Contact (6 page)

Of course, we'd known from the beginning that the whole thing was a joke, but the smug look on her face was still bloody annoying. All the more incentive to make sure our plan worked.

I smiled sweetly back at her and said, ‘Thanks, miss. What do we get to do next?'

‘Mrs Stapleton will contact you shortly with your next assignment,' said Pryor. ‘In the meantime –'

Through the back wall of the office, I heard somebody scream.

Pryor hesitated, hearing it too, but pushed on. ‘In the meantime, I'd like you to begin speaking to the students in Years 7 and 8 about –'

More screams, some panicked, some excited.

I opened my eyes wider, shooting for
surprised and curious
, trying to figure out how to help get Pryor out of here. Which would seem more innocent: asking Pryor about the noise, or pretending to ignore it?

Pryor's eyes flashed to the door, considering.

Come on,
I thought.
You know you want to. Get out there and see what's going on.

The shouting got louder, and now most of it was the same word.

‘Fire!'

‘Hey miss,' I said, ‘did that kid just –?'

Pryor got to her feet and stormed around her desk to the door, muttering something about the teacher on duty. I leant forward in my chair, ready to be on my feet as soon as she was gone.

Pryor heaved the door open and stuck her head out.

‘Mrs Stapleton!' she shouted. ‘Would you please get out there and deal with that?'

Crap. We'd forgotten about Staples.

But then the office lady's voice echoed back up the hall. ‘Sorry, Melinda, she's gone to lunch.'

Before Pryor had a chance to respond, I heard footsteps running along the hall from the other end of the building. A little pack of Year 7 girls appeared in Pryor's doorway, led by the freckle-faced kid who'd been pestering us with suggestions.

‘Ms Pryor!' said Freckles. ‘The boys have set a bin on fire! Now they're putting sticks in it and –'

‘Who's on duty?' snapped Pryor.

‘Mr Larson!' said Freckles. ‘He was there a minute ago but now we can't find him.'

That would be because Luke had him distracted with a very important question about our English homework.

The chaos was sounding louder than ever. There had to be a pretty big crowd by now.

‘All right,' said Pryor, exasperated. ‘Show me.'

Finally.

But Pryor wasn't finished with me yet. ‘Mr Weir,' she said, pushing the door all the way open. ‘Out.'

‘Huh?' I said. ‘Oh. Yes, miss.' I got to my feet and trudged past her, out into the hall.

Why hadn't I seen this coming?
Of course
Pryor would want me out of there. How could I have been dumb enough to think she'd leave a student alone in her office?

Another chorus of laughs and shouts rang out from the quad.

‘Come on, miss!' said Freckles. ‘They're just outside!'

‘Yes, yes,' said Pryor. She stomped away down the hall, the Year 7s hovering around her like flies on a carcass.

I trailed behind for a few steps, then looked back over my shoulder at Pryor's door. It was still swinging shut.

I stopped walking.

Pryor was five metres from the end of the hall.

The door was closing fast. Any second now, I'd hear that dull
clunk
, and it would all be over.

Had to risk it.
Don't look back, Pryor, don't look back, don't look back
…

I leapt back down the hall and jammed my foot in the doorway.

Don't look back, don't look back, don't look back
…

Half a second later, I felt the metal door crush into the side of my shoe.

I gritted my teeth against the pain of it.

Don't look back, don't look back, don't look back
…

At the end of the hallway, Freckles pushed the glass door open to let Pryor out. Pryor stepped through the door, turned towards the quad, and for a second I was sure she'd spot me out of the corner of her eye.

No! Go! Get out of here!

And then she was gone.

I let out a breath, heaved the door open again, and stepped into her office.

Chapter 7

F
RIDAY
, M
AY
22
83
DAYS

The door clunked shut behind me.

I dashed to the back of Pryor's office. Dived behind her desk. Stopped and listened.

Still plenty of noise outside, but I knew it wouldn't take Pryor long to put a stop to that.

I looked under the desk.

