The Tanglewood Terror by Kurtis Scaletta

Author:Kurtis Scaletta [Scaletta, Kurtis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-375-89845-7
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2011-09-12T16:00:00+00:00

We still didn’t have a way past the gate, but Allan threw himself on his Gninja sword. Nobody at the school would recognize him, so he found a pebble and used it to depress the valve on his bike tire and deflate it, rubbed some dirt on his face to look more pathetic, and went to the box on the gatehouse while Brian and I hid in the trees.

There was a big red button on it. Allan pushed it. There was no answer at first, but he held it down until a voice squawked at him.

“Can I help you?”

“I need help!” he said. “Can I use your phone and a bathroom?”

The squawking voice muttered something and went away. Several minutes later a woman came out and walked slowly across the lot.

“I got a flat tire and I’m really far from home and I was supposed to be home an hour ago but I can’t walk that far and I don’t have a bike pump.…” He rambled on a bit. The woman gave Allan the once-over and decided he wasn’t a threat.

“We don’t normally allow boys on the property,” she said. She keyed the box and opened the gate enough to let him in. He dropped his bike as soon as he was inside.

“There is a commode around back that the grounds staff uses,” the woman said. “You can use that one. And you can use this for a phone.” She held up a cell. “Which one do you want to use first?”

“The bathroom!” Allan said, now hopping from foot to foot.

“Well, good for you for not using the woods like some kind of animal,” the woman said. She slid the gate closed and walked with him around the school.

“She didn’t close it all the way,” said Brian.

He was right. We slipped in and closed it behind us, jumped over Allan’s bike, and sprinted across the parking lot to the other side of the school. If she’d locked the gate behind her, Allan would have faked an asthma attack just after she opened it to let him out. I was glad it hadn’t come to that.

We found a side door and tried all the keys until one worked. The second we went in, we saw a flashing box.

“It’s an alarm,” I said.

“We have to hide,” said Brian.

The alarm started screeching a moment later. We went up two flights of stairs, through some rooms and hallways, down another flight of stairs, around a corner, and down another hallway. We stopped when we heard footsteps and voices on the floor below, but they faded and we continued exploring.

The school looked more like Hogwarts than Tanglewood Middle School. There was fancy trim along the ceilings and floors, paintings hanging in the hallways carpeted stairs, and wooden railings. But Hogwarts would be fun, and this felt like the kind of place where you’d never be allowed to raise your voice and weren’t supposed to touch anything.

“There’s the offices,” whispered Brian, waving at a sign. “Let’s find Mom’s.

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