Free The Cavendish Home for Boys and Girls by Claire Legrand Page A

The shiny gear-turns of Town Square had, for a moment, made her forget why she had come. After all, how could anything be wrong in the midst of all that gleaming perfection?
    “Well, I’m—” Victoria started to say, but then she saw how Mr. Waxman looked rather like the Prewitts, with their bright, frozen eyes and that too-happy smile. The realization woke Victoria out of her Town Square trance. A rush of cold swept around her, even though the library doors had closed.
    In a flash, she remembered the red, scrawled words: “Help us.” In another flash, she saw Lawrence’s yawning, gray-eyed face. He would be yawning, so early on a Saturday.
    Yes. Yes, that’s why she had come here. A note like that required investigation. It was a very between sort of note. A missing friend also required investigation. And there was no better place to begin an investigation than the library. It wasall about order and answers and things filed in labeled boxes; it was the farthest thing from between .
    “I’ve just come to do research for a school paper,” Victoria said at last. Her heart jumped to hear the lie. She wasn’t used to this business of lying to grown-ups. Children who won trophies and made the honor roll did not lie to grown-ups.
    Mr. Waxman’s face relaxed a tiny bit. “Well. Well, I suppose that’s fine, isn’t it? How responsible of you.”
    He stepped out of the way, his eyes bright and still. He licked his lips.
    “Just as long as you don’t take anything that isn’t yours,” Mr. Waxman said as Victoria walked away. “We have to behave, don’t we?”
    Victoria smiled politely and walked away as fast as she could without seeming suspicious. Her heart turned frantic somersaults, the happiness she’d felt outside long gone. Mr. Waxman’s eyes followed her into the stacks of books, just as the Academy professors’ eyes had watched Lawrence.
    “Calm down, Victoria,” she said to herself. “You’re just seeing things.”
    She poked around in the reference section, pretending to look through encyclopedias. After a half hour, she decided it was safe to move.
    What she really wanted was in the Records Room—newspapers. They seemed the most logical place to start an investigation.
    Victoria crept across the first floor. She stopped here and there to flip through books and scribble things in her notebook. The library seemed too quiet even for a library. Sharp, invisible sensations, like reaching fingers, scratched at Victoria’s heels. She tried to hold her head high as she walked, but she felt like all the books had eyes and would report on her to Mr. Waxman.
    Finally, she reached the Records Room. She slipped in and closed the door. The room was empty, small, cold, and dim. She looked back over her shoulder, through the frosted window of the door. Beyond it, the library shone white.
    “Don’t be stupid,” she reminded herself, tugging her raincoat straight. She found a computer in the corner and sat down, refusing to hide behind it like part of her wanted to. She took out her notebook and typed in respectable research topics like “Aborigines” and “the Declaration of Independence” and “zoology.”
    “Just in case,” she murmured. “One can’t be too careful.”
    Then, looking around once more just to check, she searched for the Belleville Bulletin . It was an old newspaper because Belleville was an old town.
    Victoria paused, her fingers hovering above the keyboard. She wasn’t really sure what she was looking for, exactly. Usually when she came to the library, it was for an assignment, with achecklist of items to complete. But this time, it was different; this time, she didn’t quite know what the assignment was.
    Think, Victoria , she scolded herself, and she did, combing over her memories of the last few days:
    1  Orphanages that employed strange, bulging-skinned men with rakes.
    2  People who smiled so wide and perfect it was like they were ready to pop out of their