Meg Cabot - Safe House

Only I never got the chance, because of two things that happened at almost the same time.

The first was that the door to the teachers' lounge opened, and Mr. Lewis, the chemistry teacher, stood there, looking down at me like I was crazy, because of course people aren't supposed to bother teachers when they are in the lounge.

The second thing that happened was that Mark Leskowski emerged from the guidance office, which was across the hall from the teachers' lounge, holding a stack of college applications they'd evidently been keeping there for him.

"What may I do for you, Miss Mastriani?" Mr. Lewis asked. I had never had Chemistry, but he apparently knew my name from last spring, when I'd been in the paper so much.

"Hey," Mark said, to Claire and me. "How you two doing?"

Which was when Claire did an extraordinary thing. She spun around and took off down the hallway, so fast that she didn't even notice her sweater slip off her shoulders and fall to the carpet.

Mr. Lewis, looking after her, shook his head.

"Drama club," he muttered.

Mark and I—staring after Claire, who disappeared around the corner, heading in the direction of the drama wing, where the auditorium and stuff were—glanced at one another. Mark rolled his eyes and shrugged, as if to say, "Dames. What can you do?"

"See ya," he said, and started off in the opposite direction, toward the gym.

Not knowing what else to do, I bent down and picked up Claire's sweater. It was really soft, and when I glanced at the tag, I saw why. One hundred percent cashmere. She was going to miss this. I'd hang onto it, I decided, until I saw her again.

"Well, Miss Mastriani?" Mr. Lewis said, startling me.

I asked to see Mr. Vine. Mr. Lewis sighed, then went and got him.

Mr. Vine, when he came to the door, seemed to find my concern that I would be relegated to last chair in the flute section very amusing.

"Do you really think," he said, his eyes twinkling, "that I'd do that to you, Jess? We all know why you weren't there. Don't worry about it. Meet me right after last period today and we'll hold your audition. All right?"

I felt relief wash over me. "All right," I said. "Thanks a lot, Mr. Vine."

Shaking his head, Mr. Vine went back into the lounge. When the door closed, I heard him laughing.

But I didn't care. I had my audition. That's all that mattered.

Or at least, that's all that mattered to me, then. But as the day wore on, something else began to nag me.

And it wasn't the same thing that had been nagging me all week, either. I mean, the fact that somebody was going around, attacking cheerleaders, making threatening phone calls to the local psychic, and burning down her parents' restaurant.

No, it was something more than that. It was something I couldn't quite put my finger on.

It wasn't until the middle of seventh period that I realized what it was.

I was scared.

Seriously. I was walking around the hallways of Ernest Pyle High School, feeling frightened out of my mind.

Oh, not like I was a quivering mess, or anything. I wasn't going around, grabbing people and weeping into their shirtfronts.

But I was scared. I was scared about what was happening at home, at my house on Lumley Lane. The Feds were still watching it—heck, they were probably watching me, though I hadn't noticed any tails as I flitted through the hallways.

But that wasn't all. It wasn't just that I was scared. It was that I knew something was wrong. Something more than just Mastriani's exploding and Amber being dead and Heather hospitalized.

Look, I'm not saying it was a psychic thing. Not at all. Not then.

But there was definitely something not right going on, and it wasn't just that all these things had been happening, and the Feds, so far as I knew, didn't even have a suspect, let alone an arrest. It was more than that. It was …

Creepy.

Like the idea of being out a date with Skip. Only much, much worse.

Which was why, midway through seventh period, I couldn't take it anymore. I don't know. I guess I snapped. My hand shot up into the air before I knew what was happening.

And when Mademoiselle MacKenzie, not particularly thrilled to have me interrupt in the middle of our in-depth look at the never-ending battle of wills between Alix and Michel ( Alix mes du sel dans la boule de Michel) , asked, " Qu’est-ce que vous voulez, Jessica ?" and I went, in English, "I need the hall pass," she made no effort whatsoever to hide her annoyance.

"Can't you wait," she wanted to know, "for the bell?"

It was a logical question, of course. It was two-thirty. Only a half hour of school left.

But the answer was no. No, I couldn't wait. I couldn't even say why, but one thing I definitely knew I could not do was wait.

Disgusted, Mademoiselle MacKenzie handed me the wooden bathroom pass, and I beat it out of there before she could say " Au revoir ."

But I didn't head for the bathroom. Instead, I went downstairs—the language labs are on the third floor—to the guidance office. I wasn't even sure why I was heading in that direction until I saw them. The doors to the guidance office, and across from it, the teachers' lounge.

That's when I knew. Claire. Claire, touching my shoulder, just before fifth period. She had wanted to tell me something, but she hadn't gotten the chance. Her eyes—those pretty blue eyes—had widened as she'd looked down at me, and filled—I knew it now, though at the time, I think I had been too worried about myself, and my stupid chair position, to notice—with fear.

Fear. Fear .

I burst into the guidance office and startled Helen, the secretary, half out of her wits.

"I need to know what class Claire Lippman's in," I said, throwing my books down onto her desk. "And I need to know now ."

Helen stared up at me, her expression friendly but quizzical. "Jess," she said. "You know I can't just give you confidential student—"

"I need to know now! " I yelled.

The door to Mr. Goodhart's office opened. To my surprise, not just Mr. Goodhart, but also Special Agent Johnson, stepped out into the waiting area.

"Jessica?" Mr. Goodhart looked perplexed. "What are you doing here? What's wrong?"

Helen had hit the button on her computer keyboard that made Minesweeper, which she'd been playing, disappear. Now she was bringing up the student schedules. Mr. Goodhart noticed and went, "Helen, what are you doing?"

"She needs to know where Claire Lippman is," Helen said. "I'm just looking it up for her."

Mr. Goodhart looked more perplexed than ever. "You know you can't tell her that, Helen," he said. "That's confidential."

"Why do you need to know where this girl is, Jessica?" Special Agent Johnson asked. "Has something happened to her?"

"I don't know," I said. Which was the truth. I didn't know. Except …

Except that I did.

"I just need to know," I said. "Okay? She said she had something to tell me, but then she didn't get a chance to, because—"

"Claire Lippman," Helen said, "has PE seventh period."

"Helen!" Mr. Goodhart was genuinely shocked. "What's the matter with you?"

"Thanks," I said, gathering up my books and giving the secretary a grateful smile. "Thanks a lot."

I was almost out the door when Helen called, "Except that she isn't there, Jess...."

I froze.

And then slowly spun around.

"What do you mean, she isn't there?" I asked carefully.

Helen was studying her computer screen with a concerned expression. "I mean she isn't there," she said. "According to this afternoon's attendance rosters, Claire hasn't been in class since . . . fourth period."

"But that's impossible," I said. Suddenly I felt funny all over. Really. Like someone had shot me full of Novocain. My lips were numb. So were my arms, holding onto my books. "I saw her just before fifth."