“What the heck is this place?” Pilar said.
“I have no idea,” I said. “It looks like a movie set. Do you think maybe the school uses this space to film TV shows or something?”
“But that doesn’t make any sense,” Alex said. “If that were the case, why would it be such a big secret? Why would everybody keep so quiet about it?”
None of us had an answer for that. We found all kinds of similar sets. There was a complete interior of a Starbucks, a 7-Eleven store, and a Gap. It was so real I almost wanted to try on some of the jeans.
Then, over in the far corner of the wing, we spotted what we were looking for: an exact duplicate of the room we’d seen at the gallery on our field trip. There were replicas of the ornate paintings on the wall and all of the display cases with the exhibits, just like I remembered it. In the middle of the room was an exact copy of the pedestal display that had held the Book of Seraphim.
“What in the world?” Pilar said.
“This must be why Mr. Kim brought the agents up here. Maybe they wanted to figure out how the book was stolen or something?” I said. My brain was starting to hurt.
“It must be something like that,” Alex said. “Mr. Quinn does consulting with the FBI, right? Maybe Mr. Kim consults with them too. Maybe this is some kind of special lab where they try to figure stuff out.”
It sounded too weird. There had to be more to it. But that was about the only theory that any of us could come up with. We spent another forty-five minutes combing the entire floor, and pretty soon we were back at the entrance.
“So what do we do now?” Alex said.
“I don’t think there is anything we can do, except wait for Mr. Kim to show up,” Brent said.
“I hate waiting,” I said.
None of us had noticed that Pilar was standing off to the side. She had been pretty quiet since we got up here. Now she was staring hard at the floor.
“We can’t wait,” she said suddenly. “We need to find Mr. Kim.”
“What do you mean? Why?” I asked.
“He’s walking into a trap. He’s out looking for something and he hasn’t found it yet, but when he does, it’ll be a trap. There is something dark out there that wants him, and it’s pulling him in. He knows about the darkness, but he’s going anyway, to try to stop it. But it’s a trap.” Pilar bent over and put her hands on her hips like she was having trouble breathing. Alex went to her and touched her shoulder.
“What the heck are you talking about?” Alex said. “What kind of crazy talk is that?”
“I’m not crazy, Alex,” she said. “Sometimes I have a sense about things. I’ve always been that way, ever since I was little. I can’t explain it. Things come to me—ideas, memories, dreams, whatever you want to call them. And this image of Mr. Kim in trouble just came to me.”
When she said “dreams,” my head snapped up. I remembered my dream the first night in the woods. And then I remembered the word “MITHRAS” on the piece of paper on Mr. Kim’s desk. Then that little pulling thread of memory clicked into place. I knew where I had heard that word before. For weeks Pilar had been saying “Mithras” over and over in her sleep! I had thought it was gibberish, but now I realized what she had been saying.
“Pilar, come on. Are you saying you’re psychic or something? That’s just out there,” Alex said.
“What is it with you?” I snapped. “Not comfortable with anything that you can’t pick up and break in half? I would believe Pilar is psychic. For your information, I’ve heard her say ‘Mithras’ in her sleep several times!”
“You have?” Pilar gave me a shocked expression.
“Now you’re both crazy,” Alex said. He looked at Brent like he needed moral support, but Brent just shrugged.
“I’m not crazy!” Pilar yelled. “Don’t ever say that!”
“You are such a jerk, Alex,” I said.
“You’re the one running around sticking your nose in places it doesn’t belong and stirring up trouble. And I’m the jerk?”
“At least your hearing is good,” I said. “Ignore him, Pilar. Do you get these feelings all the time?”
“No. Not all the time. It happens especially with some people. Like you, for example. When you got here, you seemed familiar, and sometimes I feel like I know what you’re thinking. Not specific stuff, like you’re going to wear a red shirt today, just general things. Like I knew you were going to try to leave school that first night.” She shrugged.
