“You may be right. Do you think there’s a story here?”

“I think there’s a story but I don’t know if I can get it,” said Lucy. “Nobody’s going to admit this stuff is happening.”

“Well, I want you to try. Get over to the school and talk to the principal, okay?”

“Sure. But I can guarantee you I won’t get anything from him.”

“I know. But we’ve got to start somewhere.”

High school principal Bob Berg was tall and weedy; he looked like the sort of skinny guy that cartoon bullies kicked sand at on the beach, but he didn’t tolerate any challenges to his authority. He’d long ago learned to cultivate an air of absolute omniscience; even when he was wrong, he was right. Lucy could have predicted his reaction when she outlined the charges in the anonymous letters. She’d once gotten a similar reaction when she’d tried to give a cat a bath.

“That’s ridiculous,” he sputtered, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. “We simply don’t tolerate hazing here at Tinker’s Cove High School in any form whatsoever and whoever is making these accusations is behaving irresponsibly. This is absolutely outrageous.”

Something in his tone brought out the devil in Lucy. “It doesn’t seem that outrageous to me,” she said. “These things happen and it’s entirely possible that it’s happening here. I think any responsible administrator would want to investigate before making an outright denial.”

“I don’t need to investigate. I know there is no hazing of any kind going on at Tinker’s Cove High School.”

“Well, then, you won’t mind if I talk to some of the players,” said Lucy.

“Oh, I can’t allow that. There are confidentiality issues, privacy issues. We don’t allow the press access to our students.”

“That’s not actually true,” said Lucy, as politely as possible. “Students are routinely interviewed for stories about sports and community projects. Why, just last spring I interviewed several students who were working on a Habitat house.”

Faced with indisputable evidence to the contrary, the principal caved. “All right. You can talk to the players but I want to be present.”

“At practice this afternoon?”

“No. Right now. As it happens, several varsity players are working out in the weight room.”

“Without supervision?” asked Lucy.

“These are all honors students,” said Mr. Berg. “They’ve earned the right to use the weight room whenever they wish.”

Lucy felt a bit uncomfortable as she followed him down the long, echoing hallway. She didn’t like barging in on a bunch of teenage boys when they were exercising, and she doubted she’d get much information from them with Mr. Berg listening to every word. On the other hand, this was probably the only chance she was going to get to talk to the players.