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“I’d rather eat glass. Ms. Amos scares me.”

“How is Mad Tagger hunting?”

“Horrible.” She drops her phone to twist her hair into a knot on her head. I have a fuzzy view of the K-pop poster-collage tacked to her ceiling. Her only weakness besides bad indie rock is K-pop. “I need a break.”

“Same.”

“The usual spot?”

Since we were eleven, Rio and I have made a habit of walking to the playground at Maplewood Middle. When I needed to get my mind off whatever crush I was navigating poorly or when Rio needed somewhere else to be rather than her very empty house—her parents are traveling journalists, thoroughly dedicated to their job and not their daughter. We’d skip the merry-go-round for the swings or lay out in the middle of the grass and squint at the clouds until we could turn them into cartoon characters. It’s our remedy.

“Sure.” I peek over at Clover, her head tilted in anticipation. “Looks like Clover could use a breather.”

“Yeah. The funk of a teenage boy’s room probably isn’t healthy,” says Rio. “The rankness of dirty socks and unwashed boxers and seme—”

“Rio!” I squeal, hiding my face. When I peer through my fingers, she’s shrugging.

“Good. You can help me narrow down this list of suspects.”

I’m not in the mood to think about the Essay of Doom, but I’m definitely not in the mood for Rio’s ranting over the Mad Tagger. When Rio’s obsessed with something, everything—and everyone—else becomes background. You can tell her a million different things, and she’ll always find a way to bring the conversation back to her current fixation. She says I do the same with boys, but that’s different—or maybe it’s not.

“You want to help, right?” She sounds annoyed.

“Of course.”

“You’re not very convincing right now.”

“Rio.” I exhale softly, then force a mostly-believable look on my face. “I’m there. Mad Tagger. Whatever you need. Let’s catch this criminal.”

“Heck yeah!”

“I’ll meet you there in five minutes,” I tell her.

She grins in a way that should be banned between best friends. One of those “I’m about to snark” grins. “Maybe we’ll run into Elijah Burke like the good old days, and you two can finally—”

I hang up on her before she can finish. Clover leaps off the bed as I grab my keys and earbuds. We’re out the door before I can decide to fully disown Rio as a friend. I’ll wait until after she buys me a Cold Body from Zombie Café.

* * *

“Max, how many times doI have to tell you that French toast is not a dinner dish?”

“It is in this house, Sandra.”

The kitchen is filled with the clang of pans, the sizzle of butter in a skillet, and the heady aroma of ripe peaches—one of Dad’s favorite recipes.

Dad is at the stove with a red apron cinched around his waist. A gift from Mom, it says “Trophy Husband.”

Aunt Sandra, wearing a tragic prairie-rose-print blouse with her burnt-umber hair teased to the heavens, is sitting on a bar stool at the kitchen island. “I hardly see how it’s considered a meal,” she says, sighing. “It’s not very southern either.”

“Says the woman who faithfully shows up to the Waffle House every Sunday after the second morning service.”

“Hush you. Waffle House is a staple of the south,” Aunt Sandra argues. “The Lord has blessed those cooks for their service to the community.”

“The Lord has blessed the toilet paper industry with job security, because what that food does to your insides—”

“It’s quality dining, Max!”

“Silence your blasphemy, Sandra!” Dad says, barely holding in a snicker.