by P. J. Night
Not that she had any choice. This was a rare occasion when her mom was gone all day. She had to get this done today. She might never get another chance.
As she approached the school parking lot, she noticed that about a dozen cars were parked there. All those cars must mean that there are some people at the school today, otherwise the lot would be empty. This is promising.
Her spirits lifted a bit. If people were in the school working today, then at least one of the doors would be open. Step one had always been getting inside the school. Beth would figure out what came next once she was inside.
She was almost there. The front door grew larger with each step.
I’m gonna make it, Beth thought, a surge of excitement pulsing through her veins.
And that is when she spotted a uniformed security guard running from the far side of the school toward the front door.
Oh no. I’m so busted. He’s coming for me! He knows. Somehow he knows!
Beth kept on walking.
What if he’s after someone else? What if this has nothing to do with me?
She was almost at the front door.
But what if he is after me?
Panic took over. Beth turned and ran. She didn’t turn back to see if the guard was after her or not. Her only thought was to get as far away from the school as she could.
She dashed down the few blocks leading away from school, feeling scared, sad, and confused. She made the left turn to start the journey home, crashed right into someone, and tumbled to the ground.
CHAPTER 7
“Are you okay?” asked a tall girl with short black hair and smooth, freckle-less skin. The girl leaned over Beth, looking down at her. Beth was sprawled on her back on the sidewalk.
“I think so,” Beth answered. “I’m more stunned than hurt, actually. I didn’t expect anyone to be there when I ran around that corner.”
“Same here,” said the girl, who reached down and offered Beth her hand.
Beth took the girl’s hand.
“Are you okay?” Beth asked as the girl helped her up to her feet.
“Yeah, fine,” the girl replied. “I’m Elizabeth, by the way.”
“Beth,” she said, brushing herself off. “Hey, we have the same name, kinda. Nice to meet you. Other than crashing into you, I mean.”
“You seem to be in a big hurry,” observed Elizabeth. “Or like you were running away from somebody.”
Beth suddenly remembered the security guard who had been chasing her, or so she had thought. She looked back over her shoulder in a panic. “It’s a long story. Really what I need is to get into the school,” she explained.
“I go to school here, but I don’t recognize you,” said Elizabeth.
“That’s ’cause I’m actually homeschooled,” Beth explained. “I’m just trying to find someone who used to go to Glenside. And I believe that the only way to track her down is to search the school’s records.”
“Track her down, huh?” said Elizabeth. “That sounds pretty serious.”
Beth admitted the reason behind her search. “I think she could be my twin sister, even though I’ve never met her.”
“Kind of a ‘separated at birth’ type of thing?” asked Elizabeth.
“Something like that,” replied Beth. “So what are you doing here on a Saturday?”
“I live nearby,” Elizabeth explained. “I was just taking a walk.”
“Well, I should be going,” said Beth, looking back toward the building. “I still have to figure out a way to get in.” Beth didn’t want to be rude to Elizabeth, but she had to complete her mission.
“Oh, I can help you with that,” said Elizabeth. “There are always a few teachers, administrators, and janitors at school on Saturdays. If you had tried the front door, you would have found it locked. The school staff uses a side door. That one should be open.”
“You’ll really help me?” Beth asked, feeling another surge of hope. “Even though we just met?”
“Hey, if I had a long-lost sister, you bet I’d do anything I could to find her. Come on.”
Elizabeth turned the corner and started walking toward the school.
Beth followed, though she wasn’t sure that this was going to work.
“What about the security guard?” Beth asked. “I think he might have been chasing me.”
“I don’t see him,” said Elizabeth, pointing ahead to the school.
The security guard was nowhere in sight. Maybe he had been following someone else.
Unless, of course, he was hiding, waiting for Beth.
Beth continued walking with Elizabeth toward the school. This may be my best chance, Beth thought, looking around, searching for the guard or some other obstacle that might once again keep her from learning the truth.
“So, let me ask you, Elizabeth,” Beth said as the two girls walked side by side. “You go to Glenside. Did you know a girl who went to school here last year and looks like me? I mean, looks exactly like me? Her name was Lizzie. I don’t know her last name.”
“No. Like I said, I don’t recognize you at all.”
As the girls approached the school, Beth felt her heart beat faster.
Stay calm. Stay calm, she repeated to herself.
“This way,” said Elizabeth. “Around the side.”
Beth followed Elizabeth through the parking lot and around to the far side of the building. Behind a grove of tall trees Beth spotted a small red door.
“That’s it,” said Elizabeth. “Let’s try it.”
“What if someone’s right there?” Beth asked, her heart pounding once again.
“Then this is going to be a very short adventure!” Elizabeth said, chuckling.
Elizabeth grabbed the doorknob and turned it.
Beth heard the telltale click of an unlocked door. Elizabeth opened the door slowly and stepped inside. Beth took a deep breath, then followed.
