Free Enchanted Ivy by Sarah Beth Durst Page A

downstairs. He fell into step
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    behind her. She felt his sympathy-filled eyes soaking into her back, labeling her pitiable. She didn't look back at him as she pushed open the door to the dorm and walked into the sunlight.
    Outside again, she lifted her chin up to feel the warmth on her face. As always, the touch of the sun soothed her. She braved a look back at Jake. "Which way to Dillon Gym?" she asked.
    Jake hesitated. "Grandfather instructed me not to aid you. Campus directions aren't classified, but I don't think I'm supposed to give you any information...." He dithered adorably for a moment longer until she let him off the hook by tapping the shoulder of a nearby alum.
    "Excuse me, could you please tell me where I can find Dillon Gym?" Lily asked the alum.
    The orange-clad grandfatherly man pointed at the Reunions gate. "Straight out to the campus road and then downhill." His hat, she noticed, had beer cans strapped to either side and a straw that bent down to his mouth.
    She thanked him and turned back to Jake. His ears were pink as he blushed. "Guess I could have told you that," Jake said. "It's my first guard assignment. I don't want to make a mistake."
    Lily couldn't blame him. She felt the same way about nearly everything she did. Jake trotted alongside her as they left the dorms area. "Are you in Vineyard Club?" she asked. She quickly added, "You don't have to answer if you don't want to."
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    "I'm more ... in training to be a member," he said. "You join eating clubs at the end of sophomore year. I just finished my freshman year." He puffed out his chest like a rooster, proud of his member-in-training status. She stifled a smile.
    "Is Tye in Vineyard Club?" she asked. She skirted around patches of ivy, keeping to the far side of the sidewalk. The ivy vines lay still and quiet.
    Jake snorted. "Absolutely not."
    "You do know him."
    "I know of him," Jake said. "Never met."
    "Who is he?" Lily asked. "Why did he say he was my guard? What did he want?"
    "I ... um ... ah ..." His face reddened. Lily remembered he wasn't supposed to give her any information. She opened her mouth to apologize, but before she could, he pointed straight ahead. "That's Dillon Gym," he said.
    Following his finger, she saw a building that looked like a medieval fort. If it wasn't for the DILLON GYMNASIUM sign by the road (which, admittedly, was a big tip-off), she never would have guessed it was a gym. "Don't worry," she said. "I won't tell anyone you told me."
    "I think it's all right, but thank you," he said gravely.
    "You really care about this, don't you?" she said.
    "As much as you do," he said.
    She didn't have a reply to that. She wondered what he'd say if he knew that her mom's sanity was tied to Lily's admission into Princeton.
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    Lily faced Dillon Gym. Four gargoyles jutted out over the entry arches: a football player, a dour-faced man in medieval garb, a tiger with a shield, and an ape in graduation robes and spectacles. Like the Unseeing Reader, the ape held an open book.
    She halted underneath the ape gargoyle. Looking up at his stone chin, she waited for him to produce a clue like the Unseeing Reader had.
    He was as motionless as ... well, as stone.
    Lily squinted up at the gargoyle. Sun wreathed his stone head like a halo. She wondered if the clue was in the book that he held. After all, she'd been sent to the library to find a book--maybe this was the book she was supposed to find. If so, she'd have to climb up there to be able to see it. She nearly laughed out loud at that thought. There was zero chance she was coordinated enough to scurry up the stone. She wasn't a rock climber. Or a squirrel. She'd end up clawing uselessly at the walls while Jake laughed until he collapsed on the sidewalk.
    This is ridiculous, she thought. The ability to impersonate Spider-Man had nothing to do with college aptitude. "Can you lift me up?" she asked Jake.
    "I can't--"
    "--aid me," she finished. "Sorry. I promise I won't get you in