“Very well then.”
Iggy heard the headmaster turn and stalk off, and Ms. Cox sighed right outside the file room. Then the door opened. Iggy heard the slight crackling buzz of the overhead fluorescent light coming on. He felt Gazzy tense beside him.
A metal drawer opened. Papers rustled. The drawer closed. Come on, leave, Iggy thought. But instead the footsteps came closer, in their direction. No, turn around, leave, Iggy mentally urged her. If only he could do mind control like Angel. Next to him, Gazzy was holding his breath, not making a sound. If she found them, it would be very bad.
The light snapped off. Footsteps left the room, and the door closed again. The Gasman breathed out at last.
“Close call,” he whispered, and Iggy nodded, his mouth dry. “Let’s split.”
They were almost back to the stairs when the door at the top of the stairs opened. They froze, with Iggy straining to hear what was happening. The next moment, they heard voices coming from the other end of the hall. They were trapped, with people coming from both sides.
“Crap!” Gazzy whispered.
“Do you have the thing?” Iggy asked tensely.
“Yeah. But Max said—”
“We’re going to get caught!” Iggy interrupted him. “Get the thing!”
64
“Okay, now you’re creeping me out,” I told Nudge. We were in the school library, and it was like she was able to extract information from the computer by osmosis, practically. We didn’t even need Mr. Lazzara the librarian’s help. First, we went on Fang’s blog and saw that he was adding stuff on a daily basis—his point of view on what had happened to us so far. Now he was adding drawings as well. Next, I had Nudge search for more ter Borcht mentions and also for any notices about missing infants during any of the years we were born. We couldn’t narrow down the months, but the years we were pretty sure about.
“Okay, fourteen years ago,” Nudge said, concentrating on the screen. “We might have the most luck with that, because there’s three of you.” She scrolled down. “Unless, you know, one of you was born in the fall of one year and the others were born in the spring of the next year. But in general I think we—”
“Is this school related?” The chilly, hate-filled voice, quivering with suppressed rage, could belong only to . . . the headhunter.
“We’re looking up newspaper articles,” Nudge said innocently. “For civics class.”
That’s my girl. Able to lie on a moment’s notice.
“Really?” Mr. Pruitt sneered, his lip curling. “And exactly what part of the curriculum—”
Boom.
The whole library shuddered slightly. Mr. Pruitt and I looked at each other in surprise, then his fuzzy eyebrows came together. The next instant, the school’s fire alarms started clanging, making us all jump.
For a moment we just stood there, too stunned to react. Then a loud hiss came from overhead. My head snapped up just in time for me to see the ceiling’s sprinkler system cranking on, showering us with icy water.
“What?” shouted Mr. Pruitt. “What is the meaning of this?”
My guess was it meant that Iggy and the Gasman had just shot to the top of my “so in trouble” list, but I didn’t say anything.
Everyone scrambled for the doors, yelling and pushing.
Mr. Lazzara cupped his hands around his mouth. “Orderly, please! Fire drill forms! Children!”
Mr. Pruitt charged toward the doors, practically mowing kids down in his effort to get out from under the sprinklers.
Nudge grinned at me, water dripping off her curly hair. “I didn’t know school would be this much fun,” she said.
65
“This is grounds for expulsion!” Mr. Pruitt screamed, veins popping out on his forehead.
I watched him with interest, calculating the chances of his keeling over from a heart attack within the next five minutes. Right now it looked like 60, 65 percent for.
The six of us were standing soggily in his office, half an hour after the last fire truck had left. Pruitt had insisted on seeing all of us together. We were chilled and bedraggled, and just wanted to get our butts home.