Are you getting enough of a story? Or are you getting tired of it? I see you looking at your watch—and you’re jiggling your coffee cup. You can go if you want to. I know I said there’s a lot you don’t know, but maybe you don’t have to hear it after all. The door’s not locked. No one is holding you against your will.

So go, if you’re going to, but stop wasting my time pretending you’ve got to be somewhere at this hour. It’s four in the morning, the hour of nothing and we’re in the middle of nowhere. But march out into it, if you want to. Leave before I finish my next sentence. I don’t care about manners.

But you won’t, will you? You won’t go because my story isn’t finished and because I’m a minor celebrity, and it makes you feel special to be hearing my story.

* * *

I dropped by Casey’s home later that afternoon, knowing that if I delayed it by even an hour, I’d never do it.

Mrs. White came to the door. There was some reservation in her greeting, and she did not ask me in.

“Michael is not well. He misses Casey, and it’s difficult to get him to the jail since those vandals poured paint in the gas tank of the van.” She sighed heavily and ran a hand through her hair, pushing it off her face. “Every day I call the police to see if they’ve caught the people who did this to us, and every day they tell me to be patient.”

She brightened a little when I gave her the beetle book and said she’d tell Casey’s lawyer to arrange things at the detention center to allow her schoolwork in.

She had a few kind words for Miss Burke, and then she said, “I know people are backing you into a corner, Jess, getting you to say things you don’t mean. I hope things get easier for you soon.”

I wanted to hug her but she stayed half-hidden behind the door. I could smell chicken stew cooking on the stove. Mrs. White did not ask me to stay for dinner. I went home.

I reported to Miss Burke before classes started the next morning. She was delighted to learn she could get schoolwork to Casey through Mela Cross. Her face suddenly looked younger, and I remember thinking what a powerful thing forgiveness is. Miss Burke was forgiving herself for not speaking out about Casey sooner. Her spine, curved in the way that happens sometimes with old ladies, actually straightened out a bit.

“I’ll talk to her other teachers today,” she said. “Thank you, Jessica. You are a real friend to Casey, and that’s something to be proud of. I’m sure it hasn’t been easy for you. It will probably get harder once the trial starts, but you won’t mind that, will you? That’s the price of friendship. I have had a few close friends in my life, too, women who have known me better than I knew myself—”

The five-minute bell rang and I had to excuse myself and hurry to class. Before I left, she grabbed my shoulder with her old-woman hand and gave it a squeeze. I could feel her hand on me all the rest of the day. She did it to express her support, but all it did was remind me what a coward I was.

At lunchtime, I was working on the checkout line in the cafeteria when Nathan pushed himself forward.

“To the back of the line, young man,” the lunch supervisor ordered.

Nathan stepped aside to let me keep checking people through while he talked.

“I just came from the teachers’ lounge,” he said.

“They let you in the teachers’ lounge?”

“No, no, outside of it. There was a ferocious argument going on inside, about your friend Casey.”

I didn’t like the way he said, “your friend Casey.” It made me feel involved in a way I didn’t want to be. Still, Nathan was someone who for years had never even acknowledged that I was human. And he must be answered if I was to avoid going back to sub-human status.

“What about Casey?”

“You won’t believe this. Old Lady Burke was defending her, practically screaming at the other teachers. She was yelling so loud, a lot of students could hear.”

“Miss Burke?” I couldn’t believe it. Miss Burke never raised her voice.

“Burke was yelling that the other teachers should hand over their course work to Casey while she was locked up, that anyone who didn’t should be ashamed of themselves. She said that Casey is the most talented student to ever attend Galloway High. Some of the other teachers yelled back that they wouldn’t lift a finger to help a child killer. And then it got personal.”

I was so absorbed in what Nathan was saying, I let several kids through the line without charging them for their tuna surprise, then I took someone’s money and had to be prodded into giving them change.

“One of the teachers, I think it was Higgins, yelled that Burke was clearly senile and needed to be in a home, and another woman—I couldn’t tell who—yelled that she was going to go to the principal because someone as warped as Burke shouldn’t be around children.”

“And then what happened?”

“And then the vice-principal appeared and chewed me out for loitering in the hall, so I rushed down here to tell you.”

I was flattered that he’d told me before he told anyone else, until he told me the reason.

“I figured you might know something.”

I shrugged. “I guess Casey’s other teachers don’t like her as much as Old Burke does.”

