“Vee!” I hissed into the walkie-talkie. “Get rid of the dog!” She said something in response, but I couldn’t hear over the dog’s growls. I flattened my hand to my ear. “What?”
“Marcie’s coming! Get out of there!”
I started to shove the diary back under the mattress, but fumbled it. Handfuls of notes and pictures spilled from the pages. In a panic, I raked the notes and pictures into a pile and tossed them back inside the diary. Then I rammed the diary, which was quite small considering how many secrets it was rumored to hold, and my walkie-talkie into the waistband of my pants and flipped the light switch off. I’d deal with putting the diary back later. Right now, I had to get out.
I raised the window, expecting to have to remove the screen, but it was already done for me. Probably Marcie had removed it long ago to avoid the nuisance when she was sneaking out.
That thought gave me a small measure of hope. If Marcie had climbed out before, I could too. It wasn’t like I was going to fall and kill myself. Of course, Marcie was a cheerleader and a lot more flexible and coordinated.
Poking my head out the open window, I looked down. The front door was directly below, under a portico supported by four pill ars. Swinging one leg out, I found traction on the shingles.
After I was sure I wasn’t going to slide off the sloped portico, I brought my other leg out. Balancing my weight, I lowered the window back in place. I’d just ducked below the window line when the glass filled with light. The dog’s nails clicked against the glass, and it uttered a round of furious barks. Dropping to my stomach, I squeezed as close to the house as I could and prayed Marcie didn’t open the window and look down.
“What is it?” Marcie’s muffled voice carried through the window-pane. “What’s the matter, Boomer?”
A trickle of sweat fell down my spine. Marcie was going to look down, and she was going to see me. I shut my eyes and tried to forget that her house was filled with people I had to attend school with for the next two years. How was I going to explain snooping in Marcie’s bedroom? How was I going to explain holding her diary? The thought was too humiliating to bear.
“Shut up, Boomer!” Marcie shouted. “Would somebody hold my dog while I open the window? If you don’t hold him, he’s stupid enough to jump out. You—in the hall. Yes, you. Grab my dog’s collar and don’t let go. Just do it.” Hoping the dog’s barking would mask any sounds I made, I rolled over and planted my back against the shingles. I swallowed the knot of fright in my throat. I had kind of a phobia about heights, and the thought of all that air between me and the ground had sweat leaking from my skin.
Digging my heels into the roof to push my weight as far away from the ledge as possible, I wrestled the walkie-talkie out of my pants. “Vee?” I whispered.
“Where are you?” she said through the music blaring in the background.
“Think you could get rid of the dog any day now?”
“How?”
“Be creative.”
“Like feed it poison?”
I wiped sweat off my forehead with the back of my hand. “I was thinking more like lock it in a closet.”
“You mean touch it?”
“Vee!”
“Okay, okay, I’ll think of something.”
Thirty seconds ticked by before I heard Vee’s voice float through Marcie’s bedroom window.
“Hey, Marcie?” she called over the barking. “Not to interfere, but the police are at the front door. They said they’re responding to a noise complaint. Do you want me to invite them in?”
“What?” Marcie shrilled directly above me. “I don’t see any police cars.”
“They probably had to park a couple blocks over. Anyway, as I was saying, I noticed ill egal substances in the hands of a few guests.”
“So?” she snapped. “It’s a party.”
“Alcohol is ill egal under the age of twenty-one.”
“Great!” Marcie shouted. “What am I going to do?” She paused, then raised her voice again. “You probably called them!”
“Who, me?” Vee said. “And lose the free food? No way.” A moment later, Boomer’s frantic barking faded into the house, and the bedroom light blinked out.
I held perfectly still a moment longer, listening. When I was positive Marcie’s bedroom was empty, I flipped to my stomach and belly-crawled up to the window. The dog was gone, Marcie was gone, and if I could just—
I pressed my palms to the window to force it up, but it didn’t budge. Leveraging my hands lower on the pane, I put all my strength into it. Nothing happened.
Okay, I thought. No big deal. Marcie must have locked the window. All I had to do was hang out here another five hours until the party ended, then get Vee to come back with a ladder.
I heard footsteps on the walk below and craned my neck to see if by some stroke of luck Vee had come to my rescue. To my horror, Patch had his back to me, walking toward the Jeep.
He punched a number into his cell and raised it to his ear. Two seconds later, my cell phone sang out in my pocket. Before I could hurl the cell into the bushes at the edge of the property, Patch came to a stop.
He looked over his shoulder, his eyes traveling up. His gaze fell on me, and I thought it would have been better if Boomer had shredded me alive.
“And here I thought they were called Peeping Toms.” I didn’t need to see him to know he wore a smile.
“Stop laughing,” I said, my cheeks hot with humiliation. “Get me down.”
“Jump.”
“What?”
“I’ll catch you.”
“Are you crazy? Go inside and open the window. Or get a ladder.”
“I don’t need a ladder. Jump. I’m not going to drop you.”