The Secret Hour Read Online Free PDF

asked.
    “Stupid legends,” Liz said. “Like, supposedly a panther lives there.”
    “It escaped from a circus that came through a long time ago,” Jen said. “There are articles about it in the library, from the
Bixby Register
in the 1930s or something.”
    “Articles
you’ve
actually read?” Liz asked.
    Jen rolled her eyes. “Maybe
I
haven’t, but everyone—”
    “And this panther’s, like, eighty years old?” Liz interrupted.
    “Well, maybe not the 1930s…”
    “Anyway, Jessica,” Liz said. “The snake pit’s just this lame place where you find old arrowheads. From the Indians. Big deal.”
    “We’re called Native Americans,” Constanza corrected.
    “But this is from the
really
old days,” Maria said, “before the Anglos moved all the other tribes here from the east. It was a village where the original natives of Oklahoma used to live—Stone Age cave people, not the Native Americans who live here now.”
    “You’re right, that’s not lame,” Jessica said. “But it’s hard to imagine a Stone Age Bixby.”
    “It’s not only arrowheads,” Jen explained seriously. “There’s this big stone that sticks up out of the ground, right in the middle of the snake pit. People go there at midnight. And if you build this certain symbol out of rocks, it’ll change right in front of your eyes exactly at the stroke of twelve.”
    “Change into what?”
    “Well… the rocks don’t change
into
anything,” Jen said. “They’re still rocks. But they move around.”
    “Lame,” Liz declared.
    “My older brother did it a year ago,” Maria said. “It scared him to death. He won’t even talk about it now.”
    Jen leaned forward, still talking in a quiet, ghost-story voice. “And even though archaeologists have been working there for a long time, you can still find arrowheads if you look. They’re, like, a
thousand
years old.”
    “Ten thousand, you mean.”
    Jessica and the others turned to look across the library. It was Dess, the girl from Jessica’s math class, sitting alone in a corner.
    “Okay…” Liz said slowly, her eyes rolling a little for the other girls at the table. Then she whispered, “Speaking of lame.”
    Jessica glanced back at Dess, who didn’t seem to have heard. She had dropped her head back into her book, reading through dark glasses, as if no longer interested in their conversation. Jessica hadn’t even noticed Dess, but she must have been there the whole period, camped in her corner of the library, books and paper splayed around her.
    “Number four…” Constanza began, her green pen poised above the paper. Jen giggled, and Maria made a silent hushing gesture.
    Jessica looked down at her books, especially the heavy trig tome. Her energy was beginning its usual prelunch fade. She liked Constanza and her crew, but the way they’d teased Dess left a bad taste in her mouth. She remembered how things had been for her in Chicago, before she’d moved here and become Miss Popular.
    Jessica looked over at Dess again. One of the books on the table was
Beginning Trigonometry.
If Dess was half as smart as she pretended to be, it might be worth asking her for help.
    “I really should get some work done,” Jessica said. “My mom went insane and put me in all these advanced classes. Trig is killing me already.”
    “Okay,” Constanza said. “But if you think of anything else weird about Bixby, make sure you tell me. I want to get the new girl’s perspective.”
    “I’ll keep you posted.”
    Jessica gathered her books and moved over to the corner. She sat down in the other big chair across the low table from Dess. The girl’s feet were propped on the table, shiny metal rings decorating her ankles over black stockings.
    Jess thought she heard a whisper from back at the table but ignored it.
    “Dess?”
    The girl looked up at her without expression. Not impatient or annoyed, just strangely neutral behind the glasses.
    Jessica’s fingers started to tug her trig book