by Andrew Karre
“Uh, Dante? This is the girls’ locker room.”
“I know,” said Dante. “Trust me.”
Inside it was just as pitch black as the hallway. Occasionally they could hear the loud echo of a drip splashing on the floor.
“I think it’s this way,” whispered Dante, taking the phone from Vincent. “Wasn’t this thing a lot brighter before?”
“The battery’s going,” said Vincent. “Can you hurry up, man? I dimmed the light to save the battery a little. Or maybe you could just get us there in the dark so we can save some juice?”
Dante muttered something and shut off the screen.
“We better stick together,” he said quietly, grabbing Miranda’s hand and beginning to feel his way forward again. Vincent grabbed her other arm.
“Children, where are you?” said Spangler from behind them. Dante paused as they listened to Spangler shuffling closer.
“Ow,” said Vincent, “That’s my—”
“Shut up,” growled Dante, pulling them all forward again.
It seemed like forever, but it was probably only a few minutes before Dante breathed, “This is it, I think.”
He gave Miranda’s hand a little squeeze and then let go. They all heard something clang down around their knees. Dante grunted, and then there was a screech of metal and a louder clang.
“Got it,” said Dante.
“What is it?” whispered Miranda.
“Vent. It’s a bit of squeeze—I’ll go first,” said Dante.
“OK,” he said a moment later, his voice coming from the other side.
Miranda ran her hands down the wall until she felt the opening. She put her hands on the sides and stuck her head into the hole. She put her hands out to feel the floor and then crawled awkwardly through. Dante fumbled in the dark to find her arm and pull her over to the side. Vincent came through next, then Spangler.
“I think we’d better see what we have,” said Spangler, attempting to sound calm. The room was eerily quiet. Were they even in the boiler room?
There was rustling as Dante attempted to hand Spangler the phone. Suddenly he didn’t want to be the one to turn on a light.
Spangler turned on the screen. He held the phone up high. They all looked around, but they couldn’t see much more than the wall they’d just climbed through. Then the light went out.
18
“Have no fear, strontium’s here!” said Vincent cheerily.
“If you have some kind of plan, we’d all like to hear it,” said Spangler, sounding irritated.
“Well, I haven’t been lugging these bags around this whole time for nothing,” said Vincent. “They’re full of lovely combustibles. At least Miranda’s is, since she has a three-subject college-ruled notebook for each class. Let’s see if we can get a nice little fire going here.” They could hear him ripping and crumpling paper.
“Vincent, what are you doing?” cried Miranda.
“Well, we’re not going to be able to do anything unless we can see. You can sacrifice one, maybe two notebooks for a good cause, can’t you?” said Vincent, continuing to rip and crumple.
“That’s not what I mean—we don’t even know what the strontium will do. If it’s safe, or—”
“He’s right, though,” said Dante, finding Miranda’s hand again and giving it another squeeze. “We gotta have light.”
“OK, here goes!” said Vincent. Everyone heard a faint pop and saw a little flash in the glass vial. Then nothing.
“Stupid chemistry book—made this stuff sound so fabulously dangerous,” he muttered.
“If we have to build a bonfire from my notebooks,” said Miranda icily, “Why don’t we just use Dr. Spangler’s lighter?”
“Oh yeah,” said the guys.
Spangler fumbled in his pockets. “I’m not sure there is any fuel left—it was quite low— where are those notebooks?”
“Oh, give it to me,” snapped Miranda.
“Right, you were in Girl Scouts,” muttered Vincent.
“I’ll let you know as soon as I find any rare coins that need to be identified, OK?” Everyone heard the scratch of the lighter wheel, and then the flame lit up Miranda’s face. She bent over the pile of crumpled papers.
“Move our bags back,” she ordered. “And you all better start looking around for something else to burn, because this paper won’t last long. And I don’t actually have that many notebooks in my bag.”
