The Apothecary Page 0,45

in on you guys!”

“We don’t know how long it will last,” Benjamin’s voice said. “We have to go.” A low cupboard below the sink opened, and his clothes seemed to throw themselves into it. “We should dump the bath.”

“I wish we could keep it for later,” Pip said wistfully.

“We can’t leave a trail,” Benjamin said.

I put my clothes in the cupboard, wanting to take them with me, although they would have looked like a bundle of clothes floating bizarrely down the street. The heavy rubbish bin seemed to levitate as Pip and Benjamin lifted it together and poured it out in the laboratory’s sink.

Then we heard a thump from across the room: the thwarted noise of wood jamming as someone shoved the classroom door against the propped chair.

“Who’s in there?” Mr Gilliam’s voice called.

Benjamin and Pip threw the paper back into the wet rubbish bin. I put away the Bunsen burner and the crucible and the beakers we’d used. Then I saw the Pharmacopoeia on the lab table.

“The book!” I said. We couldn’t carry it out without it being seen.

The teacher rattled the doorknob again. “Open this door!”

The book seemed to float in Benjamin’s hands to a high shelf with some other heavy chemistry books. I saw the logic: It looked like it belonged there, and blended in.

Mr Gilliam was pounding on the door by now. We moved cautiously towards it.

“I’ll move the chair,” I whispered. “You go out after he comes in.”

We got in position and I reached for the chair. It was like reaching for something in the dark, knowing approximately where it is. But it was the opposite: I knew exactly where the chair was. It was my own hands I couldn’t see. The pinky finger, at least, was reassuring. When I had a good grip, I pulled the chair free.

Mr Gilliam, who was so perfectly round that his belt looked like it bisected a beach ball, burst into the room and stood looking around. I saw Pip’s ear, then Benjamin’s shoulder, glide out of the room. I stayed very still.

“I know you’re in here!” Mr Gilliam said.

I dodged him as he came near. He stormed past me, looking for the rascally students who were surely crouching behind the lab tables, and I slipped out.

The school was empty—even the chess club was gone— and we ran down the hall in bare feet. It was disorienting, running without being able to see my legs. It almost made me forget about being naked, but not quite. The secretary with the sheep’s curls came out of her office, and we slowed down so we’d make no noise. I slid my visible pinky along the wall, but she didn’t seem to notice anything. I could see that Pip had kept his paper clip for picking locks. But no one expects to see a finger or a paper clip floating down the hall, so no one does.

We pushed open the front doors of the school and stepped out into the February day, and it was freezing, being damp and naked. I hugged my arms. I’d anticipated the embarrassment of nakedness, but I’d completely forgotten about the cold. Pip let loose a shocking string of words, most of which I’d never heard before. “Is there some trick that makes you warm?” he asked.

“I only know one,” Benjamin said.

“Well?”

“Running to Bethnal Green,” Benjamin said.

The patch of pink shoulder set off down the steps at a fast clip, and Pip and I followed. I tried to think about how we were rescuing Benjamin’s father from evil forces, and that was what mattered—not that the cold concrete stung my feet, and not that we were running naked and freezing into the wind.

CHAPTER 20

The Bunker

We ran, invisible, through the streets of London, dodging people in warm hats, scarves, and woollen greatcoats, who couldn’t see us and would have walked right into us. Benjamin was right about the running warming us up: By the time we got to the bunker, I was out of breath, but I wasn’t cold anymore.

Pip’s ear went straight to the lock on the bunker’s door, and his paper clip looked like a tiny worm wiggling in the air as he worked. Benjamin and I kept an eye out for passersby. “Oh, come on, now,” Pip said to the lock. “Right—there it is.” The door swung open, and his ear went inside.

I bumped into Benjamin’s bare shoulder as we tried to go through at the same time.

“Sorry!” we both said.

“Shh!” Pip said.

Inside the door