When he stepped out of room thirty-four with Jill and Robert, Ben felt like he was sailing into enemy waters. Lyman and Wally had been working hard to establish control of the whole building, and they were getting good at it.
The plan for the next five minutes was simple: The three of them were going to hang out in the west hallway opposite from Mrs. Hinman’s room and wait until Lyman was busy. Then they’d sneak down the south stairs to the first-floor hallway, turn left, walk about fifty feet, and take another left into the janitor’s room. Then it was a straight shot down into the basement.
Ben’s phone buzzed—a text on his ghost phone. He looked at it, and said, “It’s Gina—Lyman just came out of the janitor’s room, and he’s headed for the south stairwell!”
Jill grabbed her phone too. “This is from Gabe—Wally’s coming upstairs too, north stairwell!”
Ben looked around. He’d thought that Wally would stay at his sentry post on the first floor—they had to hide!
“Quick,” Robert said, “this way!” And he dashed for the stairwell—the south one.
“No!” Jill gasped. “Lyman’s coming up!”
Robert kept moving. “Yes, up to the third floor. So we need to get down and then out onto the second floor before he sees us, NOW!”
Kids were still hurrying down the south stairwell toward the buses, and there was plenty of yelling and talking. The noise of three more kids running downstairs didn’t stand out, but that didn’t make Ben feel any less scared. If Lyman spotted them, this day would be a total loss.
Following Robert and Jill, he made it to the second-floor landing, then to the door.
Ben jumped and then stopped, his fingers still on the crash-bar.
“Slow down there, young fella!”
Lyman was below, yelling at someone else.
Ben scrambled through the doorway, and Jill grabbed his arm and pulled him around the corner to the right.
“This way,” she whispered, “in case Wally comes onto this floor—I’ve got Gabe tailing him!”
They sped away, and Ben thought he heard Lyman’s heavy footsteps . . . but the second-floor door didn’t open, and he began breathing again.
He put on a burst of speed and reached the southwest corner of the hallway in seconds.
“Mr. Pratt—stop right there, please.”
It was a man’s voice, but Ben didn’t look to see who it was. He didn’t have to. There was only one teacher who called him Mr. Pratt.
He turned and smiled. Sweat trickled down his forehead and he wiped it away, trying to look unflustered. And obviously failing.
“Oh—hi, Mr. Collins.”
The science teacher stood in his doorway. The afternoon sunshine framed him, making his white shirt look almost orange.
“Ah-ha—and I see we have Miss Acton and Mr. Gerritt here as well: three students running in my hallway.” He paused, scrunching up his mouth. “A hypothesis: You’re late for buses. . . . No, wrong direction for that. Or perhaps playing tag . . . No, much too warm. Could this be an attack of sheer, uncontrollable, last-week-of-school insanity? Yes, that’s the one I’ll go with. . . . Am I correct?”
Ben hesitated, and Gerritt stepped in—which still happened a little too often.
“Almost, sir—we just got a little too enthusiastic! We’re working on an extra-credit assignment for social studies.”
Mr. Collins frowned and narrowed his eyes at Robert. “And you have empirical evidence to support this wild assertion?”
Ben smiled. It was two smart guys, trying to out-geek each other. Funny, except they didn’t have time for this.
But Gerritt was just getting warmed up. He grinned as he spoke. “Yes, indeed. We have visually tangible and measurable evidence, Mr. Collins: three chemically tinted polygons of compressed organic matter issued by competent authorities, complete with manually applied symbols composed of graphite and assorted polymer compounds. Here . . .”
It took Ben a second to figure out that Gerritt was talking about their yellow hall passes—the ones Mrs. Hinman and the school librarian had signed. He and Jill followed Robert’s lead and held out their slips for inspection.
From the corner of his eye, Ben saw Jill glance down at her phone.
The teacher cleared his throat to reply to Robert, but Jill spoke first, softly, as if she was sharing a secret.
“Um, Mr. Collins, could we all step into your room a second? Like right now? We’ve got to ask you a few questions, important questions. About our project. Right now.”
Ben didn’t get it until Jill actually pushed him straight toward Mr. Collins, who had no choice but to back up into his room. Jill had to be reacting to news about Wally—he must be getting closer!
Jill grabbed Robert and pushed him into the room too, then pulled the door shut.
Out in the hall Ben heard the footsteps coming, heavier and slower than Lyman’s, also more rapid—Wally was at least a foot shorter.
Jill heard the footsteps too.
She steered everyone toward the back of the room, toward a place where Wally couldn’t see them unless he actually stepped inside. She talked softly as she moved them away from the door. “Back there . . . um, on that lab table? Have you ever noticed . . . the valves for the Bunsen burners? They’re . . . made of brass, and, look . . . they’re stamped with a name . . . no, it’s a city—Columbus, Ohio. Do you have any idea when these were installed—in the history of the school?”
For just a second, Mr. Collins looked at Jill as if she needed a brain transplant. But she kept her face completely serious, completely sincere. So, the science teacher tried to answer her question.
“Yes . . . well, um . . . judging from the metal work—because that’s a brass casting and not a stamped fixture—I’d estimated that this piping was installed sometime just after 1900. I know for a fact that Robert Bunsen’s design for a laboratory heat source was in wide use by the 1860s or so, but a school like this one wouldn’t have installed them until much later. And now, of course, the gas is all disconnected, because we don’t need burners for the middle-grade science curriculum. That kind of compounding and combinatory experimentation doesn’t begin in most public school districts until the eighth grade. Does . . . does that answer your question?”
Ben knew the answer to that—Wally’s footsteps had passed the room, so the danger was past.
Jill nodded. “Yes, that’s great, Mr. Collins. I’ve always wondered about that—about that part of the history of the school.”
“Hmm . . . that’s interesting,” he said.
And again Ben saw that same puzzled look on the guy’s face.
“Well, thanks,” said Jill. “We’ve got to go now—a lot more research for our project. And we won’t run in the halls any more, right, guys?”
“Absolutely,” Ben said. “No more running.”
The second they were alone in the hallway again, Ben texted their spy network: Any sign of Wally?
Gabe replied, and Ben relayed the info.
“Wally’s in the library now—let’s move!”
Back to the south stairwell, down to the first floor, then a quick fifty paces to the left. The janitor’s room door was open, but there was hallway traffic, kids and teachers.
Ben went to the drinking fountain across the hall, and Jill and Robert got in line behind him. When the coast was clear, they all slipped into the workroom.
Ben walked straight to the red door, just to the right of the long workbench. It was unlocked. In fact, there was a sign above the knob that read FIRE DOOR—DO NOT LOCK. The other sign on the door was framed with yellow-and-black stripes. CAUTION: STEPS DOWN.
Ben whispered, “Get out your headlamps—ready?”
He pulled the door open, and Jill and Robert followed him into the darkness.