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other day,” I told her. “I was going
over my lesson plan, and I know I heard some kids running up and down the hallway
kicking a soccer ball. I got up from my desk to tell them to go outside, but there
was no one in the hallway. But there was a soccer ball!”
    I let that sink in for a minute.
    â€œOh, wow!” Denise looked surprised by my revelation.
    â€œAnd it creeped me out because there was no way that those kids could have run that
fast down the hallway without my seeing them,” I told her. “But what do spirits have
to do with Robin?”
    In walked Mrs. Ramsey before Denise could answer me. “Good morning, good morning.”
    â€œGood morning,” Denise and I said in unison.
    â€œDenise, I need for you to resend that e-mail from yesterday,” Mrs. Ramsey instructed.
    â€œOkay.”
    â€œI’ll come back after school,” I told Denise.
    â€œOkay.”
    Once again, chills ran down my back as I thought about spirits in the school. Could
that really be what I’d heard? The spirits of children playing in the hallway? As
I walked down the hallway, I looked up at the camera planted in the corner of the
ceiling.
    â€œLook at the surveillance cameras,” Dorian’s words echoed in my head. I still had
to ask Denise about the cameras.
    The rest of the school day went on without any issues. Denise’s experience of hearing
whispers stayed in the back of my mind. As I walked back to her office later that
day, I had a different outlook on the school now. This place felt a bit creepier
with the students gone for the day. A cool shudder trickled down my back as I walked
the hallway. I glanced nervously into each classroom as I passed by, thinking about
the voices of the kids I had heard. I couldn’t help but feel as if someone was following
me.
    Get it together, Adrian, I told myself.
    Denise sat quietly tapping on her keyboard as I entered the office.
    â€œHey, you,” she greeted me.
    â€œHey,” I replied. “I have a question for you.”
    â€œOkay, go ahead. I’m listening,” she said, continuing to type on her computer.
    I looked around to make sure no one else was in the office. “I know you said you
believe that strange things are happening at this school. Have you ever thought about
going back and checking out the surveillance footage? I mean, I think it’s worth
a look. There might be some answers there as to what’s been going on.”
    After a few seconds of clacking on her keyboard, Denise responded. “Okay. We can
do that.” Denise hopped up from her mesh chair, and I followed her as we walked out
of the office. She didn’t say anything as we walked to a door at the end of the hallway.
Denise took out some keys from her pocket and opened the door. She flipped on the
light. It was a small security room. A desk at one end held a computer and monitor,
and a rack of six smaller monitors that showed black-and-white live shots of the
hallways, the campus, the main entrance, cafeteria, gym, and the administrative offices.
    â€œLet me show you this,” Denise said, sitting down at the desk. She opened the drawer
of a file cabinet beneath the desk, and pulled out a DVD from an unmarked folder
at the back. The DVD was labeled Ashley January 20. “I was thinking the same way
you were thinking when I first got here. So I started looking at some of the surveillance
tapes, since I have access to them. I was checking to see if there was something
that Robin did to Ashley and Jason. I copied and saved this footage on a DVD, hoping
to show somebody one day, and I didn’t want it to be deleted.”
    Denise inserted the DVD. It held two video files, and she double-clicked the first.
The footage, in grainy black and white, showed students in the hallway. “Look, that’s
Ashley right there,” Denise pointed to a tall, slim blonde girl. Ashley was standing
at one side of the hall, talking