Phantom of the Auditorium (7 page)

“Whoa,” I murmured. I felt a chill roll down my back.

Then I heard a side door being pulled open.

All three of us turned away from the backdrop in time to see a figure step into the auditorium.

We cried out in surprise when we saw who it was.

She stood gaping up at us. She blinked her eyes several times, as if she didn’t believe what she was seeing.

“I — I am really shocked,” Ms. Walker said finally.

I swallowed hard. I struggled to say something, but no sound would come out.

Zeke and Brian stood frozen like me.

“I am so disappointed in all three of you,” Ms. Walker said, stepping closer. “Breaking and entering is a serious crime. And the three of you have no business —”

She stopped short and let out a little gurgle as her eyes fell on the backdrop. She had been so surprised to find Zeke, Brian, and me onstage, she hadn’t seen it — until now.

“Oh, no! Oh, good heavens!” she cried, raising both hands to her face. She tilted. Sort of toppled from side to side. I thought she was about to fall over!

“How
could
you?” she gasped. She hurried across the stage, her eyes on the paint-splotched backdrop. “How could you ruin it? All the students worked for so many days to get it right. How could you ruin it for everyone?”

“We didn’t,” Zeke said quietly.

“We didn’t do it,” I repeated.

She shook her head hard, as if trying to shake us away. “I’m afraid I’ve caught you red-handed,” she said quietly, almost sadly. I saw tears brim in her eyes.

“Ms. Walker, really —” I started.

She raised a hand to stop me. “Was it so important to you three to have your little joke?” she asked, her voice trembling.

“Ms. Walker —”

“Was it so important to make everyone believe there is a phantom? So important that you broke into the school — committed a serious crime — and then completely destroyed the scenery for our play? Was your joke so important?”

“We really didn’t do it,” I insisted, my voice trembling, too.

Ms. Walker stepped forward and rubbed a finger over a red paint splotch on the backdrop. When she pulled the finger away, it was smeared with red paint.

“The paint is still wet,” she said, her eyes burning accusingly into mine. “There’s no one else here. Are you going to keep lying to me all night?”

“If you’d just give us a chance —” Zeke started.

“I’m especially disappointed in you, Brian,” Ms. Walker said, shaking her head, a frown tightening her features. “You just started at this school a week or so ago. You should be on your best behavior.”

Brian blushed redder than I’ve ever seen a human blush. He lowered his eyes, as if he were guilty.

I took a deep breath. “Ms. Walker, you
have
to let us explain!” I cried shrilly. “We really didn’t do this! We found it like this! Really!”

Ms. Walker opened her mouth to speak, but changed her mind. “Okay.” She crossed her arms over her skinny chest. “Go ahead. But I want the
truth.”

“The truth,” I said. I raised my right hand, as if swearing an oath. “Brian, Zeke, and I
did
sneak into the school. We didn’t really break in. We climbed in through a window.”

“Why?” Ms. Walker demanded sternly. “What are you doing here? Why aren’t you home where you should be?”

“We came to look for the Phantom,” Zeke broke in. He swept his blond hair back with one hand. He always did that to his hair when he was really tense.

“We told you about the Phantom this morning, but you didn’t believe us.”

“Of course I didn’t believe you!” Ms. Walker declared. “It’s an old legend. Just a story.” She frowned at Zeke.

Zeke let out a frustrated sigh. “We saw the Phantom, Ms. Walker. Brooke and I. We saw him. He’s the one who painted all over the backdrop. Not us. He’s the one who swung down from the catwalk. And grabbed Brooke at rehearsal.”

“Why should I believe that?” Ms. Walker demanded, her arms still tightly crossed in front her.

“Because it’s true,” I said. “Zeke, Brian, and I — we came to the auditorium to look for the Phantom.”

“Where were you going to look for him?” Ms. Walker asked.

“Well,” Zeke stammered. “Probably underneath the stage.”

“You were going to take the trapdoor down?” Ms. Walker asked.

I nodded. “Maybe. If we had to.”

“But I clearly instructed everyone to stay away from the trapdoor,” she said.

“I know,” I told her. “And I’m sorry. We’re all sorry. But we are really desperate to find the Phantom, to prove to you that he is real, that we’re not making him up.”

