Enchanted Ivy

as she pushed open the door to the dorm and walked into the sunlight.

Outside again, she lifted her chin up to feel the warmth on her face. As always, the touch of the sun soothed her. She braved a look back at Jake. 'Which way to Dillon Gym?' she asked.

Jake hesitated. 'Grandfather instructed me not to aid you. Campus directions aren't classified, but I don't think I'm supposed to give you any information....' He dithered adorably for a moment longer until she let him off the hook by tapping the shoulder of a nearby alum.

'Excuse me, could you please tell me where I can find Dillon Gym?' Lily asked the alum.

The orange-clad grandfatherly man pointed at the Reunions gate. 'Straight out to the campus road and then downhill.' His hat, she noticed, had beer cans strapped to either side and a straw that bent down to his mouth.

She thanked him and turned back to Jake. His ears were pink as he blushed. 'Guess I could have told you that,' Jake said. 'It's my first guard assignment. I don't want to make a mistake.'

Lily couldn't blame him. She felt the same way about nearly everything she did. Jake trotted alongside her as they left the dorms area. 'Are you in Vineyard Club?' she asked. She quickly added, 'You don't have to answer if you don't want to.'

'I'm more ... in training to be a member,' he said. 'You join eating clubs at the end of sophomore year. I just finished my freshman year.' He puffed out his chest like a rooster, proud of his member-in-training status. She stifled a smile.

'Is Tye in Vineyard Club?' she asked. She skirted around patches of ivy, keeping to the far side of the sidewalk. The ivy vines lay still and quiet.

Jake snorted. 'Absolutely not.'

'You do know him.'

'I know of him,' Jake said. 'Never met.'

'Who is he?' Lily asked. 'Why did he say he was my guard? What did he want?'

'I ... um ... ah ...' His face reddened. Lily remembered he wasn't supposed to give her any information. She opened her mouth to apologize, but before she could, he pointed straight ahead. 'That's Dillon Gym,' he said.

Following his finger, she saw a building that looked like a medieval fort. If it wasn't for the DILLON GYMNASIUM sign by the road (which, admittedly, was a big tip-off), she never would have guessed it was a gym. 'Don't worry,' she said. 'I won't tell anyone you told me.'

'I think it's all right, but thank you,' he said gravely.

'You really care about this, don't you?' she said.

'As much as you do,' he said.

She didn't have a reply to that. She wondered what he'd say if he knew that her mom's sanity was tied to Lily's admission into Princeton.

Lily faced Dillon Gym. Four gargoyles jutted out over the entry arches: a football player, a dour-faced man in medieval garb, a tiger with a shield, and an ape in graduation robes and spectacles. Like the Unseeing Reader, the ape held an open book.

She halted underneath the ape gargoyle. Looking up at his stone chin, she waited for him to produce a clue like the Unseeing Reader had.

He was as motionless as ... well, as stone.

Lily squinted up at the gargoyle. Sun wreathed his stone head like a halo. She wondered if the clue was in the book that he held. After all, she'd been sent to the library to find a book—maybe this was the book she was supposed to find. If so, she'd have to climb up there to be able to see it. She nearly laughed out loud at that thought. There was zero chance she was coordinated enough to scurry up the stone. She wasn't a rock climber. Or a squirrel. She'd end up clawing uselessly at the walls while Jake laughed until he collapsed on the sidewalk.

This is ridiculous, she thought. The ability to impersonate Spider-Man had nothing to do with college aptitude. 'Can you lift me up?' she asked Jake.

'I can't—'

'—aid me,' she finished. 'Sorry. I promise I won't get you in trouble.' Craning her neck, she looked up at the windows above the arches. She might not be able to climb up to the Literate Ape, but maybe she could climb down.

With Jake behind her, Lily walked into the gym. She mentioned the words 'prospective student' to the guard and was waved through. Inside, Dillon Gym looked and sounded like every other gym in the world. College guys and girls ran back and forth over basketball courts. Sneakers squeaked, and players grunted and panted. Lily spotted stairs and went up to the second floor with Jake trotting behind her. She noticed several of the female basketball players eyeing him as they passed. Jake didn't appear to notice, which Lily liked.

Upstairs was a gymnastics room. She poked her head in. It was empty. She crossed over mats and shimmied around a balance beam to get to the windows. In the mirror that covered one wall, she watched Jake follow her. He looked rather confused.

'What are you doing?' Jake asked as she opened a window.

'Going to check out that ape,' she said.

'People will see you,' he said, 'and you could fall.' He sounded genuinely concerned, and Lily wanted to pat his hand to reassure him.

'It's one story up,' she said. 'I'll be okay. But thanks.' She'd climbed out onto the roof many times at home, and that was the third story. Her mother even climbed out with her. They liked to lie on the roof side by side under the stars and invent their own constellations.

Jake continued to look worried.

'You could wait below and catch me if I look like I'm going to splat,' she suggested. 'It would be a very guardlike thing to do, preventing splattage.'

He smiled, and his face lit in a warm, melt-polar-ice-caps kind of way. 'I haven't had any training courses on preventing splattage. You'd be putting your life in my hands.'

She noticed he had really nice hands. Imagining him catching her, she failed to think of a witty response. 'Okay,' she said.

'Okay,' he said. And then he blushed.

'Do you have a camera?' she asked.

Still blushing, he asked, 'What?'

'If anyone looks curious, you can pretend I'm posing for a photo.'

'Got one in my cell phone.'

'Great,' she said.

For a long moment, they stared at each other. Jake cleared his throat. 'I'll just ... go down now,' he said.

Lily watched him exit the room. She couldn't believe this Greek god of a boy was talking to her, much less blushing when he talked to her. Don't read anything into it, she told herself. He's just a naturally sweet guy. Below, she saw him emerge under the arches. He waved up at her. Smiling, she waved back.

She climbed out the window above the ape gargoyle. Dangling her legs down, she stretched her feet until she felt stone with her toes. She lowered her weight down onto it and then knelt on the back of the gargoyle. Once she was lying belly down on the statue's back, she peered over the ape's shoulder at the book.

The stone pages were blank.

Her heart sank. She'd been sure that was the answer!

Below, Jake had his cell phone out and was snapping pictures. She wondered if he thought she was crazy for climbing up here, especially since the book was blank. She usually tried so hard to appear not crazy. None of Mom's hippie clothes. Just jeans, ordinary T-shirts, tiny earrings, and lip gloss. None of Mom's offbeat habits. No knocking on wood or climbing trees at the park with the six-year-olds. No flowers in her hair. No singing off-pitch at high volume in the veggie aisle of the supermarket. No weird aversion to cars or movie theaters or basements. But if Lily's looking crazy at her dream school would keep Mom sane (or at least close to it), then Lily had no choice but to dance naked in the full moonlight, so to speak. 'Now what?' she asked herself. 'What's my next clue?'

Underneath her, the stone shuddered. A soft voice said, 'I am.'

It wasn't Jake. She looked behind her at the window. No one was there. 'Who said that?' she asked. She had