By the time I parked, Indira and Fox were already inside.I hurried after them.The doors were locked—standard school security—and when I buzzed, Mrs.Wools said, “Hi, Dash.”
“Hi, Mrs.Wools.I’m just dropping something off for Keme.”
(The best lies, it turns out, are the ones that are believable because three days a week your feral wolf-child “forgets” his environmental science textbook at home.)
“Oh, Indira just—”
“Yep, I’m bringing something for her to give to Keme.”
(Okay,thatlie wasn’t quite as strong.)
“Uh, all right, come on in—”
The door buzzed, a lock clicked, and I was in.
If you’ve ever been inside a high school—or, for that matter, any public building built in the last twenty years—you probably have a good idea of what the place was like.The color palette was cream and chrome and blond wood, and the flooring was speckled vinyl tile that does a great job of hiding dirt but makes impolite noises at the absolute worst moments.
Right then, though, I couldn’t hear anything over the babble of student voices.We had apparently arrived during passing period, and the halls were full of teenagers.On general principle, I don’t have anything against teenagers.In fact, as someone who is still thirteen years old (on the inside, anyway), I kind of relate to teenagers.
That being said, though, I was feeling significantly less kinship the third time someone crashed into me because they wouldn’t look up from their phone.
At the far end of the hall, Indira and Fox were turning the corner, so I followed them into the human pinball machine.A bell rang, and the flood of adolescents thinned to a stream, and then to a trickle.By the time I turned the corner, the hall was almost empty.
But not completely.
Fox and Indira had pinned a girl against a row of lockers.They weren’t touching her.They weren’t even standing particularly close to her.But I had a fairly good idea that this was Tori, and that Tori was smart enough to know that if she tried to escape, bad things would happen.
She didn’t look like a bully, but of course, that didn’t mean anything.If anything, she looked like Juggalo: she was swallowed up in a black hoodie, a Metallica T-shirt, and a pair of flared black jeans that looked like the modern version of JNCOs (if you weren’t alive for them, in the ’90s, the legs were so wide you could have stuffed a Great Dane up there).
“We know you broke into his locker,” Fox said.“Now, confess!”
Tori stared back at him with the kind of blank-faced contempt teenagers have perfected.
No judgment, but as someone who has elicited a few confessions in his day, I wasn’t sure Fox and Indira knew what they were doing.I had the sneaking suspicion I was going to have to jump in to help.I mean, this was kind of my wheelhouse—
Tori started to slide around Fox and Indira, but before she could, Indira said, “Tori.”
That was it.
That’s all.
She didn’t yell.
She didn’t threaten.
She didn’t even put her hands on her hips.
But I swear to God, every hair on my body stood up, and the aircrackled.
“It wasn’t me,” Tori blurted, and all of a sudden, she sounded like she was going to cry.“It was Mr.Minor.”
3
After her revelation, Tori darted away, and Fox and Indira let her go.
I slipped back along the hallway, just in case Fox and Indira turned around—I was here strictly in a supporting role, and I didn’t want them to feel like I didn’t have faith in their abilities.Plus, I wanted to see what they were going to do next—I had no idea who Mr.Minor was, and I thought if I were the one investigating, I’d probably take out my phone and do a quick bit of cybersleuthing.Mr.Minor was an adult, and to judge by Tori’s wave of emotion, someone in a position of authority.A teacher, I suspected, or perhaps one of the assistant principals—although I had to admit, I had a hard time imagining why an adult would steal Keme’s lunch.
Fox clearly knew something I didn’t, because they held a brief, whispered consultation with Indira, and together, they set off down the hall.
