“Of course,” said Friday. “Help yourself.” She gestured toward the pencil box at the corner of her desk. Ian took a pen and went back to his work, studiously taking notes as the lesson progressed. After a while Friday found she could concentrate sufficiently to draw a diagram of the ecosystem of a rainforest. Everything was proceeding normally enough when suddenly her pencil box imploded.

  Now, I know explosions are much more common than implosions, so you may be struggling to imagine what this would look like. So here is precisely what happened: The pink plastic pencil box on the corner of Friday’s desk suddenly crumpled in on itself, like an aluminum can being crushed underfoot. The pencil box then proceeded to ooze a liquid, which puddled underneath, then started to eat through the desk while bubbling, hissing, and billowing blue smoke.

  “That’s an interesting pencil box,” said Melanie. “Where did you get it?”

  “I didn’t do it!” exclaimed Friday, which we know is what all perpetrators of crimes say.

  “Stop it, stop this at once!” demanded the openly hostile Mr. Maclean, as if Friday had the power to control the now-quite-advanced chemical reaction. The whole class gathered around Friday’s desk, watching the puddle of molten plastic and floating pencils sizzle and pop until the acid ate right through Friday’s desk and everything dropped onto the carpet.

  All the girls, and several of the less image-conscious boys, screamed. And Mr. Maclean, finally in an act of good sense, ordered everyone out into the corridor, which was a good thing because as the acid started to eat the carpet, the synthetic fibers were giving off a toxic gas. If there had been a canary in the room, it would have perished instantly.

  Out in the corridor, Friday felt ill—and not from the effect of inhaling poisonous gas.

  “You look pale and clammy,” Melanie observed.

  “I think I’m in shock,” said Friday, taking her pulse to gain further data. “Changing schools is bad enough, but getting hit by a car yesterday and now this? I’m not used to things happening to me. I’m used to watching things happen to other people.”

  “I think you’re about to have something else happen to you,” said Melanie, nodding toward the classroom door, where Mr. Maclean was emerging, the last to leave. He closed the door firmly behind him. He had soot on his suit jacket and he was clearly very angry about it. Mr. Maclean looked about and spotted Friday. He strode over.

  “You, go and see the Headmaster at once,” ordered Mr. Maclean.

  “But I didn’t do anything,” declared Friday.

  Mr. Maclean ignored her. He had taken a booklet of detention slips out of his pocket and was angrily writing on one.

  “I’d hardly turn my own pencil box into a bomb,” argued Friday.

  “I have taught at this school for seventeen years,” said Mr. Maclean, not looking up as he continued to write. His angry message to the Headmaster about Friday was clearly a long one. “It never ceases to amaze me what overprivileged children will do to draw attention to themselves.”

  “She isn’t overprivileged,” said Mirabella. “She’s the scholarship girl.”

  This made Mr. Maclean look up from his note. He looked Friday up and down. “Yes, that would explain a great deal as well.”

  “But-but-but,” spluttered Friday, completely belying the fact that she had won the Agatha Higgenbottom Award for Spontaneous Public Speaking just the previous year. But that is what happens when you go into shock.

  “Go!” ordered Mr. Maclean, thrusting the small yellow note at Friday.

  Friday took the note and looked at it. Her teacher’s handwriting really was dreadful, but she correctly judged that now was not the time to point that out. Friday sighed, suppressing the welling urge to burst into tears, which was no doubt symptomatic of shock as well. It was ridiculous to cry over such a patently false accusation. But it did hurt. The accusation made her sick to her stomach. And having read several dozen books on psychology, she knew that even if she were able to confront Mr. Maclean with conclusive forensic proof that the culprit was not her, Mr. Maclean would still never again see her in the same light.

  Friday blinked once, then realized the whole class was watching to see what she would do, so she held her head high and turned to leave. The tight knot of students parted for her as she started down the long empty corridor, until one voice called her back.

  “Friday?”

