The Name of the Star - Maureen Johnson [34]
1:45 arrived. Then 1:46, 1:47, 1:48, 1:49 . . .
The newscasters spun on and on, filling time by showing the same film of police cars going through the streets. I started to feel weird waiting on the roof for someone to die. It was obvious that the news people had run out of ways of saying “nothing has been found.” They returned to descriptions of the third body. The early reports confirmed that this was indeed a third Ripper murder. This was the quickest one, just a slash to the neck.
Two o’clock. Five past two. Jazza got up and began to hop on the balls of her feet and hug herself for warmth. I watched her gleeful pride slipping away with every passing minute.
“I want to go back,” she said. “I can’t stay up here anymore.”
Jerome looked to her, then over to me.
“Do you want to stay, or . . .”
There was just a touch of sadness in his voice. This made me go tingly all over. But there was no way Jazza wanted to go back by herself, and really, neither did I.
“No,” I said. “We should go back together.”
“That’s probably the best idea,” he said.
He escorted us back down the fire stairs, to the back door.
“Be careful,” he said. “Text me when you’re there safe?”
“Okay,” I said. I smiled a little. I couldn’t help it.
The door shut, and we were once again outside in the cold. I didn’t want to take the long way around, for several reasons—not the least of which was the fact that the Ripper was actually in East London somewhere. Cutting through the square was the safest and most direct route—but it also was the one that increased our chances of getting caught by several orders of magnitude. We’d be approaching Hawthorne straight on. Still, I thought we could do it.
There were lights along the sides of the square, but we could probably stay hidden by keeping near the trees where it was always dark and shady. Even if Claudia were staring out of the window, she’d need night vision goggles to see us creeping along under the trees’ cover. I wouldn’t have put it past Claudia to have night vision goggles, but again, she was probably watching the news with everyone else. That’s where we had last seen her. The common room was in the back of the building.
Jazza stared at the square, making the same mental calculations.
“Really?” she asked.
“It’s about fifty feet. Come on. Tree to tree, like a spy!”
“I don’t think that’s how spies work,” she said, but she followed me as I bolted into the dark of the square. We made ridiculous dodges from tree to bush to tree, the leaves crunching under our shoes. When we reached the other side, we had to make the dash across the cobblestone street in front of Hawthorne, then sneak under the windows to the back of the building. The bathroom lights were off. As far as I could remember, we’d left them on. Someone had come in since. We’d managed to close the window as we got out, but we left it open just a crack on the bottom so we could push it back up again. I boosted Jazza up, and she squirreled under the bars and inside. I was about to do the same when I realized someone was next to me. It was a man, bald and dressed in a slightly oversized gray suit.
“Should you be doing that?” he asked politely.
“It’s okay,” I said quickly, once I swallowed a scream of surprise. “I go here.”
“I take it you’re not supposed to be out.”
There was something strangely familiar about the man, something I couldn’t quite place. It was something about his eyes, his bald head, his outfit. And he was creepy. Maybe it was just because he was some middle-aged man standing around school grounds, talking to underage girls. That would do it. That’s the technical definition of creepy.
Jazza appeared at the window.
“Now!” she whisper-shouted, reaching down for me.
“Good night, girls,” the man said, walking on.
I scraped up one of my knees on the bricks getting in, but I made it, tumbling into the stall. We quickly pulled the bars back into place and shut the window. We changed back into our pajamas frantically. There was still a lot of noise coming from the common