The Door in the Alley

by Adrienne Kress

  “Sorry, what was the question?” he asked.

  “Dio mio,” said Derrick the TA in frustration, once again completely butchering the Italian. “Where are you going?”

  “Uh…I’m leaving.” Why couldn’t he just go? This was grown-up school, after all; weren’t grown-ups allowed to do what they wanted, leave places if they so desired?

  “I’m afraid I can’t let you do that,” replied Derrick the TA, crossing his arms over his chest.

  And that was when Sebastian realized something amazing. He couldn’t get in trouble. He wasn’t a student here. But it also wasn’t illegal to sit and observe a class (he knew that because his sister used to do that for fun when she was a teenager). And he wanted to leave. So that was what he was going to do.

  With a great deal of confidence, Sebastian ignored Derrick the TA and went to the door. Now, if he’d been having the same kind of luck as Evie had been up until a few moments earlier, it would have been unlocked and he would have left and that would have been that. But he wasn’t.

  “Yes. The door’s locked,” said Derrick the TA, and he gave a low guttural laugh that sounded far too evil for the situation.

  “I need to go. It’s…an emergency!” said Sebastian, and it was indeed starting to feel like one.

  “Do you have a doctor’s note?”

  “No.”

  “Then it’s not an emergency.”

  Sebastian was pretty annoyed now. This was ridiculous, and he did not have a proper appreciation for the ridiculous or the absurd. “Well, what can I say to convince you to let me leave?”

  Derrick the TA stroked the peach fuzz of a beard on his chin and then looked at Sebastian with another inappropriately evil smile. “You get a perfect score on the quiz, I’ll let you leave class early.”

  Now, normally, taking a quiz without having studied for it would have filled Sebastian with a sense of dread. Fear, even. But in that moment Sebastian was feeling pretty darn annoyed with Derrick the TA, and that smug, stupid smile of his had sufficiently worked its way under Sebastian’s skin. On top of all that, this was a class about maps and geography, and if there was one thing Sebastian’s excellent photographic memory had consumed lots of, it was that.

  “Yeah, okay. Let’s do this.” He walked up to Derrick the TA and put his hands on his hips. “Is this a team thing or, like, a spelling bee or what?”

  “Hmm…I think for you I have a special kind of quiz. Everyone in the class gets to ask you a question. You miss one, you have to sit it out for the rest of the class.”

  Sebastian stared at Derrick the TA in disbelief. “Why are you acting like a comic-book villain?”

  “Because this is the only time I have any power over anyone in my life. So, are you going to play the game or not?”

  Sebastian stared out at the vast classroom before him. There had to be at least a hundred students staring back. Well, it wasn’t like he had a choice.

  “Let’s play,” he said.

  —

  Evie raced to the clock tower and felt very much that normal racing in gym class had left her woefully ill prepared for this moment. Never before had she raced while consumed by such a sense of panic, not to mention the whole adrenaline and staring-death-in-the-face part. She focused on this life-and-death balance as she ran across the roof, avoiding chimney tops and a remarkable number of weather vanes.

  The melted man was far enough behind her that she was able to make some decisions as she ran, but there was really only one way to the clock tower, and that was the way she intended to go. She finally skidded to a stop at its base and discovered a small wooden door on its east side. She opened it and found herself staring in at the landing of a giant wooden staircase leading to a trapdoor high above. Evie had really hoped that the tower went down instead of up; she was getting tired of all this heights nonsense. But up it was and up she went.

  She was almost at the trapdoor at the very top when the door far below swung open with a bang. Quickly she pushed open the hatch and a short rope ladder unfurled before her. She climbed up and made her way through the opening, pulling the ladder up once she had, and let the trapdoor fall shut behind her. She looked around for something to keep it closed.

  “Whoa.”

