“Oh yes,” Shirley said as she came in with a plate of scrambled eggs. “He came early this morning, but I was telling Mrs. A, Rose, how you and I did the temporary fix with the cardboard.”

“Well, that could have been dangerous,” Rosalinda murmured somewhat breathlessly. “You could have cut yourself.” The old lady seemed to struggle slightly for a breath. “In my day, children who indulged in mischief on Halloween merely soaped windows.”

“And in mine it was shaving cream,” Shirley offered.

“Harmless fun stuff,” Rosalinda said. She turned sharply toward her granddaughter. Rose felt her gaze settle on her. “No mean girls at your school who might be bullying you, are there? Bullies are everywhere, you know, through every age in time and place.”

“Oh no, no, Gran.” She crossed her fingers under the table, thinking of the Mean Queens, that wicked Trio of Doom. “Everyone’s been very nice to me.”

“Any clues at all as to who might have done this?” Shirley asked. Rose shook her head. Another lie. There were clues all over the place. She’d spotted them when she took dustpan after dustpan of shattered glass to the back-alley trash cans. The first clue was a sprinkling of glitter on the pavement in the alley. You-know-who’s calling card. Then there were the smashed Disney Princess masks. But she would say nothing.

When Rose arrived at school, most of the kids were still outside and had sorted themselves into their usual clumps of friends. She saw Lisa, Brianna, and Carrie in their huddle, a very tight huddle at that. Their backs were turned on the rest of the schoolyard. Some wannabe sixth-grade Mean Queens, the remoras, were circling but keeping a wary distance. Sibby was trying to get Brianna’s attention.

Rose headed toward her three buddies, who were with a couple of other kids, including Susan. “Have you seen them?” Joe tipped his head toward where Carrie, Lisa, and Brianna huddled.

“Well, yeah. Not that they ever talk to me.”

“No, I mean up close. Their faces.”

“What about their faces? That thornbush?” Rose asked.

“Worse than that,” Anand said.

“What?”

“Claw marks. Lisa looks like she tangled with a tiger,” Myles replied.

Rose blinked. More like a cat, she thought. September! My feline in shining fur.

At that moment the three turned toward her. She felt as if she were caught in the crosshairs of a rifle. There was an angry-looking scratch that ran diagonally across Lisa’s face.

“Oh dear!” But the words came from Susan, not Rose. Rose felt only a surge of anger. She turned away.

Joe stepped closer and whispered to her and Susan almost conspiratorially. “The good news is that I made the cut for the Snow Show.”

“The ice skating show?” Rose asked.

“That’s great, Joe,” Susan said, but his face turned serious.

“But there’s bad news too . . .”

“What could be bad news?” Rose asked.

“Brianna did too.”