The notebook paper flared up brightly as Miranda expertly fed the fire with strips of the notebook covers.
“Hurry up!” she said. Everyone scrambled around, looking on the floor. Spangler threw a handful of dried leaves from a corner on the fire.
“Here are a few wood scraps,” said Vincent eagerly, about to drop them on the fire. “Stop!” screamed Miranda. “The fire’s not hot enough to burn those. They’ll just crush it.” She looked around wildly. “Dante, give me your T-shirt, quick.”
Dante whipped it off and handed it to her, then tried not to feel self-conscious.
“Want mine, too?” said Vincent, starting to unbutton it.
“No,” Miranda murmured. Dante’s shirt caught fire and burned merrily. She held a piece of wood to the fire and watched it lick the edges. When it finally caught fire, everyone cheered. Miranda gave a small smile as she dropped the wood on top of the burning shirt.
“We’ll be OK for a little bit now for light,” said Miranda.
Everyone turned to look around the room.
19
The feeling of that boiler room tile on his bare feet brought Dante back to his freshman initiation. At least he wasn’t naked this time. Almost, but not quite. And there was some light from the fire. Of course, the building might drop itself into a bottomless pit at any moment. But you couldn’t have everything.
It had been several minutes since the last shock, and it was hard to concentrate. But Dante and the others were listening for all they were worth. Where was the mechanism that must be controlling the process?
“I believe that the mechanism is designed to make the building fold in on itself. When it reaches a certain point, that is, the building will swing apart like two sides of a trapdoor and drop itself and everyone in it into the pit,” Spangler had explained.
The thought was too horrible for Vincent to make a lame joke. And Dante saw no way to muscle through the danger. Only Miranda seemed to keep it together.
“We’ve got to divide up and find the mechanism,” she’d said. “It must make some kind of noise. I think the fire’s going well enough that I can help. We’ll each take a quarter of the room. Keep your ears open. Yell when you find something.”
Dante had started at the outer edge of his quarter, and so far he was halfway to the center. All he could hear was the sound of his sweaty feet as they stuck slightly to the smooth tiles. He didn’t have any idea what he was looking for.
He glanced across the room at Miranda, over by the fire. She was feeling her way along the wall, her eyes half closed. Dante stared at her—the way the light flickered over her face—
Hiss. Miranda disappeared as the room was plunged into darkness. Vincent started screaming.
“Vincent, shut up!!” Miranda yelled. “Let me see—or feel—something wet fell on the fire. All the paper and wood is wet but maybe . . . does the lighter still work?”
There was scratching sound and little flare. For a second they saw the gleam of Spangler’s glasses. Then nothing. More scratching.
“I’m sorry,” said Spangler wearily. “The fuel’s all gone.”
Everyone was silent. Dante slumped on the floor. He just didn’t feel like standing anymore. This was it. He was going to die in these stupid shorts and never get to play varsity.
Then he felt a thrumming under his hand. He put his ear down on the floor. He could hear a series of metallic clicks and feel vibrations.
“I . . . I think I found something!” he said.
“Great timing,” he heard Vincent mutter.
�
�No, come over here—I can feel it vibrating. And if I put my ear down, I can hear it clicking. Wait, I think I can feel a crack—” He started to feel around the tiles on the floor.
“Where are you?” Vincent, Spangler, and Miranda all cried at once.
“Oh, uh, kind of toward the middle,” said Dante, straining his eyes in the dark. He could hear shuffling noises but couldn’t see a thing.
“You have to keep talking,” said Miranda. “This room is huge. It’s really hard to keep my sense of direction.”
“OK, I’m right here,” said Dante.
“Keep talking!” they all yelled, not sounding much closer than before.
“Um,” said Dante. He couldn’t think of anything to say. Test, test, one, two?
“Could you at least hum?” said Vincent, sarcastically.
Dante started singing the first thing that came into his head: the school fight song.
Rally sons of Philomena!
Sing her glory and sound her fame!
