“We just want to talk about it,” Hernandez said. He motioned for Gretchen to take the leather chair opposite his desk and next to Coach Walker. He carefully closed the door to his inner office.
Gretchen lowered herself into the chair and rubbed her cold, wet hands on the legs of her jeans. Coach Walker kept her eyes on the wall behind the principal’s desk. She appeared to be avoiding Gretchen’s gaze.
Gretchen cleared her throat. Her mouth suddenly felt so dry. She followed Hernandez as he brushed aside a stack of papers on his desktop, then dropped heavily into his big desk chair.
“Cold in here,” Gretchen murmured, rubbing her hands on her legs again.
Coach Walker nodded but didn’t reply.
Gretchen noticed a stain on the lapel of the principal’s gray suit jacket. Ketchup, maybe? He removed his glasses and wiped the lenses with a red handkerchief. With his glasses off, his eyes looked tiny, she thought, too tiny for his large square face.
The three of them remained silent as Hernandez wiped his glasses. Gretchen heard some girls laughing out in the hall. She wished she could be out there with them.
It was the Monday after the Friday night football game. A weekend of sadness and tension had somehow passed. Gretchen spent most of the time alone in her room with the door closed and music cranked up really loud—to help keep her mother from intruding, and to help drown out her guilt-ridden thoughts.
She wished Sid would come over. Sid could comfort her. Sid could assure her it wasn’t entirely her fault, whether that was true or not. Sid could hold her and maybe stop the chills that shook her body, the coldness that gripped her and wouldn’t let go.
But he texted that he was at Shadyside General with Stacy and her family. He texted on Saturday that Stacy was in the ICU, that doctors couldn’t say how badly she had been hurt. And then on Sunday afternoon, Sid texted that Stacy was “stable,” whatever that meant. He said she was being moved to a private room.
Gretchen couldn’t breathe any sighs of relief. She had set someone on fire. She didn’t really know how it happened. But she had set Stacy on fire, maybe ruined her life forever—if she lived.
If she lived.
That thought made Gretchen’s stomach heave, and she had to force her lunch back down.
And then the principal had called her house and asked her to come for a meeting after school on Monday. Thank goodness her mother wasn’t home. The call filled Gretchen with troubled questions. Was she going to be suspended from school? Expelled? No. They’d want her mother to be there if that was true.
Would there be police at the meeting? Were Stacy’s parents pressing charges?
Attempted murder?
Was Hernandez going to accuse her? Did someone think the whole thing was deliberate?
Gretchen realized she was scaring herself. Hernandez said he was investigating. He didn’t say he was accusing her of anything.
And now, here she was facing him, sitting hunched in the chair across from him, her cold hands clasped tightly in her lap, so tightly her fingers ached.
He forced a smile. “Don’t look so frightened, Gretchen,” he said softly. “We’re not here to assign guilt. We just need to know exactly what happened.” He scratched one side of his face. “Stacy’s parents are going to want to know, too.”
“H-how is she?” Gretchen stammered. “Have you heard anything?”
“She’s stable, according to the last report I heard,” Hernandez said.
“Thank God,” Coach Walker murmured.
“She has serious burns over her arms and chest,” Hernandez continued, his eyes probing Gretchen’s. “The most serious question is if Stacy will regain the use of her right arm again. It’s the most badly damaged.”
A sob burst from Gretchen’s throat. “How awful. I mean—”
“The burn unit at Shadyside General is supposed to be top-notch,” Coach Walker said, her gaze on Hernandez. “My cousin was in a car fire, and they performed miracles with him.”
“That’s good to hear,” Hernandez said softly. He picked up a pencil and began rolling it in his fingers. He narrowed his eyes at Gretchen.
Sudden dread tightened her throat. She felt as if she couldn’t breathe.
“Any idea how the accident happened?” the principal asked her.
She swallowed. “Uh … no. Not really. I mean…” Her voice was quivering. Did it make her sound as if she wasn’t telling the truth?
“I mean … I can’t understand it at all. I was so careful. It was my first time doing it, and I wanted to do a perfect job.” Gretchen took a breath. Beside her, Coach Walker was now staring at her intently.
“I went over it, step by step,” Gretchen continued. “I concentrated on doing it right. I … I can’t understand.…” Her voice cracked.
“Did you see anyone else go near the batons or the kerosene bucket?” Coach Walker asked.
Gretchen thought hard. She shook her head. “No. I don’t remember anyone. I … I was there the whole time. Well…” She suddenly remembered something. “You called me over to the bench, Coach Walker. Remember? You asked if I needed help, and I said no. But that only took a few seconds. I hurried right back.”
Coach Walker nodded. She rubbed her chin, swept a hand back through her hair, her face knotted in a frown.
