Free The Time Fetch by Amy Herrick

that Brigit had been watching them. She was seated across the long table a little ways down.
    “Don’t stare at her like that,” Danton ordered. “It makes it worse.”
    “It makes what worse?”
    “That thing where she blushes. When you look right at her like that, it sets her off.”
    “But why is she looking at us like that?”
    Danton shrugged and smiled his big smile. “ ’Cause we’re so pretty?” He leaned over and grabbed a bruised apple that someone had left behind. “No point in wasting good food,” he said, and then took a bite.
    Since Brigit had stopped speaking, her ears had grown much sharper. It wasn’t just that she heard the mice in the cabinets or her mother’s muffled crying or the sadness of her father’s footsteps when he returned late at night. Lately, she’d been hearing different sorts of things, strange things.
    First, there had been that singing. It was high and silvery and vibrating, and Brigit hadn’t been able to figure out where it was coming from. She had first heard it when she was walking home from school along Ninth Street. It was so strange and lovely she decided to try to follow the sound, but the wind caught the notes and carried them away. Late that night she heard it again. The singing woke her and she lay there listening to it until she fell back asleep. Then she heard it again, in the morning, when she’d been sitting in science class. It went on for several days, just little scraps of melody floating by, the words sung in some language she didn’t recognize, and then it had stopped. No one else seemed to have noticed it at all.
    Now today, there was something different. Not a song, just a girl’s voice. It was driving her crazy. She was sure she knew the person it belonged to, but she couldn’t think who it was. She’d been hearing it on and off all morning, but she could only catch a word or two, not enough to make any sense of. Whenever Brigit turned around to see who it could be, no one was there. Sometimes the girl sounded angry, but more often, she sounded afraid. Brigit found that every time silence fell, she was holding her breath, waiting to hear the voice again.
    But when she waited, there was nothing.
    At lunchtime—she wasn’t sure why—she took a seat close to where Edward and Danton were. What a strange morning. She wondered what they were doing sitting next to each other. They were about the last two people you’d expect to find hanging out together.
    Danton was one of those guys who had shot up overnight. His voice had grown deep already, too. He was impossible to miss. When he came into a room, he lit up every corner of it. She was pretty sure he knew who she was. He knew who everybody was and everybody knew him. He just nodded at her when he went by, but she had the feeling that he got it. He knew how hard it was for her when people tried to get her to speak and he wasn’t interested in trying to get her to turn red. He probably wasn’t interested in her, period. But at least he didn’t torment her.
    Edward never bothered her either, but that was because most of the time he seemed to be half asleep, like a bear trying to settle down into hibernation. He moved clumsily and he avoided talking, too. Maybe because his voice was still cracking all the time. In any case, today something was different about him. He appeared almost awake. He was sitting more or less upright and, every once in a while, he frowned and gazed around the room as if he, too, were looking for something.
    She buried her nose in her book and when she looked up again, she saw Danton throwing grapes into the air and catching them in his mouth. Between swallows he talked to Edward, who looked like he was only half listening, though now and then he’d turn and stare at Danton. Then he’d start looking around the room again.
    Brigit kept her eyes on the page, but she couldn’t concentrate. Suddenly, she could have sworn she heard it. The girl’s voice. She sat up with a