Page 54 of Her Dying Secret

“No one on the staff saw it. That was the thing.”

“Which kids?” Josie said.

“I don’t know. I don’t remember. I just know she did it. No one would tell on her.”

“Was it multiple children?” Josie pressed. “Or only one?”

Teryn gave her a strange look. “I told you. I don’t know. I just know it happened. I mean, I guess it could have just been one kid. I heard about it from a bunch of people. Some of them said ‘kid’ and some of them said ‘kids.’”

“Your mother was the principal,” Gretchen pointed out. “You didn’t tell her?”

Teryn rolled her eyes. “I was like twelve years old.”

“Seventh grade?” Josie asked. “I thought the seventh graders were in a different school.”

“Sixth grade,” Teryn said. “I didn’t fail or anything. I’m a year older than most of the kids in my grade because my birthday came after the cutoff for my mom to enroll me in kindergarten. You had to be six by, like, September first or whatever to start school and I didn’t turn six till September sixth, so I had to wait a whole year. Anyway, why do you care so much about my age?”

“We care about your memories of the time that Miss Summers worked here,” Josie said, “and how accurate they are.”

Teryn rolled the soccer ball under her foot again. “They’re accurate, okay? And no, I didn’t tell my mom because it was weird. I didn’t know what to do. Besides, April caught Miss Summers doing it.”

“You mean Miss Carlson?” said Josie.

Teryn glared, her tone becoming defensive. “She was April to me and to my whole family.”

“Fair enough,” said Josie.

“We heard that April was the one who got Miss Summers the job in the cafeteria,” said Gretchen.

“I don’t know about that. I just know that April saw her taking food away from a little girl one day and it did not go over well.”

“What happened?” asked Josie.

“Nothing at first. I didn’t even realize that April had seen it until I went to her classroom after school to work on an art project. She always let me come to her room after school while I was waiting for my mom. We used to have desk picnics. She would bring snacks and juice and a funny plastic tablecloth and put it over her desk, and we’d pretend to have a picnic while I did whatever work I needed to do. Although most of the time she just let me talk to her about stuff.” Tears shone in Teryn’s eyes. She reached down and picked up the soccer ball, tucking it under her arm. “I was there doing my project when Miss Summers knocked. It was weird. I didn’t even know they were friends, but she was all ‘Hi, are you coming out tonight?’ And April got all quiet and angry and said something like, ‘We need to talk.’ Then they went into the supply closet in April’s room.”

“Did you hear anything they said?” Josie asked.

“Not much. Only parts of it. I was kind of far away from the closet and the door was closed. They were like, whisper-shouting at each other at first. I did hear the word ‘food’ a few times and something like, ‘she’s just a little girl,’ and that’s when I realized that April must have seen what Miss Summers was doing.”

“What else?” Gretchen said. “Keep in mind, we’re not going to be upset if we find out you eavesdropped.”

Teryn exhaled loudly. “I’m not proud of it, okay? I was a kid. I was curious.”

“What did you hear?” Josie pressed.

“I got closer to the door. I still couldn’t really hear everything. I don’t even remember all of it now, but April was like, ‘you can’t do that’ and ‘I got you this job because I thought you needed it.’ She said something after that I didn’t hear. Something about her career—April’s career. Then she kept saying the word ‘mandatory’ over and over again.”

“In what context?” asked Gretchen.

“I don’t know. Maybe that lunch was mandatory? Because it is! Then Miss Summers started crying. Like ugly crying. It was so loud. I couldn’t even make out what April was saying after that but Miss Summers kept saying, ‘please don’t’ and ‘I’m begging you’ and then ‘you have no idea what will happen,’ or something like that. She said a bunch of other stuff, too, but I don’t really remember it now.”

“But you remember that exchange,” Gretchen said. “From almost four years ago between April and a woman who worked in the cafeteria for a few months.”

Teryn’s head reared back. “Damn. Fine. Don’t believe me. I don’t have to talk to you.”

She turned away from them and threw the ball back onto the ground.

“Wait,” Josie said. Pain seared her throat. She lowered her voice before going on. “We’re not saying we don’t believe you. We’re just trying to get a clear picture of what happened. My nephew is seven and he doesn’t even remember all the names of all the kids on his Little League team.”

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