Free Enchanted Ivy by Sarah Beth Durst Page B

trouble." Craning her neck, she looked up at the windows above the arches. She might not be able to climb up to the Literate Ape, but maybe she could climb down .
    80
    With Jake behind her, Lily walked into the gym. She mentioned the words "prospective student" to the guard and was waved through. Inside, Dillon Gym looked and sounded like every other gym in the world. College guys and girls ran back and forth over basketball courts. Sneakers squeaked, and players grunted and panted. Lily spotted stairs and went up to the second floor with Jake trotting behind her. She noticed several of the female basketball players eyeing him as they passed. Jake didn't appear to notice, which Lily liked.
    Upstairs was a gymnastics room. She poked her head in. It was empty. She crossed over mats and shimmied around a balance beam to get to the windows. In the mirror that covered one wall, she watched Jake follow her. He looked rather confused.
    "What are you doing?" Jake asked as she opened a window.
    "Going to check out that ape," she said.
    "People will see you," he said, "and you could fall." He sounded genuinely concerned, and Lily wanted to pat his hand to reassure him.
    "It's one story up," she said. "I'll be okay. But thanks." She'd climbed out onto the roof many times at home, and that was the third story. Her mother even climbed out with her. They liked to lie on the roof side by side under the stars and invent their own constellations.
    Jake continued to look worried.
    81
    "You could wait below and catch me if I look like I'm going to splat," she suggested. "It would be a very guardlike thing to do, preventing splattage."
    He smiled, and his face lit in a warm, melt-polar-ice-caps kind of way. "I haven't had any training courses on preventing splattage. You'd be putting your life in my hands."
    She noticed he had really nice hands. Imagining him catching her, she failed to think of a witty response. "Okay," she said.
    "Okay," he said. And then he blushed.
    "Do you have a camera?" she asked.
    Still blushing, he asked, "What?"
    "If anyone looks curious, you can pretend I'm posing for a photo."
    "Got one in my cell phone."
    "Great," she said.
    For a long moment, they stared at each other. Jake cleared his throat. "I'll just ... go down now," he said.
    Lily watched him exit the room. She couldn't believe this Greek god of a boy was talking to her, much less blushing when he talked to her. Don't read anything into it, she told herself. He's just a naturally sweet guy. Below, she saw him emerge under the arches. He waved up at her. Smiling, she waved back.
    She climbed out the window above the ape gargoyle. Dangling her legs down, she stretched her feet until she felt stone with her toes. She lowered her weight down onto it
    82
    and then knelt on the back of the gargoyle. Once she was lying belly down on the statue's back, she peered over the ape's shoulder at the book.
    The stone pages were blank.
    Her heart sank. She'd been sure that was the answer!
    Below, Jake had his cell phone out and was snapping pictures. She wondered if he thought she was crazy for climbing up here, especially since the book was blank. She usually tried so hard to appear not crazy. None of Mom's hippie clothes. Just jeans, ordinary T-shirts, tiny earrings, and lip gloss. None of Mom's offbeat habits. No knocking on wood or climbing trees at the park with the six-year-olds. No flowers in her hair. No singing off-pitch at high volume in the veggie aisle of the supermarket. No weird aversion to cars or movie theaters or basements. But if Lily's looking crazy at her dream school would keep Mom sane (or at least close to it), then Lily had no choice but to dance naked in the full moonlight, so to speak. "Now what?" she asked herself. "What's my next clue?"
    Underneath her, the stone shuddered. A soft voice said, "I am."
    It wasn't Jake. She looked behind her at the window. No one was there. "Who said that?" she asked. She had the sinking feeling that she wasn't going