Darwen Arkwright and the School of Shadows by A. J. Hartley Read Free Book Online Page A

laughed happily while Aunt Honoria tapped out e-mails on her laptop.
    Darwen took the elevator down with Rich and Alex, and since Eileen was staring blankly ahead, nodding to the music streaming through her earbuds, he muttered, “We’ll talk about getting to Mr. Peregrine’s house tomorrow at school, yes?”
    Alex shot Eileen a glance, then, used to the teenager ignoring them, nodded.
    â€œI’ll Google the address tonight,” she said. “See how easy it will be to get to. Maybe we could take MARTA and walk.”
    MARTA was the Atlanta light-rail system.
    â€œWe’ll need a reason for staying late,” Rich added. “Special archaeology club meeting?”
    â€œWhat about me?” Alex demanded. “Nothing will rouse suspicion more than announcing I’ve joined your idiot digging club.”
    â€œWe found scrobbler bones!” Rich protested.
    Darwen cut him off. “Just say you have a chorus meeting or something,” he said to Alex. “Something that will go late.”
    â€œDeal,” Alex agreed.
    When the elevator doors opened and everyone else stepped out, he stayed where he was, and when he started to say that he wasn’t going to come with them, Eileen turned before he had managed to get the sentence out.
    â€œYeah,” she said. “Bye.”

Chapter Five
    Ghost Stories
    â€œS chool,” Alex mused as they sat in homeroom the next day. “Some days I can only go on by pretending I’m somewhere else.”
    â€œAlways so dramatic,” said Rich, rolling his eyes as he absently wound his old-fashioned watch. “Let’s just get through the day. Then we can check out that address. . . .”
    â€œThat’s what’s so maddening,” said Alex. “We have serious stuff to do. Important stuff. But we can’t do it because we are stuck here all day. Look around you!” Alex went on, gesturing so wildly that Naia Petrakis and Simon Agu flinched away. “Hillside Academy, ladies and gentlemen, the reason people invented truancy. And what will we be doing today? Well, I’m glad you asked. First we’ll march to an assembly where we will see if Principal Thompson has mastered his impression of a robot with hair, and then we’ll form another little zombie procession to our first class: English, taught by the oh-so-gifted Rumpelstiltskin—”
    â€œMiss O’Connor,” said Miss Harvey, the homeroom teacher, “if I hear you making fun of Mrs. Frumpelstein’s name one more time, you will be in detention for a week.”
    â€œSorry, ma’am,” said Alex brightly. “I get confused. Every time I take my essays to her office, I expect to find her spinning straw into gold.”
    â€œMiss O’Connor . . .” Miss Harvey warned, though Darwen could have sworn he saw the corner of her mouth twitch into the hastily terminated beginnings of a smile. Darwen had not liked Mrs. Frumpelstein since she had set out to rid him of his Lancashire accent, and he sometimes thought the other teachers weren’t too keen on her either.
    The assembly bell chimed and the students began their march down to the great hall, where they lined up again, and stood in silence while Principal Thompson talked about the installation of a new computer and communication system and the end-of-year talent gala. During this “celebration of all that Hillside is,” whatever
that
meant, a new stained glass window would be unveiled, and the students would perform for their parents “in ways befitting their creative gifts and proclivities.” Darwen thought it sounded ghastly, but he was not surprised to find Alex’s mood much improved.
    â€œMaybe I’ll sing,” she was musing as the students lined up in the hallway. “Or dance. Or both. Maybe I could do a dramatic scene where the performance involved acting, singing,
and
dancing: you know, show my