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‘I'd better go too,' said Luke. ‘Need to make sure Peter doesn't get up to any shenanigans with Mrs Lewis.'

I kicked him in the shin. He got up, laughing and rubbing his leg, and started following me downstairs.

A second later, I heard Jordan's voice behind me. ‘Peter, wait.'

I stopped walking. ‘Yeah?'

‘Thanks.'

I stared at her. This was new.

‘No worries,' I said. ‘Could've been any of us that heard the phone. I was just in the right place at the right time.'

‘No, not just that,' said Jordan, ‘I mean thanks for being with us in this. Thanks for believing that it's all real.'

‘Hey,' I shrugged, ‘when you're right, you're right.'

She smiled and headed back up the stairs.

‘See?' I said to Luke as she disappeared.

‘See what?'

‘Told you. Hundred and first time's a –'

SLAM!

I took one step into the downstairs corridor and heard a locker bang shut.

Cat was standing alone, about ten metres away, looking like we'd just caught her doing something extremely suss. There was something in her hand. A letter, maybe.

But whoever's locker she'd been poking around in, I knew it was nowhere near hers.

I started walking towards her. ‘Cat, that's – Whose locker is that?'

Cat's hands were shaking. Whatever this was, getting caught was a big deal.

She whipped the paper around behind her back.

Her face went red, then white.

Then she turned and ran away down the corridor.

T
HURSDAY
, M
AY
21
84
DAYS

‘All right,' I sighed, staring down at a kid so pasty I could almost see through him. The kids in his year all called him Ghost. No idea what his real name was. ‘What is your opinion of the range of lunch options available at the school canteen? Are you extremely satisfied, somewhat satisfied, neither satisfied nor dissatisfied, somewhat dissatisfied, or –?'

‘Somewhat dissatisfied,' he said. ‘No, wait. What was the middle one?'

I tried to remind myself that losing it at this kid would be a bad idea. At least until he'd answered all the questions.

By Tuesday afternoon, we'd decided that the best way to fast-track our next meeting with Pryor was by finishing all her stupid surveys. My vote had been for faking the results. As if she was even gonna look at them anyway. But Luke didn't want to risk it. He didn't want to do anything to rock the boat until after we got our hands on that phone.

So, for the last two days, we'd spent every spare moment chasing people around the playground, trying to ambush them into doing the surveys. At first, it had been easy enough – there are always a few losers who go nuts over this kind of stuff – but after that, I might as well have been offering people free kicks in the face.

Finally, though, we were getting close to the end of them.

Things in the BEHINDTHEWINDMILL department had been just as frustrating. All Mrs Lewis had been able to come up with when I'd gone to the library was
The Wind in the Willows
and a couple of books on Holland.

Dead ends.

What was Crazy Bill trying to tell me? And why
me
, anyway?

I finished up with Ghost and found Luke thanking some Year 8 kid for her help.

‘Done!' he said, flipping through the pages as I came up to him. ‘You?'

‘Just about.' I clicked my pen and started scribbling down the boxes of one of my blank surveys.

‘Hey, you said –'

‘Mate, I've got
three
left, and we've already asked everyone. I'll mix 'em in with the others and Pryor won't know the difference.'

‘Fine, whatever,' said Luke irritably. ‘So did you ever figure out what was up with Cat the other day?'

‘Nah,' I said, flipping over the page and filling out the other side. ‘Couldn't get anything out of Mike or Tank. They definitely both know, though, from the looks on their faces when I asked.'

‘What about Cat?'

‘What do you reckon?' I said, bitterness jumping at me out of nowhere. ‘Good luck getting two words from her about
anything
anymore.'

‘Weird,' said Luke. ‘She freaks out when we catch her, but then we get to geography and she's right back to pretending we don't exist.'

‘Pretending
I
don't exist, you mean. Only problem she has with you guys is that you're hanging out with me.'

Luke shrugged.

I finished the survey, shoved it into the middle of my pile, and got started on the next one.

‘Hang on,' said Luke slowly. ‘You and Cathryn weren't ever …?'

