The Hanging Hill

35

Judy took the creaky elevator down to the lobby and marched with great determination to rehearsal room A.

She hoped Reginald Grimes was there. If he wasn’t, she’d march up to his office on the second floor.

She was going to tell him, in no uncertain terms, that she wasn’t going to change a word of the best song in the whole show.

She pushed open the door.

Grimes wasn’t there. Neither was anyone else. The room was empty. Notepads, pencils, and water glasses sat abandoned on the horseshoe of tables where the first read-through of Curiosity Cat had never taken place.

Because, Judy thought, Grimes was too wrapped up in that book he was reading when he should’ve been working on the show!

He’d left the book behind.

It was sitting in the middle of the head table.

Judy tiptoed over. She wasn’t exactly sure why she was tiptoeing. It just felt like she was snooping.

The book had a crinkled leather cover. A frightening image of a snorting bull had been scorched into the center with a branding iron.

Library of Professor Nicholas Nicodemus was embossed in chipped gold letters in the lower right corner.

Judy reached out to open the book.

She snapped back her hand as soon as she heard the door swing open behind her.

The man named Hakeem, Grimes’s assistant, scurried into the rehearsal room.

“Ah! There it is!” he said. “Just where Mr. Grimes left it.”

He snatched the big book off the table, turned on his heel, and hurried out the door before Judy could ask him anything.

Like Who the heck is Professor Nicholas Nicodemus?