three-thirty.
I hear footsteps. Coming toward us?
Yes.
Iâm about to yell for help, but then I remember. Sister Appolonia would probably have us expelled.
Next to me, Zack whispers, âWait.â
From the other side of the door a voice whispers, too. âI canât let you be mummified in there.â
Mummified? Horrible. No one would even recognize us. Weâd end up in a museum behind a glass window, the sign reading TWO BOYS FROM ANTIQUITY ; ONE WAS CALLED FRED. THEIR FAITHFUL COMPANION LIES BENEATH THEMâA LION, PERHAPS .
The quavering voice goes on. âIâm going to unlock the door. Donât try to escape until you count to a thousand by twos. Slowly.â
That would take all night.
âIâll be listening,â Sister Ramona says. âIâm tougher than I sound, and I have a pair of drumsticks in my fists. Iâll bop you over the head if you come out sooner.â
Fred growls.
âAre you speaking English?â Sister asks.
Zack snickers.
I whisper to myself as fast as I can, trying not to breathe, in case I run out of air. Two, four, six, eight, ten. Concentrate, I tell myself.
On and on.
The footsteps fade, then come back. âI forgot to unlock the door,â Sister says apologetically.
One hundred eighty-two. Eighty-four.
It must be the middle of the night.
I reach five hundred.
âEnough.â Zack crawls over me and pulls at the door. It grinds open, inch by inch, over dirt and stones, and digs into my side.
I cover my head, just in case. No one wants to be bopped on the head with a pair of drumsticks.
Fred darts out ahead of us, growling fiercely, and Zack sticks his head around the door. âItâs all clear, Hunter. Come on.â
We crawl out, blinking. Where are we?
Which way to escape? Too bad Sister Ramona didnât leave the light on.
We feel our way around until we back up against a door, and give it a push. Weâre in a cellar hallway. Itâs lighter here, but not a whole lot. The place might have been a prison in the olden days. Or worse, another graveyard with skeleton bones crunching underneath my feet.
âHereâs something odd,â Zack says, pointing down to the cement floor. âSomeoneâs footprints.â
A kidâs sneaker prints: about our size, maybe a half-inch bigger.
Someoneâs been in the coal chute ahead of us, and it wasnât Bradley with his fat duck feet.
So whose?
Before I can think about it, Fred darts around us, paws full speed ahead, on his way home, if he can find his way out.
âGo for it, Fred,â Zack says as the two of us sink down to catch our breath.
Weâre surrounded by junk: old desks on their sides, one of them missing a leg, a few torn lampshades, cartons filled with dusty books that look as if they must be a hundred years old, the back of a bed with Sister Appoloniaâs name written in her own handwriting.
A bed?
Sister Appolonia actually sleeps?
You never know.
Thereâs still another door. We open it . . .
. . . and fall over something, me almost breaking my toe. It cries:
Wah, wah, wah
.
A baby? Here in the dark? A prisoner.
What could be worse?
I reach out and run my hands around what seems to be a couple of plates.
No, cymbals!
Zack crashes into something, too. It bangs and echoes. âItâs a drum,â he says.
Weâre in the Music Room.
âWhen we get out of here,â I tell Zack, âIâm heading straight for bed, Iâm that worn out. It must be almost midnight.â
Above us is a dusty window, so small it lets in almost no light. But Zack points. âItâs still daytime.â
Amazing.
And now I hear singing:
âHappy birthday, dear Fred, wherever you are.â
And is that Steadman wailing?
Weâre almost home.
But I hear footsteps. Theyâre not the quick patter of Sister Ramonaâs, but a heavy
thump-thump
.
Yeow.
Sister Appolonia is on the