Читать книгу The Secrets of Paramount Hills - Kalayla Seehafer - Страница 3

I opened my eyes to bright lights. Gosh was I in a laboratory? I sat up with a huge headache to find myself on a gray couch. I rubbed my head and realized there was a small beam of sunlight. I got up.

“OUCH!! Mind my FACE much!!!” Chris yelled. I jumped back onto the couch, as he sat up holding his head. He looked around just as confused as I was. I turned to the right of the couch and saw Kaylee sitting there flicking through the TV channels.

“KAYLEE WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU DOING??? DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHERE THE HECK WE ARE!!!” I yelled so loud that the whole world heard. Kaylee smiled nervously.

“Um… well after the Corvette was destroyed,” she started, but I cut her off.

“DESTROYED!!!!?” I screamed. Chris laughed. I whipped towards him.

“You destroyed a 60,000 dollar Corvette?!” I cried. He thought about it for a second.

“Yep, pretty much!” he exclaimed. Before I could whack the crap out of him, Kaylee continued.

“Well, I woke up and apparently this lady brought us here or something. She works at a hospital, but we were fine, so we just came here,” Kaylee replied, turning off the TV. I rubbed my forehead again and realized there was a big bump.

“Gosh, we’re beat up,” I commented, noticing scratches on Chris and Kaylee’s, face, hands and arms. Then out of nowhere (okay actually out of the hallway behind the couch) came a medium height blonde. She wore a doctor’s uniform and chatted on the phone a mile a minute. She waved at us and smiled, and then took a notepad out of the drawer and began to scribble frantically.

“No… no, she has a 3:30 appointment! Why are you asking me this? (pause) No, I’m not your secretary! (pause) You can’t fire me. I’m your BOSS! (longer pause) ARGH! You know I can fire you! (pause) Did you… did you just hang up on me!?” she yelled into the phone. Okay, this was way too weird. She set her phone down and smiled.

“Hi so sorry, I’m Ellen or Ellie for short. So where are you guys from?” she asked. I gulped. I hesitated to answer, but Kaylee jabbed me in the ribs.

“Well, I guess uh… Chris here was driving super reckless last night and we crashed! Good job Chris!” I seethed, punching him.

“Ouch!” he mumbled. Ellie nodded.

“Well, that makes sense I was in the ambulance that picked you guys up! But you’re all good, fell on a mound of dirt!” she exclaimed, and checked her watch.

“Oh, crap, almost late for work. There’s a jar of emergency money that you guys are more than welcome to use… I mean take it all if you want, I got more than enough in the bank! It’s in the cupboards above the sink. The key is in the bottom of the trash can. And there’s a great bagel shop a few blocks away, okay byyyye!” she called, speeding through her words, and rushed out the door. Wow. That was… just wow.

“Um… guys,” Kaylee breathed looking around. I was deep in thought to even hear her. Okay so we were all probably hungry, so we'll stop by that bagel shop. But then from there, where do we go?

“CHLOE MOLLY’S MISSING!!!!” Kaylee screamed right in my face. I snapped back to reality.

“No, she’s right there!” I exclaimed, pointing to a pile of blankets. Wait… Molly would never sleep on the floor. Oh gosh… Molly was actually missing.

“She is literally NOWHERE! Chris even checked in the toothpaste bottle!” Kaylee sighed, plopping on the couch. I paced in front of it, thinking, while Chris ate out of a jar of peanut butter. Think, like Molly, think like Molly. Well, Molly decided to leave her phone here TOO! (We figured this out after we texted and called FIFTY times!!!)

“Well, let’s assume she never even made it here. That she left when the Corvette crashed to…” I paused to think of why she would leave.

“Ta goo gat halp!” Chris replied, mouth full of peanut butter. Maybe.

“Chris get your hand out of the peanut butter, that’s disgusting!!” I snapped. He just shrugged, and grabbed a spoon instead.

“Most likely. So she probably went to a hospital. But then where after that?” I asked aloud.

“Oh Chloe, is it a weird custom to put paper in peanut butter in… wherever we are?” Chris asked. I had then realized I didn’t even know where we were. I flung open the curtains and gasped to see the 102 floored Empire State Building. Wow. That’s a lot of shiny windows.

