A pretty black girl named Bernadette, who towered over the rest of us at six feet, leaned down to whisper, ‘I heard he did it at the mall. Can you believe it?’

Another girl said, ‘Yeah, on Christmas Eve. They were Christmas shopping with each other, and she pointed to this diamond ring in the window at Bergdorf’s, and was like, “I want that.” And I guess he freaked – you know, it was clearly an engagement ring – and broke up with her on the spot.’

‘And so she went home and shot herself?’ I found this story extremely far-fetched. When I’d asked Cee Cee where we were supposed to have lunch if, God forbid, it should happen to rain, she told me that everyone had to sit in their homeroom and eat, and the nuns brought out board games like Parcheesi for people to play. I was wondering if this story, like the one about rainy-day lunches, was an invention. Cee Cee was exactly the kind of girl who would get a kick out of lying to the new kid – not out of maliciousness, but just to amuse herself.

‘Not then,’ Cee Cee said. ‘She tried to get back together with him for a while. She called him like every ten minutes, until finally his mother told her not to call any more. Then she started sending him letters, telling him what she was going to do – you know, kill herself if he didn’t get back together with her. When he didn’t respond, she got her dad’s forty-four and drove to Bryce’s house and rang the bell.’

Adam took up the narrative at this point, so I knew gore was probably going to be involved. ‘Yeah,’ he said, standing up so that he could act it, using a Cheeto as the gun. ‘The Martinsons were having a New Year’s party – it was New Year’s Eve – so they were home and everything. They opened up the door, and there was this crazy girl on their porch, with a gun to her head. She said if they didn’t get Bryce, she was going to pull the trigger. But they couldn’t get Bryce, because they’d sent him to Antigua—’

‘—Hoping a little sun and surf would soothe his frazzled nerves,’ Cee Cee put in, ‘because, you know, he’s got his college apps to worry about right now. He doesn’t need to have the added pressure of a stalker.’

Adam glared at her, and went on, holding the Cheeto to the side of his head. ‘Yeah, well, that was a gross error on the part of the Martinsons. As soon as she heard Bryce was out of the country, she pulled the trigger, and blew out the back of her skull, and bits of her brain and stuff stuck to the Christmas lights the Martinsons had strung up.’

Everyone but me groaned at this particular detail. I had other things on my mind, however. ‘The empty chair in homeroom. The one by what’s-her-name – Kelly. That was the dead girl’s seat, wasn’t it?’