As the card makes the rounds, Ellie bounces hard on her toes. Malone’s the last to read the instruction to climb. Then she looks up at the dark tower.
“I don’t like it,” she says.
“Why not?” Ellie says.
“Because now it definitely screams setup.”
“You’re just being paranoid,” Wheeler says.
“It’s called being smart,” Malone says. “Maybe try it sometime.”
Wheeler opens his mouth to say something, but his bruised ass keeps him quiet.
“They could be up there right now listening to us, waiting to see what we’ll do,” Ellie says. “We could be on a time limit.”
“Yeah, or someone could be up there waiting to throw us over the railing,” Malone says.
“Why did you even show up then?” Wheeler says. “No, don’t get all pissed again. I’m serious. If you’re just here to hate, why come at all?”
Instead of clobbering Wheeler into next week, Malone just makes a frustrated face and shakes her head.
“I’ll tell you what,” Ellie says. “Why don’t we take a vote?”
“Because this isn’t a majority-rules deal,” Malone says. “If someone doesn’t want to go up, they don’t have to.”
“Right, but we were invited here as a group, so we should act as one. Let’s just see what everyone else thinks. I’m for climbing, and I’m guessing you’re against it, Kate, so that leaves you three. So what do you think, Tim? Should we go up?”
Adleta shrugs and says nothing. And to think adults complain that kids today have no social skills.
“I’ll put you down as undecided,” Ellie says. “What about you, Dave?”
“Hell yeah I’m in,” Wheeler says. “Be a part of the club that once suspended Stranko’s car over the theater stage? I’m climbing that tower even if they want me doing it naked.”
“Thanks for that visual,” Ellie says. “Max?”
Great, as the tiebreaker, I have to choose between curiosity and skepticism. Fearlessness and logic. Not Max and Just Max. Not to mention, between Ellie and Malone, which could be the difference between being kissed or being punched.
“Well,” I say, stalling, “I am little suspicious, to be honest. Like Malone said, it’s all just very weird.”
Ellie goes eerily still.
“But,” I add quickly, “we weren’t chosen at random to be here. And the envelope does say Initiates. So there’s that.”
All four just stare at me.
You can hear crickets, and I mean literal crickets.
“Dude, what’s your point?” Wheeler says.
“Yeah,” Malone says, “shit or get off the pot.”
And somewhere in the far back corner of my head, I hear Tami Cantor calling me a nobody and the rest of the class laughing with her.
“Let’s go up,” I say. “Ellie’s right—this could be our chance to be a part of Asheville history. Maybe there’s another note.”
Ellie looks happy enough to kiss me.
Malone, not so much.
“Whatever,” she says, “but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“Are you coming?” Wheeler asks her.
Malone looks up at the tower and taps her finger against her leg. Then her shoulders drop, and she reaches into her pocket.
“Okay, but I’m recording this just in case.”
? ? ?
Ellie leads everyone back to the gate where we found the envelope. She gives the gate a shake, and surprisingly, it opens.
“Creepy,” she says.
With six massive legs reaching into the night sky, the water tower is like an enormous metal insect preparing to stomp the high school. A ladder runs up the closest leg, and a safety gate extends twenty feet up the ladder’s base to prevent anyone—read: teenagers—from climbing. The safety gate isn’t locked either.
“So who wants to go first?” Ellie says.
Adleta grunts and starts up, a teenage King Kong climbing the Empire State Building.
Wheeler turns to Malone and says, “Ladies first.”
“Like I’m going to let you stare at my butt the whole way up.”
“You can’t blame a guy for trying.”
Wheeler begins climbing, and Malone follows. Ellie puts her foot on the first rung and looks back at me.
“You look like you’re going to throw up.”
“I’m not a fan of heights,” I say.
“Oh, don’t be silly. You’ll be fine.”
I may not be a fan of heights, but I especially hate ladders. I always think the rung I’m on is going to break away and send me plummeting. Climbing this ladder in the dark, the rungs sticky for some reason, only worries me more. But despite that, I’d be lying if I didn’t say how awesome this was. The higher I climb, the harder my heart pounds from the adrenaline. I feel like a jewel thief scaling a skyscraper at midnight on his way to steal the Hope Diamond. Then I make the mistake of looking up at Ellie in her tight pants climbing just ahead of me. My foot misses the next rung, and I awkwardly stumble. I have to wrap both arms around the ladder to keep from falling. Just what I want on my death certificate: death by yoga pants.
Up ahead in the darkness, Wheeler goes into a mock newscaster’s voice, announcing, “Five Asheville High School students fell to their deaths last evening when—”