Disclaimer: This story is entirely fictional. All names of students and teachers have been changed.

Previously…

I was currently on the first floor of the building and there was… a downward arrow.

“Wyatt! We saw Leonardo go to the basement,” Zoey said, dropping her lunchbox on the table.

The teacher’s table was the table at the most left side from all the other tables, so that they could watch all the students at once.

John’s response confirmed the third option. Leonardo, for some reason, was stopping the teachers from confirming there was a basement.

“We need to ask Leonardo,” I said, placing my hands on the table definitively. 

We were back at our table after questioning the teachers and were pretty sure that Leonardo was stopping them from answering our questions. Asking more teachers wouldn’t help.

“Leonardo is probably in the basement-” Sam started.

“-preparing to launch a nuclear missile to spread death and destruction throughout the world?” Zoey suggested.

“What if Sam and Kate ask him during advisory?” Wyatt said, blatantly ignoring Zoey’s statement.

Advisories happened on Tuesdays and Thursdays in the morning, and during lunch on Fridays. While there were many different advisors, Sam and I–luckily, for the sake of our investigation–had Leonardo as our advisor. Today was Wednesday, so we could ask Leonardo tomorrow, and tell the others afterwards.

“That could work,” Sam said.

One day later, I was sitting in Arena, a large open space with tables and chairs with a TV in the front, waiting for everyone to leave after advisory. Leonardo stood in the front of the room, watching the students leave.

“Alright, time to ask Leonardo,” I whispered to myself.

I got up from my seat, my hands shaking slightly with excitement and nervousness. Sam and I walked over to Leonardo, who looked at us expectantly.

“Uh… we have a question for you,” I said, glancing at Sam nervously..

Leonardo nodded for me to continue. I decided to just state the question, “Do you think KLS has a basement?”

Leonardo looked surprised for a second, before shaking his head and laughing, “No.”

“But there is a downward arrow next to the elevator,” Sam said.

“Oh, that. It was put there accidentally. We never bothered removing it, since we would need Google’s permission, since the building is leased from them.”

All of us stayed for Extended Day on Friday. Sam and Wyatt stayed because they had a club, and Zoey and I, because of siblings. Naturally, that meant we decided to meet on Friday to discuss the result of me and Sam questioning Leonardo.

We sat in Chat/Ideate, a long room with a table in the center. It was 1:13 p.m. and most of the students had gone home, because Friday was a half-day.

“This room is way too big,” I said. “We’re four people and this space is big enough for twenty.”

“Well, it’s more space for us,” Wyatt said with a shrug.

“Unfortunately, there’s only one office chair,” I said with a grin. As expected, Zoey and Sam simultaneously dove for the office chair.

Our school’s chairs were the most classic chairs you can imagine. They were dark blue in color and didn't have armrests. The only thing interesting about them were the rolling wheels, which led to students getting into chair races. This meant that students valued the office chair, and argued to decide who would sit in it–and by students, I meant Zoey and Sam.

“Alright,” Wyatt said, after Zoey had caused a ruckus by taking Sam’s computer hostage, and trading it for the office chair. “Sam and Kate, what happened when you asked Leonardo?”

We explained what had happened to Wyatt and Zoey.

“Why would a downward arrow be put there by accident? That would be a massive engineering flaw,” Wyatt said disbelievingly.

“Yeah, that would be like leaving a second accelerator on a car, because you’re too lazy to fix it,” Zoey agreed.

“Also we saw Leonardo press the downward arrow and enter the elevator,” Sam added.

After several minutes of us discussing, I was certain that Leonardo hadn’t told us the truth.

First, it was extremely unlikely that the electricians accidentally put a downward arrow.

Second, Google would have fixed the downward arrow issue before they leased the building to us.

Third, we had seen Leonardo press the downward arrow and enter the elevator.

Then I remembered the teachers’ meeting, which was currently happening while we were talking. It was a meeting where all the teachers gathered in a room and talked about ways to improve the school.

“Why don’t we spy on the teachers’ meeting to see if they talk about it?” I suggested.

“I’m sure the teachers will let you do that,” Zoey said jokingly.

“Well, we don’t tell them we’re spying…”

“They’ll probably notice if we stand outside the door,” Wyatt said.

The door had a wooden frame with glass in the center. If we stood right in front of the door, they would notice us through the window.

We eventually decided to lie down, so that we were under the window level. Yeah, that got a lot of questionable looks from the other students. However, after ten minutes of listening to the teachers talking, Leonardo finally brought up the topic of the basement.

“Sam and Kate asked me about the basement today. I think we will need to be more careful in the future. They are already suspicious that it exists and that there is something hidden there.”

I glanced wide-eyed at my friends. We were definitely going to have to investigate more.

“You’re recording?” Zoey asked.

“Yup,” I said.

“Okay, let’s start then.”

Zoey, Wyatt, Sam, and I had created a plan to enter the elevator. 

The elevator was right next to the front desk, which meant we needed to distract Irma who always sat there. We decided that Zoey would distract Irma, since she was good at awkward conversations, while Wyatt, Sam, and I entered the elevator.

“Hi Irma!” Zoey exclaimed. I winced. Zoey was overly enthusiastic.

Wyatt, Sam, and I stood in Collective, a room to the left of the room with the elevator, next to the lockers, as Zoey distracted Irma.

Wyatt, Sam, and I silently crept out of Collective and towards the elevator. I was extremely nervous, because what we were doing was completely against the rules. If we got caught, we could be suspended or expelled (which according to Hermione Granger in The Sorcerer’s Stone was worse than dying).

We reached the elevator. I glanced at Sam and Wyatt to see how they were feeling. They both looked slightly nervous, but that was expected with what we were doing.

I stared at the downward arrow. I didn’t want to press it, because it made me feel like I would be responsible for whatever happened next. We, of course, hadn’t decided who would press it when we were planning, because that was something that felt unnecessary to decide.

Sam pressed the downward arrow.

The elevator door opened, revealing the small room inside. I stepped in. This was the first time I had been inside the KLS elevator and it was, honestly, extremely scary. It was then I started worrying about other problems. What if the elevator had security cameras? Did that mean Leonardo would notice we were inside?

As the doors closed, I could hear Zoey tell Irma, “-and that’s when my dad chased the racoons off with a flashlight! Anyway, thanks for talking to me!”

A disembodied voice from the elevator stated mechanically, “Going down….”

Wyatt, Sam, and I traded shocked looks. We were going to the KLS basement.

The End….