She was starting back along the path when a chickadee landed on a pine bough quite close to her, making its characteristic “dee-dee” sound. She smiled at the tiny creature’s boldness, amazed that a wild creature would come so close to a much larger animal. But the chickadee wasn’t at all interested in her, she realized. It was fixing its beady black eye on the ant, which was stubbornly climbing into pecking distance.

“Shoo!” exclaimed Lucy, waving her hand at the chickadee, which took flight. “Don’t bother to thank me, ant,” she said, hoping that whatever guiding hand was running the universe would be watching out for her well-being, too.

Another anonymous letter was waiting for Lucy when she got to work on Friday morning, detailing the same incident that had upset Sara. Not only was the letter proof positive that the writer was telling the truth, it also demolished her theory that Mimi was the writer. It was just her bad luck, she thought, that now she knew beyond doubt that the writer was telling the truth that she would have to give up following the story. Ted would never let her continue now that Sara was involved.

“You’re too close, too involved,” he would say, and that’s exactly what he did say when Lucy told him how the players had harassed Sara and the other freshman cheerleaders.

“But we have to follow this story,” she argued. “The letter writer’s account is virtually the same as Sara’s.”

“That’s just one incident,” said Ted. “We have no verification that the rest—the naked Twister, the soccer balls—happened. We only have the anonymous writer’s word for those.”

“C’mon, Ted. How many times have you told me that where there’s smoke there’s fire? Something is definitely going on and I have a hunch it was part of the reason Tommy Stanton tried to kill himself.” Lucy paused. “I know everybody thinks he was upset because of his mother and that’s true, I’m sure, but he was pretty messed up even before that. I saw him one night after a required run and he was awfully strung out.”

Ted was scratching his chin. “I could write the story,” he said slowly, “but I’d have to interview Sara.”

“Do you have to use her name?”

“I might,” said Ted.