“She sure flipped out.”

“I’ve got her class right after lunch,” I said. “If she says or does anything else strange, I’ll let you know.”

Nathan said he’d meet me later and I got on with my job. I felt important. I was a sort of spy for the group.

Miss Burke wasn’t in the biology room when I got to class. Ten minutes into the period, she still wasn’t there. The classroom buzzed with speculation. News of the fight in the teachers’ lounge had gotten around. Kids were saying things like, “Maybe she’s been fired.” “Maybe she had a heart attack.” None of us came close to imagining what was really going on, but we soon found out.

Miss Burke’s voice came over the loudspeaker. “Good afternoon, students,” she began. “I’m sorry to interrupt your classes, but I need to speak to all of you about one of your schoolmates. I need to speak to you about Casey White.

“There’s been a lot of foolish talk branding Casey as a murderer. Lots of people in this town—and, I’m ashamed to say, inside this school—are jumping on the Casey-is-guilty bandwagon. I want you to stop and think now. Put down your books and your pens, listen to me, and think.

“Have any of you ever been wrongly accused? Do you remember what a frustrating, lonely place that is? People who you thought were your friends accusing you? People turning on you, eager to believe the worst? Didn’t you want to say to them, ‘But it’s me! You know me! You know I wouldn’t do such a thing!’ Maybe you even did say that, but it didn’t do any good.

“You all know Casey White. Many of you have gone to school with her since the third grade. You know she is not the sort of person who could commit this horrible crime. Casey is part of our school community. She has won awards for this school with her scientific pursuits. She has distinguished herself and brought honor to this school. And now she is being treated with dishonor.”

The classroom door slammed open. We all jumped.

“Miss Burke has locked herself in the intercom office!” a kid yelled out and then ran down the hall spreading the news.

I was the first one out the door, but others were close behind me. By the time we reached the office door, a crowd of students had already gathered. Teachers tried to chase them back to their classrooms, but everyone ignored them.

Miss Burke kept talking about Casey’s accomplishments, her good spirit, her generous nature. Everything she said was met with derision by the crowd. Someone even shouted out that ridiculous nursery rhyme, “Miss Burke and Casey, sitting in a tree, K.I.S.S.I.N.G…”

Students kept spilling into the hallway. I could hear the principal’s booming voice on the edge of the crowd, trying to push through to the office, probably with an extra set of keys, but no one would let him pass.

“Detentions will be given out!” teachers warned.

No one cared.

Miss Burke kept talking. “I have been on this Earth for many more years than any of you, more than anyone else in this school. I have seen injustices visited upon the world by greed and ignorance. I have seen the world explode in war and witnessed the sad march of humanity struggle with starvation and unnatural disaster. Throughout the whole sad history of the human race, there have been moments when things could have gone the other way, when individuals could have chosen a different path and raised us up out of the mud.”

And then something started happening to the kids crowded in the hallway. They began to quiet down. Miss Burke was starting to turn them. Soon, the only voices that could be heard—other than Miss Burke’s—were the teachers yelling at us to get back to class.

“A school is a community, just like a town or a city. The world outside has an impact on us, like it does on any town or city, but we have an advantage. We are an enclosed community. We can set our own standards. We have a chance to be better in here than the world is outside. Do we dare to take that chance? Are we brave enough?

“I think we are. I think the students of Galloway High can rise above the garbage that the world throws at us—the lies and the simplistic solutions. We can become better than the world, and we can start to do that right now.

“We can begin by putting a higher value on friendship than the world wants us to. Casey White is our friend. She has not been found guilty of any crime and I don’t believe she ever will be. We can refuse to abandon her. We can stand with her, the way we would want our friends to stand with us if we were ever in trouble.”

“Cops!” someone cried, and, sure enough, the police were suddenly in the hallway, shoving and even lifting students out of the way. They cleared a path for the principal. Kids booed and threw stuff at him as he approached the office door with his keys. Books and school supplies—even shoes—flew through the air. The police didn’t bother to seek out the culprits. They pushed and hit anyone they could reach. I don’t know if the kids were upset because the principal was about to silence Miss Burke, or because he was breaking up the fun. I still don’t know.

Several cops went into the office with the principal. They even had their guns drawn. The intercom office was a small room inside the larger office. How Miss Burke had managed to clear and lock both offices, I’ll never know.

