Romeo and Juliet before every performance.

Austin put the can in his jacket and pulled out a flashlight. “Flat house,” he said, shoved his bike with ours in the shelter of the bushes, and led the way as we sloshed through the mud and rain to the far side of the building.

The flat house is a kind of shed built on the outside of the theater. It’s only used to store old flats and leftovers from the shop, and it looks like it. It has the kind of door you’d expect to find on a shed—old wood boards with a big latch held by a padlock. No one who saw it would guess that inside was a door that opened directly to the scene shop.

Sheds aren’t the kinds of places that have a porch or any kind of overhang. There was nothing to do but stand in the rain as Austin held his flashlight in his teeth and dialed the combination. But in a few seconds, Austin pulled the lock off the latch. He slipped it into his pocket before he opened the door, and we stepped inside.

We couldn’t turn on a light, because someone outside might see it. We waited in the dark, dripping and listening, just in case there was an alarm we didn’t know about.

When we didn’t hear anything, Austin turned his flashlight back on. He kept the beam turned down, shielding it with his hand. We moved slowly across the concrete floor, trying to avoid the jumble of old flats poking out unevenly into the narrow aisle, the pieces of lumber leaning against the wall, and the piles of leftover building materials everywhere. Austin had just opened the door that led to the shop when there was an enormous crash. Zandy had knocked over a couple of empty paint cans.

The racket made us all freeze momentarily until Austin finally motioned us on with his flashlight. But Zandy wasn’t moving. She clutched my arm, hard. “Beth, we need to get out of here. Now.”

I put my other arm around her and whispered fiercely in her ear, “The eviction begins tomorrow morning. Unless we find this bracelet tonight, we’re not going to be doing any more plays here. Ever.”

And your dad won’t have any reason to come see you. I didn’t have to say that. I knew Zandy was thinking it.

She took a deep breath, dropped my arm, and started walking.

The flashlight got us through the shop. Then it was easy. The ghost light lit our way across the stage. The stair railings, with the help of the flashlight, led us down to the basement and to the door of the costume room.

The three of us went straight to the jewelry cabinet. Zandy pulled out the center drawer. Austin shone the light over the neat rows of necklaces and bracelets, tiaras and rings. Zandy’s magic wand glittered in the front. Huge jewels sparkled white, yellow, red, purple, and blue as the light hit them. They looked splendid—theatrical and absolutely fake. Nothing at all like the real diamonds in Mrs. Fredericks’s bracelet.

We searched the jewelry drawers not being used in our play; first the bracelets, then the necklaces, and finally the drawer marked MISSALANEOUS. Some third grader must have written the label for it years ago. It used to make me smile whenever I saw it, but none of us were smiling now.

We closed the last drawer empty-handed then looked through each one once more.

“It’s not here,” said Zandy. “Let’s go.”

She started to walk toward the hallway, but I couldn’t accept defeat that easily. I took the flashlight from Austin and ran the light over the whole room, just in case.

Suddenly I saw a gleam on the floor near the windows.

“Look.” I kept the flashlight steady and started toward it, weaving my way around the cutting table and along the row of sewing machines. Austin and Zandy followed close behind.

The gleam got brighter as we got nearer. There, in the corner against the wall, shining in the light, was a pool of water. It grew slightly bigger as we watched.

“It’s flooding,” Austin said. “That water is seeping up from the ground through the concrete.”

“What can we do?” I asked, watching the water grow larger.

“There’s an old sump pump in the scene shop,” he said. “It should take care of it.”

“Why isn’t it working?” I hissed.

“It only works if you turn it on. I’ll find the switch when we get back to the shop.”

I handed him the flashlight and we followed him out the door, up the stairs, and to the stage.

The ghost light had gone out.

“Is someone here?” Zandy sounded absolutely terrified.

“We left the door unlocked.” I was scared, too. So scared I didn’t even think of how unlucky it was for the ghost light to be off.

But Austin had a techie’s view of the problem. “The bulb must have burned out. Should I stop and fix it?”

“No!” said Zandy with a sound like a whispered scream.

I was getting worried about her. Thank goodness we would be outside and heading home any minute.

We stumbled across the stage and into the scene shop. We’ve all built sets and props there, but Austin knew it like the back of his hand. He found the switch to the sump pump before I’d gotten more than a couple of feet in the room.

“That’s funny,” he said after he’d given it a flip.

“What’s funny?” demanded Zandy.

“Did you hear anything?” he asked.