Her expression remained hard. She continued to glare at us. “I haven’t heard anything to convince me,” she said.

“When we got here, we heard some noises,” Zeke told her, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot. “Footsteps. Floorboards creaking. So we knew someone else was here.”

“And then the backdrop started to come down,” Brian broke in, his voice shaky and small. “We just stood here and watched it, Ms. Walker. That’s the truth. And then when we saw how it was messed up, we … we couldn’t believe it!”

Ms. Walker’s expression softened a little. Brian sounded so upset, I think she was starting to believe him.

“I worked so hard on that backdrop,” Brian continued. “It was the first thing I ever worked on at this school, and I wanted it to be good. I wouldn’t wreck my own backdrop for a dumb joke. I really wouldn’t.”

Ms. Walker uncrossed her arms. She glanced at each of us, then returned her eyes to the backdrop. Her lips silently formed the words of the scrawled message:

She shut her eyes and kept them shut for a long moment. Then she turned back to us. “I want to believe you,” she confessed with a sigh. “But I just don’t know.”

She began to pace back and forth in front of us. “I drove back to school because I’d forgotten your math test papers. I heard voices in the auditorium. I come in here, and I find you on the stage. The scenery totally smeared and destroyed. The paint still wet. And you ask me to believe that a mysterious phantom from over seventy years ago is responsible.”

I didn’t say a word. Neither did Zeke or Brian. I don’t think we had anything more to say.

“The weird thing is, I’m starting to believe you,” Ms. Walker said, frowning.

The three of us let out relieved sighs.

“At least, I’m starting to believe that you didn’t paint on the backdrop.” She shook her hair hard. Her skinny body shuddered. “It’s getting late,” she said softly. “Let’s all go home. I need to think about this. Maybe we need to ask Mr. Levy for an investigation. Maybe he can help us find the culprit who is trying to ruin our play.”

Oh, no,
I thought.
Not the principal. What if he decides to cancel our play?
But I didn’t say anything. None of us did. We didn’t even look at one another. We followed Ms. Walker out into the hall.

I was just so relieved that she had started to believe us. And that she was letting us go.

She clicked on a hall light so we could see our way.

We took a few steps, walking behind her.

Then we all stopped at once.

We all saw the red paint spots on the hall floor. A trail of red paint spots.

“Well, look at this!” Ms. Walker declared. “Our painter was a little careless. He or she left a trail to follow.”

She clicked on more lights.

We followed the red paint splotches down the long hall. We could clearly see a shoe print in one of the bigger paint puddles.

“I don’t believe this!” Zeke whispered to me. “Someone left a trail.”

“I’m glad,” I whispered back. “Maybe the paint drips will lead us to the one who splotched up the backdrop.”

“You mean the Phantom?” Zeke whispered.

We turned a corner. We passed a small paint smear.

“At least this will prove to Ms. Walker that we’re telling the truth,” Brian said softly.

We turned another corner.

The paint trail stopped suddenly. One last tiny red puddle stood in front of a locker.

“Hmmmm,” Ms. Walker said thoughtfully, moving her eyes from the paint smear to the locker. “The trail seems to lead right to here.”

“Hey!” Zeke cried out, startling all of us. I could see his eyes go wide with shock. “That’s
my
locker!”

No one said anything for a moment.

I could hear Zeke’s breaths, short and fast. I turned to him. He was staring at his locker, staring hard at the gray metal door as if he could see inside.

“Open your locker, Zeke,” Ms. Walker instructed. She said it through gritted teeth.

“Huh?” Zeke gaped at her as if he didn’t understand what she meant. He lowered his eyes to the smear of red paint on the floor under his locker door.

“Go ahead. Open your locker,” Ms. Walker repeated patiently. She suddenly looked very tired.

Zeke hesitated. “But there’s nothing in there,” he protested. “Just books and notebooks and stuff.”

“Please.” Ms. Walker motioned to the combination lock with one hand. “Please, Zeke. It’s really late.”

“But you don’t think —?” Zeke started. Ms. Walker motioned to the lock again.

“Maybe somebody wanted to make it look like Zeke was the one with the paint,” I suggested. “Maybe someone deliberately made that trail of paint lead to Zeke’s locker.”

