Broken Words

mood: chipper

music: "Nerdfighterlike" by Hank Green/Katherine Green

I let out a really loud annoyed sigh.

            “What are you doing?” I heard Devin ask.

            Peering back into the choir room, I saw her standing there, talking to someone else in choir. If she was going to stay in there, there was no way we were going to get any work done.

            She needed to leave before Nathan noticed.

            “Leanne’s in there,” I explained to Devin, peeking once again in the little window in the door.

            She was now laughing and, without hearing any sound, she looked pretty crazy.

            Devin immediately got up from his seat and pushed me out of the way to look in. “Oh, she is in there.”

            “No duh,” I responded, watching as Leanne slowly began making her way toward the opposite door. I held my breath, hoping that she was about to leave, but then she turned back around and continued her conversation.

            I turned around to check the time. Nathan would, if my calculations were correct, come down the hallway in one minute. It only took him three minutes to go to his locker and, especially today with the clue finding, he was going to hurry.

            I gave him two minutes.

            Devin sighed. “What’s the worst that can happen if she stays in there?”

            Okay, he did not just ask that. “Well, let’s see,” I exclaimed, mocking thoughtfulness. “She can find out about the song, want it for herself, and Nathan will willingly give it to her.”

            “Nate wouldn’t-“ Devin stopped in the middle of his sentence, his eyes widening. “Okay, he would. We need her out of there.”

            Looking through the window, I saw her talking using various hand motions. And then someone walked by and I immediately recognized her.

            “That’s Nina,” I exclaimed, grabbing into Devin’s arm and shaking it.

            “Nina who?” he responded, pulling his arm out of my reach.

            I waited for her to get closer to the glass and said, “The one that’s going to help us.” When she was about a foot away, I lightly tapped on the glass.

            At first, she ignored it, but when I hit the window once really loudly, she finally looked around and followed the source of the noise.

            Of course, Leanne didn’t notice.

            I could tell when she saw me because she did a little wave. I nodded and pointed behind her.

            She gave me a quizzical look and I motioned for her to turn around. When she did, she quickly turned back toward me and mouthed “Leanne?”

            Yes, she understood.

            I began nodding frantically and then made a sweeping motion toward the other door.

            Nina didn’t do anything to let me know she understood. Instead, she just walked over to Leanne and tapped her on the shoulder.

            Leanne showed off her teeth in her bright, fake smile as Nina said something to her. Then Leanne’s eyes got wide and, without a farewell, grabbed the other door and flung it open, disappearing from the room.

            Nina walked over and opened the other door. “I told her that they were already giving out forms for Miss Michigan at the Secretary of State.”

            Devin and I both burst out into laughter.

            “Hey, what did I miss?” Nathan came through the door.

            To my surprise, Nina exclaimed, “I just let in your friend. Do you want the key to the storage room?”
            Nathan nodded. She fished out the key from her pocket and placed it in his hand. “Thanks Nina,” he told her as she smiled and left the room.

            By that time, the other choir student had left and we were in the room by ourselves. We had all the time we needed to find the sheet music.

            “We’re looking for sheet music?” Devin asked as Nathan began trying the key into the door lock.

            “Yes,” I confirmed. “It’s called ‘Halls of Ivy’.”

            Devin made a face. “Great. This is going to be so much fun.”

            I just chuckled, patting him on the back. “It will be when you’re rich.”

            His face immediately brightened. “It will. I’m going to buy a car that a hundred times more awesome than Nathan’s.”

            Nathan either chose to ignore Devin’s comment or he wasn’t paying attention. He opened the door into the storage room and turned the light on.

            “Great, they’re organized in alphabetical order,” Nathan proclaimed, going over to the ‘H’ cabinet and, after a couple pulls on the metal handle, it finally rolled open.

            Nathan bringing looking through the contents, mumbling the names of the songs. “Halleluiah...” I heard him say. “And...Halls of Ivy, here you go.”

            Wow, that quick? That must have been the easiest clue yet.

            Taking the stack of sheet music from him, I looked at the first copy. It looked normal – nothing was written on it.

            I checked the second copy. Same as the first.

            “Go through these.” I gave Nathan a stack and then Devin another pile. “If you find anything out of place, it’s probably the clue.”
            We each sat down in our own corner and began searching through each page.

            Maybe this wouldn’t be as easy as I thought.

            “I didn’t find anything.” Devin finally finished, placing his stack of sheet music down on the floor.

            I groaned, falling back onto the hard, concrete floor. “How could none of us find anything?”

            Nathan was staring intently down at his sheet music, trying to get something out of it.

            Devin sighed loudly, sounding like he was just doing it for show. “These clues are seriously messed up. Why couldn’t Graham use the whole title and make it easier for us? If he just said, oh, Halls of Ivy, we could have gotten here sooner.”

            I just read through the second page of music, trying to find something that we could use.

            “In the sacred halls of ivy, where we lived...” Devin’s voice suddenly cut out.

