Breakfast Served Anytime Page 6

  The campus mailboxes were old-school: little numbered rectangles, each with a tiny keyhole and a glass front, so that you could peer in and see right away if there was a letter slanted in there, waiting to be opened. I had a perverse appreciation for my little mailbox key, and when I walked into the stuffy mail room and glimpsed the promising slant of something in my box, my heart cartwheeled with perverse glee. I keyed open my box — even the click of the lock was satisfying — and pulled out not one but two things: a stampless blue envelope addressed to me in precise, angular handwriting, and a CD-shaped square, wrapped in brown paper and graced by the all-capital block letters that I knew by heart to be Alex’s.

  I had to fight the urge to sit right down on the mailroom floor and tear open my treasures, but this was my forte — prolonging the moment for as long as possible, savoring the anticipation, rocking the Grecian-Urn and the night-before-the-museum feelings, all of that — so I ran all the way back to a still-quiet room 317, equipped myself with Indigo and my Thinking Playlist, and sat cross-legged on the bed with my loot spread out before me. The CD-shaped package was already sending my heart into overdrive, so I shoved it under my pillow and vowed to myself that I wouldn’t open it until after dark. First of all, it was a nighttime sort of item, and second, this way I could anticipate it all day long.

  The mysterious blue envelope turned out to contain its own thrilling gift: a drawing of a blue butterfly, painstakingly rendered in varying shades of colored pencil. It was almost more beautiful than the real-life blue butterflies outside, and the loveliness of it brought that familiar, achy lump to my throat. Beneath the drawing, the artist had written this:

  PELEIDES BLUE MORPHO

  Kingdom: Animalia

  Phylum: Arthropoda

  Class: Insecta

  Order: Lepidoptera

  Family: Nymphalidae

  Genus: Morpho

  Species: M. peleides

  Dear Gloria,

  I gathered this information with the help of Wikipedia, so don’t tell X, okay? The Blue Morpho is a native of South America. I’m not sure how they got here in such numbers, but get this: The entire life span of the Blue Morpho is only 115 days. 115 days! Carpe diem, Blue Morpho. Carpe diem, Gloria Bishop.

  Your friend and amateur lepidopterist,

  Calvin Little

  Calvin Little, Lepidopterist! Calvin Little, he of the Still Waters Running Deep all over the place. Sweet, belt-wearing, Latin-spouting Calvin, to whom I owed three dollars and seventy-five cents. He had called himself my friend, and for some reason that knocked me out more than if he had professed his undying love for me. Friend, as in the noun-not-the-verb, as in real-life, flesh-and-blood friend. I wanted to cry with appreciation for him. As I glue-sticked the Blue Morpho into the GBBoE, it occurred to me that my mind had snapped a photograph of Calvin — Calvin kneeling in the sunshine, his brilliant hair aflame in the light, cradling that butterfly in his freckled hands — and that I might just carry the image with me for the rest of my life.

  EN ROUTE from the shower, resplendent in glasses and towel turban, I thought I heard the phone ringing in room 317. As I took off running, flip-flops smacking obscenely on the floor, I imagined I looked like some sort of demented diva-duck.

  I hadn’t yet gotten used to communal living and prayed nobody would see me wearing flip-flops, which I refuse to condone as actual footwear outside of the necessity for maintaining proper dorm hygiene.

  “Hello?” I gasped into the phone.

  “Gloria? It’s Chloe. Are you up?”

  “It appears that I’m up.”

  “Listen, I think I’ve got it. I think I know where the next clue is.”

  “That’s awesome!” I shrieked. “Where?”

  “I think we should all go together. Can you meet at the Egg Drop in half an hour?”

  A little guiltily, I thought of Jessica’s note and its implication that I should join her for breakfast. Oh, well. She wouldn’t mind. “Yep. Half an hour.”

  “Fabulous. I just talked to Calvin, but Mason’s phone just keeps ringing. I need to dry my hair. Will you try to call him again for me? It’s extension twenty-nine.”

  “Well, I —”

  “Okay, great. See you in a bit!”

  The dial tone buzzed accusingly in my ear. Chloe, I thought, you suck. I punched in the numbers for Mason’s room but hung up before it started ringing. Deep breath. Okay. One more try. I let it ring at least nine times and was about to hang up again when this baritone doomsday voice answered.