My pen slipped out of my hand.

‘What?' I said, catching it before it hit the ground, mind suddenly flashing with images of Cat, of how it'd been back in the beginning, of how things had almost –

‘Nah, mate,' I said, grabbing hold of my brain again, ‘you know I'm a one-woman man.'

‘Actually, right now I think you're technically a
zero
-woman man,' said Luke.

‘Whatever,' I said. ‘In case you haven't noticed, I'm making some serious headway in that department.'

‘Uh-huh,' said Luke, scanning the quad. ‘Well, we should probably go see if she's –'

He stopped short, staring out past the admin building. ‘Peter –'

‘Yeah, I see 'em.'

Pryor was coming into the school from across the street, talking to a guy in a suit with two black eyes and a bandaged head.

‘Who's that?' asked Luke, moving in for a closer look.

‘Ben More,' I said. ‘Works in my dad's building.'

‘Ben? The one who went after Crazy Bill when he tried to break out of the security centre?'

‘Definitely
looks
like he's had a run-in with Bill,' I said, grabbing the back of Luke's bag in time to stop him disappearing around the side of the admin building. ‘Hang on.'

I poked my head out to see Pryor and Ben going in at the other end. As soon as they were gone, Luke got moving again, creeping along the front of the building.

‘Mate,' I hissed, two steps behind, ‘what do you think you're – ?'

He stopped about halfway down, climbing up on a bike rack and peering in through the window.

‘You really think this is a good idea?' I said, clambering up next to him.

‘No,' he said. ‘Shh!'

From where we were standing, we were just high enough to see through the window to the hallway inside. Pryor and Ben were standing outside the principal's office.

Ben reached into his chest pocket and pulled out a key card just like Pryor's. He waved it past the sensor and the big metal door swung open.

Pryor glared at the back of his head like,
Excuse me, this is MY office,
then followed him inside and shut the door.

‘Huh,' I said. ‘She didn't like that.'

‘Why would he have a key to her office?' asked Luke.

‘Dunno,' I said. ‘But Ben's one of Shackleton's top guys. He could probably get a key to pretty much anywhere he wanted.'

I stared at the closed door.

And the door stayed closed.

‘Well,' I said after a minute, ‘that was boring. Let's go see if –'

I bit my tongue as Pryor's door swung open again. Pryor walked out, grumbling and shaking her head.

But where was Ben?

I stretched up on my toes, trying to see into her office through the half-open door. But as far as I could tell, he was nowhere inside.

It was like he'd just disappeared.

CRASH!

I ducked down and leapt off the bike rack. Luke had just lost his footing and stacked it across a row of bikes. He staggered back, trying to find the ground again, his pile of surveys flying out of his hand.

‘
Crap,
' I muttered, grabbing the stupid unco by the back of the shirt and pulling him free. He scraped the mess of papers back together and we bolted back to the quad.

‘Mr Weir! Mr Hunter!' called a voice from behind us. ‘May I see you for a moment?'

Pryor was standing at the edge of the quad. She looked pretty cut at first, but by the time we'd backtracked across the asphalt, her face had shifted back into a smile. ‘May I ask where you two were off to in such a hurry?'

‘Just looking for Jordan, miss,' I said.

‘Yeah,' Luke panted. ‘We wanted to tell her we'd finished our assignment.'

He held out the very crumpled stack of papers. Pryor pursed her lips.

‘They're a bit of a mess,' said Luke nervously, straightening up the pile. ‘I dropped them. Sorry.'

‘He got a bit over-excited,' I said. ‘You know how it is when you're filling out surveys.'

‘Indeed,' said Pryor coldly. ‘Well then, I suggest you begin analysing your findings. I will meet with the three of you at lunchtime tomorrow to discuss the results.'

‘Uh, right,' I said. ‘Great. See you then, miss!'

Pryor didn't move.

‘Is there something else, miss?'

‘Just one more thing,' Pryor smiled. ‘If I ever catch either of you snooping around my office again, I will arrange for your lives to become
extremely
unpleasant. Is that understood?'

