Page 34 (1/2)

"What," he asks, "do you think you’re doing?"

"Don’t worry," I say "I’m okay I’ve done this before" My head and shoulders are already through the hole in the elevator’s ceiling, and with another heave, I wiggle h it, too

Then I have to rest Because that’s a lot of upper body lifting for a girl like me

"This is what you do all day?" Cooper, down below me, demands "Where does it say in your job description that you are responsible for chasing after elevator surfers?"

"It doesn’t say it anywhere," I reply, looking down at hi between my knees The dark walls of the elevator shaft slip past ot to do it" And if I don’t, how a to pass lances through the grate, at the painted nu by on the back of each set of elevator doors

"Nine," he says "You know, one slip, and you could end up like those dead girls, Heather"

"I know," I say "That’s why I have to stop theet hurt So under his breath that sounds like a curse hich is surprising, because he so rarely swears

One floor later, talls of the shaft open up, so that I can see into the shafts of the building’s other elevators One of the elevators is waiting at ten, and by craning my neck, I can see the other about five floors overhead

The whooping is getting louder

Right then, Elevator 2 starts to descend, and I see, perched on the cab’s roof, amid the cables and empty bottles of Colt 45, Gavin McGoren, junior, film major, diehard Matrix fan, and inveterate elevator surfer

"Gavin!" I yell, as Elevator 2 slides pastto leap onto the roof of Elevator 1 as it goes by "Get down frolance, then groans when he recognizes s as the friends he’s surfing with dive back down through the maintenance panel and into the elevator car, to save the ID’d by me

"Aw, shit," Gavin says, because he hadn’t been quick enough to escape, like his friends "Busted!"

"You are so busted you’re gonna be sleeping in the park tonight," I assure hiotten thrown out of the hall for elevator surfing…at least until now Who knew, in light of recent events, if the board of trustees would get a backbone? You have to do so really bad--like hurl a meat cleaver at your RA, as a kid had done last year, according to a file I’d found--to be asked to leave the residence halls

And even then, the kid was allowed back the following fall, after proving he’d spent the su

"Goddammit!" Gavin screams into the shaft, but I don’t worry That’s just Gavin