“Ms. Collins,” he said, acknowledging me with a nod as I stepped inside. He turned to Hunter with a frown. “Mr. Connery. What can I do foryou?”
I pasted on a bright smile. “We’re working on a history project together, and we want to base it on the history of this campus. There’s not much information online about RFU, though, and that’s a major part of the history, so we were hoping we could take a look at the oldyearbooks.”
“Our teacher said you have the key to the archive,” Hunteradded.
His eyes narrowed slightly. “Why would your teacher put you two together on a project when you’ve done nothing but accuse Mr. Connery of being responsible for that awful incident at the assembly for the last several days?” he asked, focusing his gaze onme.
I swallowed hard and forced another smile. “I know it wasn’t Hunter now. We discussed it, and I think someone else wasresponsible.”
“Hm. Isee.”
Hunter scraped a hand through his hair, affecting a bored expression. “So can we have the key?” he asked. “I’d rather not spend any longer than I have to on this dumbassassignment.”
“Language, Mr. Connery,” the deputy head said, rolling his eyes. He stooped down to the bottom drawer of his desk and pulled out a key. “Here. You can take some of the yearbooks out to scan or photocopy things for your assignment if you want, but youmusthave them back in that archive by the time school is finishedtoday.”
“What if we need more time?” Iasked.
“Then you can come back tomorrow, I suppose,” he replied grudgingly. He sat down and waved a hand toward a door on his left. “Off you go. The archive is throughthere.”
We unlocked the door and shut it firmly behind us. In front of us, rows and rows of narrow wooden shelves filled the tiny room, packed with navy blue leather-bound books with gold print on thespines.
I groaned. “There’s so many ofthem!”
Hunter nodded. “Yup. RFU was open from 1767 to1988.”
“Ugh. This is going to take forever,” I said, running my fingers along one of theshelves.
“We’d better get started, then,” he replied, striding over to the last shelf on the end. “Let’s work backwards. We might be able to find out when the Network actually started up that way,” he went on, reaching upward. “If you’re right about it being an RFU thing, thatis.”
“Well, let’s hope Iamright,” I said with a tight smile. “Otherwise we’re just wasting ourtime.”
“I think you’re right. It makes sense. All those old secret society rumors had to start fromsomething.”
He grabbed the yearbooks from 1988, 1987, and 1986, and I took the ones from 1985, 1984 and1983.
“So what exactly are we searching for?” Hunter asked, brows furrowing as he opened hisbook.
“Anything even remotely out of the ordinary,” I said. “We also want to pay close attention to the pages about college clubs. See if there’s anything there that stands out. Like a bunch of guys all wearing the same ring, or something like that. Or a club that doesn’t seem to serve much of a purpose but still exists for some unknownreason.”
“Allright.”
We sat on the floor and spent the next half-hour poring over every page. Something from the 1985 yearbook eventually jumped out at me—a photo in the senior student section of thecompilation.
“Hey, look at this,” I said. “It’s yourdad.”
Hunter frowned. “Huh?”
I held it up so he could see the page. “Your dad,” I repeated. “I had no idea he went toRFU.”
He grabbed the book and stared at the photo with narrowed eyes. “He didn’t. He went toYale.”
“Well, that’s definitely him. Charles Connery, class of1985.”
He rubbed the back of his neck, brows knitting. “He’s only ever talked about Yale,” he said. “But I just realizedsomething.”
“What?”
“He did post-grad at Yale. That’s what he’s always talked about. I just assumed he did his undergrad there too, but I never actually questioned him aboutit.”