“Did you?” Her voice was a squeak.

“We should have heard the motor turn on.” He flipped the switch off and on a couple of times then stared at it, thinking. “Shoot,” he said finally. “I bet I know what’s going on.”

He walked to the door and reached for the light switch to the room.

“No,” Zandy begged.

But he turned it on. Absolutely nothing happened.

“The power’s out,” Austin said. “That’s why the ghost light is off. And if someone doesn’t get an electrical generator hooked up to that sump pump pretty quick, the basement of this theater’s going to be underwater by morning.”

“Do you know how to hook up a generator?” I asked.

“If I had one, I bet I could figure it out.” He ran his hand through his hair. “But I don’t. We need to get help.”

Zandy started shaking her head. I think she was too scared to talk. To be honest, I wasn’t feeling real courageous myself. If my parents found out where I was, I would be grounded for life. And after all this, we hadn’t found the bracelet.

Austin was still concerned about the flooding. “If the water rises much further, the props and the costumes will be ruined,” he said.

I suddenly remembered running my fingers over the jet beads on the cape I wore when I played Martha Cratchett in A Christmas Carol. I was tracing the intricate pattern on the black silk, wondering how many actors had worn it and what other plays it had been in, when Mrs. Lester had called me over to her.

“That cape is over one hundred years old,” she had told me. “Look at the sewing on the inside, all done by hand.”

I flipped it up and studied the tiny stitches. “I wonder who made it. And who owned it.”

Mrs. Lester had reached over and felt the heavy silk. “The materials—this silk, the jet beads—were expensive, so the person must have been fairly wealthy. And since it’s all black, it was probably worn by someone in mourning.”

Less than twelve hours from now we were going to lose our theater. Would we be mourning the loss of our costume collection as well?

There was no choice. We had to get help. And we had to do it now.

“Who do we call?” I asked.

I could almost hear Austin’s brain clicking. “In an emergency, call 911,” he said. “There’s a phone here in the shop.” He paused for a moment. “Cross your fingers that it’s still working. We won’t have to say anything. We’d just call and leave the receiver off the hook. When the police come to check it out, they’ll search the whole building and find the flooding.”

“And we’ll be long gone.” It was a good plan. With any luck at all, we’d be home free by the time the police arrived.

But Zandy was still shaking her head. “I need to go now,” she said. “My mother can’t find out I did this.”

“Go ahead, Zan,” I said. “Austin and I can finish up.” It wasn’t fair to desert him after all he’d done to help us.

“We’ll be right behind you.” Austin pointed the flashlight toward the door to the flat house and she disappeared through it. Then he walked over to the phone and picked up the receiver.

“I’ve got a dial tone,” he said, and started to punch in the number.

We both heard something fall.

Maybe Zandy kicked the paint cans again on her way out.

Or maybe somebody—or something—was inside the building with us.

We raced out of the shop, through the flat house, and back to our bikes. I’ve never run so fast in my life. Austin was right behind me.

Zandy’s bike was gone. I jerked mine out of the bushes and tried to hop on the seat. By then, my hands were so wet I couldn’t get a grip on the handlebars. I wiped them frantically on my jeans and jumped again. The rain on the bike’s seat instantly soaked through my jeans.

I don’t think there is anything as uncomfortable as cold, wet denim.

As soon as I started to pedal, the rain came down even harder, lashing out of the sky until every inch of my clothes were drenched.

Austin grabbed his bike, made a running start, and almost slipped off because his seat was so slick. We stuck our helmets on as we were riding out of the driveway.

We’d pedaled down the street for at least a block before I asked, “Did you finish dialing?”

Austin’s helmet bobbed. “I got an operator, dropped the phone, and ran. Let’s hope someone comes to check it out.”

What will happen if they don’t? I thought.

“I didn’t lock the padlock,” he added. “I just threw it on the ground.”

We rode in silence through empty roads lined with dark houses and windblown trees. My bike skidded as I steered around a large limb lying in the middle of the street, but I regained my balance.

“Thanks,” I called to Austin before I turned off at the next block.

The hair hanging out the back of my bike helmet was plastered to my neck. I shook my head but it didn’t budge. The rain was slashing so hard against my face I could barely see.

I stowed my bike at the side of the house and climbed quietly into my bedroom through my open window. I didn’t think it was possible to feel worse than I did at that moment.

And then I heard my father’s voice from the chair at the other end of my room. “And just where have you been, young lady?”