  She was standing inside the clock part of the tower itself, surrounded by four giant walls, each with an enormous translucent white clock face covered in gears and winches clicking and spinning. But what impressed her even more was the bell—it was twice as tall as a person and nearly twice as wide, and was hanging in the middle of the room. A long rope dangled from the clapper and spooled in a thick heavy coil directly beneath it, and Evie was tempted in that moment to ring the bell, just to see what it was like.

  No, she didn’t have time for this. Instead she ran to the coil and pushed at it. It was really heavy. So she uncoiled the rope as fast as she could and dragged it over to the trapdoor. The bell clanged loudly once as she did, startling her and causing her to stop for a moment. Bells were loud, yes, but bells right above you? Deafening. She shook her head as if shaking water out of her ears and then continued with the task at hand. Eventually Evie managed to coil the rope on top of the trapdoor. She stared at it for a moment, panting. Good. That would hold the melted man off for a little bit, at any rate.

  Now for a way to get out of there.

  —

  Sebastian hated to admit it, but he was having fun. He was also enjoying wiping the smug look off Derrick the TA’s face as he answered every single question posed to him correctly. The game had started off slow; no one in the class seemed really all that interested in playing. But as Sebastian began to answer question after question, the energy in the room had shifted, students leaned forward in their seats, and even the guy carving something into his desk in the back row glanced up with slight interest.

  “How long is the Great Wall of China?”

  “Five thousand five hundred miles or eight thousand eight hundred and fifty-two kilometers.”

  “Who is the earliest ancient Greek to have created a map of the world?”

  “Anaximander.”

  “What’s the longest street in the world?”

  “Yonge Street.”

  It was only when Sebastian heard the clock tower clang once, even though it was now past one o’clock, that he was jarred back to the reality of the situation. Evie. He’d forgotten all about her! And he was supposed to meet her at the tower.

  “Hey, Derrick,” said Sebastian, “this is taking too much time. Any way we can speed this up? I mean, I’ve been answering everything really easily. Can’t we just say I’m the winner?”

  “That’s not how the game is played,” replied Derrick the TA through clenched teeth.

  “But you just made up the game right now. Surely the rules—”

  “The rules are whatever I make them!” he bellowed back, and everyone in the class sat in stunned silence.

  “Okay, Derrick, seriously, chill,” said the redheaded young woman in the front row.

  “I will not chill! I will not chill and be made a mockery of by this extremely young-looking college-aged student! I am a postgrad. A postgrad! I am older, and wiser, and am working on my PhD, for crying out loud! My P. H. D! I demand respect!”

  “Respect isn’t demanded, it’s earned,” said Sebastian quietly.

  “Shut up!” Derrick the TA’s face was nearly the color of the redheaded young woman’s hair now.

  “How about this,” said the redheaded young woman in a tone one would use to calm a toddler. “You ask one final question. If he gets it right, he gets to go. If he gets it wrong, he sits down. Just like your rules dictated.”

  Derrick the TA thought about it for a moment and then gave a curt nod.

  “Fine. One last question.” He walked slowly toward Sebastian, seething with every step. “What country am I thinking of right now?”

  Sebastian stared at him. “What kind of a question is that?” he asked, completely at a loss.

  “Not f
air!” called out a voice from the far back of the room.

  “It’s perfectly fair!” snapped Derrick the TA. He turned back to look at Sebastian with that grin of his. “Go on.”

  There was no logical way to answer the question. There wasn’t. He continued to stare at Derrick the TA. This was impossible. Sebastian racked his brain for something, anything. He thought back to the TA’s odd greeting at the beginning of class. The poorly pronounced words…It was a guess, that’s all it was. But it seemed an educated one, at the very least.

  “Italy?” said Sebastian.

  What little color Derrick the TA had in his face drained out of it completely. “That’s—that’s—” he stammered.

  “Yes?” asked Sebastian.

  “That’s correct.”

  “Yes!” The red-haired young woman sprang to her feet, punching the air above her head with both her fists. The rest of the class burst into applause and several of them even cheered. Sebastian grinned and took in the moment, imagining this was what it was like to win at the International Mathematical Olympiad.

