The Amanda Project: Book One

The Amanda Project: Chapter Twenty

CHAPTER TWENTY

Outside, Mr. Thornhill, Nia, and Hal were waiting. Hal seemed out of breath. Apparently he'd made a run to his locker as well. I looked around but Jason and Todd were nowhere to be seen.

"Remind me, Callie," snapped Mr. Thornhill, looking meaningfully at his watch. "Were you retrieving a book or writing a book?"

"Sorry I took so long," I apologized. In the midst of my being so mad at Amanda, I could still breathe a sigh of relief that Mr. Thornhill didn't seem about to accuse us of having raided his office over the course of the morning.

"I'm not really interested in apologies from you." He drew a circle in the air as if to enclose the three of us in it. "From any of you, actually. What I would like is some information about your friend Amanda."

I looked down at my feet. In some ways, Mr. Thornhill's request was even more absurd than he realized. Clearly, if there was one thing I knew right now, it was that I didn't have any information about Amanda. Any accurate information, that is.

Mr. Thornhill waited a minute, then he sighed. "I don't know who you think you're protecting her from. I am not her enemy."

Something in his voice made me jerk my head up and look at him. I'd expected to find him staring me down, but instead he was looking across the parking lot in the direction of his car, almost like he was picturing it the way it had looked on Thursday morning.

As if he, too, were surprised or unsettled by the softness in his tone, Mr. Thornhill bent down and picked up his briefcase. "Well, it looks like we will all have the dubious pleasure of sharing one another's company in one week's time. Unless, of course, other developments make that unnecessary." Again he waited, and again none of us said anything. Then he quickly turned and headed off in the direction of his car.

Even though there was no way he could have heard us talking, we were silent until he'd pulled out of the parking lot.

"Let me see what she left you," said Nia eagerly.

As Hal reached into his jacket pocket, I said, "I don't know what she left you guys, but what she left me makes absolutely no sense. It's this yellow piece of a-"

"Postcard," finished Nia, her hand held out to take it from me.

Surprised, I continued. "Right. With-"

"Part of a message on it," she said, still thrusting her hand impatiently in my direction.

I was amazed. Maybe the rest of the note was on Nia's part of the postcard. Suddenly I wasn't mad at Amanda anymore, I was dying of curiosity. I fumbled in my pocket for the card as Hal held out his section for Nia to see.

In a second, Nia had put the three pieces of the postcard together, and we could see what was a picture of a yellow brick road, winding up to something that was ripped away at the top of the frame. Had Amanda kept that part for herself?