            I looked over at him to see a strange look on his face. “What?”
            Devin began mouthing those words again. “Weare road,” Devin exclaimed out of nowhere.

            “What are you talking about?” Nathan asked.

            Devin held out the music and pointed to “halls of ivy, where”. There was nothing special about those words – same font, same color, same size.

            I began shaking my head. “No, Devin, that doesn’t make-“

            But he rattled the paper in my face. “It does! See, Graham only said ‘halls’ which isn’t the full title of the song. The full title is ‘halls of ivy’ and then the next word just happens to be the same name as the road next to the school.”
            There was some thought into it. But it just seemed too random. “We can try it,” I finally caved, looking at Devin’s pouting face.

            Devin punched the air. “Score one for the Devin master,” he said with a grin on his face.

            Nathan just looked at me with a raised eyebrow. I chuckled at the look on his face and looked back at Devin. “All right, we’ll stop by Weare road.”

            “And we’ll have to look for some ivy,” Devin added. Nathan and I hesitated to respond. “Stop looking at each other like you want to tell me I’m wrong. I’m right this time and you know it. Ivy on Weare road.”

            I just shrugged as we walked out of the doors and started our trek across the field to the road on the other side.

            We accidentally walked through a team playing football. Personally, I could care less about football games. The only reason I ever went to some of the games was because Nathan would play in the band.

            Sometimes.

            Because he was a keyboard player, they rarely needed them. But for some pieces, he got to stand off to the side and play without doing the funny marching thing.

            “Hey, watch where you’re going, freak,” one of the football players shouted when I stepped in front of his line.

            And I wasn’t anywhere near him.

            I was contemplating just swinging around and decking him in the face, but I just kept going.

            “You should have hit that guy,” Devin muttered as we got out of his hearing range.

            “Don’t think it didn’t cross my mind,” I muttered darkly.

            We finally reached Weare road and stopped awkwardly on the sidewalk. “Okay, so...ivy...” I said.

            Devin clapped his hands together. “Let’s begin our search!”

            I really didn’t want to search for ivy on this street. I had my doubts that there was any clue at all. I still looked over the place thoroughly, however, just in case.

            Nothing on the sidewalks, buildings, or fence. I sighed loudly, trying to get Devin to hear and realize how stupid all of this was.

            I looked around to see Nathan staring at the street sign.

            “What’s up Nate?” I asked, walking over to him.

            “What does that look like to you?” He pointed to the pole that the sign was attached to.

            I stepped forward, looking more closely. “Um...a pole?”
            Nathan pointed again, getting closer to gesture to a design on the pole. “No, this.”

            I tilted my head. It looked like a leaf of some kind. Like... “It’s ivy,” I proclaimed.

            Devin must have had good ears, but he immediately shouted from across the other side of street, “You found it?!”

            And then he sprinted across the road without even looking if there were any cars coming. Thankfully, there was no traffic.

            Almost running right into the pole, Devin stopped only inches from the object, gazing at it with wide eyes. “I was right!” And then commenced his happy dance.

            I blinked. “Okay, Devin, there’s ivy on the pole, but...where’s the clue?”
            Nathan pointed below the design to show the graffiti written there. “It says ‘lightsga’. I guess he didn’t want anyone to realize it was a clue.”

            Nodding, I said, “It’s lights. Now, once again, there are a lot of lights in the school.”

            Devin rolled his eyes. “See, RJ, it’s not going to be lights. It’s going to be a song or a drama skit or something that has lights in its title. Just like last time.”

            I ignored Devin’s sarcasm and said, “No, that’s too simple. He wouldn’t do the same thing twice. I think he’s being literal.”

            Nathan actually agreed with me. “RJ’s right.” I love it when I’m right. “I guess we’re going on a search for lights.”

            Devin sighed, following us back into the school. Halfway there, he must have changed his mind about the whole thing and started breaking out into song. “Gotta leave light on when you’re gooooone...”

            I covered my ears as Nathan’s eye twitched.

            “Where are we going first?” I whispered to Nathan as Devin continued his song, dancing behind us.

            Nathan shrugged, ignoring the way that Devin was trying to distract us. “We’ll check the band and choir rooms first. They’re the most likely.”

            I nodded. “Sounds good.”

            Devin began humming the song, muttering about how he didn’t know any of the words except for a few choice words in the chorus.

            Nathan and I were able to continue ignoring him as we went into the school. It was about four, which meant we had enough time to least check one of the rooms.

            Since the band room was the closest, we turned to go down into the hallway. I immediately stopped when I noticed who was standing right inside of the doorway.

            “Hide me...” I pleaded, stepping back to stand behind both Nathan and Devin.

            But I knew that he saw me. I saw his eyes light up before I bolted to hide. It was only a couple seconds before he would be here.

            “RJ!”

            I let out a slow breath, trying to calm my racing heart.

            There were two options. Running away as fast as possible or staying here and possibly punching him in the face.

            The image of Dylan’s punched-in face was just too good to pass up.