  “You’ve reached the Decline of the West; this is Edward Softly speaking.”

  “What? Mason?”

  “One moment, if you will.”

  I heard a shuffling sound, followed by mumbling sounds, followed by Mason’s actual voice, sodden with sleep. “Hmmmo?”

  “Mason?”

  “Hmm?”

  “It’s Gloria. Listen, you need to get up. Chloe thinks she knows where X’s next clue is and she wants us to meet at the Egg Drop in like thirty minutes. Okay?”

  More shuffling, a noisy yawn. “Wait a minute. You’re talking too fast. Now, what?”

  I sighed and repeated myself, alarmed to discover that my heart was beginning to bonk around obnoxiously in my chest. “Will you just get up and meet us there as soon as you can?”

  “Well, wait a minute. Slow down a minute. What’d she say? Where’s the clue?”

  “I don’t know yet. Chloe has organized this powwow and asked me to call you. I’m only calling because she asked.” I felt it was important to make that much clear.

  “What’s Calvin say?”

  “I don’t know. I mean, he doesn’t know yet, either. He’s meeting us there. So hurry, okay?” God, I couldn’t wait to hang up.

  “Wait a minute.”

  “What?”

  “What are you all worked up about?”

  “Nothing. I’m not worked up. Who the hell is Edward Softly?”

  Mason groaned. “My roommate,” he said. “He’s so obsessed with H. P. Lovecraft that I think he actually thinks he’s H. P. Lovecraft. He also thinks it’s approximately 1922.”

  “Perfect.” I laughed. “H. P. Lovecraft and the Mad Hatter. Are yall running a freak show over there or what? Fun-house rides and warped mirrors, the whole shebang?”

  “Wanna come over and be the Bearded Lady?” Mason quipped, not missing a beat.

  “Um, pretty sure I don’t have a beard,” I said. A nonsensical response to a nonsensical dig, but still my hand rose reflexively to my chin, just to make sure. I gathered my robe more tightly around me and shook my hair free of its towel turban, once again paranoid that Mason with his demon gaze could somehow see me sitting there in my diva-duck getup.

  “We’re also auditioning for the spangle-clad aerialist, but you’ll have to get in line.” I could hear his smug grin through the phone.

  “I am hanging up now, Mason. Half an hour, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Without saying bye I returned the six-ton receiver to its cradle and vowed that I would henceforth keep one-on-one communication with the Mad Hatter to an absolute minimum because, good God, the boy made my teeth hurt.

  On the way to the Egg Drop, I spotted Calvin, his bright head lowered in thought, crossing the street in his trademark bashful lope. “Hey!” I yelled, waving maniacally. “Calvin, wait!”

  Calvin offered a gallant elbow and I linked my arm with his as we crossed the street. “Hey, thanks for the butterfly. You’re quite an artist.”

  “You’re welcome,” Calvin said. “It’s just scribbling, really. Just something I like to do on the side.”

  “Oh, on the side,” I teased him. “You know, when I’m not working out algorithms and playing around with Punnett squares and whatnot.”

  Calvin grinned sheepishly and opened the door of the Egg Drop for me. Chloe was already there, hunched over the jukebox. When she saw us come in, she beamed and waved her arm in the direction of the table we had occupied the
day before. “I ordered us some pancakes and coffee,” she said. “Breakfast is on me today. Be right there. I’m trying to get this thing to play my song.”

  I slid into our booth and Calvin followed. I watched with interest as he carefully unwrapped his napkin-rolled utensils, placing his fork, knife, spoon, and chopsticks in perfect, proper alignment with the space that would soon be occupied by his plate. GoGo would have wept.

  Chloe crooned along with the jukebox — some song in inscrutable French — as she waltzed toward the table, one hand pressed to her chest in a dramatic swoon of emotion. “Oh, God, yall, I love this song,” she gushed, spilling herself into the booth. “Can you imagine being gorgeous, and being a singer-songwriter, and having your songs all over movie sound tracks and jukeboxes in America, all while being the First Lady of France? It’s wild. It’s ridiculous and unfair. Why am I not French? Why?”

