Instead, I say that I found the folded, rain-soaked paper after my father dropped me off in front of the school. But once I get through that, I am honest about every detail of what happened from when I sat in front of the computer until now.

“I can’t imagine why anyone would call the police just because you did a computer search,” Rose says. “It has to be a coincidence, but . . .”

“But what?”

“But you’re right about it all being really strange. Do you still have the paper?”

“No.” I pull my backpack close to my side and turn down my street. “I tore it into a bunch of pieces and threw it in the trash on my way to the nurse’s office. It was falling apart after being in the rain and with the alarm going off—I don’t know. It just seemed like a good idea to get rid of it.”

Rose stops walking. “Are you crazy? First of all, you know we have a duty to recycle. Second, the word on that paper may have alerted the police. How could you just throw something like that away? It could be important!”

I look down at the line in the sidewalk as guilt burrows deep in my chest.

“Sorry,” Rose says before I can come up with some kind of explanation. “I get it. I do. You’re freaked out. I would’ve done the same thing. Still, I wish you had hung on to the paper long enough to take it to a recycling center. Then I could have read the writing for myself.” She starts walking again and I fall in step beside her. After a few seconds, she asks, “What did you say the letters were again? The version that set off the error message?”

“V-E-R-I-F-Y.”

Rose scrunches up her nose. “Ver-i-fee? I don’t think I’ve ever heard of it before. What do you think it is?”

“If I knew that I wouldn’t have done the computer search.”

We walk in silence for the next few minutes. The glow of the sun against the red and orange flowers makes them appear as if they are on fire. There are almost no clouds in the sky. It’s a sea of perfect blue that would be hard to replicate on my screen. It’s bright, but it has depth.

My mother could have captured it. I wish she were still here to tell me what to do next. Because even though I don’t know why I’m in trouble, I know that I am.

They will check the list of students who weren’t in class.

They’re going to figure out I was the one who did the search and set off the alarm.

“What should I do?” I ask the question of Rose instead.

“Okay.” She purses her lips. “Well, you shouldn’t have taken a detour to the Technology Center, but other than that, you didn’t really do anything wrong. The best policy is to tell someone what you did so they don’t think you are trying to hide anything.”