Behind the Gates Read Online Free Page A

is next. She takes an MP3 player from her bag and tosses it into the box.
    “Is that everything?” Emmanuelle inquires.
    “Uh-huh,” Evelyn replies, looking away.
    Emmanuelle’s eyes narrow and she is clearly not convinced. “I’d like to look in your bag,” she tells Evelyn.
    “There’s nothing electronic in there,” Evelyn protests.
    “Your bag,” Emmanuelle insists sternly.
    Evelyn huffs with annoyance. “I said —”
    Emmanuelle takes Evelyn’s bag and peers into it.
    “That’s very important. I need it!” Evelyn complains when Emmanuelle pulls out her notepad, the one with the maps and directions in it. “My notes on …” Evelyn’s voice trails off.
    “Notes on what?” Emmanuelle asks.
    When she asks this question my throat goes dry. Why didn’t Evelyn just hand over the notepad in the first place?
    Evelyn hesitates before answering Emmanuelle’s question.
    I feel an impulse to step forward and help her — to offer a cover story, a believable explanation. But I think this will seem strange and I don’t really have the nerve to do it. So I say nothing.
    “I have personal notes on my feelings about leaving home and coming here to Country Manor,” Evelyn finally says, in a cool, even tone. “As a half-Irish, half-African-American student I feel my experience here will be useful to other minority students of mixed race and maybe I’ll write a magazine article about it … or something like that.”
    Emmanuelle eyes Evelyn coolly as she places the notepad in the box with the other electronics. “We’ll take good care of it,” she says.
    Evelyn returns, looking dejected, and stands just behind Maddie and me. “I hope she doesn’t look at my maps,” she whispers.
    “You’re half-Irish?” Maddie inquires. “I’m a quarter Irish.”
    Evelyn raises her hand and offers a light fist bump that Maddie returns. “My mom is named Fiona Kelly,” Evelyn says.
    Finally, everything electronic is collected. But we’re not done. Mrs. Brewster claps her hands sharply for our attention. “For your own protection we will be holding all jewelry and other valuables in these metal lockboxes. Please gather any personal effects and bring them forward.”
    All around me the girls start taking out their earrings and pulling off their bracelets and necklaces. After losing our phones and notepads and music, this doesn’t feel like such a big deal. But I finger my locket nervously. I don’t know what to do. I would like to keep it safe — but I don’t want to part with it, not so soon.
    I feel eyes burning into me. When I turn I see that Mrs. Brewster is looking directly at my locket.
    Responding to the order implied in her stare, I reluctantly reach back to unclasp the locket’s chain. My hand trembles slightly. I can’t stand to part with this. It would be like giving away my parents — and my grandparents!
    I hide the locket in my closed palm. Glancing at Mrs. Brewster, I’m happy to see that she’s no longer focused on me. She’s moved on to staring down other girls who are hesitant about removing items of jewelry.
    With my gaze still on the headmistress, I put my hand in my shorts pocket, letting the locket fall into it. I hope they don’t have any kind of metal detection device.
    I approach and deposit my earrings and a silver bracelet I took from my pack. Fortunately no sirens or alarms blare as I walk away, my locket still hidden in my pocket.
    But as I head back toward Maddie and Evelyn, a different noise makes me turn toward the building across the lake. A silver bus has pulled in front of it.
    “I see you all gazing curiously at that building across the lake,” Mrs. Brewster says.
    “Is it the boys’ school?” someone asks.
    Mrs. Brewster clears her throat, unhappy about being interrupted. “Yes. And I advise you to forget it’s there. It is off-limits to you. Completely off-limits. The way around the lake through the woods here is the natural habitat of the poisonous Mississauga