“Hey, handsome, what can I get for you?” a woman with a name tag reading Flo asked.
Ten’s eyes roved over the choices. Pizza. Chicken fingers. Wilted salad. “I’ll have pizza, but no peas, please.”
Flo raised an eyebrow at Ten. “Sorry, sailor, but that’s not how it works here. I shouldn’t have to tell a man your age to eat his veggies. You want to grow up big and strong, don’t you?” Flo laughed at her own joke and served Ten. “I’ve never seen you around here before.”
“I’m Tennyson Grimm. I’m one of the chorus directors from the Massachusetts school.”
“We could hear your little dolls singing while we were getting lunch ready. There’s nothing better than the sound of kids laughing and having a good time.”
“I couldn’t agree more.” It hit Ten that the ghosts Everly encountered had been standing close to where he was now. “Flo, can I ask you a strange question?”
“Sure thing, sugar. What’s on your mind?” She set a gloved hand on the counter and leaned closer to Tennyson.
“Has anything strange happened here in the kitchen? Maybe hearing noises or seeing something that isn’t really there?” Ten bit his lower lip. This conversation could go one of two ways. Either Flo would tell him she had seen something out of the ordinary, or she’d think he was crazy.
Flo raised a quizzical eyebrow. “You’re kidding me, right?”
Ten shook his head. “I’m a psychic medium. My daughter has the same abilities, and she saw three spirits this morning during the concert. I didn’t sense them at all. I asked the principal about it, and he told us the story about the kids who’d died here in 1968.”
Flo nodded, stripping off her gloves and tossing them in the trash. “Come with me.”
Ten paid for his food and followed Flo into the lunchroom. She sat at an empty table and motioned for Ten to join her.
Flo folded her hands in front of her and took a deep breath. “I was a student here when those kids died.” Flo shook her head, as if she were trying to dislodge the awful memory from her mind. “It was a normal day. We had pizza that day too, come to think of it.”
While he hadn’t been particularly interested in the school lunch sitting in front of him, Ten was even less so now. “What happened?”
“Tommy, Katie, and Paul were all in my class. Most of us spread out to sit with other friends, like you see today, but those three stuck together. Their families lived next door to each other and were best friends. The kids all grew up together and were sort of a package deal.”
Ten couldn’t help thinking about Wolf, Aurora, and Everly. He had no doubt Ezra and Lizbet would become part of their circle of friends when they were a little older.
“Like I said, it was a normal day. Everyone was eating and talking and laughing, and then all of a sudden, Tommy stood up. He had his hands around his throat as if he were choking. The kids at the table started screaming for help. Teachers ran toward the table, and Mr. Whittaker, the principal, grabbed Tommy to give him the Heimlich, but he didn’t have a chance. Tommy started throwing up. Projectile.” Flo shook her head. “A second or two later, the same thing happened to Katie and then Paul, which was awful, but then other kids started getting sick. As bad as that was, the worst was yet to come.”
Swiveling in his seat, Ten looked out over the lunchroom. He imagined that day was a lot like this one at the outset. “I can well imagine.” Thankfully, Ten wasn’t seeing the kids’ deaths in his head and prayed Everly couldn’t either.
“After Tommy stopped throwing up, he dropped to the floor and started flopping around like a fish out of water. I know now that he was having a seizure. It wasn’t long before the same thing happened to Katie and then Paul.” Flo took a deep breath. “The paramedics arrived a few minutes later and loaded the kids into ambulances. We were all brought back to our classrooms to wait for dismissal. A letter was sent home with us to explain what happened during the school day. I found out a few hours later that all three kids had died.” Unshed tears shone in Flo’s eyes. “It’s been over fifty years, and I can still remember what happened as if it were yesterday.”
“Flo, I’m so sorry. The last thing I wanted was to cause you any pain. I’d never heard this story until half an hour ago when Principal Preston told my husband and me. He mentioned that the deaths were ruled as pending toxicology, and the kids’ teacher was murdered soon after the cause of death was ruled as arsenic poisoning.”
“I still feel partially responsible for Miss Fairbanks’s death.” Flo rubbed the back of her neck as if she felt a tension headache coming on.
“I don’t understand. You were five years old when the kids died. How could you possibly be responsible?” Ten knew kids had the tendency to take adult issues on their small shoulders, sure they were the cause of their parents’ divorce or other things that were completely out of their control.
“The police came to the school the next day and talked to all of the kids in Miss Fairbanks’s class. They spoke to us alone and asked a lot of questions about what we saw in the cafeteria the day before and what the morning had been like in the classroom. Of course, nowadays, cops aren’t allowed to speak to kids without their parents being present. I’d always been told that policemen were our friends and that they would always help us, so that’s why I told them about Free Cookie Friday.” Flo dashed the back of her hand across her wet eyes.
“What’s Free Cookie Friday?”
“Miss Fairbanks was a newlywed. She’d gotten married the summer before the school year started. Her husband had a sweet tooth, and she liked to bake him cookies. If we’d behaved well during the week, she’d bring us cookies on Friday to test out the recipe before making it for her husband.”
Ten understood exactly where Flo was going with her story. “The kids got sick after they’d eaten the cookies.”
“That’s what I told the police.” Flo dabbed at her damp eyes with her scrub top.
“If Miss Fairbanks made cookies for the whole class, how come only three kids got sick?” Ten knew how his kids were. If they were handed a cookie, it was gone in a flash.
“Paul, Katie, and Tommy ate them on the way to the cafeteria. None of the other kids had eaten theirs yet. My parents and a lot of others thought the cookies were poisoned and that’s the reason Miss Fairbanks was murdered.”
Tennyson was stunned. Flo’s pain was raw, like an open wound that wouldn’t heal. “If the police asked everyone what happened at school that day, I can’t imagine you were the only one to tell them about the cookies. What happened to Miss Fairbanks wasn’t your fault.”
