Free Night School by Caroline B. Cooney

the shadows. Shadows of trees and canyon, of building and car, but most unexplained. Thick, dark shafts cast by nothing and no one.
    If somebody were filming us, thought Andrew, I would look exactly like Mr. Phillips. Eyes darting, flickering, squinting, peering, screaming.
    “Why bother?” said Ned loudly. “We’re not on the film. Only Mr. Phillips is. Who ever looks at home movies anyhow? Some boring footage of somebody’s kid singing off-key in a dull concert. Somebody might steal the camcorder but nobody’ll ever look at the film.”
    What if Ned’s wrong, thought Mariah, and the film is not only played, but played to Mr. Phillips’s peers? The other teachers?
    Teachers were viciously gossipy, and protective of turf. Subs were supposed to be second-rate. It was practically a job requirement. What if a good sub ever came along? Possibly even a sub better than the teacher?
    How they would secretly rejoice, seeing the maimed rabbit that was Mr. Phillips. We’re better than you are, they would singsong.
    But she did not want to go back into the school, either. She wanted the minutes in the library to remain nothing but a once-seen movie. I wasn’t the one who sat there nodding and swaying to the chant alone in the dark, Mariah reminded herself. “I think it was some kind of psychological test. We’re going off the deep end over nothing. Why get so worked up? I say we drop out of class, skip the homework, forget the whole deal. Andrew can get to school early in the morning and find the camera before anybody gets to the library anyway.”
    Autumn felt a little chill of revulsion. For one minute, Autumn didn’t like Mariah anymore. She’s just protecting herself, Autumn thought. If we don’t protect ourselves, who will? Autumn did not argue with Mariah. Instead she hoped Mariah would enlarge on this, be convincing, make her point correct beyond a shadow of doubt.
    A shadow.
    Shadows closed in.
    Without speech, they knew they had to escort each other to the cars. They had to get out of there. Now.
    Mariah’s car, parked in the turnaround, was next to them. She unlocked it. Through each mind passed the new knowledge that locks are nothing. Walls are nothing. Doors are nothing.
    Night Classes go where they please.
    When Mariah drove away in that car, she would be one thing only: a person alone in the dark.
    Ned made a strangled sound, small and weak, like a puppy lost in the corner. They glared at him sideways, for being the first failure in their strength, the crack through which shadows would creep.
    Ned was pointing toward the school.
    Autumn could not look. Ned’s mouth was twisted and his eyes flared and his finger quivered. That was clue enough for Autumn.
    Mariah however looked instantly, to pin it down with her eyes, assess it, and keep it meaningless.
    Inside a black and empty school with no teachers, no staff, and no human occupants through the long glass windows of a classroom in which nobody stood, a movie was being played.
    Andrew’s movie.
    The cold blue light of the screen was quite similar to the cold blue moon of the instructor’s smile.
    But it was not, after all, Andrew’s movie.
    It was somebody else’s movie, and it showed Autumn and Andrew and Mariah and Ned as they watched Mr. Phillips … and did nothing.

Chapter 7
    J ULIE’S PARENTS WERE OUT.
    She had planned to spend the night on the phone. Phones were lifelines, and as long as the other person’s voice came though the wire, you were still safe. Brooke, however, had a choir rehearsal (she was the only member of the group with a singing voice) and Danielle was going out to dinner to meet her newest future stepfather. (She was the only member of the group whose parents held annual weddings; marriage was sort of their hobby, and every now and then they even remarried each other. Danielle remained normal.) However, Autumn should have been home.
    Julie needed Autumn to be home.
    Julie was hurting. When she left school that afternoon,