The First Glader |Canceled|

Letters of the Maze

After three minutes the boys had come back with as many pens and pencils that they could find. We sat at the work table looking at Thomas for his next move, "Al you still have Ro's knife?"

I looked at Minho to Newt, I could get in trouble for holding a weapon on me. "Maybe..."

"Can I see it?" I hesitated before giving him the sharp blade.

"This better be good," Minho said. Warning laced his voice, but his eyes showed some interest.

Newt leaned forward, putting his elbows on the table, as if waiting for a magic trick. "Get on with it, Greenie."

"Okay. " Thomas seemed eager to do so, but was also scared to death it might end up being nothing. He handed the knife to Minho, then pointed at the wax paper. "Start cutting rectangles, about the size of the Maps. Newt and Teresa, you can help me grab the first ten or so Maps from each section box."

"What is this, kiddie craft time?" Minho held up the knife and looked at it with disgust. "Why don't you just tell us what the klunk we're doing this for?"

  "I'm done explaining," Thomas stated, "It'll be easier to show you. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong, and we can go back to running around the Maze like mice."

"Fits the lab rat theme," I muttered loud enough for the others to hear.Minho sighed, clearly irritated, then muttered something under his breath. Teresa had stayed quiet for a while probably in Thomas' mind again. I began to draw and cut swiftly.

"Teresa," he said aloud. "Can you help me a second?" He nodded toward the closet.

  The two of them went into the dusty little room and opened up all the boxes, grabbing a small stack of Maps from each one. Returning to the table, Thomas found that Minho had cut twenty sheets already, making a messy pile to his right as he threw each new piece on top. I tossed my own fifteen into the pile, Thomas sat down and grabbed a few. He held one of the papers up to the light, saw how it shone through with a milky glow.

He grabbed a marker. "All right, everybody trace the last ten or so days onto a piece of this stuff. Make sure you write the info on top so we can keep track of what's what. When we're done, I think we might see something. "

  "What—" Minho began. It made sense, my small fool trick worked well.

  "Just bloody keep cutting," Newt ordered. "I think I know where he's going with this."

"I know where he's going with this." We all began tracing the mazes onto the wax paper, Newt who was sitting next to me muttered curses at his ill straight lines. I took a small slab of wood and gave it to him, "Quit cursing Newt."

He gave me a look, "I've had enough," Newt finally announced, breaking the quiet. "My fingers are bloody burning like a mother-" I elbowed him hard in the gut. I was twelve. "See if it's working."

Thomas put his marker down, then flexed his fingers, "Okay, give me the last few days of each section—make piles along the table, in order from Section One to Section Eight. One here"—he pointed at an end—"to Eight here." He pointed at the other end. We silently did as told, once put perfectly an image could be seen, Teresa gasped and I stared at the letter there clear as day. There it sat wide in front of the five of us, a real hint, a hope of getting out of here.

There was a letter formed by lines, there was the letter F.

"Man," Minho said, summing up Thomas's feelings with one word.

"Could be a coincidence," Teresa said. "Do more, quick. "

Thomas did, putting together the eight pages of each day, in order from Section One to Section Eight. Each time, an obvious letter formed in the center of the crisscrossed mass of lines. After the F was an L, then an O, then an A, and a T. Then C ... A ... T.

"Look," Thomas said, pointing down the line of stacks they'd formed, confused, but happy that the letters were so obvious. "It spells FLOAT and then it spells CAT. "

"Float cat?" Newt asked. "Doesn't sound like a bloody rescue code to me."

"We just need to keep working," Thomas said.

Another couple of combinations made us realize that the second word was actually CATCH. FLOAT and CATCH.

"Definitely not a coincidence," I tisked.

"Definitely not," Thomas agreed. He couldn't wait to see more.

Teresa gestured toward the storage closet. "We need to go through all of them—all those boxes in there. "

"Yeah," Thomas nodded. "Let's get on it. "

"We can't help," Minho said.

All of us looked at him. He returned their glares. "At least not me and Thomas here. We need to get the Runners out in the Maze. "

"What?" Thomas asked. "This is way more important!"

"Maybe," Minho answered calmly, "but we can't miss a day out there. Not now."

"I wanna help!" I exclaimed gaining looks from them all. "Ro and I were trained together to run, fight, learn, and much more."

"No," Newt spoke up suddenly. "I'm not letting you out there, not after Ro went missing."

"Why, Minho? You said the pattern's basically been repeating itself for months—one more day won't mean a thing. "

Minho slammed his hand against the table. "That's bullcrap, Thomas!"

"I'M TWELVE YOU SHITTY MORONS!" I yelled. They looked at me in shock, "Continue, sorry."

"Of all days, this might be the most important to get out there. Something might've changed, something might've opened up. In fact, with the freaking walls not closing anymore, I think we should try your idea—stay out there overnight and do some deeper exploring."

"But what about this code? What about—"

"Tommy," Newt said in a consoling voice. "Minho's right. You shanks go out and get Runnin'. I'll round up some Gladers we can trust and get workin' on this. " Newt sounded more like a leader than ever before.

"Me too," Teresa agreed. "I'll stay and help Newt."

"I will as well, not like I have a choice but I'm a strategist, I'm in my element."

"You sure, both of you?"

She smiled and folded her arms. "If you're going to decipher a hidden code from a complex set of different mazes, I'm pretty sure you need a girl's brain running the show." Her grin turned into a smirk.

"Oh well then we already have one," gushering to myself knowing she'd understand. "Sorry Teresa."

"Oh, ha ha."

"If you say so. " He folded his own arms, staring at her with a smile. Well this is awkward, isn't?