By the last period of the day, Harry’s article for the school news blog had posted. It wasn’t something he’d discussed with us. And I was glad it came from only his brain. He contextualized the pictures taken that morning. He wrote of the paw prints and compared them to the paw prints found five years before on the Marlo property, in the days after a still-unsolved murder occurred. He recapped the facts from Jane Doe’s murder, for readers who needed a refresher. People would have likely remembered the paw prints from years before themselves, but Harry’s blog made it impossible for people to pretend they didn’t. Harry made it impossible for Seven Hills to ignore their deeper meaning. The town could interpret it however it wanted to—as a threat, a promise, a taste of what was to come, or a punishment.
The city of Seven Hills’s official news blog even included a link to Harry’s coverage in their own. They posted updates throughout the afternoon. The police identified the blood as belonging to an animal. Mayor Carver issued a statement assuring the town that the perpetrators would be found and prosecuted, and that despite rumors, there was no evidence of the incident being anything other than an isolated one of vandalism, targeting herself and the police chief.
These things, as tasteless as they are, happen in the safest of communities. The vandals want to foster unrest and confusion by targeting community leaders. We won’t allow them to win.
Denton issued no comment. I wondered if that was because we’d succeeded in unnerving him. As crappy an officer as I thought he was, he was still police. Wouldn’t the connection to Jane Doe strike him as a personal attack? He knew what he’d done wrong, and just in case he’d forgotten, there was a little blood-stamped reminder all over his front yard.
That evening, Harry, Graham, Viv, and I watched the homecoming parade from the knoll, the square of park that was the center of downtown. Dressed for summer, a breeze the only proof of fall, our hands colliding in a party-size bag of candy. The sidewalk around the route was packed. We’d conquered a bit of grass near the sno-cone booth, making the streams of people divert, stealing bits and pieces of their conversations as they squeezed by.
Two men, one with a toddler on his shoulders dripping sno-cone slush in his hair, paused by us. “There were other reports,” the man said, trying to wrangle the soppy cardboard from his little girl’s hands. “Someone found a bloody rope,” he finished.
His partner wiped at the dye between her eyes with a napkin, the little girl crying and squirming in response. “A teenager claimed he did on the Internet.”
“Doesn’t mean he wasn’t telling the truth. What about that old codger with the prize vegetables on Driftwood? He a troubled youth lying for attention?”
That was the first we’d heard about Kirkpatrick. His house had appeared spotless when we drove by in the morning, and I had wondered if standing on his lawn had been a dream.
“But the mayor didn’t mention any of that,” he continued, wiping the little girl’s sticky hands. “No deviating from her isolated vandalism line—oh look, there’s a better spot.” He led the way. “And don’t tell me . . .” Their voices faded into the noise of the crowd.
I turned from watching them go. “Interesting,” I said as I saw that the others had been listening to them also.
Graham nodded. “Indeed. Who knew that our classmates’ desperation to seem relevant would be reliable enough to help our cause?”
“I did,” Harry said, a flick of his eyebrow.
“Me too,” Viv piped up. “First the copycat hitting Harper’s car. Now kids lying online—all so they can feel in on it.”
“Smells like team spirit,” Graham intoned.
“For someone who hates school spirit, you sure do wear school colors a lot,” Viv said of Graham’s navy jacket and white polo.
“Accidentally,” Graham said, sulking playfully. “I’d never deign to be so establishment on purpose.”
Viv had ribbons of white and blue threaded in her twin French braids, silver glitter making blades of her cheekbones, and a black vintage cheerleader’s cape on her shoulders. “How about you practice keeping your very bossy opinions to yourself for tomorrow night, ’kay?” Viv said, offering Graham a toothy grin.
Graham tugged one of her braids. “Are you saying I shouldn’t be myself?”
Viv pulled it free. “Bull’s-eye.”
Graham’s hands dove into her cape, tickling her sides. Viv’s laughter came out in high peals. I looked away. They’d been cozier. More playful shoving, hand-holding, and whispering. While planning the blood rebellion, Graham had wanted to walk the route we’d use from Driftwood to Landmark at night. He’d texted Viv to come along rather than me.
Graham used to measure his words and actions carefully. His first secret, that he’d once been in love with Viv and me, was exactly equal. When had he stopped—the kiss? The homecoming date? Another moment I’d missed?
Really, way down in the selfish pit of my stomach, a spot I believe everyone has, I knew the attention he used to give was not equal. I got more.
Graham patted his stomach. “I need a churro. Har?”
“I could eat four,” Harry said. “You?” I smiled and shook my head. “Viv?”
“I’m gonna get a sno-cone later,” she said.
The boys went in search of the sweets. I pulled free a handful of candy from the bag and was picking through them when Viv spoke. “You want to hear something that’s bananas?” I popped a mini-size chocolate bar into my mouth and struggled to keep it shut while chewing and nodding. “My best friend hasn’t told me she has a homecoming date.”
The half-macerated chocolate lodged in my throat. I swallowed hard; my eyes watered. “Did Graham tell you?” My voice was pitted.
A static burst came from the speakers set up around the knoll. We both startled. Patriotic-sounding music, all brass and drums, boomed. “Yeah.” She yanked the bag of candy from me. “But I almost figured it out myself.”
“I wanted to tell you first thing, but I psyched myself out.” She rooted through the candy. “The four of us promised—love each other always as friends forever.”
Her eyes stayed downcast. “You’re breaking the promise?”
“No.”
“You’re going as friends?”
“I mean, no, it’s a date. I don’t know.”
She made a small grunt.
Nothing else could be said because Graham was there again, hands clapped on Viv’s shoulders, shaking her gently. “The line for churros reaches Mesopotamia,” he complained. “Churros are the only reason I come to this.”
“He wanted to give up because there were five people before us,” Harry said, offering me his cup. “Frozen lemonade?”
There was a small shift in Viv’s pretty face; it made her look ill. “I can’t breathe,” she said. “I need a sno-cone.” She latched on to Graham’s wrist and dragged him toward the booth.
Harry rocked on his heels. “What’s up with her?”
The percussion instruments reached crescendo and for a few moments their battering was all I heard. “I think the floats started!” I shouted, rising up on tiptoes, trying to see.
“Graham told her we’re going to the dance together, huh?” Harry said right into my ear. “Viv wasn’t talking about it. I guessed she didn’t know.”
I searched for something in the crowd to make my creeping nausea stop. “I was crappy keeping it from her.”