A Map of Days (Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children, #4)(92)

Two men were reported injured, both school employees. The suspect in the blast was a female student, whose name wasn’t given because she was a minor. She had fled the scene and was being sought for questioning. What had two male employees of the school been doing in the girls’ bathroom? The article didn’t speculate, but one commenter did:

“PERRRRRRVS!!!!”

I returned to the loop, went back to our room, and told the others what I’d learned.

“Sounds like a peculiar event to me,” said Bronwyn.

Emma leaned out of the bathroom door, vigorously drying her hair. “If it is,” she said, her voice vibrating as she dried, “then I reckon we’re looking for someone who can manipulate electricity.”

“Or light,” said Millard.

“So we should start by talking to people about that day,” I said. “Ask them what they remember and who was involved. High schools are gossip factories. All we have to do is make some fast friends, and tap into people’s natural inclination to talk crap about one another.”

As I heard myself saying it, it sounded slightly absurd. Fast friends? In two years of high school, I’d had one.

“Maybe someone will know who the suspect girl was,” said Bronwyn. “The one who ran from the bathroom fire.”

“Maybe we can get our hands on the security camera footage,” said Enoch.

“Sounds like they’re powerful, whoever they are,” said Emma.

“Unquestionably,” said Millard. He was fully clothed in dress pants, a collared shirt, and a newsboy cap. “If someone is hunting them, they must be worth hunting. So, yes, I’d say they’re powerful. And possibly dangerous. If you suspect you’ve found them, do not engage. Alert the rest of us, and we’ll determine the best course of action.”

“Why’d you bother getting dressed?” I asked. “We’re going back out there in a minute.”

“I miss wearing clothes sometimes. Also, chafing becomes an issue.”

“Say we’ve found this person,” said Enoch. “Then what? We say, ‘Come with us. We need to take you to a time loop.’?”

“Why not?” said Bronwyn.

“Because it sounds mad!”

“They’re uncontacted, remember,” I said. “They won’t know what a time loop is, what a peculiar is, that there are other people like them in the world—nothing.”

Enoch had just pulled on his creeper sneakers and was rolling his feet around in them. “Ugh, they’re so springy.”

“Jacob didn’t know anything when we first met him, and that worked out okay,” Bronwyn said.

“I thought I had gone insane,” I said, “and then Emma attacked me and nearly cut my throat!”

“I thought you were a wight!” she called from the bathroom.

“So you had a rocky start,” Bronwyn said, shrugging. “But now you’re in love!”

I pretended to be busy packing my bag. Enoch and Millard ignored her.

Bronwyn looked baffled. “What’d I say?”

Emma came out of the bathroom. Her sandy hair was tied into a loose ponytail. She wore a light green sweater that matched her eyes and dark jeans that fit her, well, perfectly, and contrasted with her Reeboks. The pang of longing I felt in that moment was so deep and sustained that I had to look away.

In a passable American accent, she said, “You guys ready to blend in?”

Bronwyn gave a big thumbs-up. “Flipping totally.” Her accent was sharp and weird. “Coooooooool, dudes.”

Just listening to her set my teeth on edge.

“Maybe you should stick to your regular accent. And no slang.”

She pooched out her bottom lip and flipped her thumb downward. “Bummer.”





We arrived at the school just before first bell. I parked several blocks away to avoid being spotted by an overzealous vice principal. As we walked, I paid close attention to my gut, on alert for any telltale twinges, but there were none.

We joined a mass of students climbing the main steps, then entered a long, bright hallway lined with classrooms and jammed with bodies. We flattened ourselves against a wall to keep from getting trampled and stood there, overwhelmed, as teenagers flowed around us like schools of fish.

We ducked into an empty classroom to talk. There were posters of Shakespeare and James Joyce on the wall and the desks were arranged in rows. I remembered what Emma said about never having attended a real school, and she looked a bit wistful as she took it in.

“I would never normally suggest this,” said Millard, “but I think we should split up. We’ll attract less attention than we would walking around in a big, baffled clump.”

“And we’ll cover more area, too,” said Emma.

“Then it’s decided.”

I wasn’t sure they were ready to be on their own in a modern American high school, but Millard was right; there was no choice but to dive in. Bronwyn paired off with Enoch and volunteered to observe the PE fields and outdoor areas. They would talk to people (but not in Bronwyn’s weird pseudo-American accent) and learn what they could. Being invisible, Millard couldn’t talk to anyone, so he would sneak into the main office. “If there was an incident dramatic enough to rate mention in a local newspaper,” he said, “then there are certainly records of other, smaller incidents somewhere in their files.”