Venie Vonshweets's Arc

Chapter 2 of 5

Venie walked to school Monday morning with the orange radio still under her hoodie and a problem she hadn't solved. Four musicians. Three days until Thursday. And nowhere at school she could speak without being heard. She watched the corner of the building as she crossed the yard. An officer stood there in a pressed blue uniform, hands behind his back, eyes moving across the students like a slow fan. He had not been there last week. Now he was there every morning. By lunch she counted three more like him. One by the front steps of the schoolhouse. One near the bell tower door. One at the back fence. Whenever she passed a friend, she heard her own voice get quiet and stupid. She could not say anything close to true. She tapped her fingers against her thigh and stopped herself. The officer near the steps had already looked at her hands twice. She found Julian after last bell behind the old stage. He sat on the steps with his guitar across his knees, not playing. She told him about the officers. She told him she could not get four people alone, not by Thursday, not without one of them flinching at the wrong moment. He listened without moving. Then he said, "Don't talk to them. Leave something." They worked it out on the soft boards of the stage. Venie would write the time and place on a strip of paper, fold it small, and slide it inside a wrapped candy. She had a bag of them in her locker. Nothing looked more normal than a girl with a candy bow handing out sweets. She would pass one to each musician in the hall, hand to hand, no words. For the answer, they needed a drop. Julian remembered a thin metal post outside the schoolhouse fence, the kind nobody looked at twice, with a small music note cut into its top. There was a gap at the base wide enough for a folded paper. Anyone who got a candy would leave a yes or no there by Wednesday morning. Tuesday she wrote four notes in her grandmother's kitchen with the door shut. She wrapped each one in a candy and walked into school past the officer on the steps. She passed the first candy to a girl who tapped pencils on every desk. The second to a boy who mouthed words at the window. The third and fourth between classes, palm to palm, eyes down. Each one took the candy and kept walking. The officer near the bell tower watched the hallway, not her hands. Wednesday before homeroom she crouched to tie her shoe by the metal post. Four folded papers sat inside the base. She slid them into her sock and stood up. In the bathroom stall she opened them one by one. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. She pressed her hand flat against the door and breathed. Thursday had six people now.