The screen in front of me changes from black-and-white to blue with red writing.

ERROR CODE 253
REPORT TO ADMINISTRATOR IMMEDIATELY.

Unless I want to explain what I’m doing here, I don’t think so.

My foot catches on the leg of the chair as I jump up. The clatter of the chair hitting the desk rings in my ears as I hurry toward the door. I close it carefully behind me. As it latches, I hear short, high-pitched beeps sounding from behind the doors.

“It’s coming from the Technology and Research Center,” someone calls down the hallway to my left, so I hurry toward the one to the right. I hold my breath as footsteps echo against the linoleum tile of the hall behind me. I slow my steps as I approach the white door with a plaque that reads “Bryan Hayes, RN” on the wall beside it.

One look at me—breathless and sweaty—and Mr. Hayes directs me to sit down so he can take my temperature. It’s not until he declares my temperature normal, has asked me a half-dozen questions, and checks on the four other students who are camped out in the office that he even thinks to inquire about my pass. He logs the information into the computer without questioning the time Mrs. Rudoren signed me out of art class.

I let out the breath I didn’t realize I was holding and close my eyes. My heart beats loud in my ears as I think about the red error message on the computer screen—the beeps that started as I left the Technology Center and the voices that had been approaching it as I left.

The message appeared as soon as I searched for the word “VERIFY.” The beeping and the voices came seconds later.

That could be coincidence.

After all, it was just a computer search . . . for a series of letters on a piece of paper that had been given to me by a man I didn’t know, but who seemed to be waiting for me. In the rain. On the path of bread crumbs my mother painted.

This was all crazy. And yet . . .

The bell rings. The others sitting in the nurse’s office bolt for the door, but I take my time swinging my feet over the edge of the cot.

“How are you feeling?” Mr. Hayes asks. “Your color looks a little better. Do you want me to call your father to pick you up?”

“No, I’m okay.” I push to my feet as if to prove it.

He watches me as I walk to the door. When he seems satisfied that I’m not going to keel over, he wishes me a good summer. I repeat the sentiment as I go out the door and into the hallway. It feels like a party. Spare uniforms and T-shirts are being shoved into bags, lockers are being slammed shut, and people are streaming toward the door that leads to several months of freedom from school. I start toward my locker, but when I reach the hallway for the Technology and Research Center, I turn down it instead of going straight. Through the long glass window in the door, I see Principal Velshi arguing with several security officials. Mr. Velshi looks frazzled. The guards don’t. They seem—