Next morning
The bell sang like a starting pistol. Chase sat a half-breath behind the rhythm of it, sleeves rolled down to his knuckles, backpack resting on the floor beside his chair. The classroom smelled faintly of dry-erase markers and lemon hand soap. Mr. Alvarez — the teacher with the warm, borderline theatrical voice — was finishing a roll call.
"All right, everyone, settle," he said, waving one hand like a conductor. "Before we start, we have a new face. Let's give Chase Harlowe a Ridgeway welcome. Chase, stand up and tell us the cruel truth: what subject makes you look alive?"
Chase rose because that's what new kids do; he expected it, practiced his even tone in his head. Students swivelled in their seats, an audience assembling. A few deliberate smiles — some polite, some bored.
"Hello," he said. "I'm Chase Harlowe. I like... observing." He left the sentence there like a small, precise stone.
A girl with a cascade of purple hair raised her eyebrows. "Observing? Like skulking behind bushes or—"
"Like taking notes." Chase's voice was calm. "Watching patterns. People's habits."
"Cool!" a boy in the back said. "We have a future detective." He tapped his classmate and grinned.
"Detectives are dashing." Mr. Alvarez chimed in. "And terribly tidy. Welcome, Chase. You'll do fine. Take the seat by the window — best light for observation, in my professional opinion."
Chase sat and turned the window's light into a small stage. He listened while the class unfolded — algebra rules, a history tidbit, a pop-quiz announced (which he would prudently forget in the afternoon). He asked few questions, smiled when humor surfaced, and wrote in his little notebook when something interested him: "Window seat — girl with purple hair laughs loud when called out — vending machine routes."
Hours crawled and then sprinted. New faces became names, names became minor patterns. He kept his attention low and quiet, watching conversations like birds at a feeder.
Lunchtime opened like another room inside the school. The cafeteria was louder than the halls — trays clattered, conversations collided in clusters. Chase carried his tray to the courtyard, where stray beams of sunlight warmed the round tables. He found a solitary bench beneath a sycamore tree and set down his lunch. He preferred the sidelines; they offered unedited dialogue.
At the next table over, a small animated cluster caught his ear: a girl with shoulder-length hair tied back in a messy knot, three boys who leaned in like co-conspirators. Their volume was easy-loud, that precise decibel where gossip becomes theatrical.
"—and I'm telling you, it was right there, like a cold breath," the girl said, eyes wide. "Outside the old auditorium doors. Doors were locked, and then — there was this tapping. Like someone was trying to get in."
"You came back for your phone at midnight?" one of the boys — Bryce — asked, eyebrows dancing. "That's peak poor judgment right there."
"I did not!" she protested. "I dropped my keys. I went in — honest."
"Okay, emergency checklist," another boy — Jarvis — said. "Raccoon? Broken pipe? Todd the janitor playing pranks because he hates teenagers?"
"Or there's actual weirdness." The third boy, slimmer, tapped his phone screen for emphasis. "Rob said there were lights in the east wing last week. Flickering. And footprints on the dust in Room 12 like someone walked backwards. Rob's not the type to make this up. He's got a tape recorder and everything."
The girl snorted. "Rob and his Paranormal Research Club. Please. They wear headlamps and dramatic jackets. Last year they spent an hour trying to debunk the 'haunted' vending machine, and it was just a loose coin."
"Either they uncover something or they bust your little myth." Bryce said, grinning. "Either way — it's pure entertainment."
Chase closed his sandwich wrapper slower than necessary. The exchange had the cadence of small-town myth — the mixture of thrill, mockery, and a shard of earnest belief. The words "Paranormal Research Club" made a neat shadow at the edges of his attention. He felt the pull: not the creak of midnight doors itself, but the way people collect stories and test them against boredom.
He did not move to join them. He listened. He wrote, in a tiny precise script: "Lunchtime cluster — claims: tapping at auditorium; lights east wing; footprints backward; Rob = PRC leader. Tone: 2/3 jest, 1/3 belief."
"Do you actually believe any of that?" the girl asked Jarvis, toss of her head.
"Belief is like a spectrum." Jarvis said. "We believe in snacks though. We also believe evidence would be cool."
"Rob's got a YouTube channel," said Slim, the one with the phone. "Last month he posted something in the storage room and said it was a cold spot. People liked the jump cuts."
Chase wondered what this Rob guy looked like. He imagined hair that refused conformity, a voice that could go from serious to sardonic with ease. Mostly, he imagined a person who loved the hunt — and loved being found.
The bell tugged them all back to class. The chatter folded up like a map and was tucked away.
---
At noon — a time that made the corridors feel practiced and ritualized — Chase was asked to report to the principal's office.
He walked past lockers with signatures in Sharpie, past a poster for a science fair, past the trophy case that still carried the sheen of past triumphs. Principal Lana's office smelled of polished wood and citrus. She was a woman in her mid-fifties with hair cropped close to her head and eyes that missed very little. Behind her desk, she folded her hands like a referee who wanted everyone to play fair.
