The next morning I got to Marbrook a full hour before the first bell.

The halls were quiet, smelling of industrial lemon cleaner and yesterday’s cafeteria.

I walked into my classroom and the silence rang.

And there it was, still on my desk — Birdie’s drawing from free-art the day before.

A single wooden chair, dead center on the page, and around it, pressed so hard the crayon had waxed the paper, jagged strokes of dark red, closing the chair in like bars.

She had drawn a thing that frightened her and set it in the middle of the page where I would find it.