Read Online A Little Bit of Spectacular by Gin Phillips - Free Book Online Page B

another.
    â€œLet’s at least look at the foundation,” I said. “Maybe there’s more over there than we think. A basement or something. An old storeroom.”
    â€œYou’re a very glass-half-full sort of person,” Amelia said.
    We waved at Amelia’s mom to reassure her, then we walked side by side along the path. Amelia was looking down—probably still holding out hope for an Eastern spadefoot—while I looked around. She was lucky—at least she knew what she was looking for. I kept an eye on the grass, on the concrete, and on the tall rectangular sign off to our left; I even kept an eye on the litter. Because any of it might matter. Any of it might look like a path to nothing and turn out to be a path to something.
    We stepped onto the foundation of the school, and once we were in the middle of it, it was just a big gray square. It could have been a basketball court or a playground or a parking lot. I thought there might be burn marks from the fire, but the cement was smooth and unmarked. No signs of old doorways or rooms or stairways or plumbing. Other than litter and leaves, the only thing I saw was a plastic
O
that must have fallen off the school sign.
    I sighed.
    â€œLet’s look at the sign,” I said. As far as I could tell it was the only thing left that even had the word “Plantagenet” on it.
    Well, it almost had the whole word. As we waded through the weeds, I kept an eye out for more fallen letters, which had to be somewhere. The sign actually said:
    WELC    E TO PLA   T          NET H   GH SCHO   L
    HOME OF TH   GO   HERS
    â€œGo hers?” said Amelia. “Oh. Gophers, I guess. Home of the Gophers. That’s not a very good mascot. Who’s afraid of a gopher?”
    I was looking at the base of the sign. I’d really only noticed the plastic board and plastic letters at first, but the bottom of the sign was much more stable and impressive. It was solid stone, and it looked very old. And, as I leaned in closer, I could see words carved into the stone. The letters were faded a little, and the stone was turning black, so I had to strain to read.
    â€œAmelia!” I said. I didn’t trust my own eyes. “What does that look like to you?”
    She squinted. “Um, it looks like . . . Oh. I think it says,
‘We are Plantagenet.’
”
    â€œThat’s what I thought,” I said.
    The same words written in purple pen on bathroom walls in the twenty-first century had been carved in this stone ages ago. Maybe back when the high school was built. There was no talk of living forever or living in the stars. But words carved in stone seemed awfully permanent. Awfully sure of themselves. More important, somehow, than words on bathroom walls.
    â€œWhat do you think?” said Amelia, brushing the stone with her finger. “A high school for aliens?”
    â€œCan we sit down a minute?” I looked around my feet. I was standing by what looked like an old moldy T-shirt. “Or maybe not sit. Maybe walk?”
    â€œSure,” said Amelia. “I wouldn’t mind covering more ground anyway.”
    She kept her head down as we walked, and I thought she was back to thinking of frogs. I felt like I was trying to lace up a new pair of tennis shoes with more laces than I had holes. I’d found something here, all right, but I didn’t know how to make it fit.
    â€œMaybe a school motto,” said Amelia, who had apparently not been thinking about amphibians. “It was written on that sign like a motto. Like our school’s motto is ‘Walk don’t run.’”
    I stopped. “That’s our school’s motto?”
    She shrugged apologetically. “I guess mottoes aren’t really the city’s strong point.”
    â€œAnyway,” I said. “That would make sense. A motto. So what are the chances it’s a coincidence