Read School of the Dead Online
Authors: Avi
School of the Dead (23 page)
The Penda Boy's bed had slid to the far side of the room and flipped over so its legs were pointing toward me like a raptor's talons. The large window was empty. Glass shards had slid into a sparkling heap in a far, low corner.
I half crawled, half rolled toward the window. When I
reached it, I hoisted myself up. The tower had tilted down, even as other towers and roofs had shifted up
and
down. The building's roof looked like an ocean of crested and frozen waves.
One roof had risen so that it was right under the window. It seemed to stretch out toward that enormous tree. Farther below, a very long way below, was the street, where red lights were flashing. People were peering up.
I looked back over my shoulder just in time to see Uncle Charlie's lean face, with his pug nose, poke out of the hole.
“There you are,” he called. “Now, Tony, you're not listening to me the way you used to. I just want us to be together like old times. It can be forever.”
He looked down. “He's here. Can't go any farther.” He began to hoist himself up, elbows jutting out like enormous spider legs.
Frantic to get away, I looked out the window, down at the connecting roof crest, which ran from the window to that tall tree. I was struck by how much it looked like a slackline.
I looked over my shoulder. Uncle Charlie was out of the hole. He was peering down. “Hurry,” he called to Mrs. Penda.
I grabbed the edge of the window and swung one leg out and then the other, until I was sitting on the window's lower
sash. Gripping the window's sides, I was able to steady myself and steal a quick look back in time to see Mrs. Penda's head rising up out of the hole.
I looked across the way, toward the great tree.
It's the same as a slackline
, I told myself.
Just higher.
Still seated, I set my feet on the roof crest, one foot in front of the other. If anything, the roof crest was wider than my slackline. It was solid, or at least it felt so.
Holding on to the window frame, I pulled myself up until I was standing. That meant the roof crest was holding most of my weight. Ordering myself not to look back, not to think of anything but what I was doing, that this was the only way I could escape, I told myself to let go of the window and walk.
I was standing on the roof crest, some two hundred feet above the ground. To either side of me was emptiness. Behind me lay the still-collapsing school building. Before meâa good ways offâwas that old tree, as yet intact. Below were waves of jagged roofs, points, knobs, and broken chimneys. At the very bottom was the streetâa long way down.
Trying to settle myself, I began to walk the crest as if it was a slackline. Arms stretched out to either side for balance, I was like a flying bird, though the last thing I wanted to do
was fly. I just needed to walk the line from the dead building to that living tree.
With tiny steps, I moved forward.
“Tony,” came Uncle Charlie's voice from behind. “Don't do it. You can't. You'll fall. You need me. You can't live without me.”
Don't listen
, I told myself.
Think with your feet.
Once, twice, three times, I paused to find my balance, my breath, my nothingness, before I could proceed. Small step by small step, I made my way, drawing ever nearer to that huge tree, which somehow seemed to move farther away from where I was.
I think I was three-quarters of my way across when I heard crashing from behind. The roof crestsâunmoving beforeânow began to heave and sway. Now I
was
on
a slackline. If anything, it felt more comfortable, so much more like the wobbly walk I had always taken.
Just think with your feet
,
I
told myself again
.
Five feet from the tree, the shaking became so extreme that I ran the final distance and made a dive at the tree, grabbed a branch, and clung to it as the roof crest fell out from under me.
I was still hanging from the branch when I heard massive
splintering and crashing sounds.
I
looked over my shoulder in time to see the entire Penda School break apart and collapse upon itself with a great
whoomp
.
I swung a leg up, curled it around the branch, and, rough though it was, pulled myself toward the bulk of the tree, where I nestled against its great trunk among inner branches. There I clung and looked back toward the Penda School.
Nothing was left but a great mountain of rubble, over which dust hovered, a thin, drifting cloud. The weather vane, the angel Gabriel, lay twisted and charred. Licks of flame fluttered about it, like little dancing demons, perhaps truly dying ghostsâwhat remained of Mrs. Penda and her terrible friends. And yes, Uncle Charlie too.
I was still in the tree when a huge ladder rose up from the ground and came at me. At its top was a fireman, clad in a helmet and a yellow jacket. Weird but true, his yellow jacket reminded me of the one Lilly had worn that foggy day, when she invited me to her birthday party and I began to learn the truth about Jessica.
The fireman guided me to his ladder. I was soon out of the tree and on the ground amid an applauding crowd of firefighters, police, and people who had come to watch.
Two of the people were my parents. “Tony!” cried Mom, engulfing me in a hug. “That was amazing.”
Dad also hugged me for a long time, and whispered, “Thank God Uncle Charlie gave you that slackline so you could do that.”
I was home. As soon as I was alone, I called Lilly.
“Oh my God,” she said. “You saved my life. I can't believe all that, can you?”
I said, “What happened to Ms. Foxton?”
“They say she's in the hospital. I guess she'll be all right. Tony,” she added, “where are we going to go to school?”
I said, “Someplace normal, I hope.”
“Tony.”
“What?”
“I'll never go to another Halloween party.”
Later that night, I looked for my uncle Charlie at the foot of my bed, where he used to appear so often. When he didn't, I have to admit I was relieved.
I lay there, tired but very much alive, more so than in a long time.
I thought of that quote from Albert Einstein: “The distinction between past, present, and future is only an illusion.”
Maybe.
All I know is that I got out of bed and finally began to unpack the boxes of junk I'd brought from back east. It was time for my future.
Photo by Katherine Ward
AVI
is the award-winning author of more than seventy-five books for young readers, ranging from animal fantasy to gripping historical fiction, picture books to young adult novels.
Crispin: The Cross of Lead
won the Newbery Medal, and
The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle
and
Nothing But the Truth
were awarded Newbery Honors. He is also the author of the popular Poppy series. Avi lives outside Denver, Colorado. You can visit him online at
www.avi-writer.com
.
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The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle
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Night Journeys
A Place Called Ugly
Finding Providence
Don't You Know There's a War On?
Prairie School
The Mayor of Central Park
Never Mind!
The Seer of Shadows
Crispin: The End of Time
Poppy Series
Ragweed
Poppy
Poppy & Rye
Ereth's Birthday
Poppy's Return
Poppy and Ereth
SCHOOL OF THE DEAD.
Copyright © 2016 by Avi Wortis Inc. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
www.harpercollinschildrens.com
Library of Congress Control Number: 2015958397
ISBN 978-0-06-174085-5
EPub Edition © June 2016 ISBN 9780062231512
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