It was clear that someone wanted to spook Alice. Or at the very least, rile her up. You think kids are bullies? Parents are even worse. A few years back, when Alice had gotten approval for her hive, everyone suddenly had an aggressive honeybee story. One guy, who, thankfully, has since moved away, left notes on her porch in black marker that he was going to sue her for bee stings. This had to be something similar—some neighbor being an asshole.

Not everyone in Ivy Woods fell under our spell.

Still. Someone had gone through the trouble of creating a dummy account. And the profile picture of the Browns’ house...the new principal’s house...

That house.

“Well, hello there.”

I looked up from my phone. Maggie Lewis was sashaying up the bleachers with Georgeann Wilkins in tow. Maggie Lewis, who thought she was a big shot because she reported on fire alarms and burglaries for Channel 7. She was wearing boot-cut jeans and a tan cardigan, the same exact one I’d bought last season from J. Crew, except hers was covered in cat hair. Georgeann was wearing her usual L.L.Bean boxy khaki pants and a long-sleeved polo shirt. While Maggie was at least stylish, Bettina and I had often joked that we wanted to throw Georgeann in one of our trunks and drive her to Neiman Marcus.

“Hi, ladies,” I said, humoring them.

“So your boy stole our record,” Maggie said, getting right to it. She plopped herself down on the bleachers below me.

Our record? Like she’d done anything. Her son was the one who worked his ass off to make the swim team. “Yeah, I guess he did.” I smiled sweetly. “Sorry about that.”

I, of course, wasn’t the least bit sorry. Maggie couldn’t stand that Cole was better than Bo. She couldn’t stand being second fiddle anything.

“No worries. He’ll get it back.” Maggie smirked. Then she changed subjects. “Bo turned in his scholarship application, by the way.”

“I’m assuming you’ll be at Full Moon, then?”

Everyone was always very interested in the merit scholarship, but less so in donating to it. Full Moon was our fundraiser, an annual event at the lake behind our houses right before Halloween. I liked to think of it as rehearsal for the block party.

“I’ll be covering it for the news. I’m doing a whole feature on Halloween, the party, all that stuff.” She crossed one leg over the other and leaned in. “It’ll be all the buzz of the town, I’m sure.”

Buzz.

I studied her face for any hidden expression, but she was about as clever as a pipe cleaner. Still, if some of the mothers in this town wanted to screw with us, Maggie Lewis would be the one leading the charge. And it would be her MO to go for the weakest of us, too.