35

There is no way to open the envelopes in private. Miguel is breathing down my neck like a gorilla bodyguard. He’s got his arms all crossed and huffy. I’m crouched in my bedroom, with the envelopes surrounding me.

The police traced the bomber’s calls to a cell phone discarded in a trash can at the library. The bomber had stolen it, used it, then dumped it. Dad texted my cell and informed us that he’d send a plainclothes officer to the helpline office to escort us to our cars. We were all going home early.

I drove Miguel home, only we made a detour—to my house. Dad was still at work, Mom was asleep. Now it’s ten thirty and there’s a boy in my room. Unsupervised. If Chloe was awake, she’d be proud of me.

“How do you know there isn’t anthrax on these envelopes?” Miguel is too close.

“I know.” I fight the urge to push him away from me.

“How do you know there isn’t some kind of bomb you’re going to trigger?” Too bad this particular boy is annoying the crap out of me.

“Look, Miguel. I know. If you’re worried about it, you don’t have to watch.”

“You don’t get it, do you? I can’t let you do something that might hurt yourself. I love you. I’m staying.” He pulls my desk chair up to my bed and sits down.

I freeze for a moment when I hear him drop the L word. I peek up at him, at the way his eyebrows bunch together when he’s worried. Then I get back to work, slipping my finger through the slit in the first envelope and ripping it open. A picture falls out. Black and white. I hold it by the edges and lay it right side up on the rug. It’s an action photo. A picture of a scrawny freshman, arms flailing and hair wet with sweat, being shoved into a trash can. The photographer blurred the freshman’s face somehow, swirling the image where his face should be, leaving an unsettling, haunted mirror-like face. The faces attached to the hands shoving him in the trash can, however, are crystal clear. I can even see a zit on one of their noses.

I open the next envelope. Same thing. A circle of girls laughing as another walks by, their faces screwed up with something ugly. The photo is taken directly in front of the girl who’s walking, and it captures how she hunches forward, how she holds her books to her chest, but her face is swirled, leaving her mostly unrecognizable. I gasp when I see my own face in the background, looking irritated and biting my lower lip. I seriously don’t even remember being there. How many times have I watched people be rude to other people and just minded my own business?

I pick up the next one. Kids snickering as a boy points and gestures. Even though the gesturing kid is swirled out, I can tell by his backpack and his stance that it’s Petey Plumber, our resident tattletale.

The next one looks oddly familiar. It’s from the other day, when I waited at Eric’s locker. When I saw those football types picking on a scrawny freshman. The photo must have been taken moments before I threw that apple. The scrawny kid’s face is swirled out, but I can see the boxy faces of the football players as they loom behind him.

It’s photo after photo of this. All black and white. All with the victim’s faces swirled, and all with the other faces in clear view.

Miguel sits next to me, picking up the photos by the edges. “This makes our school look really bad. Like nobody cares about anyone else.”

“Yeah, but think about it.” I touch one of the swirled faces with my fingertip. “Do any one of these pictures surprise you?”

“No one single shot surprises me. Seeing them all together surprises me. I guess I didn’t realize how often people do shitty things.”

“Wait a sec.” I feel like the pieces of the puzzle are coming together for me.

I spread out all the taped-up cards from my locker. I place the crossed-out joker in the center, where he’d placed himself before.

“What does this look like?” I ask Miguel.

He snorts. “Like somebody built a house of cards and it crumbled.”

“No, be serious. If this kid is trying to recreate a scene to give me a clue, what does it look like?” I pause while Miguel thinks. “Here, imagine them the way they were in my locker, with some of them placed above each other in rows. Where in our school would kids be sitting in rows like that?”

“The football bleachers or the school theater?”

My thoughts exactly. “Maybe he’s at a school assembly.”

He repeats that slowly, the words rolling off his tongue. “A school assembly?” He turns to me, his eyes wide. He curses in Spanish with words I don’t recognize.

“And maybe the joker’s dead,” I add. “But no one else appears to be. He’d have x’d out everyone else if he intended to hurt everyone. Right?” I say this partly to reassure myself.

I think back to all the other cards he’s planted. I’m pretty sure the joker has always represented him … leaving the queens and kings to represent others. All the joker cards held threats, saying things like I hold a thousand lives in my hands. I am invisible. I can obliterate an entire school. Comprende, amigo? The joker drawn to look dead. Like a skeleton. Would anyone care? Granted, I’m a jaded piece of shit, but I sure as hell wouldn’t.

Everything’s pointing to the moment of silence. Something will happen then. I’m sure of it. That means I have two days to figure this out.

The bomber, this joker, he asked me to help him. To share the photos. I play back his words in my mind: “Doesn’t matter, does it? If it will get me to call this game off?” I know he’s pissed that his call got traced. But can I earn his trust back?

I have the power to stop this.

If I play by his rules.

If I gain his trust.

I can save everyone.

Including him.