Chapter 6

F
RIDAY
, M
AY
22
83
DAYS

‘All sorted?' I whispered as Jordan crept into the room and sat down next to me.

‘Yeah,' she said out of the corner of her mouth. ‘It's the one just outside the door at the other end of the building.'

We were sitting in the front office, waiting for Pryor to show up. Jordan had stopped on the way here to cram one of the bins in the quad full of newspaper – part one of our plan to get Pryor out of her office.

‘You okay?' asked Jordan, leaning over to talk to Luke.

‘Yeah,' he said, snapping around to face her, eyes open slightly too wide. ‘Yeah, good. I'm good. Let's do this.'

He'd been exploding with nervous energy all day. Not that I could blame him, I guess. By the end of the day, we'd be telling his dad and everyone else about what was really going on in Phoenix – or we'd be even more dead than we already were.

I just hoped he could hold it together in Pryor's office.

‘Mr Hunter,' said Pryor, suddenly appearing in the doorway. ‘You first, today.'

Luke jumped up like she'd zapped him with a Taser and followed her back down the hall.

Huh
. Pryor was tightening the leash again. No more letting us decide who went in to see her first.

I wasn't complaining about her choice, though.

I looked across at Jordan. She was leaning forward, arms resting on her knees, like she was bracing herself for whatever was coming next.

She smelled good today.

‘So what do
you
reckon happened to More yesterday?' I asked, leaning in nice and close to whisper in her ear. It's important to be covert in these situations.

‘You tell me,' said Jordan. ‘You're the one who saw it. You sure he wasn't just behind the door or something?'

‘What would he be doing behind the door?'

‘Well, either he was still in there somewhere and you guys just didn't see him,' said Jordan, ‘or there's another way out of Pryor's office that we don't know about.'

‘Secret trapdoor under the rug?' I suggested.

Jordan smiled back. ‘Right.'

After only a minute or two, Pryor was back.

‘Miss Burke,' she smiled, after sending Luke outside. ‘Please come with me.'

‘Good luck,' I whispered as she stood up.

‘Yeah, you too.'

And just like that, Pryor unknowingly finished handing out the jobs for our little heist. Jordan and Luke on distraction duty. Me in charge of grabbing the phone.

I kicked back in my seat and tried not to think too much about what would happen if we were caught. This was actually surprisingly easy, thanks to all the other stuff that was buzzing around in my brain; trying to figure out where Ben had disappeared to yesterday; wondering where they'd put Crazy Bill and what I was supposed to be doing with his stupid clue; marvelling that I'd just had a whole conversation with Jordan without getting yelled at even once.

Not that the yelling ever really fazes me. I mean, nothing wrong with a passionate relationship, right? But the peaceful moments are nice too.

Before long, I heard the familiar clunk of Pryor's door reopening. I checked the clock on the wall. Lunch was almost over. If this was going to work, we needed to get moving. I got up and crossed the room, meeting Pryor as she reached the doorway.

‘Goodness,' she said, almost running into me. ‘Eager to get started, are we, Mr Weir?'

‘You know it, miss!' I said, pulling my surveys out of my bag. ‘I've got some exciting findings for you.'

‘Excellent.' Pryor headed back down the hall. I followed her into the office and she pushed the door shut behind us.

This was it. Any minute now, Jordan and Luke would start unleashing mayhem on the quad.

There was no way to
guarantee
that what we were planning would get Pryor out of her office, but I was pretty confident. If there's one thing I've learnt in my time at school, it's how to make a scene.

‘All right, Mr Weir,' said Pryor, sitting down at her oversized desk, ‘let's see what you've come up with.'

I handed her the stack of surveys, along with a hand-scribbled page of ‘findings' that I'd torn out of the back of my English book.

She scanned the page for about two seconds, then pushed the whole pile aside and said, ‘Very good.'

A flicker of a smile passed across her face. Not the usual, dopey, let's-all-be-best-friends smile. This one was different. She was baiting me.

See these surveys you just spent all week doing for me? I'm not even going to look at them.