“Well, as far as I know, they don’t do that in New York!” I replied, breathless. The windows shone like crystals in the sunlight. Flakes of snow quietly fell to the ground, covering the New York streets. I quickly shook off the feeling and turned back to Chris to see what he was talking about. He held a paper covered in peanut butter. It read:

Dear Mrs. Ellie Rose,

Your prescription for melatonin is now in. Please pick it up in a week or order will be thrown out.

Thank you!

CVS Pharmacy

“That is the weirdest prescription letter I’ve ever seen!” Kaylee commented. I nodded in agreement.

“Yea and the letters look weird too!” Chris added. We both looked at him.

“Wait, the letters do look weird! Chris, how did you notice that!” I gasped and peered closer at the letters. I hated to admit it, he was right!

“Chris are you… secretly smart?!” I teased, in fake shock. Chris rolled his eyes. (Chloe zero, Chris one.) Some of the letters were slanted!

“Here hand me that piece of paper that Ellie was writing on!” I blurted, and Kaylee passed it to me. I began to frantically write down the slanted letters. I mean, that could be a clue about Molly!

A m ll o p t o n l s i l r h o y hr m a u

“What the heck is that supposed to mean!” I cried. Chris scrunched up his face and grabbed the pad of paper and the pen, and scribbled something down.

Paramount Hills-Molly

“Omg, how’d you do that? I think I like you even more!” Kaylee giggled. Chris smiled and blushed. Ugh. Blah. Gross. Love… like… stuff.

“It’s an anagram. I used to do them while in the electric closet, for fun!” he explained. Kaylee blushed more. I rolled my eyes.

“Okay so now we have a clue. What’s Paramount Hills though?” I asked. Chris pulled out his phone, and looked it up, then showed us a picture of A group of kids in uniforms standing in front of a huge building.

“Looks like an academy filled with rich kids to me,” I groaned.

“It reads, Paramount Hills is the best school I’ve ever sent my kids to! They love the variety of cafeteria food and chic uniforms. I won’t send my kids anywhere else! That’s a review from Casey Stein’s!? He's the best quarterback ever! He threw 6 touchdowns in one game, and 5 ‘Hail Mary’s’ Wow!” Chris exclaimed. Kaylee and I tilted our heads in confusion. Kaylee grabbed the phone out of his hands.

“Paramount Hills has educated my children. The teachers are kind and have kept my kids in their place. They barely ever try to burn my garden anymore! 5 stars! That’s from Jason Crisp. Yikes!” Kaylee read. I snorted a laugh.

“So are we going to Paramount Hills then?!” Kaylee asked, excitement ringing in her voice. I sighed. Seemed like the only choice.

“Paramount Hills…” I began

“HERE WE COME!!!” Chris and Kaylee exclaimed in unison.

“Yes, my parents sent us here in the limo with the tuition money,” I lied straight to the headmaster’s face. We were at Paramount Hills Academy trying to become ‘students’. Before we got here we found the money. It was $400,000 just sitting in a safe!!! After that we grabbed some bagels, (ten dollars per bagel, I know pricy) hopped in a cab (twenty dollars) and then came to Paramount Hills and the tuition total for all three of us was $250,000 (which apparently that was cheap for this school) because we would be rooming with other people and not have our own room

“Fine. You guys don’t have to make the application process because it’s the middle of the year,” Mrs. Teresa Philips, the headmaster replied. Time to ask the big question.

“Did a girl named Molly come here a few days ago?” I asked. The headmaster put on a thinking face.

“Yes, actually she did. Long hair. Very… hmmm… perky?” she replied. Had we found Molly!?

“That sounds like her!!” Kaylee blurted, but then quickly covered her mouth. Mrs. Phillips raised an eyebrow, but apparently didn’t care that much.

“Okay, in this folder is your schedule, room number, classroom numbers, locker numbers, our restaurants, and more. You will find your uniforms in your bedroom. Right now the school is at lunch and it ends in a half hour. If you have time you are more than welcome to go down there. The tuition covers the cost of the food. I hope you all enjoy Paramount Hills Academy. Oh and almost forgot!” she explained. We waited for her to finish.

“There is a red button on everyone's nightstands. Press it and you can get anything you want just like room service,” Mrs. Phillips finished. We all nodded, took our folders and left the room. I opened my folder. This school was so fancy!!

