“Everyone back up,” Shauna shouted as she rushed to Alexia, diving for her like a baseball player stealing home base.

Mackenzie grabbed my arm, accidentally digging her sparkly red nails into me. “I don’t think she’s breathing,” she whispered as if a loud voice might make it true. Shauna was moving Alexia into the recovery position.

“No, she’s fine,” I reassured Mackenzie, but I was far from sure of that. Exclamation marks were pinging in my brain, trying to tell me something, but all I could do was look on in horror.

“Call an ambulance,” Shauna yelled at Grandma when she broke through the crowd.

Grandma already had her cell phone in her hand. “What’s the number? What do I call?”

“One-one-two!” someone with a Swedish accent responded.

“I’ve already called an ambulance,” Mr Ashworth yelled from somewhere. “I’ll get the first aid kit. Ariadne, alert security and the front desk.” Grandma muscled through the crowd towards the front door.

I wasn’t sure that Band-Aids and aspirin were going to help Alexia. Something was really wrong. Shauna brushed a stray curl away from Alexia’s face and whispered into Alexia’s ear, probably telling her not to worry. Alexia had landed on and broken her plate. Two red streaks coloured her cheek. Food was smeared all over and around her.

The panicked fog cleared from my brain. That was it. The food. Alexia’s allergies. “Berkeley, find Alexia’s handbag.”

We brushed back the crowd, scanning the floor for a pink handbag. “Got it!” Mackenzie held it up.

“Here!” I raised my hands to catch it. I dumped the contents on the floor. “EpiPen,” I told Mackenzie as we fell to our hands and knees and searched through the mountain of make-up, loose change, phone, perfume, but no EpiPen.

She had to have one. Someone with a serious food allergy always carried an EpiPen. I fumbled with the handbag, feeling in every pocket and compartment. Finally, “I got it!”

I lurched for Alexia with the EpiPen in hand. I’d taken a first aid class, and a girl in my elementary school had multiple allergies. I’d watched her use an EpiPen once after a parent brought in peanut butter cookies. “Let me through,” I told Shauna who was protectively curled around Alexia.

I formed a fist around the EpiPen and pulled off the safety cap. I must have looked like a serial killer ready to strike as I raised the injector.

“What are you doing?” Shauna shouted and batted me away.

“Alexia has food allergies. This could be anaphylactic shock,” I said. If it was a food allergy, I had to act quickly or Alexia could die.

“Chase, back away.” Shauna shoved me in the chest.

“Help me,” I begged Mackenzie and nodded in Shauna’s direction. “Trust me.” Mackenzie did as I asked, wrapped her arms around Shauna and pulled her away.

I placed the black tip of the EpiPen against Alexia’s leg, rammed the injector against her thigh and removed it again.

Alexia’s body convulsed. In that second I felt as if my heart stopped beating. My body flushed cold with fear.

“What have you done?” Shauna screamed and broke free from Mackenzie. She knocked me away with the full force of her body. I tumbled backwards but kept my eyes glued to Alexia.

Then Alexia gasped.

Shauna burst into tears. She must have been as relieved as I was.

Alexia was still struggling to breathe. I crawled over to her. “You are going to be OK,” I told Alexia. “I used your EpiPen.”

Her breath steadied into shallow gasps. Her skin was pale. All the fire and fight from earlier had drained away.

“Just breathe,” I told her. I noticed a huge bump on her head from where she’d bashed it as she fell. She had been nothing but horrible from the millisecond she arrived, but I wouldn’t wish this on anyone. I hoped she’d be OK. I prayed I’d done the right thing.

Suddenly Grandma was at my side. “How is she?” she asked.

“She’s breathing.” I explained about Alexia’s allergies and what I’d done. Mackenzie and Shauna joined us and formed a protective circle around Alexia.

Shauna had stopped crying, but her face was still red and blotchy. “Your quick response may have saved Alexia’s life. I don’t know how this could have happened,” she muttered.

“We’ll worry about that later,” Grandma told her. “The important thing is that she’ll recover.”

How did it happen? I’d heard Shauna instruct the chef myself last week. I’d seen Alexia’s lunch ticket. Two accidents in two days. Not small oops! moments but accidents that could have been deadly. Maybe they weren’t accidents.

Grandma and Shauna would take it from here. Mackenzie must have been thinking the same thing. We retreated and found a quiet place at the back of the room. “Now do you believe me?” I whispered to Mackenzie. “Something weird is definitely going on here.”

Mackenzie nodded. “Look,” she said and gestured to Katrina, who was whispering something to Blake. “Katrina seems to know everyone.”

“In crises, sometimes…” I started but then Katrina hugged Blake. He kissed her forehead. Those weren’t the actions of complete strangers.

“Can I have everyone’s attention?” Shauna was completely calm and in control again. She asked everyone to follow her into the lobby.

“Let’s go,” I said to Mackenzie and headed in the opposite direction to Shauna.

“Where are you going?” Mackenzie asked and picked up a jumbo chocolate cookie from the buffet table as we passed. She took a huge bite.

“I think Alexia was intentionally poisoned,” I said.

Mackenzie spat the cookie into her hand. “What?” She studied the cookie as if the hunks of chocolate were arsenic. “That’s a bit dramatic.” She placed what remained of the cookie on a discarded plate.

We kept moving. “The girl had to have enemies.” I punched open the swinging doors that lead to the kitchen. “We were on the sled that was meant for Alexia and her grandma yesterday. It could have been sabotaged. Today Alexia collapses. That can’t be an accident.”

The chef and his dozen or so kitchen staff were huddled together. They already knew about Alexia. The platters that had been so artfully arranged with cheeses, meats and breads were scattered on the long stainless steel prep tables. Something was smoking on the stovetop. The tart smell of burning food sizzled in the room.

“What are we doing in here?” Mackenzie asked. “How can you think of food at a time like this?”

The room hushed as the faint sound of a siren swelled in the distance. The ambulance was coming for Alexia. The kitchen staff seemed to wake and stir again. The chef barked orders and everyone scattered. I thought they looked like actors in my high school play; not the lead characters, but the ones in the chorus who tried to look like they knew what they were doing. The kitchen workers didn’t know how to act when one of their guests laid on the dining room floor probably as the result of their cooking.

“I’m not hungry,” I said to Mackenzie, but I did have food on my mind.

“Then what are we doing in here?” she asked.

“Looking for the murder weapon.”