SHELVED

“If you have to study, you can go,” I told Josh as we hurried up the marble steps inside Hell Hall, which was the not-so-affectionate nickname the students of Easton had for Hull Hall, where all the teachers kept their offices. Behind closed doors, phones rang, keyboards clacked, and muffled conversations were carried on. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”

“Didn’t sound like nothing,” Josh said, jogging behind me. “I can spare a few minutes.”

I looked over my shoulder at him with a grateful smile. “Thanks.”

Just then, someone came around the corner on the stairwell and slammed into my shoulder, hard. Missy Thurber, former Billings Girl and class-A bitch, was coming down the stairs and didn’t even bother to mutter an apology.

“Ow! Don’t worry! I’ll just get out of your way!” I called after her sarcastically.

She paused on the landing below and shot me a serious and silent look of death. One that actually sent a chill through my heart. Then she kept right on walking.

“Wow. What’s her problem?” Josh asked as we started up the steps again.

I cleared my throat, my stomach feeling suddenly queasy. Missy hadn’t spoken to me once in the three months since my birthday, when Mrs. Kane held us all hostage, but it didn’t bother me. Everyone dealt with having their lives endangered in a different way, and it wasn’t as if we’d ever been real friends. But I’d never thought I could feel threatened by her. Until now.

“I don’t know,” I said warily.

Josh and I both paused. We’d just arrived at the top floor and could hear angry voices coming from the back office. From Headmaster Hathaway’s office.

“. . . why you can’t do something about it!”

“Contrary to popular belief, Sawyer, I’m not all-powerful.”

“I don’t even understand why we’re talking about this. This whole thing is completely stupid.”

“Was that Graham?” I whispered to Josh.

He nodded. “And Sawyer.”

We hesitated at the threshold of the outer office—the one usually occupied by Headmaster Hathaway’s assistant. Right now the large, airy waiting area was empty, the computer screen atop the wide oak desk blank, the rolling chair tucked in.

“What should we do?” I asked Josh.

“I say we knock before they find us out here frozen like a couple of eavesdroppers,” he replied.

“Good plan.”

We crossed the room and Josh banged loudly on the door. Instantly the voices fell silent. The door swung open and the Headmaster stood there, his light green tie slightly loosened. He wore no jacket, and his expression was both frazzled and impatient.

“Hello, Miss Brennan,” he said to me. Then his eyes flicked dismissively to Josh. “Mr. Hollis.”

Graham shoved past his father, shot Josh a look that was obviously meant to kill, and kept walking without a word. There was no love lost between Graham and Josh. A couple of years earlier, Josh had dated and broken up with Graham’s twin sister, Jen, who had tragically taken her own life soon afterward. Graham held some kind of grudge against Josh over the whole thing, and from the way Mr. Hathaway was coldly staring Josh down, I wondered if he did too.

“Sawyer, Josh,” Mr. Hathaway said, folding his arms over his chest. “If you would kindly excuse us.”

Sawyer, who had become one of my best friends over the past few months, ducked his head so that his blond hair fell over his eyes, and slipped past his dad. As he walked by me, he mouthed the words, “I tried.” And then he was gone. A skittering sense of foreboding shot right through me.

“I’ll wait for you downstairs,” Josh whispered.

Then he shut the door behind him, and I found myself alone with the headmaster. His office was bright and sunny, the large windows thrown open to let in the fresh spring air. The heavy curtains billowed, then slapped against the molding as the wind died down. Mr. Hathaway gestured at the chair across from his desk, and I sat. He sighed, shoved his hands through his light brown hair, and lowered himself down in the seat across from mine. As he laced his fingers together atop his leather desk blotter, I realized that, for the first time since I’d know him, he looked slightly older than his forty-some-odd years.

“I’m truly sorry to have to tell you this, Reed, but it looks like the ribbon-cutting ceremony you were expecting to have this weekend will have to be postponed,” he said, not sounding sorry at all. “Indefinitely.”

My heart dropped all the way through the floor, probably landing somewhere near Josh’s feet four stories below. No. No, no, no, no, no. Hundreds of alumnae were flying in for this event from all over the world. I had alerted the press. I had hired a caterer and ordered fifty bottles of seriously expensive champagne. I’d laid out all that cash for the cocktail party on Saturday night, for the hotel rooms, for the Sunday morning brunch. If I called it off now, I was going to look like a clueless little kid. And the new Billings would be pegged as a failure before the first stone was laid.

“Why?” was all I could manage to say.

“Unfortunately, it seems that the plans you submitted are not up to code,” the headmaster said, looking me in the eye. “There’s a new green initiative in the county, and unless the plans are changed significantly, the zoning board is going to kill the project entirely.”

My fingers curled around the leather armrests on my chair. “What? But the town approved the plans,” I said, my voice pitching itself up in a panic.

“I know, but now someone has submitted them to the county,” he said slowly, as if speaking to a chimpanzee.

“Who?” I said. “Why?”

I kind of sounded like a chimpanzee, actually. I cleared my throat and tried to get my thoughts in order, but none of this made sense and all I could think was that this wasn’t fair. It just wasn’t fair. At that moment my phone rang, and I felt like I was going to explode out of my skin. I reached into my bag and pressed down on the ignore button as hard as I could. Janice Winthrop wasn’t going to care much about which suite she was booked in when she found out there was no longer an event to attend.

“I don’t know,” the headmaster said. He tugged a piece of paper toward him and tilted it up to read. “But apparently the plans need to include the following: fifty percent sustainable materials; energy-efficient lighting, heating, and plumbing; and a solar panel to help ease the carbon footprint. Which, apparently, will at least get us a tax break from the state.”

“Oh my God.” I slumped back in my chair and my fingers automatically fluttered up to touch the locket. The current plans for the new Billings did include some green materials and plans for energy-efficient appliances and light fixtures, but I didn’t recall anything about heating and plumbing, and no one had ever mentioned a solar panel. “What am I going to do?”

“I don’t know, Miss Brennan,” he said. He tugged out another copy of the letter from the county and handed it to me. “But considering all the difficulties we’ve had on campus lately, I can’t go up against the county right now. So until you figure this out with your design team, the Billings project is officially shelved.”