Sammy Squirrel aligns his hands so that the letters on his knuckles can be read clearly. Back when, one afternoon after she showed him how to ride a horse, Cassie had inked the letters upside down, skipping one knuckle: I AM NICE. “Cuz lately maybe sometimes you scare people,” she had said.

The guard’s angry swipe rips the charger cord from the phone. Its plug with a tail of broken cord slings across the floor and disappears beneath a different table.

“Get out.”

Peace!

“Get a job, jerkoff.”

Love!

Then he is outside under the searing sun, clutching his draining phone and ruined charger. His backpack lands with a thump at his feet. The guard points toward the intersection.

“All the way to the end of the property. The sidewalk.”

Beneath the roar of accelerating traffic his phone vibrates in his hand.

At three percent: We love you!

He glances back at Arby’s. The guard sustains his menacing glare-and-point. The girl sprays down the open door, chasing dribbles with a cloth. Sullen diners cram trash and waddle out.

Stop them. For Cassie. Stop them.

He zips open his backpack, reaches under his wadded bedspread, past the sharp granite chunk and the railroad spike he has collected, under the cafeteria fork and the jagged broken highway reflector, to reach the only weapon he believes Cassie would want him to use.

Chickenshit.

He kneels in the path of customers on the blistering sidewalk. He opens a plastic case the size of a book.

Loser.

Get a knife, get a gun, get a bomb.

His grin grinds. His wild blond mop falls forward. In a flurry of elbows he draws in colored chalk with all his might.

Part 1: 92°–101°

Thurs, Aug 8, 4:56 AM

To: Dairy Queen ([email protected])

From: Oppo ([email protected])

Subject: Opposition Research

To answer your questions:

1. Someone who cannot support you publicly (per county ordinance against political activity on the job).
2. Because you need to fight back.
3. With research.
4. Blackbox is a secure encrypted email host.
5. Kim Maybee’s suicide was a homicide.

So do you want my help?

CHAPTER 1

1. Cut several fresh (bright green) dandelion leaves and put them in a clean glass or plastic container. Do not use a metal container.
2. Make sure that the leaves, once cut, do not come in contact with sunlight.
3. Urinate on the leaves until they are completely submerged.
4. After 10 minutes, check for red bumps on the leaves.

They say that we hear music in the womb.

We hear voices.

We are designed this way.

The wet tympanic membranes, the yielding ossicles, the soft hard-wiring to the brain, these are created to convey to the womb the sweet vibrations of enveloping love. And so, swaddled in supportive sound, we grow.

What could go wrong?

Bad Axe County Sheriff Heidi Kick rolled and gasped beneath her sticky sheets.

What could go wrong?

Seriously?

She lurched up, still three-quarters asleep. Moonlight glistened on her forehead. Night sounds grated at the screen.