Chapter Eighteen: In Which I Create the Perfect Distraction, or, The Motorcar in the Driveway
The common room was full after supper, which wasn’t much of a surprise. This was where the largest and most stuck-up group of students would typically spend their evenings, lounging on the sofas, chatting with each other, and bragging about how rich their families were. Because of this, I typically tried to avoid the common room, despite it being ripe with opportunities for snooping.
On this particular night, however, I had made a beeline for the room after supper. As well as being the only day that students were allowed to go to town, Sunday was also the only day visitors were allowed. Visitors were extremely rare, but I had a feeling that there’d be at least three tonight. I wasn’t going to miss this opportunity.
From the shadows of the hallway, I surveyed the room, unwilling to go inside unless necessary. Nineteen students were sprawled across the room, some slouched on sofas, some lying on the floor, and a few casually leaning against the walls. They all looked rather bored, which made me fidgety. I knew that if I stepped into the room, all eyes would suddenly be turned on me. And I’d either be immediately kicked out, or the older boys would decide to alleviate their boredom by picking on me, or, worse yet, siccing Tiffy Helens on me.
Tiffany Helens, better known as Tiffy, happened to be my least favorite person at Norlocke. She considered herself to be the top girl at the academy, and most people went along with her delusion, encouraging her at every opportunity. Her group of friends consisted of three girls who claimed she could do no wrong and did anything and everything to please her, five young men who were quite frightful bullies and tormented anyone who might glance at Tiffy wrong, and ten other students who believed their minion status to be something worth crowing over. She was the most vain, selfish, lazy, and unpleasant girl I’d ever met, and, despite my consistent digging in the hopes of finding a few redeeming qualities about her, I’d only been able to discover that half the boys at Norlocke believed themselves to be in love with her, she was secretly petrified of mice, and she had a severe hatred of anyone with a low sense of fashion. Namely, me. Thankfully, she was too lazy to do much of anything other than throw a few pointed remarks in my direction whenever we happened to cross paths. But this was more than my general invisibility to the rest of the students, and I didn’t appreciate it.
At the moment, Tiffy languidly reclined on a couch in the middle of the room, surrounded by her three girl friends and a vast assortment of pillows. She was saying something, in an airy, bored voice, about the hopelessness of having any fun at Norlocke with so many teachers lurking around, but I wasn’t really listening.
Instead, I was scanning the room for a shadowy corner somewhere, in the hopes that I might be able to slip in undetected. Unfortunately, the common room was quite brightly lit, and the only shadows dark enough to hide in happened to be under the very couch Tiffy sat upon. Obviously, I wouldn’t be able to slip under there without anyone in the room noticing.
Maybe I’d just go hide somewhere near the front entrance.
Suddenly, one of the boys standing by a window straightened slightly, alerted by something out in the yard. “What was …”
Before he could finish his question, an earsplitting crack rolled across the sky, infiltrating Norlocke and shaking its walls with the violence of its noise. The lights flickered for half a second, before returning to normal.
For several seconds after, Norlocke was dead silent, seemingly holding its breath. Then, someone in the common room screamed, “Thunder!” and there was a mad rush towards the windows, skirts and pillows flying as everyone tried to peer outside.
Thunder! I hadn’t heard any thunder, or seen any lightning, since coming to Norlocke over a year ago. Ditching the shadowy doorway, I streaked across the common room to a less crowded window and peered outside with everyone else, heart beating with excitement.
Only pitch darkness outside and our own pale reflections in the glass greeted us.
“Bother. There’s only going to be one,” a student whined. “I wanted a whole slew of them, and the power to go out.”
A jet of white electricity exploded out of the darkness in front of us, fracturing across the sky, and, for half a second, lighting up the flat, drab landscape outside before fading away and plunging us back into darkness just as quickly. Another boom rocked our ears, but, this time, despite my own excitement, I barely registered it.
For, in that sudden flash of light, I’d seen Norlocke’s driveway crystal clear, cracked and parched from the intense heat, lined with skeletal trees now lashed by the fierce winds that had followed me back from town. But, more importantly, I had seen something unfamiliar tucked away near the front entrance, almost as if meant to be hidden from any prying eyes. A motorcar.
My heart jumped into my throat, and my palms were suddenly slick with sweat. It had to be the grey men. They were here to see Glass.
“Excuse me,” a female voice said behind us all.
I, and several other students, peeled away from the window and whirled around. Mrs. Remington, Norlocke’s English teacher, stood in the doorway, looking amused and somewhat apologetic. I couldn’t help it. My heart dropped into my stomach, and I felt slightly sick with apprehension and excitement both. Mrs. Remington was in charge of any visits, and the common room was where these visits took place. The grey men must really be here.
“I can see that you’re all having quite an interesting time,” Mrs. Remington said, “but one of our students has a few visitors. I’m going to need you all to leave.”
A chorus of grumblings arose from the students, but they began obediently shuffling towards the door, jabbing each other in the ribs, giggling, and whispering about the lightning.
Except for me. I had to stay. I had to hear whatever conversation took place between Glass and the grey men. Not only because I was dreadfully curious, but also because I hadn’t told the Headmaster anything. The only person who had any idea that those men might be dangerous was me.
I did the first thing that popped into my head. Flinging myself at the back of the couch, I suddenly yelled, “Mouse! There’s a mouse!”
Tiffy’s bloodcurdling scream tore through the air. She threw herself off the floor and onto what happened to be the back of one of her young men, and dissolved into tears and hysterics. The room broke out into chaos, and Mrs. Remington had to dive out of the doorway as a stampede of students charged towards the exit. Boys and girls were yelling and screaming, a few pillows were thrown at a supposed mouse, and all eyes that were not otherwise occupied in guiding the way out of the room as quickly as possible were locked on poor Tiffy, still clinging to the back of the young man, who was so surprised he had yet to move.
During all of this, I dropped unnoticed to
the floor and rolled under the couch. Now completely out of sight and hidden in
the shadows, I watched as the last feet danced out of the room, and listened to
the clatter of shoes echoing down the hallway, accompanied by Tiffy’s screams.
Sorry, I thought.
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