The Screaming Statue by Lauren Oliver

Author:Lauren Oliver
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2016-03-04T16:00:00+00:00

Max felt as if she had been filled head to toe with wet concrete. It wasn’t possible. Rattigan was far away—halfway across the country, and, if what the news reports said were true, was likely to be arrested any day. Was this some kind of joke?

But no one knew about Rattigan. No one except Max, Thomas, Sam, Pippa, and Mr. Dumfrey. And Miss Fitch—but even Miss Fitch wasn’t that evil.

“Do you think—?” she started to ask, but Thomas hushed her quickly.

“Listen,” he whispered.

Almost immediately, she heard it: someone was moving in the shadows. Like a someone who had just delivered a threatening note, and now didn’t want to be seen.

Max could hardly swallow. Was Rattigan here, even now, watching from the darkness? Once more, her hand went reflexively to her pocket before she remembered that she was totally unarmed. She thought of calling out for help—surely, someone would wake up and come running.

All these thoughts passed through her head in the space of one second, and before she could resolve to do anything, a shape materialized from the shadows, face concealed by a hat. Max shouted and Thomas sprang.

The stranger turned and bolted up the stairs that led to the street.

“Stop him!” Max shouted, feeling helpless and naked without her knives.

Thomas was still suffering from his injury and had miscalculated his jump; he barely clipped a trash can with his foot and went tumbling to the ground. The trash can clattered down into the courtyard, spilling a mess of bones and pulpy produce onto the stone.

“Thomas!” Max shrieked. But he was up again, unhurt, dashing up the stairs. She sprinted after him, pausing when she saw something glinting in the mess of spilled trash: a metal fork, with two tines missing, but better than nothing. She scooped it up and kept running. Bolting up the stairs, she saw the shadowy figure pass briefly under a streetlamp and careen around the corner of Forty-Fifth Street.

But Thomas, though moving more slowly than usual, was not far behind him. Max watched as he threw himself into the air and vaulted off the side of the corner building, transforming himself into a tumbling ball of momentum, like a human bullet. He disappeared from view. Max pumped her arms faster, tearing around the corner, just in time to see Thomas spread his arms . . .

. . . and belly flop to the ground, a few short inches behind the escaping stranger, with a loud oof.

“Don’t let him get away,” Thomas groaned, rolling onto his side, as Max sprinted by him.

“I won’t!” she huffed back. She hoped he wasn’t too hurt. She didn’t have time to stop and check. She dodged an overturned trash barrel and leaped over a lumpy series of cardboard boxes that had been left in the street for pickup, barely avoiding the tail of an alley cat that was sniffing around in the gutter. The cat let out a startled yowl.

“Sorry!” Max panted out.

Just then, Max had the strangest feeling. It was as if her mind was a curtain and suddenly, a giant elbow had shoved it aside.

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