Dinosaur Boy by Cory Putman Oakes

Author:Cory Putman Oakes
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc
Published: 2014-12-08T15:39:22+00:00

The Obstacle Course

As soon as Elliot and I moved to follow Sylvie down the steps of the administration building, it started to rain. Hard.

Which was actually pretty helpful. Turns out it’s easy to follow people in the rain. Especially when they pull an enormous yellow umbrella out of their purse and hold it up like a beacon over their head. Which is exactly what Principal Mathis did. Sylvie, Elliot, and I just had to stay close enough to keep the yellow umbrella in sight. Plus, the rain was so loud we didn’t even have to be that quiet.

I found myself hoping that Principal Mathis was leading us to the library or to the girls’ restroom. Or somewhere else so boring that Sylvie would lose interest in her and stop forcing me and Elliot to accompany her on her stealth missions.

But then I realized that we were going in the opposite direction from the library. And then we passed three girls’ restrooms without stopping. By the time we went by the art wing and entered an area at the very back of the school where the portable classrooms were kept, even I had to admit something weird was going on.

Elliot and I had both had an art class in one of the portable classrooms last year while the roof on the art wing was being fixed. But as far as I knew, the portables were empty this year.

Sylvie motioned for us to slow down and hide behind a row of bushes, just as the principal reached the door of the farthest portable. Principal Mathis closed her umbrella and leaned it carefully against the wall beside the door. She was holding a keychain in her hand. There was a single key dangling from a red circular disk the size of a silver dollar.

Then Principal Mathis suddenly whirled around.

I froze; so did Elliot and Sylvie. The rain ran off the hood of my jacket and dripped from the tip of my nose. I held my breath.

The bush was not thick. I could see Principal Mathis perfectly through a cantaloupe-sized hole in the foliage. We were so about to be caught.

“This is stupid,” Elliot muttered, crouched down awkwardly beside me so that his knees were practically in his face. “She can totally see us.”

“Wait,” Sylvie commanded him. “Just wait.”

We did.

Principal Mathis began a left-to-right scan of the area behind her. It was hard to tell, because I was too far away to see her eyes behind her thick glasses, but I was 90 percent sure that her eyes swept right over our bush. But they didn’t stop, not until they got all the way to the edge of her vision on the right.

Then she nodded, put the key in the lock, and let herself into the portable.

• • •

“Interesting,” Sylvie marveled.

“She didn’t see us?” Elliot asked, incredulous, as he wiped the rain from his face. A losing fight, considering it was raining harder than ever. “How did she not see us?”

“Maybe it was the rain?” I guessed.

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