There was a single, heavy-looking drawer on the right-hand side. I was about to pull it open when I noticed Pryor's computer screen.

Her recording program was still running.

I grabbed the mouse, hit pause, and deleted the last thirty seconds of audio.

‘
What
is going on here?' Pryor's voice exploded behind me and I nearly hit the roof.

But it was coming from outside, blasting over the mayhem in the quad.

Stop. Breathe.

I stared back down at the drawer. Grabbed the handle. And pulled.

The drawer didn't budge.

I glanced up at the metal door, panic rising in my stomach. The noise outside was disappearing fast.

I pulled at the drawer again. Nothing. It was locked.

And then the panic turned to rage and I started wrenching at the handle as hard as I could, rattling the drawer up and down, clunking and smashing and not even thinking about all the noise I was making, ready to tear the whole desk apart if I had to.

Still nothing.

I swore, kicked the leg of the desk, and then swore again as pain shot through my foot.

Then I realised I couldn't hear Pryor's shouting anymore. I stepped back, fists clenched in my hair, staring furiously at that
stupid bloody drawer.

And then the drawer rolled open.

It just unlocked all by itself and slid out from the desk, like someone was working it with a remote control. And there, sitting on top of a stack of white Shackleton Co-operative notepads, was Pryor's phone.

I stared around the office, adrenaline surging, suddenly positive that I was being set up.

What the crap just happened?

The bell rang.

Just grab it! Just grab it and go!

I took the phone, switched it off, and shoved it down into my sock. It was an older model. Would've been top of the line maybe five years ago. There was a weird bulge at the back of it, where the battery pack should be, like someone had modified it.

I slammed the drawer shut again and ran for the door.

I was halfway round Pryor's desk when I remembered that the recording on her laptop was still paused. I leant across and set it going again.

Across the room. Into the hall. Still deserted.

Good.

Out in the quad, Pryor was restoring order. The crowd of students was slowly moving off to their classes, talking and laughing and glancing back over their shoulders at the scene of the crime.

The bin that Jordan had set on fire was still sending up clouds of black smoke and the occasional piece of smouldering newspaper. Even better, a couple of Year 7s were up against the office wall, getting busted by Pryor. Both of them had long, blackened sticks lying at their feet. By the look of things, they'd been using the sticks to pull flaming garbage out of the bin.

Idiots.

Good for us, though. Couldn't have found a better way to shift the blame if we'd tried.

I crept around behind Pryor, searching for the others.

Jordan was at the other end of the quad, waiting in the doorway to the English building.

‘Well?' she said as I reached her.

I didn't stop until I was through the door and out of Pryor's sight. I collapsed against the wall, silent for just long enough to make her think I'd failed, and then I winked at her.

‘Yeah,' I breathed. ‘I got it.'

And the look on her face was totally worth the five years that all that stress had taken off my life.

We headed upstairs, surrounded by a mob of Year 8s still going nuts over the bin. Seriously, you'd think these guys had never seen a fire before.

Luke was waiting for us at the top of the steps. ‘Did you get it?' he whispered.

‘Yeah,' I said, walking past him and heading down the corridor.

Luke grabbed me from behind. ‘Give it to me.'

‘After English,' I said, shrugging him off.

‘Forget English,' said Luke. ‘Larson's not going to notice if we're a few minutes –'

‘Like I'd care if he did,' I said. ‘We're not doing
anything
until we're out of here.'

Luke turned to Jordan for support, but she just shook her head at him. ‘Your dad will still be there at three o'clock.'

She was agreeing with me. Again. This was pretty much the best day ever.

Luke looked almost ready to push us both down and take the phone by force. But then he just huffed at us and slumped off to our English room.

I shrugged at Jordan and we followed him.

Not that I didn't feel for the guy, but getting emotional about this wouldn't help anyone. I hadn't put my arse on the line for that phone just to get caught using it five minutes later.

We walked into English, and I saw Cat up the back, scratching her shoulder. Her usually immaculate make-up was looking kind of thrown on today, like her mind had been on other things.