Walking into a narrow hallway, Beth was struck by the fact that she had never actually been inside a school before, or at least she had no memory of having been in one. She looked around at the greenish-yellow cinder-block walls, peeling paint on all the doorframes, and grease-stained windows.
This is kinda creepy! she thought. I don’t know if I would like coming here every day. I never really appreciated how hard my mom works to teach me, how great a situation I have, and how much I really learn.
As she and Elizabeth walked deeper into the school, Beth found herself suddenly racked with guilt.
If Mom ever found out where I am, what I am doing . . .
“Beth?”
Elizabeth’s voice pulled Beth out of her maze of thoughts.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, sorry,” replied Beth. “This is just all so new to me.”
“So did you want to go to the records room?” asked Elizabeth. “I can tell you where it is.”
“Thanks. That would be great,” replied Beth.
BRIIIIIIIINNNGGGGGG!!!
The bell signaling that all students had to be in their classrooms blared through the empty halls, startling Beth.
“Why is that bell ringing on a Saturday?” Beth wondered.
“I guess it’s programmed to go off at the same time each day, whether or not students are in the building,” Elizabeth explained.
“So where are the records kept?” Beth asked, trying to focus again on the task.
“Take your next right and the next two lefts and you’ll see the records room,” Elizabeth said quickly. “I’ve got to get home. My mom is expecting me. Good luck, Beth. I hope you find your sister!”
Elizabeth turned and hurried back down the hallway, disappearing around a corner and leaving Beth alone in the empty hall.
“A right and two lefts,” Beth repeated to herself.
Thank you, Elizabeth, she thought. Whoever you are.
Beth walked quickly, glancing back to make sure no one saw her.
This looking over my shoulder is getting to be a habit, she thought.
And not one I like.
Beth took the first right, then a left. She felt anxious, as if the greenish-yellow walls were closing in as she hustled along.
One more left, and then—
“Hey! What are you doing here?” shouted someone behind her. “There are no student activities today!”
Beth spun around and saw a balding man in a tie and sports jacket walking briskly toward her.
Beth bolted around the corner and dashed down the hallway. She could hear the man’s footsteps closing in on her.
At the end of the hall Beth spotted several storage cabinets. On the floor next to the cabinets sat opened boxes of ceiling tiles. Above the boxes several ceiling tiles were missing, creating an opening in the ceiling.
Reaching the cabinets, Beth flung open the door and began climbing up the metal shelves, using them as if they were rungs on a ladder. Scrambling onto the top of the cabinet, Beth reached up and grabbed the opening in the ceiling on either side.
Launching herself straight up, she pressed down on her palms, lifting her body up through the opening. She slipped above the ceiling tile and rolled onto her side.
Glancing back down, Beth saw the man who had been chasing her pass by underneath. The sound of his footsteps faded until they trailed away to silence.
Beth caught her breath and looked around at the space into which she had crawled. The thick layer of dust that covered the tops of the tiles now also covered her shirt and jeans. Electrical conduit snaked through the crawl space in every direction, forming a nest of metal strands.
And then something moved.
A small black circle scurried along right next to Beth’s leg. A spider.
The spider stopped, as if to examine this invader of its domain. It raised its front two legs, rubbing them together, pondering its next move.
The spider crawled onto her jeans—
Don’t move, don’t move . . .
—and then crawled back off.
Mustering her courage while fighting the urge to throw up from nerves, Beth lowered her head down through the opening. The hall was empty.
Shifting her position and getting covered with even more dust in the process, Beth swung her feet out of the hole. Grasping the edges of the ceiling opening, she supported her weight and lowered herself down to the top of the cabinet. She climbed down shelf by shelf, until she was back on the floor.
Dusting her clothes off as best as she could, she hurried toward the final leg of her journey. Turning left, she saw a row of offices. Each office had a sign that jutted out from the wall, making it easy to read.
The signs read PRINCIPAL, ASSIST. PRINCIPAL, ADMIN. ASSIST., MAINTENANCE.
And the last sign, at the far end of the hall, read STUDENT RECORDS.
That’s it! Now all I have to do is make it past all these other offices.
Glenside Middle School had been built a long time ago, and that explained the dingy walls and windows, the old-fashioned ceiling tiles, and the overall gloomy atmosphere.
But it also explained why the door to each of these offices was divided in half, like the door to a horse stall in a barn. The bottom half was closed and had a small shelf that formed its top board. The top half of each door was open so that a person could speak with the school administrators inside, and even pass along papers, without actually walking into the office.
Beth dropped to her knees, making sure she stayed below the opening above the bottom door, and crawled as quickly as she could down the hall, hugging the wall, remaining invisible to the people in the offices.
One by one she passed offices containing the most powerful people in the school—the school she didn’t even go to. Just as she reached the door to the administrative assistant’s office, she heard the knob on the bottom section of the door start to turn.
Beth froze mid-crawl.
“I’ll bring these forms over to Ms. Dawkins,” said a voice right above Beth.
The door started to open. She’d be discovered, and worse, her mom would find out what she had done. She held her breath.
