EverWorld (Book 3 of the Down World Series)

Chapter Three

I LOVED reading your comments last weeks, folks. I tried to keep a tally of the Team Kieren vs Team Adam posts (and even one Team Brady!) but I lost count. :)

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I didn't really know where I was heading the next morning when I hopped on my old bike and started pedaling. I told Dad I was going to the store to replace the entire bag of coffee Robbie and I had downed since we'd been home. But my feet ended up choosing their own path, revisiting landmarks that had once meant so much to me—the Kids' Science Center where I'd taught coding last year, the strip mall where I'd bought my first bra, and, of course, the train tracks where Robbie had been hit—the very same spot where Adam and I had stood in 1943 watching the dripping uranium canister create the train portal.

Before I knew it, I had arrived at the parking lot of East Township High.

I got lucky with the timing. It was the last Friday before their winter break ended, and while the kids weren't back yet, the teachers were there, setting up their classrooms for the second semester. So the front door was unlocked.

I had no plans to sneak down to the boiler room. I hadn't been there since the day I had promised Adam I'd go to Boston and start over—the day he'd told me he was going to find a life he could be proud of as well. I'd spent a year imagining where that life might be for him, who he was spending it with, where he was sleeping at night.

But every time I tried to picture it, all I could see was his green eyes, floating in front of me and then blinking into oblivion.

Once inside, I walked the length of the hard tile floor, thinking of the day I said goodbye to him, indulging myself in the memories I usually tried to keep at bay. I made it all the way to the end of the corridor before it clicked in my mind that something was wrong.

Was it possible I was in the wrong hallway?

I retraced the steps again. There was the multipurpose room; the handicapped bathroom; the utility closet. Then brick wall. Then nothing. More brick wall.

I spun in circles, making myself dizzy. This wasn't possible. My fingers traced the bricks, feeling for an odd break, an obvious line. But there wasn't one.

The boiler room was gone.

I collected my breath, panicking for a moment that we'd somehow ended up in the wrong portal when we came back a year ago. That we'd been living in the wrong dimension for a year now. But that couldn't be.

"I covered it up," came a voice behind me.

I spun in my tracks, my eyes landing on the diminutive figure of Principal Farghasian standing before me. In my three years at East Township, I couldn't remember one time when I'd actually spoken to her face to face.

Even when she'd handed me my diploma last spring, she had turned to smile for the official photo rather than look at me. I wasn't even sure if she knew my name.

"I'm sorry?" I asked, because I needed her to repeat it. But she clearly interpreted it in a different way.

"No, you're not," she said, walking a step closer as though trying to cage me in somehow. It was an unnecessary gesture; we were the only ones in the hall, and I clearly wasn't going to make a run for it.

I stammered, trying to figure out what I was supposed to say next.

"Did you think I didn't know?" she whispered fiercely.

"How?" I asked.

But she only sighed and shook her head. "I've been at this school since before you were born. You're not the only one with secrets."