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Thom was a little embarrassed after he told Wendy he felt like they were in a movie. She hadn’t responded, but she’d squeezed his hand. He wanted her to know how excited he was, but he also wanted to be just a little bit cool about the whole thing. He decided to be quiet for a while.
The walk to the steps had seemed long but suddenly they were turning a corner, MissAckles in the lead, and Thom could see the other students gathered around the bus. He stopped holding Wendy’s hand, and they each moved a little bit apart. Mrs.Chappell, nervously holding her clipboard, spotted the three of them and yelled for them to hurry up. Wendy was suddenly gone from Thom, having been swallowed up by a small group of girls that included Mary and Ann. MissAckles was by his side now, and she said, as they worked their way to the sidewalk, “Just so you know, Thom, your romantic escapades were being filmed.”
“What do you mean?” Thom said, genuinely alarmed.
MissAckles laughed and said, “I’m kidding you. Well, sort of. I asked the clerk earlier at our hotel how to find the Exorcist Steps, and he told me that all these tourists are showing up there now, and how someone fell down the steps and broke his back. He said they had to put a bunch of security cameras around. I spotted one, on the side of a building, pointed right down on you and Wendy. It’s a good lesson to remember.”
“What lesson?” Thom said.
MissAckles changed her voice to make it sound dramatic, like she had on the bus, and said, “You were being watched. You’re always being watched. The eyes of God are on you.” She held up her hands and shook them dramatically.
“We weren’t doing anything wrong,” Thom said.
“I know, Thom, I’m just teasing you.”
They were quiet for a moment, Mrs.Chappell now letting kids onto the bus, making check marks on her list. Thom’s mind was spinning, thinking about the kiss, about his future with Wendy, about when he would talk to her again. He wondered if he should tell her what MissAckles said about the camera and decided against it. He didn’t know Wendy that well but suspected that she liked secrets. He’d let her believe that the two of them were the only people in the world who knew what had actually begun that night.