An hour lat­er my eyes were dry, my neck was tight, and a headache throbbed at the back of my skull. I checked my watch ev­ery two-?and-?a-?half min­utes, won­der­ing ex­act­ly how long it was go­ing to take Or­lan­do to find love. Did I have fif­teen min­utes or an­oth­er hour?

“Okay, come on, Reed,” I said through my teeth, shak­ing out my hands.

I flipped to the next page in Ar­iana's plan­ner and turned it over on the floor at my side. Tay­lor's the­ory had turned out to be both a boon and a curse. At first I had thought I would just check Ar­iana's birth­day and see if she had any­thing writ­ten there. That was be­fore I re­al­ized that I had no idea when Ar­iana's birth­day was. So in­stead I had start­ed to flip through page by page, fig­ur­ing the spe­cial days would be ob­vi­ous, that she'd have writ­ten Dad's birth­day on a cer­tain date, or Par­ents' an­niver­sary some­where in there.

I was wrong. Noth­ing was ob­vi­ous in Ar­iana's plan­ner, oth­er

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than the fact that she was a doo­dler. A doo­dler and a jot­ter who brain­stormed po­ems and ti­tles in ev­ery avail­able space on ev­ery avail­able page. Yes, there were po­em ti­tles on some dates, but there was no way of know­ing if the dates held any sig­nif­icance. So I had spent the last hour typ­ing in pret­ty much ev­ery word I found in any giv­en date square.

Pret­ty soon, my knuck­les were go­ing to seize up. Ear­ly on­set arthri­tis. That was where this mis­sion was go­ing to get me.

I took a deep breath. I just had to keep at it for a few more min­utes. Then I would call it a night and at least wipe down Noelle and Ar­iana's win­dows--which looked streak-?free to me--so that they would think I had fol­lowed or­ders.

I was on April. April fifth had a sin­gle word in its square. I took a deep breath and start­ed to type.

Rub­ber band. R-?U-?B-?B-?E-?R-?B-?A-?N-?D. En­ter.

In­valid pass­word! the screen replied.

Okay . . . next. Slammed. S-?L-?A-?M-?M-?E-?D. En­ter.

In­valid pass­word!

I groaned. I scanned the cal­en­dar, look­ing for some­thing even re­mote­ly in­trigu­ing, and my eyes fell on the last day of April. April 30. In big, red let­ters was the word home. Then, un­der­neath that, in much small­er let­ters, the ti­tle of one of her more re­cent po­ems: “The Oth­er.” That one had been pub­lished in last month's Quill.

I took a deep breath. My fin­gers were trem­bling. Okay. “The Oth­er.” Two words.

T-?H-?E [space] O-?T-?H-?E-?R. En­ter.

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In­valid pass­word!

Some­where near­by a door slammed. My heart was in my mouth. I closed the com­put­er and was about to stash it away, but in­stead I froze. I froze and lis­tened. Foot­steps. Foot­steps com­ing clos­er...

Oh, God, no. I scram­bled to put ev­ery­thing back. I al­most dropped the com­put­er. I was nev­er go­ing to get it all in there in time....

And then the foot­steps passed by the door. They were go­ing back down­stairs. I sat down hard on my butt and breathed. Ev­ery­thing was shak­ing. I should just bag this. Just bag it and start over to­mor­row. But when was I ev­er go­ing to get an op­por­tu­ni­ty like this again?

Slow­ly, I opened the com­put­er again. I would just try this last one and that would be it.

Okay. Theother. One word.

T-?H-?E-?O-?T-?H-?E-?R. En­ter.

There was a beep. My pulse raced. The drive whirred to life, the screen went black, then came up with a blue sky back­ground and the two sweet­est words I had ev­er seen on a com­put­er screen.

Wel­come, Ar­iana!

Holy crap. I was in! Holy moth­er of-- I had done it! I want­ed to jump up off the floor and scream and yell and im­pro­vise a dance of joy. But that wouldn't have been the best idea, what with the old creaky floors and the fif­teen girls watch­ing Or­lan­do in rapt si­lence un­der my feet.

Deep breath, Reed. I scrounged in my bag and found the

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flop­py disk I had brought along just in case there was any­thing worth copy­ing. I shoved it in the slot on the side of the com­put­er and tried to calm my heart. If it kept pound­ing that loud, it would drown out any nois­es from down­stairs, and I couldn't get caught. Es­pe­cial­ly not now.

Tags: Kate Brian Private
Source: readsnovelonline.net