The Girl Who Would Be King(7)

Before I can get there however, Jenny comes running into the building in tears, her four girlfriends closely on her heels. She dashes past me into the sleeping room, her friends whispering as they follow. When they get to the room they’re talking all at once and so fast and through so much screeching and tears that it’s hard to understand what had happened. Sharon had apparently tossed the locket onto the roof of the building, which seems like some kind of backwards miracle, as the roof is quite high – very high actually. It would have had to catch some horrible, fateful gust of wind to land on the roof. My heart sinks. I know there’s no chance the staff will get it back. The one ladder in the shed is far too small to make it to the roof. I sit on the bed quietly watching Jenny, wishing I had acted faster, sooner, more bravely, as she had.

Her grief probably seems indulgent to some, maybe even to her friends trying to comfort her; they’ve all had tragedy or they wouldn’t be here, but sitting on my bed I can’t help putting my hand in my pocket, feeling my mother’s silver I.D. bracelet, and aching for Jenny with my entire being. I feel the letters of my mother’s name, which are now hard to make out from years of me tracing the engraving with my thumb unconsciously, as if it would help connect me to her. I know I have to do something for Jenny, even if it means breaking the rules. A superhero would behave this way; a hero helps whether the problem is great or small, even if it breaks the rules. And maybe some rules are different than others. Who says the rule about curfew should be more important than a rule about stealing? My mind hammers at the question and I feel deeply, alarmingly confused by it. But if I’m honest, my heart is racing, telling me there’s certainly one that is more important. The women in the pages of the comic books speak to me in the same way I sometimes imagine my mother does, whispering at some greatness that I can’t believe in, let alone conceive of. But today, today something has clicked and I feel different. I feel sure that I’m the only one who can help Jenny.

That it’s almost my destiny.

I wait until almost three in the morning. Jenny’s muffled crying had died down into an exhausted sleep hours ago, but sometimes the staff stay up well past midnight and so I lie here, eyes wide open, plotting. Finally I throw back the covers and creep to the door in my t-shirt, jeans, and tennis shoes. It’s raining outside, which is both good and bad. The sound of the rain and the obscured moon will make it easier for me to go unnoticed, but everything will be wet and slippery, and very dark. I edge down the stairs and past the sleeping woman at the front desk. They’re always asleep. I go out the side kitchen door, which is the door the girls always use when they sneak out. By the time I get to the shed at the far end of the yard I’m soaked to the skin.

I try the door but it’s locked. I rise up on my tiptoes and peek through the dusty window on the side of the shed and try opening that, but it’s locked as well. I look back at the building, looming over me in the rain, all the windows dark, water falling off the roof in huge sheets.

It looks big.

I jiggle the door again. And then I try something I’ve never tried before. I push on the handle with all my strength. The metal comes snapping off in my hand and the door swings open. I gape at the handle, my mouth half open in surprise. I lay the piece in the grass and mud, positioning it in such a way that it could have conceivably just broken and fallen off. Inside the mildew-scented shed, I grab the ladder. If I’m lucky, it will get me to the first floor, cutting a quarter of the distance. On the way out the door, with the metal ladder tucked under my arm, I take a flashlight, checking quickly that it works by accidentally shining it in my eyes and temporarily blinding myself.

So far I’m terrible at this.

When the starbursts of light clear from my vision I stand in the rain looking back at the building. It looks bigger than big, it’s foreboding and dark and just huge. I’d always thought of it as just some rather unimpressive stocky brick building. A little sad and rundown, but not overly impressive. It’s only four stories tall but now it looks epic. It looks like the hardest thing to climb on Earth, and I feel tiny, wet, and powerless.

I leave the ladder on the grass and head around to the short side of the building, where there are only two windows on each of the four floors. I had thought this would be the best place to climb since people are less likely to hear or see me, but looking at it now I realize that once I run out of ladder I will have absolutely nothing to grab hold of. The brick-face is almost completely smooth, and slick with rain, it’s impossible.

As I head back to where I’ve left the ladder, my mind racing, grasping for options, I notice the corner of the building has bricks set out slightly from the wall. I don’t know what they’re called or why I’ve never noticed them before, but they are set into the corner almost like the tiniest of steps. The lip of brick is little more than half an inch and wet like everything else, but at that moment, to me, it looks like a built-in brick ladder reaching all the way to the roof. I break into a huge smile, but rain hits me in my teeth and eyes and so I shake it off and get back to business.