"Chase Harlowe," she said without preamble, consulting the folder in her hand. "Welcome. We're glad Ridgeway lured you in."
"Thank you." He kept his tone even. He had learned early that bureaucratic smiles hid instructions.
"There's a small matter I must inform you of." She reached into the stack of papers and slid a sheet across her desk. "Ridgeway High requires every student to be enrolled in at least one co-curricular club or activity. It's part of our community-building initiative — helps integrate new students and gives them a place to be invested outside academics."
Chase blinked. "Really?"
"Yes." She tapped the page, which was a tidy list: Debate Club, Robotics, Drama, Art Society, Chess, Glee, and near the bottom in a scrappy typeface: Paranormal Research Club — Meets Fridays, Room B3, Adviser: Mr. Kline.
Chase's mouth was a desert; his thoughts, a series of small springs. He pictured a room with headlamps and electrical gadgets in a crate, teens arguing over audio recordings until dawn. He pictured Jarvis and the others — Rob — tossing a rock into the pond of the ordinary to see the ripples.
"If you're not keen on joining something," Principal Lana continued, "we can place you in a general interest group. But the requirement stands. It's—" she paused, softening—"it's to help students build anchors."
"Anchors," Chase repeated. The word felt like something to write down.
He said, after a moment, "I don't know much about clubs."
"That's fine." She slid the folder toward him, a small offer of choices. "Pick something for now. Try it. If it's not for you, you can switch after the two-week period. We like to see students try possibilities."
Chase turned the page and scanned the roster. Robotics, drama, debate — each conjured a neat image. He imagined the badges, the practiced rehearsals, the logos that made kids feel part of a lineage. Then his eyes landed on the Paranormal Research Club. The font looked like someone had typed it at midnight — slightly slanted, slightly daring. Mr. Kline's name was neat beside it: a science teacher with an after-hours curiosity, rumor had it.
He felt a small, unwarranted heat. He surprised himself by speaking before overthinking could rearrange the words into caution.
"I'll try the Paranormal Research Club," he said.
Principal Lana's eyebrows rose in the way of someone who had expected a half-dozen other plausible answers. "Good... choice," she said. "We have a new adviser this year — Mr. Kline. He's…practical. He disapproves of theatrics, but he allows curiosity to roam. You'll be meeting on Friday after school."
"Friday," Chase repeated. He liked the cadence. Fridays were liminal — end of week, edge of normal.
"You'll be listed," she said, tapping her screen. "And Chase — feel free to come by if you need anything. Ridgway can be a small world at first. Anchor yourself where you feel comfortable."
He left the office with the folder in his hands like a map he hadn't planned to read yet. In the hallway his palms were warm. The world felt like a string of small doors. He had opened one without much fuss.
Outside, under the sycamore where he had eaten lunch, the courtyard buzzed with the unremarkable: a couple arguing about a math question, someone practicing a speech, a girl testing the echo of her laugh. Chase sat for a moment and looked at his notebook.
He wrote, in neat lines: "Principal requirement: club membership. Paranormal Research Club selected. Reason: curiosity > boredom. Note: Mr. Kline = adviser; Rob = leader (rumors say)."
Someone sat on the bench beside him — camera boy from earlier, who'd greeted him with that quick lift of hand. "It seems like you have picked the weird club." he said, casual, as if politeness were a veil for curiosity.
Chase didn't startle. "Seems like an efficient place to observe."
Camera boy laughed. "I'm Owen. I film stuff for the school. PRC does give good headlines. Rob's dramatic when he wants to be. You in for the theatrics?"
"Maybe for the records." Chase said. "I prefer evidence rather than theatrics."
"Nice," Owen said. "Weird kids need a patient heart."
Chase closed his notebook and slipped it into his backpack. The day felt like a coil being wound — each detail a turn. He had expected to be quiet and blend in; instead he'd opened a door he hadn't known would be there.
As he walked home that afternoon — maple leaves rattling like coins in his path — he felt like someone carrying a small, curious lantern. The town was the same as it had been that morning, Mrs. Patel's marigolds bright and resolute across the fence. Yet the words from lunch, the principal's rule, Rob's name, and the club's slanted font tugged at a corner of him. A new variable had been introduced into his observation list.
He added it with a dot: "PRC meeting on Friday. Find Rob. Record: first impressions—leader? methods? earnestness?"
Night settled, ordinary as a closed book. Chase lay in bed and watched the faint glow of the streetlight snake across his ceiling. He thought about the auditorium doors tapping, about footprints backward, about the mix of jest and seriousness that had laced the lunchtime conversation. The town's stories sometimes wore costumes; sometimes they were simply old truths waiting for a voice.
He set his notebook on his bedside table, turned off the lamp, and let the dark rearrange its pieces. Tomorrow, he would learn to navigate the halls. He would learn where the best place to sit at lunch was, where the whispers lived. And when Friday came, he would test a door that only a few had tried to pry open.
For now, he let himself be new and a little impatient to be found.