“You said dreams too. What kind of dreams?” I asked.
“Different kinds. Often I’ll see people in a strange place doing something that I don’t understand. Last night, I had this really weird dream about Mr. Kim. Only, he was a matador and he was in this large stadium that was very dark and scary, and then a bull charged out of the dark—” I didn’t let her finish.
“A bull?”
“Yes, that’s what I remember. Why?”
“The symbol of the god Mithras is a bull. A bull that can take human form. And then you have this vision of Mr. Kim as a bullfighter? That’s like way too much of a coincidence.”
Pilar rubbed her forehead like it hurt. She got a very worried expression on her face.
“That’s not the only weird thing,” I continued. “I had a dream my first night here, when I fell asleep in the woods. I’m not usually a dreamer. I never remember my dreams, but this time I did. I was being chased by this guy, only sometimes when I looked back it wasn’t a guy anymore. He’d turned into a bull.”
Pilar looked stricken. “Were you running down a corridor?”
“How did you know?” I felt all the blood in my body drain straight to my toes.
“Because ever since you got here, I’ve had that exact same dream every night,” she said. “I’ve dreamed about you being chased down a hallway by some weird bull creature.”
Alex decided he’d had enough.
“Oh, come on,” he snapped. “I don’t believe in any of this psychic stuff. There’s got to be a logical explanation. It’s probably just a coincidence, and an irrelevant one at that. We should forget all of this.”
“We can’t forget about it, you big creep,” I said. “Whether you want to believe it or not, it’s all true. Neither Pilar nor I are making this up. How would either of us know about Mithras and the bull? I didn’t know anything about it until I looked it up on the Internet. Mithras is an ancient god in bull form, Pilar has been saying his name in her sleep, and it’s all connected to Mr. Kim somehow. So why don’t you cram your attitude and try to be a little more sensitive to your friends’ feelings,” I said, pointing at Pilar. Alex looked as if he’d really have liked to shove me out a window if one were handy.
Nobody said anything for a minute. I was thinking about Pilar. I had had a sense that there was something unique about her—the way she sometimes said things like she knew what I was thinking. I don’t know if I believed in that psychic stuff or not, but who knows? It would explain a lot about her and the way she acted toward me. I actually started to feel a little sorry for her.
Finally it was Brent, the quiet one, who broke the silence.
“We’re not going to solve anything fighting with each other. We need to get out of here and think about what we’re going to do,” he said. He was quiet, but he was often sensible and right.
“Well, I don’t care what Rachel says,” Alex said. “We are way out of our league here, and it’s all her fault. We should go back to our rooms and forget about this whole thing.”
“Alex, come on…take it easy,” Brent started to say.
I was so angry I wanted to scream. I turned around, slammed through the door, and stormed down the stairs. At the bottom I stopped to make sure there was no one outside. I didn’t want my anger at Alex to make me do something stupid. I cracked open the door. No one was there. I headed down the hallway, turned the corner, and ran right into Mr. Quinn. Of all the stupid luck.
He gave me a puzzled look.
“Rachel? What are you
doing here?” he said.
“Oh…Mr. Quinn, hi! How are you?” I said.
“I’m fine,” he said. “What were you doing in that hallway?”
“The hallway? Oh. The hallway. Yes. Well. I was looking for something,” I said.
“What were you looking for?” he asked.
Mr. Quinn was still out of sight of the Top Floor door. Which was a good thing, because at that moment the door opened and Pilar, Alex, and Brent stepped out. I ran my hand through my hair and raised my voice.
“What was I looking for, Mr. Quinn? Oh…an earring. I think I lost an earring after gym this morning, and I wondered if it might have rolled down the hall here.” Pilar, Alex, and Brent all froze, with stricken looks on their faces. I tried to motion them back in the door, but it had shut and locked, and Mr. Quinn might hear it if Brent used his little gadget again. They were trapped in the hallway. And I’d bet Mr. Quinn was headed to Top Floor.
