“The police came back and said that’s not what Mr. Wells told them. He admitted to battering Dad, but said he never took his money.”

Amy opens her eyes and stares at me. “He wasn’t mugged. That’s not what happened.”

“What did happen?”

Amy’s eyes go wet the way Mum’s do sometimes. “They made it up. Evie Wells and her friends made it up just to mess with me. And her dad believed them.”

I don’t understand until Amy says, “Don’t make enemies, because they’ll ruin you. Evie was my best friend. She slept at my house. And then, one day, she hated me.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. She just…changed her mind, I guess. That’s when the rumors started. She said she was having sex with my dad.” Amy doesn’t wipe her tears away. She lets them slide down her cheeks and fall on the grass between us.

Why is she telling me this? Why does she trust me when we’ve only just met?

“They were posting things online. I don’t think Evie’s dad was supposed to find out. But he saw the posts…and he did something about it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“That’s what everyone says.”

“So that’s why you changed schools.”

Amy nods and says, “It’s one of the reasons.” I go to touch her, then stop.

“Everyone does that too,” she says. “People don’t touch broken things…in case they make them more broken.”

“You’re not broken,” I reply, and she laughs.

“Of course I am.”

She stares at me with the biggest, most beautiful eyes, and, after two false starts, I hold her hand. She smiles and rests her head on my shoulder.

I want to ask why her dad lied about being mugged. But I don’t say anything. I just enjoy the feeling of Amy’s head against mine and wonder why I ever worried about the locks.

31

“Help me…help me…HELP ME!”

I wake up shaking, the sound of someone else’s cry echoing behind my eyes. I turn on my bedside lamp and stare at the words still covering my wall. Why didn’t I let Jay paint over them when he suggested it? If Amy didn’t write them, I want them gone. They could have been written fifty years ago. I could look and look and still not find out who did this.

I can’t get back to sleep, but the house is silent and dark. So I stay in bed, picturing Amy’s face when she told me about her dad.

She trusted me. She said something so big I already feel weighed down by it. And I feel both happy and worried, because I don’t know if it’s changed everything already, shaking up a friendship that hadn’t even settled into its first version.