“I’m in room 332,” I said. Kaylee opened her’s, and added,

“I’m in room 335.” I sighed. I was really hoping we’d be in the same room! It’d be much easier than texting! What if her roommate checked her phone!? Or my roommate checked mine?

“I’m in the boy’s wing room 355,” Chris commented. We all nodded.

“Okay let’s go our separate ways!” I said, Kaylee and I went to the left and Chris to the right. No one was really in the halls(due to it being a Saturday). The halls were lined with lockers and trophy cases.

“Wow, this is fancier than I thought,” Kaylee commented, breaking the silence.

“Yea, totally,” I replied. The lockers were white with gold locks on them and the trophy cases were filled to the brim with all kinds of trophies. The floors were polished hardwood and the walls white with gold trim. We finally made it to our rooms after two elevator rides and a flight of stairs.

“Well, see you tomorrow,” Kaylee sighed. It looked like she was gonna cry.

“Hey, I’m only a few doors away. And we have our phones, like duh!” I laughed and hugged her.

“Yea I know but we’ve never been separated on a mission with each other,” she explained in a low whisper, “and I have a bad feeling about Ms. Phillips!” I nodded in agreement.

“Yea, we’ll keep an eye on her,” I replied. We again hugged and went to our rooms. I took a deep breath and opened the door. I almost screamed and my brain was telling me to run away SCREAMING.

Everything-everything-was… PIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNNNK!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bedspread? Pink!

Pillows? Dark PINK with white trim!

Dressers? Rose PINK!

Carpet? Lavender PINK!

Desk? Taffy PINK!!!!! Oh please, any other SCHOOL!!!! I would rather be in a school where they make you answer the most random questions for ten hours, and no one ever gets any right, so then they have to eat gruel!! I went to the bathroom door (which was PINK!) flung it open and slammed it shut. Luckily the only pink thing here was the towels. I noticed on the door a uniform. Oh no, no, no, NO!!!!! It was a PINK blazer with a matching plaid PINK and white skirt. There were PINK high heels with white leggings and a white button-up long sleeve shirt and a PINK tie!!!! Must… calm… DOWN. I then realized that if I removed the blazer and tie it’d be mostly white and Ms. Phillip’s said we could remove anything from our outfit as long as it kept the base. She also said there were more clothes in our dresser. I walked out of the bathroom, to see a girl in a pink dress with a white overcoat and white tie.

“Oh hi, I’m Chlo-er…” Did I say my real name? Hasn’t gotten me in trouble before!

“Hi, I’m Chloe!” I exclaimed. The girl looked me up and down.

“Amber Green. I’m so excited to finally have a roommate! No one wants to room with me for some reason!” she replied with an eye roll and plopped on the bed to the right of the room. There were two beds on either side of the room but in the middle of the wall. At the foot of the beds were dressers, with TVs on top. A little ways away from the beds were closets, and a desk facing the window in between. We shared a bathroom, already stocked with shampoo, lotion, body wash, conditioner, hair spray, body spray, face wash and so on. I looked at her side of the room. The wall was plastered with posters of famous singers in neat rows.

“Into music?” I asked. Amber looked up at me, rolled her eyes, and went back to her phone. No wonder no one wanted to be her roommate! I thought. I got up and looked in the dresser. In the top draw was an assortment of colored pink and white shirts. The second one was filled with two pairs of white pumps, fuschia pumps, white wedges, white mules, and pink mules. (The only reason I knew this was that there were labels above each shoe.) Wowzas. For a uniform school, there are lots of different options for outfits. I walked over to the closet and there was a table in the middle and the back wall lined with MORE SHOES!!! Pink tennis shoes, white tennis shoes with gold laces, pink tennis shoes with white laces, white high top sneakers with pink laces, and on and on and on! Who needs all these shoes?! The wall to the right had rows and rows of pants. Pink jeans, white jeans with gold lines down the sides, and pink leggings, white leggings! My gosh, this place was probably Pinkalisous’ school and Barbie supplied the uniforms! I sat on the bed and waited for something to happen. Amber just sat on her bed taking selfies. There was a knock on the door. I rushed to get it hoping it was anyone(even Chris) to get me out of this awkward room. I opened it to see Kaylee’s worried face.