The Poster

A Little After Midnight

"Tony, are you done yet?" Cortney asked in an annoyed voice.

"One sec... one sec... done!" Tony said while holding up his portion of the poster.

"Finally, we can leave!" Ella said enthusiastically. Cara sighed while getting up from laying on the floor. She had been trying to sleep for the past hour, but the persistent nagging of Cortney had made it impossible. She walked over the five pieces of the poster and stacked them up.

"We can put the poster up next week. It's midnight and I want to get out of school before my weekend is over," Cara said calmly putting the poster in Abe's hands. "Here you can but this in the office, we'll get everything else put away." Cara started picking up the pencils and markers strewn around the room. The red maker had bled into the carpet. The blue colored pencil was crossed on top and the rest of the pencils were near places everyone had worked at. Cortney was picking up the scissors, Ella was slowly picking up various bottles of glue, glitter, and pipe cleaners, and Tony was sitting and leaning back on his hands.

Ella was humming a song that she had been learning in band when the lights flickered. She thought nothing of it at first, but when it happened again she stopped humming and quickly finished cleaning up. She looked over at Tony who had his eyes closed and wasn't paying attention at all. Ella looked over at Cortney and found that Cortney had picked up pace as well. The lights flickered more and this time they went fast in and out, in and out. The lights shut off and Ella looked over at Cara not seeing anything at first and then when her eyes adjusted she asked in a frantic whisper "Do you think the lights will be back on soon?" Cara turned her head and shock it.

"I don't know, maybe." Cortney said. Ella heard electricity humming and the lights flickered on. Cortney sighed with relief and started picking up again. When everything was put away we left the classroom and headed to the blue room. Cortney texted Abe to meet us there. Tony was like a slug and took forever to get there even though we had left the same time. Ella went to get her instrument, but she was a little to freaked out to go into the black band hallway. She went back to the group and Abe still wasn't there.

"Abe shouldn't have taken this long, I think we should go see if he's okay. North doesn't feel safe right now to me." Ella looked around and saw disbelief on Cara's and Cortney's faces. Tony looked at me and nodded his head in agreement. "Tony, we should go to the office and look for him. Cara, Cortney you guys can stay here."

"You're going to waste your time. He texted me a minute ago, that he would be here soon and knowing him he probably got lost in the school and in two minutes will find him walking in here like an embarrassed child because he got lost again," Courtney said with a sassy voice.

Ella ignored Courtney and grabbed Tony's arm. Ella dragged him only two feet before Cara spoke in her naturally quiet, but snaring voice "I don't think we'll be able to leave anytime soon." Ella shot a glare to over where she was, this was not a time to be messing around she thought. Ella saw Cara with one of the doors open revealing that the next door was holding back snow. Ella had thought that the door was black because it was dark outside, but Cara's phones flashlight revealed the sparking white snow.

Ella didn't let it show but she was a little freaked out. First the lights had made me wary but, this made her scared though she couldn't explain why. "I'm still going to get Abe. He gets scared easily." Ella grabbed Tony and they headed to the office. Tony tried to get his arm free but Ella was clenching so tightly that it was cutting off blood circulation. Ella realized what she was doing and let go and flashed a grin that said sorry.