  Calvin and I watched patiently as Chloe closed her eyes and sang in perfect French along with the jukebox, pausing during the instrumental parts to take a long invisible drag from a chopstick. When our pancakes and coffee arrived, she looked up at our server — same one from yesterday, I wondered if she ran the place entirely by herself — and gushed, “Oh, Xiu Li, I am in the wrong century. I am in the wrong country. These pancakes are beautiful! Merci.”

  “This country not so bad,” Chloe’s new best friend Xiu Li replied. “Enjoy, enjoy, enjoy.” She was talking about the pancakes but it seemed like she was talking — with no small amount of gratitude and enthusiasm — about the world itself.

  “May I have a glass of milk, please?” Calvin asked Xiu Li, who grinned, nodded, and disappeared with a friendly hum on her lips. I liked Xiu Li. She seemed to be the sort of person who could kick your ass very, very gently.

  Chloe and I exchanged an amused glance at Calvin’s milk, and then the jangly bell on the door heralded the arrival of the Mad Hatter, who had clearly woken up that morning in rare form. I mean he obviously knew we were there, right? But he walked in and acted all blasé, checking out the display of free newspapers in the entryway, La la la, I have all day, the world revolves around me, la la, and oh! Who’s this lovely girl spinning on a bar stool at the breakfast counter?

  “Mason’s here,” I deadpanned. “Taking his sweet time as usual. He’s talking to some girl over there.”

  Chloe turned around to look. “I don’t know about those shoes. A little stripper-ish for nine in the morning on a Tuesday. Do you think that’s his girlfriend?”

  “Okay, yall should really not be staring like that,” Calvin said. “Pass the syrup, please.”

  Chloe rolled her eyes and feigned oppression. “Calvin, please. You and your milk. Why shouldn’t I stare? Seems like it’s always us waiting for him. Have you noticed the pattern?”

  “Yes,” I answered, trying to concentrate on my pancakes. They really were delicious. Xiu Li was my hero.

  “Good morning, good morning,” Mason intoned brightly as he folded himself into the booth beside Chloe. “Are these for me?” He nodded at the pancakes.

  “Yes, Your Highness,” Chloe said. “Courtesy of moi. Who’s the girl?”

  “Her name’s Andrea,” Mason answered, carefully avoiding everybody’s eyes.

  “Andrea,” Chloe repeated, balancing a bite of pancake between her chopsticks. “Right, right. Should I ask her to join us, or what?”

  “Nah. She’s a friend of my sister’s. Just some girl.”

  “You have a sister?” Calvin inquired, as if this were a revolutionary piece of information.

  “Two sisters, actually. The female-to-male ratio in my house is three-to-one, four if you count the dog.”

  Three females, one male, a watchdog. It was time to change the subject. “That’s fascinating,” I broke in, “and Mason, I’d love to know more about your family tree and your pseudo-girlfriend at the counter over there, but let’s get on with it, shall we? Chloe. Tell us what you know.”

  Chloe nodded and leaned in close to us, her green eyes bright with mischief. “Right,” she said. “So I think the clue’s waiting for us in the tomb of Thomas McGrath.”

  Urn, as in Grecian Urn, as in the Urn in Which the Remains of Thomas McGrath Are Buried in a Crypt Beneath Morlan College’s Notoriously Haunted McGrath Hall. Call it a stretch, but still: Once Chloe suggested it, the total and complete obviousness of it felt like a blow. Had it really taken us eighteen whole hours to figure that out? I scowled and huffed all the way to McGrath Hall, where we were met at the welcome desk by a sunny creature whose name tag said MEGHAN.

  “Good morning, welcome to Morlan College, can I help —” Meghan chirped, rising from her seat, but as soon as she saw Mason, her voice flattened and dropped a couple of octaves. “Oh. Hi. What are you doing here?”

  Mason sauntered past the rest of us and plucked a card from the little card holder on Meghan’s desk. “Administrative Assistant,” Mason read aloud, nodding his head in exaggerated approval. “Sounds important.”

  Meghan crossed her arms over her impressive chest and closed her eyes for longer than a blink. “Mason, I’m working. One more time: Can I help you?”

  “Actually,” Mason swaggered, “my friends and I were hoping for a look at McGrath’s tomb.”

  “There’s a campus tour at eleven,” Meghan replied, eyes averted. “Come back then.” Having provided her final answer, she sat back down and busied herself with a stack of papers on the desk. Mason regarded us with an oh-well shrug that was, hello, just not going to fly with me, not at all. We were on a mission.

