Devil's Advocate (The X-Files: Origins #2)(35)

Some of the students sat in stunned silence; others growled and booed. Sternholtz stared them all down.

“Make no mistake,” he said coldly. “If any of you decline to let our nurse and the volunteers who have come here today from the hospital take blood samples even with parental permission, you will be suspended pending a consideration of possible expulsion.”

No one said a word.

“There has been a lot of talk in the press about a ‘war on drugs.’ So far it seems we have been losing that war.” His eyes glittered and he gave them a horrible little smile. “That will change. This is a war I intend to win. Now, throughout the day, nurses will come to each classroom with a list of those students whose parents have chosen to cooperate with our campaign to keep all students of Francis Scott Key Regional High School safe. Dismissed.”

The students got to their feet, some furious, many shaken, all of them alarmed and frightened.

Dana leaned close and whispered to Ethan. “This is messed up. It’s wrong.”

He glanced at her. “What makes you say that?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know, but every molecule in my body is screaming that this isn’t what they’re saying it is. Can’t you feel it, too?”

Ethan studied her for a long time. Then he nodded slowly. “Yeah,” he said. “We have to look at Uncle Frank’s files after school.”

“Yes, we do,” she said, and the ferocity in her own voice surprised her.

Ethan pursed his lips thoughtfully. “I only have gym and Latin today and then I’m done. What do you have?”

“History and English,” she said.

“Okay, meet me at the chem lab as soon as you can. Let’s talk to the guys in the science club before they shut down the school for the day. Maybe they’ll be able to help.”

Dana was ten minutes into her first class when an aide appeared with a list of names. Hers was on it.

The sense of betrayal stabbed deep, but less so when she learned that she would be tested tomorrow and it was her father, not Mom, who had agreed. For her and Melissa.





CHAPTER 33

Francis Scott Key Regional High School 11:43 A.M.

They looked like a frog, a stork, and a praying mantis.

The three other members of the science club were clustered around a table and glanced up when Ethan and Dana entered the room. They looked exactly as Dana expected.

The frog was a short tenth grader with huge eyes, a wide mouth, tiny ears, and a potbelly. He wore a T-shirt with Luke Skywalker on it and jeans that Dana was positive had to be at least a hundred years old. His sneakers looked even older. Ethan introduced him as Jerry Gomer.

“Hey,” said Jerry, and he blushed a furious red as he said it.

Not used to talking to girls, thought Dana.

The stork was a girl. Sylvia Brunner was very tall and very thin, with a long, slender neck dotted with several moles that Dana thought looked like one of the constellations, but she couldn’t remember which one. Sylvia had a bland face that wasn’t pretty but was cheerful and open. She wore glasses with thick brown frames and no makeup, and had a lot of messy hair piled into a sloppy bun. There was absolutely nothing threatening about Sylvia, and no trace of judgment in her pale green eyes.

“My cousin Dave talks about your sister all the time,” she said. “I think he has the hots for her.”

“Yeah, well,” said Dana, and they smiled at each other.

The praying mantis was a black girl with eyes that never seemed to blink, who moved with slow, controlled precision. There was a lot going on behind those eyes, thought Dana, she was one of those people who took in every detail but seldom shared what they thought.

“Tisa Johnson,” said the girl, introducing herself.

“Good to meet you,” said Dana.

The classroom was otherwise empty, and the members of the club had been working on a complex chemistry problem using small wooden balls and pegs to create models of organic molecules.

Sylvia said, “Just to get it out in the open, Dana, we all heard about what happened in the locker room.”

“Um … okay.”

“Ethan says you’re not out of your mind,” said Sylvia, “so we didn’t bring a straitjacket to school with us.”

“Okay. Thanks…?”

“I watched you during the assembly,” said Tisa. “You and Ethan.”

“Oh?”

“You weren’t buying what they were trying to tell us, were you?”

Dana glanced at Ethan, who gave her an encouraging nod. “Not much, no.”

“What’s your theory, then?”

The three of them looked at her with the intensity of a jury at a murder trial. Or at least that was how Dana felt.

She dumped her heavy backpack on the floor and sat down. “I don’t know what’s going on,” she admitted. “I only know what I’ve experienced.”

“I’ve heard ten different versions of that,” said Sylvia.

“Whispers down the lane,” said Jerry.

“Tell us your version,” said Tisa.

And so she did.

They listened to the story. When she was done, there were almost thirty seconds of silence, and she could see the members of the science club going inward, thinking it all through, processing it their individual ways. Jerry perched on the edge of his chair and traced small circles on the table with his index fingers, one circling clockwise, the other counterclockwise, and at different speeds. Sylvia leaned back and looked at the ceiling. Tisa stared at Dana with piercing, unreadable eyes.