Free One of Us Is Next by Karen M. McManus

Knox,” he says tonelessly. “It’s the chicken.”
    “Huh?” I ask. Is he speaking in code? Am I supposed to reply The crow flies at midnight or something? Kiersten waits expectantly, like I’m about to introduce her, but I don’t know what to say. This is Matthias. He got suspended for copycatting Simon Kelleher last fall. We’ve never spoken before. Awkward, right?
    Matthias points upward with one long, pale finger. I follow his gaze to Wing Zone’s roof, and then I can’t believe I didn’t notice it sooner. The inflatable chicken’s red heart necklace is finally gone—and so is its head. Well, it’s probably still there, but somebody’s stuck what looks like the head of the Bayview Wildcat mascot costume onto its neck. Now the whole thing has turned into some kind of freaky oversized cat-chicken, and I can’t look away. I snort but choke back a full-on laugh when I catch Kiersten’s exasperated expression.
    “Oh, for God’s sake,” she mutters. “Why would someone do that?”
    “Yuppie revenge?” I ask, but then immediately reject the idea. The kind of people who complain about an inflatable chicken lowering their real estate values aren’t going to be any happier about this.
    “You don’t get it?” Matthias asks. He looks hard at me, and God, that kid is weird. I can practically hear Maeve saying He’s just lonely, which might be true, but it’s also true that he’s weird. Sometimes things are related, is my point.
    My stomach growls. It knows we’re in close proximity to wings and it’s not happy about the delay. “Get what?” I ask impatiently.
    “Always take the Dare, right?” Matthias says. He gives me this stiff little salute and turns on his heel, slipping through the crowd.
    Kiersten looks mystified. “What’s his deal?”
    “Beats me,” I say distractedly, pulling out my phone to turn it back on. There are two texts waiting from Unknown:
    DARE: Put the Bayview Wildcat mascot’s head onto the Wing Zone chicken.
    STATUS: Achieved by Sean Murdock. Congratulations, Sean. Nice work.
    The second text comes with a photo of the Wildcat-slash-chicken. Up close, like it was taken by somebody standing right next to it. Everything around it is dark, which makes me think the head-swapping happened last night, but attention didn’t reach critical mass till the Wing Zone lunchtime crowd appeared.
    More texts start piling up, from Bayview High kids responding to Unknown.
    Nailed it!!!
    Bahahaha I can’t stop laughing
    Epic af Sean
    Lmaooooooo
    Disappointment claws at my gut. As soon as I moved to Bayview in seventh grade, Sean—along with Brandon Weber—made my life hell with hilarious games like How Many of Knox’s Books Can We Fit into One Toilet? Even now, Sean likes to ask me how my “fag hag” sister is doing, because he’s a Neanderthal who doesn’t know what his crap insults mean. If there’s anyone at Bayview I would’ve liked to see taken down a peg by this game, it’s him. But all this is going to do is swell Sean’s meathead even bigger.
    There are no consequences for guys like him and Brandon. Ever.
    “Your phone is going nuts,” Kiersten says. “What are your friends talking about?”
    I turn it off and shove it into my pocket, wishing I could shut down all my useless rage that easily. “It’s just a stupid group text getting out of control,” I say. “They’re not my friends.”
    And neither is Unknown. Which I should’ve known from the start, obviously, but now I really know it.

CHAPTER SEVEN
    Maeve
    Thursday, February 27
    I can’t stop grinning at Bronwyn. “It’s so weird that you’re here.”
    “I was here less than two months ago,” she reminds me.
    “You look different,” I say, even though she doesn’t. I mean, the side braid is a cute style I haven’t seen before, but other than that she hasn’t changed a bit. She’s even wearing her favorite ancient cashmere sweater, so old that she has to roll up its sleeves to hide how frayed the