  “Meghan,” I said, approaching the desk in my best imitation of bravado. “Hi. My name’s Gloria and these are my friends Chloe and Calvin. The Mad Hatter here is just along for the ride.”

  “Right,” Chloe offered, catching on. “He’s our resident Necessary Evil — don’t pay any attention to him at all.” This earned Chloe a stunned gape from Mason and sent Calvin shuffling red-faced to a nearby bench, where he sat down and pretended not to know us.

  “So Meghan,” I continued. “We’re Geek Campers, see, and we really, really need to get inside that tomb. Seriously, like five minutes. In and out. Just for a sec.”

  “It’s for a project,” Chloe added. “Our teacher’s got us on a scavenger hunt.”

  When Chloe said it out loud, I realized how lame it sounded. Could we be any more ridiculous? I was sure that Meghan, with her shiny hair and shiny business cards, thought we were idiots. I was surprised when she rummaged in her desk and produced a silver loop loaded with keys. “Five minutes,” she said, narrowing her eyes at Mason. “Got it?”

  Mason grinned as if the triumph were his, and we followed Meghan down a flight of stairs and one long, innocuous hallway, at the end of which was a completely innocuous standard-issue door that could’ve easily opened to a chemistry lab or a conference room. The door looked like all the other doors, which is to say that, judging by that door, the famous tomb of Thomas McGrath was turning out to be a total buzzkill, not at all like the dank, terrifying morgue I had conjured in my head.

  As Meghan inserted key after key to no avail, she launched into tour-guide mode, telling us how every Halloween, five Morlan students were selected by lottery to spend the night locked in McGrath’s tomb. It was a very big deal, this annual campus tradition, and students who submitted their names to the lottery became the stuff of legend. “Except if you’re this guy Dougie Landon,” she added. “A friend of my cousin’s roommate? One year Dougie was one of the McGrath Five, and he got so scared that he screamed and pounded on the door for three hours until somebody relented and let him out. Rumor has it he peed in his pants.”

  “Is that right?” Mason smirked.

  “That’s how the story goes,” Meghan replied coolly. “Ah. Finally.” With some effort, she shouldered the door open, and we were met by a decidedly unfriendly blast of cold air. So far I couldn’t see anything much, but the darkness and the cold and the whiff of damp from within — that was much more like it. I could feel
the fear prickling up along my spine, thrilling and delicious.

  “There’s a light switch in here somewhere,” Meghan mumbled, feeling along the wall. Even with the light on, the space was dim and shadowy. “Enter at your own risk.”

  Chloe went in first, hopping down four stone steps into a space just big enough for two twin beds, only there were no beds down there, just two rectangular stone blocks, each one roughly the size of an outstretched human.

  “That’s him on the left,” Meghan told Chloe from her station at the door.

  “So who’s this, then?” Chloe climbed atop the other stone, stretched out on her back, and folded her hands behind her head.

  “That’s some other random guy; I forget who.”

  “Chloe?” Calvin asked, peering in over Meghan’s shoulder. “Is X’s letter down there, or what?”

  “Oh yeah,” Chloe said. “Lemme look.” She swung her legs over the side of Sir Random’s eternal resting spot as if she were lazing about on a sofa. We watched her slide her hands along the walls and climb over McGrath’s block, where she crouched on the far side and emerged, triumphant, with an envelope in her hand. “Voilà, mes amis! Now, get down here so we can open this thing.”

  “Why don’t you bring it up here, where the light’s better?” Calvin suggested.

  “Yeah,” Mason said. “Bring it up here, Chloe.” His voice sounded bored, but his eyes were flicking around nervously.

  “No way!” I protested. I wasn’t about to miss my chance to explore McGrath’s tomb. I took the stone steps two at a time and joined Chloe in the cool of the room. Calvin followed with a resigned sigh.

  “I have to get back to the desk,” Meghan announced. “In or out, Mason. Either way, you now have” — she checked her watch — “three and a half minutes to get your kicks. I’m not gonna babysit you all day.”

  As if accepting a dare, Mason leaped all four steps and landed grandly in the center of the tomb. Arms outstretched, he spun around and glared at Meghan. “Happy now?” he asked.