“Did you find it?” he asked.
“What? Oh, no, I didn’t. I was going to start searching the hallway back toward the do jang. Listen, I hate to ask, but would you mind helping me look? My grandmother bought me these earrings, and I really would like to find it.”
“Uh…I’m kind of busy, but…but, okay, sure, I’ll help you look,” he said. I led him down the hallway, away from where Brent, Alex, and Pilar waited.
“What does the earring look like?” he asked. I was so nervous I could hardly breathe.
“What ear…oh…it’s a black onyx, round and set in silver.” Mr. Quinn was studying his side of the hallway very intently. We were a few feet down the hall now, and I quickly glanced back at the Top Floor hallway. The three of them peered around the corner. Brent made a motion with the zip gun and pointed down, indicating they were heading back to the cave. They quietly crept down the hall in the opposite direction, and in a few seconds they had turned another corner and disappeared. Whew. That was too close.
“I’m afraid I don’t see it, Rachel,” Mr. Quinn said.
“See what?” I asked.
“Your earring,” he said. Darn it! I was so nervous I couldn’t keep anything straight. I wasn’t cut out for this. I’m a teenager and thus prone to being spacey at the absolute worst time.
“Oh. Yes. Well, you know what? I think now maybe I still had it when I got to my room. I’m going to go back there and look. Thanks for your help.” I started down the hall.
“Rachel, wait,” Mr. Quinn said.
I stopped. Uh-oh.
He walked up to me.
“Why don’t you tell me what you’re up to?” he said.
“What? What do you mean? I’m not up to anything,” I said. If he only knew. Think, Rachel. Of all the tales you’ve ever told, this had better be a doozy.
“Of course you are. You’re sweating. You’re nervous. And in case you didn’t notice, you happen to be wearing both onyx earrings right now.” My hand flew to my ear. Sure enough, I was wearing both earrings. How stupid could I be?
“Okay, I guess you caught me.” I started laughing, that stupid nervous laugh that I get when I’m scared or in trouble. Mr. Quinn didn’t say anything. “If you must know, I was trying to get into the Top Floor wing. I’ve been asking everyone since I got here what it is and what goes on there, but nobody knows, and the people who do know won’t tell me, which isn’t fair because you shouldn’t keep secrets, at least not from me. So I figured I would have a look for myself, but it’s locked and I couldn’t get in. Nothing else in this school is locked except the Top Floor wing. It’s driving me nuts and so I was trying to get in and then you came along and caught me.” I tend to ramble when I’m nervous. I’d also read somewhere that the best lies are the ones that are closest to the truth. So I hoped whoever said that was right. My mouth had gone completely dry.
Mr. Quinn smiled.
“I see. Well, I can appreciate and understand your curiosity. But I’m afraid Top Floor is for seniors only. I’m sure when it’s appropriate, Mr. Kim will tell you everything you want to know. But in the meantime, I’d forget about trying to get in there, okay?”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
“All right, then. Back to your room. Good night.” Mr. Quinn turned around and headed back down to the TF wing. I heard the door open and shut. So Mr. Quinn had a key. That might be useful future information.
Several minutes later I burst through the door into the cave. Brent and Pilar and Alex were pacing back and forth, waiting. They all let out yells when they saw me.
“What happened?” Pilar asked. I told them.
“Whew. You really saved our skins,” Alex said.
“I did, didn’t I?” I said.
“Don’t let it go to your head. It was your idea to go up there in the first place,” he said.
Same old Alex. But we needed to get back on track.
“Look, I believe Pilar. Something strange is happening here, and if she says Mr. Kim is in danger, then that is good enough for me. We need some answers,” I said.
“Yeah, but where are we going to get them?” Brent asked.
“I’m thinking—Agent Nathan Tyler of the FBI, Blackthorn Academy class of 1990.” I pulled his business card out of my pocket and held it up.
“Would he talk to us?” Pilar asked.