We could hear her being pulled from her seat in front of the microphone. We heard one of the cops begin to place her under arrest, and then the intercom cut off. It took only a moment for them to bring her out.

The principal led the way, frowning. The cops were huge men in dark navy with their caps pulled low over their foreheads. Miss Burke was handcuffed behind her back, the way Casey had been. Two cops, one on each side, held her arms tightly. At first glance, she looked small and pale between them.

The crowd of kids hooted and applauded as she was taken away. Again, I don’t know if it was in appreciation for her speech or for the show. She didn’t acknowledge any of us. She walked calmly and proudly between the two cops, who had the good grace to look slightly embarrassed at having to keep a strong grip on a tiny, old, handcuffed lady in a lace-trimmed flower-print dress.

I looked more closely. Miss Burke was not small at all. She was tall, tall. Her head was high and her eyes were sparkling. She was smiling, and in that moment, she looked thirty years younger.

We got a substitute the next day. We were informed that Miss Burke would not be returning. The substitute found Casey’s insect collection in the storage room and put it up on display in the classroom. Next afternoon, all the cases had been smashed on the floor, the insects ground up on the linoleum. The substitute ranted and railed, but no one helped him clean up the mess. Not even me.

August 29

Day 9

Casey and I plan some activities for the sleep-out, but it is almost the end of camp and everyone is sick of being organized. The kids are tired and by the time we get the sleep-out space set up and wood gathered for the fire, they are content to sit around and talk and eat. Hot dogs sizzle in the coals, marshmallows catch on fire, and the combined smells of wood smoke and summer night are delicious.

By the beam of a flashlight Casey finishes the bedtime book we’ve been reading aloud to the kids since camp started. We are reading From Anna by Jean Little. At the very end, Anna sings “Silent Night,” and the campers usually start singing, too. That’s what happens this time, and we work our way through Christmas carols and the usual list of camp songs until the singing gradually winds down. Talking takes its place, the sort of truth telling that happens best when you get around a campfire. The kids talk about bullies at school, problems with their parents, grandparents they’ve lost—the usual things.

Stephanie behaves through all of this, until the girl next to her asks her to stop hogging all the space on the ground sheet. She starts kicking and throwing sticks and pinecones in the fire so that sparks fly around. We tell her to knock it off. She sulks and moves her sleeping bag to a space a few yards outside the circle. We can see her still, off pouting in the shadows, so we ignore her, glad that she’s quiet. That’s where she is when Mrs. Keefer appears with a thermos of hot chocolate, and that’s where she is when I almost trip over her in the middle of the night on my way to the latrine.

One of the campers, Deanna Brown, wakes me up after that because she has a stomachache. She is clutching her right side, doubled over in pain, and she is burning with fever. I know first aid well enough not to mess around. I quickly whisper to Casey that I am taking Deanna to the camp nurse. I scoop Deanna up in my arms and run as fast as I can down the trail that leads to the Bone House. The sky is black-dark and the air has a predawn heaviness to it. I don’t notice if Stephanie is still in her spot or not. I don’t think about Stephanie at all.

I kick at the door of the infirmary. Bones answers in her nightgown. Behind her, I can see that sick kids occupy several of the beds. She takes one look at Deanna and presses her car keys into my hand.

“Get her to Emergency,” she says. “Don’t waste a second. I’ll call ahead and tell them you’re coming. I’ll call her parents, too. Go!”

Bones keeps her car right outside the infirmary. She helps me load Deanna in.

“There are quarters in the ashtray,” she says. “Keep me posted.”

I take off. I break all speed limits but there are no other cars on the road. The clock on the dashboard reads 2:00 a.m. I get Deanna to the hospital in Galloway in record time. They take out her appendix just before it bursts.

I call Bones and she says the parents are on their way in. They live a few hours away and could I wait at the hospital until they get there? Deanna might need to see a familiar face.

I sit in the waiting room, dozing over an old copy of Good Housekeeping, and finally stretch out on one of the plastic orange sofas.

“Are you Jessica?”

The voice brings me out of my sleep. Standing in front of me is a middle-aged couple wearing rumpled and mismatched clothes obviously thrown on in a hurry.

I stand up quickly, get a head rush, and have to sit back down again. “I’m Jess,” I manage to say.

“We’re Deanna’s parents,” the man says. “The doctor tells us if you had waited a moment longer to get her to the hospital, she might not have made it. We want to thank you.”

I stand back up. “How’s she doing?”

