“Any of you who might be afraid of coming forward to the police because you were violating a school policy at the time . . . you will not be punished. Come forward and tell the police everything you know. There will be no repercussions from the school if you aid the police. Everyone will stay on school grounds today. We will arrange for breakfast items to be brought to your houses, so there will be no breakfast in the refectory today, in order to limit the amount of traffic through the green this morning. Lunch will go on as normal. If you have something to tell the police, step forward. And remember, there is no reason for alarm.”

We were dismissed. We’d only been there for a few minutes, but everything had changed. Everyone was awake and unsure. There was a lot of low, confused mumbling. But unlike every other time the entire school was assembled, no one was snickering or talking too loudly. Several more police were already by the refectory door, eyeing us all as we passed out of the building.

I realized I was shaking when I stepped back inside Hawthorne. At first I thought I was cold, but it didn’t stop, even after I sat on the radiator for five minutes. Jazza was acting the same way, sitting on the heater on her side of the room. We sat there, in the half dark, perched awkwardly for several minutes.

“What about the guy?” I finally asked her.

Jazza looked at me, judging whether or not I was being serious.

“Jaz, he was right behind me. He said good night. You’re sure you didn’t see or hear him?”

“I didn’t,” she said. “I swear.”

I bit my lip and ran through the memory again. It still didn’t make any sense, Jazza not seeing or hearing the guy. I knew I hadn’t imagined it.

“I suppose I just wasn’t paying attention,” she said after a moment. “I was only looking at you. I was nervous. If you feel you have to . . .”

She trailed off as the implication of this hit her.

“If you feel you have to say something, you should,” she said, more firmly. “Even if it means . . .”

“They said we wouldn’t get in trouble.”

“Even if it did,” she said.

It took me about ten minutes to get up the courage to go downstairs. Before I could leave the building, I had to check in with Call Me Claudia. She was in her office on the phone, roaring away to some equally loud friend of hers about what had happened the night before.

“Yes, Aurora?”

“I . . . saw something.”

Claudia considered me for a moment.

“Last night?” she asked.

“Last night,” I repeated. I left the rest of the sentence alone while she considered this.

“Well, then,” Claudia said. “You’d better go over to the library.”