Trace seems to notice me for the first time, a smile beginning. “Oh, yeah. The girl who isn’t scared of the Mumbler.” Did I say that last night? “You better be careful, talking like that.” Hushed tone: “Has he come into your room yet?”

I whisper, “Who?”

“The man with the hands. The master of ceremonies. The candy man, dude, the Mumbler!” He laughs. “He listens, you know.” Taps the tunnel in his lobe. “Always has an ear to the ground.” Voice goes up, pastor-mode: “He shall bring every deed into judgment, every secret thing, whether it be good or bad.” People glance over, then turn back to their lunches, obviously used to him. “Today’s the fifteenth. Only sixteen more shopping days until he devours your soul. Will you be ready?”

“I’ll get my affairs in order.”

Trace flicks a look at the girls. “Still doesn’t believe.”

Not easy, walking the line between being a good sport and nobody’s fool. “Guess I need more proof. Where’s your Mumbler expert today?” I suck at sounding casual. Bree gives me a sharp look.

“Skipping, probably. Kincaid doesn’t really do school anymore.” Trace smacks the table with his palm, making me and my lunch bag jump. “Got it. Landon/Ivy.” You can hear the slash between their names. “They have proof. They knew Dabney Kirk.”

“No. No-no-no.” Sage sits back. “Not that story. I’m eating here.”

“Sorry. We’ve got to strike the fear of the Mumbler into Clarabelle. Otherwise . . . shit, she might not live to see November.” He stands. “Let’s move out. Cool table.”

Bree almost manages to hide a smile behind her sandwich. “We do not sit at the cool table.”

“Pffft, yeah, you do. If I’m there. Senior. King of the school!” Both fists in the air.

Someone materializes on the extreme edge of my vision, a wavering line, so tall and thin he looks like a mirage. Brown tweedy suit, mustard tie, his face a mournful death’s-head. The teacher—make that Principal Crackenback, I see by his name tag—stops a few feet back from our table, hands clasped behind him. A yellow carnation protrudes from his buttonhole, incongruously fresh, like it’s worked its roots into his circulatory system and is slowly sucking him dry. “Mr. Savage.”

“Yeah?”

“If we could keep it to a dull roar, please.”

“Yeah.” Crackenback recedes to wherever he appeared from—I picture a tweed-lined spring-action casket—and Trace dissolves into laughter, leading us across the lunchroom.

Sage checks back over her shoulder. “Crack’s going to come down on you one of these days.”

“Never happen. He and I have an understanding. I don’t blow his cover, he doesn’t suspend me.” At our looks, Trace lowers his voice. “He’s El Chupacabra. Goat sucker?”

Bree brushes Sage’s shoulder with her own, nodding at Trace. “And you’re seen with him. I ask you.”