"Be still. Everyone be still till we get the lights on," Maggie said.
"Arthur!" Walker hollered again. "Brian, get him."
Kids giggled.
"This is nothing to laugh about," Maggie said sternly. "These pranks are dangerous. Someone could get hurt."
The nervous laughter was stifled. Kids whispered. I heard Brian's footsteps crossing the stage.
"If I find out who is behind this. ." Walker's voice resonated in the darkness, deep and threatening. The whispers ceased.
In that moment of silence something dropped. It sounded small but heavy, like a metal object. It rolled across the stage and stopped close to me.
Kneeling, I groped with my hand along the edge of the gym mat and found it. A ring.
The lights blinked on and I inspected the piece of jewelry. It was large with a gaudy red stone, the kind of ring that would be used as a stage prop. I slipped it on my finger. Glancing up, I noticed that everyone was looking at me. Katie, Keri, and Paul. . Shawna and Lynne. . Denise and Mikeeveryone who had attended last year's camp was staring at the ring with troubled expressions. I pulled it off.
"It's from Twelfth Night," Shawna said. "Remember? It's the ring Viola received, the one that Liza wore. We couldn't find it after Liza died. We looked everywhere."
Brian walked toward me and held out his hand.
Knowing that Liza had worn the ring, I gave it up reluctantly.
"Who brought this in here?" Brian demanded.
Kids looked at one another suspiciously. Walker wiped the sweat off his brow, and Maggie bit her lip. Mike's face was grim. No one answered Brian's question.
"I want it," Paul said at last. "Give it to me."
"No," Walker said firmly, "it's theater property. Put it where it belongs, Brian."
Brian nodded, then headed for the backstage steps.
I rubbed my palm, thinking. I hadn't felt anything when I held the ring, and there had been no glimmer of blue during this incident. Nor had there been blue light when I smelled my sister's perfume or heard her voice. These incidents were different from my visions and the last two were witnessed by others besides me. I didn't know how to account for them. Was my sister haunting the theater? Or was there a living, breathing person behind these three events? If the latter, someone among us wanted to rattle nerves.
Perhaps someone suspected I was Jenny Montgomery and wanted to unmask me. Or maybe these pranks were aimed at torturing and unmasking another person, the murderer.
What would Liza's murderer do if it was discovered that I was her sister? Till now it hadn't occurred to me that my relationship to her might put me in danger. I would have to be more careful that no one found out.
Tuesday night I went to bed early. My room, where I had feared having more visions, was now my refuge.
Not that I sat in the window anymore. I stretched out in bed and listened to another of Maggie's relaxation tapes, then read until I fell asleep.
The sound of a bell startled me, pulling me out of a dreamless slumber. It was a repeated, echoey sound, like a bell in a school building-a fire alarm! I had to get up, I had to leave, but my arms and legs felt too heavy to lift. I lay there listening to the bell.
"Jenny, come on! Jenny, please!"
Liza reached for my hand. I couldn't see her, but I knew it was she.
"Don't be afraid," she told me, grasping my fingers.
"But I am afraid!"
"I'll help you," she said, her hand tightening around mine.
"Jenny, Jenny, wake up!"
I was shaken hard. Shawna was tugging on my hand, and Maggie was bending over me, her face pale and glistening with sweat.
"It's a fire alarm," Maggie said, raising her voice above the shrill pulsing of the bell. Sirens sounded in the distance. "We have to get out."
Shawna dragged me to my feet.
"Where's the fire?"
"Don't know," said Shawna.
"May be a false alarm," said Maggie. "But go out the window. Go, girls!"
We climbed through in our bare feet and landed softly on the grass below. Maggie followed us and pushed us away from the house, toward the fraternity, where others were gathering. I saw her mouth moving silently: she kept counting heads.
"That's everyone from our place," Lynne assured her.
Guys had come out of the fraternity and kids from the other two houses were arriving, awakened by the sirens. As the first fire engine pulled up in front of the house, Brian joined his mother and us.
"In the kitchen again?" he asked, and I remembered that there had been a small fire at Drama House last year.
"I didn't smell any smoke," Maggie replied.
They headed toward the firefighters to talk to them. Our crowd was growing larger, not just with students but also curious neighbors who had heard the sirens. Ken stood next to Paul, her face flushed slightly. Paul's eyes roved the crowd. Mike stood apart, watching the firefighters who were circling the house. His eyes flicked over to me, studied me for a moment, then shifted away. Brian was at my elbow.
"Everyone okay here?" Brian asked, addressing me and the other girls who were clustered together, but his eyes lingered on me.
We all spoke at the same time, asking him what was going on.
"It's probably a false alarm," Brian told us. "Did you notice anything odd? Did you hear anyone moving around inside the house or creeping around the perimeter?"
I shook my head with the others, and Shawna burst out laughing.
"Didn't hear anything, Jenny?" she teased. "Talk about waking the dead! From now on I'm keeping a trumpet handy to blow in your ear."
"Did you have trouble waking up?" Brian asked.
"I heard the alarm bell, but it became part of a dream, a dream I couldn't shake off."
He frowned. "What do you mean?"
"I just couldn't wake up."
"Don't worry," Shawna told him. "If it happens again, I won't mess around. Shell be up."
Brian rejoined his mother. Tomas came over and Shawna filled him in on the situation. I sat on the grass next to them, thinking about my dream. I found it scary that a dream could take hold of my mind so powerfully, I could barely break free of it. Even when bells were ringing and someone was shaking me, I had struggled to find my way back to waking life. I felt as if Liza had grasped my mind the way she had clutched my hand in the dream, and she wouldn't let go-not until I found her murderer.
While the firefighters continued to search the building, making sure this was a false alarm, Maggie came over and called all of the students together.
"This is unbelievable," she said, her gray eyes dark with anger. "It is senseless, stupid, and, most of all, dangerous. False alarms make people reluctant to respond quickly the next time they hear an alarm. And when a real fire occurs, thirty seconds can make the difference between life and death.
"It is the policy of Chase College to expel any student found guilty of this kind of dorm prank and to press criminal charges. We know the alarm on the outside of Drama House was pulled. If we find out who did it, you know the consequences. I don't expect it to happen again."
She strode away and everyone exchanged glances.
"Has anyone seen Walker?" Denise asked after a moment of silence.
"No, he lets Maggie take care of this kind of stuff," Katie replied. "She's a natural at lecturing."
"Look, there's that strange custodian guy."
I saw Arthur standing at the edge of the yard, half hidden by a bush, his eyes darting nervously here and there.
"He gives me the creeps," said Lynne.
"Me, too," agreed another girl. "You ever seen how his face twitches? It makes my own skin crawl."
"He's been nice to me," Tomas told them. "He's helped me a lot with setting up scenery."