"Papers?" Rae said.
"It looks like . . . files."
I reached into a folder marked 2002 and pulled out a sheaf of papers. I read the first.
"Property taxes." I flipped through the other pages. "It's just records of stuff they needed to keep. They put them into a fireproof box and stored it here. The door's probably only locked so we don't snoop."
"Or this isn't what the ghost was telling you about. That means there must be something else down here."
We spent ten minutes crawling around, and finding nothing more than a dead mole that stunk so bad I nearly puked.
"Let's go," I said, crouched on my heels with my arms crossed. "There's nothing here, and it's freezing."
Rae shone the flashlight in my face. I swatted it out of the way.
"No need to get snippy," Rae said. "I was just going to say it's not cold."
I took her hand and wrapped it around my arm. "I'm cold. Those are goose bumps, all right? Feel them?"
"I didn't say you weren't —"
"I'm going. Stay if you want."
I started crawling away. When Rae grabbed my foot, I yanked hard, almost toppling her over.
"What's with you?" she said.
I rubbed my arms. Tension strummed my nerves. My jaw ached, and I realized I was clenching my teeth.
"I just —I was okay before but now . . . I just want to get out."
Rae crawled up beside me. "You're sweating, too. Sweat and goose bumps. And your eyes are all glittery, like you have a fever."
"Maybe I do. Can we just —?"
"There's something here, isn't there?"
"No, I —" I stopped and looked around. "Maybe. I don't know. It's just— I need to go."
"Okay." She handed me the flashlight. "Lead the way."
The moment my fingers closed around the flashlight, the light started to dim. Within seconds, it was giving off only a faint yellowish glow.
"Tell me that's the batteries going," Rae whispered.
I quickly handed it back to her. The light surged, but only for a second. Then it went out, plunging us into darkness. Rae let out an oath. A swish. Light flared. Rae's face glowed behind the match flame.
"Knew these things would come in handy someday," she said. "Now . . ."
She stopped, her gaze going to the flame. She stared at it like a child mesmerized by a campfire.
"Rae!" I said.
"Oh, uh, sorry." A sharp shake of her head. We were almost at the door when I heard the distant sound of the basement door opening.
"The match!" I whispered.
"Right."
She extinguished it. Not by waving it or blowing it, but by cupping the flame in her hand. Then she tossed the dead match and the matchbook over her shoulder.
"Girls?" Mrs. Talbot called from the top of the stairs. "Is your homework done?"
Homework. Simon and Derek. I checked my watch. 7:58.
I scrambled out of the crawl space.
Twenty-four
I KNEW Rae WAS DISAPPOINTED by what we'd found —or hadn't. I felt a weird kind of guilt, like a performer who failed to entertain. But she never doubted I'd seen a ghost or that he'd told me to open that door, and I was grateful for that.
I returned the key, washed, then found Mrs. Talbot and told her I was going upstairs for math tutoring with Derek and that Simon would be there. She hesitated but only for a moment, then sent me off.
I retrieved my newly arrived math text from my room and went around to the boys' side. The door was open. Simon sprawled on the bed, reading a comic. Derek was hunched over the too-small desk, doing homework.
The room was a reverse image of ours, set at the back of the house instead of the front. Simon's walls were covered in what looked like pages ripped from a comic book, but when I squinted, I realized they were hand drawn. Some were black-and-white, but most were in full color, everything from character sketches to splash panels to full pages, done in a style that wasn't quite manga, wasn't quite comic book. More than once Simon had gotten in trouble for doodling in class. Now I could see what he'd been working on.
Derek's walls were bare. Books were stacked on his dresser and magazines lay open on the bed. Shoved to the back corner of his desk was some kind of contraption full of wires and pulleys. A school project, I supposed, but if I had to build anything that complicated next year, I was doomed.
I rapped on the doorframe.
"Hey." Simon slapped down the comic as he sat up. "I was just going to tell Derek we should go downstairs, make sure the nurses weren't giving you a hassle. They didn't, did they?"
I shook my head.
Derek set his math text on the bedside table, as a prop, then put his binder over it. "I'll be in the shower. Start without me."
"Won't the nurses hear the water running?"
He shrugged, and shoved back his hair, lank and stringy now, the dull sheen of oil glistening under the lights. 'Tell them I was already in there. I'll only be a few minutes."
He headed for the door, circling as wide around me as he could manage, which made me wonder how badly he needed that shower. I wasn't about to sniff and find out.
If he was showering at night, that might be part of his problem. Kari said she always used to have a bath in the evening, but she'd had to switch to morning showers or her hair would be gross by dinner. I wouldn't dare suggest this to Derek, but as he passed, I couldn't resist an innocent, "Why don't you just shower in the morning?"
"I do," he muttered as he left.
Simon put away his comic. "Come on in. I don't bite."
He lay back in the middle of his bed, springs squeaking, then patted a spot at the edge.
"I'd say this is the first time I've had a girl in my bed . . . if I didn't mind sounding like a total loser."
I reached over to put my books on the beside table, hiding my blush. As I opened my text, to look like we were working on it, I knocked the binder off Derek's. I glimpsed the cover and did a double take.
College Algebra with Trigonometry.
I flipped through the pages.
"If you can understand any of that, you're way ahead of me," Simon said.
"I thought Derek was in tenth grade."
"Yeah, but not in algebra. Or geometry. Or chemistry, physics, or biology, though he's only in twelfth grade in the sciences."
Only twelfth . . . ?
When he said that no one would question us working on math together, he hadn't meant that he needed help. Great. It was bad enough Derek thought I was a flighty blond, jumping at every noise. Apparently he figured I wasn't too bright, either.
I put the binder back on top of Derek's text.
"Tori . .. she didn't give you a hard time or anything, did she?" he asked. "About yesterday."
I shook my head.
He exhaled and crossed his arms behind his head. "Good. I don't know what her problem is. I've made it clear that I'm not interested. At first, I tried being nice about it, brushing her off. When she didn't take a hint, I told her I wasn't interested. Now, I'm downright rude to her and she still won't back off."
I twisted around to see him better. "I guess that would be hard —having someone really like you and you aren't interested back."
He laughed. "The only person Tori really likes is Tori. I'm just a stand-in until she can get back to her football captains. Girls like Tori need to have a guy —any guy—and here I'm her only option. Peter was way too young and Derek's—Derek's not her type. Trust me, if another guy walks in here, she'll forget I exist."