“So how do you like the school so far?” he asks me.
I don’t like it at all. But I can’t say that. So I just shrug. “It’s fine.”
“How come you moved here?”
“My parents think it’s a good place for kids to grow up or something.”
“Oh, it’s not.” Gabe’s eyes bug out, and for a moment, he reminds me a little bit of the praying mantis that Nico wants to get. “Did you know that this kid disappeared a few years ago? Like, one day he was here, and one day he wasn’t.”
I don’t know what he is talking about. If this town wasn’t safe, my parents wouldn’t have moved us here. “From our school?”
“No, he lived a few towns away, but we all went to the same camp together.” Gabe looks way too excited to talk about this missing kid. “He was really good at archery, but I was a better swimmer. His name was Braden Lundie. And like I said, one dayhe just never came home from school, and nobody ever figured out what happened to him.”
“They say it’s usually someone in the family.” I heard my mom saying that once to my dad when they were watching the news and thought I couldn’t hear them.
“No, it wasn’t,” Gabe insists. “Braden’s parents were working with the police and trying so hard to find him. But they never did.” He gives me an ominous look. “He’s probably dead now.”
“Maybe he ran away.”
“He was only eight years old! Where would he even go?”
The idea of an eight-year-old disappearing makes goose bumps pop up all over my arms. I have to make sure to wait with Nico for the bus. If we’re together, nothing can happen.
“If you want,” Gabe says, “I can walk you home so nothing happens to you.”
“I take the bus.”
And even if I didn’t, I donotwant to hang out with Gabe. As much as I want to make some friends, he’s creepy. It’s something about his thin curly hair. Also, he smells bad. He needs to take a shower. I take one every night because Mom says it’s important to smell good.
“Well,” he says, “maybe you can come over to my house after school today.”
“I’m not allowed,” I say. “I’m supposed to come right home after school.”
“Maybe another day?” he asks hopefully.
“Maybe.”
I don’t want to hang out with Gabe any day, but I’m hoping he will just leave me alone if I say that. But he doesn’t leave me alone. He talks to me the entire time we are waiting in the line for our food, and then he follows me to my table. I don’t really want to sit with him, but I guess it’s better than sitting alone.
SIXTY-THREE
Nico and I ride the bus home from school together. It’s not surprising that he made a bunch of new friends today, but he still sits next to me.
“How was school?” I ask him.
“Pretty good,” he says. “A lot of kids like to play baseball.”
I wish I was good at sports like Nico. I’m good at swimming because Dad taught me, but it’s not a group activity. I don’t even think there’s a swim team for kids my age. The other thing I like to do is read, and that’s not a group activity either.
“Some of the kids are going to the park this weekend to play baseball,” he says. “Maybe Mom will let me go.”
“Just be careful,” I say. “Did you know that there was this kid named Braden Lundie who disappeared a few years ago? He was about your age too. Nobody even knows what happened to him.”
“So?”
“So!Somethinghappened to him. Maybe somebody killed him.”
“Geez, Ada.” Nico rolls his eyes. “You worry more than Mom.”
