Free Goodbye Stranger by Rebecca Stead

in. There are three emails waiting from your mom, all written in the subject lines.
    Where are you?
    Call me immediately—I’m worried.
    Honey, call my cell. On my way home.
    Your mom is great. She’s the best. But there’s no way you’re going to call her. She’ll want you to come home right now for a heart-to-heart. She’ll want to tell you that none of this is very important.
    You write back:
    Hi, Mom—I’m ok, just need ONE mental-health day, see you later and pls don’t worry at ALL.
    And then you hit send, log out, and quit the browser. Just to be thorough.
    You glance at the time in the upper right corner of the screen and calculate what you’d be doing at school. It’s almost homeroom. Homeroom is when they’ll hand out the flowers.
    You leave the copy store quickly, as if the police might have traced your email, as if they’re throwing themselves into their squad cars and converging on your location.
    “Happy Valentine’s Day,” the spiky-hair guy calls as you leave.
    “Yeah, you said that already,” you mumble.

    Outside, you walk a couple of quick blocks and then stop to look around: people with their coffee cups, people with their phones, people with their friends. It dawns on you again that you’re hungry. You feel for your purse, your wallet, your phone. And you remember. You don’t have your purse. You don’t have your wallet. You don’t have your phone. You can’t go home right now. And aside from that nickel, you have no money at all.
    “Mental-health day.” Those are Vinny’s words, stuck in your head along with so much else of her, and you wish you hadn’t used them.

THREES ARE HARD
    “ Halloween, remember?” Tab said, hands on her hips. “This is a Halloween- only meeting!” They were at the minimart after school, in the back.
    “Fine.” Em jammed her phone into her jeans pocket. She’d been showing them a picture of Patrick’s doorknob. The doorknob to his bedroom, he said.
    “Bridge! Pay attention!” Tab clapped twice, like a teacher.
    “I am paying attention,” Bridge said, scanning the cookie aisle.
    Tab said, “Halloween! Come on, guys. Ideas?”
    “Something that comes in threes,” Bridge said.
    “Like poison ivy?” Tab said. “Leaves of three?”
    “No, not like poison ivy,” Bridge said.
    “I am not being a leaf for Halloween!” Em said.
    “Shhh. Think. Things in threes.”
    “The three bears,” Tab said.
    “Three billy goats gruff,” Bridge said.
    “I’m not being a bear or a goat,” Em said. “Those sound ugly.”
    “Well, it’s not a sex parade,” Tab snapped.
    “Shut up, Tab! Who said anything about a sex parade?”

    “You know what I mean,” Tab said. “I’m not doing one of those stupid girl costumes that society is always trying to force on us, like a nurse in a miniskirt or a maid in fishnet stockings.”
    “The Berperson is brainwashing you. You realize that, right?” Em put her hands on her hips. “What does she think you should be for Halloween? A Teletubby?”
    “Oooh,” Tab said. “Look who’s coming.”
    It was Patrick, with a bunch of other eighth graders, including Julie Hopper, who patted Em on the head as she passed. They swarmed into the back of the minimart, opening and slamming fridge doors, grabbing Gatorades and bags of chips.
    “Hey, you,” Patrick said to Em. He stopped and held up one clenched hand for a fist bump, which Em executed flawlessly.
    Tab rolled her eyes.
    “Hey,” he said to Bridge, smiling.
    “Hey,” Bridge said. Patrick was only one grade above them, but something about him was older, as if he’d crossed a line Bridge couldn’t even see yet.
    “Hi, Patrick,” Tab said in a cartoon-girl voice, making every syllable twice as long as it should have been. “Nice doorknob.”
    He pretended not to hear. Julie Hopper yelled from the front of the store, “Patrick! Be my cash machine? I only have two bucks.”
    “Um, sure!” Patrick followed the rest of his crowd up to the