Sprinting through the hallways, it didn’t take long for the fleet feet and swift sneakers of the girls to take them to their destination. Upon hearing the raucous commotion coming from the open door of the auditorium, they had run toward it at full speed, searching for the source of the hullabaloo.
Now, they stood before a terrible mess in the hallway, gazing down at the overturned cart and spilled food. The sisters stared in silence for a moment, trying to digest what exactly they were looking at.
“What happened here? Who knocked this over?” Maria wondered.
“Do you think it was the Phantom?” Sara asked. “But why would he ruin all this food, if that’s what he demanded in the first place?”
The two of them crouched down, so as to examine the mess further.
“Look!” Sara exclaimed, pointing toward the trails that ran through the sloppy piles of macaroni and cheese and chocolate milk. “Doesn’t that look like it might have been caused by fingers, dragging across the tiles?”
“Hmm… yes, it does,” Maria admitted, her voice heavy with worry. Once again, she wondered, “What exactly happened here? You don’t suppose those are Dad’s fingerprints, do you?”
“I sure hope not,” Sara said. “But if somebody were to bring this cart of food from the cafeteria to the auditorium, as the Phantom instructed… don’t you think Dad would have insisted on doing it himself? He’s vowed to catch him, after all, and he wouldn’t want to miss an opportunity when the Phantom might reveal himself.”
“You’re right. And you know something else? Dad would never want somebody else to take on the risk, if he thought there was any kind of danger involved,” Maria reasoned. “I really wish he had let us stay with him to help. If we had, this might’ve never happened!”
“It’s hard to be sure, with all this mess, but it looks like he might have fallen to the floor - or been knocked to the floor - and then gotten dragged into…” Sara paused as she looked up at the wooden door. “Uh-oh. I didn’t realize… look where this happened.”
“Jasper,” Maria muttered, as she looked at the brass placard with the word JANITOR boldly inscribed upon it. “It’s unlikely that this is nothing more than coincidence.”
“That’s for sure,” Sara agreed.
The two of them stood from their crouches and faced the door. It was now closed tight, and they leaned forward, placing their ears against it. They noted that the wooden surface was quite warm.
From the other side of the door, the sisters could hear a low thrumming noise, which they knew to be the heating system, laboring away. In addition, they heard other strange sounds, which were hard to make out, for they were somewhat muted by the thick construction of the door, and partially drowned out by the noise the heating system was creating.
“Do you hear that?” Maria asked.
Sara nodded. “I do… but what is it?”
It was hard to be sure what exactly they were hearing, but it sounded like weird rattles and thwocks and thwumps.
“Dad might be in there-” Sara began.
“And we need to get in!” Maria cried, completing the thought.
They stepped back from the door, plotting for ways they might gain entry. Undoubtedly, Jasper kept his personal room locked with some sort of diabolical security system that was designed to thwart even the most robust of efforts.
“Maybe we can get our hands on some kind of big metal bar, and we can use it to pry against the handle until it snaps right off,” Sara said.
“Or maybe we can find some power tools somewhere, and cut our way through the wood,” Maria suggested.
“But whatever we do, we need to do it quick,” Sara said. “If Dad’s in there, we can’t waste a bunch of time trying to open this stupid door! Who knows what’s going on in there?”
As the desperation of the situation penetrated their hearts and brains, the sisters felt a rare panic setting in. They were accustomed to dealing with all manner of dire scenarios, and pressure rarely unsettled their level heads and steady nerves. Their character was unquestionable, forged by fiery trials that had made them stalwart in the face of any challenge, regardless of its nature.
But this time it wasn’t their own skins that were on the line - it was their father who was in jeopardy. Ironically, if the danger had been applied toward Sara and Maria themselves, they wouldn’t have felt nearly as much stress. Knowing that their dad might, at this very moment, be in need of help they were unable to offer, was a terrible feeling.
The powerlessness they felt was agonizing. For the first time, they thought they truly understood what their father must have felt like, as he had watched the burning museum crumbling around his daughters and been unable to do anything about it.
The anxiety was clouding the sisters’ minds, and not making the problem solving process any easier for them. They desperately searched among the debris from the wrecked cart, hoping for something they could use to bust the door open.
But their efforts proved unnecessary. They heard a distinct clink, causing them to look back toward the door. The handle had come unlatched, and with a faint creaking of hinges, the door slowly swiveled open. A gap of perhaps three inches formed, and then the door’s momentum ceased.
A waft of warm air drifted from the room beyond the door, and a red glow could be seen through the sliver of an opening.
The sisters were startled by the development, and though they wondered what might have caused the door to have suddenly popped open, the cause was irrelevant. No matter why it had happened, one thing was for sure: they were going through that door to find their father.
Chapter Thirteen
Abnormal Behavior
The Green Beans, Volume 5: The Phantom of the Auditorium Page 12