Raise her Gold and Blue
And cheer with voices true!
Rah, rah, for Philomena!
We will fight in every game,
Strong of heart and true to her name.
We will ne’er forget her
And will cheer her ever
Loyal to Philomena.
“Dante?” Miranda said, her soft fingers touching his bare knee. He jumped and stopped singing.
“Don’t stop!” yelled Vincent, now on the other side of the room—he’d definitely passed Dante somehow. Miranda quickly started humming the fight song again.
They heard a clatter nearby and then the sound of something rolling away.
“Must have been a cleaning cart or—”
A hand grabbed Dante’s head and a knee banged into his back.
“Oh, there you are,” said Spangler, settling down next to Dante. “Now, let’s see what you have.”
“Wait for me!” Vincent bellowed, now directly opposite them.
“Vincent, you’re going in a circle!” said Miranda.
“I know that—the room is a big circle!” Vincent yelled.
Everyone was puzzled for a moment. “Are you hanging onto the wall?” asked Miranda. Vincent didn’t answer. “We’re somewhere in the middle of the room,” said Miranda. “You’re going to have to let go of the wall and come out here where we are.”
They heard a few shuffling steps. “C’mon, that’s right,” Miranda coaxed. She kept talking until Vincent finally tripped over Dante. Miranda grabbed him and pulled him down next to her. He was shaking. She held his hand and murmured soothing things. Dante tried not to pay attention to them.
The whole time, Dante had been running his fingers around the tiles where he could feel the most vibration. Now he thought he could feel one shifting back and forth.
“Here, feel,” he said to Spangler and guided his hand to the tile.
“I feel it!” said Spangler. “Keep your hand there while I find—yes, my pocket knife. Let’s see now . . . ah! I have an edge lifted. Dante, can you—”
With a scraping sound, Dante tipped the tile up, then pulled it out. Cautiously he put his hand into the hole. He felt smooth metal and then—
“It’s a lock—a combination lock just like on the lockers!” He put his hand on the knob, then snatched it back, keeping his fingers resting lightly on the metal plate.
“Vincent, your watch!” said Miranda. Suddenly her face shone green in the light from the watch.
“Of course! A Casio G-Shock lights up,” said Vincent, his voice sounding almost normal. “Wish I’d thought of that a while ago.”
Suddenly the metal beneath Dante’s fingers burned hot.
“We’ve got to get it open!” Dante screamed.
“How? We haven’t the faintest idea of what the combination is,” Spangler replied.
The building slowly slipped about three feet lower. The custodian’s cart began to roll toward them again as the floor tilted.
“Do something!” Vincent screamed.
Miranda was obsessively crumpling a piece of paper in her pocket as her mind raced. They were so close. Think, Miranda!
The paper in her pocket was beginning to come apart from the sweat on her palms.
A small crack in the floor directly in front of the huddled four suddenly became three inches wide, and sulfurous steam rose from it.
And then there were the screams, now just barely audible from below them.
Miranda pulled her hand from her pocket to cover her mouth. The paper fluttered out, settling just within the pathetic glow of Vincent’s watch.
“Vincent! Light, I need the light!” She grabbed his arm and twisted it over the paper, which read:
“It’s the combo! ‘WK’ is Wassily Konstantinos. He gave us the combo! Somehow, he gave us the answer!” She was shaking the paper in Dante’s face.
Dante didn’t need more explanation. He grabbed the paper and Vincent’s wrist.
“That hurts! Careful!” Vincent yelped.
They stared at the dial. Steam was now erupting from the floor like a geyser.
“Not to put undue pressure on anyone, but I think we’ve got precisely one chance to get this right,” said Spangler.
The building rocked suddenly sideways, tilting the floor almost forty-five degrees. Spangler and Dante slid away and landed against the wall. Miranda grabbed for the hole and Vincent’s wrist. The cleaning cart came careening back toward them, smashing into Vincent and tearing him out of Miranda’s grasp.
