Shadow School: Dehaunting by J. A. White

Author:J. A. White
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2020-06-13T00:00:00+00:00

14

Experiment

Bulletin boards, a school’s true calendar, had shed their orange skin in favor of football brown. A parade of thankful essays marched in five-part harmony. Occasionally a breeze—or something more than a breeze—fluttered the pages.

Cordelia trudged past the displays without really seeing them. She wasn’t feeling particularly thankful. Although she had tried to explain herself on multiple occasions, Benji and Agnes still refused to talk to her. Eventually, she had given up. Benji seemed happy enough hanging out with Vivi and his soccer buddies, but she was worried about Agnes. Dr. Roqueni had given her permission to skip all her classes so she could work on an “enrichment project” all day long. After days of searching, Cordelia had finally found Agnes tucked away in a tiny classroom, hunched over a table covered with blueprints. Mr. Derleth sat with his feet on the desk, watching her work.

She must be building a new dehaunter, Cordelia thought, ducking beneath the window so Mr. Derleth wouldn’t see her. After their last encounter, she had avoided him altogether. Although she wanted to trust him, Cordelia couldn’t shake the suspicion that he knew more about the entire situation than he was letting on.

Could he have been the one who destroyed the dehaunter? she wondered. But that doesn’t make any sense. He’s our friend! And why would he be helping Agnes build a new one, then?

Cordelia figured that if she kept tabs on Agnes’s progress, she might uncover some answers. But when she came back the next day, the window in the classroom door had been covered with black paper.

It was the first day back from Thanksgiving break. Ms. Jackson was standing at the door, greeting the students, as Cordelia entered room 313. The science teacher hadn’t fled the classroom in several weeks, and while she still wrung her hands whenever a student asked a question, her mumbling had been limited to the occasional “You can do this!”

There was a lab that day, and Ms. Jackson assigned each student to a specific table. Cordelia found herself sitting with the unlikely trio of Mason James, a studious boy named Henry Gull, and Vivi.

Ugh, she thought, tossing her bookbag on the floor. Just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse.

“Hey, Cordelia,” Vivi said. “How was your Thanksgiving?”

“Fine. Yours?”

“Nice. Benji and his family came for dessert. His sisters are so cute. Have you met them?”

“Lots of times. They’re sweet. Well, maybe not Sofia. She’s a little much.”

“Totally. She kept asking if Benji and I were ‘regular friends’ or ‘kissy friends.’”

Well, which one is it? Cordelia almost asked, but Mason inserted himself into the conversation and started bragging about his family’s lake house in Maine. It was clear how badly he wanted to impress Vivi, who smiled politely while searching her backpack for a pen.

Not gonna happen, Mason, Cordelia thought. She’s into Benji, not you.

At least the lab was kind of fun. After reading the directions to the class, Ms. Jackson gave each table a tray of eight Dixie cups

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.