I took a few steps toward them, away from the school’s front door. “What did you do?” I cried.
“No more than he deserved,” said Mrs. Penda. “He won’t interfere anymore.”
As she spoke, the reception hall gave a ferocious quake. With a roar, the stairway on the right collapsed. Wood, plaster, and brick tumbled. The hall filled with a billowing cloud of thick dust and debris. Simultaneously, great chunks of chandelier dropped and shattered, leaving only a few blinking lights, like the dying embers of a fire. Behind me, rubble cascaded from the ceiling.
I spun about and found the front doors blocked by a high mound of splintered beams and brick. I looked to where Mrs. Penda and Uncle Charlie had been standing. When the steps collapsed, they had retreated some paces into the school office. I turned toward the remaining stairway. It was still intact.
There being no other way, I shot forward and tore up the steps.
By the time I reached the second floor, Mrs. Penda and Uncle Charlie were following.
Not knowing where else to go, I ran down the hallway until I reached the end, Batalie’s room. It was in complete disorder: desks and chairs overturned, books and papers scattered, computers tumbled. The SMART Board had shattered.
I peered down the hallway. Mrs. Penda and Uncle Charlie were coming fast, Mrs. Penda limping more than usual. I bolted into the classroom, but having nowhere else to go, I went to the small door that Jessica had already opened. I darted through and plunged into the hallway, only to realize it was now too dark to see. The best I could do was make my way by touch and memory. I had no real idea where I was going but knew that Mrs. Penda and my uncle Charlie were coming after me—wanting to kill me.
After no more than thirty steps, I became so confused I forced myself to stand still. Even as I did, the building shook with greater ferocity than before. Thrown against a wall, I fell to my knees. A complete section of the wall dropped away. I heard it crash, somewhere. Then, after a blast of cool air, I realized I was looking out at city lights and the moon. It was an outer wall that had given way. Below, I could see flashing red lights and screaming sirens. The school was collapsing.
As the whole school structure began to pry apart, sounds of creaking, breaking, and snapping surrounded me. Now the floor dropped at a sharp angle. I was afraid to move, terrified that more of the building would give way and take me with it.
I saw and felt the entire structure writhe, shift, and twist. Some walls heaved up. Others collapsed. With the floor so tilted, it was impossible to stand.
Somehow I managed to pull myself up. Moonlight provided some illumination. That allowed me to realize that I was high in the building somewhere. Half walking, half crawling, I moved toward a still-standing wall. Once there, I edged along its base, until I found myself in a partially enclosed area. Though it was darker, I kept going.
I found steps, which I managed to get on, and then worked my way down through a jumble of jagged, broken walls. I went across, up, then down again, but, having no idea where I was heading, I simply moved in hopes I’d stumble to safety.
At some point, at some place, I stumbled upon—and stumbled is the true word—that spiral staircase. I knew it because of the way it felt: cold, rough, metal steps and a banister, the steps twisting around, a mammoth corkscrew, still intact, probably because it was metal.
I put one foot on a riser. It held. Grasping the banister, I began to move down, only to hear voices coming from below. I halted and listened.
“I think he’s up there” came Uncle Charlie’s voice.
“You lead.” That was Mrs. Penda’s voice.
I peered below, hoping to see them, anything to tell me how far below they were.
“Don’t worry,” I heard Uncle Charlie say. “I’ve always been able to get him to do what I ask.”
I reversed my direction and started going up, moving in tight circles through the murk. Now and again I reached out, hoping I’d come to a landing. I didn’t find one, or if I did, I never realized it.
I halted and worked to find my breath, only to hear Uncle Charlie say, “He’s above us.”
Mrs. Penda: “Keep going.”
I climbed faster and began to see light. Holding on to the metal banister, I continued upward. Gradually, I realized there was a hole above me. Only then did I grasp that I had reached the high tower, the very same place where I’d come upon the Penda Boy when I first spoke to him. It was precisely where he had told me not to go, because once there, I’d be trapped.
Though my ankle ached, and my heart pounded painfully, I continued to climb, trying to find some way to get away from my pursuers. That’s when I heard Uncle Charlie’s voice: “He’s probably reached the tower room.”
Mrs. Penda said, “Then we have him.”
Having no choice, I moved higher, and was reaching up through the hole when the building gave another violent heave. The spiral steps, shrieking with the sound of twisting, breaking metal, fell out from under me. I began to drop. Using all my strength—the strength of desperation—I hauled myself up into the tower room. On hands and knees, I looked around. The floor was so steeply slanted I couldn’t stand.
The Penda Boy’s bed had slid to the far side of the room and flipped over so its legs were pointing toward me like a raptor’s talons. The large window was empty. Glass shards had slid into a sparkling heap in a far, low corner.
I half crawled, half rolled toward the window. When I reached it, I hoisted myself up. The tower had tilted down, even as other towers and roofs had shifted up and down. The building’s roof looked like an ocean of crested and frozen waves.
One roof had risen so that it was right under the window. It seemed to stretch out toward that enormous tree. Farther below, a very long way below, was the street, where red lights were flashing. People were peering up.
I looked back over my shoulder just in time to see Uncle Charlie’s lean face, with his pug nose, poke out of the hole.
“There you are,” he called. “Now, Tony, you’re not listening to me the way you used to. I just want us to be together like old times. It can be forever.”
He looked down. “He’s here. Can’t go any farther.” He began to hoist himself up, elbows jutting out like enormous spider legs.
Frantic to get away, I looked out the window, down at the connecting roof crest, which ran from the window to that tall tree. I was struck by how much it looked like a slackline.
