Free Summer Sanctuary by Laurie Gray Page B

about getting hurt myself if I surprised her than I was about scaring her.
    I shined my flashlight in through the window and called, “Dinah!” again. Then I climbed inside, shining the flashlight up to the third floor. “Dinah! It’s me, Matthew.” Nothing. As I climbed the ladder to the top, tears started burning my eyes. Lucky I was dripping wet. No way I wanted Dinah to see my tears. But when I reached the top, Dinah wasn’t there. I sat with my legs swinging over the ladder, heart pounding and eyes streaming. I buried my face in my hands.
    Except for my sniffling, the only sound was the irregular drumming of water dripping off the roof of the castle onto the plastic slide down the other side. I didn’t have any idea what time it was or where else Dinah might be. Since the storm had passed, I decided to walk to our tree to see if she might be there. I still had enough adrenaline pumping that I didn’t realize how tired I was getting.
    I kept a brisk, steady stride as I walked.
When Johnny comes marching home again, Hurrah! Hurrah! When Johnny
comes marching home again, Hurrah! Hurrah! The ants go marching one by one, the little one stops to suck his thumb, and they all go marching down—to the ground—to get out—of the rain
.
Boom, boom, boom
. I didn’t know all the words to
When Johnny Comes Marching Home
, so it kept turning into
The Ants Go Marching
in my head.
    When I finally reached our tree behind the library, there was no one around. I walked along the edge of the creek to the bridge on the bike path. I leaned across the railing and listened to the rushing water. Still no sign of Dinah, and I was running out of ideas. I was also running out of steam. Part of me wanted to lie down right there on the bridge and go to sleep. I shined the flashlight down on my jeans and sneakers. In addition to being soaked, I was covered in mud and grass. I needed more than clean pajamas to get back into the house. I needed to wash up.
    Since I already had the key to the church, I decided the best thing to do was walk back to the house, get my pajamas and a garbage bag out of the garage, and then walk back over to the church. At least I could run some water and get cleaned up without waking Mom and Dad. Yesterday I never would have considered walkingfrom the church to my house in my pajamas, but tonight it made sense.
    As I unlocked the back door of the church, I decided I’d better take my rain poncho, sneakers, and jeans off at the doorway so I wouldn’t track water and mud through the church. I stuck them in my garbage bag and headed for the men’s room upstairs. I was almost to the stairway at the other end of the basement when a flashlight popped on and blinded me. Oh, and I shrieked, too. That was when the other flashlight hit the floor. “Matthew? Is that you?”
    â€œDinah! I’ve been looking everywhere for you!” I cried. I completely forgot I wasn’t wearing any pants. “I heard Dad tell Mom that he’d locked the door. How did you get in?”
    Dinah picked up her flashlight, and we both shined our lights straight up, illuminating our faces without blinding each other. “When I couldn’t get in the back door, I just came in through the bathroom window there by the nursery.”
    I was stunned. She’d been here in the church the whole time. “I can’t believe you found an open window,” I said.
    â€œI didn’t
find
an open window, Matthew,” Dinah explained. “The very first night I stayed here I decided I better have a Plan B in case I got locked out. I checked all the windows in the church and chose that one to leave unlocked. It’s got enough of a ledge on the outside that I could get in and out, and the blind is always closed on the inside, so nobody would notice that’s it’s unlocked.”
    I should have known that Dinah would be able to take care of herself. Suddenly, I