Part 10 (1/2)

She just flipped her hair out of her eyes and took a sip from her pop can. ”I don't know.”

”What don't you know?”

She gave Elisha a puzzled look. ”What on earth you're talking about.”

”The kid who went over the wall.”

She scowled and shook her head. ”n.o.body went over the wall.”

Elisha looked at Britney, but Britney had already caught a glance from Madonna. ”Well, it isn't true anymore,” Britney added quickly. ”I mean, it happened, but now it didn't. Hey! The Booger game's open!”

”Wanna play?” Madonna asked.

”Sure,” said Elisha. ”What's the object?”

”What's the object!” Madonna and Britney thought that was funny.

”He got in trouble,” said Eric, a wiry little guy who could talk while shooting alien s.p.a.cecraft out of the sky. He'd been at this one game for over an hour nonstop. ”Got in a fight, so Booker and Stern took him up to the mansion, and I guess he got sent home 'cause we never saw him again. Of course, you gotta remember, that's just my truth. That's the way I saw it.”

”You saw all this?” Elijah asked, watching s.p.a.cecraft disintegrate into flaming pixels.

'Just in my own mind. It's not true for everybody. But it's a great story”

”Did you know this guy?”

”Can't say I know anything. Don't know his name, don't know if he even existed-but if he did, I think he was a friend of Alex.”

Elisha was just starting to win at the Booger game when someone nudged up close behind her and asked, ”How's it going?”

It was Alex. Marcy, Britney, and Madonna turned all giggles.

”All right, I guess,” Elisha answered, tapping away at the control b.u.t.tons, all the more motivated to concentrate on the game.

”Don't worry about what happened today, you know, with Booker,” he said. ”We're gonna even things up, just you watch.”

Elisha, investigating, asked, ”And just what did you have in mind?”

”Don't trouble yourself about it. I got other plans for you.” He put his big hands on her shoulders and whispered something in her ear.

The Booger game began to flash. In only seconds, Elisha lost all her Kleenex points and the game ended in a giant, green explosion.

”Aing from the Rec Center. Marcy had not returned, and one look at Marcy's totally devastated half of the room told Elisha not to expect her anytime soon. Whoever Marcy was pretending to be, she was definitely not pretending to be anyone organized or disciplined, and one look at the hallway outside said the same thing about the rest of the girls in this building.

It had Elisha worried, not about the messiness, but what it meant and what it could lead to. If trash and clothing scattered about the rooms and hallways and graffiti on the walls didn't matter, what else wouldn't matter? Mrs. Meeks, the dorm supervisor, didn't seem very concerned. She hardly ever came out of her office to check on things.

Elisha reached under her bed and took her radio from its hiding place in the bedspring. Sitting on the bed with her back against the wall, she held the tiny microphone near the corner of her mouth and began transmitting. ”Mom and Dad. In case you're within range of this radio ...” Just talking to Mom and Dad brought a wave of deep longing. ”Hi. I miss you.” She had to pause a moment and draw some deep breaths. Her voice was still choked when she continued. ”Elijah and I are okay. We're trying to find a telephone or any other way to contact you. We've found the Knight-Moore Academy, and from what we've seen, there's no doubt that Alvin Rogers was here.” She looked out the window and could see a few dim lights coming from the mansion. ”And I think we've found part of the answer to what happened to him.”

While Elisha was in her room filing a report, Elijah was taking advantage of the darkness, scouting the big stone wall that enclosed the mansion. He'd already circled the campus looking for a road and found nothing, so the only way in and out of this place had to be through that big iron gate and by way of the mansion. He thought he'd heard some vehicles coming and going up there. A mansion that size had to have a road leading to it, and that road had to go somewhere.

He continued along the wall until he came to the right lower corner. From there, the wall continued up the hill, shrouded by thick forest and darkness. He found an opening in the underbrush and pushed his way in. The brush was low and thin and moved aside easily, but the footing was a little tricky. He climbed, step by step, tree by tree.

When he had gained some elevation above the campus, he halted in a small gap in the brush and listened. Tonight's evening of ”rocking out” was winding down. The music had stopped. Lights around the campus were blinking out. He was now closer than he'd ever been to the mansion and could see the big, lighted windows through the tangled tree limbs. He shook off a chill. Maybe it was the darkness, or the rumors he'd heard, but that place gave him the creeps.

Then he heard a strange sound below, a yelling, banging commotion.

”Don't these people ever sleep?” he muttered to himself.

Elisha heard the noise, too, only much closer. She jumped out of bed and went to the window It was too dark to see much, although she could see two or three bodies running around out there in white KM tee s.h.i.+rts. She heard a long, loud squeal and footsteps coming down the hall. It sounded like Marcy.

BAM! The door opened and it was Marcy, all right, her face red, panting, shrieking and giggling. ”It's a raid!” She slammed the door shut, then grabbed a chair to prop against it. ”I can't believe it! This is so exciting!”

”Who is it?”

”Alex and all the boys!”

Oh, great! ”Where are they?”

”They're raiding the boys' dorm!”

The crash of a breaking window! Angry screams!

”Where's Mrs. Meeks?”

”I don't know!”

”Well, what about Mr. Stern?”

”I don't know.”

”Leave the lights off.”

Well, Elijah figured, with everybody having such a good time down there, I'll never get another opportunity like this one.

He continued up the hill, keeping the lights of the mansion off his left shoulder, trying to circle it until he found something. So far, he'd found plenty of loose rocks, tangled brush, and low tree limbs, but no break in the forest.

Then he saw something different-very vague in the dark, but different. The amber glow from one of the mansion's yard lights was reaching far back into the forest, suggesting a long, narrow opening, a possible road. He paused a moment to study it.

Then he heard something and quit breathing.

He heard it again. A low, close-to-the-ground snuffing, then a snorting. Some bushes rustled. Some twigs snapped.

Whatever it was, it sounded big.

Elisha and Marcy sat in their darkened room, peering out the window through small, cautious cracks in the curtain. There were voices out there, some whooping and hollering, some angry enough to kill. The voices were mostly male, but she could hear some females, too, some laughing, some screaming and swearing. Vague shadows were running in the dark, coming, going, chasing, brawling. Suddenly, startlingly, two raced by just outside the window, one pursuing the other, feet pounding the sod and breath chugging. The one doing the chasing caught up with his quarry, and with a violent jerk, ripping his clothes, dashed him to the ground.