Locker 2375 Chapter 12

Posted on | April 6, 2009 | No Comments

Locker 2375 c12

The Lost Page…

“For months we have been living in detention hoping to discover something, anything, that might help us unlock this riddle and only now, after all this time you find a page missing from the instruction book Sam”, Omar was gently banging his head on the table in disbelief.

Brandon took a good look at the book and confirmed it,” yup the 3rd to last page is missing!”

Ana came a lot closer and opened a Tupperware container of strawberries that instantly filled the room with the hot warm smell of a summer day in Canada, maybe even at Quinn’s Farm where the strawberry picking is beyond compare.

Everyone stopped what they were doing, and that was not very much, and stared at Ana.

For a second it was as if everyone was calculating how fast they could pin down Ana and grab the food.

Myself, for a split second, had another idea!

If I got as much spit on my finger as possible and wedged it into Ana’s ear I could probably distract her long enough to allow Sam to snatch the berries.

The only problem with the plan, and the reason I abandoned it, was the fact that there was no place to run and Ana would make me pay for the wet Willie!

I think I blinked 3 times and the berries were gone from the room, but not the smell though.

Our collective attention returned to the book.

“How did you miss that Omar”, Ana asked wiping a tiny black strawberry seed from the side of her mouth.

“I have been asking myself that”, Omar said scratching his head maybe a little bit too hard.

The head scratching went on for some time, the rest of the gang began to get a bit worried and remembered the time David loaned everyone his bathing cap and then came to school bald because he had head lice.

Omar finally stopped scratching but everyone continued to maintain a safe distance knowing full well that head lice can and will jump for a new head, or as we learned in science class, looking for a bit of a vacation.

Just as the gang was refocusing on the book the water machine that was blocking the door began to rumble.

“Uhhh we are all here aren’t we”, Sam asked doing a quick head count.

“Max who did you tell”, Ana asked pointing a long finger covered with strawberry at me.

“Nobody, I was running here with Omar”, everyone looked at me and then looked up at the passage.

There was no question the machine was getting ready to move and there was only one small problem, there was no other way in or out of the hiding place!

“You can’t tell me that you hadn’t planned for the possibility of a break in to this place,” I said with that dazed and confused look once again.

“ Oh we have a plan Max the problem is we have never actually tried it in battle field conditions so we are not totally sure how it is going to work.” Brandon said moving closer to the fridge.

I was sure I heard the words battlefield conditions but was not at all sure what Brandon was talking about.

Nathaniel jumped into action and very quickly unclipped a very thin piece of slate that was fixed to the ceiling at the top of the stairs.

Backing the stale veneer was a thick piece of polystyrene, which I just noticed.

The face of the slate was painted to look just like a piece of dirty concrete.

“Are we ready to put the mock cover in place Nathaniel”, Omar shouted.

“I have been ready for 6 months”, Nathaniel said with a cheeky little grin.

“Then fasten the decoy flooring into place”, Omar shouted instructions with authority and a hint of fear in his voice.

Nathaniel was back down to the stone table faster than I had ever seen him move.

Ana was busy looking at her watch and then I realized she wasn’t looking at her watch but at a small LCD display screen that I could only assume had somehow been synched with the school security monitoring system and was feeding images to her.

“We have a problem”, Ana said with a hint of worry in her voice and a bead of sweat running down her face.

“The machine is defiantly moving and the cafeteria has filled up with people, but as far as I can see there is not a single person near the water machine AND it has a huge out of order sign on it”, Ana said.

Everyone looked at each other with a bit of panic in their eyes like the time the school sprinkler system had been set to go off 12 minutes after the students had left for the day but the teachers would be well into a staff meeting.

But as luck would have it Mr. Ellis in his previous role as technology maverick had come to the school to try and make the electronic timing system work better.

Unfortunately he was using a watch that had been left beside a swimming pool and not only had it gotten a bit damp but somehow a jam sandwich had fallen on it and the sticky blueberry jam had obstructed the view of the face of the watch and also acted as a sealant not allowing the water to escape from inside the watch.

So Mr. Ellis messed up the clock and everyone got soaked.

“Plan Ellis everyone”, Omar said a bit hesitantly.

Ana picked up a small box that looked like it could have some gum inside it and dropped it to the floor and stomped on it, very hard.

Sam tossed rain ponchos around the room and in less than 5 seconds the fire alarms around the school were going off.

Ana looked at the LCD screen on her watch, “the water has started!”

Sam grabbed the detention book and we all made for the stairs.