Forty-One After Midnight (Completed)

Chapter Eighteen

When I showed up at dinner that night, my whole table was concerned. I could see it in the look in their eyes, even if they didn't say anything as I walked up.

"It's okay," I said. I hoped that would reassure them. "I dropped it out a window."

"You what?!" Kyle was about to flip out until I pulled the page that was still tucked in my bra out from its hiding place.

"Relax. I'm not that stupid."

I laughed and stuck it back. I didn't want anyone to see it. I didn't care if they wouldn't know what it was. It still seemed risky.

That night after dinner we headed back down to the library. There were even more people with us now, about thirty-seven to be exact, but something wasn't right. Ms. Langley said her and Mr. Barton were going to take care of all of them.

"Where are the last four?" I asked.

Ms. Langley looked around the room, and then at Mr. Barton. He shrugged.

"I don't know," She answered. "We spoke to all of them. They said they were in."

That was never a good sign. Either something had happened to them, they somehow magically forgot, or something was about to happen to us.

Ignoring the gut feeling I had that we shouldn't just ignore this slight problem, I decided we needed to change the subject and start looking at the case we were dealing with again. The only problem, which was going to be hard to ignore, was that I didn't want to share the page with anyone until we had all the people we needed. It saved us from having to go over it over and over again every time someone new joined.

"I think we should find out who's who still," Kyle suggested. "After all, don't we need to know specifically what role we played in this?"

"Actually I'm not really sure how specific it has to be," I told him. "I haven't looked at the page yet."

"You haven't? Why not?"

"I wanted to get everyone together and then go over it then."

"Oh... okay."

I looked at the big clock on the wall. It was only 9:30pm. We still had another half hour until the building locked. Our newest members were going to have a little surprise when that time came.

"How do we find out who people are without Jane around?" Kelsey asked.

"Well... if only we had that old year book." I looked over at Mrs. Reeves.

"Sorry," She said, "I didn't get the chance to look for it. Bad mistake walking into that office. Mr. Williams was still there alright."

"What?"

We all looked over. One of the teachers we just recruited looked at Mrs. Reeves, horrified. She was fairly young still and had only been teaching here for the past two years. Mrs. Reeves looked over at her and tried to comfort her as best as she could. It didn't really help. That's when Ms. Langley decided to just say it how it is. Which from the looks of it, didn't help either.

"Look," she said, "we told you we were dealing with dead people here. What did you expect?"

The teacher's eyes widened. She was about to try to make a run for it, but it was too late. The door to the library opened before she got there, and our principal was now walking in, followed by the four missing teachers. She started to back up again and sat back down.