Read Online The Last Academy by Anne Applegate - Free Book Online Page A

and the low murmurs of girls talking wafted out. From where I stood, only their legs were visible. It gave me the shivers. It was like I was spying on something holy. I shook the idea off — I’d had enough of feeling like an outsider.
    “How’d you hear about it?” I asked Rachel.
    “Big Mouth Sasha,” she said. “She was bragging about doing this yesterday at lunch. You didn’t get invited, either, huh?”
    I shook my head. “They think they’re so cool.”
    I glanced back inside the chapel, kind of grinning despite myself. All of the sudden, I had a new friend. One who thought Sasha was a big mouth. I kept thinking: We’ve snuck out! And it made me feel giddy and light-headed. I never broke rules at home. I’d never had any place to sneakout to. Even Lia hadn’t ever done anything like this. It was a little hard to breathe when I actually stopped to consider what was happening. If it wasn’t for all the oxygen-saturated air, I probably would have passed out right there.
    Soon, the girls would be done with their séance. When that happened, Rachel and I would have to slink back to our dorms and hope we didn’t get caught — either by teachers or by the cool kids. All this anger at Sasha, Tamara, Brynn, and even Jessie, came boiling up in me. I wasn’t going to let them be happy inside and make me feel like a loser outside.
    I studied the stained glass and how loose it was in the runner. I mimed to Rachel that I was going to shake it. Then I pointed into the chapel and the girls inside. After a moment, Rachel gave me a sly thumbs-up. I whispered, “On three!”
    We were going to give them a show, all right. After all, that’s what they came to see. Rachel snuck over to the far end of the sliding glass. She put her palms flat. I moved to the other end and put my hands up on the windows, too. From my new position, I saw Jessie kneeling on the floor of the chapel, head bowed in concentration. Her fingers moved slowly over the Ouija board. For a second, our plan seemed like a bad idea, and I hesitated.
    But I couldn’t stop. Giggles fizzed up inside me until the pressure of them was unbearable, like I was a soda bottle someone shook up and left capped. Candles flickered inside the chapel. I mouthed: One … Two … Three!
    We shoved the glass. Hard. It made a terrific rattle, from the floor all the way up to the sliders on the ceiling. Whap! Whap! Whap! It was hard not to laugh and shriek. Our bottle caps popped right off. We were giving them their ghost, was all. And that ghost was an earth-to-heavens racket in the dead of night, when we were supposed to be tucked into our own beds.
    Brynn screamed. Glass shattered. I caught a glimpse of Jessie’s face — her mouth a dark circle of surprise. Suddenly scared, I stumbled back and saw it — a pane of glass had fallen out of the wall.
    Run! Rachel mouthed, barreling toward me. Then we were scrambling around the corner and sprinting away. It was a lot better than slinking, I can tell you that. A-million-stars-exploding-in-my-chest better.
    I looked back when we split off in different directions, Rachel waving cheerfully at me as she tore off. No one came out of the chapel. It was completely dark. All the candles were blown out.
     
    Right before dawn, Tamara snuck back into our room. I’d crawled into the safety of my own bed around three fifteen and giggled for half an hour, waiting for her to creep in. Around 4 A.M ., I got concerned. By the time she actually showed, I was completely sure we’d all end up in disciplinary committees by second period.
    She sank onto her bed, silent. I closed my eyes and got about three minutes of peace before Tamara started crying. My own body chemistry practically electrocuted me with adrenaline. It made my heart cramp and my fingertips tingle. They’d been caught after all. I sat up in bed, all stiff like a zombie. Tamara sat on her bed, dressed in sweats and sneakers. It seemed weird that she didn’t even take her shoes