  He turned in triumph back to Derrick the TA. “Now,” he said, “will you please unlock the door?”

  On stiff legs, Derrick the TA forced himself to the door. He unlocked it and threw it wide open.

  “Get out!” he roared. And the class fell silent at his outburst. He looked at them and then at Sebastian. “Get out, and never come back. You’ve been kicked out of this class for all time!”

  “Okay,” said Sebastian, and he ran out of there as fast as he could.

  —

  Thud.

  Evie spun around and stared at the trapdoor.

  Thud.

  The rope was holding it down, but the man with the melted face was definitely pushing hard to open it. She looked around the room in a panic. There was no other way out. There was only…down.

  She ran over to the large clock face on the south side and inspected it closely. The round clock was framed by a large square made up of many individual panes of glass. Surely one had to open, for cleaning purposes at the very least. Evie made her way systematically, testing each windowpane on the south-facing clock. Then the east. Then the north. Finally, when she tried the west, one panel gave a bit under her hands.

  “I knew it! They do open…,” she said just as she pushed harder and the entire pane fell out of the window frame and onto the grass lawn below, breaking into several pieces. “Or maybe not.”

  Well, whatever, at least she had an escape. Now the only question was, how to do it? She looked back into the room for an answer.

  “Evie!” She heard the cry from far away. She turned and poked her head out the window.

  “Sebastian, where are you?” she called out.

  “At the tower. Where are you?” His voice was a little muffled but it was so comforting to hear it.

  “In the tower! I’m up in the clock. I’m on the west side! Hurry!”

  She watched anxiously and then Sebastian appeared from around the corner. Evie couldn’t think of the last time she’d been so happy to see someone. She waved.

  “How did you get up there?” he asked, clearly astonished.

  “I was chased. He’s still chasing me. I need to get down!”

  Thud. Evie whipped around. She waited a moment, and then the man pushed the door open, much wider this time, the boards on either side of the door cracking and splintering, and then the door slammed shut.

  “Let me get help!” said Sebastian.

  “There’s no time, he’s breaking in. I need to get down! How do I do it?” She was really beginning to feel frantic.

  Sebastian stared up at her, mouth agape. He shook his head and rubbed his hands together in a panic. “I don’t know! Do you have a rope?”

  “Of course I don’t have a rope, if I had a rope I’d—” Evie stopped. She turned around slowly and stared at the coiled rope attached to the giant bell. It was an idea. A very risky and dangerous and life-threatening idea.

  “I have a rope!” she called down to Sebastian.

  “Great, okay. So I guess, use it?” Sebastian sounded less sure than she felt, which did not give her much confidence.

  “I don’t know…,” she said.

  “You can do it!” he called up to her, sounding a bit more believable this time.

  Easy for you to say, safe on the ground like that. She looked back at the rope. She had no idea how long it would wind up being, if it would even take her to the ground. She sighed. What choice did she have?

  “Okay, I’m going for it,” she called down. Sebastian gave her a thumbs-up, and she nodded. Then she pulled herself back into the clock tower room and approached the rope. She needed to do this all in one quick movement or the melted man would get her. She had one chance.

  This wasn’t remotely terrifying.

  She approached the rope and grabbed the end. It was so thick she couldn’t get her fingers all the way around it. She really hoped she’d be able to hold on. One, she counted to herself. Two…Here goes nothing….Three!

  She pulled the rope as hard as she could and ran toward the window. Behind her she could hear the trapdoor crash open and the sound of grunting as the melted man pulled himself into the room. Evie flung herself at the window and dove through it like she was diving into a lake, holding fast to the rope.

  Then she was outside, falling, the air rushing fast past her body. She held on tightly as she watched the green grass fly upward toward her. Suddenly she was yanked upright again and the bell let off an enormous peal. She was, quite literally, at the end of her rope.

