5.

On the morning of the field trip, Mr. Crane lined up his students in the hallway. Several yellow buses waited in the fog in front of the school. The classes piled in. To Timothy’s surprise, Stuart smiled as he made his way up the aisle and slipped into the seat beside him. Tufts of dark hair stuck up from Stuart’s head, his eyes were still puffy from sleep, and some sort of pale milky crust had been left from breakfast just below his lower lip. As usual. But after yesterday’s fight, Timothy didn’t expect everything to be fine between them.

“Oh my God,” said Stuart, “you wouldn’t believe what happened last night.” He didn’t wait for a response. “You know the part in Wraith Wars where Fristor has to climb the cliff with his bare hands and we can never get to the top without losing almost all of our life force because the giant Nemcaws keep flying at our heads and trying to peck out our eyes?”

“Sure,” Timothy answered tentatively. “That part’s wicked hard.” He didn’t trust that Stuart wasn’t still mad at him.

“Not anymore,” Stuart continued. “When I was about halfway up the rock, before the Nemcaws got there, I noticed that there was this ledge sticking out of the cliff way off to the right of the screen. So I swung myself over to it, and guess what I found?”

Timothy shook his head and shrugged.

“A cave!” Stuart said, throwing his hands into the air. “It was so amazing. The walls were carved with all these weird symbols and it was really dark and I could barely see.”

Stuart paused in his story for a moment, and Timothy noticed the red-haired girl come onto the bus. She didn’t look at anyone. Stuart didn’t say anything about her, but Timothy watched as something clicked inside his friend, as if Stuart had checked an item off a mental list. Stuart simply blinked, then began again. “So I was crawling into the darkness and all of a sudden, I saw this huge claw coming toward me.”

Abigail made her way to the back of the bus and slid into the last empty seat near them.

“I ducked out of the way, then smashed it with my sword.”

“That’s awesome,” said Timothy, trying to sound excited.

The bus shuddered as the driver started the engine. Mr. Crane strolled down the aisle taking a final head count, before the bus finally lurched forward into the mist.

The ride up the hill toward the river was bumpy. Abigail Tremens hung her head. Timothy could hear the same faint clicking sound he’d heard yesterday in class, the harsh grind of the silver lighter’s wheel striking the flint. He wondered if she had on her fireproof socks again.

The bus crossed onto the Taft Bridge. Once over the river, they passed the Little Husketomic Lighthouse, perched on an outcropping of steep rock upstream from the bridge. A white light flashed dully through the mist and a horn sounded, warning boats to keep their distance. Moments later, the bus veered off the highway and exited onto a small road. They drove for several minutes through a pale forest of birch trees. Everyone stared straight ahead as the Husketomic Museum appeared in the distance, looking like a temple out of ancient Greece.

“This is going to be—” Stuart started to say, but when Timothy glared at him, apparently he decided not to finish his sentence.

Once outside, in the parking lot, Mr. Crane asked everyone to partner up. To Timothy’s surprise, he noticed a redheaded presence standing next to him. After what Abigail had said yesterday afternoon, he’d expected her to simply ignore him all day. Or punch him.

Mr. Crane led the group up the museum’s front steps, through the teethlike columns, and into the mouth of the building. Before Timothy passed through the doors, he heard the faraway foghorn cry out once more, greeting the morning with another warning.