Prologue
Parker
~circa 2002~
I stepped out the double doors of the school into the playground and squinted my eyes against the glare of the sun. All around me, kids were yelling their heads off, running around like a swarm of ants, dangling from monkey bars like we were still first graders, shoving at each other and screaming obscenities that would get them in trouble once Mrs. Simms came out to supervise.
Ifshe bothered coming out to supervise.
I’d overheard my mom telling my dad that Mrs. Simms was overpaid and overfed. She said Mrs. Simms was a glorified babysitter. She also said Mrs. Simms only had the job because her husband was a coach at the high school and people felt sorry for her.
My mom was on the town council, so she knew all kinds of things.
I’d learned over the years to keep these things to myself.
I carried my lunch—in a paper bag, just like everyone else, since I’d managed to “lose” three of the high-end thermal bags my mom liked, and she’d decided to “punish” me by not buying me a new one, thank God—over to the picnic table in the far corner under the trees. It had rained last night, and the sun hadn’t penetrated the shade enough to dry this table, but I didn’t care. It meant no one was likely to bug me.
I knew I was pretty much the only person in the world who hated springtime. Everyone else in school was all about summer coming and outdoor lunch periods, an end to the everlasting snow. My mom was all about her garden. My dad was all about signing me up for the town baseball league, because hope sprang eternal that I was gonna be a sports prodigy, even though most of the un-talented kids like me had dropped out way before seventh grade.
But me? I’d take snow days forever, thank you very much. Winter meant staying indoors and books, which were way more interesting than people—at least, any of the people I knew. Someday, when I got away from O’Leary, I was gonna go someplace even snowier and more isolated. Moscow seemed promising.
Possibly Mongolia.
I emptied my lunch bag onto the table and glanced around to see how likely it was that someone would hassle me, but everyone seemed occupied. The eighth and ninth grade boys had claimed the jungle gym as their own kingdom, as usual. Sixth and seventh grade girls were clustered on the swings. Dex Albright and the other kids my mom called “Bernley Estates trailer trash”were nowhere in sight. I figured it was safe enough to pull out my book.
And that’s why I didn’t notice when someone approached.
“Hey. Um. Parker, can I sit with you?”
I glanced up to find Molly Burke standing awkwardly next to my table, twisting her hair around her finger. I frowned.
Molly was quiet but in a kind of fairy princess way that made hermorepopular instead of less. We’d been in the same school for the past six years, but she was a year older than me, and I wasn’t sure she’d ever talked to me voluntarily before.
“Sit with me? What for?”
So smooth with the manners, Parker.
Molly blushed. “Uh, because I don’t have anywhere else to sit?”
She darted a look at a table of eighth grade girls nearby, and they collapsed into giggles when they saw her looking.
I shuddered. Individually, girls were lovely. But in a pack, they sorta reminded me of hyenas.Hungryones.
“Sure,” I told Molly, nodding at the empty side of the table. “If you want to.”
Molly set her bag down across from me and took out her lunch. I noticed thatshecarried a thermal lunch bag and nobody seemed to givehershit about it. Or maybe they did, for all I knew. But when she unzipped it, I also saw that the inside was badly torn and had been mended with duct tape, and that the entire contents of the bag were a water bottle, a tiny orange, and a peanut butter sandwich.
I looked away.
The Burkes weren’t Bernley Estates trailer trash—for one thing, they lived in a cute little house over on Lobelia—but I also knew they weren’t the kind of people my mom wanted me associating with. Mr. Burke laughed a little too hard and a little too long, and I was pretty sure he’d held a variety of jobs, none for very long. Mrs. Burke looked like she didn’t laugh at all. They never volunteered for town committees or festivals like my parents did.
But Molly had really kind eyes and she was… peaceful. Sweet. Interesting.
I slid my book back into my backpack.
Molly noticed.
“I loved that book,” she said. “But I like the latest one in the series better. Have you read it?”
