[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.He waited in the hallway.His head was dense with fatigue, but he was alert enough to remember the exact texture of Nancy Mitchell’s hand in his.He sat down in the waiting room, surrounded by the clamor of the hospital, the ringing of phones and elevator doors, and tried to relive the feeling of her strong hand.CHAPTER 16Admittedly, the mouse and its surgically severed head had frightened Madeline.It was Lee’s handiwork, she suspected.As the department’s prize student, Lee would have unparalleled access to the bio labs.And the department itself was pleased to possess a complement of instruments and animals more impressive than most universities’.The academy’s apparent need to aspire to the status of colleges was something Madeline had always had trouble understanding.A rival school had just raised funds for an electron microscope, and Armitage was jealously trying to marshal the means to build one for itself.But did high school students really need to investigate the world of subatomic particles quite so thoroughly? Couldn’t they wait until they were graduate students in physics, just like everybody else?It was easier to think about this than to figure out what to do with the poor creature Lee had sacrificed in her campaign—quite successful, Madeline was forced to confess—to intimidate the intern.Finally, she settled on rolling it gently in a paper towel and then placing it in an empty tub that had once held hummus.Sealed, the mouse went into the trash barrel outside the dorm.Then Madeline did two things: she left a long message with Sarah Talmadge and another with Matt Corelli.She thought about calling Fred, too, but decided against contacting him until he’d made a choice about Brooklyn.There was just so much vulnerability a person could stand.Returning from dinner, Madeline had thought that it would be an early night.But finding the mouse on her doorstep had kindled a nervous energy that she knew would not allow her to work or rest easily.Instead, she investigated the rest of the bottles she had scavenged from the second-floor bathroom but found no other Ziploc bags that contained threatening notes.Then she checked her watch and realized she still had a while before study hours were over.She could probably find Maggie Fitzgerald and see what she had to say about Rosalie, the Reign, and other facets of boarding school life that had escaped Madeline this year.Scanning her memory, she remembered that the girl had relocated to Fallows, a dorm two over from Portland on the Quad.Each dorm had a dedicated study hall; a nice idea, thought Madeline, except that they were uniformly dispiriting, with their bald lighting and threadbare chairs.Few students used them, preferring the comfort of the common room, their own bunks, or the whispery sociability of the library.But in Fallows’s bleak basement, Maggie was bent over an open textbook detailing the history of ancient Egypt.Madeline did not think she had interrupted the amassing of critical details about the building of the Great Pyramid.Maggie was clearly paying no attention to the lines of text in front of her.Fortunately, she was also the only person in the room.“Hi, Miss Christopher,” the girl said.“Why are you here?” She wore tiny round spectacles, and her spine seemed unusually limp.It didn’t have much to hold up, that was true enough, but even so, Maggie’s body had very little vital energy about it.Madeline pulled up a chair next to her.“To talk to you, actually,” she said, assuming a direct approach would be fairest.“I want to ask you about Claire, and those girls in the dorm”—she still couldn’t bring herself to call them the Reign without sarcasm—“and also about Rosalie.”Maggie took a sip from her can of diet iced tea.She was delicate to the point of translucence and had need of even the empty calories that regular iced tea would have supplied.“Did you know there are some people who think that the Pyramids and Machu Picchu were built with alien technology?” She played with the tab on the can as she spoke.Madeline smiled and said, “No, I had no idea about that.But I don’t really believe in aliens.Do you, Maggie?”The silver tab broke off in the girl’s spindly fingers.“Nope.I think life is creepy enough on this planet without inventing people from outer space.” She looked up then, and Madeline was struck by the directness of her gaze and the narrow ferocity of her face.She had been the girl who kept saying about Claire, “But she was so pretty,” as if beauty were all Claire had needed to invoke to stay alive.Maggie dropped the tab of the can into the drink, and Madeline hoped she’d be careful when she took her next sip.She closed the textbook and something shifted in her face.She appeared to reach a decision.Taking a pen from the desk, she scribbled on a page in her notebook, tore it out, and said, “Here is Rosalie’s number.She might talk to you.She doesn’t live too far from here.But I can’t.I promised not to.” Here her voice began to fray slightly.Fallows’s basement smelled damply of laundry and lint.What an unproductive atmosphere in which to try to learn anything.Madeline leaned forward.“Are they hurting you and other girls, Maggie? What are they doing to you? I can help you stop them if you want.I promise to help.” Madeline was surprised at the depth of her concern and the intensity of her response.But I shouldn’t be, she reminded herself.They’ve been trying to scare me, too, and they’ve done a pretty good job at it.“They don’t do it directly, Miss Christopher.Well, mostly,” Maggie said softly, lowering her voice.“They just like to let you know they’re watching,” she said.“They create a climate of fear.They try to make themselves like the pharaohs.They want to appear invincible.”A climate of fear.It sounded like a phrase from Orwell.Though clearly on loan from another source, the phrase was quite accurate.“Maggie, did they hurt Claire?” But Maggie was looking around her now, as if talking about the Reign might call them out.The girl shook her head and wouldn’t say more.“I’ve got to go, Miss Christopher.” She gathered her books into a flimsy tote bag and scurried from the room.A slightly larger mouse than the one Madeline had found on her doorstep.And fortunately, she still had her head on.Madeline glanced at the piece of paper.A local area code.As Maggie had said, the Quiñones family lived nearby.It wouldn’t be that hard to find out exactly where, and it was only 7:30 [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]