  Friday turned. It was Ian, the beautifully beautiful boy. He smiled at her. Then held something out. It was her pen. “Would you like your pen back?” She looked at the pen, then at Ian’s face. His smile was not beautiful anymore. It was evil and knowing. Instantly, she knew Ian had done it. He had imploded her pencil box.

  “Friday Barnes!” yelled Mr. Maclean. “Do I have to give you another detention slip?”

  “No,” said Friday, her eyes still locked with Ian’s. She reached out and took the pen. After all, it was the only one she had now, and it would be silly to let him keep it. She needed something to write with.

  If she had been a great wit, Friday would have thought of some pithy remark to put this boy in his place or to warn him that he had met his match. But Friday had always found that threats were useless. If you are going to hit someone, it’s much better not to tell them about it first. And she could not think of any words adequate to convey how she felt about this bafflingly random attack on her stationery collection. She knew private schools were competitive, but to destroy her pencil case just because she scored higher than him in an IQ test seemed astonishingly extreme.

  Friday turned and headed to the Headmaster’s office. It was a slow walk of shame, every footstep echoing on the cold linoleum floor.

  Chapter

  13

  The Swamp

  The rest of the day passed smoothly enough. Friday didn’t have any more classes with Ian Wainscott. And despite Mirabella’s best efforts, having her pencil box implode seemed to give Friday a greater sense of credibility among her fellow students.

  In the corridors, people whispered about her as she walked past. A few pointed and sniggered. But they didn’t snigger too loudly. It would be foolish to snigger at someone with knowledge of destructive chemicals.

  And so her first week at Highcrest Academy went by. Friday had not achieved her aim of going unnoticed and ignored by everyone. But she found this was something she could cope with. After the last class of the week, Friday was tired and emotionally exhausted as she returned to her dorm room with Melanie.

  When she opened the door she met an unexpected sight. All the drawers and doors of her wardrobe were open, and there was nothing inside.

  “Oh dear,” said Melanie. “It looks like they got you.”

  Friday surprised herself with her own emotional reaction. Her eyes started to prickle and her stomach felt like it had been squeezed. She was not normally an emotional girl, so for her it was upsetting to be upset.

  “Don’t take it personally,” said Melanie, noticing Friday’s face crumple. “They do it to all people who are different.”

  Friday sniffed.

  “It’ll be all right,” said Melanie. “I’ll come with you down to the swamp and help you find which bush they threw your clothes in. You never have to look too far. The kids here are pretty lazy. They always just throw them in one of the first bushes they see.”

  “It’s not that,” said Friday, although it was a little bit that. “It’s just that I feel violated to know that someone has been through my things. My private things.”

  “You mean your brown cardigan collection?” asked Melanie. “Maybe it’s for the best. You probably shouldn’t be so emotionally attached to knitwear.”

  “I like my brown cardigans,” said Friday, a tear actually escaping and running down her cheek. She had never had a teddy bear, a security blanket, or emotionally supportive parents. Her cardigans had, for many years, been the most comforting thing in her life.

  “Okay,” said Melanie. “We’ll find them, I promise.”

  She really was a very good friend.

  * * *

  If you didn’t mind the smell or having muddy shoes, the swamp wasn’t really too dreadful a place. In fact, if you had called it a natural waterbird habitat, you could have charged birdwatchers admission and turned it into a tourist destination. But school students are not so philosophical about their environment. To them, a swamp is a swamp and a stink is a stink, no matter how pretty the birds are or how interesting the root system of the water lily is.

  Friday’s clothes were not immediately evident on the outskirts of the swamp, where Melanie had thought they would be.

  “This is the problem with having camouflaged clothes,” said Friday. “They are difficult to find when you lose them.”

  “Only in a swamp,” said Melanie. “They’d be easy to see somewhere bright like the surface of the sun.”

  “They’d burn on the surface of the sun,” observed Friday.

  “Yes,” agreed Melanie. “Which would probably be a good thing.”

