I better get moving.

8

All serious daring starts from within.

—Eudora Welty

Reese

“Why do they have security for a pig?” It seems a bit much.

In a fenced-in pen outside a big red barn, Begonia rummages, snorting and chuffing. She’s not a boar. But she is a giant pig. A Large White, if I had to classify her particular breed of swine. They are large, to say the least. Males can exceed eight hundred pounds.

Annabel and I are hiding around the corner of the student union building. We’ve already scoped out the area and procured a dress from the theater department—a red-sequined thing that will in no way shape or form ever fit on a Large White pig—and now we’re trying to figure out a way to get to the mascot.

A guy looms outside the fence, wearing a Fighting Boars polo shirt and jeans. He looks like he could be the president of the student body, all proper and put together, hair slicked back and badge hanging around his neck on a Blue Falls lanyard. His arms are crossed over his chest as he scans the area and occasionally glances back at Begonia.

He clearly takes his job seriously, not even poking around on his cell phone like any other normal college kid would be doing.

“That guy is hardly what I would call intimidating. It’s just a precaution because of what happened before.”

“What happened before?”

Annabel eyes me with no small amount of shock. “You haven’t heard about the time the mascot got murdered?”

“What?” I can’t have heard her correctly.

“It’s the whole reason we have Begonia Day. Reese, how can you be so smart and so clueless at the same time? It’s a campus legend.”

“I didn’t go to freshman orientation.” I didn’t want to talk to people. If I don’t speak, I can’t stick my foot in my mouth or expose myself as the weirdo I am. I’ve talked to more people in the past few days than I have since I started here, I think. Probably more than any other week in my whole life.

Annabel rolls her eyes. “But everyone knows.”

At my blank look she sighs, keeping her voice quiet so it doesn’t carry. “Back in the forties or something, when another team was here visiting for a game, the handler of the mascot from the Ohio Laughing Colts got too close and the horse trampled Begonia, killing her instantly. That’s when Begonia Day started. Why else did you think they have Begonia Day every year?”

I shrug. “I never gave it much thought, I guess. I didn’t come to the festivities last year. I . . . haven’t done much socializing since college started.”

“Clearly.”

“How do we get around security?”

Annabel smiles. “You leave it to me.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Run distraction.”

“Isn’t this cheating? You’ve probably helped me too much as it is.”

She peeks around the corner one more time, then turns back to me. “Jude didn’t say anything about someone assisting. And if Fitz gets here within the next ten minutes, he’ll benefit too. We don’t have time to argue. It’s eleven thirty. We have thirty minutes. Less if you keep talking.”