“Vincent!” Miranda screamed, still clinging to the hole.
“Oof,” said Vincent as he hit the wall, the cart clanging next to him. “Miranda, you have my watch! Use it for light and do the combination! Now!”
“I don’t have the paper!” Miranda wailed.
“I do!” said Dante—he hadn’t even realized it was still in his hand. “Oh, but I can’t see.”
“I remember it!” said Vincent. “Archer, bull—”
“I can’t,” cried Miranda. “I’ve never been able to open a locker at this school, ever. I just can’t do it!”
“C’mon, Jellybean, you can do it,” said Vincent.
“Miranda, you’re the smartest person I know,” said Dante, his voice cracking. “We need you.”
Miranda sniffed, then said. “Watch out, here come my shoes. I need better traction to pull myself up closer.” They heard her shoes slide down and hit the wall. They could hear her scrambling, then they saw the glow of Vincent’s watch. Miranda was propped on her elbows, clutching the watch with one hand. Her other her hand was on the knob. She looked grim.
“OK,” she said.
“Start at the empty spot,” said Vincent.
“It is,” she answered.
“Turn left until you get to the guy with the bow.”
“Left, left,” Miranda muttered. “OK.”
“Now turn right to the bull.”
“OK.”
“Left to the lion.”
“OK.”
“Right to the fish.”
“Got it.”
“Left to the scorpion. . . . right to the crab.”
“OK.”
“Now, very carefully, go all the way around again, turning right, and then stop at the bull again.”
“Wait, do you always have to go all the way around first?” demanded Miranda.
“Uh, yeah,” said Vincent and Dante.
“Well, no one ever told me that! Maybe that’s been my problem with these stupid lockers! You have no idea how much time I’ve spent—”
“Uh, Jellybean, could you finish the combination and see if it saves the day?” broke in Vincent.
“Oh, sorry.”
They held their breaths as Miranda turned the knob and positioned the last
20
Dante’s mother was glued to the local morning show again. A way-too-wide-awake reporter was standing in front of a smoking crater.
The reporter spoke, “Police and federal
disaster officials remain on scene at the site of St. Philomena High School in Bridgewater, where a seismic disaster of, frankly, biblical proportions took place two days ago.
“What was once Bridgewater’s architectural pride and joy is now just a hole in the ground. The building began to sink and to split in two sometime Monday morning. Some of our local history buffs may remember that the school was built over a sizable sinkhole. However, great care was taken by the famed architect Ivor Shandor to make sure the school was stable and safe. No one is sure what changed or what caused the building to drop halfway into the sinkhole. Investigators are combing the little remaining wreckage for clues.
“What’s most remarkable, though, is that all but one of the four hundred students, faculty, and staff are accounted for at this time. Students, faculty, and staff began streaming out shortly after rescue crews arrived on the scene. They were led by three students whom we’ve managed to identify as Miranda Lee, Dante Grant, and Vincent Young.
“Our reporter on the scene tried to ask what happened inside the school, but only Grant responded, saying ‘You wouldn’t believe us if we told you.’
“However, we are joined now by Dr. Giles Spangler, who only yesterday was telling us all about the school’s architect, Ivor Shandor. Now Dr. Spangler, yesterday you mentioned Ivor Shandor’s interest in the occult—”
Before his mother could ask him any more questions—she’d been trying nonstop to get him to talk since he got home early yesterday— Dante grabbed his bag and slipped out the door. Nothing Spangler had to say would be news to him, anyway.
Obviously, there were no classes at St. Philomena that day. The administrators were hard at work figuring out where classes could be held until a new school was built. A plan would be announced next Monday.
Although he knew there was nothing there, Dante’s feet automatically took him on his regular route to school.
Even from a distance he could see the yellow police tape where the school used to be. He stood across the street from the building and stared. It already seemed like just a bad dream.