  There was a complicated maze of paths that led through the swamp down to the estuary that marked the edge of the school’s land. But since Melanie and Friday didn’t know where they were going they just wandered aimlessly.

  “This is hopeless,” said Friday. “They could be anywhere. The swamp must cover fifty acres. We’ll never be able to search all that.”

  “You should trust in fate to lead you to your clothes,” said Melanie. “If you are meant to have them back, then you will find them.”

  “You think an existential force will lead me to my clothes?” asked Friday.

  “Not really,” admitted Melanie. “I doubt an existential force likes looking at your brown cardigans either.”

  Suddenly a figure burst out of the bushes and slammed straight into the girls, knocking them to the ground, which was especially unpleasant because the ground was muddy.

  “I’m terribly sorry!”

  The girls looked up to see Miss Harrow standing over them, carrying a brown leather suitcase.

  “I didn’t see you there,” continued Miss Harrow.

  “There are a lot of blind turns in this swamp,” agreed Melanie. “We didn’t see you either.”

  “I was just collecting samples of phytoplankton for next week’s lesson on single-cell organisms,” said Miss Harrow.

  “Really?” said Friday. She liked single-cell organisms. “Will we be studying zooplankton as well?”

  “I thought we could work up to zooplankton for next term,” said Miss Harrow.

  “I shall look forward to that,” said Friday. “My parents wouldn’t let me keep zooplankton in our house, ever since my father drank my specimen, thinking it was a glass of water, and ended up in the hospital with raging gastroenteritis.”

  “I’d better be getting along,” said Miss Harrow. “Don’t stay out too long, girls. It’ll be dark soon. You don’t want to get lost in the swamp at night. It’s fascinating by day, but quite unpleasant in the dark.”

  Miss Harrow left and the girls kept walking.

  “I wonder why Miss Harrow was lying,” pondered Melanie.

  “What?” asked Friday.

  “I’m pretty good at telling when people are lying,” explained Melanie. “I think it’s because I don’t listen to anything they say.”

  “But why would she lie about us studying plankton?” asked Friday.

  All of a sudden Friday and Melanie were knocked over again.

  “¡Lo siento, lo siento!” said Diego, apologizing profusely as he helped the girls up.

  “It’s all right,” said Friday. “No harm done.”

  “Discúlpeme,” said Diego, barely paying attention as he hurried off in the direction Miss Harrow had taken.

  “How peculiar,” said Friday as she watched him go.

  “Love does that to a man,” said Melanie. “He’s always lurking in bushes as he follows Miss Harrow around. They say that Latin Americans are a very passionate people.”

  “Who says?” asked Friday.

  “All the romance novels I’ve ever read,” said Melanie. “Oh look! Your clothes.”

  Friday looked in the direction Melanie was pointing. She could see her clothes, which were neatly folded on top of a channel marker, fifty yards out into the estuary.

  “How good are you at swimming?” asked Melanie.

  “I’m okay at breaststroke and backstroke,” said Friday, “because they’re the ones where you don’t have to put your face in the water.”

  “I would offer to swim out and fetch them for you,” said Melanie, “but I don’t want to.”

  “I understand,” said Friday. “And even if I swam out there, I’d have to climb the channel marker. The clothes must be five yards above the waterline.”

  “What is that written on the channel marker?” asked Melanie.

  Friday peered across the water. Her eyesight was not good; too many books read by flashlight under the covers for that. But now that Melanie had pointed it out she could make out some letters on the thick vertical pole.

  2

  FB

  FRM

  IFW

  “What does that mean?” asked Melanie.

  “To Friday Barnes from Ian Wainscott,” said Friday. “He has inexplicably attacked my possessions again.”

  “Of course,” said Melanie. “I knew he was in love with you.”

  “Humph,” scoffed Friday. There was not a real word that could adequately convey her feelings.

  “I suppose we could ask Diego to take out a dinghy and a long rake and get them down for you,” said Melanie.

  Friday looked at her clothes as if seeing them for the first time. “No, let’s not bother,” she said. “They are pretty dreadful, aren’t they?”