“Gretchen, did you notice anything strange at all? Before or after the accident?”
Gretchen concentrated again. “Well … one thing was strange.” She hesitated.
Hernandez let go of the pencil. He leaned closer over his desktop. “What was that?”
“Maybe I shouldn’t say.…” Gretchen murmured.
“Gretchen, anything you think of can be helpful,” Coach Walker said. “Don’t hold back to protect someone. And don’t feel you have to be one-hundred percent positive about something you think you saw. A terrible thing has happened. We need to know why it happened.”
Gretchen swallowed again. Her mouth was dry as sandpaper. “Well … I’m a little confused about Devra.”
“Devra Dalby?” Hernandez sat up straight. He squinted at Gretchen through his glasses. “What about Devra?”
“Devra was supposed to take the first fire baton,” Gretchen said. “But when I started to hand it to her, she backed away. She said she didn’t feel well. She told me to give it to Stacy.”
“I noticed that,” Coach Walker said. “I noticed that Devra held back and Stacy ran in front of the stands to perform without her.”
“I … uh … I-I don’t want to accuse Devra of anything,” Gretchen stammered. “But … it was like she knew there was something wrong with the baton. I mean, how did she know not to take it?”
A hush fell over the room. Gretchen’s words seemed to linger heavily in the air.
Coach Walker rubbed her chin some more, her eyes on the bulletin board behind the principal’s desk. Hernandez tapped the pencil against the desktop. He appeared to be faraway, deep in thought.
I had to say it, Gretchen thought. It was just so strange how Devra wouldn’t take the baton. It couldn’t be a coincidence.
“We’ll talk to Devra later,” Hernandez said, finally breaking the silence. He pointed the pencil at Gretchen. “We know that you and Devra have been feuding. We know—”
“Feuding?” Gretchen interrupted.
“Well, you’re not exactly best friends,” Coach Walker chimed in. “You’ve accused Devra before.…”
Hernandez raised a hand to silence her. “Let me finish. I hate to ask this, Gretchen, but I have to. Coach Walker has told me how eager you were to be on the squad. And we all know that Devra probably doesn’t belong there. So tell me this…” He hesitated.
Gretchen felt her heart skip a beat. She gripped the leather arms of the chair.
“You didn’t try to hand Devra a dangerous baton, hoping to get her off the squad—did you?”
Gretchen gasped. Without thinking, she jumped to her feet. “Of course not! That’s horrible!” she shrieked. “Is that what you think? You think I’m a killer?”
A sob escaped Gretchen’s throat, and then she couldn’t hold back. A flood of tears rolled down her cheeks. She folded herself back into the chair and cried, sobbing hard, her shoulders heaving up and down.
Coach Walker tried to pat her comfortingly on the back. But Gretchen brushed her hand away.
Hernandez sat helplessly, biting his lips, shaking his head. “I’m sorry. It was a question I felt I had to ask.”
Gretchen could barely hear him over her sobs. She sucked in breath after breath and finally managed to stop crying. Her cheeks were tear-soaked and burning hot. She wiped her eyes with the palms of her hands.
“I’ll never forgive myself,” she finally managed to choke out, not looking at either of them. “I’ll never forgive myself for what happened to Stacy. Never.”
* * *
Gretchen’s heavy footsteps echoed down the long, empty hall as she made her way to the exit. She held her breath, struggling not to start crying again. She fumbled in her bag for her car keys, and dropped the bag. She stood watching everything tumble out onto the floor.
“At least the day can’t get worse,” she muttered. She bent down and swept everything back into the bag.
“Hey—!” Gretchen called out, surprised to find Sid waiting for her in the student parking lot. She rushed forward and he wrapped her in his arms.
“I don’t need to ask how it went,” he said. “I can see your face is a total wreck.”
“Thanks a bunch,” she muttered. But she pressed her cheek against his chest. She could hear his steady heartbeat. She wondered if hers would ever beat so slow and normal again.
“They think I’m a murderer,” she said, raising her eyes to his.
“No way,” Sid replied. “You’re not serious. They don’t think that.”
Gretchen sighed. “I don’t know what they think. It’s all a horrible mystery.”
“I just came from the hospital,” Sid said.
Gretchen took a step back. “And?”
He shrugged. “Third-degree burns over both arms. It’s horrible. She’s bandaged up like a mummy.”
“Did you talk to her?”
Sid shook his head. “No. She wasn’t awake.”
Gretchen couldn’t help it. The tears began pouring from her eyes again.
Sid stepped forward and wrapped her in a close hug.
And she heard a harsh voice from behind them. “Well! It didn’t take you long to steal Stacy’s boyfriend!”