Free Ink and Ashes by Valynne E. Maetani

typed a few more things on her keyboard before meeting me at the counter.
    “Someone broke into my locker and stole all my pictures,” I said.
    Mrs. Davis tsked, then pulled out a piece of paper. “I’m so sorry, honey. Pictures are irreplaceable.” She filled out the incident report form, getting details from me as to what was taken and when. “Who would do such a thing?”
    “I don’t know,” I said. “I can print new pictures, but I don’t know why they’d do it.”
    “You kids and your fancy machines,” she said. “What’s your locker number?”
    “Six eighteen,” I said. “Did Chase Phillips stop by here earlier for any reason?”
    She put the pen to her thin wrinkled lips. “Only when his mom checked him out after first period. He looked mighty sick.”
    “Are you sure?”
    She bent her head closer. “Are you sweet on him?”
    I thought I might throw up. “No. No, I am not ‘sweet on him.’ He wasn’t in class just now and . . . and we are supposed to work on a project together.”
    “I’m sorry, dear. Didn’t mean to make you blush.” She opened the attendance book on the counter and lifted her bifocals higher so she could read the notes under the date. “He’s not here today.”
    She glanced at her watch. “There’s only five minutes left before school gets out,” she said. “Why don’t you go home a little bit early, and I’ll give you an excused absence in the system for this period.”
    I checked the time on my phone. There was actually forty minutes of class left. I glanced up. She winked.
    “Thank you,” I said and left.
    I walked down the hall and tried to think of who could have stolen my pictures. If Chase had left after first period, it couldn’t have been him. Once I got to my locker, I opened it and gathered everything I would need for homework and soccer practice. Why couldn’t they have taken my textbooks instead?
    Forty minutes was a long time, and I had nowhere better to be. Fed was probably already wondering where I was since I was supposed to be in study hall with him, so I headed to the library.

    The bell rang, and Fed and I parted ways to get to our lockers. He’d tried to help brainstorm possible culprits, but like me, all he could come up with was Chase. Students poured from the classrooms. Someone tapped my shoulder from behind.
    I spun around. “Oh hey, Mumps.”
    The wrists of his long-sleeved black shirt were frayed, and his dark jeans had holes in the knees. I hadn’t seen him this close before. He had long, dark ruffled hair and a vacant look in his dark eyes.
    “Hey, Claire.” He clutched a lacrosse stick in one hand. I had forgotten he was on the lacrosse team.
    Forrest sneaked in next to me and rested his hand on the small of my back.
    “I was wondering if you wanted to go to the Halloween dance with me,” Mumps said, cradling the stick up and down, keeping a ball securely in the net. Forrest’s hand twitched against my back.
    Other than that Mumps was a senior and was in my history class, I didn’t know much about him, including his real name. Neither Mrs. Davenport nor the new teacher had made him introduce himself by his real name. What I did know was this was the last thing I needed. Nicholas gave me a wave from the end of the hall, where Mumps couldn’t see him.
    “You wouldn’t by chance be Nicholas’s friend?” I asked.
    “Actually, yeah,” he said.
    “Then no.”
    “Cool. So I’ll pick you up at—wait.” He rested the end of the stick on the ground and caught the white ball as it rolled out. “Did you just say no?”
    “I’m not going with you because—”
    “She’s going with me,” Forrest said, moving his arm completely around my waist.
    “Cool,” Mumps said. “Sorry, I thought you guys were just friends.”
    “We are,” I said at the same time Forrest said, “It’s a new development.”
    “It’s complicated,” I said at the same time Forrest said, “She means an easy transition from being just