Cat glanced up when I came in. For a second I thought she was actually about to say something to me. But then she spotted Jordan walking in behind me and her eyes shot straight back down to her work. I ignored her and followed Luke to some empty seats at the other end of the room.

Larson usually gives us something pretty bludgy to do on a Friday afternoon. Today, we were meant to be looking at a bunch of book extracts on our laptops and deciding which ones were dystopias. It might actually have been an okay lesson if I didn't have the bloody telltale phone beating a hole in my leg.

The longer I sat there, the heavier it felt.

This was actually happening. In less than an hour, we were going to make the call.

We were going to let the outside world know what was really going on in this place. And then, finally, all of it would be someone else's problem.

I barely got anything done all lesson, but that wasn't exactly suspicious behaviour for me. And it was
nothing
compared to Luke. Mr Larson asked him three times if he was feeling okay. Each time, Luke nodded mutely and went on squirming in his seat.

Jordan was the total opposite. She tore through the work, like that would somehow help us get out of here faster. How she could focus on
anything
at a time like this was beyond me.

But when Larson finally told us to start packing up, not even Jordan could contain herself. She leapt up from her chair and shoved her stuff into her bag almost before he'd finished talking.

‘Somewhere to be, Jordan?' Larson smiled.

‘Uh, no sir,' said Jordan, putting her chair up. ‘Just excited it's the weekend.'

As soon as Larson let us out, we sprinted across to the maths block to get our bikes.

Luke's fingers could hardly work his bike chain. ‘Where should we –?'

‘Jordan's place,' I said. ‘It's closest.'

‘Sure,' shrugged Jordan.

Despite everything, Luke still found time to stop and roll his eyes at me.

We pushed through the crowd to the back gate and raced up to the end of the street, to Jordan's.

‘Should be no-one home,' said Jordan, unlocking the front door. ‘Mum was going to pick Georgia up from school and go do the shopping.'

Luke latched onto my arm again. ‘Where is it?'

I checked over my shoulder to make sure the street was still clear, then reached down and pulled out the phone.

Luke had his Dad's number punched in before we'd even walked inside.

‘Put it on speaker,' I said, as Jordan shut the door behind us.

‘Shh!' said Luke, turning away with the phone to his ear. His hands were shaking. He looked sick.

I shut up and waited.

And waited.

Luke pulled the phone away from his ear. Checked the screen. Put the phone up to his ear again.

‘What's happening?' I began. ‘Is it –?'

‘Shh!' said Jordan, giving me a whack. ‘Just let him do it.'

Luke stood listening to the phone for what felt like forever.

Then a tiny beep sounded from the speaker. Luke pulled the phone away to read the screen again. He closed his eyes, whispered, ‘No, you piece of –' and hammered the number into the phone again.

Not a good sign.

Luke leant against the wall, shaking worse than ever, barely keeping the phone to his ear. Waiting.

Jordan took a step towards him.

The phone beeped again. Luke stared at it.

Then he slumped down against the wall. The phone dropped from his hand.

Crap.

Jordan sat down next to him and rested a hand on his knee.

Why did she always have to
touch
him?

‘Luke …' she tried, but Luke didn't even seem to notice she was there.

I bent down and picked up the phone. The error message was still lighting up the screen.

Unauthorised number.

I showed the message to Jordan.

‘Should've guessed,' she said softly. She looked almost as gutted as Luke.

Now what?

‘You can fix it,' said Luke, staring up at me, eyes suddenly snapping back into focus.

‘What?'

Luke pointed at the phone, desperation across his face. ‘You can fix it, right? You know about this stuff. You can take it home and make it work.'

I turned the phone over in my hands. ‘Mate, I don't –' I started to say, but then Jordan was looking up at me too. ‘Sure. Yeah, I'll see what I can do.'

I dropped the phone into my pocket. I think we all knew it was a long shot, but – ‘Peter!' said Jordan. ‘The contacts!'