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lot like their moms when they were trying to sound concerned. I mean, I knew everyone was concerned. But none of it sounded real. At all. And I didn’t want to talk like this. I wanted to tell Priyanka that cutting bangs into her hair was a mistake. Or ask Kate Herndon if I could copy her Precalc notes. Those weren’t the kind of conversations we were having now, though. It was going to be a long time before we could talk like that.
    But I wasn’t ready to talk about the Caffreys. Or think about them, really. Elena at least had some useful information. “They’re not letting us out for lunch because of all the reporters outside,” she said.
    “Really? There’s reporters?” I said it before I could practice it in my head, and then hoped I didn’t sound too excited.
    But Elena was right there with me. “News trucks. All the big networks, too.”
    “Guys—” Priyanka sounded scandalized, but started fussing with her bangs immediately.
    “What? It’s important. And maybe it’ll help Chloe.”
    “We’re not supposed to talk to them.” I said itautomatically. I was so tired. I couldn’t remember if Chloe and I made that rule or if it was someone else.
    It didn’t matter. By the time the dismissal bell rang, there were cops stationed all over the school.
    They hadn’t come there to arrest me. I knew it because they weren’t facing the doors of the school. It took a while to convince myself of that, to talk my heart back into the right part of my chest. They were there in simple protect-and-serve capacity. Squad cars blocked off both sides of the driveway that circled school, and cops stood along the sidewalks. The only vans there were the usual minivans. Whatever media had descended lurked somewhere else.
    It felt as good to step into the open air as I thought it would. For one thing, I never left school that early. Usually we’d have yearbook or sax ensemble or community service board. Sometimes when Chloe had school council, I would sit in as an honorary rep or wait around in the library until she got done. It felt luxurious to walk out of the building when the bell rang at three. I just let the stream of kids around me carry me up the sidewalk. We were all going home. Most meetings had been canceled by school officials. Sports teams had practice but that was about it.
    It felt weird to spend so much time by myself. It wasn’t just Chloe I couldn’t talk to. There were clustersof kids around me, kids we’d grown up with. And I had nothing to say to them.
    Losing Chloe had united us. Or them at least. All over the quad, people were clutching at each other, hugging like they might never see each other again. Sometime over the weekend, the Parents’ Association had posted signs all over school instructing us to use the buddy system. No one should walk home alone; we should get home before dark. It felt like the freshman camping trip when Craig Nordgren spotted a bear in the woods.
    Chloe was going to get a kick out of it. All the planning she’d done last year, putting together school pride week—or freshman year when school council assigned her to organize the buses to Basking Ridge when our swim team made the state finals. Chloe preached school spirit like it was religion, and then all it took to unite the many factions of Colt River High was her disappearance. I wanted to get out my phone and take pictures for her.
    I knew I was supposed to stand around for a while, talking about how we couldn’t believe we hadn’t heard anything about Chloe yet. But the iPod in my backpack won out. I walked down the sidewalk with my head down, until it felt safe enough to smile up at the trees.
    I walked home thinking about the Caffreys, and the world I walked into the night before fourth grade started,carrying my mom’s peach pie over to the trailer where they were temporarily settled. I heard Cam first—you always heard Cam first when you got close to the Caffreys’. I guess they knew he was autistic even way