I looked over my shoulder. Uncle Charlie was out of the hole. He was peering down. “Hurry,” he called to Mrs. Penda.
I grabbed the edge of the window and swung one leg out and then the other, until I was sitting on the window’s lower sash. Gripping the window’s sides, I was able to steady myself and steal a quick look back in time to see Mrs. Penda’s head rising up out of the hole.
I looked across the way, toward the great tree.
It’s the same as a slackline, I told myself. Just higher.
Still seated, I set my feet on the roof crest, one foot in front of the other. If anything, the roof crest was wider than my slackline. It was solid, or at least it felt so.
Holding on to the window frame, I pulled myself up until I was standing. That meant the roof crest was holding most of my weight. Ordering myself not to look back, not to think of anything but what I was doing, that this was the only way I could escape, I told myself to let go of the window and walk.
I was standing on the roof crest, some two hundred feet above the ground. To either side of me was emptiness. Behind me lay the still-collapsing school building. Before me—a good ways off—was that old tree, as yet intact. Below were waves of jagged roofs, points, knobs, and broken chimneys. At the very bottom was the street—a long way down.
Trying to settle myself, I began to walk the crest as if it was a slackline. Arms stretched out to either side for balance, I was like a flying bird, though the last thing I wanted to do was fly. I just needed to walk the line from the dead building to that living tree.
With tiny steps, I moved forward.
“Tony,” came Uncle Charlie’s voice from behind. “Don’t do it. You can’t. You’ll fall. You need me. You can’t live without me.”
Don’t listen, I told myself. Think with your feet.
Once, twice, three times, I paused to find my balance, my breath, my nothingness, before I could proceed. Small step by small step, I made my way, drawing ever nearer to that huge tree, which somehow seemed to move farther away from where I was.
I think I was three-quarters of my way across when I heard crashing from behind. The roof crests—unmoving before—now began to heave and sway. Now I was on a slackline. If anything, it felt more comfortable, so much more like the wobbly walk I had always taken.
Just think with your feet, I told myself again.
Five feet from the tree, the shaking became so extreme that I ran the final distance and made a dive at the tree, grabbed a branch, and clung to it as the roof crest fell out from under me.
I was still hanging from the branch when I heard massive splintering and crashing sounds. I looked over my shoulder in time to see the entire Penda School break apart and collapse upon itself with a great whoomp.
I swung a leg up, curled it around the branch, and, rough though it was, pulled myself toward the bulk of the tree, where I nestled against its great trunk among inner branches. There I clung and looked back toward the Penda School.
Nothing was left but a great mountain of rubble, over which dust hovered, a thin, drifting cloud. The weather vane, the angel Gabriel, lay twisted and charred. Licks of flame fluttered about it, like little dancing demons, perhaps truly dying ghosts—what remained of Mrs. Penda and her terrible friends. And yes, Uncle Charlie too.
I was still in the tree when a huge ladder rose up from the ground and came at me. At its top was a fireman, clad in a helmet and a yellow jacket. Weird but true, his yellow jacket reminded me of the one Lilly had worn that foggy day, when she invited me to her birthday party and I began to learn the truth about Jessica.
The fireman guided me to his ladder. I was soon out of the tree and on the ground amid an applauding crowd of firefighters, police, and people who had come to watch.
Two of the people were my parents. “Tony!” cried Mom, engulfing me in a hug. “That was amazing.”
Dad also hugged me for a long time, and whispered, “Thank God Uncle Charlie gave you that slackline so you could do that.”
I was home. As soon as I was alone, I called Lilly.
“Oh my God,” she said. “You saved my life. I can’t believe all that, can you?”
I said, “What happened to Ms. Foxton?”
“They say she’s in the hospital. I guess she’ll be all right. Tony,” she added, “where are we going to go to school?”
I said, “Someplace normal, I hope.”
“Tony.”
“What?”
“I’ll never go to another Halloween party.”
Later that night, I looked for my uncle Charlie at the foot of my bed, where he used to appear so often. When he didn’t, I have to admit I was relieved.
I lay there, tired but very much alive, more so than in a long time.
I thought of that quote from Albert Einstein: “The distinction between past, present, and future is only an illusion.”
Maybe.
All I know is that I got out of bed and finally began to unpack the boxes of junk I’d brought from back east. It was time for my future.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo by Katherine Ward
AVI is the award-winning author of more than seventy-five books for young readers, ranging from animal fantasy to gripping historical fiction, picture books to young adult novels. Crispin: The Cross of Lead won the Newbery Medal, and The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle and Nothing But the Truth were awarded Newbery Honors. He is also the author of the popular Poppy series. Avi lives outside Denver, Colorado. You can visit him online at www.avi-writer.com.
Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.
BOOKS BY AVI
S.O.R. Losers
The Fighting Ground
The Man Who Was Poe
The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle
Windcatcher
Blue Heron
Night Journeys
A Place Called Ugly
Finding Providence
Don’t You Know There’s a War On?
Prairie School
The Mayor of Central Park
Never Mind!
The Seer of Shadows
Crispin: The End of Time
Poppy Series
Ragweed
Poppy
Poppy & Rye
Ereth’s Birthday
Poppy’s Return
Poppy and Ereth
CREDITS
Cover art © 2016 by Brandon Dorman
Cover design by Aurora Parlagreco
COPYRIGHT
SCHOOL OF THE DEAD. Copyright © 2016 by Avi Wortis Inc. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
www.harpercollinschildrens.com
* * *
Library of Congress Control Number: 2015958397
ISBN 978-0-06-174085-5
EPub Edition © June 2016 ISBN 9780062231512
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FIRST EDITION
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Avi, School of the Dead
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