Framed & Dangerous (9780545443128) by Kim Harrington Page B

versions of the rolls of old camera film.
    â€œHow do you load it?” Darcy asked, taking it from her.
    â€œYou two sit down and I’ll walk you through it,” she said.
    Darcy and I followed her directions as she explained what to do. “Put the roll onto the spindle. Now pushit in hard. Great. Pull the tray out. Now thread the film under the glass. Stick it into the other reel and roll it to make sure it’s secure.”
    I was trying hard to memorize each step in case we needed to do it again with another roll.
    â€œWonderful,” she said. “Now turn on the machine.”
    I leaned forward and pressed the power button. The microfilm machine whirred to life and a bright light illuminated the glass on the tray. An old newspaper article came up on the screen.
    The librarian pointed to a knob. “Now just turn the dial until you find a story you want to read. Then you can zoom in and focus to make it easier to read.”
    â€œOkay,” Darcy said, sounding more confident than I felt. “Thanks.”
    The librarian gave us a little wave. “I’ll be upstairs if you need anything. Return the rolls to me when you’re done.”
    Now that we had privacy, I asked Darcy, “Isn’t this going to take forever?”
    Darcy fiddled with the dial, trying to bring the grainy black-and-white newspaper print into focus.“Hopefully not. We know prom takes place in the spring. So we just have to look through April, May, and June 1948.”
    A blur of articles went by. Now and then Darcy slowed, squinted, then continued turning.
    â€œStill,” I said skeptically. “Three months?”
    Darcy continued to turn the knob. “It was a weekly paper, so we only have four issues in each month. And something like this would be a big story with at least one photograph. Probably on the front page.”
    She was right. I sat back and tried to stop my eyes from glazing over as we examined each issue in April. There was no mention of anything related to a prom. We worked together to unload the film and reload the roll for May. We flipped through the first week. Then the second. Then the third.
    I started to get a little worried that we wouldn’t find anything at all.
    But then Darcy jolted in her seat. I blinked and forced my tired eyes to focus on the screen. And there it was. My jaw dropped.
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    PROM NIGHT DISASTER
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    The headline was huge, and underneath was a black-and-white photo showing the ruins of the school’s original gym. Girls in fancy dresses and boys in tuxes huddled together. A caption beneath the photo read: “The scene of the fire where prom festivities turned deadly.”
    Goose bumps raced down my arms. It was real. The gym had burned down on prom night.
    â€œWhere’s the rest of the article?” I asked. The grainy photo took up most of the page.
    Darcy rolled the dial a bit and there it was, in smaller print. She fiddled with the focus until it came clearly into view.
    Arson is being blamed for a fire at the high school in Danville that left one teen dead and several injured. Someone started the May 29 blaze at about 9 P.M ., at the Danville High School gym on Main Street, according to the police. Because it was prom night and the room was filled with highly flammable decorations, what began asa small fire quickly spread to engulf the entire gymnasium.
    Most of the partygoers were able to leave unharmed. The few injuries sustained were caused by the panic of one hundred students rushing to the doors at once. High school senior Charles Austin, the last person inside the gymnasium, lost his life. Reports say he was refusing to leave until he found and saved the life of “his girl.” However, his date was already waiting safely outside.
    Danville Public School officials told the paper they were still determining how much the rebuild would cost. Anyone with information on the fire is urged to call the Danville Police