Of the Trees(29)

Cassie looked up to find Miss Keller strangely quiet. The knowing conspiratorial grin had slipped from her features, and something altogether more puzzling had replaced it. Cassie opened her mouth to ask, but one of the other secretaries—an older woman with steel gray hair—was striding to the front desk.

“Yes, Miss Harris, can we help you?” she asked in clipped tones.

“Sorry, no,” Cassie answered, grabbing at the late pass that Miss Keller slid hastily across the countertop even though she was headed to lunch and wouldn’t technically need it. “All set, thanks.”

By the time she got into the cafeteria and bought herself a sandwich, the warning bell rung. Cassie would have no time to talk to Ryan. She barely had enough time to find a seat at his table to hastily chew through her lunch. Cassie winced in apology as Ryan smirked at her from the opposite end of the rectangular table.

The rest of the day passed in a blur. Several of the girls’ lavatories were closed off, some with police tape covering the doorways. No one said why, though Cassie figured it had something to do with what Mr. Rossi had needed to show the police officer. They had stayed outside and in the halls for a long time, pacing quietly from place to place around the school, questioning teachers between classes. As far as Cassie knew, no one had approached any of the students, and there was no talk about closing the school down. None of her classmates knew why the graffiti was such a big deal. It was large, intricate, and a little weird, but not threatening, and not even subversive really.

Still, the police stayed for quite some time, past lunch and through the class Cassie had right afterward before they finally packed up and left. Mr. Rossi paced the front of the school, redirecting anyone who was trying to leave through the main doors to the side entrance down the social studies hall. It would cause a swarm down that hall when the final bell rang, but it would also keep most of the students away from the front of the building, away from the eyes that glared seven feet wide and the words that dripped red when Cassie first read them.

Join us!

She wanted to see them again, felt strangely drawn to them. Though maybe that was just because the police and her principal were making such a big deal out of this, making it seem more dangerous than it was. After all, they were inanimate smears of paint, not real, and not actually watching anyone.

Cassie found herself more and more concerned with cornering Ryan as the day wore on. She hadn’t had the chance to have one uninterrupted, private conversation with him all day. She wanted to pin him down, at least long enough to ask him to hang out with her after school while she waited for Laney to finish her meeting. Maybe when the rush of school and the constant sweep of moving students were out of the way, she’d have a chance to figure out what he meant by kissing her last night. She still couldn’t wrap her brain around it. Was he just being overly friendly? Did he like it? Did he want to do it again, maybe after dinner, or a movie, or even during said movie?

Cassie didn’t know, didn’t know where she was supposed to go from here, and the uncertainty left her with a churning stomach. Her thoughts were jangled and scattered, and always came back to the moment when his lips pressed softly against hers.

Her father caught up with her just as she was about to enter her last class of the day. Her teacher was waiting to close the door when Patrick Harris grabbed his daughter’s arm. “I’m going to pick you up after class, drive you home today, okay?”

“Actually, Dad, Laney—” Cassie started, but her father broke in quickly.

“Not today, Cass,” he murmured. “And tell Laney to keep her meeting short and get home, too, okay?”

“All right, Dad,” Cassie said through a frown. She sighed as her vision of cornering Ryan imploded. She turned and hurried to her seat, shrugging at Laney’s quizzical expression.

“Maybe I should just cancel today anyway,” Laney muttered. She flipped her textbook open, thumbing through the pages to find the one their teacher was writing on the board. “Everyone is freaked out.”

“It’s just some graffiti,” Cassie whispered, exasperated. “We paint that stupid bridge every time any team wins a game, and no one cares. So what?”

Laney shrugged, but her expression held that same tightness that Miss Keller’s had. Before Cassie had the chance to ask though, class started.





Her father was waiting for her right outside her classroom door, whisking her away and repeating his warning to Laney. “Get home soon, okay? Call Cass when you get in.”

Laney nodded, her brow furrowed as she watched Cassie get frog-marched toward the exit.

“Okay, Dad,” Cassie started after she was seated safely in the passenger seat of her dad’s Volvo. The buckled snapped into place just as his door slammed closed. “What’s up?”

“What?” Patrick grunted, pulling ahead of the long line of students streaming from the high school. “I drive you home all the time.”

“Jane was freaked out this morning,” Cassie continued. “I mean, I get it when The Penguin freaks—”

“Don’t call him that.”

“—it’s pretty much expected by now. But you should have seen Jane’s face! I’ve never seen her that serious.”

“It’s Miss Keller to you, Cassie,” her father huffed. She pursed her lips and stared him down, watching him squirm behind the wheel. “How about we splurge? Grab dinner somewhere?”