  Evie found herself flying toward the tower wall in a blur. She stuck her feet out to protect herself and bounced off the wall. Then she was swinging back, a little slower, and the bell chimed again. She dangled, still slightly swinging side to side, staring wide-eyed at Sebastian.

  “Evie! Jump!” he cried. He sounded terrified. Evie glanced up, and sure enough, the melted man was looking out the window at her. The rope suddenly quivered as he grabbed it. She looked down in horror.

  She wasn’t so far from the ground, maybe only one story up. She could jump; she could do it.

  The rope quivered again, this time more violently. Evie looked up and saw the melted man climbing out onto the rope himself. Really? He couldn’t use the stairs?

  Once again time was of the essence, and just to drive home the point, the large hand on the clock above her ticked loudly, moving ahead one notch.

  “Please, Evie!” called Sebastian. “Jump! I’ll catch you!”

  Considering he was no bigger than she was, the offer was small comfort. But it didn’t matter; she really only had one option.

  She took a deep breath.

  And jumped.

  —

  Sebastian was flat on his back, his neck twisted at an awkward angle. “You okay?” he asked into Evie’s hair.

  “I think so.” Evie pushed herself off and looked down at him. “Are you?”

  “Not sure,” replied Sebastian. He sat up and cracked his neck. Evie made a face. “That’s better. Sorry I didn’t catch you.”

  “Well, I mean, you sort of did,” she replied with a smile. She glanced upward. “We’d better run. That guy is relentless.” Sebastian followed Evie’s gaze; the man was halfway down the rope already.

  They scrambled to their feet and pushed their way through the group of students that had gathered around them. Once free, they started to run.

  “So, did you find out anything?” asked Evie as they ran past some students playing Frisbee.

  “No. Well, yes,” replied Sebastian. “He’s not here. He’s not in the country. He’s off photographing the Vertiginous Volcano.”

  “Oh,” said Evie, sounding disappointed, and Sebastian could understand her feeling. Not only was it too bad that Benedict wasn’t here to help them, it also meant that she had risked her life for nothing. “That’s really a shame.”

  “Yeah.” They finally made it to the gates of the university and fl
ew through them and out onto the city street. They continued to run, even though by now they were pretty sure they weren’t being chased, until finally they ducked down an alley next to the bus station and hid behind a large garbage dumpster.

  “Well,” said Evie, panting slightly, “there is some good news. I found this invitation.” She passed it over to Sebastian and he had a look.

  “It’s from Catherine Lind!” So it looked like at least two of the team members were still in touch with each other. And one of them at least had kept her real name. That was interesting.

  Evie nodded. “It’s for a talk she’s giving.”

  “Yeah,” he said as he read it. “Tonight.”

  “I think we should go. We couldn’t find Benedict, but maybe Catherine can help.”

  He handed back the invitation and looked at her. She had a sparkle in her eye. Sebastian couldn’t believe it. Despite everything she’d just gone through, it seemed she still wanted to press on. “Do you really want to do this? It would appear we aren’t the only ones looking for the key. If that man was there looking for Benedict just like we were, chances are he’ll be looking for Catherine, too.”

  “I know. I know that. But I have to do this. And anyway, the man didn’t see the invitation, so maybe he doesn’t know about the talk!” She sounded so hopeful that Sebastian almost believed she could be right. Almost.

  “Okay, but we need to ask my parents’ permission to go,” said Sebastian, grateful he wouldn’t have to lie to them. Not really.

  “Sure! I mean, it’s an educational talk. I imagine they are supportive of those. Anything to further your studies.” Evie grinned from ear to ear.

  “They are.” It was true. They’d probably let him eat candy for breakfast if he told them it was for an experiment for school. Not that he wanted to do that, of course. That wasn’t a healthy way to start the morning.

  Evie leaned against the dumpster and exhaled slowly. “Well. That was eventful. Hey, wait—if Benedict wasn’t in the class, what did you get up to that whole time?”