I flinched. It’s not like I could help it or anything. “What?”
Penny looked up and down the hall and motioned me into the computer room. As if I hadn’t gotten the message, she took my arm, dragged me over to a couple of chairs in the far corner of the room, and shoved me down into one of them. The look on her face told me one thing: no joke.
“Mr. Gorfel?” I asked. Yeah, dumb question. “I knew there was something wrong with him, but I was hoping—I mean I was thinking—that he was just a really crappy teacher.” Especially with the whole staring thing going on.
Penny leaned forward, brows high. The gears were turning in her brain. “The evidence all just came crashing down on me. You said Mr. Gorfel was staring at you?”
I nodded.
“Plus,” she said, adding more worry to my already bad day, “look at how he treated all of us. He’s exactly the type of person A. Gist would want to work for him. Jerry said he has people everywhere. It wouldn’t surprise me if he has agents in the schools to watch his enemies. In particular, this school. Your school.”
My skin tightened around my arms at the thought of it. Like Ryan said: shudder. If this was true, would I have to stop coming to school, too? Maybe I’d have to isolate myself in a cabin somewhere. I shifted in my chair, hoping Penny didn’t notice. My brain struggled for some kind of argument, something that would tell me wrong. “But you don’t know what he even looked up at me for. It could’ve been anything.”
“That’s right,” she went on. “We don’t know. Rita, sorry to say this, but he probably has access to your information. Like your address.”
My heart leapt into my throat. I don’t scare too easy, but at that moment, I actually felt sick. That meant A. Gist could have my address by the end of the day. And have me. I just might find out about Procedure Number Twenty-Eight unless I did something, and fast. “Now what? Do I leave town like that note said?”
Before she got a chance to say anything, the Basic Computers teacher strolled into the room to start class.
I barely heard any of Mr. Harvey’s words as he called attendance and read us the exact same rules Mr. Gorfel had. I could only stare at my dark computer screen to think and worry. Mostly worry. What did the Ruler of Ageism want with me, anyway?
In other words, I had to find out the truth about Mr. Gorfel. My life depended on it.