He did, however, see the lines of students exiting the building.
Shooooot. Henry ducked behind a tree. He peeked after after a moment.
There were a bunch of students out by then; probably too many for him to sneak back in.
There was also a sound that he recognized but couldn't quite place. It was repetitive, high pitched and came in groups of three….
After looking around again, he finally spotted Charlotte and Jasper. Both of them appeared to be looking for him, too.
Henry slipped out from behind the tree and walked over as casually as possible to his friends. "What's going on?"
"Someone pulled the fire alarm," said Charlotte, her explanation enabling Henry to realize that the sound was the fire alarm going off. "I heard that it was Mitch."
"Don't know for sure, though," said Jasper, looking nervous. The schools in Swellview have a fire drill every now and then, but never during a lunch period. It probably was Mitch. Henry made a mental note to not ever let Mitch anywhere near his house.
Henry looked over. He couldn't see smoke or anything. He looked back at his friends. "Since we're stuck out here," he said, plopping down on the grass, "I may as well tell you guys what happened."
Henry waved away a dragonfly, and glanced over his shoulder. No one seemed to have been paying attention, so he began telling them what had happened, speaking in a rushed, quiet voice.
"That's not much," said Charlotte after hearing the story.
"Why wouldn't they tell you?" That was Jasper.
"I already said, I don't know."
Charlotte opened her mouth to say something, but right then a few staff members began yelling for everyone to go back inside. Brushing the grass off their clothes, Henry, Charlotte, and Jasper did as they were told.
By the way, Mitch Bilsky was the one who set off the smoke detectors. After he used a match to light his dessert on fire.
"A dessert on fire?" Ray glanced up from the tablet he was looking at. "Isn't that some fancy restaurant thing?"
It was after school. Jasper was upstairs, doing his thing (eating junk food while waiting for the occasional customer to come in), Schwoz and Charlotte were running data (from earlier, to be more specific) and Henry was telling Ray about what happened when he reached the school.
"Yeah," said Henry in response to Ray's question. "But you still won't tell me about anything about earlier today." He glanced over at Charlotte and Schwoz. "How come she gets to see?"
"Because," said Schowz pointedly, "Charlotte is the only one who will understand."
"Okay, that's true," Henry conceded. "But you guys are acting really secretive about it."
Something occurred to him. He wasn't being allowed to look at the scans, which was strange. Come to think of it…. "In fact," he said as he stood up, "you guys haven't let me see anything recently."
It was true. The room was quiet for a moment. Charlotte and Schowz exchanged a look. Then they looked at Ray, who shrugged. "Guys, we really might as well tell him."
"Tell me what?" Henry asked suspiciously.
Charlotte looked back at Schwoz. "Pull it up." Nodding, he left to retrieve a TV screen. Charlotte turned her back to Henry and called at Jasper through the store cameras to come own. She then turned back to Henry. "Okay," she said, "we have been acting a bit furtive about letting you see things recently."
"Yeah, no kidding." Henry decided not to add that the last time he was allowed to see anything was… actually, he wasn't even sure.
Schowz came back in with the TV just as Jasper arrived. Even Jasper looks like he knows more than I do…. Which hurt. Charlotte glanced back at the other two boys before turning back to Henry.
"Okay… so, do you remember the whole thing with Schwoz's Green Fingers disease?"
"How could I forget?" Henry shuddered at the thought. "Why?"
"So… you know how ever since then he does blood draws every now and then to make sure everything's alright?"
"Yeah." Henry's eyes went wide. "Do I-"
"No!" Charlotte cried when she saw the panic on his face. "No, well, not exactly."
"WHAT?!" Henry wasn't sure whether to be scared or furious. Schwoz's stupid disease had almost killed him once before and now It's back?! "And you're just now mentioning this to me?!" Wait. "How long…." He wasn't sure how to phrase it.
"Only a couple of weeks," said Charlotte. Henry could tell that she felt really bad. "I really wanted to tell you, but Schwoz and Ray made me promise."
"It's okay," said Henry, even though he really wasn't sure. He changed the subject (more or less). "Can I see?"
Charlotte turned to Schowz. "Show him."
Nodding, Schwoz put an image up on the TV screen. It showed a sample of blood. "Henry, this is your blood from a month ago. And this," he switched the image, "is your last blood test."
The image looked roughly the same, but there were a few tiny (well, tiny as in smaller than the red blood cells) green things floating around. "That is the Green Finger virus. Now, luckily, we saw it before you started showing symptoms."
"So now what?"
"I have developed some more of the cure I made after drawing some blood from Jasper-"
"Which hurt like nobody's business," muttered Jasper. Schwoz ignored him.
"And I will give some to you now." Schowz produced a large needle and started walking towards Henry.
"Um, WHAT?" Henry couldn't help backing up a little. "Schwoz, why can't I just drink it like lasts time?"
"Because I believe it will work better if it goes straight into your bloodstream. Later, I have a special scanner that will tell us if there is anymore anywhere."
"Uh…" Henry hesitantly stuck out his left arm. Schwoz (who, thankfully, was very careful) slowly injected the liquid.
"Huh," said Henry when it was done. "That didn't actually hurt."
And it was at that exact moment his left arm swung around and smacked his left (face) cheek. "Ow!" He looked at Schwoz, trying to hold his flailing arm with his right arm. "What the butt?!"
"Oh, yeah, I forgot. You'll lose control of the arm that was the injection sight for a couple hours."
"Why didn't you-" (slap) "-tell me this-" (slap) "-before?!" More slapping. At this point, Charlotte and Jasper were helping hold his arm down.
"I forgot." Schwoz jumped out of the way as Henry's uncontrollable arm headed in his direction. "I have, to, uh, go…." Schwoz more or less ran to the secret door and exited the scene.
With help from Jasper and Charlotte (but mostly Charlotte) Ray was able to duct tape Henry's arm down to the table (over his shirt, so there wouldn't be any skin ripped off later- an interesting problem for an after school job employee to have.) Henry couldn't help but notice Ray trying not to laugh, but decided not to bring it up.
Instead, he asked about the hole in the wall.
Hey y'all! So, first off, I hid an Easter Egg in the last chapter, I've decided to wait until the next update to give the answer. Speaking of the next update, having looked at my calendar, I most likely will not be able to post Chapter 6 until evening or night, so just letting y'all know.
PicassoPenguin: Thank you and (singing) your welcome! To answer the question, I try to have each chapter ready the day before.
Ciao, and Happy Reading!