“Later, Ralph,” called another voice from inside the office. “She doesn’t need them until next week, and we’ve got to finish compiling these test results.”
“Okay,” said Ralph.
The door closed.
Beth let her breath out slowly, silently, and then crawled the last few yards down the hall. Reaching the last door, she looked up and read the sign again. STUDENT RECORDS. She was there. She had made it.
Standing up slowly, Beth discovered that of all the doors along this hallway, this was the one that was fully closed, both top and bottom. She grasped the doorknob and turned it slowly.
The knob turned, the latch popped, and the door swung inward. Beth Picard slipped into the student records room, closing the door silently behind her.
CHAPTER 8
The first thing that struck Beth about the records room was the fact that the door had been unlocked. It worked out great for her, but why was it that anyone could just walk right in? The room had to contain detailed personal information about every student who had ever gone to Glenside. You’d think they would want to keep that info from falling into unauthorized hands.
Like hers.
The second thing that struck her about the room was how dark and crowded it was. It had the appearance of someone’s closet in one of those TV shows about hoarders. The only light in the room was a thin band of sunlight that sliced through an otherwise filthy window and a strip of fluorescent light that crept in under the door.
Old oak file cabinets lined every wall, with another row of file cabinets running down the center of the narrow room. Beth wondered if there was enough space to fully open any of the drawers.
The room had a musty smell that reminded Beth of the used bookstore her mother enjoyed going to. Piles of green hanging folders and manila files were stacked on top of each cabinet. Cobwebs hung between the sides of the cabinets and the walls. A thick layer of dust seemed to cover everything as if it had been intentionally sprayed on like a coat of paint.
What a mess! Beth thought. How can anyone find anything here? How will I find anything here?
She glanced around, wondering where to begin. As with each step in this mission, she had no plan in place for what she would do when she reached it.
Somehow, through sheer luck it seemed, she had so far made it to the school, discovered a way in, slipped past the people working there, and found the door to the room she needed unlocked.
But now what? Where to start?
“Okay, first I need to find a light,” Beth muttered softly to herself.
Searching for a light switch on the walls would be a waste of time, since she’d first have to search for the walls. Every available inch of wall space was covered by a cabinet or a shelf of some kind.
Miraculously Beth soon spotted a lamp. It was a classic table lamp with a brass base, a metal pull chain, and a green glass shade. She’d seen lamps like this in old movies. She pictured a grizzled old clerk sitting at a beat-up oak desk, counting coins by the dim glow of his green-shaded lamp.
Beth yanked the lamp’s chain and the bulb sprang to life, casting a rectangular pool of light onto the low shelf on which it sat.
I guess I found my desk, she thought.
Beth tilted the lamp so that its light shone on the handwritten labels on the front of each file cabinet drawer. They were organized by months and years, though “organized” might be too strong a word to describe what she was looking at.
She scanned the various dates.
Let’s see, Alice is in eighth grade now, and she said that Lizzie was in her grade. I’ll start with the records three years ago and work my way forward.
Beth aimed the lamp’s light at a lower drawer on a file cabinet. She grabbed a handful of files and opened the first one on the shelf near the lamp. Flipping through a stack of forms, each of which had a student’s photo stapled to it, Beth waded through a sea of unfamiliar faces.
; When she completed one folder, she moved on to the next one. As she finished each drawer, she opened the next and pulled out another stack of files, month by month, year by year.
Coming to the end of the third cabinet, Beth squeezed into the corner of the room to reach the next drawer in the chronological order she was following. Looking up, she realized that this drawer was the top one in a file cabinet resting on a platform. It was too tall for her to reach.
She stood on her tippy-toes and strained her shoulder trying to stretch her hand up to the drawer’s handle, but she just could not reach. And even if she could manage to get the drawer open, how would she get the files out?
Standing in the corner next to this cabinet was a ladder. Is there even room enough in here to open this thing? Beth wondered. There was only one way to find out.
Slowly and quietly Beth slipped the ladder from its resting place. Pulling the two hinged sections apart, she managed to pry it open. The legs on each side rested against the base of a file cabinet.
I just hope I can wriggle myself up and still be able to open that top drawer.
As Beth took her first step onto the ladder, she heard voices coming from the hallway just outside the door. She froze in place, on the bottom step, standing on one foot.
“This is the old student records room, huh?” said a woman with a young-sounding voice.
“Not so old,” replied a man with a gruff voice. “It took this school a while to join the twenty-first century. Believe it or not, we only started keeping student records on computer this year.”
“So what did you do before that?” asked the woman, sounding totally surprised. “Keep records on, like, paper?”
“Yup. Want to see? The door should be unlocked. Harold Wasser has been digitizing all the records in here so that we can eventually empty this room.”
From her one-footed perch on the bottom step of the ladder Beth saw the doorknob turn and the door open slightly inward.
Fear coursed through her veins.
That’s it. I’m finished, Beth thought. My life is over. The school will have me arrested. My mom . . . I don’t even want to think about my mom.
