“Okay.” I press a hand to my stomach to still the churning and stop walking. “Then I should go back to the school and confess everything to Mr. Velshi.”

“I don’t think that’ll work,” Rose answers. “This isn’t just a school matter.”

This is why I need Rose. She can ruthlessly assess almost any situation.

“So I just keep quiet and hope for the best?” I ask, shifting my weight from foot to foot.

Rose unzips the front pocket of her bag and pulls out her phone. “I’m calling my father. You’ll tell him what you told me and he’ll clear this up.”

Before I can voice an objection, Rose hits her dad’s number on speed dial. Her father must answer on the first ring because she almost immediately starts talking while pacing up and down the sidewalk. Her voice is low so I can’t hear everything she tells him. When she pulls the phone away from her ear, she gives me a thumbs-up and says, “He’ll meet us at your house in fifteen minutes.”

It is almost fifteen minutes exactly when I watch a dark sedan pull up to the curb. Mr. Webster climbs out from the back seat, says something to whoever else is in the car, and then starts toward the house. He’s about the same height as his son, has the same rich skin as his daughter and the identical wide smile that can light up a room. But there’s no smile now. Mr. Webster has no interest in lighting up anything at present.

While his children are lean like their mom, Mr. Webster is built like a football player, with big, broad shoulders and a chest like a barrel. In his dark blue suit and crisp white shirt he looks stern and unapproachable. He gives his daughter a hug and asks how her finals went. Then he turns to me. I swallow hard as I lead him into the living room and take a seat on the couch.

Mr. Webster removes his glasses, deliberately folds them, and slides them into his front jacket breast pocket. Then he focuses his sharp brown eyes on me. “Rose said there was some trouble at the school today that you wanted to talk with me about. I made a few phone calls on my way here to learn more. Would you like to tell me your thoughts on what happened?”

If he called the school, he already knows about the computer search, the resulting error message, and the police. He probably knows more than I do about whatever they think I did wrong—and the punishment they want me to face for it.

My mouth goes dry. I slowly repeat what I already related to Rose—about finding the paper, and my curiosity about the unfamiliar letters on the page, and how I stopped on my way to the nurse to see if I could find out what it meant. His expression never changes as I tell my story. His eyes never stray from my face, which makes my stomach squirm. But I do my best to appear calm as I explain everything up to the point where I met Rose outside the school.