“She’s sleeping. She’s out of danger,” the man says.

“She’ll want to thank you herself when she wakes up,” the woman says. “You’re our family’s hero now. If only more teenagers were like you.”

They return to their daughter and I sit back on the plastic sofa. I rub my eyes and think about being a hero. I decide to wait around until Deanna wakes up. Today is the last day of camp, the campers will be heading home soon, and I don’t care about any one of them enough to want to say goodbye.

Maybe Deanna’s parents will offer me some cash as a reward for my quick-thinking actions. I’ll turn it down, of course, but they will insist, and to make them feel better I’ll accept. Maybe they will tell the newspapers, too. Camp Counselor Saves Child’s Life. Let my mother try to find something to criticize about that! Maybe the summer will end on a high note after all.

I sit with this thought for a while and stare out the window at the rain, which is falling in sheets. It must have started while I was asleep. I picture Casey scrambling to get the campers out of the rain and to get their gear packed and carried back down the trail. All the kids will head home today with their sleeping bags soaked and their shoes full of mud. For once, I am the hero and Casey is doing the dirty work.

The rain will get in the way of our end-of-camp plans, but maybe we can get permission to stay in one of the cabins, or maybe in the infirmary, which has loads of dry sheets and blankets. If that’s a no, then I’ll go to Casey’s house for a couple of days. We’ll still get a chance to unwind before school starts.

Finally, I decide I’d better call in to Bones.

“We have a situation,” she says. “You need to get back here right away. Stephanie is missing.”

“Of course she is,” I say.

“No, she’s really missing.”

“She’s just hiding,” I say. “She knows camp is over this morning. She’s taking one last opportunity to bug us.”

“She was gone when the rest of Cabin Three woke up this morning. We’ve been searching for two hours. There’s no sign of her and the rain just keeps coming down.”

I am going to suggest that Stephanie is probably up in the mess-hall pantry, warm and dry and eating fistfuls of cereal out of a box—we’ve caught her doing that before—but Bones doesn’t give me a chance. She just says, “We need you back here,” and hangs up.

I slam the receiver back against the pay phone. I am in no hurry to head back to camp. Once I arrive they’ll put me right to work, if not looking for Stephanie then helping my cabin kids pack up and get ready for their parents.

The clock says 8:45. By the time I get back, breakfast will be cleaned up and done. I decide to have breakfast at the hospital.

I wander around the wards until I see a cart full of food trays. The nurses are busy. I peek inside a couple of the trays, find one that doesn’t look too putrid, and walk away with it, tossing the name-tag into a garbage bin. I sit back on my orange plastic couch. The eggs are almost the same color.

“That can’t be good,” I mutter, but I eat them anyway, and I slather the toast with jam from the little packets. I take my time drinking the apple juice. I even wash up in the ladies’ room off the waiting room. I am sure that Stephanie will have appeared by the time I get back to camp.

This is not something I can take seriously.

The rain is coming down quite heavily and the temperature has plummeted. Summer’s over, I think, as I rush from the hospital to the car. Back at camp I get my rain jacket out of the cabin before going, as directed, to the sleep-out clearing.

Casey is standing with a group of very worried-looking people. Mrs. Keefer is talking on her cell phone. Casey is drenched, even in her rain gear, and is looking as annoyed as I feel.

“So, you finally killed her off, eh?” I ask, laughing.

Casey grins. “And I stuffed her body in a hollow tree.”

The cold silence that greets these remarks makes me wish I’d kept my mouth shut, especially when I notice that one of the frowning people is a police officer. An explanation would only have made things worse, so I clear my throat and try to get into the spirit of the search.

We search all morning, getting wetter and more miserable as the rain and temperatures continue to fall. We are in an autumn rainstorm, not a summer shower. More police arrive to join in the effort. There is talk of bringing in search dogs, but that’s not possible while it is raining so hard.

By midday, Casey and I are furious. We take a short lunch break together in the field, hot chocolate from a thermos and sandwiches brought out by the kitchen staff. We eat the sandwiches quickly but they still get soaked with rainwater.

“I hate that kid,” I say. “She’s ruined the last day of camp for everyone.”

“If she’s not dead when we find her, I’m going to kill her myself,” Casey says, then suddenly stops, her mouth open in mid-chew. She is staring over my left shoulder.

I turn around. Behind me is Stephanie’s mother. From the look on her face, I know she has heard every word we have said.