“Maybe,” Ms. Walker replied calmly. “That’s why I want him to open his locker.”

“Okay, okay,” Zeke muttered. His hand shook as he reached for the combination lock. He leaned his head forward and concentrated as he spun the dial, first one direction, then the other.

“Give me some light,” he said edgily.

I backed up. “Sorry.” I didn’t realize I was standing in his light.

I glanced at Brian. He had his hands shoved in his pockets. He leaned against the wall and stared intently at Zeke’s hands as Zeke twirled the lock.

Finally, Zeke pulled the lock open with a loud
click.

He lifted the handle and pulled open the door.

I leaned forward to peer inside at the same time as Ms. Walker. We nearly bumped heads.

We both saw the can of paint at the same time.

A small can of red paint resting on the locker floor.

The lid wasn’t on tight. Splashes of red paint dripped over the side of the can.

“But it isn’t
mine!”
Zeke wailed.

Ms. Walker let out a long sigh. “I’m sorry, Zeke.”

“It isn’t mine!” Zeke whined. “Really, Ms. Walker! It
isn’t!”

“I’m going to call your parents to come in for a serious talk,” Ms. Walker said, biting her lower lip. “And, of course, you’re out of the play.”

“Oh, nooo!” Zeke moaned. He slammed the locker door shut as hard as he could. The crash echoed down the long, empty hall.

Ms. Walker flinched from the sound. She flashed Zeke an angry look. Then she turned to Brian and me. “So you two were also involved? Tell the truth!”

“No!” Brian and I both called out. “We didn’t do it,” I added. I started to say, “Neither did Zeke.”

But I could see that it was too late. There was no way to argue against the can of paint in the locker.

Zeke was a cooked goose.

“If I find out that you and Brian had anything to do with it, I’ll remove you from the play and call your parents in, too,” Ms. Walker threatened. “Now go home. All of you.”

We turned and trudged out the door without another word.

The night air felt cold against my hot skin. I shivered.

The half-moon was covered by a sheet of gray mist. The mist looked like a ghostly figure floating over the moon.

I followed Zeke and Brian down the concrete steps. A gust of wind made my jacket flap behind me.

“Do you believe it?” Zeke muttered angrily. “Do you believe it?”

“No,” I replied, shaking my head. Poor Zeke. I could see he was really messed up. And when his parents got that call from Ms. Walker, Zeke was going to be even
more
messed up!

“How did that paint get in your locker?” Brian asked him, his eyes peering into Zeke’s.

Zeke turned away. “How should I know?” he snapped.

We made our way to the sidewalk. Zeke angrily kicked an empty cardboard juice box into the street.

“See you tomorrow, I guess,” Brian said unhappily. He gave us a little wave, then turned and started walking slowly toward his house.

Zeke jogged off in the other direction.

“Aren’t you going to walk home with me?” I called.

“No,” he shouted back, and kept going.

In a way I was glad he had left. I didn’t really know what to say to him.

I just felt so bad.

I started walking slowly, my head down, thinking hard, when I saw a small, round light floating toward me through the darkness.

The light grew bigger. I realized it was a bicycle headlight. The bike turned out of the school parking lot and rolled smoothly, steadily toward me.

When it was a few feet away, I recognized the bike rider. “Tina!” I cried in surprise. “What are
you
doing here?”

She squealed to a stop, bouncing in the seat. Her dark eyes caught the light of the streetlamp above us. She smiled. An odd smile.

“Hi, Brooke. How’s it going?” she asked.

Was she in the school? I wondered. Did she just come out of the school?

“Where’d you come from?” I repeated.

Her strange smile remained on her face. “A friend’s,” she said. “I’m just coming from a friend’s.”

“Were you in the school?” I blurted out.

“The school? No. Not me,” she replied. She shifted her weight, then raised her feet to the pedals. “Better zip up that jacket, Brooke,” she said. “You don’t want to catch a cold, do you?”

On Saturday we had play rehearsals all day long in the auditorium. The performance was only a week away.

We all worked hard, and the rehearsal went well. I only forgot my lines twice.

But it wasn’t the same without Zeke.

Robert Hernandez had taken Zeke’s place. I like Robert, but he’s a very serious guy. He doesn’t get my jokes, and he doesn’t like to kid around or be kidded.