A Map of Days (Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children, #4)(93)

“There might be a disciplinary write-up on this person, too,” said Emma.

“Or a psychiatric one,” I said. “If they ever tried to tell the truth about what was happening, they at least got sent to the school nurse for a mental health screening.”

“Good thinking,” said Millard.

That left Emma and me alone together, reluctantly paired. I suggested we go to the cafeteria, always a hotbed of gossip, and she agreed.

“Are you guys sure you’ll be okay?” I said before we all split up. “You’ll remember not to talk about the 1940s or use your abilities?”

“Yeah, Portman, we’ve got it,” Enoch said, waving his hand at me. “You just worry about you.”

“Everyone meet outside this room in one hour,” I said. “Anything goes wrong, pull a fire alarm and run for the front entrance. Got it?”

“Got it,” said everyone but Millard.

“Millard?” Emma said. “Where are you?”

The classroom door swung shut. He was already gone.



* * *



? ? ?

School cafeterias had long ranked among my least favorite places on the planet. They were loud, ugly, they stank, and they were filled—as this one was—with cliques of anxious teenagers swirling around in a complex social dance I could never quite figure out the steps to. And yet here I was, standing against a scuffed linoleum wall with Emma, having volunteered to spend an hour in one. I imagined myself, like I often did in school, as an anthropologist observing the rituals of some alien culture. Emma looked much more at home, even though the room was filled with people eight decades her junior. Her posture was loose. Her eyes coolly scanned the room.

She suggested we join the line for breakfast and sit down to eat.

“To blend in,” I said. “Smart.”

“Because I’m hungry.”

“Right.”

We got in line, shuffled past hair-netted cafeteria ladies, and were handed trays piled with rubbery scrambled eggs, scoops of greasy brown sausage-stuff, and boxes of chocolate milk. Emma recoiled a little, but accepted it without complaint. We took our trays and began to circle the room, looking for a place to sit, and at that point my just-talk-to-people plan, which had sounded reasonable in theory, began to seem absurd. What were we supposed to do, introduce ourselves to someone at random? So, have you noticed anybody strange lately? Everyone in the room was doing their own thing, talking to other people, locked into long-established friend groups—

“Hi, mind if we sit down? I’m Emma; this is Jacob.”

Emma had stopped at a table. Four dumbstruck faces looked up at us—a blond girl whose tray had only an apple on it, a girl with pink-dyed hair poking out from under a beanie, and two sporty-looking guys in baseball hats whose trays were overflowing.

Pink Hair shrugged and said, “Sure.”

“Karen,” the apple girl said under her breath, but then she moved over so I could sit.

We put our trays down and sat. Three of them were looking at us like we were freaks, but Emma didn’t even seem to notice. She just dove right in.

“We’re new here, and we heard this school was, like, weird.”

She sounded practically American, but not quite—and they noticed.

“Where are you from?” Pink Hair said.

“England and Wales, thereabouts.”

“That’s cool,” said one of the hat guys. “I’m from seals. And he’s from dolphin.”

“It’s a country, dumbass,” said Pink Hair. “Near England.”

“Pss.” Hat Guy #1 rolled his neck. “Duh.”

“We’re exchange students,” I said.

Apple Girl raised an eyebrow. “You don’t sound foreign.”

“Canada.” I was about to dip my plastic spork into the greasy brown stuff, then thought better of it.

“This school is definitely weird,” said Pink Hair. “Especially lately.”

“What happened with your auditorium?” I asked. “Power outage, or something?”

“Nah.” The quieter hat guy was shaking his head. “That’s just what the school told our parents.”

Apple Girl nodded at him. “Jon was there. He thinks this place is, like, haunted now.”

“I do not. I just don’t buy this ‘power outage’ thing. They’re covering something up.”

“Like what?” I said.

He looked down at his tray. Stirred his brown stuff.

“He doesn’t like talking about it,” Pink Hair whispered. “He thinks it makes him sound nuts.”

“Shut up, Karen,” said Apple Girl. She turned to Jon. “You didn’t tell me.”

“Come on, man,” said the other hat guy. “You tell Karen, but you won’t tell us?”

Jon held up his hands. “Fine, fine. And, like, it’s not even that this is what happened, okay? It’s just how it seemed.”

Everyone was looking at him expectantly. He drew in a deep breath.

“It was super dark. Nobody’s phones or flashlights were working. They say it was some kind of electrical thing. But there’s one door in the auditorium that leads straight outside, to the faculty parking lot?” He leaned forward slightly, his voice dropping. “Someone opened it. But it barely gave off any light. And it was sunny that day.”