The Hanging Hill

74

Derek sneezed.

The dust in this basement was abominable; breathing was like inhaling a sack of airborne plaster particles. He was surrounded by all manner of dust-covered trunks and theatrical props: a barber pole; a papier-mâché crown; whiskey barrels; a couple of baskets; and a fake pig, a wax apple stuck in its mouth, sitting on a silver serving platter.

He sneezed again. Wiped his nose. Sneezed some more.

Derek knew he needed to stop doing that.

He needed to memorize the new script. Mr. Grimes believed in him. He couldn’t let down the one person in the world who actually thought he might be good for something besides sitting on the couch eating Doritos!

He wiped at his watery eyes so he could read the script without the words looking all smudged.

“O, magnus Molochus!”

He heard someone clodhopping down the steel steps of the spiral staircase.

“Derek?”

It was Meghan!

“Are you down here?”

Quick! He had to hide the script. He couldn’t let Meghan McKenna see it. He couldn’t let anybody see it, because it was supposed to be a secret, and if he blew that secret, Mr. Grimes would be as disappointed in him as his mother always was.

He thought about the whiskey barrel. One of the baskets.

The pig!

He plucked out the apple, stuffed his folded piece of paper into the fake swine’s snout, and crammed the apple back into place—stirring up another cloud of dust.

“Hey, Derek! Whatcha doin’?”

“Dothing,” he said, sounding wheezy. The dust. There was so much down here. He was toast. Toast with a rash.

“Have you seen Zack?”

“Doe.”

“Was that a no?”

Derek’s chest rattled as he breathed in. “Yes.”

“You sound horrible. You’d better go outside, grab some fresh air.”

“O-tay.”

Derek raced across the basement and hurried up the steps to the lower lobby. His lungs ached, his ears itched, and his tear ducts were spritzing like berserk squirt guns.

He was such a weepy, sneezy, wheezy mess, he forgot all about his secret script and the supersecret place where he had so cleverly hidden it.