Truly Devious (Truly Devious #1) - Maureen Johnson Page 0,58
upset now. This kind of disorder agitated her. And she definitely had put her pass into her bag.
“Maybe it was a prank?”
“To steal my pass?”
Stevie almost said, “Or put a letter on my wall.” But since the jury was out on whether or not that was real, she refrained. It was another weird occurrence in a short amount of time. A letter and a key. It had the feeling of a strange game, and one that filled Stevie with a low, simmering worry.
Games are not fun when you don’t know you’re playing.
14
IT WAS A PERFECT NIGHT TO GO UNDERGROUND.
Autumn was different up here, Stevie noted, as she and Nate made their way down the path to the art barn at eight o’clock that night. It was more—wild. This was probably to be expected, but still, the experience caught her by surprise. There was more scurrying in the bushes, more drama in the dark treetops, more wind. The air was thick with the fecund smell of early dropping leaves and the fragrant decay of layers of undergrowth. Everything was alive or vocal in its demise. This smell, this feeling—this is why Albert Ellingham had insisted on the spot.
“My kingdom for a Starbucks or something,” Nate said. “Are you feeling like we’ve been here forever too? When do we start eating each other or fighting for the conch?”
Stevie and Nate were both wearing dark clothes for this night mission. Nate was wearing baggy dark jeans and a slouchy black sweater that hung down to his fingers, making his long arms even longer. He looked about as excited as he normally did, but Stevie was used to this now. Nate was a rain cloud, but he was her friendly rain cloud, and the world needs some rain. Stevie was fully prepared for the venture with some black cargo pants and her black hoodie. Her wardrobe had not let her down. Both had the school-issued tactical flashlights in their bags.
“So this tunnel,” Nate said as they rounded the path by the whispering statue heads. “What was it?”
“A supply tunnel for alcohol during Prohibition,” Stevie said. “They used to have trucks come down from Canada. They kept the booze under the observatory in case of a raid, not that anyone would have raided Albert Ellingham.”
“I mean the tunnel,” Nate said. “Something about it being open again?”
“Because it was filled up for a while,” Stevie said vaguely. She didn’t want to say, “Since 1938, just unearthed, who even knows what’s down there now.”
“And we’re allowed?”
“No one said not to,” Stevie replied.
“But also we’re not supposed to tell anyone.”
“Act first, apologize later.”
She felt Nate staring at her, but she turned the other way to look at one of the grimacing statue heads.
“I don’t know if this is really going to count for three chapters,” Nate said, digging his hands into his pockets. “We’ve only been doing this for a week.”
“What did Dr. Quinn say?”
“That she would consider it when she saw it. But she looks like she considers broken bottles to be part of your complete breakfast.”
“I think you worry too much,” Stevie said.
“Of course I worry too much,” Nate said. “But I’m usually right. The people who worry are always right. That’s how that works.”
Stevie decided not to contradict him on that one.
Hayes, Maris, and Dash were already waiting by the far wing of the art barn, where the construction equipment and the Dumpsters were, out by the maintenance road. They were also dressed in black—Hayes in something formfitting, Dash in something artistically loose and flowing, and Maris in dark leggings and an oversized fuzzy sweater, with a tight black hat on her head. She even wore a musky, smoky perfume to match the occasion.
“Okay,” Hayes said, switching on his flashlight. “Let’s go.”
They entered the woods—the ring of true wilderness that enveloped Ellingham Academy, the place where the trees were not orderly and no statues bloomed. At least, they entered the bit of it by the maintenance road. Stevie had a good sense of where the tunnel ran and where the opening should be, but the opening was going to be flush with the ground. Hayes seemed to have a very clear sense of where he was going.
“How did you find this?” Maris asked.
“The tunneling is the best part,” Hayes said with a smile. “This one opened in the spring. They didn’t want anyone to know.”
“But you knew?”
“I saw,” he said, grinning and shining his flashlight under his chin.