“Maybe if we speak to him in person. I’m thinking it’s probably not a good idea to call him from here. We don’t know if these calls are recorded or what, and then they’ll know for sure we’ve been down here.”
“But how are we going to talk to him in person? We’re stuck here at the Academy,” Brent said.
“Well, it’s Friday night. There has just been a major theft of a priceless artifact, and the FBI is investigating it. I’ve got a feeling that Agent Tyler will be working late. So I say we pay him a visit right now.”
“But how would we get there?” Brent asked.
“I think I’ve got that covered,” I said. And one by one they turned to follow my gaze across the giant room to the row of vehicles.
“You’re crazy,” Alex said. “There is no way we can drive out of here and all the way to Washington.”
“Rachel, Alex may be right,” Brent said. “Maybe it’s not a good idea.”
“Look,” I said, “you guys are both sixteen. You can drive. It’s less than an hour and a half to D.C. from here. We’ll get to FBI headquarters and we’ll talk to this Agent Tyler. It’s not that hard—we just have to do it. Don’t worry, I have experience in joy riding.”
Pilar spoke up. “But even if we can get there, how are we going to find him? We can’t just storm into FBI headquarters and demand to see Agent Tyler. And what if we get stopped along the way?” Ever-sensible Pilar was being somewhat of a wet blanket about this whole thing.
“Okay, I don’t have everything thought out yet. But you said yourself that Mr. Kim is on his way to trouble. So unless one of you has a better plan, I think we need to do this. Are you in or out?”
I could tell the boys, especially Alex, were close to dropping out. No way did they want to go down in flames with me. But when I started talking to Pilar like we could do it on our own, their innate macho-ness won out and they were in.
Pilar and I hustled back to our room to get my laptop. I also grabbed an extra battery for it and the cash I had brought with me that I still hadn’t spent yet.
When we got back to the cave, Brent and Alex were taking a couple of funky-looking martial arts weapons off the board and loading them into the Henderson’s Dry Cleaning van. While the sharp pointed sticks and wooden clubs made me a little nervous, the choice of the van was a good one. Anyone who saw us would assume a teenage driver was just a delivery boy.
“Did you find the keys?” I asked.
“In the ignition,” Brent said.
“Doesn’t surprise me. The big secret movie set they keep off-limits, but nothing else is ever locked around here, not even the door to the secret hideout.”
They finished loading the stuff and we all climbed int
o the van. Alex started it up as I found the garage door opener. The door led to a tunnel that wound through the side of the mountain. After about a three-minute drive, we were still in the dark with only our headlights showing us the way. Suddenly we came to a dead end. It looked as if the tunnel had collapsed or something. Alex rolled to a stop. The only way to get out would be to back up the way we had come.
“Now what?” Alex said.
We sat there for a minute, not knowing what to do. We all stared at the wall, and Brent and Alex even got out to poke it, but it was real dirt and very solid.
Suddenly, inspiration. “Try the garage door opener,” I said.
Alex pushed the button and, shazaam, the wall started to rise. It was fake. Alex pulled through, and when the van was clear, the wall came down again. The “door” had been camouflaged to look like part of the hillside. It had dirt and grass and rocks, and even a little tree stuck to it. Cool.
We were now on a little gravel path that led to a main road up ahead. The only problem was, I had no idea where we were in relation to the school or Washington, D.C.
Luckily it turned out Alex had an amazing sense of direction. He knew somehow that we had come out on the north side of the school property and we needed to head south for D.C. In a couple of turns he had us back on the road that led past the school, and we all waved as we drove by. Soon we were on the freeway and headed to Washington, D.C.
I fished a five-dollar bill out of my pocket and handed it to Brent.
“At the first place you see, stop and get a D.C. map.” Then I sat back in the seat, booted up my laptop, and pulled out Agent Tyler’s business card. Time to start working on the rest of the plan.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The Rest of the Plan
Live and Let Shop Page 12
