Piper’s mom sits outside the room, bloodshot eyes reading a pamphlet on depression. She tells me again that Piper’s not ready to see anyone.

“Where’s Piper’s phone?” I say.

Her mom rifles through a drawstring personal-belongings bag next to her, finally holding up Piper’s hot-pink cell phone.

I enter the passcode I’ve seen Piper do a thousand times and open her text messages. Just as I thought, four new texts from an unknown number on the night Piper overdosed.

Everyone hates you.

You know you should have been driving.

Why didn’t you just die that night?

Maybe you still should.

I turn the screen to Piper’s mom. She gasps as she reads them, covering her mouth as she scrolls through.

“Who would do this?” she says.

I put the unknown number into my own cell phone. Piper’s mom keeps staring at the texts. She barely responds when I tell her to play Piper’s Fire Mix for her.

“And tell her I’m going to fix this. I’m going to fix everything.”

46

Asad looks at me like I’ve lost my mind.

“No way. Taking down Kenzie has kamikaze mission written all over it,” he says while prepping our mealworms for the release into the woods today.

I sketch Rum Tum Tugger onto our lab report, making note of the fact that one of his legs somehow broke and now he limps along, dragging his useless limb alongside him. The sight of him heaving his way across the habitat is so pathetically heroic I can barely watch.

“What else can I do? I have to fix this, and I need your help.”

Asad shakes his head.

“A wise friend of mine once said that in this high school cosmos, bullies are the gravity we count on.”

“Well, a wise green-skinned witch once said we should try defying gravity.”

Asad sighs, smiling. “Using Broadway to bolster your argument. Tacky.”

“I learned from the best.”

“Unfortunately, life is not a musical, remember? We can’t fight all of Piper’s battles for her.”

I put my finger into the dish, helping Rum Tum Tugger climb up to the water sponge.

“But we can fight this one.”

We follow Mr. Bernard past the football field to the wooded area separating the school from the neighborhood behind it. He turns to us at the edge of the field, his hands raised up dramatically.

“Let us say goodbye to our friends who have led us on this journey of discovery. We have watched them build a community. We have watched them transform. And now, we bid them farewell.”