Diana Peterfreund - Rites of Spring (Break)

Also, I wanted to defend Poe like I wanted to make this hole my new summer home.

Slowly, we pushed the piano away from the wall and squeezed out, stretching our cramped limbs and breathing deeply at last. After our long confinement, even the dim glow filtering in around the edges of the window seemed enough to define every detail of the room. We’d spread out, relieved to finally be able to have some space to ourselves. Lil’ Demon was doing lunges, Thorndike had gone back to examining the dragon, and Poe leaned against the wall, his hands pillowed behind his head. Angel once again checked the status of the hallway. “I think they’re still here,” she whispered. “I can hear a television on downstairs.”

Crap. So we were still stuck, and still without a prize for all our trouble. I stared back at the hole behind the piano, and suddenly got a great idea. “Let’s steal the dragon.”

“What?” said Puck. “No. Trying to go forward anyway is what got us into this mess.”

“No, you jumping before the signal is what got us into this mess,” Poe offered from against the wall.

“Forget it, Bugaboo,” said Thorndike. “There’s no way we can get it out of here.”

“So we don’t get it out, ” I replied, feeling a grin tugging at the corners of my mask. “Hidden is as good as gone for our purposes. We pull a Thomas Crown Affair .”

“The original or the remake?” asked Lil’ Demon.

I furrowed my brow. “There’s an original?”

Poe chuckled softly. “Children.”

Hollywood history aside, my plan was quickly ratified and, with no little difficulty and a good deal more noise than we hoped, we got the giant golden dragon hidden inside the crawl space we’d so recently vacated.

“Doesn’t have the same sense of victory as if we actually took the item we’re supposedly stealing,” Angel whispered, when at last we had the piano pushed back in place and the entire area dusted to ensure that our tampering wouldn’t be detected.

“It works, though,” said Thorndike. “When they notice it’s missing, they’ll know it was us. We can still bargain with them to get our little statue back.”

“Don’t celebrate yet,” said Lil’ Demon. “We still need to escape, or did anyone fancy spending the rest of the semester in the Dragon’s Head tomb?”

In the ensuing silence, we all tried not to look at the one patriarch in the room. Poe was, after all, the go-to guy when it came to finding secret passages. We stood in silence for a full ten seconds before his sigh floated over from the position he’d returned to, holding up the wall.

“Okay. I’ll help you guys out, just this once.”

“Did he have to be so holier-than-thou about it?” Angel asked me five minutes later, as we sneaked down the back stairs into the kitchen. “Every time I start to think he might be okay, he turns around and acts like a complete jerk.”

And every time I decided he was a complete jerk, he turned around and did something decent. Poe kept his sheet pretty well balanced.

We broke out into the yard and sprinted quickly for the nearest wall. This time, I made my leap on the first try, but it took three attempts for Poe to reach the ledge. We hauled him over the top and into the safety of the alleyway beyond.

Thorndike pumped her fist in the air. “Success!”

We hurried back to the street, and Lil’ Demon pulled out her walkie-talkie. “I’ll see if they’re still waiting up for us. This calls for pizza and beers, I think.”

“I think they’re paying,” Puck said. He whipped off his ski mask and let out a primal shout to the sky. His hair was plastered to his face and wet with sweat. “Man, what a rush!”

I pulled off my own mask and fluffed my hair. I’m sure I looked just as gross, but I felt just as exhilarated. I wanted to dance, to run, to scream. Angel and Thorndike were tangoing in the snow, and Lil’ Demon laughed and snapped pictures with her cell phone to send to the knights who’d missed out on the adventure. I turned to Poe, grinning. He’d removed his own mask, and ran his fingers through his wet, dark hair, then lifted them into the light. I saw a flash of red before he caught me staring and whipped his hand behind his back.

Euphoria leaching into the air, I rushed over. “You’re hurt. What happened?” I reached for his head and he wrenched it away. “When you cracked your head against the wall in the crawl space…”

“Presence of real genius, Bug’boo.”

I shook my head. He’d been hurt all that time, and hadn’t said anything. “If you’re still bleeding…My God, Poe. Let’s call Lucky and get her to give us a ride to the hospital.”

He moved another few steps back. “’m fine. Go get your…pizza.” He waved vaguely at the retreating group.

“You’re not fine,” I argued. He was slurring his words. He’d been leaning against the wall while we’d been in the treasure room. He hadn’t been able to jump over the ledge. “You’re still bleeding. You could have a concussion. Probably have one.”

“Yo, guys!” Puck called. “Let’s get a move on! There’s a pitcher of beer at Sicily’s with my name on it.”

I looked at the others, then turned back to Poe, holding out my hand. “Come on. Stop being so difficult.”

“Right, ’cause the perfect ending to me tagging along, again, is ruining your vict’ry cel’bration with a trip to the ER.”

I laughed in disbelief, hoping it would set him at ease. “Please. You’re talking crazy. We only made it out tonight because of you.”

He wadded up his ski mask and held it against his head, then turned south, which was not, thankfully, in the direction of his apartment, but rather of Eli–New Haven Hospital. Still, it was a half hour walk, a hike I had no intention of letting him take alone. Or at all.

“Poe, wait up already!” I hurried after him.

“Where are you guys going?” I heard Angel call.

“Check out Bugaboo, hooking up with the freaks,” Puck said. But I barely noticed. In the golden glow of the sodium lights, I could now see that the back of Poe’s black sweater was soaked with a dark liquid I doubted was sweat.

I skidded to a stop on the icy walk before him. “Stop. Now. You’re in no condition to walk.”

He looked at me with unfocused eyes. “Christ, Amy, you’re such a bossy bitch.”

And then he collapsed.

THINGS THAT HAPPENED IMMEDIATELY AFTER

1)Clarissa screamed.

2)Odile rushed to the nearest blue emergency phone and called campus security, the irony of which was not completely lost on us.

3)Poe woke up as we packed snow and ski masks against his head wound, and mumbled incoherently about “Discretion” and how I couldn’t fine him for using my real name, since, officially, our society mission was over. (Or, for the purists, Jamie woke up…)

4)Demetria concocted some cock-and-bull story for the paramedics about how Poe slipped on the ice.

5)I got blood all over my favorite pair of Converse sneakers.

6)George hit on the ambulance driver.

Poe flatly refused to let any of us accompany him to the hospital (though I think George would have loved to log some time with the cute paramedic) and the ambulance left us standing in the snow, kicking slush over the circle of fresh blood on the walk beneath the street lamp.

“Do you think he’ll be okay?” I asked.