84
" Nate was in Minerva Four, the first one along the hall. The door was shut but he could be heard moving inside.
Janelle knocked. When there was no immediate answer, she texted.
A moment later, the door opened a bit and Nate's long face appeared. He didn't do anything for a moment, and then, with a barely audible sigh, he opened the door enough to let them in.
"Do you do hugs?" Janelle asked.
"Not really," Nate replied, moving back.
"Then no hug it is," Janelle said.
"How about salutes?" Stevie said.
"Those are tolerable."
Stevie gave him a salute. "
― Maureen Johnson , Truly Devious (Truly Devious, #1)
87
" Stevie swept her light around, steering it away from a terrifying crack in the side, and then aimed it squarely forward.
"I'm going to the end," she said.
"Seriously?" Nate said.
"This is what I came here for. My dragons are down there."
"Stevie, I wouldn't ..."
"You're not me," Stevie said. "If I die, avenge me."
She was joking, but not totally. She had to go, and it also felt like a possible mistake.
Some mistakes you have to make. "
― Maureen Johnson , Truly Devious (Truly Devious, #1)
88
" You know what's weird?" David said as Stevie was lost in thought. "What's weird is making a hobby out of the death of your classmate. You know what's also weird? Going through people's rooms, including the room of your dead classmate. Because you seem crazy."
People might be dismissive of someone obsessed with mystery stories, as if the line between fiction and reality was so distinct. They didn't know, perhaps, that Sherlock Holmes was based on a a real man, Dr. Joseph Bell, and that the methods Arthur Conan Doyle created for his fictional detective inspired generations of real-world detectives. Did they know that Arthur Conan Doyle went on to investigate mysteries in his real life and even absolved a man of a crime for which he had been convicted? Did they know how Agatha Christie brilliantly staged her own disappearance in order to exact an elegant revenge on a cheating husband?
They probably did not.
And no one was going to discount Stevie Bell, who had gotten into this school on the wings of her interest in the Ellingham case, and who had been a bystander at a death that was now looking more and more suspicious.
She was not crazy. And Hayes's key was in her pocket and Pix was on her way back.
Stevie turned away and left David's room without saying anything else. Because she was also not going to let him see her cry. "
― Maureen Johnson , Truly Devious (Truly Devious, #1)