What I should be doing over the next few days: focusing on school and track, and keeping my head down.
What I do instead: spend all of my free time poking around campus for clues and shooting Danny hopeful looks whenever I come across him. It always makes his cheerful expression somewhat less cheerful, and he’d give a small shake of the head, and I’d get this horrible pit opening up in the base of my stomach.
After a couple of days of this, I finally gather enough courage to bring up an idea I’ve had. A horrible, awful idea. We’re walking in the Eastern Gardens when I say, “You mentioned before that you sometimes have dinner at Mr. Werner’s house?”
“Yeah?” Danny says.
“Um. Maybe you could. Um. Poke around his house and see if you can find something?” I once watched a really weird sci-fi movie starring Natalie Portman. There’s a scene where these guys who’re trapped in an alien, radioactive zone start to mutate, and they decide to carve one of their friends open, as you do. There’s a close-up of the poor dude’s intestines all twisting and creeping and sliding around like snakes, and that’s exactly how my insides feel right now. They’re twisting around painfully because of how incredibly shitty I’m being. I can’t believe I’m actually asking Danny to snoop around his uncle’s house. This is how low I’ve sunk. Or maybe I’ve always been this low, I just never had an occasion to prove how low I really am. “I’m sorry, never mind—”
“I’ll do it.”
“What? No, I was just—it’s a ridiculous idea.”
“No, it’s not. He has a home office where he keeps all his folders and whatever. I’ll have a quick look. I probably won’t find anything, but it won’t hurt to check.”
“What if he finds you snooping around in his office?” My voice is shrill now. I can’t bear the thought of Danny getting caught by Mr. Werner. That weird laugh of Mr. Werner’s. No matter how hard Danny tries to paint his uncle as a wholesome family guy, there’s something more lurking under the surface.
“Then I’ll tell him I was looking for something else. Like…my passport or something. He’s got a bunch of my documents for safekeeping ’cause my parents don’t trust me to keep hold of my own stuff.” He sounds so sure, so confident. Maybe he’ll find something.
“Thank you.” I squeeze his hand, not daring to let myself hope for too much and yet unable to stop myself from doing it anyway.
On Saturday, I do everything I can to take my mind off what Danny’s about to do. I run myself ragged on the track. I hang out with the girls and try my best to take part in normal human conversation. Then, halfway through dinner, as Sam tells us about some Netflix show she and Grace are watching, realization strikes me.
Danny’s at Mr. Werner’s house. Which means Mr. Werner is sure to be off campus. Which means his office will be left unguarded.
Chapter 11
I can’t really just leave the dining table halfway through the meal without at least giving a good excuse. Or can I? Would it look really suspicious? The thought of stealing into a teacher’s office turns my hands to ice. I’m about to fake food poisoning when Beth’s phone goes off. She checks it and straightens up, her shoulders going rigid.
“I gotta bounce.”
Sam and Grace groan. “Seriously?” Sam says.
“Sorry, work calls,” Beth says.
This is my chance. I stand up as well. “I’m going too.”
As we leave the dining hall, I worry that Beth’s going to ask me why I’m skipping out on the meal too, but it seems she’s got other things on her mind. I’ve never seen her this quiet. But when I ask her what’s bothering her, she says, “Just some logistical issue on my site.”
We both hurry back to the dorms, and Beth shouts a quick “Bye!” before slamming the door to her room. A second later, I hear the click of the lock on her door. I go back to my own room and pace around, trying to sort out my chaotic plan.
I’m going to do it. I won’t get another chance like this. I mean, yes, technically, I am aware that Mr. Werner probably leaves his office every night, but tonight I am 100 percent sure he’s not going to be there, so this is it. Do or die.
I change into black pants and a black top, decide it looks way too suspicious, and change into a navy-blue top. I grab a handful of bobby pins and stick them in my hair. Let’s hope Mr. Werner has flimsy locks in his office that I can pry open with the help of a bobby pin.
As I make my way to Collings Building, I have to keep reminding myself to walk normally instead of like someone’s who’s about to break into a teacher’s office. My body has completely forgotten how to move like a human. Every step feels wrong, the way my arms swing feels weird, and it feels like there’s a neon flashing sign on my head that says GUILTY. Somehow, I manage to make it across the quad without running into anyone. The front door to Collings is locked. Of course it’s locked. Why wouldn’t it be? I go around to the side, where there’s an entrance for the janitors, and yes! The side door opens smoothly.
Once inside, the enormity of what I’m doing catches up in a sudden swoop. Maybe it’s the emptiness of the place. In the daytime, the hallways are always bustling with students getting to class. Now, it’s half dark, with only a few of the lights on, but more than that, it’s the silence that gets to me. Every step I take is thunderous, the sound bouncing off the walls. I swallow, and I swear the gulp is audible from the other end of the hallway.
I tiptoe as quietly as I can—which isn’t very—toward the stairs. Teachers’ offices are on the fourth floor. Just as I round the corner on the third floor, I hear footsteps. I slink back down the stairs and hide behind a corner. The footsteps come closer, then stop some distance away. Keys jingle. A door is opened. The footsteps recede. I chance a peek in time to see the janitor pushing his cleaning cart into a classroom. I keep going.
Fourth floor. It seems more menacing than the other floors, somehow. Maybe because in Chinese culture, the number four is the unluckiest number. Guess which office is Mr. Werner’s? 404. Everything about the man is a bad omen.
I creep forward, realize that slinking toward his office while keeping my entire back to the wall looks suspicious as hell, and decide to just walk normally. If the janitor or anyone else finds me here, I can tell them I’m turning in a paper, slipping it under a teacher’s door. Except I don’t have any papers with me. I rip a couple announcements off the nearest bulletin board.
Here it is, 404. Mr. James Werner. I try the doorknob, expecting it to be locked, but to my surprise, it turns easily. That’s strange. Someone who’s involved in the kind of shady shit that Mr. Werner is should be more paranoid, right? Maybe he just forgot to lock it today? Okay, never mind, I’m not one to question such good luck.