By Saturday night, there was a petition. Pause Briar Glen’s Inclusion Program Until Student Safety Can Be Guaranteed. The first signature at the top of the page belonged to Celeste Rowan, PTA President.
She’d called an emergency PTA meeting for Monday night in the school gym. Agenda: Vote to recommend suspension of the inclusion pilot.
Jonah read it aloud at the kitchen table and slammed his laptop shut.
Then he picked up his phone and called Principal Whitfield’s cell, the number on the card he’d given us on Friday.
To my surprise, the principal answered on the second ring. He sounded exhausted.
“Mr. Carver. I’ve seen the post. And the petition.” A long pause. “I want to tell you something, off the record. I shouldn’t. But I’ve been doing this twenty-three years, and something about this whole thing has been bothering me since Friday.”
Jonah put him on speaker.
“When I called you and your wife on Friday,” Principal Whitfield said, “I asked you not to talk to other parents. Do you know why?”
“No,” I said.
“Because at 11:05, before I’d called anyone, before the police had even finished counting the money, Mrs. Rowan phoned my cell. She asked whether ‘the situation in Ms. Tran’s class’ had been handled.” He exhaled. “Nobody outside my office knew about it yet, Mrs. Carver. Not one person. I’ve been asking myself all weekend how she did.”
The kitchen went very quiet.
“I can’t accuse a PTA president of anything based on a phone call,” he said. “But I’m not voting for that petition. I wanted you to know that.”
“She’s using him,” he said. “She’s using a ten-year-old to kill a program she never wanted.”
On Sunday afternoon, our doorbell rang. It was Felix, holding his mother’s hand. He was small and freckled and looked like he’d been crying too.
“Felix wanted to talk to Milo,” his mother said awkwardly. “He hasn’t slept.”
Felix walked right up to Milo in the living room.
“I didn’t know about the eggs,” he blurted. “Brayden never gave me any. He just said that so you’d be scared. I’m sorry, Milo. I should’ve said something.”
Milo looked at him for a long moment.
“You’re still my friend?”
“Duh,” Felix said, and Milo laughed for the first time in two days.
That evening, I called Officer Lim. She’d given me her card and told me to use it.
“Brayden Rowan,” I said. “Is he related to Celeste Rowan?”
There was a short pause on the line.
“He’s her son,” Officer Lim said carefully. “Mrs. Carver, I spoke with Brayden on Friday afternoon, with his mother present. He denied everything. He said Milo must be confused.”
“Milo isn’t confused.”
“I don’t think he is either,” she said quietly. “But I need more than a ten-year-old’s word against an eleven-year-old’s. Especially with this family. If you find anything — anything — call me.”
After I hung up, I went to Milo’s room to tuck him in. His blue backpack sat on his desk where we’d left it on Friday. The police had taken everything else, but they’d given back his lunch box and his pencil case.
And his Field Notes.
I picked up the green notebook with the stegosaurus sticker. I hadn’t looked inside it since school started. It had always felt private, like reading a diary.
Milo was asleep. I sat on the floor beside his bed and opened it to the first page of the week.
Monday. 8:10 a.m. School smells like crayons and floor soap. Pickles the guinea pig ate a carrot in 4 minutes.
Tuesday. 12:05 p.m. Felix sat with me. Felix is wrong about the Ankylosaurus.
Wednesday. 12:10 p.m. Brayden asked me to sit with them. Raptor Club. 12:24 p.m. Brayden gave me an egg. It is a sock. It is heavy. Do not open. Put it in bottom pocket.
Thursday. 12:15 p.m. Second egg. I felt it on the bus. It is a phone. I think it is not ours. I feel bad in my stomach. I did not tell.
My hands were trembling. I turned the page.
Friday.
10:36 a.m. Library. Forgot my dinosaur book in class. Ms. Tran gave me a hall pass.
10:40 a.m. I looked in the door window. A grown-up was at the cubbies. She opened MY backpack. She put an envelope in it. She zipped it. She did not see me. I hid by the water fountain. I was very scared.
10:43 a.m. She left. I went back to the library with no book.
Underneath, in careful pencil, my son had drawn a picture.
A small bird with a long, thin beak and wings spread out, the way they look when they’re hovering.
Next to it, in his big, careful letters, he had written:
The lady has a bird pin. She is a grown-up. Brayden said nobody believes kids. I did not tell.
CHAPTER 4: THE BIRD PIN
