Free As Dead as It Gets by Katie Alender

black with a red head.
    “It was her favorite piece,” her mother said. “A gift from my mother for Lydia’s ninth birthday. It’s a woodpecker. It means you have a guardian.”
    Her favorite piece.
    Her power center. The key to getting rid of her once and for all.
    Mrs. Small’s fingers hovered in the air near mine, like she was eager to grab the necklace back.
    “You know…” I said, “I could take a photo of this and…put it in the yearbook.”
    I pictured myself taking it into the garage and smashing it to bits with a hammer.
    Her hand trembled.
    “It would be really nice, I think,” I said. “I think Lydia would have liked it.”
    Welcome aboard, Alexis. This train goes straight to hell.
    Mrs. Small’s mouth was open, and she looked at the bird one last time before reaching over and closing my fingers around it. “All right. Just…please…be careful with it. Promise me.”
    I felt the cool glass on my skin, and I thought of what Lydia had done to Kendra. And to me.
    “I promise,” I lied.
    I really did intend to take pictures of it before I destroyed it.
    But I didn’t get the chance.
    When I got home and retreated to my room, after sneaking the hammer from the toolbox in the garage and setting a protective layer of cardboard on my desk, I dug down into my bag for the charm. But it wasn’t there.
    Instead, there was a hole in the corner of the bag where a seam had come apart.
    I retraced my steps to my car, and then I drove all the way back to Lydia’s house and retraced my steps there. I looked at every square inch of space within ten feet of where I’d walked, not even caring if Mrs. Small looked outside and saw me.
    But the bird was gone.

S CHOOL STARTED UP AGAIN on a Wednesday. I took a deep breath as I got out of my car. New year, hopeful new outlook. (Or at least slightly less terrible outlook.)
    The 700 wing was the newest building in the school. It had wide, spacious hallways with skylights and classrooms with air-conditioning that actually functioned. The only reason to stray this far from the center of campus before school was to be part of an advanced science lab or some sort of extracurricular organization, so all the kids I passed moved with purpose, like they had somewhere to be.
    Halfway down the hall was a door marked PUBLICATIONS . A printed sign hung beneath that with the name of the yearbook: THE WINGSPAN .
    I pushed the door open and walked into a large room that was painted nonregulation dark blue, with a row of computers along the far wall and bookshelves along the near one. About a third of the floor space was taken up with matching file cabinets, and next to those were a conference table and a small, untidy cluster of desks. Five or six kids sat on the desks, staring up at a giant whiteboard on the side wall. The whiteboard was covered in printed pages that seemed to represent an early draft of a yearbook.
    A girl was talking. She had short curly hair, thin wire-frame glasses, and dark olive skin. Her baggy sweatshirt read harvard.
    “It doesn’t make sense to try to divide clubs up by grade level. There are only six that determine their membership that way.” She pointed to a sheet with a list of club names on it. “We’re going to list them either alphabetically or grouped according to the type of activity. Actually…both. Alphabetically by activity.”
    One of the boys opened his mouth to reply.
    “Forget it, Chad,” she said. “That’s my final answer.”
    They all scattered, with no one taking any particular notice of me. I hung back, not knowing whom to approach.
    Finally, the curly-haired girl glanced over at me. “You look lost.”
    “I’m looking for…” I consulted the note the office secretary had written for me. “Elliot Quilimaco? Is he here?”
    “Hmm…someone’s looking for Elliot.…Is he here?” She put her hands on her hips and looked around the room, speaking in a loud voice. “You know, the boy in charge of the yearbook, because of