Read Online Mazes and Monsters by Rona Jaffe - Free Book Online

this year at Grant, although there was one student who stood outside the library every morning, her face raw with cold, and shouted: “Save the whales!” At Grant there was room for everyone.
    Jay Jay felt he was losing his mooring. Everyone he cared about had someone to hold on to, but he was alone. He sat in his warm room and talked to Merlin, his best friend. “Poor Jay Jay,” Jay Jay said. “Poor Jay Jay.”
    “Poor Jay Jay,” Merlin said, finally.
    “Speak to me,” Jay Jay said.
    “Birds can’t talk,” Merlin said sternly.
    “Where’s Jay Jay?”
    “Poor Jay Jay.”
    “Good,” Jay Jay said, and filled Merlin’s little bowl.
    He was so sad. No one had time for him anymore. Kate was always off somewhere with Robbie, and Daniel had his merry sex life. Only poor Jay Jay, doomed to be a mascot, a child …
    And he was so bored. He put on his old record of Steely Dan doing “Deacon Blues,” a song he played more and more often lately. Drink Scotch whiskey all night long, and die behind the wheel. … He could get on his motorbike and ram it into a wall. No, that was too ordinary. If he died, he wanted attention, he wanted to become a legend. Then they would all be sorry they had neglected him. He would be remembered forever, like those two students who had disappeared into the caverns long before he was born. If they had lived, they probably wouldn’t be anything at all.
    He wasn’t really certain he wanted to kill himself; maybe he just wanted to play a trick and scare his friends. Still, the thought of doing away with himself gave him a little shiver of anticipation. Nobody had ever committed suicide at Grant.
    He wrote a note to Kate. Please feed Merlin every day, and remember me. He put on his down coat and leather aviator’s helmet, took his flashlight, looked sadly at Merlin for what might be the last time, and went down the hall. He slipped the key to his room and the note under Kate’s door, and went out into the cold.
    He knew where the forbidden caverns were; he had ridden past them the first week he arrived at school, just to see. The snow the night before had been light and the ground was frosty, but still he left tire tracks. Good … it wouldn’t do for them to be unable to find him. The caverns looked the same as they had before. The same green sign with its warning, the same chain across the entrance. The hills looked rocky and dismal under their light dusting of snow, and the afternoon sky was the color of iron. He shivered with the cold and anticipation. Parking his motorbike in the shelter of some rocks, Jay Jay slipped under the chain and entered the caverns.
    He swung his flashlight around to see what was there. He was in a smallish room, like a kind of entrance hall, and on either side there were tunnels high enough to walk in, leading off into the depths. He surmised the underground chambers were laid out somewhat like the branches of a tree … or a maze. His eyes widened with wonder. This was a maze—it was just like the game! The walls were made of some kind of damp stone, and far away, softly, there was the sound of dripping water. Great pale stalactites and stalagmites gave the caverns an eerie look, showing how ancient this place was. It was almost beautiful.
    Carefully, slowly, Jay Jay stepped forward, moving the beam of his light. His quick mind memorized where he had been. There, in the right-hand chamber, was a large black pool, with water dripping into it from the vault above. Oh, it was so wonderful, so glorious, so Tolkien! Gollum could live there in that cold, black, bottomless pool. Jay Jay could almost see him now, rising, hissing, turning his serpentine head this way and that in search of the delicate little morsel in the down coat. Suddenly the most exciting plan he had ever had in his life began to form in Jay Jay’s mind.
    These caverns were the game. If a clever Maze Controller, himself of course, were to chart them, and then use real props … A cloak, for