“She was his teacher,” she said. “He pulled every string he could and twisted the other Heartbroken’s arm to keep it a secret from me. Everyone in his class wrote in a big letter to her. We’re going to miss you, you’re my favorite teacher, yadda yadda. And he wrote a poem. You can use it if they start in again on our junior team and you absolutely need to. No, it wasn’t an indecent poem, it was heartfelt. He’s still embarrassed by it.”

“What the fuck?” Sveta asked, from her seat behind Tattletale.

Tattletale waved her off.

“The other nuclear option is she cried when she read it. You can use that detail if he gets too upset after you bring it up.”

A response from Imp. A question.

“If I have to, and they have a way of making you have to.”

More from Imp.

“Fine,” Tattletale said, still talking into her phone. “But—let me talk. Let me—fine, I’m a cunt, just—”

I nodded at that last bit, dramatically and closed-mouthed, Sveta joining in, until Tattletale glanced in the rear-view mirror, saw us nodding in unison, and flipped us the bird.

“If you want to have any authority, then it comes down to fear and love, and I think you know this, Imp, but most of them are either fearless or react to fear in screwed up ways, and they all have some fucked up background when it comes to love. So maybe, you know, you’re not going to have any pretty options. You were the one telling me that some of them are getting to be adults and some of them are barely any younger than you. If you want to convince them that you’re the one in charge, then you need to bring your A-game.”

There was a pause as Imp talked. I could hear only notes of her voice through the phone, pieces of words, but not words themselves.

All against the backdrop of the barely audible car engine, the hum of tires against road—Tattletale liked nice cars, and the interior of this one was quiet—I could hear the Old Man’s breathing punctuated by small, unconscious noises of pain.

Tattletale answered, sounding exasperated, “If that’s the angle you want, then that’s fine, except being their ally means paying attention. ‘Aunt Rachel’ has been giving you an easy time of it by keeping two or three with her at Casa de Bitch, and you’ve gotten lazy. But—Imp, you wanted this. If you want to be their peer then sometimes that means manipulating them for their own benefits. Imp—Imp.”

Her position was one where I couldn’t see her eyes through the mirror, but her head moved in a way that made me think she was eye-rolling so hard that her eyes were dragging her head with them.