The Academy by Ridley Pearson Read Free Book Online

second pop rang through the cavernous chamber, and the voices were no longer muted but present. More voices than just moments earlier, now whispering low and conspiratorially. The shuffle and squeak of rubber soles cried against the marble.
    Four boys passed within a matter of inches of the pipe organ and headed into the choir room. The last stopped and turned. Steel couldn’t see above the boy’s waist, but he pictured him raising his head and taking a long suspicious look into the chapel. He’d sensed them.
    Thankfully, the boy didn’t look down. But he did take a step back, and in that instant, Steel got a good look at him.
    He had a square jaw, wide nose, and a dimpled chin. Red hair, perhaps, or blond—the light was poor. He had a strong build, with broad shoulders and a thick neck. Definitely an upperclassman. Maybe even one of the four he’d seen that day in the gym. Steel couldn’t be absolutely sure, but he thought he recognized him from the dorm. Could he be one of the boys who’d disappeared from inside the washroom on Sunday night?
    “You checked?” the boy said. “Before we—?”
    “Yes. Of course,” answered another voice from within the choir room.
    The upperclassman took one last inquisitive look around, and then entered the choir room, drawing the door shut behind him. A moment later, silence.
    Steel heaved a sigh of relief.
    “I’m out of here,” Kaileigh whispered. “No more for me.”
    “But we’re here,” Steel protested. “Sir David. Please?”
    “Not me,” she whispered. “Not now. I’m out of here.”
    “Wait for me by the ash tree, then,” he said.
    She didn’t acknowledge him. Instead she stood, looked around, and was gone.
    Steel unfolded himself and walked out past Sir David and into the nave. The four boys had not come through the main door; he would have heard that. They had not come through the only other door—the door to the choir room.
    So how had they just suddenly appeared? he wondered.
    He pushed and pulled Sir David, but to no avail. It didn’t budge in the least. It had to weigh a ton or more. He couldn’t imagine anyone—even four upperclassmen—moving it. No, if there was a secret entrance to the chapel, it would involve the dark wood paneling, intricately carved and decorated with many moldings that arched over each of the back bench seats. Any one of these might conceal a secret door, released somehow—some piece of woodwork moved, or a hidden lever tripped. A sixteenth century monastery must come with some secret passages.
    If there was a secret passage, Steel would need hours to pound on the paneling, listening for hollow spaces and searching for a release. He left the chapel feeling defeated.
    He and Kaileigh met up under the ash tree. They were heading back toward the dorms when she stopped and turned to face Steel beneath the gloomy shadow of a towering sugar maple.
    “If we make a plan,” she said, “we have to stick with it.”
    “What plan?”
    “You know,” she said. “ The plan.” She puckered up.
    “I didn’t agree to any plan,” Steel objected. “It was your idea.”
    “Same thing,” she said. “I didn’t hear you complaining. It wouldn’t be so awful…kissing you. People do it all the time.”
    Thankfully, she turned and left him before Steel was required to come up with some kind of answer. But he stood there watching her move through the shadows, and he wondered if he’d missed a chance at something he might regret.

Steel considered his options in order to reach his room without being caught. Upperclassmen—Fifth and Sixth Forms—still roamed the campus, primarily moving between the dorms and the athletic center’s student lounge, or the library. The movement of these students provided him with some cover—he wasn’t entirely alone and therefore sticking out—but it also meant there were many eyes to see him. He’d been warned of upperclassmen torturing younger students caught after hours: spraying them with