  “I didn’t like to say so, but yes,” agreed Melanie.

  “Delia Michaels gave me five hundred dollars for helping her to not be expelled,” said Friday. “I’ll use that to buy some new clothes.”

  “How?” asked Melanie. “We aren’t allowed into town, and besides it’s twenty-five miles away. We aren’t allowed Internet access either, so we can’t shop online.”

  “I’ve got a ham radio,” said Friday. “I’ll call my uncle Bernie and get him to drop off a delivery.”

  “Does your Uncle Bernie have good taste in clothes?” asked Melanie.

  “No, but he probably has better taste than me,” admitted Friday.

  Chapter

  14

  Fisticuffs

  Friday and Melanie made their way out of the swamp and were walking across the hockey field. They were not walking quickly because they were returning to their room to do homework. And the feet always move slower when the brain does not really want to get to its destination.

  “Mel!” came a voice from up ahead.

  The girls looked up to see a large athletic boy thundering down the side of the field toward them.

  “Oh, Mel, I’m so glad to see you,” puffed the large boy. He bent over, his hands on his knees, as he tried to catch his breath.

  “This is my brother Binky. He’s a sophomore,” explained Melanie.

  “Hello,” said Binky. He was clearly as amiable as his sister, although enormous and muscly like someone who plays a great deal of football, which he did.

  “Are you quite all right?” asked Friday.

  “Oh yes. I mean, no,” said Binky. “I’m in kind of a mess, in fact. That’s why I came running to find Mel. She’s the brains in the family. Thought she might know what to do.”

  “You’re the brains in the family?” asked Friday.

  “Yes,” said Melanie. “You should meet my other brothers.”

  “Dim bulbs,” explained Binky.

  Melanie nodded as though this was an indisputable truth.

  “So what sort of trouble are you in?” asked Friday.

  “Oh yes,” said Binky, who’d clearly forgotten what he was talking about. “I’m in a fight.”

  “But you’re here,” said Melanie.

  “No, I mean I’m scheduled to be in a fight,” said Binky. “I’ve got to go and fight with Simmons the senior at four o’clock behind the boys’ locker rooms.”

  “Why?” asked Friday.

  “I had an assignment to hand in to Mr. Maclean,” explained Binky. “Simmons asked me to hand in his as well. But he says I forgot.”

  “Did you forget?” asked Friday.

  “No, at least I don’t think I did,” said Binky. “No, I definitely didn’t. Because I handed mine in at the same time. And Mr. Maclean got that all right. But he docked Simmons’s grade, saying his assignment was two days late.”

  “How curious,” said Friday.

  “Anyway,” continued Binky, “he told me he was going to give me a darn good thrashing and I was to meet him at four o’clock to get it.”

  “So how do you want Melanie to help you?” asked Friday.

  “I hadn’t thought that far,” admitted Binky. “I knew I should ask her for advice. But if I knew what the advice was, I wouldn’t have had to run here, would I?”

  “So,” said Friday, turning to Melanie.

  “So what?” asked Melanie.

  “Do you have any advice?” asked Friday.

  “No,” said Melanie.

  “Oh dear,” said Binky.

  “Except,” said Melanie.

  “Yes?” said Binky hopefully.

  “You could ask Friday to help,” said Melanie.

  Melanie and Binky turned to look at Friday.

  “Why are you looking at me?” asked Friday. “I know absolutely nothing about physical violence.”

  “But you’re very good at solving mysteries and problems,” said Melanie.

  “But this isn’t a mystery or a problem,” said Friday. “It is simply a fact. Your brother is going to get beaten up.”

  “Sounds like a problem to me,” said Binky.

  “But what do you expect me to do about it?” asked Friday. “I’m only five feet tall. And I’m in an emotionally fragile state because my entire collection of brown cardigans has just been lost at sea.”

  “I’m sure you’ll think of something,” said Melanie. “You’re tremendously clever. Even though you’re not the scholarship girl.”