“You’ll find out soon enough,” Tag said, then nodded his chin at the tulip-bordered flagstone pathway. “Shall we?”
“Don’t!” Alex yelped before Tag could cross the lawn. “There’s now a camera.” He pointed to the elegant archway entrance. “We’re out of range, but see? Over there?”
“Since when?” I asked after squinting at a security camera angled toward the front walk. My shoulders sagged. Not only was Ames considered old-fashioned because it had been founded in the nineteenth century but also because its buildings did not have cameras. The gated entrances and back delivery roads had electronic eyes twenty-four seven, but a fence ran around the entire campus. One too tall to climb unless you had a grappling hook on hand. Plus, the school’s stalwart Campus Safety squad. How much more thorough did the coverage need to be?
After a couple beats, Tag sighed. “Eh, I get it,” he said. “At least for this building. It’s like a museum. Random people funnel in and out all day, every day. There should be more security.”
“Wait a sec,” I said. “Don’t tell me you’re giving up.”
“I’m not.” He glanced at Alex. “Someone leave a window open?”
“But of course,” he said. “Associate Director of Admissions, I believe.” He gestured to the side of the building. “This way.”
“One more clue, Jester!” I tried to psych up Tag. “We’re almost there—so, so close.”
He was slow to respond. “How are you going to get back?” he asked. “I don’t want you going through that maze again, and, Lily…” He yawned. “Lily, we barely have an hour.”
Indeed, the sky had gone from inky black to a deep plum and was now lightening to violet. Sunrise was upon us. “Don’t worry,” I whispered. “I’ll hide somewhere until 6:30, then simply walk home. If anyone asks, I’ll say I’m taking a morning walk.”
“But you never take morning walks.”
“Well, there’s a first time for everything.”
“Here we go,” Alex said, hoisting up an office window. Puck nimbly jumped up and dropped inside before the three of us followed suit.
Just not quite as nimbly.
The Associate Director of Admissions’s office was dark with spooky shadows, which revealed themselves to be endless clutter when I switched on my phone’s light. Piles of color-coded folders and paperwork, framed family photos, and multiple New England Patriots bobbleheads along with a freestanding globe and an Eiffel Tower-shaped floor lamp. “Mr. Hoffman has quite the eclectic vision,” Alex commented. “I want the name of his decorator.”
The lockclickedwhen we snuck out the door and into the first-floor atrium of offices. A twisting staircase wasin the center, and if you tilted your head back and looked skyward, you could see the stained-glass ceiling of the building’s rotunda. It was a depiction of Ames’s coat of arms, a checkerboard of light blue-and-red panels with a gold seagull overtop.
I pointed diagonally across the atrium. “I think the conference room’s the door on the left.” I paused. “Or is it the right?”
“The left,” Alex sighed, but before the presidential runner-up could trudge over to student council’s base of operations, Puck started adamantly pawing at his leg. “What? What is it?”
A shiver went up my spine. “Someone’s here,” I whispered. “Someone’s here and—”
The sudden but unmistakable sound of snoring finished my sentence. “Dear mother of god,” Alex softly proclaimed. “Weare supposed to surprise the people; the people arenotsupposed to surpriseus.”
“Aptly put, Alexander,” Tag mumbled. “Now where’s the Sandman camped out?”
Puck took that as his cue to tiptoe off, and I cupped my hand around my flashlight so we could track him. He stopped near a couch against the far wall, where a heavyset, bearded man was sleeping. “Is that…?” Alex asked.
“Yes,” I said, mystified. Why was Mr. Hoffman here? “That’s our Associate Director of Admissions.”
“His colleagues should have plenty of fun with him later…” Alex said, but he trailed off as if unsure what to do next.
Truth be told, I wasn’t sure either.
We gave it a full five minutes before linking arms like children and crossing the atrium floor, footsteps echoing off the walls no matter how lightly we tried to walk. My pulse pounded, even though Puck had not left Mr. Hoffman.He’ll sound the alarms, I tried to reassure myself.Puck will raise hell if he wakes.
Tag began humming “The Final Countdown” once we’d ever so carefully closed the conference room’s door behind us. I watched him flip on the lights but then immediately dim them until the room was almost dark again. An oval mahogany table sat in the center with a dozen matching chairs while the taupe walls were clean, save for several windows and a standard SMART Board. Alex wasted no time in helping himself to the conference room’s sideboard, which was laden with fresh glasses and mugs. The water carafe was empty, but Alex popped a Starbucks Breakfast Blend pod into the Keurig.
Yuck. Coffee.
“Alex,” I hissed. “Really?”
“Relax, Mom,” he said. “It’ll be ready by the time we’re finished.”
